It's beginning to look a lot (more) like Christmas...

Nathan has been crazy busy with finals. And tonight I went crazy too. I added four things to our holiday decor. :) And the best part about it, I already had everything, so it was really cheap. Meaning free. And I like free. First..I had these cute little embroidery hoops, and some black canvas. So I made them into little "chalkboards." I wrote "joy to the world" in them, and hung them above our kitchen sink. Then I cut out snowflakes out of printer paper, and clothes-pinned them to the lights. (the clothespins are tiny, and are from our wedding reception and open house.) This is where the give thanks banner was hanging. Third, I realized that we don't have a nativity set. So I made one, out of a piece of wood and some paint. It's really simple, but that's pretty true to the real story right? Then fourth, I turned our fridge into a snowman! I used some black felt for the eyes and smile, a nike shoe box for the nose, and wrapping paper for his scarf. (Nathan got me that giant mustache last year for Christmas.) 

There ya have it! And I'm pretty sure when we have kids, I will go crazy. I'm so excited, and will probably start planning Christmas decorations in July. It's just so fun! 

joy to the world

snowflakes

Nativity

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Annes Visit and Christmas is coming!

Lucky us, Anne came to visit for her birthday! We had such a great time, and it was so good to see her again. Nathan and I took her to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner, The Chocolate for dessert and Nickel City for some fun. And tomorrow we're going to a Jazz game with her and Aaron & Rachelle (her brother and sister-in-law.) We're all pretty excited, then sadly on Tuesday Anne will head back to Washington. But we will be there shortly! We're going home for Christmas and will be there until the 31st. The 31st, we are flying down to California to visit some of Nathans family. We fly back to "the Tri-Cities" on the 4th. I put that in quotes because we have a lay-over in SLC on the way home. We might accidentally miss our flight to Washington and have someone drive our car home. I'm excited for the holidays and the time we'll be able to spend with friends and family. 

Anne got chocolate cake! 

She also won the bonus of 100 tickets on a game! 

Showing off our prizes

This is me...trying to be Nathan.

Even though we will be gone a lot of December, I still wanted to make it feel like Christmas around here. We got a mini fake, pre-lit tree and made some ornaments to decorate! The top right (white) is our thumb prints, they are supposed to make a heart. Maybe I will paint it in red. The middle right (brown porcupine) is a cinnamon ornament. These smell SO good. We used our woodland animal cookie cutters and have a fox, moose, squirrel and or course a porcupine on our tree. The bottom right photo has two, we didn't make either of them. But the stick ball is from a potpourri mix. I picked out the little ones and hung them up! Then the pretty swirled glass one is one we bought on our honeymoon at the Tacoma Museum of Glass. (also, in the photo on the left, you can see a twisted red and straw stick. It's actually a candy cane turned sideways, we also bought that on our honeymoon from this little Mexican lady at Pike Place.)

I made these two little paper trees tonight. They are toilet paper rolls, sliced and made into cones. Then I used book pages(the same ones from my Give Thanks banner) and glued them on! I think they are pretty cute. And the bottom photo is a gift from my mom several years ago. She made them, and I love it. So our little apartment feels Christmasy, especially while we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. If you haven't watched it, it has beautiful music and a wonderful message. Click here!

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