Monday, December 5, 2011

It's beginning to look A LOT like Christmas...

...and more so this year than ever before!  Thanks to Pinterest, creative bloggers, creative relatives & friends, & being home with my girls for the third year in a row (that's three years of collecting!)...

"Rudy" the Elf rode into our home for the 1st year!



"MERRY" was one of the projects we made at Craft Night - so festive!














We also made these fabric Christmas trees at Craft Night - so fun!


And our third Craft Night project was these candleholders - so pretty!













I changed out the "Peace" sign from earlier in the day for the Christmas subway art from A Little Lovely blog.  I can't decide which I like here better...


The kid-friendly version of the dining table (I will take photos of the dressier, less kid-friendly version when it is set up for Book Club on Wednesday night).

If you can't tell, I really have lots of Christmas spirit this year!  This is the most I have ever decorated the inside of my house for Christmas and my hubby did the most he has ever done outside with a 60-inch wreath,  lights on trees & the lightpost, and two lighted deer...photos of his handiwork to come too!

I hope you all are enjoying the holidays as much as I am so far!  Season's Greetings!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I have so much to be thankful for, especially my wonderful family and friends!  I hope you all know how much I love and appreciate you!

Today we went to my in-laws' house.  I made/brought two sides:

my yearly staple:

(so sweet and yummy!)

and a new one for me this year, a combination of two recipes:

(what can I say, I like apples!)

with the pecan topping from this recipe:


the final result:

Pure deliciousness!  Not sugary (no marshmallows on top!),
but sweet and smooth, creamy, and yummy!  This combo's a keeper!

The girls created turkeys out of their handprints yesterday:


This was the first time we made these and I think they turned out great and they were so proud of them!  We even included them in our Thanksgiving photo:


I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!


Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Book Club

Have I mentioned I'm in a Book Club?  I had been in another BC prior to having kids that was really just a wine-drinking club, which would have been fine if we had also read and discussed books, but we rarely (never) did, so once things with my girls settled down a little bit I decided I wanted to be part of an actual BC, where we actually read and discuss books (while drinking wine and chatting about non-book things).  So I contacted four of my good girlfriends and they contacted 1-2 of their good girlfriends and we came up with a game plan and our BC began!  That was back in March and we have been going strong and meeting monthly and reading and discussing lots of books ever since.  Since I formed the group, I hosted the first get together and that means I also got to pick the first book, which was Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand:


What an amazing story! 

Nine months later it's my turn to host and pick the book again and this time I chose The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley:

We have not met to discuss it yet, but I finished it last night and it was terrific!  Happy, sad, historical, romantic, sad, happy, romantic, and just great!  I hope everyone else likes it as much as I did.

Other books we have read include:

A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein
The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (which we followed up with the movie & loved as much as the book!)
The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain
Zeitoun (Vintage) by Dave Eggers
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

My friends and I are also starting a Craft Night, in which we all get together (probably just seasonally) and the host comes up with crafts for all of us to do together.  We are starting next week with 3 Christmas crafts, which I will be sure to post the results of next week.  Fun fun!  I hope you are also part of some groups you find enjoyable!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Big Girl Bedding!

In addition to converting our guest room into a playroom/office, we are also in the process of converting our girls' bedrooms into "big girl bedrooms" and have been going back and forth for months trying to decide what bedding, furniture, and accessories to get them.  Here are some of the top considerations:




and a few others (not from PBK).  But one of my girls is obsessed with pink and for a long time the other one was obsessed with purple, but recently started being obsessed with green, and since pink and green are also their bedroom paint colors (but the opposite of the girl who is obsessed with the color, of course!) and we don't want to repaint their walls, we want bedding that will match their current paint colors.  We also have pretty (not overly) modern rooms, which we want to continue, and since the above choices are not very modern, we kept looking. 

Here are their current toddler rooms:

The Green Room:
 

The Pink Room:

And here are the big girl bedding sets we ended up purchasing:

For The Green Room:
(with plain white sheets from Target)

For The Pink Room:
Land of Nod Floral Bohemian Bedding (no longer available)
(with light green sheets from Target)

And I, for one, could not be happier with them!  They are girly, but not childish, modern, but not overtly so, include their favorite colors, and coordinate with their paint colors.  Perfect!

A few weeks ago we purchased this dresser for The Green Room:

and moved the IKEA EXPEDIT unit from that room to the playroom/office closet for more storage in both rooms, so that is another reason why we wanted more modern bedding (we plan to keep this dresser in this room, obviously).  We will also keep the rug, curtains, and some of the accesories in this room.  Another new thing we purchased for this room is this print:
(which could not be more perfect for her!)

For the pink room, we will keep the curtains, rug, and most of the accessories.  But both girls are getting one of these:

(made by their grandpa (how cool is that?!)(will be painted white))

And to finish it all off, custom made headboard like these:

(but in solid colors that match their new bedding sets)

I think it will all look great when finally put together!  I will post photos when that happens...

PS - I do intend to publish posts more than once a week!  Hopefully several this week since it's a short work week for my hubby, a holiday, and a long weekend!  Hope you all have a great week!