Merry Christmas From Our Home to Yours!

I made it back today with a few more pictures! Today's pictures were taken in the living room/foyer area and looking up into our loft. I hoped to get some kitchen pictures, but I can't seem to keep it clean long enough to get them! lol! There's always something going on in there. We'll see what happens between now and Christmas, but for now....I hope you enjoy these!

The fireplace.....

I'm going to have to find Luke a quilted stocking to match!

The big tree that holds many years of Christmas memories......

The foyer..... (The snowman counts down the days 'til Christmas....Joy marks it everyday!)

The tree on the staircase landing....Americana style....

I love to sit at the top of the staircase and just enjoy the view from up there! It seems so cozy to me!

Everything feels so peaceful in the evenings here.....

A view from the other direction....



This is looking up at the loft area. Jason hangs the garland because my heart skips a few beats trying to stand up there because I don't do heights! (Do you see our cat...Bambi?) That's one of her favorite places to perch.



The piano wall....



I love this picture that a friend painted....it just glistens!



So from our home......



And our family......

to yours.....


MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Simply Christmas

Hi Folks! I know this is the longest absence I've ever had from blogland! It wasn't because I wasn't thinking of you! We've had alot of things going on and time just slipped by! We found out that my father-in-law does have cancer (multiple myeloma)which is a type of cancer affecting the bone marrow and plasma. We have been dealing with that. We would really appreciate your prayers for him. He's 81 years old (had his birthday this past Saturday) and lives alone. However, we did get some good news....there are medications that will help to slow this type of cancer down and he has gotten started on them. We're thankful for that as is he! Thank you so much for remembering him in your prayers!

I promised to take some pictures of a little Christmas decor around here and it is simple, but I'll share with you anyway! I'm pretty sure it's less than last year, although I haven't looked at the pictures to compare! Today, I'm going to share with you some pictures of the sunporch and dining room! Enjoy your tour!

The Sunporch:



















The Dining Room:















Joy's village: (I let her set this up however she wants every year on the hutch).

















And I can't sign off of this post without leaving you with a few "new to us" pictures of Luke that we received after sending a care package through Ann of Red Thread China! The one on my sidebar is his most recent updated picture, but getting pictures at different points in his life is a treasure to us, and we recently received a few including these. How do you like that haircut? They are really into shaving heads in China! I think these pictures were taken a couple of months before the one in my sidebar and you can tell his hair had grown out some. I love these because he looks so happy!



And I think he's destined to be a musician too!



I don't know....I think that's a mischievous grin I see!






And to update you a little on where we are on the Waiting for Luke journey...we're getting very close to having all of our documents (our dossier) ready to be sent off to China. Everything except our Immigration approval has been notarized, certified and authenticated. Our Immigration fingerprinting appointment is scheduled for early January. After we get that approval, everything can be sent off to China and we hope to be logged in before the month of January is out! This is very important so that we can travel at the time we are hoping.....at least by June! Please keep us in your prayers that all of our paperwork moves along quickly along every destination or desk that it crosses!

Thanks for sticking with me and stopping by and I hope you're making lots of Christmas memories! (I'm going to try to be back by Wednesday with more Christmas decor pics!).....Until then...

Blessings,
Tammy

No Place Like Home (For Christmas)

I want you to know that I restrained myself from posting Christmas decor photos until AFTER Thanksgiving, although we started putting out Christmas decor somewhere during the first week of November! I've had piano students come in and ask, "What happened to Thanksgiving?" Well for us, they kind of mesh together. I like to come home from the Thanksgiving holidays to my house all decorated for Christmas. However, I did decide to wait until the traditional time most folks decorate to begin sharing my Christmas decor! After all, some folks can't think Christmas until after Thanksgiving, and I understand!

I'm going to start in this post with the outside decor. We kept it really simple, as we have the last few years. I actually forgot that last year I made my grapevine wreath snowman for the porch and I didn't do it that way this year. I guess he'll have to be added to our privacy fence later. I never seem to get it exactly the same any two years in a row!

We traded in the house decked out in lights a few years ago by Jason's request (or maybe it was more of a demand)....And since I'm not the one that puts the lights up, how could I argue with that? Actually, we had seen others decorate with just greenery with flood lights lighting up the house, and we loved that look, so decided to give it a try a few years ago. We love that look now, plus it makes Jason happy and Christmas is supposed to be happy! Simple pretty much sums us up anyway, so the simplicity of this outside look suits us just fine.

Anyway, here's our outside decor this year!

Welcome to our country cedar home.....





Coming down the sidewalk....





The front porch....



Frosty welcomes our visitors.....



Hanging the wreaths by fishing wire secures them from blowing around in the weather and you can't even tell how they're hung (my clever hubby thought of that one)....



There really is no place like home.......especially at Christmas time!



Thanks for stopping by! :)