Show us your mantles.

Today over at Kelly's Korner she is having a show us your life, mantle style. The house we are currently renting had a fireplace at one point in time, but sadly it was covered up when they added the second bathroom to the downstairs. While I wish they had left the fireplace, I am appreciative of the fact we have a second bathroom. Especially since the downstairs bathroom is our main bathroom as the upstairs bathroom has no shower, just a tub that takes days to fill.

I love having a mantle to decorate and I am seriously considering buying an actual mantle to hang on the wall so that I can display photos and most importantly, our Christmas stockings. While staying with my mom we occupied the front room which had a fireplace and a nice mantle so the picture you're seeing is the one from our time there. While I don't miss being there one bit, I do miss the mantle and how I had it decorated.

Halloween 2011.

This picture isn't the greatest since I took it with my cell phone, but it works. I like to consider myself an amateur photographer and I love to display favorite pictures, taken not just by me. The big picture in the middle is of Daniel and I on our wedding day. The other large pictures resting on the actual mantel on each side of our wedding photo is the girls' newborn pictures taken the day after their births. Both pictures were taken with them in the same position, wrapped in the blanket that their Mamaw Blankenship made for them. The next black frames are in between their pictures and ours, and it is their first ultrasound picture. Lastly the two silver frames on the very end are each of the girls from the spring of 2011. I love those two pictures and what makes them even more special is that I took them.

Addison in May of 2011.

Cadence in May of 2011.

Aren't my baby girls precious? Now their pictures litter the built in bookshelf at the top of our staircase. They are surrounded by our favorite books, school books, cookbooks, and Wagner's ashes.