Monday, December 29, 2014

{Christmas 2014}

 We had such a wonderful Christmas this year, made even more full by the addition of Harper Kate. Landon really understood the meaning of Christmas this year and that definitely added to the fun of the season! 

Every night I read Landon The Christmas Story book so that he could begin to understand the reason for the season. He kept asking "What are dos angels doin'?" Or "That donkey yookin' at me!" But at least he is being exposed to this early on :) 

On Christmas Eve, we went to my moms house and had a big dinner and then opened gifts. I changed the kiddos into their matching jammies and snapped some cute pics of them. 



After the little ones went to sleep, Santas elves got to work...


Christmas morning we opened presents {while Harper Kate slept} with Landon and then Mikes dad, brother and his girlfriend came over for biscuits and gravy and to open presents :) 







Then we went to my mother-in-laws for most of the day. There are about 30 people at this Christmas and close to half are kids. It gets a little wild :) 




Landon hit the toy jackpot on Christmas getting a workbench with all kinds of tools and a took belt so he can "help" my husband around the house. He loves helping people when they come to do work at our house too. Like this guy that was installing our shutters a couple of weeks ago. 

 
Yep, brought his chair down and the whole bit. 

The greatest things {in my opinion} that he got for Christmas though were experiences! I told all the grandmas that he has a ton of toys, but if they could think of some gift ideas that are not toys that would be great. They came up with some awesome ideas! A platinum zoo membership, swimming lessons, a gift card to Fritz's were some of the things that they thought of. He will LOVE all three!!

He also of course got some racecars, a chalk/whiteboard, dinos, a pirate ship and some other fun toys. The addition of these toys meant that it was time to purge the playroom. I'm all for kids having lots of toys, but it was getting a bit cluttered. I don't like clutter, so we went through the toys together and got rid of some he no longer likes or plays with. 


Ahhhh, much more peaceful! 

Harper Kate hit the clothes jackpot, because what else do you get a baby that has no use for anything else yet? The grandmas were very good to her his year! These are just 1/2 of the cutest clothes that she got for Christmas! 


Christmas was wonderful this year! We celebrate 4 Christmas' with our families and that is the best part! The food being a close second. I could do without all the gifts and just spend time with family and that would be enough. I will say though, winter in Kansas City will be a lot better with our new snow blower ;).

All my Christmas decor came down yesterday, so now I have my eye on the Florida prize coming in just a few short weeks! 

Now, who's ready for SPRING?! 

Thursday, December 18, 2014

{Bozarth Family Christmas Tree}

This year we brought the Christmas tree up from the basement and we were surprised at how little bitty it looks in our new living room.....new tree time.  We can go up about a foot and out about a foot on each side! As you can see, our ceilings are MUCH taller than at our old house.  We still had fun putting it up and decorating it:










We decided to live with it this year for the simple fact that I didn't want to take all the lights/ribbon/ornaments off that I had put on.  Also, I plan on buying the new ornaments/tree decor AFTER Christmas when everything is on sale.  I have a CUTE plan for next years tree.  We are tired of all the silver.  We need a little more COLOR in our lives!  

I bring you red black and white.  It's not a really colorful tree {not quite there yet}, but HEY red is definitely a color!  Here are some ideas I have for next years tree, which we have decided will be a live tree. That we will cut down ourselves. I remember being younger and it snowing and going to cut down our tree, my dad tying it to the top of the car and then going into the tree farm shop for hot cocoa. I love those memories! I plan to purchase a live tree stand when they go on sale after Christmas as well:



I am loving this FA LA LA print and think it needs to be framed next year.  I also downloaded the print below when the painter was offering the free download for a few days on her website, but I didn't hang it in our house this year.  This will be used next year as well.


As you can see, I am utterly obsessed with all automobiles with trees on top! I think it screams Christmas to me! There was also a "Merry & Bright" red pillow that I have seen at Target & LOVED, but I can't find it online & didn't see it when my mom and I went {at 7am the day after Christmas}. I did however purchase all these goodies, some garland, a couple other ornaments and 2 cute miniature white trees for Harper Kate and Landon's room. 


Yes, you better believe we are using some old fashioned tinsel icicles, just like the ones used in A Christmas Story on our tree next year! And that felt mistletoe! It's perfect for in between our kitchen and living room! 

