Walking into the New Year

I'll be following these little people.

And walking together with him.

Can't wait to see where we end up in 2012.

Merry Christmas!!

Going Grey - the coffee table

Let's talk about the coffee table I got from my mom that used to belong to my Grandmother. Here it is medium brown stain, very shiny and classic.

Then a few months ago I decided to finally go ahead and paint it grey. So I sanded it. And it sat there ugly and sanded but not painted for quite sometime.

Then I got a bit organized and primed it with the killz spray primer we had in the basement. I kinda liked it white. And I'm lazy. So it stayed white for a while.

Then we had that big baby shower in October so I thought I'd better get organized. I bought some grey paint and went for it. It's not perfect, it needs another coat when the weather warms up. But I like it grey. I want more of my furniture to go grey this summer. Or maybe the walls. You never know.

Anyway, back to the coffee table. I think it looks more modern and you can see the details even better now that it's painted. Love it!

Deck the Halls

Almost every year I have some kind of a theme. Usually rustic Christmas with natural greens and browns and some burgundy thrown in to be festive. Last year it was more teal and burgundy. I usually pick a wrapping paper theme and go from there. This year's theme is relaxed Christmas. We used up bits of all the half rolls of wrapping paper and cut bits of that paper for tags. I let the children do the tree almost entirely. The mantel decorations took over 2 weeks to finish. And it was all fine. It actually looks good I think. And I haven't had any perfectionistic meltdowns. None. That makes it so worth it.

Kinda magical even. Don't ya think?

Fun with a chalkboard

I made this little chalkboard we keep in our living room. Can't quite remember what it was before... but I think the frame was dark brown. Anyway, that's not the point. I use it all the time and change the sayings to suit what is going on at the time. We used it here for the baby shower. And then I had an idea to change it up for December. I thought for sure it was a brilliant original idea. Then I remembered I had seen this on pinterest.

So it really was a brilliant unoriginal idea. Oh well, it looks nice. Even if I am a copycat.

Finding Surprises in the Everyday

Occasionally I clean my house. Oh we tidy up every night, but actually dusting? Not all that often. I got a little surprise the other day I was dusting the cabinets next to the fireplace.

See the glass insulators:

See the surprise:

I wonder who did this? Now you will believe me when I say we have LEGO everywhere in this house!