My sister-in-law Ana had her second baby this past week. Now she is the amazingly happy and well adjusted mom of 2 boys...only 13 months apart. I would be a nervous wreck, but she has bounced back wonderfully. 
Now that Thanksgiving is over I feel I can really delve into the endless realms of Christmas decorating. There are so many wonderful ways to decorate and rarely is there a wrong way to do this.
There are so many different ways to decorate. From retro to vintage, Victorian to country, contemporary to traditional. I love all of these styles and only wish I could change up my house each year with a new design idea. But that would take a lot more time and money than I have at the present. ;)
Here are just a few rooms decorated for Christmas that I just love. For more Christmas decorating ideas go to Ideal Home and there are a bunch, you'll be sure to find the one that fits your own unique style.
I love this idea of the jars, so simple and pretty.
Phase 2: (above) For inspiration I drove around the neighborhood looking for the color door I liked. Our neighborhood is very diverse. Within a few blocks radius there are houses ranging from $175k to $700K. I found a gorgeous huge brick colonial home with black shutters, deep red brick and white trim like ours. They had a gorgeous green door and it looked amazing, so that is when I decided to paint our door green. I went to home depot and decided on a Martha Stewart Sea Grass Green color.
more changes to come:
It snowed for the first time tonight. At 10am this morning Madeline started throwing up and hasn't stopped. Max started his bought with puking tonight at around 6pm. Steve is feeling sick, but so far Henry and I are a-ok. fingers crossed.
It has been a long day to say the least. I am washing my 5th blanket and 3rd pillow...so when I walked outside I took in the beauty of first snow. It was wonderful to see snow on our grass, yes we have grass and I am still grateful for it. The seasons are so vibrant here. 
As beautiful as the snow is, it marks the beginning of the sickies. But it also marks the beginning of hot coco with the kids, sledding at Happy Hallow, cookies, Christmas etc. So welcome Winter and snow, my old frien-emies.
I started my silhouette's of the kids tonight, I am hoping to get Christmas done by the beginning of December. I took profile pics of the kids and had each photo enlarged at Costco to 8x10 prints ($4.30). I bought a craft razor knife ($2.75) and scissors and cut out the children's profile. I also bought black fabric paint($2) and a stencil sponge brush ($1).
I stenciled the silhouette image onto a very thick cream colored fabric I bought at wal-mart. I bought 1 yard for $5. 1 yard was enough to make 6 pillow fronts (I am using an alternate fabric for the back of the pillow).
Above are the silhouettes of Mimi and Henry. Max's weren't done yet. Now they are downstairs drying. I'll be sure to post more pictures as I get more stages completed.
No, it's not Oprah. It is LIZ LEMON. I've have been watching seasons 1-3 on Netflix of 30 Rock and decided that if I had one wish it would be to spend a day with Tina Fey.
I told Steve last night that I feel just like her in many ways.
Example 3: Tina Fey was a virgin until she was 24, well I was VL (virgin lips) until I was 24...that was after my baby fat melted off, I wore make-up, plucked my eyebrows and learned to embrace my womanly figure (and not hide it under men's large Gap shirts like I did in H.S.)
Example 5: I am not refined, I say what I think, I embrace my quirks (yet at the same time try to hide them or at least suppress them when I am in situations where I think I should act like an adult). I think life is weird, I think it's funny when people try too hard to be perfect or proper or act like they've never farted or burped or just been well, human.
I love wrapping gifts at Christmas time. I can be pretty OCD about it. My wrapping paper has to coordinate with my tree and match other wrapped gifts. If I get gifts from people that have random colored wrapping paper on it (even if it is cute) but doesn't match, the gifts go to the back of the tree.
I am fully aware that this is odd behavior, but I love the look of a beautiful Christmas tree with beautifully wrapped presents underneath. I wonder what catalog living would say about that. ;) The good thing is I can totally make fun of myself for doing this.
