Brassart Christmas 2022

Because of Amiee's job and her holiday work timelines, we had an unusual and REALLY fun Brassart Christmas for 2021: Nana and Poppy rented the cutest refurbished carriage house Air BnB outside of Boone, and we all convened there for our celebration! It had two separate units (upstairs and downstairs), so there was plenty of room for all of us. There were carriage house cats (which thrilled Lily to no end), decorated Christmas trees, and tons of charm to go around.

Trumpkin approved of the in-house felines.

Also? Goats. (But we weren't responsible for any of the animals, PtL)

Another kitty

We divvied up meals/food responsibilities and made good use of the kitchen, which worked our beautifully. No complaints from this crew (ignore Brynna's crazy face here):

We woke up and had a proper (albeit prior to the actual) Christmas morning with special breakfast and present piles. This was, of course, followed by a viewing of White Christmas and exploration of our gifts.

Wearing their "Haynes sisters" dresses

The rest of our time was spent rather idyllically: naps, snacks, reading, hiking around the grounds, playing with the animals, watching movies, making cookies. It was pretty fantastic, really.

Some of us spent one afternoon at Amiee's house in Boone, assembling a bookshelf (and playing with her animals):

Lily's vibe in this picture pretty well sums up how we all felt about our Christmas at the Carriage House. It was so very fun and made for some really special memories.

July 2021: a recap

We didn't realize during the end of Spring semester when we were thinking through our summer just how busy our July was going to become! Lots of travel and visiting. AND we started school in July, too. It got busy fast!

We are HEAVY in The Chronicles of Narnia over here. I'm absolutely LOVING introducing the girls to one of my very favorite series ever. They have fallen for the stories just as hard as I did when I was Claire's age. We let them watch the 2005 movie version, and I snapped a few pictures of their reactions:

This shot was not staged, and I LOVE it.

Aslan's sacrifice. It's just pretty magical to watch them fall in love with Narnia.

Snapped this great shot of the girls with Gran and Grandpa before church after we returned from the beach.

We went for Mexican after church with Gran and Grandpa. I realized it was Hallie's first restaurant experience INSIDE. She really enjoyed it!

But her cheeks got REAL heavy real fast.

Brad and I pulled the triggered this summer and bought a Murphy bed for our guest room, in order to convert it to a guest/school room. Because it came in many, many pieces and we needed to get it up the stairs and then assemble (Brad actually did the assembling), we also acquired this fancy dolly. If you give a mouse a cookie and whatnot. 

Lily takes her daily rest time in the guest room, and she thorough enjoyed having all of those enormous boxes in her resting space. She put them to all manner of uses.

I believe this was the "movie theater" iteration.

We did our best to keep up with family, near(ish) and (really) far:

Babies watching babies

I got the girls very pumped up for the Summer Olympics, and they really leaned into it, much to my delight:

Homemade red, white, and blue confetti

USA! USA!

A friend of ours snapped this sweet picture of the girls visiting with a church friend.

And since I wrapped up my monthly Hallie letters, here's a section of Hallie pictures:

And just a few extra snaps from July:

July...a good and very busy month!