blink and you missed it

Happy New Year to all! We began the last day of 2011 picking up some delicious treats for tonight. Pink champagne, Neapolitan, and chocolate peanut butter to be exact. 

After a productive day of hanging out and not doing much but relaxing we headed out to watch a hockey game with Nick's family. It was tons of fun and Lucy had a blast dancing around our suite to the music that played during the breaks. 

I snapped this picture on our way out. We stayed the first two periods but then it became wayyy past a certain 22 month old's bedtime.

I even broke out my fancy "party" TOMS.

Back to those cupcakes. Here we are with 9 minutes left in the year.

I'm always astonished looking back at how fast the years ticked by.

We can't wait to meet our new baby boy soon and continue to watch our sweet Lucy grow and learn new things every day. I hope you enjoy your evening and CHEERS to a fresh start and a clean slate. 

God Jul!

Merry Christmas Eve to all of you! May you have plenty of family time, baking time, crafting time and napping time over the next couple of days!

I snapped this picture about an hour ago of a certain little girl who's more than ready to start the celebration!

Happy Birthday to my dad tomorrow. It's kind of fun every year to celebrate two things. It just means birthday cake and Christmas pies! 

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I hope you have a safe and happy holiday! See you soon!!!

you've got mail

I'm in love with getting Christmas cards in the mail every year. I'm a total hoarder about them too. I like to save them with the thought of one day I'll put them to good use. These pretties below arrived from family in Finland and Sweden yesterday and I didn't even want to throw away the envelopes because I loved the stamps on them so much. 

Some are so pretty I like to save to put out for decoration the next year. 

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Others I always think up projects like these pretty paper flowers or taking the tag punch to them and reusing for gift tags. 

And some I will let Lucy go to town on once the season is over and she can play around with them. 

Either way mail in December rocks!

Merry Christmas Eve, Eve!

it's official

Happy First Day of Winter! Bring on all the pretty snow and cozy nights by the fire. It's easily one of my favorite times of the year. I love how it forces us all to sloooooooooow down. No worrying about weeding or mowing the yard- sucking up an entire Saturday or giant electric bills because it's blistering hot. Things just seem so much more simple. 

So here's to curling up with a warm cup of whatever you like and more family time. 

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christmas quiz

A LITTLE CHRISTMAS QUIZ 

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate!
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? wrap them!!
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? We do both!!
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Not this year.
5. When do you put your decorations up? This year we put them up the weekend before Thanksgiving!
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Ham and the dessert table!
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? The year I got my snowboard.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Older than I care to admit lol.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Only the ones with my mom and dad at their house, then we do ours in the morning on Christmas and with Nick's family Christmas afternoon. 
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? White lights, a bunch of mix matched ornaments and my mom's hand-me-down tree skirt!
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? LOVE it and wish for tons of it!
12. Can you ice skate? Yes! When I was 8 my dad built a ice skating rink in our back yard, it's a great memory. 
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My engagement ring in 2006.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Spending time with family and friends- just being with those I love and hibernating at home a lot.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? everything! pumpkin pie, cake, fudge!
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I love it all! From the wrapping, to the baking, and cooking. I love receiving Christmas cards through out December too, it makes getting the mail every day so fun!
17. What tops your tree? An glittery angel :)
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Giving!!!!! 
19. Candy canes: yuck or yummy? I love them all crushed up on top of various baked goods.
20. Favorite Christmas show? Elf, we watch it every year while decorating!
21. Favorite winter activity? Sledding and tubing!
22. What is your favorite Christmas song? I love the old classics- anything by Bing Crosby.
23. Holidays now or then? I have great memories of Christmas as a little girl but I'm starting to see nothing tops seeing it through the eyes of Lucy.

Have a beautiful Wednesday!

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clock is ticking

According to the handy Target ad which features a Christmas countdown clock on my Yahoo homepage there are 109 hours left until Christmas. I'm spending the morning watching Christmas movies with Lucy, making my final grocery list for the weekend, going through recipes and making sure I have everything I need for baking and cooking so I don't have to brave the store Friday or even Christmas Eve even though I know it will inevitably happen anyway!

I'm excited to try this vanilla peppermint fudge recipe for the first time. It seems pretty basic and so I hope it tastes as good as it looks. Recipe link {here}

Christmas morning I love the smell of a good breakfast cooking so in addition to the usual breakfast casserole I'm going to make my new favorite sticky bun recipe! These things are no joke and so easy to make. Recipe link {here}

All this talk about eating has my tummy growling....

On a totally non related holiday note Happy Birthday to my girl Jen over at The Cottage Nest!!! You're one of the bestest, most creative friends a girl could have and I hope you have an amazing day!

and I hope you all have a great Tuesday and a wonderful Holiday week!!!

Dear December...

Dear December,

Would you please slow down a little? We're all enjoying you too much around here for you to be racing by so quickly.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Warmly,

spiced pecan time!

It's that time of year again! I baked the famous spiced pecans tonight and as Nick put it "It smells like Christmas!" These are the easiest things to make in the whole wide world and we eat them until we have  stomach aches- no. lie. 

You might remember my post on it from last year {here}. 

Here's the original recipe card handed down to me.

Have fun and beware of the tummy ache and sore tongue after you've eaten your weight in these things. You can't say I didn't warn you...

linking up to:

shue love

Holiday House Tour Entry, Sun Room, Master Bedroom

Welcome to part III and last installment of our holiday house tour! I love seeing the house all lit up at night and I'll totally miss it when it's time to take them down again until next year. 

                   

The January me will thank the December me for planting some paper whites. I'm waiting for the cat's to notice them and then quickly chew and destroy them.

It took me a while to decide what to do on the stairs but I finally decided to just clip some green off the back of our tree and tie them up with twine. I added the drummer boy courtesy of Dear Lillie. 

I LOVE how our big family tree turned out this year! We got another beautiful Fraser Fir and I makes the whole house smell so good! In continuing with this years "work with what you got" mantra I came up with the idea to string around bunting cut from book pages that I didn't use on a book wreath earlier in the year. It was so simple and easy.

 I tied up twine again this year around some of the windows and we've been clipping our cards from friends and family up there. 

In our room I just added a few subtle Christmas touches.

Wow! Can you believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away now! We had a super busy weekend packed with fun holiday activities. We took Lucy to a Jingle Book party at the library Saturday morning and then to a Christmas Party at her Gymnastics place Saturday night where she ran into Santa again. She did a little better than her last encounter- even taking a candy cane from him but then she smiled mischievously and quickly ran away. Today we headed to Jolly Days at the Indianapolis Children's Museum and next weekend we're looking forward to attending the Indianapolis School of Ballet's Nutcracker which my sweet niece is preforming in this year. 

We ended the weekend stopping off for hot chocolate and doughnuts and then going to our town's drive through light display in the park tonight. I also managed to get some baking, knitting and gift wrapping in too and now I'm dog tired and sitting on the couch with the heating pad lol. Sometimes I totally forget I'm pregnant until my lower back reminds me to slow down. 

I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead!

linking up to:

the shabby creek cottage
thrifty decor chick
the nester
alamode
cottage and vine