Beginning of the Christmas Season...

It's that marvelous time of year again! And yet it doesn't feel like it AT ALL. Maybe that's because I have only had hot chocolate twice this whole fall/winter. Hardly any sweets. And we have NO SNOW! I know people don't like snow. I'm not a huge fan, unless it's December. Then YES I want snow and LOTS of it. I am about to the point I want to pray for a blizzard. Or maybe it's from working full time and how busy that makes me. Or our callings. Or all of the above. Either way, I feel like my life is a whirl wind right now and oh my gosh Christmas is in less than 3 weeks and I am SO not prepared!

I have decorated though! And as of today, I am about 2/3 of the way done with my Christmas shopping. Slowly starting to try to get more into the Christmas spirit. I need to find a way to take some time & enjoy the season, rather than letting it rush by.

Anyway, enough whining {Can you tell I am not feeling as chipper as usual??}. Here are some pictures of our house all decorated for Christmas!

New craft I did this year - got it at Craft Wood Cutouts the day after Thanksgiving! LOVE how it turned out!!

Our wreath. Want to replace it but haven't found anything I want to make yet!

Our tree with our new "topper" - got it at the dollar store!! Bam!!

The ledge! The "Joy" is also new this year, got it at the same time of Crafty Wood Cutouts. LOVE how it turned out as well!

Stockings hung above the fireplace with our countdown, nativity scene & the amazing wreath Cassie made for me last year.

Plan is to get presents wrapped and under the tree this weekend! That should help me feel more like it's time for Christmas, and get something off of my To Do list so I can have one less thing to stress about. Gotta love stress and how abundant it is this time of year!!  

Autumn

I bought a craft at Crafty Wood Cutouts back in February for 50% off for fall and just barely got around to finishing it yesterday! I have to admit - I am pretty proud of this craft. The wood was 50% off and I had EVERYTHING else already - the paper was all scraps from previous projects. So that means I spent like 5 bucks on this craft! BOOM baby! 

The letters before I did anything to them

The scrapbook paper I picked

Jake & I watched the Oklahoma vs Michigan game while I crafted.  Ahhhhh college football - how I missed you!

All done!!

View of the whole ledge with the fall decor up

Fall pumpkin on the kitchen counter

Decor on the table by the front door

Fall is my FAVORITE time of year - I am SO excited that it is here already!!! YAY!!!!

Spring has sprung - well almost

I have totally procrastinated decorating my house recently - I realized I still had Valentines decor up on the ledge and I couldn't take it down because I hadn't made my spring decor yet! I stopped in at Crafty Wood Cutouts - my favorite wood cutting store in Orem, and got this nifty craft! 

The vinyl {the blue thing} says "where you stand" - "Bloom where you stand"

Sorry that is such an unfortunate picture - I didn't realize until after I was finished with my craft that the picture was crooked and sideways and yeah not so awesome. 

Here is the ledge after I finished the decor: 

The vases for the grass are the same ones I used for Valentines Day, so heck yes for cheaply reusing decor for multiple holidays! I got the watering can and the birdhouse at DI - and I had a gift certificate and a coupon I used on my "Bloom"! I love how it looks - the picture doesn't quite do it justice. Or maybe I am just biased. Either way - it looks awesome and I have decorated for spring! 

Crafty Me...

I just realized I haven't posted pictures of some of the crafts I have recently done so here is a collection of pictures!!

"LOVE" letters from Crafty Wood Cutouts for Valentines Day

The "LOVE" letters on the ledge in the living room

I can't take credit for these - my amazingly crafted mother made this for me for my birthday! I still wanted to show them off though!

Ok quick story - there is a wreath I saw at Tai Pan a year or so ago that is SO cute but oh my it was like $50. It was a normal, round wreath with tons and tons of gerber daisies on it. Not going to pay $50 for that though! So I was at the dollar store last week getting stuff for organizing the closets when I wandered into their artificial flower area and saw TONS of gerber daisies so I decided to try to make the Tai Pan wreath!

