Christmas Tour of Homes

Welcome to our home! We are trying to catch up on a good day of school since this will be a crazy week. The dog is drooling at the window wanting so badly to catch a squirrel just once! Ally is eagerly waiting to turn 12 tomorrow, and we have laundry piled up all over my bedroom for an afternoon chore-fest.

Here's what things are looking like at our house this Christmas. The kids are old enough to really do a great job with the tree, evenly spacing ornaments and everything.

I try my best to completely separate the birthday presents from the Christmas festivities. All 3 of our kids have birthdays within 10 days of Christmas - so keeping the holidays separate is always a concern. We are trying to put more emphasis on the birthdays, and make Christmas less about presents.

2 out of 3 stockings are hanging by the chimney with care. We are continually taking them down to build a fire. And since I forgot to make a loop hanger for them, it is a hassel. These were my very first quilting project over 12 years ago, and I am afraid to wash them b/c I am pretty sure they'd fall apart. I made them when our family only contained 3, but as it has grown, they are now only for the 3 children. I know, I should make two more - it's on my do list.

Each child's first baby shoes, my favorite ornaments. So neat to compare them to their big feet each year.

One of the many homemade Christmas gifts I shouldn't be showing you. This sign is for a cousin who is a cheerleader, hence the "be of good cheer" verse. We had a lot of fun digging through our Bibles selecting just the right verses for these. After Christmas, I'll have to have a gift reveal blog post to show you all my fun projects, but this is your only peek for now!

The school room has a lot of different decorations spread all over. Pappel Picado over the windows and everywhere else (we got rather carried away with that).

That's pretty much it! Christmas projects and birthday cakes go hand in hand in this family. I remind the kids, "Hey, we can share our birthdays with Jesus, can't we?"