Christmas Decor 2023

Here is a peek of our Christmas 2023 decor in our first Christmas in our home! 

I bought a new tree this year and strung the lights myself. This tree is seven and half feet tall and is just perfect for displaying all of our ornaments! I love the "traditional tree" look with all of the mismatched, handmade, and sentimental ornaments. I want my kiddos to feel as though their ornaments matter, so I love displaying them and having a very full, family Christmas tree.  

This little wooden reindeer which used to belong to my aunt has a place on one of our front windowsills. 

I love this little mug and backpack corner! Some of my Christmas mugs are displayed amongst the others. We've hung fake mistletoe and Michael's very first stocking. 

In this windowsill by the backpack corner are two little tree with fun tiny ornaments or single earrings who lost their mates. I strung some fairy lights around them. 

On the backpack shelf, I placed a wooden nativity set and a recent craft from a ladies craft night at church. 

Our pie safe gets some festiveness with Noah's first ever stocking and a ceramic Santa on a shelf. 

Our TV stand is nativity central. My Fontanini set is displayed here-- it's probably about time I add another character. 

Avery has made sure that the toy nativity set is displayed front and center. All three kids like to take this one down and play with it! 

Some bottle brush trees (which I love!), our Christmas countdown, and a snowman round out the other end of the TV stand. 

When we designed our house, we made it an open concept feel. I love it, but I'm discovering that means we have less walls to adorn. I'm having to find creative ways to display some decorations, so one of my favorite Christmas banners is hung under the island. 

I love a seasonal dishtowel!  Here are two of my favorites. 

When I took these photos, Q.E. and Lucy were having a campfire hangout. 

The little nook by the toaster has some ornaments, festive dishes, and some decorated mason jars. 

Since we did not design the house with a fireplace, Aaron made this mantel for me! I'll work at making the space below it look more like a faux fireplace over this next year, but it gave us a solid place to display stockings and some Christmas art that the boys made. 

On the windowsill at the back of the house we have our Jesse tree (also adorned with fun little ornaments from Hobby Lobby like reindeer, snowmen, and gumdrops). Each day we read a devotion form the red book and place a corresponding ornament from the silver box onto the tree. The kids absolutely LOVE this! 

At the top of the bookshelf in the dining room rests our Christmas cactus and some more Christmas art from the boys along with a felt banner (made by Mandy!) that I absolutely love. 

On the shelves (which house our board games) I placed a few Santa pictures. 

On our big picture window in the dining room, I strung a new vintage-inspired Christmas banner, and Avery decorated the little tree for me. :)

The dining table tray got a festive makeover with some Christmas salt and pepper shakers and some ornaments in a glass jar. 

We love displaying our Christmas place mats that my Nana made. At Avery's and Noah's seats, I also have some place mats that my brothers and I made when we were kids (and they're covered in contact paper for easy cleanup). 

We set up a card table behind the couch so we could work on a Christmas puzzle! 

On the door between the living room and laundry room hangs our Nativity Advent. The kids have fun taking turns to put up the next character! 

And that's it for the main space! 

The kids have a pop-up Christmas tree advent calendar in their rooms which they're enjoying placing ornaments on each day. All three now have a small wooden Nutcracker thanks to my inability to say no in Dollar General. A simple string (or two) of Christmas lights finishes their special spaces and brings some Christmas spirit to their rooms. I have a small wooden German Christmas tree in my tree displayed on my dresser where I can see it each day while I work. 

We have festive smelling soap at each sink along with Christmas hand towels in the bathrooms. I tried to put a little bit of Christmas in every room. 

Thanks for taking a peek!

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba

Kid Room Cleanout

Like so many others, I am in an organizing mood as of late. Possibly it's due to the new year and the need for things to feel refreshed. More likely it's due to knowing that we plan to sell our home within a couple months and I'm trying to get our spaces ready. (Alternate reading: I'm trying to declutter on a magnanimous level!) 

Aaron & I semi-tackled the pantry last weekend and I'll share pictures of that when I get around to doing more but it wasn't a huge change and I don't have "before" pictures so I'll have to explain how it looked previously. 

Today rather, I'm focusing on how we decluttered our kids' rooms. This was a multi-step process for sure and my hope is that it remains clean at least until pictures are taken for the house sale. 

I don't really have "before" pictures of these spaces because I didn't like to look at the constant clutter, and I struggled to think of how to get toys off the floor.  The boys have lots of buckets and bins in their room that we were encouraging them to put their toys in, but toys were just haphazardly placed in them which meant they might only be half full and not fit on the shelf properly which led to toys randomly being placed all over the floor. Also, everything was all mixed up so if they were searching for something particular, all the toys would end up on the floor and most likely would not be put away. 

