Other Parts of our Home Decorated for Christmas

We didn't spend a whole lot of time decorating all of our home for Christmas. Mainly, the downstairs has the most Christmas decor, but we did manage to add a little Christmas cheer to other parts of our home (like our girls' room and our master bedroom). Since we used decorations that we already owned from previous years, it helped keep things simple, but still gave us that Christmas feeling throughout the home.

In our girls' room, I hung up some "stockings" that I bought a year or so ago. They are one of those accidental happenings because I originally purchased them to wear under my boots, but I never actually did wear them anywhere because they were a little too tight near my knees. ;) 
Anyways, I needed to find some kind of use for them so I hung them up on the girls' closet doors. I think they look pretty cute up there.

The pre-lit Christmas tree we found in the attic about 2 years ago when we moved here. It was already decorated with pink accents, so it fits perfectly in the girls' room.  
And if you can, ignore the mess in the dolls house. My girls still love to play with it, but that means that the dolls who live their along with their furniture get knocked down repeatedly moved all over the place.

The smaller Christmas trees you see on the nightstand and the bookshelf were purchased at the Dollar Tree. The girls had fun decorating those this year. 
I remember when my sister and I were little, we each had one of those trees, and every year it was so fun to decorate. I figured I could pass along that tradition to my girls! 

I bought these little sparkly red stockings at Party City. They came in a pack of 30 I believe, for about $5.00.  I placed some of them on the doors in our home and the other 24 are hanging up in our kitchen window.

Our room was kept pretty simple, as you can see. I just placed some of our Gator ornaments in here (Go Gators!) and hung our stockings up.

Oh, and yes, that is my middle child sitting in her brother's high chair. She wanted to eat her snack there and so I thought, why not?! She is such a goofball!!

A Few Wonderful Celebrations

Not too long ago, our oldest entered a drawing competition at her elementary school. It was one of those things that I thought, why not tell her about it and see if she wants to enter. She, of course, quickly said "Yes"! We had a few guidelines to follow along with creating a title for her art work- she affectionately named her drawing, "Rainbow Beauty." (picked from a few other titles she came up with). She loves rainbows and color, so she made sure her drawing had a rainbow with lots of color. 

  

Anyways, after a few months, we found out she won first place in her category! Her drawing was advanced to the County where she placed second. We have no idea how many students were competing in the whole county, but I think there are 11 schools in our area. Regardless, we were super proud of her for her efforts and willingness to give this a try. And she was very happy to find out she won first at her school! Who wouldn't be proud of that?! ;)

Our daughter absolutely loves to draw, color, and create things. So when we found out that her school was doing a competition where students could show off their creativity, we were very excited about it and, of course, very, very thankful for the opportunity! 

Another wonderful thing we were able to celebrate a few days ago was my husbands birthday. :)

The kids got to create a card for him- filled with lots of glue and markers. We also made some yummy brownies with home made icing! Since he is a lover of coffee, we got him a new coffee brewer too- it was a little bit of an upgrade from our previous $10 one that was good to us. ;)

Here it is in use early in the morning. ;)

I am very thankful for the man I have married. He is patient and kind and always encouraging! So grateful to have these memories to share with one another!

Living Room for Christmas

I finally got around to photographing our living room for the holidays. 
I mentioned in my last post that we are using decor from previous years, and because of that, the living room decor was kept simple. I really think that's how we like things during this time of year. Things can get pretty busy during the holidays, and when you don't have all that much time to put into decorating (like us) it helps us feel like we aren't overdoing things!

The tree was nicely decorated by our girls and their Mema this year. We love that our Christmas tree has many years of memories on it- including some hand-made things I made when I was about the same age as my daughters. :) It's fun to see the kids ask about a few of those ornaments on the tree.

The turkey was made by my oldest and the Christmas tree I made when I was in kindergarten.

I also added this green rug to the couch. It's a pretty thin rug and after moving it around to a few spots in the house, it's finally settled back into the living room (where it was originally). Except this time, I placed it on the couch, because, why not?! ;)

Below is a view of our banister decorated with some garland I have used in the past and some pine cones my girls and I found around our neighborhood.

Both of our girls made a star ornament (one at church and the other at school) and I love how they added it to the top of our tree. It makes it more personal and it's something I hope we have for many years to come!

I still have a few other spots to photograph (like the girls room and our bedroom), so once those are done, I will post them as well. I really like this time of year- our house feels so cozy and warm with all the Christmas decor and the lights!

Do you enjoy decorating your space for the season?

