Christmas Decor Tour

Our apartment isn't THAT big but people have asked for a tour of apartment...so I thought I would kind of do it for Christmas DECOR. I LOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOOOOve Christmas and preparing for the big day is just as much fun! My mom and I on Thanksgiving day went and got me a tree for a killer deal! I couldn't live without one! ANYWAY...here goes the tour!

My cute cousin, M*, is super creative and made this cute banner! I based my Christmas tree and this room off the banner...red and lime-ish green! My cousin has a cute blog..but is private SO you can go check out her photography blog here. 

Another view of the banner!

 Our Stockings. Mine is on the left and Matson's is the right! (We have no fireplace so the hooks worked out great).

 My mom made this ADORABLE quilt that is made out of only flannel fabric! So warm and I have used it all month! And the little pillow is homemade too. My grandma D* (my Dad's mom) gave me this petti-point before Matson and I were married. So I decided to make it into a pillow!

Our Christmas Tree! Love it! Red and Lime.

The Candy Jars or Red and White Candies!

 My Nutcracker Collection...Collected them as a child and now using them for decoration!!

 Yes, it does say "leon" but is suppose to say "noel". I told Matson about how my Grandma (my mom's mom) use to get so mad at all my uncles cause they would do this to her "noel". So OF COURSE now he does it!

 I added a little of Christmas everywhere with these glitter snowflakes and red ornaments!

 Our Microwave/KitchenAid/Snack table Kitchen Hutch thing. I threw some candy canes in a mug and my brother's fiance, N*, gave me the cute little "Merry Christmas" sign in a white elephant exchange (def cute and not a white elephant!). 

Our Kitchen table, the red ornaments again thrown in a cute platter with a fun holly table runner and another childhood collection of Mary Engelbreit things brought this Holiday Season Cookbook!

 Remember the stories about these snowflakes? Read here. Yes, I fixed them by hanging them from a ribbon instead of the cabinets. I have these hanging all over too!

I just thought I would show mine and Matson's Log Cabin Gingerbread house.

I had a blast preparing for Christmas! If you have any fun Christmas decoration tips or ideas! I would love to hear them! Have a very merry Christmas Eve. and Christmas!

fire burnin'

no this is not about the horribly sad tabernacle burning down. even though matson and i have been so sad about it and we hope that it gets rebuilt soon! But I thought it was amazing that the Provo Firemen found the painting below of Christ and that it was all burnt except our Savior. How incredibly is that? Although it is a tragic event, I do think it is a great symbol to remember Christ and put him at the center of this holiday season.

ANYWAY...now on to our fire burnin' events. 

EVENT NUMERO UNO

As you know almost every Saturday is waffle day here at the Tanner household. This past Saturday the 18th we had our fun friends T* and F* over for waffles and the BYU game. BUT Last Sunday the 12th we made waffles because on Saturday the 11th we were busy and did not make them. So we made waffles and then realized we had 20 minutes until church started. we had batter left over so we decided to finish making them while we got ready. we went to church. we returned and we smelled smoke. oh dang what happened now? did our furnace freak out? nope it's the darn waffles, i thought. i opened the waffle iron to see this...

a waffle cooked for a good three hours. yummy?

EVENT NUMERO TWO

Yesterday we were spending sunday with my family at their house. I am a little obsessed with heat packs (you know those homemade heat packs made out of fabric or a hand towel with rice or whatever in it?). Well i grabbed one of the many heat packs my mom has but this one i grabbed was made from a hand towel. i put it in the microwave for 2 minutes like i usually do. after 10 seconds my sister said why is the microwave smoking?  FIRE?! i opened the microwave to see that it was smoking the whole kitchen up and my heat pack was on fire. my brother grabbed hot pads and threw the heat pack outside. it was only in there fore 10 seconds? what happened? wellllllllll there was metal thread on the hand towel that was designed on the towel. not my bad. bad idea to whoever made it with metallic thread on it. anyway made for a fun sunday activity and a really smelly house. OOPS! 

end of stories. but i swear i am not retarded, i can cook and i do not burn things that often! 

Traditions

i love traditions. i am such a tradition keeper. ask matson. ask my mom. years past my parents have mentioned things like going out of town or to a warm place on christmas. and i just could not let that go down! i love christmas and the traditions that go with it. traditions bring tears to my eyes, not only tears of happiness and joy but also tears of GREAT sadness if we did not do them. my family has many that i am so exciting to share with matson this year for the first time like christmas pj's, games, and the big morning ordeal with a huge breakfast and hours of opening one gift at a time. and i am also excited to participate in matson's family traditions like mexican food on christmas and christmas carols (this is something new for me because if my family sang carols my dad would probably make that a horrible experience for my mother who does not enjoy my dad's voice that isn't too GREAT...no offense dad). matson and i have started a few of our own traditions and i am sure we will start more as time comes. but one tradition we started last year when we were dating is temple square.

matson and i went to temple square last year. and took a picture by this tree.

 and we went this year again. and took a picture by this tree again (well at least i did).

We love going to Temple Square and will make it a tradition forever for our family!

Merry Christmas! Have fun continuing your Christmas Traditions!

snowflakes falling.

snowflakes are falling. no not the real kind of snowflakes, i am talking about these cute sparkly decorative snowflakes i bought from target and sam's club this year. they are around our apartment hung up like this:

the cute snowflakes hanging above my kitchen sink. 

but one evil area of my kitchen is not so cute. well it is more like the scotch tape is not doing its job. i hung them up last tuesday, throughout the week one would fall down one day and i would just tape it up again. then the next day another one would fall down, and another. Then one day came when ALL five fell down. so i grabbed the duct tape and duct taped them on up there (yes it was a little ugs since you could see some silver tape), but i did it.

then matson and i were watching some mormon message videos (go watch them, i will post about them soon) and slowly we heard them each falling down. you know that tape ripping off sound? yeah we heard that...a couple of times. by the end of watching our videos we came in and saw this:

they had all fallen down except....

our little one was left hanging alone.

so i need some advice. anyone got some ideas on how to keep my cute snowflakes from falling? because obviously Mr. Scotch did not come up with good tape, nor did the ducks at the duct tape factory. so....any advice? opinions? comments? .....jokes?