In Walmart this past week, I bought two canvas bins (one for boys' room and one for Avery's room). These bins kind of spurred along a new inspiration to organize. 

In Avery's room after Christmas, we bought a red storage bin and put her stuffed animals and baby dolls in it. She has a vintage doll bunkbed and we use it for shelves. She has a few baskets on it (one for her favorite doll's clothes, one for her most played with Barbies, and one for dress up clothes). She also has a couple small plastic bins with lids and I moved the rest of her Barbies into one of these bins, then I put Barbie accessories in the smaller bin. These are stacked in her dress-up basket where she can easily access them and easily put them away.  She used to have her big Barbie toys (camper, grocery store) in a striped canvas bin on her floor but it took up so much space. I eventually figured out if I really moved all of her stuffed animals to the red storage bin, I could free up the lower level of the doll bunk bed to put the striped pink bin.  I put her Paw Patrol characters into a clear zipper bag and placed it under the bunk bed. Next to the pink bin, I placed the new canvas bin from Walmart & we're storing her horses and unicorns in that bin. The only things on her floor now are the Polly Pocket unicorn, the Paw Patrol tower & a trash bin. 

It seems so much more spacious! For the moment I'm keeping her gigantic unicorn bean bag on her bed since it takes up so much space. This might move back to grandma's house when we list our home. 

In the boys room, we have done ALOT of work over the past couple weeks. The boys spent New Year's morning sorting through toys & really deciding which ones they wanted to keep. We've made one run to the donation center and still have one or two loads to do over the new few weeks (the donation center was overwhelmed with stuff on New Year's day so we're giving them time to process what they've received before we inundate them with more things). 

Noah has collected garbage trucks and police cars for four years or more and amassed quite a collection. We brought out a big plastic bin to the living room last weekend and lined up every garbage truck, police car, firetruck, and bus and told him he could keep whatever fit into the bin (with the lid still being able to close). He did VERY well and this eliminated about a third to half of his collection. 

Yesterday, we hauled out every bin and bucket of toys into the living room and sorted them according to type ("emergency vehicles," "Legos," "Utility Vehicles," "Random Toys" etc.). Then we selected bins to match the amount of toys in each category (so "emergency vehicles" like hot wheels size police cars and police stations etc. were placed into an appropriate sized bin). These bins were then placed accordingly on their shelf. Today we reminded them that if they play with a toy, they should put it back in its bin before moving on to something else. 

Tonight, the boys & I spent some time in their room cleaning out from under the bunk bed. We eliminated half a garbage bag full of trash! Little torn up slips of paper, broken toy pieces, etc. are now no longer hiding in the room. Taking pictures of the clean area & loads of floor space to prove to ourselves that this can be done was a great boost to our morale!

I feel WAY more at ease about the potential to photograph these rooms for a listing and I hope that playtime is more enjoyable for my kids since they can easily find the things they enjoy. 

Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba

Iris Surprise!

We've been living in our house for 5 years now & never once has my iris plant in my backyard bloomed. In fact, last spring I intended to move it to a sunnier location but just never got around to it. However, on Easter Sunday when I was in the backyard with the kids, I noticed that it bloomed!  It produced lovely deep purple irises and they're just so pretty! Noah called me outside a few days later to show me that more had bloomed so I could take another picture. It's just so exciting!

Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba

My Anti- Covid Protocol

Since I'm around roughly 100 different kids every day (plus additional kids that I'm around in the hallways), I figured I needed to stick to a consistent vitamin routine this year. I get most of my vitamins from Costco (the Kirkland Signature brand) but the same vitamin type can be found at other stores or on Amazon. If it doesn't say Kirkland Signature then I ordered from Amazon or bought at Walmart. 

Everyday I pack a combination of these tablets and I take them at lunch time. I take one of everything, but 2 of the elderberry tablets. 

When I get to school, I use part of a water bottle to fill up my Keurig (priorities) and I use the rest for a packet of Emergen-C vitamin C powder. 

At bedtime I add an acid reducer (Pepcid AC) to combat acid reflux during the night. Apparently this also helps decrease the ability of covid cells to latch on to cells inside the body, so it's killing two birds with one stone. Even people without acid reflux are taking this in order to lessen the security of covid symptoms (obviously I'm not a doctor, so check with your Healthcare professional before adding it to your routine). 

