Christmas Decorating!!

Here are some of our Christmas decorations from this season!!

Here we are decorating the tree
Michael was really into it for a while
Then he got bored
And the finished product
I really think it looked a lot better in person. Our tree appeared to be more full and didn't look as shabby.

We added 2 special decorations to our tree this year.


In Michael's preschool they made little ornaments and then decorated them. We loved this!! It will be so nice to have something that we can put on our tree each year and remember when Michael was 2.5 and he made the ornament. Hopefully he'll enjoy seeing it each year, too.


This is a star...no duh!, right? It actually has a pretty fun story behind it, though.

Nathan and I were married in the middle of November and, because Nathan is from Canada and wasn't a permanent resident for the states yet, we couldn't travel up to Canada for Christmas. So his family decided to come down to our place. It was a tiny little apartment. I wish that I had some pictures to explain just how little it was. But there were 4 adults and 3 children/adolescents and it was crowded, to say the least. We didn't have the money to go out and buy a nice Christmas tree, so a few days before Christmas, Nathan went and looked around the dumpsters of student apartment complexes looking for a special tree that got thrown away before the previous owners left for their home towns.

Well, he found one and brought it home. It was sad...like charlie brown x-mas tree but worse. I went to D.I. (a thrift store) and bought a few boxes of ornaments. But we still didn't have a star. So Nathan's family comes down and it bothered his brother and sisters so they made one for us. They cut it out of a box so one side was white and the other was green. We then put it on top of our tree and it was complete. That was the last christmas that Nathan and I spent with his family as a whole. The next christmas we went to my house for christmas and by the time the next christmas had rolled around, Rachel, Nathan's older sister had passed away.

So this year, when I saw that star, I decided to make sure that it would stay on our tree each christmas. I backed it with yellow construction paper, wrote on the back of it when it was made and by whom, and I plan on laminating it next year. This star will always have a place on our tree and in our hearts.

These pictures are just to show how I decorated our apartment this year. Like with Halloween and Thanksgiving, we don't have much, but we make it work.

I also lined lights around out window, which was nice, because it wasn't so dark in our apartment at night.

Fall Time Decorations

So I love this time of year!!!! I grew up in hot, hot southern California and I ALWAYS hated the heat!! I would always get pretty happy when the temperature would drop down into the 60's and 70's and I wouldn't be soo stinkin' hot anymore! So it has been so wonderful to be in Rexburg for Fall the last 4 years. September is when it is supposed to be cool and Rexburg is following the Calendar perfectly!!!

Another reason that I love this time of year is because it's so fun to decorate for!! You have all the leaves and Halloween and Thanksgiving and in a few months, Christmas!! I just find it all so exciting and I look forward to decorating all year. But there's a problem: I only have (seriously) about 8 decorations!!!!!! It's horrible! How am I supposed to decorate with only 8 items??

So I need your help! I don't have an original item/idea in my mind AT ALL. People would always compliment me on my singing time activities, but honestly, they were never my original ideas and the same is true with my house! I need to see what you do so I can get some inspiration and...maybe, if it's okay, copy. :) Plus it's fun to see what other do and to get some ideas. So please!! Lets post our Fall/Holiday decorations!!!!

Here are my decorations! Enjoy and I look forward to seeing what you do!

Our living room
(Thank you so much Mom for the flowers. I really did appreciate it and they helped me a lot!! Now you can see what they look like!)
This is just a cute little pumpkin I have sitting at our window. There's a green light but it doesn't work. Bummer.
This is a door hanging my mom sent me last year. I love it!

This is a scarecrow we put onto Michael's door. We're thinking of doing it up a bit more too. We'll get some black crows to put around it and also some corn or something...that's the plan anyway.

This was actually the activity I did for Singing time last week. I put each piece of the Scarecrow into a bag with songs attached to the back. The children then came up, chose a piece and put in on a board. When they were done we had built a Scarecrow! It was really fun and they enjoyed it. (And as a sidenote, I did get released from my calling a few weeks ago. It's sad, but at least I can go to Sunday School with Nathan and attend Relief Society with the other women...I'm excited!!! I might actually know some people in our ward now and they may know me!!!!!!!!!)

I'm also thinking of doing a simple countdown thing with Michael. You know the activity of cutting strips of paper and making a chain with it and then you remove one link each day. I was thinking of doing that with black and orange paper to count down to Halloween and then make one for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Oh, and if anyone has any fun craft ideas or websites/blogs they love to go, please share those as well!!! I'm really excited to see all your ideas!!

Happy blogging!!