I LOVE Christmas!

"Christmas is not a time or season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." -Calvin Coolidge

Christmas is my favorite holiday. Period. It's not about the presents; it's about the general feeling. Everyone is happy. Everyone is giving. Houses smell like cinnamon and pine. Cookies and pie are baked more. Special music is played. Winter still feels crisp and exciting.

And most people decorate.

I admit, I did not have high hopes for our apartment this year. Not only am I a terribly interior designer, but we had no decorations to our name, except for a tiny 3-foot artificial tree. Though we'll be spending Christmas with my parents and their house is decorated, I wanted our place to look festive to get us excited for the holiday.

While decorating my parents' house, we inherited the following:

• A full-size artificial Christmas tree
• Two 18-foot lighted garland
• A Christmas swag
• A nativity set that I don't have to worry about the boys breaking
• LOTS of Christmas lights

We also got one decoration for free from a friend in our ward, and discovered we had a few ornaments and 4 place mats while cleaning our place! Now the apartment looks great! Here's what we've got up:

Our Christmas tree! Not the most beautiful (the garland and ornaments keep getting pulled off by the boys), but I love it!

Nativity

The original Christmas tree we were going to use

Christmas swag above our kitchen table

Our place mats

Countdown to Christmas decoration and a light-up garland

Free prints I found on Pinterest, pinned HERE

And there's still more I want to do. There's one more lighted garland that I want to put on the half wall by the stairs, and then more Christmas lights I want to hang near the ceiling around the living room. Yay!

Secret: I sometimes want to be friends on Facebook with people I didn't even know in high school, just because I like seeing how their lives are turning out. Does that make me a stalker?

Amazing Recipe

"I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites, and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven't yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?" -Bill Bryson 

I've often wondered the same thing............

Alright guys. I have to admit - I am not the best cook. I can follow a recipe... most of the time. And really, the things I made do turn out ok. I have aspirations to become this amazing cook and baker that can look in my fridge and pantry and invent some new dish or dessert just by seeing what I have.

That will not be happening soon, my friends. Usually, the problem I have is finding all the ingredients in my house for a recipe that's already been invented.

I'm always on the lookout for a new (EASY) recipe to try out on my little family. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I LOVE Pinterest, mostly for decorating ideas, crafts I could make someday, holiday items, and new recipes to attempt. I actually had Jason look for a meal to try from my food board, and he found this one. I had high hopes, and man, did it turn out!

Pinned HERE

It's called Tuscan Pasta with Tomatl-Basil Cream. Jason loved it. I loved it. You'll love it too. Try it! Click HERE for the recipe. You won't regret it.

In other news, I've decided that I am decorating-illiterate. If anyone is good at that kind of stuff, would you be willing to share your talents with me? Maybe you can take what we have and figure out an amazing way of making our apartment look good. Because currently, it looks like a dorm. And it makes me sad.

Secret: I really like doing my family history. Especially now that there's the New Family Search website, it's so easy to organize. My dad recently gave me this HUGE book of remembrance for his side of the family. It's binding is expandable, and right now it's at least three or four inches wide. I just love discovering old family members and their stories.