Up on the roof there arose such a clatter

As newlyweds, there isn't a whole lot that my husband and myself can do without assistance when it comes to home maintenance and handy work. We have figured out somethings on our own, but the big stuff usually requires assistance. What I'm saying is, we are not professionals... not by a long shot! So when I gave my husband puppy eyes and asked him to hang icicle lights on our house, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. He agreed and we arranged to borrow a ladder. Everything was going according to plan until we actually tried to get started!

First of all, this ladder did not seem very sturdy. I'm sure it was, but I would not have crawled up it. Secondly, the ladder only reached high enough for Billy to climb on the lower part of the roof. This means he would have to walk on the roof to get to the higher part. How he was going to do this and get the lights up, I'll never know! Anyway, long story short, I would not let him climb on the roof! He was making me nervous and he never even climbed above the 4th step.

After we x-ed the icicle lights idea, I remembered I had bought some LED lights after Christmas the previous year. I thought we could just put those in our bushes and put out the light up reindeer. That would look good right? Right. I go get these lights, and I realized that I bought the 'mini' strands. They are only 4 feet long. We have 5 big bushes. Not even one tiny strand per bush! X that idea too. If you're keeping count that is the second 'x-ed' idea in less than 30 minutes.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to save Christmas and salvage what's left of my hope of having lights outside for the first time! We have two trees in our yard. One is a huge 20 feet tall Bradford Pear or something. The other is a 4 foot tall, half dead, Japanese Maple (or something). Guess which one ended up wrapped in 'mini' LED lights?!



Did you guess right? These pictures are way too dark to tell, but the tiny tree got wrapped in lights. I think it turned out ok, but definitely not great. It's a solid showing for our first time, but there is room for improvement! Here are some more dark picture of the outside decorations!

This wreath is white with pink, green and purple ornament balls on it. I just love it!

My Dad made this snowman cut out for me a couple of years ago. It's painted on a big piece of wood. LOVE!

The goal for this year was to put out Christmas lights, and we accomplished it! We even got the set up on a timer! I'm so impressed! The goal for next year is to get the icicle lights up... somehow.