I took a gigantic box we have in the basement and cut it into a wreath shape - made a huge mess haha

I pulled the flowers off of the stems, used a small screwdriver to push holes in the cardboard and then pushed the base of the flowers into the holes!

I love how it turned out - and it was only $5 for the flowers!! WOOT!

On the ledge opposite of the "holiday" ledge, there is another ledge that is much longer, with a wall {obviously}. The ceiling comes to a "V" at one point, but the center of the wall is at another point, so it makes the ledge items and the shelf look not centered {see picture} - even though the ledge stuff is centered with the ceiling and the shelf is centered on the wall. It has been driving me crazy so I decided to take it down and start from scratch. 

Before

I got a gift certificate to Crafty Wood Cutouts from my mom for my birthday and they have this amazingly adorable wood set that says "Families are Forever" that I love. The gift certificate my mom gave me is the exact amount of that item, because I have talked about it for so long. I wasn't sure where to put it but since I was re doing that wall I decided to get it! And even better, I had a 40% off coupon so I still have some of my gift certificate left!! 

Paper and embellishments for project - Hobby Lobby. $3.27. I love when stuff is on sale!

The finished product! It is as long as our kitchen table, which is like 3 or 4 feet - it is GIGANTIC!

Up on the ledge, with our Willow Tree figurines on the sides of it. I LOVE IT!

Yay for being crafty and for all the awesome crafty ideas I have thanks to Pinterest! I will make sure to post pictures next time I do a craft!

DI trip & I love you because

On Wednesday I went to DI in American Fork and was there for over an hour looking at the wood and knick knack sections! Here are some pictures of the things I found - I can't wait to fix these things up and use them for decorating!

Mary & Joseph - $3 for the set

Wooden hearts for the decor ledge at Valentines! $1.50 each 

A birdhouse with awkward colors and a tin watering can - I am planning to use these for the decor ledge in the Spring - $2.50 for the 2 of them!

I don't know what you would call this, but I made it into a manger! $1.50!

I pulled this wooden thing apart, pulled out the wooden dowel, painted it a beige color and then sanded it really good to give it a "loved" feel. Then I hot glued rafia into the bottom to make hay. I also cleaned off Mary & Joseph really well & sanded them down as well (it covered all of the paint discolorations!!) and here they are!!

I think it's really cute, especially considering I spent $4.50 on it!

Wednesday night, after I was done with Mary & Joseph and was sitting on the couch by the Christmas tree, I looked at the Dating Diva's blog and found a super cute idea. It is a black frame with a decorated template underneath it that says "I love you because". Each spouse takes a turn writing something they love about the other person on the glass with expo marker. When the other person wants to write something, you simply erase the previous message with a paper towel {since it is written on the glass} and write a new message! SUCH a cute idea!! Click here to get the printable template from their site. I decided to hurry and "make" it since I already had everything needed - a black frame and a printer!

The finished product!

Its new home - next to the kitchen sink!

I thought it was a cute idea, and wrote a note for Jake on it that night - but to be honest I figured he would think it's a little cheesy and not write anything on it or worse - make fun of me for it haha.

The note I wrote to Jake Wednesday night

The note he wrote back Thursday morning

I have the best husband ever!! And the whole thing was free!!! So many good things happening all at once!! I love crafting - it makes me happy. Almost as happy as my husband makes me :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas is without ANY competition my favorite time of the year - even more than the start of BYU football {that is REALLY saying something}. I have been prepping for presents since early July and listening to Christmas music off and on since October. It is tradition to decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, but due to me being sick and our "Lost" marathon, that didn't happen until a few days ago! I finally got our Christmas decor up! Yay!! 

The tree with the recently added vinyl & pictures

Better view of the decor on the ledge

A few weeks ago, we also had our first snow in our house!!

