this last Monday, i went on a cleaning frenzy and cleaned the entire house.

every square inch.

on Tuesday, i woke up to a very sick little boy with the stomach flu. (poor little guy)

i had to pretty much disinfect every square inch all over again. (never mind, that our house is only 850 square feet.)

oiy. motherhood has its challenges and its ironies.

the plus side, was that i was able to sneak in some pictures on Monday afternoon of our home decorated for Christmas. also, it’s been a quiet, lazy week at home and i have to say, i’ve greatly loved the downtime and an excuse to not rush around.

and also a chance to cuddle on the couch with my littlest man and admire the lighted tree (and watch way too much tv).

here’s what our view looked like:

i like to keep our Christmas decorations pretty simple. i pretty much just use what i have on hand. last year was our first time having a real normal sized (larger than 2 feet) Christmas tree, and i realized we didn’t have that many ornaments. we had been given a small set of vintage looking glass ornaments from my husband’s grandmother when we were first married, but it wasn’t enough to fill up the tree. so, i made some pinwheel ornaments out of book pages to fill in the empty spots.

(my son desperately wants to be a fireman when he grows up. can you guess which ornament is his favorite?)

do you have a Christmas pickle on your tree? i was kind of sad to find out that, what i thought was a German tradition, is not really German at all. nonetheless, we like to keep the tradition going every year.

i had been eyeing this great tree garland on instagram for a few months.

i finally scored one at The Holiday Market a few weeks ago.

i just love it!

i have a thing for trees.

my mantle has a little winter wonderland with loads of little trees.

and a little truck from the cabin, and a house i recently found while thrifting.

last year for Christmas, we got a bunch of hand made ornaments from my husband’s grandma (the same one who gave us our first collection of ornaments).

i can’t even imagine how long it took her to put each pin and sequin together to make these. we adore them and always will. especially, since she made them.

you know what else i adore?

this sweet little nativity. my hubby found it at the thrift store. i had mentioned to him that i really wanted to get a little nativity set that our son could play with. my goal this year, since he is of age to start understanding, is for him to learn the real story of Christmas. when i was a little girl, my most vivid memory of Christmas was playing with our nativity set that looked like a real rustic wood stable, complete with hay. i loved setting it up and playing with the figures. i’ve always been a visual/tactile learner, so it made it easier for me to understand the story of Jesus’ birth.

the first night i told him about Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the journey the wise men went on, he was wide eyed and wanted to hear it over and over again. it made my heart so happy.

(one of the wise men had a little accident. he’s been repaired thanks to some trusty hot glue.)

as much as i love the cute little trees, the sparkly ornaments,

and the soft glow of the lights throughout our house at night,

i really just want our son to grow up knowing the real reason for the season. the special birth of our Lord and Savior.

wishing each of you a very Merry Christmas.

hi friends!!

hope ya’ll are having a great week.

i am now healthy and well from walking pneumonia and back in the game of getting stuff done.

in fact, i think my meds worked so well, they transferred some sort of energy ball serum into my blood that made me go a little crazy with finishing up my son’s room. it’s  been the one area of our house that never really seemed pulled together. perhaps it was the stage of going from a nursery to a big boy’s room that always felt a little unfinished.

well, now it feels done (or at least for now. considering i just did a post about the antler dream catcher above his bed, that has already been moved. i was having nightmares that he was going to get stabbed by an antler in the middle of the night. it had to move).

wanna take a look?

come on….i know you’re just a wee bit curious about where the antlers moved to.

or what is now above his bed.

it’s not nearly as exciting as giant antlers.

but, the thought of a paper garland accidentally floating down and plopping on my son’s face is easier to handle than an antler stab.

don’tyathink?

see that bedding? that’s what started the ball rolling with getting our boy’s room done.

or maybe it was his bed guard that my hubby decided it would be a good idea to use as a seat and snapped it in half (the one in the pic is an extra we had at our family cabin. i’m kinda liking the back up one better. my mom and i found this old gem at a garage sale up in the mountains).

well, after buying the bedding at Ikea and an ice cream cone (it’s an essential staple when we go), i realized on our way home that i forgot to pick up one of those cute little book shelves that everyone has pinned on Pinterest. ya know what i’m talking about? i really wanted one for our boy for two reasons: 1.) they’re cute and 2.) i’m hoping that he’ll wake up on a Saturday morning and get distracted by a book and we’ll get an extra twenty minutes to sleep in.

wishful thinking?

maybe. but worth a shot, huh?

i remembered i had an old broken drawer in the garage that i might be able to use as a shelf.

it worked. i’m jazzed.

i’m also jazzed that his antlers found a safe home, on a wall with no cute sleeping child underneath.

speaking of home. have you seen the Finding Fall Home Tours going on right now?

you’re not going to want to miss it.

it has some major decorating eye candy.

and some great ideas to make your home feel like Fall (especially for us Californians. we need all the help we can get with this 90 degree weather).

so, go check it out.

and then ask them if i can play along, too, next year! 😉

what about you? are you ready for Fall?

hi friends!

hope everyone had a great weekend. i spent the weekend in San Diego for a bachelorette party for a good friend of mine. we had a blast!

we had such a blast, that i completely overlooked house tour tuesday. whoops!

so, since i didn’t set up a tour of a house in time to take pictures for today, i took some pictures of our nook in our house.

it’s a small space, located in the kitchen. when we first moved into our little house we used it in the traditional way of a small dining area. it worked for what we needed, but it was quite squished when we had company over.

so, after rearranging some rooms around last Christmas, this little space became our office area. it works much better for our family.

it gives me a place to gift wrap, or get crafty. and it gives my husband an area to do our bills (not so fun for him, but practical).

there is also a little area for our son to eat lunch, or paint, or play chalk on his chalkboard table.

across from the desk is a message center that lets me organize invitations.

or display quotes that speak to me.

or cute little tags from my favorite store in Old Towne Orange (Eikon Home).

across from the message center is a little shelf that i found at Homegoods (love that store!). i painted it blue and distressed it.

and then filled it with some of my vintage moonstone dishes,

and old spoons my dad gave me that were my great grandfathers from the early 1900’s.

i topped it with a few keepsakes from our wedding (the starfish were our party favors for our guests).

and because no room is complete in our home without a skeleton key. i added some of those, too, hanging from the old ironing board door that is original to the house (i love all of the nooks and crannies old houses have!).

thanks for stopping by! have a great week!

i know i hinted last week about being ‘green with envy’ or ‘tickled pink,’ for our house tour this week, but you’ll have to stay tuned. i also said i would actually post ‘house tour tuesday’ on tuesday, not wednesday. but see, i haven’t gone to bed yet, so it’s still tuesday to me. what can i say, i’m a night owl!

Anyhoo, (haha..get it? i’m an owl. ok. moving on), i thought i would give you a glimpse of our home. it’s only about a minute long and i only have two rooms to show you (because these were the two that were clean).

and though i still have quite a few projects to do and painting to finish, i thought i would go ahead and share our space and the place we call home.

i don’t think i’ll do much talking tonight. just let you look around. before i do, i want to add, that our home has been created using either hand-me-downs, thrift store finds, Craigslist finds, consignment store purchases, or side of the road finds.

it doesn’t take a lot of money to make a house a home. just some patience, a little creativity, and a hot glue gun! (heh)

with that being said….welcome, come on in.

our entryway/dining room

our family room

our little hallway

thanks for stopping by! come on back (when the rest of the house is clean 😉