Christmas Time at the New House.

Glimpses of our Christmas decor this year.

The dining room has the most especially since it's housing the Christmas tree.

I have wanted a rosemary topiary for the last two or three years and finally got one this year! It smells wonderful, looks pretty and is usable. :)

I had these on our buffet in the dining room before. 

In the cream birdcage I used to have ivy growing. 

I added some small glass ornaments to it this year.

I have had this arrangement for a long time. It may be obvious.

I have our Hallmark "Snowtop Lodge" series around this.

See the detail and how cute the are? This is one of my favorites.

Our Tree

Here it is lit up. 

When I had taken this photo a couple of weeks ago there were no wrapped presents. ;)

Our entry bench.

I had bought the Merry Christmas plaque for our church's ladies' retreat and decided to keep it. Ha.

The basket I bought at World Market a couple of months ago for this space.

I cut some branches from our woods and added some lit branches.

I also added some holly berries and plan on swapping them out for each season for different items.

When the lit branches are on. So pretty. :)

I know my poor built-ins are in desperate need of items.

It will come.

I have plans.

It's just been busy.

For now our Christmas decor is trying to fill the space some.

The other side of the fireplace...

Wade and I bought this little tree at Silver Dollar City probably 12 years ago.

Our stockings are hung by the fire with care...

Look at the smart idea Wade come with to hang our stockings without putting nails in the wood. Yes, we have stocking hangers but we've had problems with them in the past not holding the weight of our stockings. At our last house one fell and put a good nick in the granite hearth.

I was proud of his idea though.
Doesn't that look like something you'd find/learn on Pinterest?!?! LOL

I have this small grouping in our powder room. I've had the deer for a few years and bought the trees last year at an area festival.

Wade's granddaddy gave me this I believe the first Christmas we were together.

It's a sweet nativity scene to add somewhere. 

I have it on our hall chest which is in our entry from the garage.

Going downstairs. I have a few Christmas-y things there.

My rustic nativity scene and a little topiary on the other side.

Back in the kitchen. A simple towel to add flair.

Out at the front door.

I have big plans for this next year.

Two doors = two wreaths and lots of fun possibilities. ;)

I got the sled and wreath idea from Pinterest.

The greatest compliment? 

When my neighbors came to our house for dinner she loved the idea 

and promptly put one of her kids' sleds up the next day. Hee hee.

That red runner is from my childhood.

My JOY from last year. My mom and I made this.
The birds (mainly blue birds) love to perch on it. It's so cute when they're on the tip of the star.

For our gifts....

I had a huge roll of builder's grade kraft paper for hanging pictures.

Plus I had seen lots of cute ideas for wrapping gifts in the brown paper on Pinterest.

So I used that big ole' roll and love the results.

I also used some scrapbooking paper on smaller gifts.

 

I had fun learning to make pom poms too.

I combined some of the wrapping paper I had from last year on a lot of the gifts.

I fired up my Elizabeth's Cricut and made tags.

One thing I did learn is that you cannot use Scotch Magic tape to wrap them. It WILL NOT hold. You must use Scotch (or probably any brand) CLEAR tape. I had to replace LOTS of tape.

The thing I liked most about wrapping this way was starting out with a blank canvas (the kraft paper) and getting be creative. Some I was more creative than others obviously but that's the way it always goes when you're crafting/creating. 

I plan on doing this for birthday gifts in the future!

I hope you enjoyed reading about our Christmas decor. I hope to do more next year since we'll be more organized and settled in then.

Merry Christmas!

Remember our Savior's birth as you celebrate with family this year.

Finding Your Happy Place. Deer-Style.

Enjoy this series of photos I took yesterday. I had thoughts of putting some dialog with these photos but refrained. You can add your own dialogue if that's the way you roll. I roll that way and do it with the wildlife around here all the time. LOL Take the title and see what you can do with it. ;)

These deer are finding their "happy place" because of the abundance of corn we supply. Oh, and those feed blocks too.

This also shows how we usually see them get from one field to the next. Under instead of over. Although I did see three jump over this morning. One was a buck and I'm not sure about the other two.

Our field is their HAPPY PLACE! ;)

My Week in Instagram. Plus More.

So I had thought about removing my Instagram app when they announced their new privacy policies which included THEIR "right" to use everyone's images and sell them. When I read the policy closer it seemed it was only for those who had their images on public view. Mine are not so I thought I would keep it afterall. And now it seems they are reneging on the whole thing. I think they got a lot of flack as they should and I'm glad the people made their voice heard.

I don't use the app a whole lot but do like to occasionally. I found myself using it more this past week at the thought of deleting it before the end of the year. ;) What's so great about it? It's just an app to take photos, edit them with their built-in filters and then share them with friends (or not if you don't want!).

Sunday we went to an art show for Elizabeth. Here is one of her pieces on display. She also had a horse picture (made using Sharpies on slick foam board) and some clay sculptures. This was her first semester taking art lessons (she has taken them in the past, years ago) and of the three things she had on display at the art show, this was the only thing she was really proud of. The funny thing is that it was her quickest - sketched in only one class!

This past week was rainy and eventually snowy. On Friday, the first day of winter, and what many will remember as the last-day-on-the-Mayan-calendar (and what some crazies thought signified the end of the world), we had snow. I didn't take a photo of that but did get this one of earlier in the week when the entire day had been overcast and gray. As the sun was setting, it decided to finally peek out and say, "hello".

The next four are a series of photos I took from Saturday.

Corn. Corn? Yes, corn.

