The spring started off great. I thought about a garden again and expressed that I would love to have a spot for one to anyone who would listen. Then my secret pal from WOM gave me such a cute little basket of goodies mostly related to gardening. Just look at the cute notebook, too. This was a perfect gift for me (so I know my secret pal knows me pretty well!)

Then, last week our neighbor Mr. P came over and broke up the ground for us. Here is our beautiful spot of dirt. Of course I took pictures – this will be our first garden!

After that was done, I sat down and said what next? I had no clue where to start. So my husband called his dad, the master gardener, and he came over Sunday afternoon. He told me how to plant so that plants wouldn’t shade others and what to do to get straight rows and told me how to plant the seeds and what I shouldn’t put close together. He showed me how to use the tiller and how to make a hill…and he and my husband did a lot of the work, but I did help… See:

I learned so much and I hope that all my plants grow and are fruitful. Here is the first row – tomatoes.

We planted tomatoes, corn, green beans, green and banana peppers, cucumbers, decorative gourds, cantaloupe, kale, broccoli, zinnias & wildflowers and made a seperate garlic bed. I recorded all of it in my new, pretty notebook:) There are many other things I’d eventually like to plant, but I think if this stuff grows I will be having enough fun. I can’t wait to make pickles and can tomatoes out of my own garden!

As it grows I’m sure I’ll show more pictures. If you haven’t tried gardening, you should. Just find someone who knows what they’re doing and learn everything you can from them. If I hadn’t had that my plants would have just been thrown all willy-nilly and who knows if I would have gotten anything! (I guess in gardening there is always a chance you won’t get anything – so I still might not – but here’s hoping!)

Welcome to our home. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay!

As you come up our front steps you’ll be greeted by these cute snowmen that my husband’s Aunt Regina painted for us. I just love them and although they saw a rough winter last year they are still standing.

Well, don’t stand there all day! Come inside:) As you walk inside you’ll be greeted by our fireplace. I framed the entryway to the kitchen in tinsel to hang our Christmas cards. I have to have some sparkle!

The living room also houses our Christmas tree. I decided to keep it simple this year and just do lights and my favorite ornaments. No tinsel, no ribbon and no topper… The top of the tree is my favorite; that is where I always put our “First Christmas” ornament and each of our children’s “First Christmas” ornaments. Having our family ornaments up there all together makes me happy.

You’ll also see my “new” decoration of pine cones, twigs & candles that I put together. Simple things make the best decorations sometimes, don’t you think? I put my nativity up on a shelf so that it wouldn’t get broken. I’d been wanting this willow tree one for a while and my mom bought it for my last year. As I was taking it out of the box it said to be very careful with Joseph so his arm would stay intact; I didn’t think my kids needed to be able to reach him!

Come into the kitchen – I’m not going to show you the whole thing, because it’s messy! I’ve got more baking to do today on the bottom half, but look up at my favorite plates:) I’m so excited that in this house I can put things up on my cabinets and hang garland there. I’ve not been able to do that in our other homes.

The only place I had for my old but cute wreath is on the door to our sunroom. Go on out there…

This is my current workspace (one of them – I’m sure Kody thinks the whole house is my workspace). I had to decorate it a little bit too:)

If you go upstairs, you’ll be in the kids domain. They have decorations all over their rooms, but here is the tree that they set up and decorated themselves. Kody did help a little with the tree set up, but we didn’t give other instruction. They had a lot of fun decorating:) The books under the tree are all of our Christmas books – really most of them are just winter books, I guess we need a few good ones. And of course no home with children would be complete without a few Christmas-y stuffed animals!

I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit. :) Our decorations are simple, but make us happy. There are many small things you didn’t see, but I thought it best not to take pictures of everything. If you stop back by later, I’ll have some cookies for you!

From our home to yours – Have a Very Merry Christmas!

*This post if linked to on The Nester’s Christmas Tour of Homes. Go there to see many more blogs with inspiration for your decorations! Also, please excuse all our unfinished bits that you see in the photos – our home is a work in progress and we have much more to do before it is “finished.”

