In late April the Vance family was fortunate enough to have as their guests Nana and Grandpa Dell — or, as Annika sometimes calls them, “Jonathan’s parents.” Grandpa Dell did all of the home repair projects that Jonathan had left undone. Nana brought wonderful birthday presents for the girls. Together, everyone went to the zoo on a beautiful Saturday.
Category: Better Homes & Gardens
In Great Britain, it’s called “Boxing Day,” in Germany it’s the “Second Christmas Holiday,” but this year at the Vance house December 26th was “Independence Day.” Yesterday marked the completion of Jenelle’s most ambitious project of 2009 (well, next to having twins): cleaning and organizing the entire house. Jenelle calls it “The Purge.”
Ever since we moved into this house, the “guest bedroom” has been a lovely red-orange color (see below, with the previous owners’ furnishings).
Now that the “guest bedroom” is set to become the “twins’ bedroom,” Jenelle has decided that red-orange is not a suitable wall color for little girls. So, with the help of some generous friends, the room now sports three pale yellow walls and a lavender “accent wall.”
Jenelle and Jonathan built a gingerbread house this year. Normally, this would be too ambitious a task for them, but this year they took the easy route and purchased a kit from Costco.
So, that probably means the house is the gingerbread equivalent of manufactured housing. You can see more photos here.
Thanks to Jenelle’s hard garden work, flowers have exploded in our backyard (with a small boomlet in the front yard).
We are pleased to report that we had yet another lovely Christmas season in our neck of the woods. Although our efforts to get the decorations up were hampered by Jonathan’s post-Thanksgiving appendectomy, before long we were looking for a tree. Feeling uncertain that we could repeat every year our 2006 feat of finding a U-cut tree for only $10, we decided to invest in a truly evergreen tree. (You know, a “fake” tree.) One thing we like about our tree is that it’s pre-lit with 1100 lights. This sounds like a lot of lights, and it is, but it actually looks about right on a 9 ft. tree. However, as we learned the day we bought the tree, our house’s wiring isn’t designed to have all of the kitchen and living rooms lights on while microwaving dinner while powering 1100 little Yuletide sparklers.
As Annika prepares to experience her first Thanksgiving holiday, we wanted to let you know some of the other exciting firsts she’s been experiencing. For her first Halloween, she dressed up as a beautiful butterfly. Jenelle made Annika’s costume herself, and though Jenelle did not think of herself as a seamstress in the past, she’s encouraged by the success of the butterfly costume. The family costumes were rounded out by Jenelle the Bumblebee and Jonathan the Flower.
Jenelle and Jonathan have been busy lately getting the house ready for baby. And what does the hone of every newborn need? Why, a cheesecake, of course. So, one evening Jenelle made a lovely blueberry one. We are now more excited than ever to go pick blueberries this summer.
In honor of our household’s soon-to-be mother, we have posted a few pictures showing the growth of our soon-to-be daughter. We hope to add a few more before the big day.
To celebrate Tax Season Liberation Day last week, Jenelle and Jonathan visited a local tulip festival. Although it’s not the big deal they have in Holland, they still had a lovely time and are considering visiting the local iris festival in May.