The backyard as the snow was falling

Our house after the first snow :)

Yay for Christmas! Only 18 more days!!!!! 

Home Sweet Home

Ok as promised. here are some pictures of our wonderful new home! I'm going to post them kind of as a virtual tour...

This is our house on July 4th - we were waiting to close on it, and showing it to our parents for the first time! 

(Notice how beautiful {cough cough} our lawn is compared to the neighbors to the left)

We got the key!! Officially homeowners!! 

Jake standing in front of the house as we are about to go through it for the first time as the owners!! 

Before picture of the carpets and how nasty they are - this picture doesn't do justice!! 

After!! 

Ok starting tour.... This is the front door... 

When you walk in the front door, this is the view that you see (this is the Family Room)

The view of the front door from the inside & our "McClellan Est 2009" glass wall frame fabulousness! 

The other side of the front door - the Family: Proclamation to the World and a wedding picture on either side 

This was our Family Room before we mounted the TV... 

This is our Family Room after we mounted the TV!! (And our Fall decor is on the ledge)

Another view of the decor

 

The other side of the Family Room - haven't decide what to do on that ledge yet... 

The blocks on the shelf say "Family" with different pictures of us

The little hallway leads to 2 bedrooms and a bathroom... 

Close up of the Manti Temple picture my mom gave us for Christmas in 2009

This is the bathroom... 

And this is one of the bedrooms - our office where we keep the Mac Desktop and paperwork stuffage... 

(Sorry its dark - lighting wouldnt cooperate)

This is the other side of the same office bedroom - that wall was covered in the most awful hand-painted acrylic stripe paint in the universe when we bought the house but Rick (my step dad) & Popper (my sister) fixed it all up and made it beautiful!!!! 

And there is nothing to see in the other bedroom - it was a spare bedroom but we no longer have the bed so its just empty. So you can't see it haha. 

This is the kitchen, which is to the left of the Family Room (so we have walked out of the hallway and back into the main living area)

The dining room 

This is the stair case that leads to the bonus room above the garage - right now it is messy and full of crafting things that are Christmas Presents so I'm not posting any pictures of up there... 

But it's an awesome room that's very long and open and has a nice view over the neighborhood. 

Ok, so then there is a hallway to the right (the left hallway led to the 2 bedrooms and 1 bath) that leads to the laundry room, the garage, and our bedroom... 

I didn't take any pictures of the hallway because there is nothing hanging up there yet because I haven't decided how to decorate it yet... and the laundry room is just a laundry room so no pictures of that either... 

Our garage that fits both our cars!!!!!!!!!!! 

The view from our bedroom when you stand at the end of the bed (obviously). Our bedroom is long, so its hard to get a picture of the whole thing because there isn't anywhere to stand to get the whole view... 

On the opposite wall is the TV and dresser and Max's crate (where he sleeps)

OUR BATHROOM!!!!!!!

I just love how much counter space we have - it is wonderful!!! 

Our tub and shower 

This is our backyard, about 3 weeks after we moved in - and this is SO much better than it looked when we moved in. It was so dead and sparse that we thought we were going to have to re plant the entire backyard! 

And this is our backyard after Jake released his green thumb!!! The grass was able to be revived!!!! 

Our BBQ - Jake is the worlds greatest BBQ'er!!!  

This is our house today, with the greener yard and our Fall decor outside (a wreath and a pumpkin stake)

Next spring we are going to plant trees and bushes and such in front of the house!! 

And this is Max's favorite part of the house - the window that looks out the front. He will sit there for hours, watching the cars drive by and watching the kids in the neighborhood play. It's our puppy size window :) 

So that's our house!! More pictures will come as I get more things up with decorations, and once we start doing things in the yard!! 

And I decided there won't be any crafting pictures going up because a lot of things that I have crafted are Christmas presents and I don't want to ruin any surprises for anyone!!

Yay for our beautiful home <3 <3 <3