It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere we go....

We have really been trying to get into the Christmas spirit at our house.   We spent a night at ToysRUs making our Christmas lists with the kids and visited Santa...well by visited I mean waved..lol   My kids are not much for taking pictures with him anymore.    When my husband told my son that Santa was watching, his response was, "no he's not Daddy, he's at the mall giving out autographs."  Love that kid, but it shows you what he thinks about the whole "be good for Santa" thing.

We ventured into NYC for the day to see the Radio City Rockettes.  This was their 85th anniversary and my first time.   It was amazing.  Of course on our way to the show we stopped by the giant ToysRUs in Times Square which was crazy and we stopped by the Rockefeller Center tree for a peek, but it had not yet been lit for the season.

Such a beautiful place!

It was a very festive day and we all enjoyed the show.  It's truly magical!!!

I have been busy working on getting our fall decorations down and Christmas up around the house.  So far, I have tackled the mantle (or at least the 1st round of it).  Yes I'm nuts and I change it in mid December.  Really because I have so many decorations and I love them all.   Here are some pictures from last year.

First round -- I went with my glittery fruit theme last year.

Second round-- As always, this is when I put up our family stockings.  I don't know why, but I didn't take a picture of anything but the stockings last year.

And here was our tree last year.

And this is the first round this year which I am loving.  I love all things red and snagged these decorations at Target this past week with a great coupon.  Not that I needed any new decorations!!

Here it is during the day....I love the red berries, the flocked garland, mercury glass and pine cones.  My favs for sure.

And here it is at night....sparkly...

Our yet to be decorated tree.

And our tree is a work in progress...so far just twinkly lights which I love at night.   I love candlelight, twinkly lights and low lighting in our house at night.  Weird, but I love it!!

Of course our North Pole elf has returned as well.   We seem to get a different one each year and each year we take turns letting the kids name them.  Last year he was named Jaden after the red Power Ranger and this year my daughter has named the poor thing "Honey  Boo-Boo".   Most families have sweet names for their elves...not us.  TV influence all the way.   

My husband and I take turns and obviously have a different sense of humor.

His humor...

My humor...

The kids are more in line with my husband's humor though which is to be expected.  Honey Boo-Boo is up to much mischief already this year.  

I have a lot of work to do to finish up the decorating this weekend and a crazy weekend ahead on top of it. Thankfully I am done shopping.  I am crazy person when it comes to getting my shopping done so that I can relax a bit towards mid December and just wrap presents.

I have been just trying to get the house together, finish up stocking orders at the shop and get ready to celebrate my daughter's 11th birthday!  Not sure how she grew up so fast, but I guess I have to just be ok with it.   She and I are going to see Carrie Underwood and Hunter Hayes tomorrow night and we both couldn't be more excited.  Being able to enjoy these types of things with her is the ONLY perk of her getting older.  

Speaking of being busy with stocking orders--- tomorrow is the last day to order custom monogrammed stockings via the shop if you are interested.  I have decided this year to cut off orders so that I can wind down by mid-December and just enjoy the holiday.  Last year I was working way too late into the month and resented it.   I have been SO SUCCESSFUL this year with orders and I feel very blessed so I have made the decision to cut it off as of December 1st.  Here are some pictures of some of the orders I have filled so far.

If you are interested in ordering, please message me from my shop which you can visit by clicking HERE.

I have been a Pin-aholic lately and have found some creative and very fun ideas for Christmas that I will begin sharing on Monday.    I am going to try my best to do a them each day up until the 24th...we'll see.   I have enough things to share to do it, but we'll see if I can keep up.

Until then...

Poshed Up

Big slacker.....

I have been a huge slacker with the little ole' blog lately.  I apologize.  I had so many fun ideas to share for Thanksgiving, but it just snuck up on me this year.  I did complete my banner that I had mentioned HERE.

Here is a picture of the finished product.

I was so happy with how it turned out that I've decided to make one for Christmas too.  Here are a few I love that I might use for inspiration...

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I generally decorate my mantle for Christmas but don't add my stocking until the week prior so I thought this could be a fun addition this year to the mantle.

Here are few other Christmas decorations that I love and want to incorporate this year. 

Homemade trees...

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I love so many of them that I cannot decide which one to do this year.  You'll just have to wait and see which one we end up with on our mantle.

And the last exciting new addition this year is an advent calendar.  I have had the candy ones and the paper ones for years, but I've always wanted a real one that I can use year after year.  So....I decided to make one this year.   Crazy I know, but I am excited.  I am under the gun to finish it by the 1st, but I'm close.  I have only 8 more of the ornaments for the tree to make and then I need to assemble it.  Here are a few of my inspiration photos...

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I have a LOT of crafting to do plus a zillion stocking orders to fill, but I love this time of year so I'm going to try to enjoy every moment of the crafting while it lasts!!!

Stay tuned as the projects are completed I will share them!

Poshed Up

Sprucing up for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my most favorite holidays.  I love that it is truly just about being together with family.  There is no stress of gift-giving or specific requirements other than food and family.    Of course, we all have our Thanksgiving favorite menu items that we can't live without, but other than that....it's just a day to be together with great smells in the kitchen.

I am hosting Thanksgiving this year at my house for 6 adults and 4 children so I am starting to decorate a bit and add some minor touches to my Fall decor that I shared HERE.    I saw this great burlap banner that I wanted to make earlier, but with the storm that hit our area, I was a bit behind.  So now it is going to be a "Thankful" banner instead of "Welcome Fall" banner.

Here is my inspiration...

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I love the antique-y (new word) look of this one too...

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The other thing I love to do this time of year, actually any time of year, is add candles.  I know they don't really add tons of warmth, but they do add the other kind of warmth to your home.  I went through quite a few candles during our 6 day power outage with Sandy so I invested in a few new ones this year.  

I love all of the fall smelling candles, but usually only get one small one so the smell doesn't overpower our home.  I generally just buy the cheaper colored, plain candles and then spruce them up with some decorations.   Here a few that I loved...and if you notice, they all use basic items.

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Here is a closeup of my hurricane right now without a candle, but I intend to swap out the Indian corn for a candle and add that to a different candle similar to the idea below.

New idea for Indian corn...

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Another thing I love is all of the subway art that is out there and FREE for Thanksgiving.  If you are not much for decorating, but want a small touch, how about adding one of these to a simple frame?

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For those of you who want easy peasy....here are some great free printables that you can simply print, cut and use.  

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I have more ideas to share this week...stay tuned!

Poshed Up