Hello Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!  A little late?  Shucks.  Well, here are some photos of our Christmas festivities….  Enjoy!

We spent our Christmas holiday with Justin’s family.  We had a great time as always!

We played our usual card game, Phase Ten, a couple times.  Justin won every time (he is no longer allowed to play).Justin’s mom got, both, him and his dad the same golf polo and shorts.  So, of course, I needed a photo of them being twins (they will both hate me for posting this, but it is necessary). I mean, is this even real?  They are so the same person!

I, even, coaxed everyone into taking a family photo.Look at all those Maces’!

Of course, the dogs had a great time.   And, you know I had a dog photo shoot! Hope you all have an awesome dog to spoil too!  Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas!

I’m hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas!  We had a blast this year.  We spent our holiday at Justin’s parents house.

Zack refused to come unless he could dress as a reindeer.

I was so pumped because Justin’s brother Tyler was in town to visit.

This photo is a miracle because these guys are all rarely in the same city at the same time and even more rarely all let me take a photo of them! I don’t know why, they are all so handsome!

Char man loves the chuck it.

Got a photo of Justin and I also.  Don’t mind my face though, I think this is mid laugh, this is as good as it gets people!

Justin’s brother Alex and his girlfriend Shelby came too.

The Hayden family also came over for the day.  As you can see Charlie cannot take his eyes off of Justin even for a minute.

Also don’t be confused, the photo above is Justin and the one below is Kent.  I guess they say like father like son for a reason.

And did I mention that we all have dogs and brought them with us?

Don’t worry they were all spoiled, here’s Charlie’s gift load…

So there you have it.  We all had a great Christmas and now we will start our count down for Christmas 2014!  We love our families so much and are so grateful for them!  Hope you are as lucky as us!

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Well, not quite like Christmas down here in FL.  But in our house, yes it is starting to look like Christmas.   I didn’t go too crazy, but I do seem to accumulate more stuff as the years go by. So without further ado, it’s time to get our Christmas decorating on.  As you know we already have the tree…

Look at that happy little tree.  You know I can’t stop there!  The rest of the house needed a little Christmas love as well.  What better place to start then the mantel…

First up, the stockings!

My mom sent these last year filled with all sorts of things for Justin and I(yes, we still get our stockings filled!).  These two became my new favorite stockings, so last years have been retired.   I also picked up a couple little reindeer from Hobby Lobby to hang out on this good ol’ mantel…

It also got a bunch of candles and a cute little Christmas tree.  And did you notice that awesome new pillow hanging out in the basket?

My aunt Kim sent this sweet monogrammed little pillow to us for Christmas.  Don’t you just love it?  Thanks Kim!

I also grabbed my glass hurricane that I used to decorate for Thanksgiving…

And I used that sucker to decorate for Christmas too !  Versatility rocks yo!

This time I used a white pillar candle and just strung some red beaded garland around it.  I just threw it together and yup, love it…

Some more reindeer joined the hurricane on the console.

And a snowman to boot!

Next up I headed to the kitchen and plopped down our Christmas table settings that Justin’s mom picked up for us last year.  Along with a cute little centerpiece that we got to take home from Justin’s Work Christmas party this year! Love it!

And do you see those berries in the background niche?  Oh yes I stole that idea from my Thanksgiving decor as well, remember these?

Well they got filled with beans this time, and I picked up some sticks with berries attached from Hobby Lobby and came up with this…

I dig it.

I also added a gingerbread man…

And snowman soap dispenser, gotta have one of those…

Here’s some more Christmas decor and our massive Christmas card collection, yes that’s all of them!

I made these pine cones a couple years back, just picked them up outside and spray painted them white and red.

Holdiday plates?  got those too.  And a handsome yellow lab.

And of course some santa napkins…

Lastly we headed outside to get festive.  Justin tackled the front yard…

Aren’t those globe lights in the tree just dreamy?

I think it’s my favorite part!  We got them from Lowe’s if you’re interested.

