[ the halls are decked ]

Loving the way the house glows during the month of December. We've loved the feeling that our house is finally seeming completely "unpacked" (even though we've lived here for 8 months). And since that sense  of settledness was finally becoming reality, I was honestly a little hesitant to lug out all the sparkly trinkets,  that have a tendency to look cluttered and just attract the dust. But I'm so glad we did though. I'm not getting the cluttered vibe I thought I would. Instead, I get that I'll Be Home For Christmas, that this-is-our-first-Christmas-in-our-first-home-with-our-first-baby feeling every time I walk in the door. Ooooo, how I love the fact that I have corners, and nooks, and landings, and banisters, and ledges, and coffee tables to decorate. I've always wanted short spans of wall that call for just the right size picture, and little corners and places to put thought into that otherwise might go unnoticed. I love that I have them in our home, but it's double euphoria that I have corners, and nooks, and landings, and banisters, and ledges, and coffee tables to decorate for Christmas. Sigh.

Breck didn't really seem to be too interested or notice the tree all that much until Sterling started messing with the ornaments and pawing at them. Then Breck tried to chime in on the fun and get a few paws of his own in there. Breck has done fairly well with staying out of the tree. Fairly. We will say No, if he tries to touch the ornaments.  Sometimes he obeys, but I would say most of the time he laughs at us. If "no" or redirection doesn't do the trick, we have had to get the smackins out. Persistence pays off, right?!?! Maybe next Christmas he'll finally catch on. All we know is, we are putting up a tree every year; no question there... no matter how many kids we have, no matter how many babies are pacing the floor. None of this skipping-putting-up-the-tree-because-the-kids-will-get-into-it business. We're loving what we've got glowin' on every night here at the Buckingham household. So pretty!

Gotta give a big plug for my honey... didn't he do a fabulous job at decorating our tree? Literally, he did it all by himself minus one ornament. I can only take credit for hanging one lousy ornament. I was wiped out and not feeling well from a few different things the day we had planned to decorate, so he continued on with the plan and did a flawless job at that. And I must say, I've never seen anyone decorate a tree in such an organized way. He never had a mess puddled at his feet, ever. He's amazing!

Taaada....

Love it when you see the glow of little lights in every reflection in the house! 

Love our new stockings! 

Get a load of this Mom stocking! I can't get enough of my stocking... it so says Mom, and I love that. 

I collect these...

And BrettRyan collects these...

Tree skirt...

Pucker up!

Seems like it was yesterday we ordered this for Breck while I was still pregnant! 

Now look at him and his official Baby's 1st Christmas Ornament! Time is flying. 

My inside joke deer ornament from my man this year... 

And a random, just for kicks freebie, 

because his face in these pictures made this Momma laugh out loud:

[ trick.or.treat ]

Somebody found Gramma's estate-sale-stamp-stash! He could sit there for hours just going through all the stamps... it was precious. He was wide-eyed the whole time! 

We had a great time at Mom and Dad Buckingham's on Halloween! There was lots of warm chili, pumpkin carvings, pumpkin guts, laughs, babies, Honeycrisp apples, and carmel dip. Yum. 

Caught him in mid-wink. 

Mr. Creative brainstorming...

We had lots of fun carving pumpkins! Most of us kids (aka parents now) were able to find time in the midst of sleeping, napping, fussy, and happy babies to get a little pumpkin carving on. 

And boy, did we deliver.

Buddies!

And now, for the Breck's first Halloween costume! 

Drum roll, please........................................ 

We have a..... LION! Roaaaaaarrr!

Gramma, Poppa, and Breck Reid!

(Mama did pack socks for Breck, but they somehow got missed when putting on the costume. Lion tails and drawn-on-lion-whiskers are much more important!) 

She's not proud or anything... :) 

Breck (9 months) and Maxon (8 months)

Great Grams and Gramps with the boys. The boys were pretty much done by this point.

BrettRyan's (Left) & Amber's (Right)

(Look how creative my man is! His pumpkin is awesome! And then there's my poor attention-deficit-disorder-pumpkin-carving-attempt. I got a little out of control with the lemon zester on my pumpkin's face and it looks like it skid it's face on the pavement!) 

Ps. I saved the pictures from Breck's trick.or.treat to Mamaw and Papaw's house and was going to include them on this post when we "revealed" his costume, but wouldn't you know, they are on my hard drive with the rest of the ten thousand pictures that are being compromised right now. 

As soon as I get them back, I'll post!  

[ nonpareil temptations ]

A few months back, we had some guests over and the highlight of the evening was making our own carmel apples. We had about every topping a child, or adult for that matter, could possibly want to sprinkle atop their cascading carmel. At the end of the evening, most of the toppings were gone, except this six compartment container which housed six different types of halloween sprinkles. The container just screamed Martha Stewart Halloween Baking! Plus the thought of a nonpareil crunch on top of a soft sugar cookie cutout? Irresistible. It's true. Every time I opened my spice cabinet, there they were staring me in the face, and begging me to bake. I knew that in a few days the Buckinghams were getting together on Halloween for some cozy fall food, pumpkin carving, and fun times, so it was an instant excuse to sprinkle those suckers! I felt very Martha.

I had a little helper...

My spider... 

Look how cool my honey's black cat turned out...

I was photographing this pumpkin and Sterling touched it just as I took it. 

The acrobat is back!
(Stinkin' cute shirt compliments of Aunt Holly!)

Happy Fall!