Christmas 2015 Decor Tour

[[BLOGGER FAIL! I had this set to publish on Christmas Eve, but somehow it didn't.... ugh. So I'm sharing it now that I've discovered that it didn't publish. Ugh.]]


MERRY CHRISTMAS! It is CHRISTMAS EVE! Who's excited? Raise your hands! Who wants it to be less than 70 degrees outside?! My hand is up. Way way up. This warm weather Christmas thing is for the birds. We are spending this day with Aaron's family and I'm so excited!


This years Christmas is sort of conflicting for us. We are still very heartbroken at the loss of our pregnancy and we spent all of November trying to heal. The hurt will never go away, but we decided to make the very best out of the bad situation. And that includes going ALL OUT for Christmas!

If you didn't see what our house looked like last year at Christmas, click HERE to check it out. You'll notice that things look A LOT different this year. Again, all that is part of the healing process for us.


This year, with a fresh look to our house, we decided to simplify things. After all, this is "The Simple Life." I think people have a habit of complicating things, ourselves included, and Christmas is no exception. The bigger the better is a lot of peoples motto. Going ALL OUT for us did not mean Griswolding the house (but it does mean LOTS of Christmas Vacation!!) or buying more Christmas trees to put up in our house when we barely have space for the one we've got. (But I'll admit, I do want a small tree in our bedroom. Really really badly!) It meant, for us, making our home warm and inviting and a place where we feel safe and secure and where we feel love.

I expressed to Aaron that I wanted an old fashioned COUNTRY Christmas, and he was more than on board. Before most of the decor in our home I'd collected frugally over the years from Dollar General or Family Dollar. Shop what you can afford. I do everything on a sliver of a budget so we can have space for other things... like bills, food, vacations, etc. I was ready to stop having to put things together out of crap, and wanted some nice pieces that would stand the test of time.


On Saturday November the 21st, he and I braved the nasty, yucky, rainy weather to take a trip to town to stock up on our new Christmas decorations!

I love this shot of us. (It was one of the last shots before I decided I was tired of being a blonde.) Also, eyebrows of fleek. :) It was miserable and rainy and gross, but we were determined to have a good time together. That included stopping at our favorite hole in the wall restaurant where I had the best sandwich of my life.

Once our bellies were full, off to Michael's we went. I knew they were having a sale on their christmas lights, and we needed them, so that's where we went. Plus it's right next door to Kohls and we needed to go there too. By the end of the year last year all our lights on our tree were kaput. And this year we wanted to do a mix of white and colored lights on the tree, so new ones were in order.

Once we got there, Aaron saw that everything in their "Cozy Lodge" collection was 50% off. We went a little nuts. Originally we'd planned on expanding our Christmas Village (we only have once piece) but we decided our money would be better spent on the bigger things this year, and maybe add to the village during the after Christmas sales.

He was so stinking cute pushing that little cart stuffed full of goodies, I just couldn't pass up this opportunity to take a picture.

While we were standing in Michael's looking at all the Christmas things and listening to the Christmas music, we caved and decided that, even though never do it this early, we would decorate for Christmas when we got home. What?! Honestly, I'm glad we went ahead and did it. With all the eating that we did during Thanksgiving, I wouldn't have felt like putting it up on Black Friday anyway.



Are you ready?

Here we go!


Let me start you in the kitchen. I'm a chronic re-decorator. I am always tweaking things once I get them put out and live with them for a bit. And this year was no exception. I have these nifty new open shelves in my kitchen and they're so much fun to decorate.

I started with this.

And after talking with my best friend about coffee-bar's I decided I wanted to move my microwave and make this space a coffee bar. And then I started redecorating the shelves.

I love this look so much better. My red and aqua dishes are a hybrid creation of red and white santa plates from Dollar General 6 years ago, and then I painted silver serving platters from the Dollar Tree that aqua color and duct taped them together. I got the look I wanted with no money spent!


This year our tree is super gorgeous.

Here is a view in the day light. You can see just how light everything is in our house now.

 And here we are lit up at night.

Here is a closer look at the ribbon on the tree.

It's a burlap ribbon with some lace running down the center. I fell in love with it when I saw it because the angel on top of our tree was handmade by my Mom when I was little and she's wearing the prettiest tiered lace dress... I had to have it. I bought it at Michael's for $10. Here's a tip: whenever you see ribbon you like, buy it. Ribbon goes so fast that if you wait and come back a day later, it'll probably be gone. I bought them out of this ribbon and am so glad I did!

