Christmas Home Tour

In case you didn't know, I loooooooove Christmas.  Love.  And there is nothing that I love more than our home decorated at Christmas!  I love all the lights and the cozy feel it has.  Thankfully my girls have inherited my love of the holidays and enjoy every aspect of Christmas just as much as I do!

Here is our 2015 Christmas home tour....

This is our front porch, we are so lucky to live out in the country and we love nothing more than sitting on our porch and enjoying the sights and sounds!

We don't have a huge foyer, but it works!  The old window is from Brad's parents farm, I have several of these old windows throughout the house.

These stockings were made by my great grandmother, love having these heirlooms ( as does my cat who attacks them daily).

We have a pretty large dining room area, it's attached to our kitchen also, and this is where we entertain and spend most of our family time. I have two trees in the dining room, this one is the homemade ornament tree.  Love looking at all the ornaments the girls have made over the years!

This tree is on the opposite side and is the candy tree.

Love how it looks at night, so cozy!

I don't do a ton of decorating in the kitchen, I like my mix match of trees behind my sink though!  I put up a couple things above the cabinets, but not near what I used to...

I love these stockings, when Brad and I first married, I stitched our names on these and also hand stitched the applique on.  As each child came, I got lazier, and started hot gluing them, haha!  Still love em!

  

Our main tree, it's a mix of golds and reds, beads and ribbons.  The tree skirt was also made by my great grandma, and the same skirt we used growing up.

Downstairs we have the Christmas village.  The kids still love playing with this.  Alayna and William (her cousin who comes after school everyday and is the same age) play with this everyday, they get the lego stuff out and pretend its their village.

This tree is our "woodsy" tree, love it!

You can see the nature theme down here (seriously, NO MORE DUCKS!)  Emma's piano and the Christmas book my Grandma used.

I love this wall because all of this is from the farm.  They tore down the old barn a few years back and I had them save the windows and door for me and created this wall.  This is by far one of my favorite things in our home.  I also have a basket of all of our Christmas books.  we try to read one every night, along with an advent book that I will post about later...

And finally our entertainment center.  The singing carolers on the left were my Grandma Trellis'.  I adore these.  There are also two music carolers on the right that were my Grandma Omi's.  Love having these treasures.

I absolutely love getting our our decorations every year and having all the memories come with it.  Our decor is a mix of newer things and lots of old things passed down.

Hope you enjoyed my holiday home tour!

Linking up with Andrea and Beth!

Weekend Shananigans

Can't believe that December is upon us already, before you know it it's Christmas!!!

I know, I'm excited too!  I only have a couple more gifts to buy, SO glad I am mostly done.  Some are wrapped, cards have been sent, angel tree gifts bought and wrapped.  I am feeling so much more ready this year than others.  

We had a great weekend filled with friends and family...Friday night was just Emma, Alayna and myself as Brad and Rachel went with other friends to watch the Gopher women's volleyball playoffs.  I completely forgot that our town was having their Winter Walk which was basically a tree lighting, seeing Santa and making a craft.  The businesses were all open late and a lot of them had hot cocoa or cider and cookies.  It was fun!  I didn't get a single pic though...

Saturday we hung out at home in the morning, I was able to get a 4 mile run in which felt good!  After lunch we made the horrible, terrible, no good mistake of heading into town to get a few things.  We ended up crossing quite a bit of gifts off of our list, but were certainly ready for a cocktail by the time we got home!

Saturday night we headed over to friends of ours for an evening of cards, food and fun!

The girls made these Grinch fruit kabobs, so fun!

(not my pic, here is the source)

It was a lot of fun, and so good to see our close friends and celebrate with some Christmas cheer!

Sunday we slept in and man did that feel good!  We didn't do much, however I talked most of us into taking a walk back into our woods.  We don't utilize the woods as much as we should, there is a small pond that we like to take Jazz to so she can run and swim.  We try to get back there a couple times in the warmer weather, but it was so beautiful and peaceful to be back there in the winter.  (I was wearing Rachel's snow boots, bad mom!)

Sunday was, of course, St. Nick!  St. Nick came to the farm around 6 and Alayna was SO excited to see him!  We sang some Christmas songs and then he handed out the bags.  The girls got a Christmas book, plates, ornaments and candy.  St. Nick was quite generous!

Of course Emma's highlight was holding our new baby niece/cousin, Isabel!

Rachel and her cousin Isaac, goof balls!

Linking up with: B Loved Boston

Thanksgiving 2015

Linking up with Erika for Friday Favorites

I may be a bit behind here but I think my body is still trying to catch up....

We had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving!  My brother and his family drove down from Fargo and my mom and her husband came, it was a perfect mix of good conversation, games, food and relaxing!

Of course I got zero pics of the food, which was so, so good.  I tried out Tori and Dean's Butternut Squash, Mushroom and Ricotta Tart and it was amazing!  Definitely something I will make again...

So here are some pics we did get...

