Deck The Halls, Y’all!

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Welcome, everybody!

Now since most of you have had to read about our recent move over and over again – and since I haven’t posted any pictures of the house since we’ve been here – this little Christmas bloggy house tour thing-y is the perfect opportunity for me to show you around.

Except I’m not showing you the bedrooms because they’re still a bit of a train wreck. And yes, we’ve been here two weeks now, but I do have a toddler and DO I LOOK LIKE A ROBOT?

Anyhoo.

It’s a wonder that I decorated the front door, because honestly there were bigger and better things I needed to be doing (like, for instance, unpacking our clothes). But I decided that it would bring the little man untold joy to see even a single strand of lights when he was outside, so I threw together a little something.

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Let’s all just pretend that we don’t see that pesky cord over there to the right. ‘Kay?

When you walk in the front door, you’re facing the living room, where Sister and I arranged furniture until 2 in the morning on the Friday that we moved. Neither our backs nor our bladders will ever be the same.  

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(Here’s what you should be ignoring: the pillow in the floor, the couch not centered on the wall-o-windows but OH it will be by this weekend, the three year old who couldn’t even bother to turn around for the photograph.)    

And in the front corner of that room, you’ll find our Christmas tree:  

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I can’t take any credit at all for the beauty of said tree; Mama decorated it for us when we moved in. She and Sister can decorate Christmas trees like nobody’s business. I, on the other hand, am totally intimidated by the whole process and pretty much just stand back and whimper. So it was a HUGE blessing for her to do that for us, especially in the midst of the moving madness.   

And look! Lights!

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FANCY!   

We don’t have a mantel over our fireplace in this house, so I did what any good Southern girl would do given the circumstances: I hung our stockings on the bar. I thought that was pretty resourceful, though I may be setting myself up for scandal what with us being members of a Baptist church and all.

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The dining room is off of the living room, and as you look at this picture just pretend like all the chairs are upholstered in the same fabric because I haven’t exactly gotten around to that particular project yet (see: NOT A ROBOT).   

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On the table at the far end of the room, you’ll find just about the only “collection” I have:  

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I really do treasure them, and during a season when it’s easy to get bogged down in what we’re giving, what we’re getting, what we’re eating and what all we have to do, the nativity scene reminds me of what really matters during this special time of year. 

In Alex’s playroom I put up the tree we got at Home Depot the day after Thanksgiving (remember? it was free!). That’s where I’m putting all the cards we get in the mail, and I can already tell that the Christmas Card Tree is going to be a tradition in our house for many years to come. I just love it.

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I’ll post another picture at the end of the holidays when it’s chock-full-o-cards…it’s been so fun to have our friends’ pictures become a part of our Christmas decorations.   

Well…that’s about it, I reckon…I’ll save pictures of the kitchen and playroom and all that for later since there may be a few other houses you’re hoping to visit today. 

So grab yourself a mug of hot chocolate, get settled in a comfy chair, start clicking on the links (oh, how I hope there are links), and enjoy some of the warmest hospitality that the interweb has to offer.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

A quick reminder: link to your specific post, not to your general blog address. Thanks!

Because I Want To Remember…

…that there was actually a time when he was little enough to stretch out in a chair and take a Sunday afternoon nap.

While wearing Scooby Doo slippers.

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Sweet thing.

By The Time He’s Five We’ll Just Send Out Cards That Say “Imagine How He’s Changed!”

Today I was trying to get a good Christmas card shot of Alex, an undertaking I liken to wrestling with a greased pig. The child is incapable of being still for more than about .4 seconds, which is a bit faster than I can press the button thing-y. As a result, I got lots of pictures that look like this:

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I’m sure to win contests for my photography skills.

The whole episode made me think about how our holiday photo sessions have changed over the last three years.

For example.

For Alex’s first Christmas, we took the picture for our card down in Gulf Shores. It was OCTOBER, you see, and I wanted to make sure that we had ample time to get the perfect shot. Notice the white chenille blanket, the smocked ensemble, the crashing waves, the perfect lighting.

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That afternoon at the beach provided 40 or 50 possible options for the Christmas card, mainly because all we had to do was put Alex on the blanket and make funny noises. He couldn’t crawl, couldn’t walk, and really those are your optimal child photography conditions. It was a great day.

For his second Christmas, the little man was much more mobile and much more opinionated. So I decorated the house within an inch of its life, put Alex in a Christmas sweater, and tried to take the perfect picture. And while we had more than a few images that looked like this –

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– we finally ended up with a sweet little picture for the card:

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Last year I had a two year old, didn’t even bother to decorate the tree before pictures because he’d just want to pull off the ornaments (LOOK! SOMETHING SHINY!), and I ended up with lots of shots like this one (notice the TOWEL under the tree – a real touch of KLASS):

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By the end of our “session” I had nothing for a card, decided to use a picture we’d taken back in the summer at the beach, and was thinking fondly of the days when we were able to just sit him in the floor, make chicken noises, and get one adorable photograph after another.

Which brings us to today.

The outside of the house isn’t decorated. Alex has a cold. But I need a picture for our card.

So I just put him in the driveway with the dogs and let the magic unfold:

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Because nothing says “Merry Christmas” quite like a three year old with a runny nose.

Yep. Totally using a picture from the summertime.

