around the house and holiday stuff

I have had such a nice day and a half off (I had yesterday off, and I start work today at 2 or so).  I finally got to getting things done around the house!  Shea has been so clingy lately, and I've been so tired when I get home from work lately, that I felt like I would never catch up!  There is still a lot to do, but the main living area is cleaned (and decorated for Christmas - probably the reason there are still areas I need to clean), and the laundry is mostly caught up (just needs to be put away).  Our christmas lights are hung up outside (we strung them along our picket fence and Jeremy decorated a tree outside), and there are ornaments hung in one of our windows with lights.  It makes me happy.


And I apologize, I was going to resize and edit the pictures so they didn't spam the whole page, but I'm being LAZY today.  SO there. Mine will never look as nice as Angela's anyway :)


So, today I finished making our stockings.  Our old ones were falling apart, and Shea's didn't really match anyway.  Plus I had a ton of burlap sitting around.  I love how simple they look - I might add some sort of cute embellishment in the corner, but its good.

We don't have a mantle right now, but they work hanging near the tree (which is sadly fake this year, but free, so that was good) on the window-sill (please ignore the hideous window treatment. Haven't gotten to that yet.) 

Plus, we'll be needing another one, anyway.

My other big project I did yesterday was finally getting to our built-in bookcase.  I don't have a good "before" picture, but I found this one so you can at least see the stenciling that was on it and the lovely red checkered paper that was hot-glued down by the owner.  Yeah.  That definitely had to go.

I found the paint in the bathroom with all the other paint the owner left here and after tearing off the paper and picking off all the hot glue pieces, painted over the stenciling and touched up any other areas that needed it.  Then I got out all of our picture frames and starting updating some pictures (I realized I hadn't gotten any printed from the last year!  Remedied that at target yesterday.)  Still need to work on that bottom shelf, but its okay for now.

I made the "Peace Joy" artwork out of some stamps and cardstock.  I got that frame from my preschool class, so I just put the poem that was in it in my scrapbook and now I have a free space filler for Christmas.

Aah.  So much better.

And here are some other various decorations.

  

Otherwise, I have been sick and tired lately, and I'm sure you'll have figured out why by the end of this post.  Oh we also got a Wii as an early family christmas present, so Jeremy and I have been playing that together lately, and its been fun.   We also rearranged the living room and I like it a lot better now, because a couch actually faces the TV and its way more cozy.  Yes.  These are the exciting happenings of my life.  :)

And you girls really need to post more.

Just saying'.