Christmas time is here!

I can't believe its only 2 days until Christmas! The last few months have flown by. Every year, time passes by more quickly it seems. I am absolutely loving Christmas this year though. Bug is really having fun with the tree, decorations, and lights. We have to have the tree on whenever we're home, he's quite insistent! Luckily he doesn't bother the tree much, just seems to like to look at it. I should bite my tongue...he'll probably be all over it now. Isn't that the way kids always work?? We had Christmas with my in-laws on Sunday and he was a pro at opening gifts. They spoiled him, as grandparents do, but at least they more or less honored our request of not too many "big" things...our house is rather small. He got one big thing, a workbench which I'm sure he'll love. Right now its still in the box in the basement. It can come out after the tree comes down. I'm starting to resign myself to the fact that for the next few years our living room and dining room both will likely look like one big playroom. Tomorrow we'll be baking some more cookies, I've only had the chance to make two different kinds so far. Bug has helped with both though, he was the head sprinkler for the last batch and he LOVED that job! You could barely see some of the cookies for all the sprinkles, but he sure had fun. And get this...not only did he not want to try any of the cookies after they were done...he snacked on frozen peas (yes, frozen peas...its one of the only veggies I can get him to eat right now!) while we baked the cookies. I figure this is probably the last time that will happen! Meanwhile, his sweet-toothed Momma was popping cookies in my mouth as they came out of the oven... Um, the babies were hungry. Yeah, that's it.

150 dry cows are arriving today...so much for having my hubby around. It has been wonderful while it lasted though! He's been a huge help with the Bug and just around the house in general. We'll be out of the heifer-raising/dry cow-feeding business come April. The dairy we raise them for was milking at two separate farms and has decided to shut one down due to labor issues, and will use that farm to raise the heifers. Ok with us, as the owners were becoming more and more difficult to work with and since they are in their late 50s, early 60s, we knew they'd retire at some point anyway. Knowing that we won't be under contract to keep any animals...I have to say, its been tempting to leave our barns empty and exclusively be grain farmers. Think of all the extra TIME!! Realistically, we'll probably always have some type of livestock though. Just not sure exactly what animals will inhabit our barns next...probably some sort of cattle.

We've been doing home improvement projects too! Told you it was nice to have hubby around the house! Last week we pulled up the carpet in the dining room and half of the living room (halfway through the crop insurance guy showed up and hubby hasn't had a chance to get back to it...so for now we have "the old living room" and "the new living room" ha!). The plan had been to pull the carpet up in the dining room by the time the twins were ready for solids. We can't fit 5 people at the table in the kitchen, and carpet where 3 kids eat? Not a good idea. We were just hoping the hardwood that we knew was under said carpet was nice. WOW! Its gorgeous! It almost looks like the previous owners refinished the floors right before installing the carpet. Why? Who knows, but I'd like to thank them for it! It looked so nice, and the old carpet looked so bad...that Hubby decided to scrap our plan of waiting until the kids were bigger to get new carpet in the living room and just started pulling that carpet up too. The plan now is to put some good padding and a nice big carpet remnant down in the living room (same thing we did in the Bug's room and it looks really nice). On top of that, my parents got us a new front door and a new side/kitchen door for Christmas, so Hubby and my dad (not a good home improvement duo, by the way!!) installed those on Monday. I love them and that combined with the "new" floors makes it look like a whole new house!

We'll have Christmas Day all to ourselves for the first time ever this year, since we did the in-law's Christmas last weekend and we're going to my family's Christmas on Sunday. I'm excited to have a calm, relaxing Christmas Day with just my little family. Oh yeah, and the 200+ cows outside...oh well. At least we don't have to go anywhere other than church! And did I mention we're getting a truly white Christmas for I think the first time since I've lived down here?? That makes this snow-belt girl happy!

I'm going to enjoy my favorite holiday of the year and I'm sure I won't be back on here until sometime next week, so I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!