And last but not least, the palm tree on our back patio received a make over…

There you have it, our house for the holidays.  Hope you all have a rockin Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree!

As you may have guessed this post is going to be all about our fancy schmancy Christmas tree.  I am a pretty big fan of Christmas, so you better believe we picked out our tree the day after Thanksgiving.  And now you know how long it really took me to write this post since Thanksgiving is long gone.

We were pretty jazzed to get our tree, since this is our first Christmas in this house!  We couldn’t wait to get festive and how about start with the tree?  Amiright?  The last two years we have had an artificial tree, but this year we decided to get a little wild and get a real live Christmas tree.  We’re living on the edge people!  Since it was black Friday we checked out the ads in the paper and we saw that Lowe’s was selling an 8 foot for $40, so of course we headed to Lowe’s.  We went with an 8 foot tree because at the lowest point in our living room the ceiling is 9 feet tall.  We were figuring we would put the tree in the corner of the room, where the ceiling is lowest, so 8 foot seemed appropriate.   Here is our pretty little tree in all packed up in my car…

Isn’t she pretty?  We also had to pick up a tree stand and a couple more strands of lights.  We always go with white lights, I think we both agree that we like the simple classic look of white Christmas lights.

Then we propped her in her new stand and I cut the netting off…

Look at that pretty little tree!  Here is the tree skirt that I made last year…

Last year I was looking for a tree skirt and everything I liked was around $40 and I was not interested in spending that much on a simple piece of fabric to go around the bottom of a tree, so I grabbed some fabric for about $6, cut it into a circle, hemmed the edges and voila… tree skirt.

Next up were the lights…

And then I added a red beaded garland…

Then came the ornaments, my favorite part.

and all lit up again…

While I’m at it I figured I would share some of my favorite ornaments.  Because I am sure this is intriguing stuff to you as well!

I guess I’ll start with this little bottle brush yellow lab, of course a yellow lab!

We also have 4 of these Sabres hockey pucks. Gotta represent Buffalo down here in FL!

Cute little bird in the tree also!

Love this peace ornament from my mom back in 2011!

She also got this one for Justin and I a while back, complete with our mugs right on it!

How about we get a little sentimental with Justin’s little baby booties ornament!

And I thought I would also show you some of my favorite homemade ornaments…

I made this guy last year out of a portion of a Christmas tree trunk.

I painted these two a couple years ago.  Did you know that I like my pups?

I also made a bunch of these guys a while back out of light bulbs, small branches, paint and some fabric.

And that’s that.  I love our first real live Christmas tree.  Makes it feel like home.  And how about a handsome dog in front of a pretty tree?

Okay one more!

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Giving Thanks…

I hope you all had an outstanding holiday!  I sure did.  Justin and I spent our holiday at his parents house and as usual we had a blast.  I got a few pictures and I figured why not share!

We played our usual game of phase ten and I won, wahoooo.

Kent was our turkey cook, he grilled the turkey on the big green egg and it was delicious as usual.  Thanks for being a great cook Kent!

We got to hang out with Alex, Justin’s brother and his girlfriend Shelby also.

I sure am thankful for this guy, can’t imagine life without him.

Sandy of course made amazing food too! Thanks Sandy!!

Char Man and Zack came too, and as you can see from Zack’s face he had a blast.  Hope you all got to hang with family and eat tons of food too!  We really are so lucky to have great families and we are super thankful for them this holiday!

Happy Easter:)

We took our first break away from working on the house this weekend.  We went to Sandy and Kent’s for Easter.  We had some great food and family time.

Kent and Sandy made an awesome dinner as usual.  Kent cooked on his big green eggs.

Cooking away.  So proud.

Had a blast with Justin’s grandparents.

The dogs had a great time too.  Pretty sure they would stay there forever if we let them.

So many dogs…

Also got to facetime with my family.  Thanks for the easter basket mom, I hope you still get me one when I’m 50! We had a great time and hope you did too!