This one kills me, they were all laying on the chairs, and then laying their heads on each other, once they were in place Pat took the chairs away and they should all be in the same position supporting each other.  The funniest part was that Olivia could NOT stop laughing which made everyone laugh, we were all crying with laughter!

A good ole selfie stick selfie...

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong....(who else is now singing the Sesame Street song??) And for the record, that is not my middle finger...

We did go Black Friday shopping, up at 4 and to the mall by 5, we found some deals, but nothing big that I am hooked on going every year.  Girls were exhausted!

The family left around 1 and we tried napping which didn't happen and then decided to put the rest of our Christmas stuff up.

Maci says "Merry Christmas"!  And then, "get this shit off my head!"

What's Up Wednesday

Linking up with Shay for:

What We're Eating This Week

I posted our "menu" for this week here, it's pretty drab, but that's ok with Thanksgiving coming up!

What I'm Reminiscing About

This past weekend we were busy cleaning and organizing our 4th level which is our storage area.  The girls and I were going through toys and getting rid of a TON!  Some of the toys they wanted to keep for when the grandkids come over.  That just kind of made me stop dead in my tracks that we were even having that conversation, haha!

What I'm Loving

Duh.  The holidays!

What We've Been Up To

Cleaning and organizing!  It feels SO good to have the house in order and get rid of things.

What I'm Dreading

Nothing much!  I just want tomorrow to get here because it has been such a busy week@

What I'm Working On

See above about cleaning/organizing!

What I'm Excited About

I don't talk about it on my blog, but I have an older brother who lives a couple hours away.  we've had some rough patches that last several years and I am SO excited to say that their family is spending Thanksgiving with us!  This is something I have prayed about every.single.day for 5 years, God is good!

What I'm watching/Reading

The new season of Nightwatch started (on A&E) and I absolutely love every single person on that show!  If you haven't seen it, you need to!  I haven't been doing much reading, but need to get caught up!

What I'm Listening To

One guess......Christmas music!

What I'm Wearing

These pj bottoms from Gap.  SO comfy!  I need more...

What I'm Doing This Weekend

We will be putting up the rest of our Christmas stuff on Friday, and then Saturday we are celebrating Christmas with friends of ours.  We eat crab legs, have cocktails and the have ping pong and pool tournaments with the kids and end it with a spelling bee.  it's so fun!

What I'm Looking Forward to Next Month

Our favorite time of the year!

What Else is New

Not a whole lot...I have been having some pretty horrible headaches, so hoping that my chiropractor can fix me, ugh.

I hope and pray that each and every one of you have an amazing Thanksgiving!  With everything going on in our world, I pray that everyone can enjoy a peaceful holiday...

Thanksgiving Week

I can't believe Thanksgiving week is already upon us!  We are having my family over on Thanksgiving (provided that the weather cooperates...) and I am so excited!  We also have a new baby in the family, my niece Andrea had another baby girl on Saturday.  Nothing better than getting to snuggle a sweet little one...

We had a fantastic weekend!  Despite my horrific headaches I've been having, we got SO much stuff done around the house.  We are planning on finishing our 3rd and 4th levels (right now we have the family room on the 3rd floor finished but that's all) this winter, so even though the extra rooms are not finished, we still use them.  The girls have a toy room and a craft room right now in those rooms.

This is about what it looked like on Friday.

Seriously.  I should have taken a picture.  We got rid of SO much stuff.  We were able to completely clean out one room and organize the others, it just feels good to have things organized and in their place.

And yes, this happened most of the weekend.  Emma spent most of her time on her bed complaining about how much she hates cleaning...and Alayna spent ALL afternoon playing in the toy room, it was like Christmas for her! 

Tonight I have a La Leche League meeting that I am leading so I will be gone, tomorrow Alayna has conferences and then it's Wednesday already!  I am off Thursday-Sunday and can't wait!

Here is what's on our menu this week!

Tonight since I am not home its sausage for the fam!  We eat this at least once a month, we all love it and bonus, we make it ourselves.  :)

Tuesday is good ole tator tot hotdish, Alayna's favorite!

Wednesday will probably be a hodge podge of whatever we have.  I will be busy prepping for Thursday.

Thanksgiving Day Menu

Martha Stewart's roasted Turkey

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Butternut Squash, Mushroom and Ricotta Tart (a new recipe, looks so good!)

Sausage and Thyme Stuffing

Corn

Strawberry Spinach Salad

Orange Jello Salad with Carrots and Celery

Sweet Milk Rolls

Pumpkin Pie

I also want to try this new cocktail recipe, looks so refreshing!

I am thankful for so much this year.  I hate when people are always saying "I am SOOOOOO blessed!!"  I dunno, pet peave of mine, I guess.  Aren't we all blessed??  I am thankful for mine and my families health, for reconciliation and most of all, thankful that no matter what I do, God's got me.  I really don't know where my life would be without Him.  I do not pretend to have it all together.  We don't go to church as often as I would like, but I am teaching my girls about God's love on a daily basis.  I don't know if it's my stubbornness that makes me not want to go to church every Sunday because someone "tells" me I should.   I feel that how we live our day to day lives is more important than showing up to church every Sunday.   Just my 2 cents.

I hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving!

Linking up with:  Biana with B Loved Boston and Meghan

Friday Favorites

You know what today is!!!!

FRIDAY!  Linking up with Erika...

Ok first off, Blogger is making me crazy.  I got the new (to me) iPhone 6s and when I upload my pics on my Blogger app, it doesn't allow me to center them when I edit on my computer.  Ugh.  So that is why my layouts are wonky.  Any thoughts??

So first of all...



I am soooooo excited that Thanksgiving is almost here.  It is truly my favorite eating holiday!  We are hosting this year, and I am really excited.  I have my menu all planned, most of the food bought and this weekend I am looking forward to finishing some house projects.  I have a loooooooong list of stuff for the whole family...They are super excited.

This week has been busy, but good.  I stayed home with mousey on Monday, she wasn't feeling good.  I think she just needed a down day.  While she vegged, I got started on cleaning out our basement.  After living here for almost 10 years, it is finally starting to look half ways decent!  I hauled in 10 bags of clothes and household stuff to Goodwill, and have more to bring in, yowsa.

Tuesday is my normal day off, and I got started bright and early doing this.. Yippee!  I got our family room all decorated for Christmas, but still have the main floor all Fall'd up.  :)

I volunteered at school in the morning and then brought mousey home again with me.  She's been having stomach pains, so she vegged again all afternoon (she is feeling better!). 

Last Saturday Rachel had her volleyball banquet.  Look at these beauties!!!

We love these girls so much!

Then on Sunday she had club volleyball tryouts.  I was really nervous because it is a new club and I was hoping that Rachel would play on a team with at least one of her girlfriends.  She ended up getting on the 17's team with her friend Sarah!  Haley is on the other 17's team and Taylor is transferring schools (enter sobbing....:() so will not be playing with them.  We are SO proud of these girls and how well they play!  Very glad to have that stress gone!

And lastly, this was my view at work yesterday.  Holy snow!  It melted right away, but still fun to see (but not to drive in, ugh....)

Happy Friday everyone!!!

Friday Favorites

It's that time again, to link up with Erika for Friday Favorites!

It's been a busy few weeks, so this might be a long one...

First off, I am in FULL ON HOLIDAY MODE!!!!  Seriously, I just don't get all you bah-humbugers (I'm talking to you, Dad....) of the world!  I looooooove the holidays, love, love, love.  Even though I'd have my house decorated yesterday if my husband would be on board, this doesn't mean I love Thanksgiving any less.  I just love the magic of October/November/December.  I am about half done with my shopping, and I have my Christmas cards done, just need to order them.

So in the spirit of the holidays, I went to Target last Friday to buy 2 things and ended up bringing the store home with me, ugh...

These plates are some of my faves, they were in the dollar section (but were actually $3 for 4 plates).  They are so cute, and I can't wait to use them for appetizers this holiday season!

I also bought three of these cute plates for the girls (St.Nick will bring them the beginning of December).  How adorable are these?

Friday was a great day as I found out I won not one, but two blog giveaways!  The first one was these gorgeous Kate Spade earrings from Christina over at "The New Mrs. Blog".  I love them, and plan on coordinating my Christmas outfit with them, haha!  The other giveaway was from Kath Eats Real Food.  It was a giveaway sponsored by Quaker Oatmeal, cannot wait to see what's in that one!

Saturday morning the troops and I were off to my sister's house about 3.5 hours north of us.  I love the ages the girls are at, it's so fun to travel with them now!  And of course I make sure to pack enough food to last us through winter because you know, Alayna is with!

We got to my sister's around 11 and stayed until 3:30.  We got to snuggle, feed and love on this sweet face.  There is NOTHING better than this!

We wished we lived closer, but for now we'll take what we can get!

Tracy made the BEST chicken tortilla soup from Trisha Yearwood that was to die for!  It is on our menu already...

We left my sisters and headed over to my dad's house about 2 hours away.  It normally would be a super nice peaceful drive, but with it being opening deer hunting and the fact that I forgot about the time change, it was a white knuckle drive.  Ugh.  I was so stressed we'd hit a deer (or a hunter) and you're literally in the middle of nowhere.  We saw about 4 deer (pretty sure they were laughing), but thankfully did not hit one.

Sunday we hit up the shops in Walker and I picked up these Christmas mugs, LOVE them!  The shops there are always decorated so nice for the holidays.  

                                               

On our way home the girls kept laughing at all the dead deer.  We were on the lookout for legs!

I bet I was behind this truck for about 15 minutes before I even noticed the deer!

You know you live in Minnesota when....

     

Have a fantastic Friday!  Blogger is giving me some issues, so if the layout is wonky, you know why!