The Decor

Someday I will have my own home and someday I will be able to afford a really large and beautiful Christmas tree. Someday I might be able to create a home as beautiful as my sister's at Christmas time. (The latter is not likely as my sis is the biggest Christmas fanatic I know, but a girl can dream can't she?) Until that time, I will continue to put up my humble tree with all of my favorite coordinated brown and gold ornaments. I really do love our tree. The first year we were married we got all of the ornaments together and it may be many years until I decide to switch it up.

Our stockings have been hung from the mantle with care.

Love that tree.

Ornament Exchange

Every year my friend throws an ornament exchange party. I always look forward to it to see what everyone else makes. I do NOT look forward to coming up with 24 handmade ornaments myself. I am like Martha Stewart's redheaded stepchild. I have no crafty bone in my bod, so I steal ideas. Here is what I came up with:

I promise they were not all this crooked. This was a leftover. I took scrabble letters and put them into words that were season appropriate.

Here were some of my other favorites of the 24 I received:

Cute little tree.

I love anything with book pages.

This one broke in transit, but I thought it was funny.

Santa's belt. So easy and cute.

Once again: the book pages.

My Shining Moment

Growing up my family gave me a hard time about how I was the princess. Being the youngest girl of the four I think I demanded a little more attention. This preconceived notion has been adopted by my husband who thinks I tend to be a little demanding of his attention. (I mean seriously people, where do you get these ideas?) As I have grown older, I can honestly say a lot of attention is not all it is cracked up to be. I feel sheepish and embarassed at times. Enter: My graduation.
I was adamant about attending my graduation. Remember how I wanted to wear the Harry Potter gown? More than anything I feel like this was one of my biggest accomplishments next to child birth and a church mission. Why wouldn't I want to celebrate that? The real question is why didn't anyone else in the College of Fine Arts want to celebrate their accomplishments? I was the ONLY masters graduate at my graduation on Saturday. Sure there were only 5 or so names on the program, but i was the only one who showed.  I  got recognized all by myself. I felt like it was a bit too much attention amongst all the BA grads, but Joe and my family joked that it was my princess moment.

Princess moment

My biggest cheerleader

Not the best shot of Benny...

My great support system

Benny's Nursery

Remember my dilemma of the Nursery with the purple walls? Well, I finished it about a month ago, and have been meaning to post pictures, especially for my sisters who want to see it. Here are the ways I have worked with the purple walls:

Those bumpers were probably the hardest thing I have ever sewn. My mom called the day I finished them to tell me about this new study AMA came out with about how bumpers are causing SIDS. Great.

We decided the green, brown and yellow palate made the purple read more neutral.

I love me some Chevron.

I also love me some bunting.

So... did it work? Does it read neutral? Was I able to make the nursery a little less feminine for my boy?

Thanksgiving

This year was a very low key Thanksgiving. Joe had to work and my family was all out of town. He ended up getting off at noon instead of 6PM and we were able to have dinner with his family. I have had so many things to be thankful for this year. I have been blessed with a healthy son, the best husband anyone could ask for, a loving and giving family, a strong faith, a wonderful job, an education, and the list could go on and on. We did not get many pictures but here are a few:

Tired but thankful new parents.

Carter and Benjamin

Bella before she even got to the Turkey

Benny all doped up on tryptophan

This year was a very low key Thanksgiving. Joe had to work and my family was all out of town. He ended up getting off at noon instead of 6PM and we were able to have dinner with his family. I have had so many things to be thankful for this year. I have been blessed with a healthy son, the best husband anyone could ask for, a loving and giving family, a strong faith, a wonderful job, an education, and the list could go on and on. We did not get many pictures but here are a few.