All Ours

Trying to sum up the last four days-o-moving would be impossible, but it’s actually been sort of fun – only it’s a version of fun that entails not knowing where any of my clothes are except for five pairs of flannel pajama bottoms and some Umbro t-shirts that I picked up at the outlet in Destin in 1998.

(I’m sad to say that I have been the antithesis of sassy these last few days – the place where sassy goes to die.)

But Sister and her hubby came down Friday from beautiful Music City USA, and they worked their tails off right along side us. Sister and I arranged furniture until the wee hours of the morning both Friday and Saturday, thus leading me to conclude that OCD is genetic. Because there is NO WAY that either of us was going to sleep until we had every chair, sofa and pillow placed, and when we finally gave up the ghost and went to bed, I think we both dreamed about the angle of the rugs and the placement of the lamps.

(I’m still not satisfied with the lamp placement, by the way, but don’t you fret: if it takes me the rest of my life, I will GET ‘ER DONE. Oh yes ma’am I will.)

Sister also hung the curtains in Alex’s room yesterday, and for those of you who have never seen my sister hang curtains (which I guess is basically, you know, all of you), it is a study in precision. And after much measuring, placing, leveling, examining, studying, drilling, bracketing and hanging, she totally transformed the little man’s room with her excellent window treatment installation skills (which she, by the way, will never deem as excellent, because she will look at the finished product and see five flaws that would go unnoticed by the entire world population except for her, and she will vow to fix those five things that are undetectable to the naked eye on her next visit, even though the curtains are absolutely perfect as-is).

As for Alex, he didn’t see his new house until late yesterday afternoon when Mama and Daddy brought him home, but OH! THE ENTHUSIASM! FOR EVERY! SINGLE! ROOM!

And THE EXCITEMENT! FOR THE PILLOWS! ON HIS BED!

And THE GARAGE! How HE LOVES! THE GARAGE!

I think we can successfully categorize the child as an optimist. A very enthusiastic optimist.

Even this morning, as Alex was eating his whole grain bread with organic fruit preserves chocolate Pop-Tart, he looked around and said, “MAMA! Is this my kitchen? Oh, Mama – I LOVE MY KITCHEN! And MY PLAYROOM! I LOVE MY PLAYROOM!”

His playroom is actually a little sitting room off of the kitchen, and my friend NK had the brilliant idea to make it a place where Alex could entertain himself when I’m cooking or cleaning or whathaveyou. So I found an apple green shag rug at Lowe’s for $47, put a little TV and DVD player in there, added a few baskets of toys, plus a rocking chair, a Christmas tree, and a couple of mismatched pieces of furniture that Sister painted (and totally transformed) – and I adore it. It’s my favorite part of the house.

I’ll post some pictures later. After I, you know, take some pictures. Which is always a good first step in the picture-posting process.

So, in a nutshell, that’s it. We’re nowhere finished unpacking, we have a to-do list a mile long, and we haven’t even started hanging stuff on the walls.

But we love it.

And we’re home.

So We’ve Been A Little Busy

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Bye bye, old house.

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Hello, new house.

It’s good to be home.

And the internet man came!

I’ll update later….

I Don’t Know If I’ve Told You, But We’re Moving

Greetings from Movingville!

Wish you were here!

So that you could haul things!

I can actually appreciate the humor in this part of the process, because at this stage it becomes all about what you can get in the car. Whereas the first phase of moving is all about Being Organized and Packing Boxes Neatly and Labeling Carefully, the second phase is more along the lines of “you know, I really think that if I took out the carseat and folded down the backseat we could probably get two mattresses and an armoire in there. They may hang out of the back window, but that’s fine, because I’ll just secure them by making ropes from my clothes.” 

We do have movers coming Friday to get the big stuff, and all I can say about that is PRAISE THE LORD, OH PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME. 

However, I have to admit that even though moving is tedious, there have been a couple of bright spots. One of those bright spots is this Earth, Wind & Fire song that’s on a Christmas CD that we have. I have listened to it many, many times on the trip between the two houses, and last night I even called my sister in Nashville so that she could boogie down with me as I drove.

Anyhoo. Bright spot #2. Last night when I was on the way home from taking yet another load of stuff to the new house, I had to run in Walgreens for some carpet cleaner. I was way past hungry and knew that there wasn’t anything at home to eat, but I was also too tired to make a decision about where to stop for fast food.

(File under: Pathetic)

So in an act of what can only be termed Dinner Desperation, I bought carpet cleaner, Cheese-Its, and two Take Five candy bars. Never let it be said that I don’t know how to provide some Fine Dining for my husband (Alex is with my parents right now, so he probably had something even more nutritious for supper, something like chocolate Pop Tarts and Coke. With ice cream).

When I got home, I walked in the kitchen and very humbly presented my meager food offerings to D. He grinned and then motioned toward the stove, where I saw a bag from Dairy Queen. And then he opened the freezer to reveal two Blizzards – a small one with Reese’s (for me), and a medium one with Butterfinger (for him) – and all I can say is that my joy, it knew no bounds.

So D pulled some paper plates out of the pantry, and as he was distributing the French fries I said, “You know, nothing says ‘I love you’ like a bag of fast food.”

“It’s true!” he replied. 

And that is why we’re married.