Merry and Bright

 Merry Christmas! I cant believe it has been a year since last Christmas, but So grateful to be home for Christmas. We are back at our old home in Branson. This year we didn't have our traditional Hamman Family Christmas. Everyone was out of town, so we had our own little Christmas eve fun!

  

The kids in their Christmas Jamies

 

 They each got to open gifts and Tate Chose one that was legos. He was so excited he didn't want to look up from the box to take a picture so we got this creepy face!

 He even had to show the cat his gift!

 Benny asked for a warm fuzzy blanket and I made him one. 

 Benny helped Auriel open her gift.

 We gave her a Princess Ariel doll. She adores her.

 The boys also opened the gift they gave each other. Ninja turtle swords and masks. They sleep with them.

Benny with his spider-man blanket. It has a chevron minky back. 

 These are our Santa cookies. The small ones are for the elves.

 Ready for Christmas Morning!

 We have a tradition of breaking through crepe paper to get to the tree! Swords were used this year.

 Benny got a fast bike this year. He loves it and even wanted to sleep with it that night.

 Tate got a scooter.

 Tate got a Batman blankie like Ben's

 Benny asked Santa for a fast jet this year.

 Santa brought Tate a truck

 Auriel gave the boys umbrellas.

 The kids gave Daniel a framed family picture for his desk at work.

 Daniel's Gingerbread house.We had a contest on facebook. His won.

 Brittany's house

 Dallan's house

 Annual Christmas day silly string fight.

 Celebrating Auriel's birthday. We eat pie for birthdays on my side of 

the family and so she got one too!

 She wouldn't let me put on her crown!

 Happy Birthday Auriel!

 I want pie!!!

I sis this collage of my journey with Auriel since this would be my last pregnancy. I love the transformation I have gone through to bring her into the world. I will always be grateful I had this oppertunity! I love her so much and and so blessed to have a girl among all these boys! 

WE love you Auri!

Back to normalcy and a lot of new

We are finally back in Missouri. We are living at Daniel's resort while we do a few minor things to the house before we move in. A few days before Daniel came home he decided to refinish our hardwood floors. I love his decision on stain, but I am hesitant to tell people. The few people I have told look at me like I am a crazy person for choosing that color. The fact is it is modern. We live in a traditional town, in a traditional state in the middle of the country. If I would have done this in Virginia, I would have had a lot of applause, but I digress.

Soooo, the previous color was a golden honey brown.  The new color is.......Ebony (black)! I have always wanted really, really dark floors. It was nice to not have to hem and haw over a decision (I always second guess my self) and just know that it was already done for me. They turned out amazing! I love them. Our wood floors were not taken very good care of by the previous owners so there were a lot of imperfections and darker stain hides those the best. They look like brand spanking new floors!

We will paint the walls as well to give it a "new" feel. Lets face it, this house is not nearly as nice as the one we left, so painting it will help me get excited about it. 

We are choosing kind of a bold paint in the main living room for drama!!!!!! It was a light blue before and we will paint it.......Navy!!! I think it will look fantastic against the dark walls and white trim! Here is the inspiration picture. we don't have huge wall space that would be exposed, so we feel like it won't over do it!

(it looks much lighter on my computer screen then on the swatch or paint sample)

Here is a picture with navy walls and a dark floor. This is the closest I could get to what they would look like together even though it won't be in the bedroom.

--UPDATE--

We didn't like the look of it, and blue is really hard to get the color right when it is so dark. Soooooo we went to the opposite end of the spectrum and chose white (wah- waaah). Boring choice I know, but I promise to make up for it in the furniture and accessories! 

We will also put in new white baseboards. All upgrades done before we bought the house were done cheap and not right, so we lived with them before, but now have the funds to do them right! 

The master will be a lighter grey wall color. Here are the inspiration colors. Pink is a wonderful color for the bedroom because it is the color of love & marriage. I have studied Feng Shui (fung shoo-way) for years now and love the principles, elements, colors, symbols they use and will apply some of those through my home. 

Classic silver 

Lighter then the paint swatch)

I want to get a grand bed to make a statement since Daniel is a little nervous to hang anything over our heads. 

The kids room will stay with tan walls, but the color scheme will be turquoise and coral.  A little bit of boy and girl. 

I will post actual pictures of the before and afters along the way.....

Exciting changes will happen outside in the spring so stay tuned to our renovation/updates! Big things are going to happen that I didn't even mention!!!!! 

Hugs, 

Brittany