New Year's Eve and a Winter Mantle

Happy 2013! Did you have a good New Year's Eve? We celebrated ringing in the new year with a small shin-dig (people still say that, right?) at Melody's place. Tons of food, friends, games, children running around in their pajama's and catching the New York Times Square ball drop with 58 seconds to spare.

This little monkey stayed up waaaaaaay past his bedtime and rang in the new year with us. I don't know how he did it because I was starting to fade around 9:30pm...

Now it's back to reality, but a different reality for me. I am on my first day of maternity leave and I get to clean and organize my house! It's actually exciting because normally I have to turn a blind eye away from the chaos and focus on my work. Then for some reason it is still there when I return (what happened to little cleaning fairies?). No more though; it's time to get this house back in order before this new baby arrives. (6 weeks!!)

The Christmas decorations are piled on the kitchen table and ready to be organized in their bins. The tree is out of our house and waiting to be picked up. I always love decorating for Christmas but then I equally love packing everything up and having space in my house again. A fresh start. 

I was able to change up the fireplace mantle into something less Christmassy and more wintery.  Because that's what I like to do. 

What are your plans to take down your Christmas decorations? Did it already happen before 2013 hit?