Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! Hope everyone had a wonderful 2011 and I can't wait to be back in 2012 with some exciting house updates!

I wish I could send a card to everyone but instead I'll send it right to your computer!
Merry Christmas from our family to yours

And we had to have a pic of Sam running away with his bag!

I would love to see EVERYONE else's cards too! Thanks Faith for hosting this sweet link-up. Head on over to Faith's blog to link up and share your card too in her Christmas Card Carousel 2011 link-up.

I'm dreaming of a . . . cold December

I realized I never posted about our gardening adventure a few weekends ago. Well in preparation for a hopefully cool if not cold December we've ripped up our pintas and zinnias, pulled up the caladium bulbs and planted some pretty white and purple pansies. Not a huge project by any means but fun and with a great impact!
We also took this time to rip up our old soaker hose which had cracked and put in higher quality ones and bury them under the mulch! Hopefully we'll have some cold weather for our pansies to thrive in (and by cold I mean like 50s!) I totally forgot to take before pictures- I know we have some of other work but you can't begin to understand how big the pintas had got! They were easy over 2 feet tall!

you can kind of see how tall the flowers on the left side of the pic are compared to the ferns

a side shot

All cleared out and ready to plant

pardon the leaves and such- forgot to take a picture right away and the wind brought lots of leaves!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow more pillows

So along with finally having some pillows made from the fabric I got back in JULY! I also recently bought some pillows off of One Kings Lane. Have you heard of it? It’s this great discount site for home goods/ décor. Just like all the others, they have four or five new shops open daily at 10am CST and the shops stay open for 3 days.  They have some amazing stuff and great deals, so I always check to see if there is anything I NEED on there!

These pillows I clearly NEEDED bad!

I mean, they are HUGE and they are reversable- what else do I need to say!

I LOVE them, especially the size of them, and the softness they add to the colors in the room!

Now that I have these, I can put both lumbar pillows on the denim couch so I think I’m almost done with the pillows in this room

 . . . . ALMOST! I've been eyeing a different floral print on Etsy that might be a better fit!

Ha! poor P!



It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Have you begun decorating your house? I LOVE decorating for the holidays, shocker, right?? Anyways, I love decorating for all holidays but Christmas in particular. And I love doing it early- then getting to relax and enjoy all the beautiful festive decor.

I think it comes from my parents, well the inverse of my parents anyways, we were always so stressed out and pulling stuff out at the last minute (don't be upset I just outed you mom, you know it's true!), that I think it makes me want to decorate EARLY so that I don't stress about it.

I think that's where my organizational skills/ anal-ness come in as well. . . another inverse thing. . . sorry mom, I do love you, promise!

Anyways, back to the subject at hand! CHRISTMAS! We are all set up ( well still missing a few small things) but otherwise perfectly decorated for the holidays and I am loving it! Here's a peak at our home for the holidays!

pay no attention to my Thanksgiving printable- soon that will be for Christmas!

stockings, nativity and cute snowman plate

Our Christmas memories book, our wedding bell and some Christmas candles

pretty embroidered place mats we got on our honeymoon

breakfast room

don't know why I love the ornaments in the condiment server so much!

This is hardly everything but a nice smattering of Christmas cheer!

Our Thanksgiving table

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours turned out really, pretty perfect! And exactly what I needed. It was big and loud and crazy and  PERFECT! We went to Dallas to be with my family and hosted 23 people at my parents' house.

Being the planner/ organizer geek that I organized it. We figured out what people wanted to bring, filled in the gaps by cooking the other stuff and made even more desserts, just because! I even sent out a spreadsheet detailing who was bringing what, and  who all would be there (nerd alert anyone??).

We had family and good friends, which is even more special to me!

After seeing so many fun ideas on Pintrest I decided to print a few printables and make some Oreo Turkeys and marshmallow Pilgrim hats (from ourbestbites.com) as lots of bloggers did. They were a little time consuming but I didn't think it was too terribly bad, they came together pretty well actually. The worst part was checking out at the Super Target with all that candy, cookies, etc! I felt the urge to tell the checkout lady what I was doing so it didn't just look like I was going to be gorging on candy all day or something!

