Holiday Home

Here I am with pics of our home all decorated for the holidays. Like I said in earlier post, all very simple but still just enough for us get in the Christmas spirit. I got it all put up earlier than ever this year thanks to my oldest, Benjamin who proudly and excitedly LOVES Christmas.

What better way to start off this post this with this adorable Christmas mouse? In case you're wondering, he's entirely made out of felt....I have a soft spot in my heart for felt. And mice. My Grandma Marie actually collected them. ;) This mouse was just sent to us last week (I knew there was a reason I hadn't done this post yet!) from my inlaws and I think he's just about the cutest thing ever (besides our kids of course).

Here's the grand view of the entire front room. You'll see how I kept up most of our other decor, just added in little Christmas tidbits (according to the direction of Benjamin) here and there. Every now and again I would hear things like "Oh, that's very creative Mom." or "Good job Mom, I like that there." Phew, so glad I met his vision of Christmas.

Here's the view from the other direction. Notice the cute little Pottery Barn table at the end of our big table that I wrote about in this post? I like how the dark brown wood of it matches our dark brown cabinets. Yes, just when you thought we couldn't possibly find room to add one more piece of furniture in here, we did. It's actually kinda funny to think we'll have 5 of us in here in about 6 more months. :O But - it works and the good thing about living in a small space is that I always know where my kids are. Well, most of the time anyway...Oh, and yes, that little mini tree on the kitchen counter is the only lit tree you'll see in this home. I couldn't find our Christmas lights (turns out they're packed in a box at my parents house) for our real tree and Benjamin really wanted to put the ornaments on, so we just never put lights on our big tree! It actually still looks really cute and we figured it will just be that much easier when we take it down!  

I know I've gone on and on about my love of plaid before and have already showcased these exact place mats, but I love them. Especially on our pine table. Doesn't this setting just scream pancakes with real Vermont maple syrup?

Yes, I sooooo just took a solo picture of our sofa. I did that because I love these collection of pillows. Starting from the ends, I already had these chartreuse and burgandy paisley pillows (TJ Maxx) but never considered them Christmasy until I paired them up with my very Christmasy plaid pillows (Target '10) and Downeast for the berry wreath twill pillow covers (I'm 100% obsessed with pillow covers and what are the odds I would find one with the letter of our last name?!). As I've told you....there are TRUE finds just waiting to be found at Downeast!!!! As for our stair railing in the background, I always said if I were to ever have a home with a railing/banister that I would decorate it with some type of garland- but I just kept seeing my children using it for some other type of purpose.

Here's some close-ups of our tree. In the above pic you'll notice how only the top portion is decorated. That's how we like need it to be (I know those of you with children understand). The velvet tree skirt is still a favorite of mine (Anderson Seed & Garden on Main Street '09). Oh, and that last little gift still underneath the tree? That would be a present wrapped by you guessed it....Benjamin. He likes to find things around the house and wrap them up. All by himself. This one happens to be Bart's binoculars. For Bart From Benjamin Santa. 

This second pic is to show you how a real tree CAN still stay supple and soft (as supple and soft as pine needles can be anyway) for more than a month after purchase! 

Ugly Snowman (FRONT)

Cute Snowman (BACK)

Now comes the humorous part of this post. What do you do when you're gifted an ugly Christmas decoration (FRONT)? You turn it around (BACK) and re-do it with nothing more than a permanent marker. I am not kidding! What a transformation, right?

Here's our holiday photo wall in all its random collage style glory. This year it had to wrap around to the side wall!

This is the hand print plate we made at Color Me Mine Pottery Studio for our family Christmas gifts when Benjamin was just a couple months old. Remember this one I shared of Grant's foot prints this past Easter?

Hope you all enjoyed a magical Christmas. We sure enjoyed our time relaxing, playing, and visiting with family. One fun new thing that we did this year was order a Christmas Stollen and Buche de Noel (imagine that I typed that with the proper French accents in place) from a local bakery, Crumb Brothers. They were both out of this world delicious - highly recommend! And my mother also got me some of the highly addicting and perfectly soft gingerbread cookies from The Sweet Tooth Fairy. What more could a pregnant mama want? 

And just in case I don't post again in the next few days (highly likely)....Happy New Year!