christmas time in our new home

First: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM!!! What a wonderful lady... it seems fitting that someone who has spent her whole life giving and sharing would be stuck sharing her Birthday with the Christmas, but if anyone can do it with grace it is her. We love you mom!

I don't remember if I ever posted a picture of my Thanksgiving wreath, but to save a little I bought this grapevine wreath and then a bundle of fall foliage... and then removed them, put them in a bag for next year, and replaced them with some winter foliage. I decorated both sides of the wreath, since it is hanging in our front window.

Joan gave me some beautiful greenery which smelled delicious! I wrapped this bow on it, added a little holiday bling, and hung it on our front door.

It was great having room for a Christmas tree this year. Last year we actually didn't even put our tree up because we didn't want to move furniture around, not have space for a month, and then not even be there to enjoy it at Christmas. We were going to cut a real tree, but decided our little fake tree [which I think I stole from my college?...maybe that story later] would be nice. We didn't even have to move any furniture!

For those of you that remember, when I was a freshman in high school our garage caught on fire. We were minutes away from the house catching, and stood in shock in the cool February air as we watched the volunteer fire fighters do an amazing job. We were ultimately just thankful because we could have lost so much more, but besides the rocking horses that my Grandpa built Kali and I the thing we missed the most were our Christmas ornaments. Every year on the day after Christmas Mom would take Kali and I to Hallmark and we would get to pick out an ornament. We had some really neat ornaments from every year of our life, plus others that had been given to us. Mom would write down dates on all the boxes, and every year we had so much fun reminiscing about each special one as we hung them on the tree. The next year as we decorated our tree we did so with teary eyes, thinking about our tradition that wouldn't be the same, and also because our church family had put together a basket full of ornaments for us so we had something to decorate with. However, Mom was so good about wrapping them all back up, putting them back in their boxes, and then in an additional tub, that a few actually [miraculously] survived the fire. She gave Kali and I ours that had made it, and some bear the markings of the night they endured. One box I have is completely black. Here you can see the bottom of the sheep is melted a bit. I am so thankful for these ornaments as they represent Christmases I spent with my family years ago.

We didn't have a tree topper and our tree looked a little sad without one, so I bought some cheap wire ribbon, made a bow, and slapped this "joy" ornament in the middle.

Our kitchen table even got a new centerpiece... but I just had to keep the turquoise bowl!

This isn't necessarily of Christmas decorations... I wanted to debut the BEAUTIFUL love seat that my Aunt Ceann recovered for Brent and I. We absolutely LOVE it and it adds so much more seating in our living room. Didn't she do an awesome job? [Uncle Kirby made us a sofa table too...what a talented family... but we need to do some finishing touches to it and then it will make a debut here as well. It is gorgeous!]

Joan [Brent's mom], and my mom and I decided that we should get together one Saturday and make Christmas cookies all day long. So we did! And it was wonderful. We got the first snow of the year this day as well. We made so many different types of cookies, but I only snapped a few photos before my camera died.

Brent even stopped by the help frost some sugar cookies

...if you couldn't tell by the KU cookie :)

And my favorite...we made OREO BALLS. Lots and lots of Oreo balls. And they are all gone all ready. Bummer.
I'll have to take a picture of our lights outside the house tonight.
Have a Merry Christmas.