Before & After

Last week was a busy week. Lots of attempts at a clean house (it always seemed to fall apart right away), lots of cooking/baking, and of course lots of crafting. I dont have many pics of the crafting attempts because I misplaced my camera and just found it this morning.

I do have these pics to show my attempts at decorating our living room. I know I was not an interior decorator in a past (or present!) life, because doing just this little amount was ridiculously hard for me! Making such finite decisions such as where to hang the picture or how far apart to hang the shelves or whatever was borderline overwhelming. Sad, I know. But I got some basics done. I decided that the reason everyone kept giving me decorative stuff for Christmas/Birthday/Any occasion is because I never decorated anything at our apartment. I had plenty of stuff to choose from, I just didn't feel like putting out the effort to put it up.)Hopefully now I won't keep getting only decorative stuff...unless its more Willow Tree figures. I could never have too many of those!

Okay, this is the wall that you see as you walk in our front door.

Before

After
Not the best pics, because we dont have very good lighting in there and our camera stinks in bad lighting. I wish I could say I put the shelves up myself, but the instructions were so confusing I called my dad to ask what they meant and he said, "I'll just come over and do it." And he did, with his awesome stud-finder-and-laser-level. It looks a little odd, like there should be something lower against the wall (a piano maybe? Oh I wish! Someday...) but Maddy's quite the climber so I put them higher so that even with a chair she can't reach most of them.

And this is the right adjoining wall to the one you just saw.
Before...

...and After!

Again, sorry about the lighting, but it gives you a general idea of what it looks like. I was quite proud of my mantelpiece deocrations. I had all that stuff stashed away from previous clearance sales and stuff. Maddy loved playing with the fake leaves and of course the pumpkin.

As I was decorating, I realized that we can hang our stockings by the fireplace this Christmas! I am ridiculously excited about that, as stupid as that may be. I guess I'm mostly just excited to really start making our own little family's traditions. Last year Maddy was too young to care, but I think this year will be much better. Most of my hubby's family is coming into town for Christmas, so we'll be spending a lot of the time at his parents with everyone and hopefully a little bit of time with my parents and siblings, but I'm also hoping to be able to do a few little things with just us four.