Merry Christmas!!

Do you all do holiday/ Christmas cards? I do, I LOVE them! And I'm not ashamed to tell you I ordered ours in mid- November from Tiny Prints my go-to for all cards!!! I'm a big Christmas geek! Though I really don't like to decorate before Thanksgiving! Anyways, since my "real life" cards went out this past week I thought I would share the sentiment with my blogging life friends!!

Hope you all are having a wonderful season and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Christmas at our house

We are all decorated for Christmas and loving the festive spirit- if only we could get this Texas weather to cooperate and give us some festive/ December like weather!

my DIY'ed garlands

looking back at our wreath and baby tree

Without a fireplace mantle we hang our stockings with care on the baker's rack! 

Our Christmas tree! No themes or fancy ideas here- we like to use personal ornaments from our childhood and ornaments we collect from our travels! Also- you'll notice the bottom part of the tree is empty, Sam took it upon himself to start taking down ornaments for us so we are keeping this section empty to avoid any broken/ ruined ornaments

dining room table

breakfast room!! 

This is hardly all of our decorations but certainly the big areas! I hope your house is full of holiday spirit and you take some time to enjoy the season (and avoid the malls!!) 

Baby bump

It's getting bigger folks as I am officially in my third trimester!! Crossing my fingers I don't completely blow up!! I've been pretty happy with my little bump thus far :)

25 weeks

26 weeks- please don't pay any attention to my lack of makeup! There was a time when I would never have considered taking this pic un-made up yet alone post it online but oh how things change! haha

Built in cabinets

We've been talking forever about putting some built ins in our back living room or "wii room!" Pretty much since we moved into our house! But as usual there were a lot of other things on our list that got checked off first. Since we found out we were having a baby this subject has come up again, with more  gusto! See, we don't have a single built in in the house- outside of the kitchen- so storage is at a premium and there is nothing that comes close to providing all of the storage that some built in shelves/ cabinets would provide, so . . . we bit the bullet and I am so beyond happy about it

After getting bids from several cabinetmakers we ended up going with our usual contractor who has done tons of work for us, including most recently the interior doors, and we are always pleased! The most amazing part to me has been how clean and fast they are. In one day we went from this at 9am:

to this around noon:

to this by 5pm:

All in one day!! I was more than impressed. They built everything onsite (in our driveway) and had everything sanded and cleaned up before they left! They measured for all of the doors and came back a week later to add the doors! 

Exactly one week later:

doors! Oh and in case you are wondering- that hole is going to hide our TV wires down to the cable box below! We will be remounting our TV in the same basic spot!

and pretty hardware! 

Then while we are out of town for a few days they came in and painted! 

I didn't want to be here because we are using the oil based paint which just wears so much better but smells TERRIBLE! 

So excited to show you the final product! I am salivating at all this toy (and baby gadget) storage!! 

Christmas garland

So I've always been in love with this garland from Pottery Barn:

It's lovely right? But its also $140 for a 6 foot strand... ugh! Even just to cover my outside columns I would need 4 because six feet really isn't long enough to go all the way around the column more than 1.5 times! So it adds up, fast and P said it was a no go! Clearly the logically decision but I was so sad until I ran across this tutorial for making a DIY version of this garland here! 

Y'all!! This is so simple, I shouldn't have even needed a tutorial but I really just had no idea it would be so simple. Let me warn you though- it is simple but it is definitely time consuming! I'm a little slow and I wasn't totally paying attention, choosing to watch Christmas movies on ABC Family while I did this little project, so each 9 foot garland took me about 2 hours- I think. The first one probably a little longer and the second one went faster as I got the hang of things! 

Just like in the tutorial I picked up two 9 foot pre-lit GE garland from Lowe's and a bunch of ornaments from Hobby Lobby during one of their 50% off decorations week! SCORE! I used only small and medium ornaments, not the large ones and tied them on with some floral wire stuff that looks like green twist ties. 

Here you can see my three tubs of small ornaments- these covered all 18 feet of garland along with 24 (6 packages) of the medium size ornaments that come in 4-packs

This too was in the holiday section at Hobby Lobby on the aisle with their garlands and wreaths. I ended up using two! 

I just cut a bunch of strips of the twist ties into about 3 inch pieces and strung them through the ornaments (do get shatterproof plastic ornaments since these will be outside!) and attached them to the garland. I did all of my larger ornaments first, then came back and filled in space between with the small ornaments. 

I decided to use silver and red like the Pottery Barn wreath AND gold since my front door wreath is all gold- I thought I should bring some gold into the picture! 

Overall I spent about $60 on ornaments and $60 on the two garlands so $120 total vs the $700+ I would have spent to pay for the PB ones. . . while time consuming, I think the 4 hours in "labor" were well spent! 

I'll add pictures of the garlands up outside later when I show you the rest of our Christmas decor! 

House work

In preparation for Baby M we have been doing some work around the house in addition to just planning the nursery!

First and foremost was to replace our worn out/ hollow core doors with some new solid-core pretty pretty doors! I've been wanting to do this for a while and it makes such an amazing difference in the house I can't even tell you! They have so much more character now!

We also painted the office which will become the nursery and finally replaced the large picture window in that room as well! It was the only window we hadn't replaced yet but needed to be replaced with safety glass since it will be in the nursery and it goes so low to the ground!

Before

and after! Yes that's another small sneak of the nursery progress but clearly not how it will end up! (With the printer and extra art hanging around!) 

While we were at it we also painted the shutters on the front of our house. I hadn't realized how terrible they looked until our neighbors painted theirs and I actually stopped to look at our shutters. Such an easy project and WHAT a difference!

Before

After! 

Oh and we finally got a real comforter on our bed after about a year of just using the coverlet! I still want another pillow or two to add to it but we are loving it thus far! 

my new "office"

Well as you know- we are in the process of changing our office into the nursery so we had to find somewhere else for the "office" to go and we are out of rooms! So I knew it would be a corner in some room and after much debate (and at the advice of sweet Holly Mathis) we decided to swap the console table in the guest bedroom for a desk and it's been working out really really well! 

the console table before:

And "office" area now: 

Eventually I plan to get a lateral file cabinet to put on another wall but for now the rolling cart has come  with! 

And since we needed the old office closet and shelves for the nursery I am now keeping extra office supplies in this little cabinet which was previously totally empty! 

This is clearly an old pic- see the corner of the old duvet! 

Even though its smaller and less of an office, P and I actually like it so much better! I have loved this room since we painted it navy and added the new grey and white striped bedding from West Elm so I LOVE sitting in this room! And P loves coming and sitting/ relaxing on the bed to chat while I'm working! 

And the desk/ chair/ whole set up is just prettier! And who doesn't love working with pretty surroundings?? Much more inspiring than an office cubicle if you ask me! 

*The new desk is from Overstock and the acrylic chair is from the Tobias chair from Ikea! I am about to go back and get some for our breakfast room too because it is SOOOO comfortable I can't even get over it! Oh and it took about 5 minutes to throw together!