A Few Shots of Christmas Decor Around Our Home

When my in-laws were visiting last week, we decided to let the girls put up the tree with their Mema and decorate it. We also decorated the house right after Thanksgiving. This was a fun process and something I think we all enjoyed! 

I always say every year that we need I'd like to get a few more Christmas decorations, BUT once I see all the bins we have after they are taken down from the attic, I quickly change my mind. We have been using the same decor for years now, aside from a few new things the kids create at school and church, and it's served us well. Maybe one year I will decide to change things up a bit, but for now, we're using what we have!

One of my little helpers is "hidden" behind that recliner in the corner munching on some M&M's that my Dad and step-mom sent us. She was also listening to some music we picked out from the library- which is no surprise! She loves to sing and dance. :)

We've had the pillows on the couch for a while now, but I did recently buy some new red fabric and pretty light blue/gray fabric to change things up a bit. Plus, I think the red pops of color make things a little more festive. 

The nutcrackers were purchased from Sears a few years ago- I got them during an after Christmas sale, so they were marked down pretty low. My husband doesn't think they will live to see next Christmas because the girls love playing with them and can be a little rough sometimes. The ballerina's hair has been falling out a little since they last played with her, but I don't want to get rid of either one of them- not any time soon at least!

For the decor in the dining room, I kept things pretty simple. 
I added some garland and a Charlie Brown Christmas tree my Dad gave us a few years ago. It's still holding up!

I also added some garland and pine cones to our banister- I think it's probably one of my favorite spots to look at throughout the day.

We decided to put our Christmas tree in the living room this year, and I think we did that last year too, but the year before it was in the family room.
I just hung up our stockings and added a few other small Christmas touches to the family room.

The tree was decorated by our girls and their Mema.
Our son has only tried a few times to take off some of the ornaments and use them as a baseball. ;)

I hope to take some more pictures of the living room and get a post up soon about it, but for now I'll just share more of our family room and kitchen.

I also added this large chalkboard wall to an area of our kitchen. Before, I had alternated between hanging pictures or chalkboard frames here, but decided a painted chalk wall would be the best way to utilize the space. It's great for reminders, grocery lists, calendars, and the like.

I have other parts of the house decorated as well and hope to get to those sometime soon. 

Happy December!

A Visit from Mema and Poppie

We had some special visitors with us for the Thanksgiving holiday...and they came up all the way from Florida!

My in-laws visited this past week and we all had a good time with them- especially our kids. We skype with them about once a week, so when they come for a visit, it's always a really nice treat, even if  our kids do get little hyper around them when they are here. As you can see from the picture below, our youngest really wanted to show them a good time by dancing on the fireplace in his diaper. He, as well as his older sisters, can really put on a show for people!

Our son enjoyed sharing giving things to Mema, only to demand he get them right back. ;) But she didn't mind one bit. It was good that we could all just spend quality time together like that.

The girls got some Christmas window stickers from them that they put up right away. 

And I think the little guy wanted to put some up as well, but we didn't let him have any because like any 15 month old, he would've tried to eat them. That stage seems to last a while, doesn't it?

We all took the kids to Bass Pro Shops where they had lots of fun activities to do. We even did something I never thought I would do- and that was take a picture with Santa. Now, I will say that our girls do know he isn't real. We made the decision early on to tell them the truth about that- especially after hearing this article by John Piper about it.
I particularly love this quote from his sermon about it: 
 
"If being Jesus-focused is a killjoy for your Christmas, you don’t know him well." 

And we do want our kids to know why Jesus has come into the world and that he is the one we should celebrate!

We were also surprised at how many activities there were for the kids at Bass Pro Shops. These activities last through December, I believe...just an f.y.i. for anyone looking for something different to do.
Some of these activities included a ball pit with digger, a camping section to explore with tents (which was quite the hit for our girls), an indoor carousel with animals that fit the outdoor theme, archery, and more.

And of course, our oldest spent quite a bit of time coloring and writing- what she seemed to love most about being there. She was definitely in her element at that craft table!

Since the weather was gorgeous, we spent a good amount of time outside in our yard and even took the kids to a nearby playground.

Our son loves to be pushed around on his bike (something that was given to us by some neighbors)...and so capturing this moment where Poppie was pushing him around was pretty sweet.

And we always try to get a group photo at the end of every visit.  :)

I think my husband and I can both say that we are very thankful for family, the time they spend with us, and for loving on our kids. Because of that, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving and one we are very thankful for!