We are pretty sentimental when it comes to our ornaments, and here are some of our favorites. The big snowflake (and his 9 brothers) were hanging on the Christmas Trees we had inside of the church on our wedding day. It was so gorgeous. The Peace circle is actually just stuffed muslin and hand stitched by my Mom. We made some that said "HOPE" and "LOVE" too. The little stocking was part of a set we made together when I was a little little girl. We did red and green felt and turned them into stockings and stars and bells and birds and sheep and angels... they've held up so well. And then the sheet music ornaments we made after I met Aaron. We just copied Christmas Carol sheet music out of our church songbooks and shrunk them down, then we cut them out with some decorative sheers, swiped them with a little glitter and hung them with red or green cord. We love them.


Our wreath in the living room was another huge deal from Michaels.

First off, it's huge.  It was originally $92, but we got it on sale for $32. I love it!

 Our living room, night and day. From opposite corners.

This year we decided to buy a small tree to go in our bedroom. We've had a tough year and we wanted to treat ourselves, so we purchased a $30 pre-lit cheapie from Dollar General and gave it some love.

I decided that instead of ornaments on this tree that I wanted to do something different and so I dug out an old photo album and took the pictures from inside and basically just stuck them into the tree. Next year it will most likely have better photos on it, but I was just going with what I had on hand. And I love how it looks! It's so sweet looking back at these pictures which were taken way way before we got married. I love it!

I love the shot in the center. It was taken at my cousins wedding, not too long before we got engaged. I was so blonde and we were so skinny lol! Young love! <3

This is the last shot of my tree before the presents underneath start disappearing.

We are loving how cozy our little honeymoon cottage is this year. I've been baking bread and cookies and burning candles and singing Christmas carols.... in the air conditioning. This weather in insane. Seriously.


Give thanks for all you've been blessed with
And hold your loved ones tight. 

Merry Christmas!



ALSO -- Santa is bringing me a new laptop for Christmas, so blogging and photo editing will be much easier to do. So in the New Year there's LOTS of blogging ahead!

Happy New Year & Christmas in Review (Photo Heavy)

Happy New Year everyone!! I cannot believe it's 2015! That still sounds so strange to me! 2015. Whoa. I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Years. We've been SO BUSY the last few weeks with family things and house things and my best friend finally moved home from Alabama the first weekend of the new year aaaaand I've been sick... again. Feels like I'm always sick. I basically have the immune system of a piece of shag carpet, I catch everything.

Ok, so now that that's out of the way, let me just catch ya'll fine people up with our Christmas and how it went.

Ooh, wait, this was my outfit for Thanksgiving. I've had this dress for YEARS but I never wear it, like... ever. And I pulled it out for Thanksgiving because I wanted the ultimate comfort. I got so many compliments on it and I simply adored it.

Ok, moving on.

Our Christmas tree went up the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which is something that doesn't normally happen. We usually wait until the first day of December, but we weren't hosting anyone for Thanksgiving this year and so we just went ahead and did it. Our "mantle shelf" changed a couple of times before we finally settled on something that we liked.

My Mom and I took our traditional first Tuesday in December trip to Gallatin, TN to shop (literally all day) at Belk. We always have such a fun time. This trip was particularly fun because we had several people come up and ask us if we'd been in the store all day, which, of course, we answered yes, and then they told us how wonderful it was to see a mother and daughter having as good a time together as we were. My Mom is awesome, folks. Really.  This picture is my shameful "in the car selfie" headed to Mom's house, so excited I could barely contain myself.

We finished off our trip with a stop in at a Big Lots (one of my all time favorite stores!) and when I saw this hat, I could not stop laughing. So I plopped it on my head, snapped this selfie and texted it to my big brother, who thought it was as hilarious as I did.

Bathroom Mirror Selfie!! My Mom bought me this ADORABLE Chevron shirt at Belk and I wore it out for my Father in Law's birthday. Plus, can I just state how in love I am with my blonde hair? I can't believe I ever went dark, I love this hair so much, aaaand it's starting to really take off and grow again! I'm such a long hair girl it's not even funny.


So here are some shots from around our house from Christmastime.

Our Christmas Tree was so beautiful this year. I especially loved having the shelf there on the wall as a "mantle" so that I could hang our stockings. 

