My House: Holiday Decorations Are Up!

Here's how it usually goes in my house (and this year is no exception):

We pick out a tree, and Bobby sits and eats appetizers and watches football while Ellie decorates, Patrick rests from carrying it in, and I take pictures:

Ooops, almost forgot the outfit:

Bobby's contribution - jumping into the picture to mess it up.  

Man, 12 year old boys can be silly!

 Then the tree falls over at some point.
Again, no exception this year!
I didn't take pictures because I was too annoyed.
So, we picked up all the broken glass and decorated it again.
Here it is decorated for a second time:

This process always happens on the day after Thanksgiving.  

As part of the tradition we also make our first batch of Christmas cookies.  

Here are the kids decorating them.  

Ellie licked the frosting on every single one she made, as she was making it.  

We had a separate place for Ellie's cookies, needless to say.

 Here is the mantel that I did - simple, but I like it:

And a couple of  shots from the kitchen looking into the family room:

One of my favorite traditions that I started when Bobby was first born is buying each of them a snowglobe each year. I write the name and date on the bottom so we remember who it belongs to and what year we got it.  We now have a collection of 21.  Finding a place for them gets harder every year, but I love how they look when I do figure it out.

This year, I made this tiered vignette out of them:

Here is what I did in past years:

And a few tables from previous years (I haven't done this year's yet):

And here is Ellie's Nutcracker colection:

And Ellie REALLY wanted me to show you her holiday dress - she is modelling it for me here.  I wish I could just freeze her right this very second!

My Favorite Deals From Across the Internet. 

Updated Daily. Sometimes hourly:

             

Enter your email address to receive posts by email:

Thanks for reading!

A New Kitchen Chandelier For Me, and Holiday Table Setting Ideas (Part 2)

Here is part two of my favorite holiday table setting ideas for this year, and then my new kitchen chandelier at the end.  Enjoy!

Images

Will you look at this!?!?! This sale is unbelievable - I'm about to buy a bunch of stuff for clients because the prices are incredible. This first mirror, which is 24", is only $68  . And then the chandelier below it is only $40!!!   Isn't that amazing??

Click to view

And I love this dining room sale, where my new 

kitchen chandelier is back!

(Here it is in my kitchen - I haven't shown it before :)

 

          

_________________________________________________________

*See My 15 Most Popular Posts HERE!
a
_________________________________________________________

And on my other blog, Mary Jane's Makeup, today:

"The BEST Makeup Trick Everyone Should Know"

_______________________________________________________

mmmaaa

_________________________________________________________

  Let's Be Friends:
If you are reading this post in an EMAIL and want to like of Facebook, CLICK THE BLUE BLOG TITLE, not the Like box, below.  Sorry, Like boxes don't work in emailed posts unless you GO TO THE PAGE BY CLICKING THE TITLE of the blog. Thanks a lot Facebook!  

               

     

               

 

This stuff is AWESOME: 

a