Other than that I made sweet potato casserole, the BEST cranberry sauce, pecan pie and pumpkin whoopee pies- which is actually less than I normally make, thanks to all the organization going on up there! I leave you now with pretty pictures of our Thanksgiving tableS (no way to fit 23 people at one table!)

And shockingly, the only picture of the food I got was the dessert line up!

YUMMY!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!

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I hope everyone is eating too much turkey, watching football and enjoying family!

Slambo

So I realize that I my posting has been more intermittent lately, but I have a really good excuse . . . well a cute one at least!

Apparently puppies want you to play with them, not just sit in front of a computer when you get home! So play we have!! And run and learn to jump and learn our own name and sleep and EAT!

Sam will be 11 weeks old tomorrow which I can't believe- and he is SO much bigger than when we first got him. He was 9.5lbs when we got him and when we were at the vet last week he was 14.5 and I'm sure he'll weigh even more by the time we go for the next booster shots! And he's so tall now too! I just can't get over how cute he is!

This is the day we brought him  home:

And now:

after he learned he could climb (not jump, climb) up onto the patio furniture. He seriously sat there perfectly upright until we saw him, he was so proud of himself!

How I find him most of the time, playing with a toy

before learning that beds are to sleep on:

ahh- that's MUCH more comfortable, although he still does sleep on the concrete or the tile occasionally

grocery bag?? I think this is called a TOY!

And the day I realized that he was too big/ energetic for me to hold in the car on our way to the vet!

He changed the channel and put my car into neutral at the stop light while trying to climb onto the dash! HA

I think I could take his picture ALL day long!

Nutcracker Market

Last week I went to the Nutcracker Market here in Houston which is this amazing holiday market that benefits the Houston Ballet. First of all it is HUGE there were over 350 vendors and second of all they all have really amazing stuff. From baby and kids’ clothes and toys, to jewelry, food, Christmas décor, furniture, regular house decorations, they have EVERYTHING!

Unfortunately they don’t allow pictures inside, but I wanted to show you all of my cute loot!

I got a cute ornament for Sam to have on the tree!

I got some cute Christmas plates to display:

An angel for our tree topper, which I'm LOVING

And the grand finale! A new Christmas wreath.

I also got some food dip mixes and preserves- there was TONS of great local/ small batch food products there as well! So glad I made the trek over there, and now I'm ready to start decorating for Christmas!

Christmas Cards from Tiny Prints

**Sorry for the late post- this was supposed to post this morning but never did!

Have you all started working on your Christmas cards yet? Well if you haven’t I have to tell you all about Tiny Prints. They have the BEST Christmas cards around. The quality is amazing, there are tons of super cute designs to suit everyone’s taste and they print on both sides of the card (which makes them my favorite Christmas card store!

I ordered from the for the first time last year and was so pleased! I wanted something kind of elegant but still simple and modern and just LOVED the cards!

See- pretty right?

This year I want to do something more fun and colorful since we have Sam and some fun playful pictures. And apparently I’m not the only one that’s looking for fun and colorful because there are some amazing bright and cheery cards from Tiny Prints:

First off- I LOVE the candy cane stripes here- how fun is that?

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Oh and the colors on this were great too- its called Colorful letters! Right up my alley

and I LOVE the design on the back (which you can add pictures to if you like!)

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How much fun is this one!

Hi Sam! 

And how fun is the back of this one too:

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It doubles as a Christmas ornament when you are done!

Tiny Prints actually has several designs that you can choose to do in the ornament style! I love that- what a fun way to look through all your ornaments from years past, not to mention for your family! My mom's tree may soon be overflowing with Christmas card ornaments from me.

Now I just have to decide between the three- it was hard enough to narrow it down to those three but I plan on ordering my cards this week so the pressure's on for my fun and festive Christmas cards! What look are you going for this year? Tiny Prints has tons of other options, from elegant and shimmery to soft and serene, also they have other holidays including New Years (to give you an extra week to get the cards out), or  Hanakkah cards- they've got everything!

Check out all of their fun cards on their website:
http://www.tinyprints.com/shop/picture-christmas-cards.htm

PS- that's an old pic so the fun isn't spoiled for our family and friends getting a live card!