Now that we’ve lived in our house for a year, I’ve been given the ALL CLEAR to PAINT!!  Thank you GOD!!!  I cannot stand the boring beige that our WHOLE house was painted any longer!  Let me get my roller and brush and have at it!

The first room to fall victim to me was our master bathroom.  I started with that one because I knew it would should be an easy enough project to do, just needed some fresh paint and accessories and voila!  It’s been 2 weeks since I painted it and thankfully it pretty much went according to plan.  I decided to go with this color scheme of light green, aqua and gray.  It ended up being more just the green and aqua, but I really like how it turned out all together.  It feels so fresh and cheery when we go in there now.

I don’t really have any “before” photos except for ones on my phone, but it was pretty much just a boring old brown bathroom.  So, here are the much more cheery, happy “after” photos!  I would say it’s about 95% done.  I’m still debating on whether or not I like the rugs I got and if I should put them in front of our sinks as I had planned or put one in the toilet closet and the other in front of the shower…thoughts?

Here it is!

Another favorite Christmas tradition we have is the Saturday after Thanksgiving we put up our Christmas tree and all of our decorations.  It was so strange though this year because we didn’t know where anything should go!  But it gave us a good opportunity to purge some of our older stuff and to decide what we really wanted to put up.

Of course there was also great debate about where to put the Christmas tree.  I wanted it in the Dining room by the piano, just thought it would look nice in there.  But I was very quickly vetoed by everyone else and we decided to put it in the family room so we could see it and enjoy it more. I have to say I am glad we put it there!  I love having it there and it adds so much coziness to the room.

If you’ve been following the blog for a few years now, you’ll know I’m kind of particular when it comes to my holiday decorations. I adore all white lights and decorations and we have a snowflake decorating theme.  I of course get pushback from the boys in th family, as they really want a tree with colored lights, but I told them they can have their own when we finish our basement someday.

But, I adore our tree.  Each year it just gets better and better as we add more ornaments to our collection.  Here are the kids decorating it!  Tyson did awesome this year!  Bailey of course had to get in on the action, but she had more fun throwing the balls I think…

Bailey picked out this new ball from Gerten’s.  It’s very “her” and blingy!

You might remember that last year we got new stockings for our mantle.  Well, Pottery Barn had the coordinating tree skirt on clearance last year after Christmas so I scored a GREAT deal on it and even got our name on it.  I just LOVE it, it sparkles so nicely!

I setup the tripod again to try to get a twinkly tree shot. I want to redo it because I realized my f-stop wasn’t high enough!  But, it’s still pretty decent.  Also got some fun Christmas light bokeh!

One of the best parts of being a photographer is being able to get great photos of your kids, right?  Well, that would require you to A.) actually have time to take photos of your kids; and B.) find even more time to cull, process and actually print them

Fortunately, this year I was smart about it and hooked up with fellow photographers/friends Kelly Klatt & Angie Keifer.  We met up at Kelly’s place one Saturday morning (despite my 103 fever I woke up with that morning) and we all took turns shooting each others families.  That sounds mean doesn’t it.  ;-)

I LOVE how they turned out.  The Christmas cards are actually already made, but I just couldn’t wait to put together a wall gallery of my favorites.  So, I did this arrangement in our upstairs hallway.  I’m loving it!

Group coupon sites such as Groupon and Living Social are all the rage right now.  And while there are some great deals to be had, they are usually for restaurants, spa services or other things that don’t always pique my interest.

I was recently introduced to One Kings Lane, which is an online sale site for housewares and home decor from different designers around the world. I’ve gotten some crazy deals on stuff for around our house and each day they have several different sales opening up and they stay open for a day or two.

It’s completely free to setup an account with them and they send you emails when the new sales open up.  I’ve gotten a giant clock for our family room, several blankets for my newborn sessions, picture frames and a few other home decor items.  They have such unique pieces that you really don’t see anywhere else.

Check them out here or at the link above!  Happy Shopping!  

Is furnishing and decorating it!  It’s kind of a bit overwhelming to have this blank canvas staring at you day in and day out and not even knowing where to begin.  And my hubby won’t let me paint until after our 11 month appointment with our builder when they fix all of the nail pops in the rooms, so until then, I’m a bit limited in what I can do.

What I CAN do though is look for ideas for inspiration and get some accent pieces!  So, I’ve been doing a bit of shopping.  I’m LOVING Overstock these days.  I’ve been finding some great deals for things here and there and you can’t beat their prices or their $1 shipping!!

Today I snagged this console table for the entryway

And then this corner shelf for our guest bathroom.

It’s going to be nice to have a few more places to put some of our decorative things, especially with the holidays approaching!