We have a working fireplace!

Terrible picture of me...but it shows the fireplace and my little karate chopper reading to me for his reading log!! He is becoming such a good reader!!

Yipee! Our fireplace works! We had it inspected and cleaned in November. Last year we didn't get to use the fireplace because we had just moved in and didn't have the extra money to have the fireplace inspected. So we waited a year (Andy patiently, me impatiently!) to have a beautiful fire in our cozy basement. I loved decorating the Christmas tree with a fire crackling and Christmas music playing! My mom said it was so Norman Rockwell! But it was nice. We've enjoyed many fires over the past 6 weeks or so.

P.S. How long will I think of this as the "new house" for all of my blog post tags??!!

P.P.S. See the black coal bucket in the background? This came from Andy's grandmother's house. It has coal in it from when her house was heated with coal. It's a pretty cool antique.