I bought this white and silver polka dot table cloth from Kohls this year and absolutely adore it!

Our piano is always a big decor piece at Christmas time. Ideally one day it will hold our "Christmas Village" but we only have one piece thus far and so I was still able to mix and match my decor, like I normally do.

 

Our mantle shelf (it's just a place holder until I find an actual mantle to put on the wall) finally ended up looking like this. The greenery are actually two different pieces that were isle decorations at our wedding, and I just butted the bows together and wrapped them in lights. It was beautiful.

My Mom made the Santa for me in 1992. His name is "Chummy."

I made these little sheet music trees at 2am one night and my Aaron thought they were the cutest things.

I made these book pedestals (from a tutorial on DoitonaDime on Youtube) the same night I made the trees. I didn't have a thick enough book so these ended up being more like "half pedestals" but I love them and they are still on the shelf.

This is what our front porch looked like. We don't do a whole lot on the outside of our house, but I love to keep this little corner by the front door decorated. I loved it this year. The wind got a hold of my snowman and broke his nose. Now he needs a plastic surgeon. 

On December 12th we celebrated 5 amazing years of marriage. I can't fathom that we've been married for 5 years! We spent our anniversary out at Aaron's company's Christmas Party. He works for a small agency here in town and it's basically just him, his boss and a couple of girls that answer the phones. So it was small and fun and everyone was so sweet wishing us a Happy Anniversary. Then we went over to some friends house for a get-together. We got there late and we were the last to leave, but it was so fun.

 5 years and still nuts about each other.

This was my anniversary rose. I love flowers but I'm also pretty practical. A big bunch dies quickly and a single red rose works for me. Aaron called the same florist that did the flowers for our wedding and so he made the bouquet up to look like my bridal bouquet, with the addition of some Baby's Breath.  I love living in a small town.

As an early Christmas gift my Mom gave us her old 32in TV when she finally upgraded to a 46in. We had been talking about buying a new TV for our bedroom for a while to replace our 19in that we'd had forever. My Mom called us over one night to help with a "project" which turned out to be setting up the new TV. When Aaron went to pick up the old one (^that one^) he asked Mom where she wanted it and she said "in the backseat of your truck and then in your bedroom. That one is for y'all." We were so grateful to her for that. When we got it set up Aaron crawled in the bed and said "Missy! It's like a hotel in here!" He's so cute. I just love him.

I figured out how to make homemade chicken and dumplings! My Mom makes the ultimate chicken and dumplings and I love them more than anything. I went for a couple of weeks DYING for some of her dumplings so finally I just decided I was gonna try it. She usually buys a whole chicken but all I had on hand were boneless chicken breasts... so I boiled them, shredded them and then made my dumplings. We do "drop dumplin's" 'round here and they were so light and so fluffy... I ate 4 bowls full. *hangs head*

Teeheehee. We finished our Christmas shopping a few days before Christmas at Kohls. This picture was taken, by Aaron, at almost 1am (Kohls stayed open 24hrs throughout the Christmas shopping season). He showed this pic to everyone the next day asking if anyone had ever seen anyone so happy at 1am. It was a fun night out with my doll baby.

The next day was Christmas for my Mom's side of the family at my cousins house. I wore this fun Chevron shirt that Aaron got for me the night before. I love it! It's so pretty, the sleeves are to die for.

Tried making homemade pizza for the first time. I made the dough in my bread maker and couldn't wait to try it out. I broke us from ever buying frozen pizza ever again.


CHRISTMAS HAPPENED!!! We always have such a fun BUSY Christmas! It starts on Christmas Eve morning with the traditional family breakfast next door at my Father-in-Law's house. It's so fun with a baby running around!!

Baby Lance (who turned 2 on the 27th) got a slide from his Aunt Aimee and Uncle Brian and we had to try it out in the kitchen. He loved sliding to his "Bray Bray." (Our oldest nephew Brayden.) I took SO many pictures that morning, but this one was the cutest.

Me and McKenzie! This is our 3rd Christmas together! 

All of us girls in our traditional jammies after the present opening carnage had been semi-cleaned up. I was beginning to come down with my sickness that morning. I look like a gigantor in this shot between the fact that I was angled up and that I was bloated from getting sick... yikes!

My 7th Christmas Eve with my mister. (Photobombed by my brother in law Blake!) We were decked out in our UK gear (Big Blue Nation, folks) and stuffed full from breakfast! 

