Being Thankful

I really want to take a moment to stop, reflect and be thankful. It would be easy for Tim and I to forget about all the holidays this year when our house is being turned upside down as we get ready for the baby, work on the bump out and refinish our floors.

But I am determined to take a moment to take a deep breath and give thanks to a few deserving people.

1) I am thankful for my husband.

We have been so crazy these last few months that we can't help but get on each other's nerves sometimes. But that doesn't stop Tim from bending over backwards to make sure he can get as much done as he can for us. That includes staying up late and waking up extra early to jam as much work in one day as he can. Not only is he a loving, caring husband and partner in crime but he is already an amazing father to our pup and our growing baby girl. :) I have told him repeatedly that there is no one else I could do this with and I really mean that.

2) Our Family and Friends

We have had to cash in a lot of favors over the last couple of months. Between working on the bump out and moving everything out of our house (and now back in) we have been relying on some awesome friends and family who have really come through. It just goes to show you how important it is to have a support system and to acknowledge their generosity and help. So thank you to all of our friends and family who have been there to throw us an awesome baby shower (more details on that later), work on the bump out, paint parts of the nursery and help us move out of the house for the floors. Words can't express how grateful we are for your support and we hope you all know we would do the same for you in a heartbeat. :)

3) Our pup

Yes- James gets a special shout out as well. It is not easy to have two crazy parents who are working around the clock and changing everything around on them but he has been as cool and understanding as any dog can be. He has really gone with the flow and just been there for us with cuddles and an excited tail wag. He was a little hesitant with us at first for getting rid of the carpet...

... but in the end he got over it and let us do our thing. So thank you James for always being such a great dog for our changing family. We know that you are going to be a great big brother who will love his little sister (especially when she starts dropping food). Our lives wouldn't be the same without you.

4) Our growing family

It wouldn't be right if I left out one of the biggest things I am thankful for...our baby girl.

Tim and I are so excited to meet this growing little girl. She has been very understanding with all the work we have been doing to get ready for her. That includes helping me have a relatively uneventful pregnancy so I can continue to work full time and work on the house at night. And when Tim and I are feeling really stressed and worried that things won't get done, she gives us a little kick to remind us why we are doing all this. So thank you baby girl. Mom and Dad can't wait to meet you soon! #lessthan2weekstogo.

There are so many other things to be thankful for but this post is already making my hormones go crazy. So I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and takes some time to stop and remember what they are thankful for!

Getting festive: Spring Mantle

Special Tuesday post! I was excited about my little project on Sunday and wanted to share. I am not much for decorating for every holiday. I prefer seasonal decoration except for Halloween or Christmas but I couldn't resist brightening up our mantle a little. A little disclaimer: we need to scrub the fireplace. It got a great workout this winter but I haven't gotten around to it.

The theme is spring but you will see Easter eggs in the vases. This decorating was all free since I just used what I had and what my mom gave me from her collection. But enough talk. Let's get some more sunshine in this blog.

I made this banner by printing out the free labels on BHG.com and spelling out Springtime!. I hung it up with yarn. A free and simple banner.

It was simple to grab things around the house to tie it all in. The wrapped wine bottles, you may remember are from an earlier project. I grabbed books with light, spring colors and various vases for the decorative wooden eggs that my mom gave me.

Here is the other angle.

For fun I added some really colorful easter baskets for a punch of strong color.

Thats all I got. Short and Sweet. Did you decorate for spring? Send me a picture. Anyone else love spring as much as me? :)

It's a Christmas Craptacular

Remember the post about my office decorations?

Well I got the inspiration from another Matthews that knows how to decorate for Christmas...



That's Tim's Uncle Phil and his beautiful wife, Sharon. Every year they welcome us into their home to experience what has been lovingly referred to as the Matthews Christmas Craptacular. For as long as I have known this family, Uncle Phil has been decorating the inside of their house for Christmas. It's not just a simple tree with stockings on the mantle. It is every decoration you can think of in every direction you can imagine.


Maybe instead of trying to explain it, I should show you what I mean. Get ready...

See what I mean?

Let's break down all the awesome work that that man goes through for his family and friends to enjoy.

1) First all of the kitchen cabinets are carefully wrapped in decorative Christmas wrapping.
2) Lights are hung around the perimeter with care.
3) Next, the chandelier over the dining room table is decked out in Snowman lanterns, garland, and ornaments.
4) Ornaments and strings of beads are hung from the ceiling.
5) I am sure there are a ton of decorations that I am leaving out but let's keep moving.

Impressive right? It's like Christmas Exploded in their house. Here are some more angles for you to get the real idea of the awesome decor.

Here is a blurry glimpse of the mantle and bookcases in the living room. They are covered with every stuffed animal for Christmas you can think of as well as garland and mini Christmas trees galore.

What's that you say? You want another close up of that chandelier in the first picture. Okay.

It's beautiful. I love the ornaments from the ceiling. He spent 8 hours hanging each of those ornaments. First he hot glued fishing line to the ceiling where he wanted the ornaments. Then he went back when they were dry and hung all of the ornaments. It's pretty amazing and time consuming.

Finally I have a picture of their tree but I have to warn you. It is much more impressive in person. Most of the ornaments seen in the picture are actually moving and making noise. There are more disco balls on there then you realize. I wish I took a better picture but I was too busy stuffing my face full of delicious dips and chatting with family that I forgot to snap one later.

It's pretty big. I couldn't even get it all in the shot. I love the disco balls. It makes me want to get some for our tree next year.

So that is a glimpse into one of our most treasured family traditions... visiting Uncle Phil's Christmas Craptacular.

What's your favorite part? Mine is hands down the ornaments hanging from the ceiling. 

PS: In case your wondering, the outside of his house only has a single lit star guiding you to their house. :) It's simple and gives no indication of what awaits you inside.