For those of you who don’t read here and are just visiting from BooMama’s, we just bought a house 2 weeks ago and it is in need of a lot of inside work. We have been cleaning and ripping out carpet and getting it ready for the actual work. We are planning to actually start living in the house on July 5 (or maybe sooner if we have a mattress to sleep on over there), so it would be nice if some of the rooms were done by then. I’m sure we’ll be working on many of the things long after we have moved though.

My list of immediate goals:
Replace the Kitchen Floor
Paint as many rooms as I can find people to paint! (I would love to just dive in myself, but I am pregnant right now, so am not supposed to)
Replace some of the light fixtures with ones that work
Plant more things outside
Order curtains and hang for the living room
Actually get moved in and settled before the baby is born!

There are millions of other things to do, but that is my personal list. Kody is working on the other things that I cannot do and hopefully he will have a little help from people who know what they are doing!

So, here is the button if you want to see what some others goals are or participate yourself. I can’t wait to see some finished things!

BTW – I am planning to post rooms as I get them done, so the pictures may not all be in the post on July 25:) Have a blessed day everyone!

The first picture is of our large tree, which isn’t very large, but is about all we can fit here without a fire hazard. We just have lots of family ornaments…not a theme like many people do now. Some of the ornaments are mine from when I was little and most of them are either the kids now or ones that we have bought or received as presents since we’ve been a family. And yes…I’m done Christmas shopping and they are pretty much all wrapped and under the tree:)

The next picture is of a new addition for this year. Kristopher was wanting a small tree and we passed some in the store and I told him we’d think about it and then the next thing on the wall was a bunch of trees for $1! I didn’t have to think anymore:) It has some of our smaller ornaments on it and it sits on the kids book/toy shelf. I think there must have been a fire on top of it since the firetruck basket has been elevated to that height!

Third, are my favorite red and white candles in a chimney box. The chimney was one of my Aunt’s decorations that she gave to me several years ago and I love it. I bought the candles at JC Penney last year and the year before. I wish I’d gotten more, they are my favorite Christmas candles.

The next thing isn’t really a Christmas decoration, since we leave them out all year, but it is about Christmas! We bought 4 coasters from Wendell August Forge in Grove City Pennsylvania this summer with a little display rack. We don’t use them as coasters since they are so nice, but I love to look at them. The coaster that is displayed now is Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus for obvious reasons…we also have “Praying Hands“, “Noah’s Ark” and “Blessing“. If you want some beautiful pieces that have been handcrafted go check out their stuff!

Next up is another new display for this year in our home. I already had the little church, but I saw the [sparkly ivory] snowflakes and [ivory and gold] candles when I was shopping and thought that would be beautiful for our kitchen bar area. I really like how they look and they are right next to the tree so that is probably my favorite corner (all my books are there too).

Last I love this little snowman candy dish and mug tray. I’ve had these for a few years and I don’t use them too much during the holidays, but I love to look at them. The snowman makes me smile every time I see him:) Behind him you can see the back of another little snowman and candle that sit by our telephone. I have lots of snowmen placed around the house just because they make me happy.

That about covers it. I’d like to have some garland somewhere, but I just don’t. Merry Christmas to anyone still reading! Here’s some punch since you came to visit and I made you look all around:)

Christmas Punch from my Nana

2 Quarts Cranberry Juice Cocktail
Juice of 4 Lemons (3/4 cup)
1 Quart of Orange Juice
2 Quarts of Ginger Ale
1/2 Cup Sugar
Thin Orange Slices
Thin Lemon Slices
Halved Maraschino Cherries

Mix Juices and sugar. Heat well. Cool. Pour into punch bowl over ice. Add chilled ginger ale, pouring slowly down the side of the bowl. Makes about 6 quarts. Trim with floaters (1 orange slice, 1 lemon slice, 1 halved cherry) put in an ice mold made with ginger ale and fruit. Enjoy!

I also wanted to put in this picture of Taylor because she was following me around and holding her bear:) She kept asking me what I was doing and wanted to be in a picture too. So here she is!