Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I have been a terrible blogger this year; my goal is to post more next year. Happy Holidays to all of you! 

Our Two - Top Christmas Tree

Over Thanksgiving we cut down our tree. We found a fun tree this year. It is two trees connected at the trunk.

Here's the base:

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Whimsy on the Mantle

Hello - it's been a long time. I've been slowly picking up the paint brush again. The painting above is based on our kids when we were in Vail seven years ago. With the help from my mom, they made 3 snowmen just like above. 

My mom spent hours out in the snow rolling those big snowballs out to help the kids make the snowmen.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and holiday season. It will be difficult without my mom around, but I am trying to make the best of the "new normal". I want to create more fun memories for my kids, and just enjoy the little experiences that come our way.

Merry Christmas

Wishing you peace this holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Tree Hunting

Over Thanksgiving break, we went into the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree. 

It was a beautiful day, we all had so much fun, and we found the tree within 30 minutes. It was a much better experience this year. (Last year it was cold, one of the kids was sick, and being "newbies", it took us over an hour to find the perfect tree.)

My oldest is taking pictures below. Actually, she and I spent most of the time taking pictures. My husband found the tree. I've created a picture taking monster. :)

We spent the evening decorating the tree. We have a few more touches to put on it, but here it is so far:

The pictures were all taken with the iphone, so they are a little blurry without great lighting. I love our "Charlie Brown" tree with all its imperfections! I am considering giving away our large artificial tree we have in storage. 

Right now, I have boxes and bins everywhere, but when I am finished decorating, I will show you more!

It Was All a Blur

I'm trying to get organized today. It's the first real day of the new year for me. So far, not a great start. I slept in, did not work out, or take a shower yet. I will use this day as a planning and organizing day. Since I'm not organized yet, this post is a random bit of what we did over Christmas break.

This is all that remains of our Christmas decor (yes, I know I need to sweep. I'm adding it to the list):

The cards usually stay up for the month of January as we have a few Happy New Year cards that trickle in.

Christmas day was spent playing out in the snow:

 We watched waaaayyy too much football over the last 2 weeks.

Yesterday:

 It freaks me out when she does this with her eyes:

Okay, now I'm going to get my work-out in and try to salvage what's left of this day. :) Have a great day!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone!

My Christmas Home

Welcome to my Christmas House! I shoveled the front walk, and attempted photoshopping the ugly orange electrical chord!

My Christmas tree is in the entry. This is our first real, chopped out of the forest tree:

Since I couldn't use most of my ornaments on the tree, I made some photo ornaments that can hang without making the branches sag:

My dining room chandelier:

Also in the dining room:

The library/piano room received a bit of greenery and a branch:

I added our Santa pictures in the family room:

And I tweaked the mantle since the last time I posted it:

Some greenery on the shelf:

I started a card tree today:

We open presents in the basement. I made the jester's stockings years ago:

The children decorated the tree:

Thanks for visiting my home!

I am linking with The Inspired Room's Christmas Home Tours.  

Before and After-The Built In Bookcases

Several weeks ago, I showed a before and after of my fireplace wall, and the moulding I painted that was on the brick. I was contemplating painting all my built-ins on this wall, but I was afraid of painting over all the wood and lowering our property value. The wood was just oak, but you know how some are about wood. :)

Well, after staring at it for too long imagining how it would look, I went ahead and painted the built-ins. Here is a picture of the built-ins in April of 2009:

Then in the Fall of 2010:

Fall of 2011:

Now, with the built-ins painted:

And because I always love a wider room shot even if it doesn't look as good as the closer view:

I am still tweaking the mantle and the shelves for Christmas. I have to say I have absolutely no regrets over painting the wood. I love the new look, and visually, it really opens up the room!

Thanks for visiting. I will post some more Christmas decor in the next few weeks, but for now, I really need to do a little Christmas shopping. See you next week!

Linking with Miss Mustard Seed & Between Naps on the Porch

Our Search for the Perfect Imperfect Tree

Last Year's Tree

I have always been an advocate of the artificial tree. I always put up the tree the weekend before Thanksgiving, and I always assumed a real tree wouldn't last that long. However, this year, the thought of putting up our 17 year old tree (pictured above) did not interest me. I was tired of the decorations and tired of the tree. If it weren't the kids, I would not even have put up this "pretty mom tree". Ba humbug! (There is still an artificial one in the basement that the children decorate. )

My "real tree" friends kept telling me that a fresh cut tree will definitely last until Christmas even if we cut it around Thanksgiving. OK. So, because I was so late to the party, a few days before Thanksgiving, I had to drive up to the forest service to pick up a permit to cut a tree down for the day after Thanksgiving. Here are a few pictures of our memorable tree cutting day:

 This one below loooves this hat. She wears it every where she goes. I finally had to ask her to take it off once in a while because it's getting weird.

 This was after about an hour and a half of searching. My son is antsy and needs to torture his sister by throwing a snowball:

 FINALLY, after about 2 hours. You'd think with a forest full of trees it wouldn't be that hard. A lot of these trees have one side since they grow so close to each other. I think we went around in circles. We are newbies to this; and you would've laughed in our faces at some of the trees we were considering in the beginning. Here's the tree:

Our tree this year. I ended up using about 10% of our decorations. They are mostly framed pictures I do of the kids each year. The other decorations were way too heavy.

I will post better pictures soon. I didn't bring out the tripod for this. Was our tree-cutting outing worth it? Definitely! It is an event I would love to make into tradition. And, I love our "Charlie Brown" tree. I love being able to see through to the trunk of the tree, and all the imperfections and character of a "right out of the forest tree".

Christmas Festivities

Hello Everyone! We have a dinner every Christmas with some close friends. This year our friends Katy and Tim hosted. I had to take a picture of their pretty table. I didn't take the picture with a flash, (the flash makes everything look garish to me!) hence the yellow looking walls. Here's Katy below:
They are such a fun couple - we always have lots of laughs.

Instead of seeing Santa this year, we took a picture by the side of his cabin. None of us had the patience to wait in line:
I think I'm pretty much ready for Christmas. The baking and cards have all gone out. I just need to wrap gifts and clean the house for Christmas brunch with family here at our house. Are you all ready?

A Wintery Mantle

This year, I decided to go for a more Wintery scene for the fireplace mantel. I painted a mountain aspen scene, with lots of texture. I pulled some of the chartreuse and blue colors from the painting and purchased some velvet chartreuse colored pillows ($10 each at Cost Plus), and used some silvery-blue pillows that I already had.

To go with the Winter theme, I used some leftover crystals from the chandelier project on some branches I cut from our trees. Here’s our mantle last year:

It’s a completely different look this year. It’s a nice change from my traditional red that I’ve always used. Here’s a closer up of the mantle this year:

I’ll probably teak it some more as the month goes by. For now, I like the more simple look. By the way, I’ve linked this post up to Layla’s mantle party. Click here for some more holiday mantles!