Dyksterhouse and Slings Christmas!

Christmas to us is about

Christ's Birth

and Celebrating with

TRADITIONS!

There must be something about recreating something that has always been good.

We start out early and head to visit with

Great Grandma.  She loves a little visit with her Great Grandkids.

The visit had enough energy and excitement to last her a year!

The kids each opened a present with her...it was a great moment.

I truly admire this woman.

The next tradition is McDonalds.

YUP.

This is tradition.

My hubby and his family have always done it...I don't really understand it, but I go with it...

and...the kids LOVE it.

**sorry no pictures of McDonalds...

Here are all of the Grandkids with Grandpa and Grandma...

I love Mark's look...Brody doesn't really like group photos.

We always head to Bronson Park in Kalamazoo for a little walk.

We go to kill a little time...and to freeze.

I was a little bummed that Santa wasn't there this year.

Sometimes he surprises us.

We check out the manger scene.

This poor little lamb...he wasn't expecting so much love!

Then we head to the other side of the park and check out the snowflake lights

and the candycanes.

Eleven years ago we were married and took pictures in front of these snowflakes.

So every year we take a LOVELY picture...

I am telling you...TRADITION.

Then we head back to open presents.

Isn't my neice Joy just adorable?  She is always so HAPPY.

Then we head to church at 11:00 for the Christmas Eve service.

AMAZING.

Then the next day we celebrate with the Slings Family.

Here are a few of the my nieces and my sister, Lori.

For Christmas I made my mom and mother in law a Guess Who game with pictures of our family members.

I pinned it on Pinterest...check it out here.

Guess Who Family Edition

Beautiful Hannah with her new PillowPet!

These two can't take a serious picture to save their lives. 

But they sure can have a lot of fun!

STOCKINGS!

At the Slings family Christmas we have a great meal.

This year we had Sweet Meat...umm..yummy...

Pioneer Woman...you would love this recipe.

Then we chill.  Play a little ping pong.

And eat some more.

We had a great Christmas.

Thanks Lord, for an amazing FAMILY and for the TRADITIONS we can

celebrate because of your BIRTH.

Our Family Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

to you and your families!

This year I let the kiddos decorate the tree...

looking at this picture it is not the prettiest tree on blog world...

but hey...I love that they helped!

This year for our wrapping paper I decided to do:

Brown Paper Packages tied up with String!

(if you didn't catch it...my blog name is Brown Paper Packages.)

Each kiddo received four presents:

1. Want

2. Need

3. Read

4. Wear

I loved this idea I got last year from Sara at: August Fields

The kids all got new hats in their stockings!

Silly kiddos.

This picture is just a favorite of the day!  She loves her Daddy.

E's want was Legos.

Adi wanted a horse for her American Girl Doll.

And KK wanted a sewing machine!

So...they all got busy playing with their new toys.

KK decided she would make some leg warmers and a bag for Adi's new horse.

How cute is that?

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

My amazing hubby got me a new cookbook:

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

A new zoom lens for my camera

and

some funky new shoes...well, I bought those for myself...from HIM.

hee hee.

Bathroom Makeovers

My bathrooms needed a quick and inexpensive makeover...and so out came the black paint!

I figured if I was going to do one bathroom...I might as well do them all.

We would love to replace all of the vinyl in the bathrooms with tile...but that will come later...hopefully.

Here is the after photo of the upstairs "master bathroom."

I am a little ashamed of the before pictures because they are so gross. 

When we were doing our final walk through inspection I took these pictures...and lets just say that the guys living here could care less about having the house clean.

Here is the BEFORE:

and another shot of of the AFTER:

Here is the BEFORE shot of the kiddos bathroom:

and the AFTER:

and another view:

This next shot is the first floor bathroom.

I realized after I took the doors that I didn't have a before shot of the cabinets...

So excuse the leaning doors.

And the AFTER: 

I distressed these a little just to give it a rustic feel.

New bathroom cabinets make me happy.

All with just a gallon of black paint.

Staircase...before and after

When we moved into the house there were quite a few items on the must do list

to make the house our style:

new carpet

new wood floors

new granite countertops

new lights

But...since we had to be practical with our budget...the first thing I decided to tackle was our

STAIRCASE!

Here she is before paint:

I sanded her down...getting all of the chipped varnish off...

She also had a lot of scrapes from some pet that had lived here.

Then I primed her with a layer of KILZ 2.

Covers over the stains...

There I am...my hubby wanted to take this picture to show you all that I really did it.

Each and every spindle.

Argh...I hate spindles right now.

I think each one took about 15 minutes...I was so worried about drips. 

After priming...painting...and painting again...

I sanded it down to make it smooth... 

Then one last ROLLED coat...and another sand with 200 grit sandpaper and here she is... 

Here is our banister from the top of the stairs.

Matt hung the pictures for me...I LOVE IT! 

It reminds me of all of the amazing people in my life!

What do you think of the white banister?

Laundry Room Before and After

Ahh...my favorite room in the house.

This is the room I find true delight...the Laundry Room.

Okay, so I am trying to be optimistic.

I HATE doing the laundry...so in order to make it more fun,

I decided to make my laundry room more desirable.

Here is the before picture:

Doesn't that room just scream...SPEND TIME IN ME?

No.  Simply.  No.

Here is the AFTER photo...

When we moved we needed a new drier...ours was gas and this was electrical hook up.

So...YIPPEE I got my matching drier to my front loading washer.

Now they are so happy together. 

I wanted some more light in the laundry room so I decided to hang my window mirror.

Years ago I made this beauty by just going to my local glass dealer

 and they cut me a mirror to go inside an old window.

This week I made a few pendant  burlap banners...one for my mantel and one for my laundry.

Adison painted my little sewing thread holders turquoise to go with the color accents.

Ahh...Mrs. Meyers.

Love the smell...and the color was perfect too!

Plus a little bucket for those buttons, toys and lost socks that show up in the laundry.

The room is quite small...but it washes and dries the clothes...

if only it could fold and put the laundry away for me.

I needed shelving for my other detergents. 

So, I grabbed my old wood crates...

asked my fantastic hubby to put them into some studs...and wallah! 

SHELVES!  Plus...they are kind of vintage and fun.

Now...I want to put a cute little chandelier up...and maybe some more turquoise?

Maybe paint a pattern on the wall?

We'll see.

Guess I should go fold that laundry that was hiding in the drier.

Anyone want to come and put it away for me?

Fall Mantel and our Famiy Room

The cool weather blew in this weekend in Westerville...

and so I decided it was time to decorate with my fall items.

Out came the pumpkins and fall garland and I decided to get the sewing machine

 out and create a burlap banner to hang on the mantel.

Matt was excited to get a fire going...so he ran to Home Depot and bought a chimney sweep log to make sure that we wouldn't burn the house down on with our first real fire.

Phew...

We hung a few more things on the walls this weekend, which always makes the house feel more like home.

We hung the shelves on the walls to the right...

and sometime this week I will show you the wall going up the stairs to the bedrooms.

I was excited to put up my old cameras again.

Our goal for this family room is to have meaningful talks, read lots of books and play a ton of games.

So, we put a few vintage games on the shelves...to remind us to play.