My kiddos take gummy vitamins each day (the boys take two and Avery takes one since she's not four years old yet). I also add in one elderberry gummy for the boys. I don't give one of those to Avery since the label says it's for ages 4 & up, and because she's not in a daycare setting around lots of kids. 

This is just our basic routine. I know others add in more things but this is what works for us for now. 

Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba

Mommin' Ain't Easy

 Oh my goodness, sometimes I get overwhelmed by the sheer load of responsibilities that fall onto the shoulders of moms!  At times, I really feel like I'm using up all of my energy to tread water and keep my head above the waves.  Translated, this means that sometimes I'm simply surviving through that day and making it to the next day and repeating.  Lots of times, this means that my wants are put on hold and I have to solely focus on what's right in front of me: being a mom, being a wife, being a housekeeper, being a full-time employee, handling finances, handling medical equipment refills, etc. etc. etc. AH! Sometimes it's just so much!

I believe every mom has a similar load.  I don't really think any mother has it "easy."  Even if you're not burdened with constant medical needs, you probably have some other major life event that takes up the majority of your time and you know what?  Your particular needs are just as important as mine.  Our needs may not be the same, but they still require our own individual levels of attention and as long as those needs matter to you and cause you to exert emotional energy on them, then that's all that counts-- they matter.  

I love blogging and I love leisure reading and I love photography and I love drawing, but I've had to prioritize these "wants" so that I know where I'd actually like to spend the majority of my time once I am finished with my actual responsibilities.  Sometimes, though, this means that none of these things actually occur since my day-to-day responsibilities can certainly take up the entire day (after day after day, and so on and so forth).  

Today was an eLearning Day at home which meant that every student in the county was conducting their schoolwork at home to practice doing their assignments virtually.  Some students in the county are virtual learners for the first 9 weeks (like my sons) and some students come to school traditionally 5 days a week and only get a few random days to practice logging into the virtual system.  These days are designed to make sure all students know the basics of logging in and completing coursework just in case any of those students have to be quarantined and become virtual learners during that time frame.  These eLearning Days mean I get to be home with my kiddos and be their teacher and mom and keep up with all things household and school at the same time.  It's busy but I love it.  I absolutely love being home and find the blessing in every chance I get to be here. 

It's nice to drink my coffee slowly and get another cup (or two) afterwards! :)  Today on my agenda was 

• helping out the boys with their schoolwork
• making sure Avery didn't get into too much mischief (she's been known to peel the top off of my coffee table when no one is looking)
• grading my students' assignments as they came in
• planning out the final lesson for next week (I've already done 2 out of 3-- I see each class 2 to 3 times a week, so I have roughly 5 lessons that have to be planned in a two week period)
• changing and washing all sheets 
• changing and washing all dish towels and bath hand towels
• sprinkling baking soda & essential oil mixture on living room rug, then vacuuming living room rug
• giving all hard floors a good sweep and possibly a dust-bustering
• unloading and reloading dishwasher
• folding clothes

So far, it's 3:15 and here's what I've accomplished:

• helped boys with schoolwork 
• kept Avery entertained by changing the show often (her picks were "Nursery Rhymes," "Vampirina," "Fancy Nancy," and "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.")
• graded students assignments as they came in (this was HUGE and now all I lack to grade is what students will turn in on Monday/Tuesday)
• changed and washed all sheets (except for my own, but I'll do that after this current load of sheets is washed)
• Changed and washed all dish towels and hand towels
• unloaded and reloaded dishwasher
• folded clothes (and bonus points for putting away Avery's clothes and stacking boys' clothes in their room for them to put away)

Tasks still left to do today/this weekend:

• planning out the final lesson for next week (I can do this in the evening or this weekend)
• sprinkling baking soda and essential oil on the living room rug and vacuuming (I plan to do this as soon as I'm done with this post!)
• sweeping all hard floors and possibly using dust buster (this will be done before vacuuming the rug in case I need extra vacuum help to grab all of the Akuna fur balls)

Overall, I think I did pretty well! 

I planned out our dinners this next week to be lots of crock pot meals or easy-to-put-together meals.  Tonight I'm choosing to make something that takes a little prep work since I have the time.  We'll be whipping up Mix and Match Mama's Apple Bacon Pancakes to welcome in October. 

I hope your Friday was fantastic and relaxing and everything necessary to boost yourself up for the end of the week!

