Thank you Sure Fit!

To the Re-decorating. I have been wanting to do 'something' for quite some time. The curtains were old and ratty, the valances dated and dusty, the couch a mess. So when we inherited the two white couches I was excited.

Then we tried to fit the monsters into our "Great Room"--which just means it's one room and everyone can see all your debris! The white couches were really big (four persons per couch!) and I could just see the stains waiting to attack. So we shopped around, attempted the Target brand but discovered that Sure Fit is the brand to go with when it comes to couch covers! They're super stretchy! We chose a chocolate brown, it's sort of a micro suede, so when you sit on it, hilariously, there's a lovely 'butt mark' and the kids like spelling on the fabric too! LOL, who knew?



It was big enough to go over the couches and the main cushions, but not the pillows, so those stand out a little. But it did match my rug.



The next step was getting new curtains. We bought panels at JC Penny instead of ordering one big and over priced curtain with a draw. I ended up buying six panels, they're thermal, and look golden in the sunshine, browner at night.

The next thing we did was found furniture! For years I had these wire bins that held the kids' stuff, backpacks etc. Unfortunately they were the first thing you saw when you walked in because they were right at the back of the opposite side and were always overflowing with debris. So I found this (TV console) set, and shelving, at American Furniture on sale, and put them all by the front window area.

And the baskets were all 50% off at Michaels, so I loaded up on those. It's nice to have separate places to put the backpacks, hats, homework stuff, other various debris and not have it fall through the wire holes. Still shows some debris, but it's sort of contained...so far. ;) It is it's own little area now instead of being a kind of empty space that waited for the Christmas tree. No idea where we'll put the tree next year! LOL.

Because we moved furniture where the swords were, we had to move them too, behind the door and the family sign Felicia gave us a couple years ago looks nice underneath I think. :)


Then I found some matching pillows at Costco and they sort of hide the 'white' of the other pillows and mix in nice I think.


And then finally, I replaced the valances with new rods and some swags from Target. AND very on sale, whoo hoo!

Not lit correctly, but this is the one in the kitchen to tie them together. I had only one 'long' one for the front window, so this is two tied together. :) I kind of like the bow, I hope it doesn't get old on me too fast.


Oh, also got a hall tree that I put where the old bins were. It gives me a little extra room in the coat closet (which really needs to be re-cleaned!) but it also sort of hides the one set of wire bins I left to keep school junk in. I am afraid even with the new configuration it will always have a cluttered appearance with the massive amounts of paperwork, homework, shoes, and other things that seem to breed in my house. But still, I feel good about a lot of the cleanup that was involved and that it's slightly easier to tidy.



All during this re-do, we had to do Josh's science project. I must say I thought it turned out good...Curtis helped him with the actual testing and I helped with the poster...I *cough* he got a 70/70, 100% on it. YES! I er...we rock.

Christmas

So, by some miracle, after we got back from driving to Wyoming, I was able to get things ready for Christmas without freaking out. I luckily got a lot of shopping done on that Thanksgiving weekend, and slowly managed getting things done by hacking away slowly at it throughout the rest of December. The kids were excited to get to do a little gingerbread house city and I managed to do fudge, caramels, chocolate covered pretzels, sugar cookies and gingerbread men cookies! Plus I managed to do a dinner Christmas Eve where we hosted the Elders. See, miracle!

Sprinkles everywhere!

Then Christmas day we woke up and lo and behold, Santa had actually come! And wouldn't you know it? Last year the boys got snowshoes and there was NO snow this year it was a glacier (say that like Bear Grylls) out there and they got bikes! Silly Santa, totally messed up which year was going to be frozen!


They were both thrilled however, and did go try them out, even on the snow! They've got a little more bike time since because our January has been very lame in the snow department. Typical El Nino year.


Brynna opening presents, she got a lot of little things like clothes and gift cards, but she also got a new CD player for her room and some books. So she immediately disappeared and you could hear her new CDs playing as she read!


Meantime, when my parents arrived, we got a really big present! My grandma moved out of her large home and we got the couches! My parents hauled them (there's two) and brought them to us just after Christmas. So we spent most of the holiday re-decorating, cleaning, moving couches around. This is when we just got the couches, note, they're WHITE! Scary. More pictures to come with the decor.

Christmas was very nice, I just love being able to spend time watching A Christmas Carol, or The Grinch (the original), with the kids, eating cookies (though I'm paying for it now!) and most of all, wrapping presents. I know it's absolutely 'not' the reason for the season, but I LOVE to have a monster pile of presents under the tree! Not necessarily for me, though that is fun, but I just love the wrapping! My poor kids get all sorts of 'boring' presents wrapped up just because I enjoy it so much! LOL.

And finally, I got a really amazing present from hubby this year. He bought me a Sony Reader, which is like a Kindle if you know what those are. But this you can download and pay, like the Kindle but also you can download from the library, which is free! Whee! I've already read almost 2 books on it, and am very pleased with it!! Mine is the 'touch' meaning you can touch the screen and interact etc. but the best part is being able to carry this thin thing and it is holding (currently) 12 full on nasty big ole books! Yes! I think something like it will be the future, and it can't get here soon enough if you see my daughter's gigantic backpack. Couldn't they just load all those textbooks onto something like this and have ONE thing to carry around? I guess the textbook industry wants to ensure that chiropractors stay in business? Anyway, it was a super cool gift.

I got him a Garmin, he broke his last one. Basically we got the generator for the cabin, but I did get him socks too. :)