Sunday, December 14, 2014

{christmas home tour}


Welcome to our Christmas Home Tour! I am so happy to have you!

Here is what my mother-in-law calls our "little gingerbread house", I didn't include the garage off to the right of the house, but there's nothing festive about that and our address is on there, which I don't want on the interweb......

I love this house of ours and the pictures just reiterate these feelings for me.  We waited so long to build and create this house and it has been such a labor of love.  It's so just plain cozy and perfect for our family.





The decked out rocking chairs, My husband wanted to bring them in because they've been blowing around and rained on but I told him I needed to put something on there for Christmas. 


On the inside, first up our entryway.  I hung our West Elm Pom Pom Garland on the stairs instead of on the mantle for Christmas.  I want to get a garland AFTER Christmas when everything is on sale to use on the stairs next year, and hang the Christmas cards the same way.  I love having the cards on display each year. 



Welcome to our living room, directly across from our stairs. 


I have to point out, we finally have SOME kind of a table in this room.  It's an $8 Ikea Lack table.  I absolutely love it.  I can't believe I just typed that this table was $8......Amazing! my husband loves it too! Double score!


Our tree just got a little facelift in the last few weeks.  I have added some red and am really loving the change! Again, when everything goes on sale after Christmas I plan to get some more goodies.  I'd really like to do some black, white and red.  I have a post in the works of some goodies and inspiration that I have come across recently! 

Next year, we are definitely getting a live tree and maybe putting this one in the kitchen or somewhere else.  It's really too short for our ceilings in the living room, but was perfect in our last house.  It's such a great family memory I have of going to get the tree and hauling it home on the roof of our car.  The smell is amazing and Landon will really remember next year. 










There's my newest fiddle leaf - $10 from Ikea! I love having live plants in the house. Surprisingly, my toddler and dog are completely uninterested. 


This is our advent calendar, we have been doing so good with all the activities! Those envelopes were each handmade by me! I really like the different sizes to make it a little more whimsical and interesting.



Into the kitchen, I didn't do much, but this little vignette on the kitchen table is just too dang cute when Landon isn't trying to break the glass.  I'm a risk-taker putting glass on the kitchen table.  Amiright?


We also completed the advent calendar activity of making paper snowflakes the other day.  Landon loved opening them {don't worry I cut them} to see what we had created! We hung the snowflakes on our kitchen window.  It's acting as our window treatment, as I currently can't decide what I want to do here....




My fiddle leaf fig in the kitchen is still living! Yay! Those evergreen branches are actually something we got at church a couple of weeks ago.  I just love they way they smell and am looking for a live garland for the mantle, but the only one I've seen is 24 feet.  



And of course, Santa's belt on the back door, that Landon loves to take down and play with. 


Upstairs the first room is the playroom. 


All I really did up here was add some festive books to my Ikea bookshelves.  These shelves are actually photo shelves but all over Pinterest people use them for books! I like switching out the books for all the different holidays. 


This isn't really Christmas related, but OMG this mushroom hat was too cute to pass up for dress up for years to come! I also got the Ikea chalkboard/whiteboard/paper roll for the playroom for Landon's gift from Santa gift this year.  I wasn't sold on an entire chalkboard wall, but the easel will be perfect in the playroom! 


Landon and I made some Christmas lights for his and his sisters doors the other day.  I cut out the lights, he taped them to the string.  We make a great team :)

This was our advent calendar activity for Day 2.  He was grinning from ear to ear as I was taping them up.  The kid LOVES Christmas.  


Harper Kate's room really didn't get decked at all, neither did Landon's.  We got rid of a lot of our decorations, I do plan to get a tree for each of their rooms after Christmas that they can pick out the ornaments for.  I think that will be a fun little thing for them to be able to decorate their own tree.


Landon does sleep with and carry around his Rudolph all day long, so we've been making his bed everyday and leaving Rudolph right here, until he gets kidnapped to snuggle with and watch Christmas movies on the couch. 


Oh, Hey Rudolph!


We literally did nothing in our room and probably won't in the future either.  

Of course, my most favorite part of our home is who we share it with.... :)


I would love for you to tour our entire home! Here is a link for the downstairs tour and the upstairs tour.

Thank you to Kassandra at Little Dekonings for inviting me to share our holiday home tour! 



I am excited to link up to these other blogs also sharing their holiday home tours! Please click on their links to check them out!