Christmas Eve night we spend with the entirety of my husbands family, and my is there ever a bunch of us!

 Ever since moving the event from my husband's Aunt and Uncle's house into his cousin's house, a new tradition in our family is playing games! This was so much fun. Fill a tissue box with jingle bells and tie it around your waist and see how many bells you can jingle out! Aaron was the first up with his cousin Jonathan and I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself!

 This is my husband's uncle David and our little Lance! How PRECIOUS!!

Another shot of us girlies. My top is making me look SUPER top heavy! "Gifted," I am. :)


On Christmas morning we open gifts at our house first thing....

Starting with the Tabster, who was fully aware where her things were.

I got Aaron the new Ninja Turtles movie on Blu-Ray. We went to see it at the theatre twice and loved it. Needless to say he was surprised.

 This was his BIG GIFT from me.

A watch. A very expensive watch. He is totally in love with it. He's such a watch guy.

This is my big gift from Aaron.

It's a toaster oven! I'd wanted one forever! Every time we went into a store that had them I would just look and look. Aaron got the hint and got me one!

Santa left me some Pigma Micron pen for handlettering in my stocking!

And the 3rd season of "I Love Lucy" to add to our collection!!


Then we get ready and head over to my Mama's for another Christmas breakfast. Mom always makes a breakfast casserole and this year it was more fabulous than ever!

 Christmas morning Selfie with my Daddy. I miss him so much and wish he could be here with us.

Mom is awesome at filling our stockings. She knows I love the hair turban towels and so she found me a new one!

 And this adorable pink sparkly watch! There was also some candy and a few other small items waiting for me!

Mom gets to open her gifts first.  She's super tough to buy for but she actually gave me some ideas this year. (Don't you love that blue shirt I'm wearing?! A gift from my F-I-L!)

We got her a necklace rack. A blue one with a little birdy on top! Right up her alley!

"Mamaw" always gets her little granddog something special.

 And Tabby knows it's for her.

 APPLESAUCE! Tabby is wild over applesauce.

She went from person to person like "omg omg did you see I got applesauce!!!???"

 APPLESAUCE!!!

 We had to eat one right then.

The whole thing. She's so cute!!

This was my BIG GIFT from Mama.

It's a sewing machine! I've wanted one FOREVER! Below is a shot of it all set up in my craft room.

She got Aaron a "Ninjee" Turtle shirt! He loves it!

After we spend a few hours at my Mom's house - this year it consisted of me playing with my new toy and Aaron napping! - we head into town to see Aaron's Mom and all her family!

This was the only shot I got that night, but isn't it sweet?

 Aunt "Mihme" with Lance and McKenzie!!


We decided to go out to eat the day after Christmas and use a gift card we got from my Mom.  I wore my new favorite sweatshirt from Juicy and got so many compliments on it!

The sunday after Christmas we ended up at Kohls again... we'd gotten the wrong size shirt for Aaron's Dad and so we had to make an exchange. I spotted this rug and HAD TO HAVE IT! Fortunately I have an amazing husband who handed me a crisp $100 when the $180 rug rang up for $95! I'm insane over this rug! I think it adds so much to my little house!

And then my sickness really set in. It's not a cold or the flu, it's something else non-life threatening, but it's miserable and has kept me in bed pretty much round the clock. Aaron's been great and has been doing lots of "pajama dates" and keeping me stocked in cool wash rags to help bring my fever down and helping me take the Christmas tree down and all that. Here we are on one of our pajama dates with our best gal watching "Captain America 2." We loved it!

Being sick and basically bed-ridden means floppy clothes, no makeup, no contacts and letting my hair do it's own thing. This is my hair when I let it air dry. Yeah. But Aaron and my Mom both love my hair like this, and it's just now getting back to the length where it doesn't make me look like a deranged poodle. So maybe I'll start wearing it like this more often!

You now know how much I truly love all of you by showing you this picture. My crazy lion's mane, my half eyebrows and all my acne scars....




I've done some rearranging in my house since Christmas came down and I plan on showing you all very soon. I am hoping to be over this little episode soon because I have a lot on my plate in the next little bit. I do fully intend to start posting more regularly here on the blog and may even actually get around to posting a video to the YouTube channel sometime this millennium! Again I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (I took video of the get-together we went to but no photos. Sad.) and I hope that 2015 turns out to be a wonderful and miraculous year for all of us!


Love you guys so, so, so, so much!