: Home Tour 2011 :

Well, since it's been a CRAZY long time since I posted anything, I thought I may as well start with a {albeit partial home} tour of our decked out home for Christmas...I've had quite a few who don't live close ask if and when I'm posting pic's of our new home...so here you go!

Welcome to our new home! I wanted a new wreath but wasn't prepared to spend $30+ on a real green Christmas wreath, but this one from Michael's fit the bill just right and at $5.39 I couldn't beat it! I've already got an idea for our front door wreath next year, jut couldn't make it happen this year. I also found a "L" ornament for cheap {$3 cheap} at a local grocery store and the little birdie is one of three that are new additions to our trees.

Here's our dining room/living room

Lovely gifts wrapped with love

Another one of our new ornaments, I thought they were just so sweet!

Christmas flowers, bought 4 bouquets from a floral outlet and put together little bouquets of fresh cut greens, salal leaves, Lillie's/tulips and faux silver leaves...nothing beats fresh flowers!

On we move to the kitchen where I have a daily reminder of what this season is all about; thanks to Jones Design Co. You want one too, you can find it here...she's a sharing girl ;)

Here's the rest of my little corner I see daily, paper straws in a mason jar, silver snowflake napkins in an old peach jar, Santa's cookie plate for Christmas Eve, fresh cut greens and my framed printable - Love it!

Last year I made this wreath, since my front door is glass and no longer black -- I needed to find a new place for it. Along with the silver topiary trees, blanket of snow with a strand of 20 lights, made a perfectly dreamy window scape above our sink.

...brown paper packages tied up with string...
this is our annual pannetone this year ~ can you say YUM!?

Here is a full shot of our kitchen

On to our family room with our real tree

This tree is much wider than we thought, a whole 4.5 feet wide, but it's a beauty and smells SO great! Thankfully it's very moist and doesn't drop many needles. I purchased a new skirt for this tree...we have a very traditional red skirt for this tree but when Mr. L and I were out for a date a few nights ago we stopped by Lee Valley and found an old coffee sack for just $1 -- I needed it, not even knowing what I would do with it. Mr. L gave me a look but when I took it apart and wrapped it around the bottom of the tree his quizzical look vanished. Both of us love this tree and the best part is; the boys put all the ornaments on it by themselves! They had a blast and loved really being part of the tradition this year

This is my favorite ornament from JJ - it's his hand print and 5 little snow men. We have yet to open up our ornaments from Cole, they are still wrapped and under the tree :)

We've got quite the little collection of Christmas books that we get to read throughout the holidays - every night or so we light the lantern and pull the blankets out from my new Land's End tote that I got for my birthday {thanks M&D} and read a book by the light of the tree...really is the small things that count!

View of the fireplace inset in the family room

Here's a little dressed up nook we have in our kitchen just leading into the front hall, love the little shelves Mr. L put up for me, they don't match but I don't care, I just LOVE them!

On your way out of the kitchen you pass by a door {to the basement} and that's where I chose to put up all of our photo cards from our friends and family -- I had made the gray wreath for the boys room in our last place, but it never made it up..so I just added some white satin ribbon I had left over from our front door wreath and a little tag "knit together by love" and voila a cute little display! Ps. remember "funtak" that's what I used to stick up the cards with...totally forgot about that stuff; it's amazing!

Here's the view from the bottom of the staircase looking past the basement door into the kitchen.

And amazingly enough you're back at the start of the house ;)

Hope you enjoyed our house tour and I look forward to touring you through the upstairs soon -- If you want to see our previous years tours here they are 2008 & 2010

I've spent the past 3 days hibernating as I had basically been away from our home working for Cranberry Creek from November 28th - December 20th - so to say the least our kids & home needed some loving tender care and I've never been so happy to be in my sweats playing trains and cleaning then I have in the past 3 days!

Hope to get on here more and in case I haven't stopped by your blog lately, don't worry I'll be catching up over the holidays ;)

{XoXo}