God Jul!

Merry Christmas Eve to all of you! May you have plenty of family time, baking time, crafting time and napping time over the next couple of days!

I snapped this picture about an hour ago of a certain little girl who's more than ready to start the celebration!

Happy Birthday to my dad tomorrow. It's kind of fun every year to celebrate two things. It just means birthday cake and Christmas pies! 

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I hope you have a safe and happy holiday! See you soon!!!

you've got mail

I'm in love with getting Christmas cards in the mail every year. I'm a total hoarder about them too. I like to save them with the thought of one day I'll put them to good use. These pretties below arrived from family in Finland and Sweden yesterday and I didn't even want to throw away the envelopes because I loved the stamps on them so much. 

Some are so pretty I like to save to put out for decoration the next year. 

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Others I always think up projects like these pretty paper flowers or taking the tag punch to them and reusing for gift tags. 

And some I will let Lucy go to town on once the season is over and she can play around with them. 

Either way mail in December rocks!

Merry Christmas Eve, Eve!

Holiday House Tour Entry, Sun Room, Master Bedroom

Welcome to part III and last installment of our holiday house tour! I love seeing the house all lit up at night and I'll totally miss it when it's time to take them down again until next year. 

                   

The January me will thank the December me for planting some paper whites. I'm waiting for the cat's to notice them and then quickly chew and destroy them.

It took me a while to decide what to do on the stairs but I finally decided to just clip some green off the back of our tree and tie them up with twine. I added the drummer boy courtesy of Dear Lillie. 

I LOVE how our big family tree turned out this year! We got another beautiful Fraser Fir and I makes the whole house smell so good! In continuing with this years "work with what you got" mantra I came up with the idea to string around bunting cut from book pages that I didn't use on a book wreath earlier in the year. It was so simple and easy.

 I tied up twine again this year around some of the windows and we've been clipping our cards from friends and family up there. 

In our room I just added a few subtle Christmas touches.

Wow! Can you believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away now! We had a super busy weekend packed with fun holiday activities. We took Lucy to a Jingle Book party at the library Saturday morning and then to a Christmas Party at her Gymnastics place Saturday night where she ran into Santa again. She did a little better than her last encounter- even taking a candy cane from him but then she smiled mischievously and quickly ran away. Today we headed to Jolly Days at the Indianapolis Children's Museum and next weekend we're looking forward to attending the Indianapolis School of Ballet's Nutcracker which my sweet niece is preforming in this year. 

We ended the weekend stopping off for hot chocolate and doughnuts and then going to our town's drive through light display in the park tonight. I also managed to get some baking, knitting and gift wrapping in too and now I'm dog tired and sitting on the couch with the heating pad lol. Sometimes I totally forget I'm pregnant until my lower back reminds me to slow down. 

I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead!

linking up to:

the shabby creek cottage
thrifty decor chick
the nester
alamode
cottage and vine

dining room, living room and kitchen holiday tour

After last years decorating overload I felt the need to pair down and really edit. It feels less like a Christmas display at a shoppe and more like a homey home this year. The burlap runner from Thanksgiving stuck around but the place mats were replaced with my fave board toile mats from Williams-Sonoma that I picked up on clearance a few years ago.

In the kitchen I made a new JOY banner from vintage sheet music.

I'll share the rest of the house in part III Monday including our entry, sun room and master bedroom. Hope you have a beautiful evening!

linking up to:

Honey We're Home
My Romantic Home
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Thrifty Decor Chick
The Nester
Alamode
Cottage and Vine

Holiday Mantel and Lucy's Room

Good morning! Today I wanted to share with you our Christmas mantle and Lucy's room as part 1 of my holiday home tour. Like I mentioned in previous posts I worked with what I had this year including more natural outdoorsy type items like pine cone's found in our yard.

In Lucy's room I added just a few fun holiday touches. 

She loves looking at the ornaments on her tiny tree and pointing out each one asking "what's that?"

I hope you have a beautiful Tuesday!

Linking up to:

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Ten June
French Country Cottage
Honey We're Home
My Romantic Home
Alamode
The Shabby Creek Cottage
The Nester
Cottage and Vine

dining room family tree

I hope everyone is having a beautiful and productive day getting ready for tomorrow! I decided to check in really quick with a couple of snapshots of our dining room Christmas tree. I went very simple this year just using ornaments and feathers we already had. I also added a few ripped muslin bows and printed out my favorite family photos from the year onto card stock to really personalize it. I can't wait to go and pick out our giant tree for downstairs tonight! 

Happy cooking/baking/family time! 

**Inspiration for the tree found at Dear Lillie! 

linking up to:

French Country Cottage
The Shabby Nest
Tater Tots & Jello
Six Sisters Stuff
Blissful and Domestic
I Heart Nap Time
Shabby Art Boutique
Hi Sugarplum!
Funky Junk Interiors
Centsational Girl