Our Home at Christmas Time

So, I realized that I told some of you I'd post pictures of our new "home" months ago, and never did. So I took some pictures of our place all decorated for Christmas that I thought I'd share. As you know, we left our home in Ohio and ended up in an apartment in NY. There are some things that are actually better about the apartment than the house. Like, for one, Gavin has his own full bathroom. I love that he has his own bathtub that I can leave his toys in and that he can't get into our shampoo, razors, etc. Surprisingly, I think this kitchen is larger than our home kitchen. We still don't have enough counter space, but I think we actually have more cabinet space here. For example, at home, the only low cabinet was the one under the sink. There were drawers, but the stove and dishwasher took up the other low spaces, and Gavin loves to get in our cabinets here and explore. I'm glad he can do that, even if it does drive us crazy at times picking everything up 5 times a day! I like that our kitchen overlooks the living room. Back home, if I was in the kitchen, I couldn't see Gavin in the living room.

Of course, there are things that I hate about the apartment that I miss terribly about our home. The yard and garage are two big ones. I miss my neighbors! Valinda and Dawn were the best neighbors ever. I miss our hardwood floors and all the paint colors on the walls. I miss the privacy of our own home. Though they aren't horrible, I would love to be in a place where I didn't have to hear my neighbors walking above us.

Here's our place! Enjoy :)
The kitchen - that door leads to our "pantry." It's actually the storage area where our furnace is, but we've added shelving units and now that's where much of our food is stored. It's also where our garbage and recycling are stored so that Gavin and Shirley can't get into them. The dining room, complete with our new "grown up" dining room table. I sold our old one in the garage sale before we moved. Gavin had pulled the chair over on him twice because they were so light weight, so we decided to go to a furniture store and get a new table. We love it! This is without the leaf, so it actually gets even bigger. Perfect for family dinners!

The table set for Christmas, complete with the placemats made from Gavin's footprints last year.

In our dining room

The only place we could figure out to put our stockings. I think they look really cute up there!

The living room, looking out onto our patio. That's where we park, too.

Looking the other way

Our photo wall and Gavin's toy parking :)

Gavin's bathroom

Our bathroom, which we share with Shirley :)

Our master bedroom

I just realized while doing this post that I took the pictures while Gavin was napping, and therefore I don't have any pictures of his room. I will post some another time. It looks pretty similar to the nursery back home....minus the pretty green walls and cute Winnie the Pooh wall decals. He has his crib, book shelf, dresser, changing table, and toy box.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our home. We can't wait to have an actual house again. Jarrod misses cutting grass so much! And we were just saying the other night how we can't wait to decorate the outside of a house for Christmas again.