Merry Christmas...Cards!

Since this is probably one of the last posts until the New Year, I wanted to show you our Christmas Card. Holiday cards are one of my favorite parts of Christmas. Checking the mailbox everyday in December becomes enjoyable. The hubby leaves me the cards when he collects the mail so I can open them with him. Isn't that sweet? :)

Since I got swamped and never made the clothespin wreath that I saw in pinterest, I decided to display our cards we received by taping them to our entry wall.

Look how great and full it looks? It brings a smile to my face to see all the well wishes from family and friends as soon as I walk in the door. As for us, we decided to go with a picture from our October winter wonderland family portrait session that we surprised my mom with. Did you know if snowed in the Philly area on Halloween? And that that is the only snow we have had this season? Its true. It was a bummer it snowed on Halloween but it allowed us to get some great shots for holiday cards. Check out what picture we picked.

courtesy of Rachel Beck Photography

I love that we actually got James to look at the camera for us. So from us to all of you out there, we wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!

Christmas Decorating Flashback- Outdoors

So yesterday I gave you a glimpse into our little home and how we decorated for the holidays last year. Simple and to scale with our small ceilings and our smaller living space. For the outside, hubby and I both knew we wanted to have lights outside. I mean- who doesn't love driving by neighborhood houses all lit up? I know I still look forward to seeing all of them. Our house would be no exception.

Tim got to work on the outside.

 

If you remember we have a tree out front. Well ever since we saw this house, Tim knew he wanted to wrap it in Christmas lights when the time came. He got his wish 5 months later. Look how happy he is! :)
After that we tried to figure out how to decorate the rest of the house. Here were some of the issues we needed to address:

1) our house windows were not completely symmetrical. (The previous owners covered up one of the windows to gain space in the kitchen.)

2) The slant on our roof is so severe that it would be a little too dangerous to try and outline the whole house. 

3) we wanted to decorate our house but didn't want to be "that" house that went a little to extreme.

My in-laws solved the first problem. We inherited this holiday projector that (you guessed it) projected holiday images onto the house. We decided to balance out the window with a simple winter image. Next we decided to outline the small porch with white lights since we couldn't outline the whole house. Finally we used all white lights so they would be cohesive and simple candles and stockings in the top windows to spread cheer without blinding the neighbors.

I loved how it came out. It added just the glow we wanted. Here it is from another angle.

I was so in love with our house the whole month of December. I loved pulling into the driveway and seeing those lights twinkle. 

So what about you guys? Do you decorate the outside of the house too? Do you go all out or just stay simple?

Christmas Decorating Flashback- Indoors

I know...two days in a row! and with a broken computer and everything! How does she do it? Thank God for phone apps. Thats all I'm saying.

With Christmas only 5 days away (how did that happen?!) I find myself thinking back to our first Christmas in the house and how excited we were to decorate a whole house however we wanted to.  Here are some pics and tips to decorating a smaller house. (our ceilings are only 7 feet high!)

Look how peaceful our puppy looks!

We went pretty simple last year. We focused a lot on the tree and the mantle. A great tip with a small space is not to overdo it. We had a few Christmas statues on the coffee table and a manger on the small table by the window. Since we couldn't move our furniture too much due to limited space, we needed to get creative.

Our Christmas Tree was one of my favorite things to decorate. We inherited a lot of ornaments from both of our parents so it was nice to incorporate them into our new decorations. Here we focused on red, green and gold ball ornaments to unify the tree amongst all the various decorations. My parents also had some leftover little snowmen that I thought would be a nice touch to add to our tree. We went with a 6 foot tree so it didn't look like we were trying to jam it into our little house. It may be small but it is perfect for the space.

On a side note, I have to tell you a secret...having a fireplace is just as much fun as everyone says it is! When we were house hunting we had a fireplace on our "want" not "need" list but we happened to get lucky when we found this house. We love it and we really use it all the time. It makes our already cozy house seem even more charming. 

For decorations on the mantel we went pretty simple. We did 2 wrapped garlands lit in white lights. (We scored them at Walmart for like $2.50 a strand!) Then we just decorated it with some simple fake poinsettia flowers and a little Charlie Brown Christmas figurines. Tim loves Charlie Brown Christmas so we picked these up when they were on sale last year. The Santa in the middle was actually something we inherited from our in laws. I love Santa's and this one had a globe and everything.

So there are a few pictures of how we look our main room and made it a little more festive. In a small space, simple was better.

Is everyone done decorating? Did you go with a theme or just put up your favorite decorations? How about shopping? I just finished yesterday! I even tried not to procrastinate.

Gingerbread house show down

So while my computer situation is still going on, I thought I would share with you a time honored tradition with our best friends...making gingerbread houses... out of graham crackers. In our defense we tried using real gingerbread one year and it was a disaster. 

Over the years we have slowly perfected the art of creating them and there is really only one rule: no kits!

(warning these pics were taken with my phone so the quality is awful)

This year we really knocked them out of the part. We consider no roof collapses a successful night.

Take a look at our masterpieces.

We have mine.

Hubby's- his is apparently called "frosty's last stand" (boys- haha)

And our friends who knocked it out of the park!

Look at that chimney and the right one is a replica of these house- aww

Wow- those doors rock!

First submarine gingerbread house!

All in all it was our best one yet! It is a tradition I hold near and dear to my heart and its always a ton of fun to bust on each others houses.

Do any of you make gingerbread houses? Any traditions you have with your friends during this season?

Christmas invasion at work

So while my computer is getting fixed, I thought I would show you guys how I decked out my office window for Christmas. A small tree and some left over decorations we couldn't fit on the tree make it ready for the holidays. It's definitely a Matthews craptacular so enjoy!