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba

Fall Touches & Favorite Things

When September rolls around, I pull out my fall decor & get to work making my home a cozy fall retreat! Our temperatures here are still in the high 80s with lows in the 70s but I know the weather will eventually reflect what I already feel like inside!  I update the decor as we move further into the fall. I'll throw in some more Halloween-ish decor (not much and nothing scary) and I'll change it around again when it's closer to Thanksgiving. This time of year just makes me so happy!  

I thought I'd showcase some of my fall decor, and also talk about some of my random favorite things!

FALL DECOR: 

I love my multi-colored felt leaf garland (Target, several years old). I paired it with a cream glass pumpkin, a straw & floral pumpkin (technically a door hanger), and a glass jar mod-podge handprint ghost art project my kids made last year. I added in some fairy lights (buy them at Target after Christmas when they're 60 cents a box!) and I love how cozy it turned out! 

I LOVE my $3 pumpkin door hanger I bought in Amish Country Pennsylvania a few years ago. Since we have double doors as our front door, I don't really hang anything outside anymore. Instead I find spaces inside to hang all these decor items! 

Technically, I think this is supposed to be a bathroom hand towel but I use it in my kitchen!  My other favorite towel is one from "Primitives by Kathy" that says "My Favorite Color is Fall" and it has glitter gold leaves on it (also known as "right up my alley." Give me all the glitter decor!). I bought it in Apalachicola, Florida on a Labor Day weekend girl's trip with my best friend a couple years ago. 

This lumbar pillow is a new addition ($5 in the Target Dollar Spot!). It says Pumpkin Patch on one side...

...and Apple Orchard on the other side. Avery uses lumbar pillows when she drinks her milk sippy cups. The regular one she uses needs a good wash, so she was happy to see this festive option for this season! She's very particular about it showing the pumpkin side up. 

I'm super pumped about these pumpkins being at a low level. I bought these 2 and the cream one on the mantel several years ago and I've always had to place them high up because of the age of my kiddos. This year, I felt confident enough to place these two lower down knowing that I could instruct all 3 kids not to touch. I'm still fairly smart about it though-- I put the fabric pumpkin on the left side that has no barrier beside it, and I put the mercury glass pumpkin on the right side behind the TV where it's slightly boxed in by Avery's toy kitchen. 

This is my little $3 felt wreath (Target, several years old-- do you sense a theme?!). This little decoration is very important to me. It's all I could afford when my sons were in their short daycare stint at the end of 2014. I've kept it all these years to remind me how far we've come. 

This is my laundry room door. The wreath on the right is my "seasons changing wreath." I'll swap out the flower for a pumpkin in October & for darker toned flowers in November.  I made the wreath on the left during a women's craft night. It's made from tiny cupcake wrappers. 

FAVORITE THINGS: 

We have all stainless steel appliances and I usually spray them down with my Thieves Household Cleaner, but they were all looking in need of some extra help, so I searched under my sink and found my Stainless Steel polish.  I forgot I had this!  It quickly shined everything up and my kitchen looks so neat!

My two big kids finished a week of virtual learning this week.  I keep their school papers in my cozy coffee nook.  The school crayons, markers, and our coloring books are kept in this utensil caddy. 

Since I'm back teaching in-person, I grabbed a pair of shoes to be my "school shoes" where I only wear them to school.  I treat them as a neutral and wear them with every outfit.  They're a snake print with gold accents (of course) and best of all, they are from Wal-Mart so they were super budget friendly.  They also have memory foam in the bottom and my feet don't hurt even after standing for hours during the day.  

I really wanted some faux plant accents around the house because I CANNOT keep anything green alive and I know myself well enough to stop trying.  I found a two-pack on Amazon of these little faux grass plants in concrete vases. I staged one on the antique washstand in our foyer...

...and I put the other one on the kitchen cart in our dining room. 

I found a larger faux plant in Target (where else?) that I put on the open shelves in our master bath.  I bought a second one that I staged on top of a filing cabinet at my desk at school. 

Baking really relaxes me, so I love sorting through my favorite old-school Better Homes & Gardens cookbook.  Tonight, I'm whipping up a German Chocolate Cake for my father-in-law whose birthday is tomorrow. 

I recently bought myself a new shade of nail polish that I had been admiring for years but hadn't bought yet.  I figured if I can't put make-up on my whole face due to wearing a mask all day, then I could dress up my nails!  It's called "Smokin' Hot" by Essie and it's a dark purple/gray.  It's the perfect fall color and I've already been complemented on my nails after putting it on for the first time!

Hope you enjoyed this random assortment of fall decor & favorite things! What are your favorite fall decor items to add to your home?

Until Next Time, 

Much Love, Reba