Partially finished living room

So here's our finished-for-now living room with the Ballard prints, the shelf from a seller on Etsy, and the lantern (on the right) from Pottery Barn.

I have yet to find exactly what I want to go on the shelf. I have a vision of an orange tray with sides that slope up, and I want to put a few decorative balls on it. I have looked far and wide for a tray with the perfect depth and width, knowing I can just spray paint it orange, but no such luck as of yet.

Our next purchases in this room will be new couches (not any time soon... they're wearing down, but I love having old couches with young kids), a coffee table, a table to go between the zebra chairs with a lamp on it, and I'll move the current lamp to the right side of the console.

I broke down and bought a 2nd tree today. Our floor plan has no fireplace in the living room... it's in Jason's office... so I have a 'formal' tree in there with the stockings hung.

Call me Mrs. Bah Humbug, but I have never decorated a tree with family ornaments. And now that the kids are old enough to enjoy helping me decorate (Emerson actually put a Christmas shirt on before helping me on Sunday... that girl knows how to get in the Christmas spirit), I figure it's time to get a family tree and break out the ornaments with special meaning. I'm going to start buying them each an ornament every Christmas so they can start their own collections.

I'm really excited about this Christmas season in general! I feel like it's the first time in a really long time that I have a good amount of energy, I'm not nursing or pregnant, and I've got a lot of gift buying under my belt already. I hate feeling stressed during December. I'm looking forward to our company Christmas party at Michael V's, a cookie exchange party at my friend Cristin's, and the kids' Christmas pageants at preschool. I'd like to go watch the Tulsa Christmas parade this year, too. Just enough activities to feel festive, but not overdo it. I'm not an overdo-it kind of gal. I get cranky. Just ask my husband.