My New Favorite HGTV Show






Paint-Over! With Jennifer Bertrand

I was bored on a Saturday night and decided to do some vegging in front of the TV and stumbled upon this great new show. This cute and bubbly designer has such great ideas and is very entertaining to watch! Maybe you'll find her as entertaining as I did... you should check it out!

Simple Yet Timeless Ornaments

I saw what Kimba, A Soft Place to Land, did on her blog a few weeks ago with these wooden cut outs and card stock. I just fell in love with the idea of making something so simple yet so timeless.

I'm hoping my mother doesn't check my blog for a few days b/c then she'll be seeing one of the gifts that I made for her and my dad. Oh well, mom if you're reading this before Christmas then.. Merry Christmas to you.. early!! I made them for my in-laws as well.

They're not only affordable to make but also ornaments that will be treasured for years to come.

Christmas Open House

Around the house @ Christmas time.

This little scene is situated on one side of the mantel.

This green star is by far one of my other most favorite finds at the thrift store.. love it and just so happens to be one of my most favorite colors as well.

This is my baby girl's stocking.. last year I took advantage of an after Christmas sale that a cute boutique had and got us all matching stockings with our names monogrammed on them.

This is an angel wreath that I purchased a few years ago... love the Christmas theme.

This is a special ornament that my mother gave me.. it's called a blessings basket and you write down your blessings and put them inside and then year after year you read your blessings to remind you to be appreciative of all that you have.

I absolutely love this metal G that I found at the Christmas village.. I painted it red and used it in my Christmas wreath, but you could repaint it any color and use it in any season to decorate. I just haven't done it yet!!

Has it been a whole year???

Our beloved home


It's so hard to believe that it's been a full year since my grand idea to make my very own crunchy onion topping for my green bean casserole turned into a complete disaster.


This is all that remained from my iron skillet and my favorite rudolph oven mitt. The firemen put out the fire and decided to leave the charred mess on my outdoor table.. how nice of them, huh?


This time last year we were frantically moving out of our temporary hotel "home" and into a rental house wondering what Christmas would be like in a strange new place.




With such a wonderful, helpful and loving family our Christmas turned out to be an amazing time spent together... no matter whether we were at "home" or not.


As Christmas approaches I'm reminded that it's not about US anyway.. it's about focusing on Jesus and celebrating his arrival into this world. Because of His birth we who choose to believe have the incredible opportunity to accept Him as our Savior and live with Him forever one day.


Rejoice... our King is born!


Merry Christmas!

My Favorite Thrift Store "FIND"

THE CHAIR



This has to be the cutest high chair that I've ever laid eyes on before.. and I was so lucky to have found it at the thrift store. I can't imagine who would ever have just given this away.. but you know the old saying.. "One person's trash is another's treasure" and this is such a treasure to me. It will be in the Gray family for generations to come.




My daughter absolutely loves it and sits in it all the time.. we have to take it from room to room so she can sit in her chair. I'm so glad that I didn't just walk by and leave it at the thrift store.

Bike Fun @ a birthday party

We went to a friend's Bike birthday party. The kids decorated their bikes and she had the local fire department that was just down the street to come and lead us in our bike parade.



The kids thought it was loads of fun and they got to ride behind the fire truck on their bikes while all the neighbors came out to watch our parade... fun, fun, fun!!

My Little Class President

Alright... I am so stinkin' proud of my son that I had to post the news on my blog. This precious child is in Kindergarten and is more like his father than he truly knows! (for those of you who know his father you know what I mean)

Well, because we are in an election "season" and there's so much talk about the candidates... there was an opportunity to teach our kids about politics and doing our part as citizens of this great country.

So, we decided to participate in a class project that was optional. Each member of Braydon's kindergarten class was given the chance to "run for class president". We worked on our poster over the weekend and we made bracelets from pipe cleaner and beads that reflected our school colors for each member of his class.

I'm not going to claim that our poster was the best or that the bracelets totally won over all of his classmates but I'm completely convinced that it is the extraordinary personality of my son that won him this "election".

By the way... he doesn't have a shy bone in his body. He knows more people in his school from just the few months that he's been there than his older brother knows and he's been there a whole school year ahead of Braydon.

I'll finish by just stating that I couldn't be more proud of my son for taking a chance and having the opportunity to experience a positive outcome.