Christmas Cheer

Has it already come and gone?!

The day after Christmas always brings with it a certain amount of sadness. I blame it on my mom. No offense to her (different strokes for different folks), but when we were little Christmas decorations came down on Christmas Day. I wish I was kidding. Granted, we were up at 4am celebrating Santa's arrival and departure so when later afternoon came around and my mom and dad would make the switch so we could spend the afternoon with him and my grandparents, my sister and I felt like it had already been 2 days. It was still an abrupt ending to come home that evening or the next morning and see that life was 'back to normal'; that all the Christmas magic was put up in the attic to wait out another year.

Now that I have my own home, my love and I draw out the Christmas cheer as long as possible. I'd probably keep decorations up longer if it weren't for getting back to teaching so early in January.

Regardless, I tried to document a lot of our cheery moments this year on Instagram. I realized if I made my own hashtag I could see all of those moments at one time. So- until I can get good pictures taken of our holiday home and posts written about what we've been up to to share, I thought I would revive my poor, neglected blog with some warm fuzzies courtesy of Instagram- (Followers welcome: ajatkins4120).

I kicked off my decorating with my Gingerbread Scentsy in the kitchen!

First fire of the year. No stockings hanging- safety first! (Thanks Dad!)

The tree in all its clearance decor glory. I love my tree!

I handmade our stockings this year. I love them.

White silk and spice. Y'all. It's good.

Autumn's first Christmas!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

Another view of our tree.

So glad we get to take time in the year to celebrate our reason for living!

Our wreath. I'm not sure I like the 'a' hanging in the middle. Will tweak for next year.

Someone special got an early Christmas present! Free iPhone 4 upgrade!

Good stuff. Given to me by one of my students. I <3 my church!

Went with simple brown kraft paper and decorative tape this year.

Three sweet snowflakes. We're adding icicles next year.

Christmas lab- turning Poinsettias into pH indicators!!

We spent our last day before Christmas break at school making snowflakes for Sandy Hook children.

First morning of Christmas break!

Someone got a little too excited with his gift... we still can't find the head. Poor hedgehog.

We couldn't wait to give all these presents

Waiting for Santa

The Year Without a Santa Claus- He's Mister White Christmas, He's Mr. Snow!

I made this for my nephew. And it was too small. Boo!

So pleeeease, celebrate me home! Beginning our Christmas festivities!

New tradition- Movies on Christmas Day. We saw Monsters, Inc in 3D. So good!

So, that was a quick run through of our holiday week! I'm looking forward to doing a recap of our Fall (I was horrible at keeping up with this blog. Sorry!) and editing the pictures from Christmas I got to take with my early Christmas present: my new Nikon SLR! Hurrah!

Until then,
-A

House Update!

It's been a little over 7 months since we've been converting our suburban shack into a sweet love nest. Insert *awwww* here. :)

Seriously, though. In all honesty it has gone a lot slower than I originally thought it would. Darn HGTV shows... I guess it doesn't take 30 minutes to reno your house. :P

So the pictures that follow show our progress so far. Please forgive the poor photo quality- my camera is out of comission and I've been using Hubsy's older point and shoot. I just can't get the confounded thing to work the way I want it to!

Hopefully our progress reflects our inspiration, which can be found in my last post. Enjoy our blood, sweat, and tears; and feel free to shoot some love, questions, comments, ideas, and suggestions our way!

P.S. Feel free to take a look around the blog. I've updated the layout, my contact info, and our Furry Family's page with some update pics of Mr. Maverick. Also check out what I'm up to with the Burlap Project!! Looking forward to kicking that page off very soon. :)

P.P.S. You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

I have a pretty major crush on our green curtains. I grabbed them in the store and held on like Rose held on to Jack. Well, until she let him go. Moving on-

I'm so in love with our fireplace. <3

I can't quite reach the top... brainstorming how to get 'er done.

I caulked the heck outta that chair rail! :D

It's still cadaver colored. *gag* All in good time...

I hope you all are having a wonderful start to 2012!! Ours has been full of fun, laughter, and love. I'm looking forward to sharing how God has taught me about perseverance and trusting Him. I also can't wait to roll out some (to coin my husband's favorite synonym for 'great') bangin' burlap projects!

Much love and until next time,

Mental Block

Yeah... pretty much. The words mental block really do kind of capture how I've been feeling toward blogging lately. It's not that I don't want to do it; it's just trying to come up with things that are exciting enough to gush about on here for all of the world and my sweet friends/family to see has been pretty difficult lately. Maybe if I ramble something will come of this. Maybe my block can build a castle. Tee hee hee.

It's getting to be that time of year that I ADORE. Autumn. I love it so much!! There's something about that first good chilly day that makes you slow down for a second and take a deep breath. You feel like you can breathe again!! I smile to myself as I drive to work and see the gorgeous trees proudly showing their robes of red and gold. Man what a beautiful time of year! Oh, and the baking. I love to bake and I love the flavors of Fall: pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, hot chocolate, apple cider, yum yum yum!!!

Something that has been super special this year is our very first fire in our fireplace:

I love fires!!!!! Safe and in their proper place, of course! Josh has done a wonderful job of burning us  some very cozy coals. Not to mention the sultry romance a warm fire brings to a home. :)

With this time of year we remember the things in life that really count; and ironically those tend to be the things that are free: long conversations with old friends over coffee, mornings snuggled with your soul mate dreaming of the future and things to come, cold football games cheering on the old alma mater (and my little brother. \o/ Go PJ!), crunching leaves as you plod down the sidewalk; and let's face it- going out of your way to step on the super crunchy ones, and spending time with loved ones surrounded by a Thanksgiving day parade or football game and tons of food or even glittering trees and presents wrapped in colorful paper, soaking in the last days of the year, listening to the Christmas story, or 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Something about this time of year is just so... perfect.

I guess what they say is true: It's not about the number of breaths you take, but about moments that take your breath away.

I hope you all are enjoying this delicious time of year!! Hug the ones you love and hopefully you will hear more from me soon-- I have more pinteresting things and recipes to share!

Until next time,