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

dining room, living room and kitchen holiday tour

After last years decorating overload I felt the need to pair down and really edit. It feels less like a Christmas display at a shoppe and more like a homey home this year. The burlap runner from Thanksgiving stuck around but the place mats were replaced with my fave board toile mats from Williams-Sonoma that I picked up on clearance a few years ago.

In the kitchen I made a new JOY banner from vintage sheet music.

I'll share the rest of the house in part III Monday including our entry, sun room and master bedroom. Hope you have a beautiful evening!

linking up to:

Honey We're Home
My Romantic Home
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Thrifty Decor Chick
The Nester
Alamode
Cottage and Vine

Holiday Mantel and Lucy's Room

Good morning! Today I wanted to share with you our Christmas mantle and Lucy's room as part 1 of my holiday home tour. Like I mentioned in previous posts I worked with what I had this year including more natural outdoorsy type items like pine cone's found in our yard.

In Lucy's room I added just a few fun holiday touches. 

She loves looking at the ornaments on her tiny tree and pointing out each one asking "what's that?"

I hope you have a beautiful Tuesday!

Linking up to:

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Ten June
French Country Cottage
Honey We're Home
My Romantic Home
Alamode
The Shabby Creek Cottage
The Nester
Cottage and Vine

Breakfast with Santa

Good morning! How's your weekend going? Feels like it's flying by too fast for me but that's really nothing new. We went to Breakfast with Santa at our local middle school yesterday. When we got there there were only a couple people in line to see the big guy so we figured we'd do that part first..... In hindsight maybe we should have eaten first. All was going so great at first, Lucy was smiling and waving to Santa, then we got a little caulky and tried to hand her over to him and that's when things went downhill fast. I love this picture my mother in law snapped! It really captured the scene. I really wish I hadn't already printed my Christmas cards. 

She quickly recovered after breakfast though once she found the band room instrument "petting zoo." It was such a cute idea to let the kids explore and bang on the different instruments.

They also had about a dozen or so different craft tables set up. 

Lucy kept going back to the petting zoo, she was in heaven.

I was at the table guarding our things when Nick snapped this photo of her with the violin. He said she picked it up, hugged it and then tried to casually stroll off with it. 

 Hope you all have a beautiful Sunday. I'll be back tomorrow with part 1 of our holiday house tour!