Playing catch up

I don't know if I will ever get caught up. After basically taking 3 weeks 'off' (as much as a wife/mother can take 'off') I've got a lot of catching up to do. 

The girlfriends and I actually got together before Christmas this year but since I haven't gotten around to showing those pics, I thought I would do that today.

 We always do the bag full of little things kinda gift exchange. We collect things all year round then sometimes we forget we bought something. :)

Anyway the photo above and the one below are my goodies from Sarah.

 These are soaps! They smell so good but I'm afraid they might be too pretty to actually use!

 And this was my bag from Sandra. Yep - I've got two of those Joanns calendars! (lots of coupons!) They both had the same idea - I almost did the same thing, glad I didn't.

This was an extra in my bag from Sandra - it is my birthday gift (my birthday is in July) She kept forgetting it when we were going to see each other. I've been known to be a bit late on birthday gifts too - it's nice to have friends that don't mind when you are a little late!

I would be a lot closer to catching up (and maybe having some more recent photos) but we were out of town again last week. Our oldest started a new job today so we were moving him to Houston. Thought we were through with the moving bit in 2009! He moved out of a second story apartment and into a third story one. That's a lot of steps! Thankfully my dad helped get him loaded in Tyler and Timothy came to help unload. Never could have done it without them! 

Well, I've got lots of catching up to do around here. Catch up with you again in a few days!

Happy New Year

I know, I'm a few days late but better late than never.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had a great week. Hubby took the week off work (actually he took two!). I was sidelined by a migraine the first day baby boy and his bride were here and barely got to say hello to them, but I enjoyed the rest of the week (as much as one can with a migraine hangover). We made a day trip to Jacksonville to see family there, then we spent the rest of the week just hanging out around here and enjoying visiting. It was nice to have a full house. There was lots of noise and clutter but I loved every minute of it!  It is pretty quiet here today (hubby's first day back at work) but it is going to be a busy week - more on that later.

I had someone who was going to come take some family pics but she had a family emergency and ended up being out of town while the kids were all here so when we were heading out for a walk Christmas day we caught a neighbor outside and had him snap a few for us. This was the best one - I know not why we tried to wrangle the dogs in the pic. We did take some more with ye old selfie stick - maybe I'll show a few of those later. :)

I didn't get a lot of any kind of crafty stuff done while the house was full, but hopefully I can get back to that next week.

Got all my Christmas fluff put away, now I just need to do some heavy duty dusting and get the regular fluff back in place. (after I find it - I tend to forget what went where and where I stashed it! am I the only one who does that?)

Guess I better go fluff! 

Have a great week!

From my house to yours

Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas!

Hugs,

t

The downstairs

Okay - here is a quick tour of the downstairs

 In the master bedroom

 Two trees in the dining room 

 My little sweet tree in the breakfast area

Cabinet I refinished a couple of years ago - I love it!

 Glass snowmen hanging out in the snow for the holidays. (sorry about the glare)

Just to the right of the above cabinet is this little table - this can be seen from the front door.

Stockings hung in the entry since we don't have a fireplace. Our stockings were made by my grandmother and of course I don't have any more of that fabric to make one for Ashley. One of these days I will get around to making new ones for everyone.

and the big tree in the living room/den. 

Combined with the trees from the last post that should be eight trees.This is the tree that has all the ornaments my kids made in school, ornaments my grandmother made, gifts from friends, exchange ornaments and even a few I made myself going all the way back to when I first learned counted cross stitch. It is my favorite tree! I will try to get some pics of ornaments but I may not get around to posting again until after the kids leave.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Hugs,

t

More Christmas around the house

I'm running out of time if I'm going to get all the trees posted!

This little tree is in the other guest room on a bookcase that is between the twin beds. It stays up all year and I change the ornaments for the seasons (unless it is a season I don't have ornaments for yet - then it is just bare)

Bed on the right

Bed on the left

Fireman tree is at the top of the stairs, going into the game room. (it's really more of the hubby's man cave - he watches football up here when I want to watch something else)

A few of the Santa firemen - there are others perched here and there around the game room

Looking back from the game room the open door you see is the twin bed room, toward the right are my sewing room (which we won't be photographing anytime soon) and the guest room I showed you in the last post. The guest bath and stairs are to the left of the open door.

That's it for the upstairs. I will try to get the downstairs pictures posted over the weekend before the kids start arriving. Baby boy and his bride will be here Monday and the other two will join us on Tuesday. I'm so excited - it has been a long time (6 years) since we were all together for Christmas!

Holiday decorating

I've been busy the past couple of weeks getting ready for Christmas. I posted my trees on Facebook but I thought I would post them here too. 

We'll start with just one - this one is in one of the guests rooms.

Here is the rest of the room. This room always makes me smile because it is filled with so many special things.

I will share more next week - there are 7 more trees! 

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Crafty fun

Last weekend our Sunday School class had a ladies craft/cookie exchange party.

We made cards and gift tags.

 I won the door prize! One can never have too many tote bags!

We were having so much fun with the crafting we forgot about the cookies so we had to scramble to get them packaged up! Of course, there are no cookies left in this house. 

Hope you are having a great week!