Why corn? Because as Wade said, "some people spend their money for entertainment going to the movies. We spend ours on corn." Yes, it brings us lots of entertainment. On Saturday we saw seven deer walking through our fields. Two young ones had walked around the backside toward the front of our house. Wade, Andrew and I were watching them out the front as they approached our driveway. They were scared. Concrete was a new thing; they had never crossed it. One slowly stepped on it and took a few tentative steps only to quickly run the last few. The other pretty much did the same thing. It was so cute and funny. How can you get any more entertaining than that?? LOL

We have a special place that borders our land. I think I've mentioned it before?

The Bovine Graveyard. Mooooo.

And the reason for its namesake. Moooo.....booooo......

We are easily amused, people. That is just one of the many, many bones in the "graveyard". You can see a lot and especially now with all the brush dead and flat. There's a skull I especially want but we are always wearing our nicer jackets and the barbed-wire fence is too tight to climb or go through. I'll get it before spring. I have plans for that skull. Bwahahahaha. (Can you tell I'm in rare form this afternoon?)

Our pond with its first ice (since we've owned it). I took this photo for Andrew because he was wondering if it had ice on it. ;)

More about our week....

One of the perks of homeschooling for Andrew is getting to make breakfast almost every morning. His latest favorite thing to make (it's been things like omelets, fried hashbrowns, biscuits and gravy) is "Breakfast Potato Bites to Go". It's basically a simple hashbrown casserole recipe that you put in mini or our case, regular-sized, muffin cups. It was a recipe I had pinned on Pinterest and decided to try the prior week. It went over well as he started out this past Monday morning making his own.

I had taken a shot of him sprinkling cheese from another angle but noticed his fingernails. I decided this was the angle that was best for the general public. ;)

That evening (Monday) we had our annual Christmas dinner and get-together with Steve and Jeanette. Elizabeth had petitioned to eat at Longhorn so we did. Jeanette told us this was our 12th year getting together for Christmas. I can't believe it. We adopted each other a few years prior, I believe. The kids call them Uncle Steve and Aunt Jeanette. We always have fun together. After dinner we went to their house for the kids to open presents. Elizabeth brought her guitar to play a song for them.

At co-op on Tuesday Andrew got to make a gingerbread house using graham crackers. The 5th and 6th grade classes had fun making them. Some kids whined about having ideas of how to use all the goodies we had available for decorating but eventually their creative juices got flowing (and some I gave a little help!). Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of Andrew's. I'm sad I didn't. He did a great job and enjoyed eating the "fruits of his labor". Both kids had their Christmas parties at co-op that day too. 

Elizabeth received her grade for her oral communication group speech that she hated. She was put with two boys that she didn't think would try very hard. She had told me she made herself the leader when they began brainstorming in class. Her teacher gave her 12 out of 10 points and wrote something to the effect of "I had put you with that group because I knew you would emerge the leader". Proud parent moment. :) :) :)

I made the white chocolate covered peanut butter Ritz crackers on Thursday. (I didn't use this recipe but it's how I made mine.) Those babies didn't live a long life at our house. I have some packaged to take to neighbors tomorrow. I have seriously considered taking one out of each package thinking surely they won't miss them because they didn't know how many were in there to begin with, right? Yes, I have found a very strong weakness. (How do you like that oxymoron? LOL) Both my grandmothers would make these at Christmas. I had helped my nannie (my mom's mom) make these at her house a few times.

One of Andrew's request for Christmas treats this year was making peppermint bark. We made it very simply by melting semi-sweet chocolate chips, pouring the melted chocolate on a pan covered with parchment paper. After we had chilled it thoroughly in the fridge we melted white chocolate chips, mixed in maybe four candy canes that had been crushed and poured that over the hardened semi-sweet chocolate. We sprinkled a few more pieces of crushed candy canes over top and I tapped the bigger pieces down so they wouldn't fall off. It's good but I have the problem of the two chocolates separating. Any tips from my readers? I don't know what we did wrong. It was my first year making it.

Wednesday was my mom's birthday. She turned 66. Happy birthday, Mom!! I think she and my dad had a day full of eating out and shopping. Sounds like the perfect day to me. ;)

And here are our turkey on Friday. (I did get one picture of our scant amount of snow.)

We hadn't seen them in about a week. When we don't see "our" wildlife in a few days we get a little anxious. (I think I already established that we are crazy.) So I had snapped this photo and sent it to Wade. It's simple things like this that makes my man happy. He's easy. I love him.

So I had mentioned we bought the corn. We had went to Tractor Supply solely for corn. However, I also left the store with these.

Yeehaw! I have been entering contests on Country Outfitters (on Facebook) and on The Pioneer Woman all month and have been wanting some boots for quite a while now. I used to own about four pair. I don't know what happened to them. I think I hit a phase in life where I thought I would never wear them again. That makes me sad. Two pair I had bought in Mexico. :( I wish I still had them. Anyways, I now own a pair. Tractor Supply had their boots 15% off and the price these particular boots were listed for without the additional savings was already cheaper than what I found them online when I did a quick search. I *heart* them. I can't wait to wear them but for now am happy just looking at them.

A week ago Elizabeth and Andrew built a tent in the school room. I let them keep it all week long since I knew Christmas break was upon us. (They did have school this past week.) The slept in it every night this past week except two! It's their first tent at the new house.

I had asked them the other night if they liked our new house better than our old house. Elizabeth immediately responded with "yes" and Andrew said, "not yet". It was exactly how I thought they would feel. Elizabeth is more about what more she has now and Andrew is more about what he is missing. He said he hasn't made enough memories here yet to like it more. Really, I sort of feel the same way although I'd never go back. To me it's not just the house being beautiful and new, it's the land. The privacy. The views. I love it.

Christmas at our house coming soon. :)