Christmas, Moving, and the New House!

What a whirlwind! That last two months have brought much change and excitement to our family. We closed on our house on December 18th and left for Idaho on the 19th. We had a great time with Jonathan's family celebrating Christmas. We had a big family dinner and gift exchange with 3 out of his 4 siblings (Jo, we missed you!!). We actually got Dean to sing Jingle Bells for everyone, with the help of his cousin Whitney, Dawson and me.

Here are most of the Walker grandchildren all wearing their new Christmas pajamas. I can't believe we got almost all of them smiling at the same time.

Dawson had his grandpa pretty much wrapped around his little finger.

We got the fortunate opportunity to have Santa and Mrs. Claus come visit us on Christmas Eve before Santa made his rounds. Dean wasn't too thrilled, but Dawson LOVED the candy canes!

This is the boys on our 10-hour drive home from Twin Falls. It really wasn't that bad, except that the kids never slept at all. It's true! A 10 hour car ride and I think Dawson took a 45 minute nap. That happened on the way to Idaho, too. What in the world is wrong with my children?

Dean got a scooter from my parents for Christmas and he was so excited that he took it to bed with him.

Okay, time for the fun stuff! Here are two "before" pictures of the house. This picture is the living room with some ugly paint on the wall and my sis Shelby helping tape it up.

And this is the office with, again, some ugly color.

The "after" pictures! Here is the finished living room with a beautiful "Biscuit" color. (I think I was hungry when I picked out everything. Listen to these colors: kitchen is Toasted Nutmeg, entry way is Fresco Cream, and our carpet is Muffin. Hmm, someone around here likes to eat...)

This is Jonathan's new "man chair" that his parents brought us.

Here is the finished office with our new desk from craigslist. I love that site!

Dawson's room

Dean's room (of course!) Eventually it will have red trim going around the middle of the room where they gray is.

Toy room

the kitchen, and thanks to Jonathan's grandparents for their table!

The front room

Here is my backyard. I love it!! I will love it even more when we redo a lot of it this summer. It has a large patio area for the kids to ride bikes and a nice area for grass, although right now it is overgrown and ugly.

We're going to plant grass up to the rocks and have landscaping above the rocks, and I will be so happy when we finally rip out that UGLY tree that Jonathan is standing next to. It just looks so sad all droopy like that. :-)

I absolutely love my new house. I love the view of Mt. Rainier and the quiet cul-de-sac and how close it is to everything I need. The other night I took this picture of the sun turning the sky pink. It was beautiful!