Hiemstra Happenings

December is a flying by at the Hiemstra house.  Holly will be home in two more sleeps and we are all pretty excited about that.
Her roomies and her did another on-line Christmas letter.  It was hilarious.  They put these pictures with it.  It's really too bad Holly doesn't have any fun at Dordt.

This one had the caption, "But the prettiest sight to see is the Holly that will be on your own front door".  Clever huh?

Just in case your wondering about the two extra girls...they are Holly's roomies from last year.  They both live in town and decided to save money by living at home this year but they still come over a lot. Since they have five girls in a six person apartment, they get a new roomie next semester.  This means they have to give up their make out study room.
Ryan was all cozy by the fire one night.

Sam got asked to TOLO (girls ask the guys dance) by a very sweet girl.  It's in January sometime.  They get all dressed up for it so Sam gets to wear a bow tie, I'm so excited!

I got a big promotion at the thrift store.  Actually I don't think you can officially call it a promotion since it's not a job but a girl needs a little boost sometimes so I am calling it a promotion.  I got moved from clothes to Christmas.  It's been a lot of fun.  Some really cute stuff comes in and I tried really hard to restrain myself from buying a bunch but I've ended up spending more than my paycheck.  This isn't hard since, again, it's not a real job which means I don't get a paycheck.
But how could I resist this cute music box with a little blond girl at the door that plays, "I'll be home for Christmas"?

A friend got me this bucket for Christmas and it is the perfect size to fit all my Christmas books in.  I was so excited because a week ago Katie and I finished the fifth Harry Potter book which meant I could take a Harry Potter break and read Christmas books to her instead.  Can you believe she told me that she was too old to have Christmas books read to her??!  The gall.  We compromised.  I am reading "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" to her (for the 100th time) and the "baby books" I am reading to myself...until I get grandkids.

This is Ryan pouting because he found out he isn't coming to Arizona with the rest of the family.

This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas.  I LOVE getting Christmas cards!

My sister-in-law gave me fudge tonight.  That's another favorite part of Christmas.

December Happenings

Someone shared this funny on Facebook and it made me giggle.

And this one made me a little sad.

I read a devotion one time that talked about how we were all inn keepers who need to decide if we have room for Jesus at Christmas.  For me personally, it's not a big deal to get caught up in the commercialism (we don't really do much for gift, sorry kids) or the decorations (John refuses to put up lights and I love my mismatched, homemade ornamented tree) but I do struggle with being too busy and not taking the time to just slow down, let stuff go and focus on the reason for the season.

In an effort to slow down and let stuff go, one Saturday Katie and I left the guys at home to work while we checked out some Christmasy places together.  We went to the local tree place for donuts and apple cider. 

We checked out some craft shows and then went to Hobby Lobby- the mecca for Christmas decorations.  I had got Katie a mini tree for her room at the thrift store and I let her pick out some mini decorations.  She had to make some tough decisions over color schemes and themes but she eventually worked it all out.

That night was the lighted Christmas parade.  I don't think we've missed the parade since we moved to Lynden.  This year it was nice - not too cold and no wind.

Afterwards we celebrated Auntie Grace's 89th birthday at Gary and Sally's place.

John may refuse to hang Christmas lights but he did help me get our Sasquatch all gussied up for the holiday!

My folks are in Arizona!  My dad decorated the outside of their trailer.

Holly made it into the Banner!  She has to be back at Dordt a week early for choir tour which makes me a bit crabby but it's pretty cool that one of their stops is our former church in Des Moines.  Apparently some of the families there that we haven't seen since we left 13 years ago were "fighting" over who got to host Holly in their home.  That made me happy.  John and I have been so blessed to have such wonderful church families.  What do people do without church families?

Katie had her 5th grade Christmas chapel.  It was pretty exciting because she had a small solo in choir and a xylophone solo in band.  She did great at both.

After soccer one Saturday we did a little shopping.  John liked this sparkly unicorn.

Costco had octopus.  I wonder how many people consider octopus a Christmas treat?

Our mom's group had a Christmas party.  We had a devotional read to us by one of our faithful nursery ladies, some of the kids sang to us, the gals all shared about a favorite Christmas ornament, we placed the pass the present game, "made" pillows, and had lots of yummy food.

One more funny.

The rest of October and all of November.

Wow.  It's hard to believe that it was two months ago I was in Iowa.  Life just keeps flying by.  Ten more days until Holly is home, two weeks until Christmas!
Here's a little smattering of life in the October and November.
A couple days after John and I returned from Iowa, we hosted a little pumpkin carving party in the shop.

Ryan was there to welcome our guests.  He's sitting on top of John's newly framed bathroom!

The ladies were really not into carving pumpkins.

We were missing a bunch of kids (funny how they don't always want to hang out with their parents anymore) but these were the ones that were there.  Ladies, I still don't get it...how do they get older and we don't??!

Katie went trick-or-treating with Brooklynn again this year.

And Sam went with a group of friends to the haunted house at the fairgrounds.

That picture seriously creeps me out.

My Mom's Time Out group made a meal together at one of our November meetings.

John and his brother flew to Wisconsin for a long weekend to visit Mom and Dad.  Katie really missed her dad.

I did something wild and crazy this year...I assembled my Christmas tree the first week in November.  I'm not sure what happened.  It was one of those days when I didn't have a lot going on and I didn't feel like doing laundry, cleaning my house, working in the yard or doing any of the many things I should have been doing when I don't have a lot going on so I assembled my tree.  Katie was the only one who was excited...until I told her we couldn't decorate it until after Thanksgiving.

This is a serious blast-from-the-past.  It showed up on Facebook one day.  This giant snowman was in the town I grew in (North St. Paul, Minnesota).  I haven't been back there for years and I forgot all about him.  Apparently they are taking donations to repair him or move him or something.  

Katie had some friends over for a sleepover one Friday night.  I LOVE it that even though they are growing up fast, they still like to play.

The coffee ladies spent a lovely day shopping (and eating) in Snohomish one day.

Sometimes I buy me some love from Sam.  This one didn't cost me much since I had a coupon for a free drink and he had an a coupon for a free fry.

This is just funny.

Katie and Brooklynn baked a cake and set the table all fancy for us one night.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we just couldn't wait anymore so Katie and I decorated the tree!

This guy got his permit and started driver's ed. in November.  He loves to drive.

The infamous fifth grade cell project. I'm pretty sure my other two made edible cells but Katie chose to use stuff she found in her dad's shop.  She was especially proud of her ping-pong ball nucleus.

Ryan got all gussied up for Thanksgiving.

We spent the day at Gary and Sally's.  It was a small crowd this year (ten of us) but we still had a lovely time.  Edie, Sally, and I all had our inner animal going on!

Even after 26 Thanksgivings together, I am still thankful for this guy.

The end.