Saturday, December 1, 2007

Decking the Halls

The cost:
  • 3 hours of house cleaning.
  • 2 hours of Elmo videos.
  • 3 hours of decorating.
  • 1 hour of kids (rotating through) sitting on the not listening chair for various offenses (yelling, fighting, picking up breakable objects, not doing jobs, etc.)
  • 1 hour of cleaning up the decorating-- (quote from Ryan: "The best thing about this fake tree is how it sheds just like a real tree!)
  • 1 hour of Seth coming out from his nap and declaring, "I had a nice nap, Mom" when he'd never actually been sleeping.
  • 42 hours (or something like that) of Christmas music. (Muppets singing "12 days of Christmas", anyone?)
  • 1 1/2 hours of grocery list making and grocery buying.
  • 1/2 hour of putting up outside lights in 23 degree weather.
The Pay-off:


1 clean, well-stocked, holiday spirited place to come home to.

34 comments:

Anisa said...

Wow!!! you go all out!!! I tried to get a little more creative this year and all I got was a hurt back.

Bridget said...

Looks beautiful. I love seeing the photos of bloggers festive homes. My Christmas home decor could all fit in one photo. The shot of the fireplace with stockings. Very sad.

Jill said...

It looks fabulous!!!! Can I come over!!??

Anonymous said...

Jessica! this is katelyn (maiden name Thompson) foutch! I found your site through danae! I can't believe she found you! I still remember some of your lessons in YW. I looked up to you so much! I still do! Seeing your fun and happy family makes me want to be a better mom! I just love this post! So fun and so true! Every time I need to get something done my girls are watching elmo for hours too! so funny! Your house is gorgeous! How are you doing? Where do you live now? Are you pregnant? I can't wait to hear from you!

Celia Fae said...

Do you need any more comments after that awesome one from K? I can't imagine being thanked and honored like that.

Your house looks adorable and I want to be your neighbor and enjoy your spirited well stocked home.

Paige said...

The cost was well worth it for me to see that beautiful house. Now mine is looking all cheesy and I think I need to order to less cutesy stockings and finish decorating the tree all the way up. Notice how I said order the stockings, and not make them. Because that would never happen.

Lindsay said...

Beautiful! Great job, everything looks so nice!

bloggingchristy said...

Cute, you ALWAYS have such cute decorations for holidays, but you really out do yourself at Christmas. I'm not decorating for Christmas this year (Moving and everything), so maybe I'll post pics of your house on my blog. No one would ever know, since hardly anyone has ever been here. I'd just have to pay off Meri and Bart to keep their mouths shut!

shauna said...

Would you trade me your decorated house for my warm weather? I'd have a beautiful place and you'd have no mismatched mittens, sock-in-boot-problems, wet snow on floor etc.

AMY said...

Your home is beautiful and your decor is even more so! Very homey. And I'm so impressed that in all of that there was only 1 hour of the time-out chair between all of your kids! Nice job!

Lisa-Marie said...

Oooh. Cozy cozy cozy!!! I'll be right over for hot chocolate. Well, in give or take 12 hours. YES. I am in Idaho. Rexburg. We are so close yet so far away!!! (Maybe Oprah will fix that for us!!!)

Jake said...

Looks gorgeous! And we have also been listening to a lot of Muppet Christmas cheer. John Denver died way too soon.

Ilene said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ilene said...

So the other day I was trying to get myself motivated to get myself busy on my "to-do" list and the thought that came to my mind was, "What would Jessica do?"

That day seriously turned out to be one of my more productive ones in a long time.

It brought a whole new meaning to the "WWJD?" bracelets.

Darling house, by the way!

You busy around lunch time on Wednesday?

Jessica said...

NO! That sounds very fun!

Adrianne said...

I LOVE Christmas decorations!!! I'm planning on doing lots more stocking up on this trip. And it seriously took me way more time to get them up than it ever did pre-Gabe.

Ilene said...

12 it is. Yay! Perhaps this will even inspire me enough to get the holiday decorations up. After all, it is what Jessica would do.

Penny said...

Your house looks great! I can't wait to see it tomorrow...

I decided I wasn't putting up all my decorations this year. I just don't like all my stuff and all the clutter makes me nuts! I decided I am going to "Simplify" this year!

Penny said...

Oh, and you forgot about the hours upon hours of telling the kids to stop touching the tree and taking off the ornaments...
Maybe that will be your next post!

Linsey said...

Adorable. Tell you made that glass ball ornament wreath and then tell me how to do it. We need a wreath and I LOVE that one and since my heretofore undisclosed New Year's Resolution is to be more like Jessica Romney, I must have it!

D-dawg said...

Jessica it looks so great! I feel tired though hearing about it all!

Hollyween said...

Are you serious with this? Will you please please come to my house because yours just looks so beautiful, homey and organized. I really think I'd like your house. It looks my style. And I'm jealous of your hardwood floors and your christmas stockings. They are sooo pretty. Where did you get them?

Ellie said...

Awesome. I am glad you documented on your blog. It counts as having a holiday party because everyone saw your decorations. Bonus 'cause there is no clean-up.

Carie said...

I have been busy decorating for the holiday as well, which is probably why I am comment #24.

Looks fantastic!

Cami said...

Well, WOW.
That is just beautiful.
Nice work.

brooke romney said...

Love it. Looks great. Where did you get those cute stockings/? I've been on a stocking hunt.

zeeny said...

I love the wreaths, garland, wrapped presents above the fireplace, well...it all looks great! Enjoy the Holidays!

zeeny said...

I love the wreaths, garland, wrapped presents above the fireplace, well...it all looks great! Enjoy the Holidays!

marcy said...

Jessica Okay here I am actually leaving a comment! You are a darling, and so is your house- Where is the recipe for the peach pie????
Also your chocolate silk pie receipe was just like one I have from Grandma Romney. We need to get together-

rachel said...

Jessica! I found you through Katelyns blog. what a beautiful house. i have never seen so many comments before. you have such a beautiful family. we are living in CT working for deloitte. anyway, just wanted to say hi!
rachel (brower)

Erika said...

all that without the help of Adrianne - she should be very proud! Award Winning Jessica.

Tammy said...

Looks fabulous!!!

Tammy said...

Looks fabulous!!!

heidiram said...

Looks awesome! And I would love to borrow your fireplace. Not that we need one here, but it's always a little tricky trying to explain to the kids how Santa is going to visit if we don't have a chimney/fireplace for him to go down. We've just left our back french doors unlocked the last couple of years so he can walk on in.