Finally!

Well, it is finally Christmas break! Yea! My first semester as a Plano teacher has been challenging and tiring. I am very excited to be halfway through the year. I did not bring a single thing home that had anything to do with schoolwork. For 2 weeks, I am going to just forget that I am a school teacher! For the next two weeks, if someone were to say"Hey Hattie, what do you do for a living?" I would reply, "I sit at home and relax".
I am very excited to be able to spend the next two weeks with Mark and family. On Tuesday, Dec. 23 we will head down to Buda. We will be spending Christmas day with my family. I can't wait to be with my parents, brother, sister, brother-in-law, their 3 kids, and my grandma. Then, on Saturday we will head back to Plano. Mark's brother, sister-in-law and their 2 kids will be in town from Memphis. We will also get to spend time with Mark's parents and his aunt and uncle. Mark and I are incredibly blessed to have family we love so much and enjoy spending time with. Merry Christmas, everyone!

The mantle, plus some

When we moved into our house in April, I told Mark there were three things that absolutely must be done. The first two were that we had to get the two guest bedrooms painted. We did that the first week of summer vacation. The third thing was that we must have a mantle over our fireplace before Christmas time. Well, we procrastinated on that one a bit. So, Monday before Thanksgiving we finally got serious and down to business. We bought an unfinished shelf mantle from Lowe's. We had leftover paint from when the previous owners had the wood paneling in the living room painted. We used that paint on the mantle so it would match.

Here is the before shot.

Mark is hard at work.

The after shot.

Decorated for Christmas!

Oreo enjoys sitting under the Christmas tree

Playing with the settings on my camera . . .