It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas....

I never decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I like to enjoy all holidays to the fullest. You better believe that the day after Thanksgiving Mark and I were talking about Christmas though.

We were very excited to get a tree put up in our living room. Saturday we went out hunting for our tree. The first place we went to there was a caribou that was seriously adorable! I think I could someday own one of those and be perfectly content. 

We had no luck with a tree there, but kept running Christmas errands and looking while we were out.  We did come across another tree lot and found our perfect tree. Mark can take the credit for officially deciding, but we both agreed that it was a great fit for our house.  

While Mark worked on the lights I started decorating the house.  I love getting out all of my cute Christmas decorations and rearranging them to look different each year. I was pretty pleased with how everything turned out.

Since I have SO many decorations I decided to surprise Mark and decorate our bedroom also.  It has been fun to lay in bed at night and talk with the little Christmas tree all lit up.

 After a couple of trips to the store to return lights.... (UGH!) we finally got our tree decorated! I really enjoy wrapping presents and I had been wrapping for weeks so finally all of those were able to go under the tree as well. No, they are not all for us! We have 11 nieces and nephews, parents, and siblings we bought for! 

We are ready to celebrate!

Thanksgiving

I'm loving our year of FIRSTS! 

It's so fun to look forward to the holidays and creating our own traditions.  This year we stayed in Utah for Thanksgiving. Since my family all had made plans already we had my parents fly out and stay with us for a few days.  I always love having them around and it was fun to get to spend some time with them.

On Thanksgiving we went to the Urry's house. Mark's parents hosted siblings, grandparents, aunts, and cousins. We had a great time and everyone was kind to my parents as well. Who doesn't love Thanksgiving?? The food alone is reason to love the holiday.

On Wednesday night we decided to head downtown. We walked around City Creek and then headed over to the temple. It wasn't lit yet, but it was beautiful as always. 

Since my mom was coming I decided to wait and get her expertise on a few Christmas sewing projects. I'm getting better, but sometimes I have a hard time figuring out directions simply because I don't have the experience. Plus I always want everything to look perfect. 

I grew up with homemade stockings and so did Mark. Now that I have started sewing, I knew that I really wanted to make our stockings. I found super cute material and was able to make these (with the help of my mom).

Mark's is with stripes and mine has mini Christmas trees. I still think I might put our initials on them, but for now I really love them.

 

I made a Christmas table runner a few weeks back with some awesome fabric I had found. I had a bunch of extra material because of course I calculated wrong. Lucky for me though, I had just enough to make two pillow slip covers!!! I love them and they add just the right touch to our couch.

My mom and I also did a little bit of shopping, but really nothing too crazy. Mark and I my Dad went and hit a bucket of balls and had guy time while we sewed. 

It was a wonderful holiday week. I loved being able to spend time with some of my most favorite people! Very grateful for all that I have in my life.