2010 Christmas Tour

I'm linking up to The Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes as well as Kelly's Korner again this year! You should definitely check out all of the links there to see some beautiful Christmas decorations and get LOTS of ideas! Our living room is really done in classic red and green.

The last two years I have had wrapped gifts as my mantle decorations but I was ready for a change. I found this garland at Target that already had green ribbon as well as green and red Christmas balls and it fits PERFECTLY on my mantle. I already had one apothacary jar (that I use in the kitchen) so I bought another one and put them on each end of the mantle. The wreath on the mirror is the one that I made.I got these sets of green and red balls at Target and I love them!I absolutely love apothacary jars. Mine came from Old Time Pottery for VERY reasonable prices!More Christmas balls on the coffee table. My all-time favorite Christmas book sits on the other side of the coffee table - The Polar Express. I have LOVED this book since I was small and I cannot wait to read it to a little one and make it a tradition. For now, the dogs enjoy it! ;)
This church is one of my favorite Christmas decorations. It has fiber optic lights that change and it is SO pretty! My mom bought me this nativity scene years ago and it is one of my favorites! I wanted a nativity scene but don't have a lot of room for a big one. This one is just so simple but beautiful! It's a GREAT reminder of what Christmas is about! I decorate the kitchen too, of course! I LOVE to add little holiday touches to every room! I put my Christmas dishes out along with other decorations!

I found this cute basket a couple of years ago and use it to hold dish cloths

I found this plate a few years ago in Disney World for a few dollars. (Note the Mickey heads in the holly). I never really used it so I got my friend Katie to add some vinyl and I LOVE it!!!

My father-in-law gave me this for Christmas a few years ago and it is so pretty all lit up in the kitchen at night! I LOVE having little lights all over the house and spending nights at home with all of them on. SO COZY! Can you tell that this is my FAVORITE time of year???

I keep this red bowl out in the kitchen for all of the Christmas cards we get! I LOVE getting cards!

This year I even jazzed up our main bathroom! I found this cute frame on clearance after Christmas last year at Target.

I found this Lennox nightlight for a GREAT price a couple of weeks ago. It is SO pretty when it's on!

I found these towels after Christmas last year. They are so fun to me and match the frame!

I hope you all have enjoyed my little tour. As you can see, Christmas is my favorite time of year! May you all have a safe and wonderful holiday season!

"For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6 (NLT)

Ribbon Wreath

A couple of months ago, my friend Karla and I got together for a "Craft Sunday" to make wreath ribbons. Karla made one for her sister's baby nursery so now that her sister has hers and the secret's out, I can share mine! :)

We found lots of different ways to make them but this is the one that we tried first. (I will definitely try more). I decided to make a Christmas one for myself so I bought a syrofoam wreath and coordinating Christmas ribbons from Hobby Lobby.

I cut the ribbons into strips.

You take push pins and loop the ribbon to attach it to the wreath. As you can see, there is no specific way to arrange it. Your goal is to completely cover the styrofoam.

And voila!!! Cute, huh? It took a couple of hours (and a snack break) to complete.

I had an unfinished wooden "A" from Michael's and decided it would be perfect for the center of my wreath. I painted it a bright green and used a paint pen to add the red polka dots.

I used a staple gun and push pins to attach it to the wreath and the project was complete. I was originally going to put the wreath on the inside of our back door. However, I have put it on our mirror over the fireplace and it's really cute. (I'll do a Christmas tour of our house later this week) Here is a picture of the final product (it's a HORRIBLE picture because I realized while doing this blog post that I didn't have a picture of the completed wreath so this is from the Blackberry - it looks yellow and it's NOT - it's GREEN).

Stay tuned for more pictures of our house decorated for Christmas! I will try to get those posted this week! Hope you all are staying warm and enjoying the snow (if you have gotten any over the last few days)! :)

Too Many Pictures...What Do You Do?

If you are like me, you take LOTS of pictures throughout the year and just don't know what to do with them! That's where Shutterfly comes in! I go through my pictures and pick the ones that I want to actually have printed. When you sign up for Shutterfly emails, you periodically get discount and promotional codes which give you GREAT deals on pictures, as well as other items like calendars, canvas wall art, and even Christmas picture cards.

If you haven't used Shutterfly, you are missing out! I have used Shutterfly for the last few years and I love them!!! All of their products are excellent quality and they are SUPER fast getting your orders to you!! I have always had my order within the same week that I ordered it. And if you are like me with limited patience, this is IMPORTANT! :)

Last year, I chose Shutterfly for my Christmas cards and LOVED them!!! I chose the matte finish and they were my favorite Christmas cards yet!

I have narrowed this year's selection down to 3 different designs, but I'm not sharing which ones yet! ;) Once I've mailed them out, I will definitely share them with you all!!! :) One thing is for sure, they will be from Shutterfly!

San Fran - Part 4 (Last installment) :)

One night we found The Cheiftain, an Irish pub in the SOMA district. It was authentic Irish food, like fish and chips but a few very interesting things too.

One such interesting dish was this zucchini soup. (Yes, it's green) It was SOOO scrumptious! The Chieftain was a really good restaurant and really cool atmosphere.

You absolutely can't go to San Fran and not ride a cable car! We caught the cable car down near Ghirardelli Square and rode it all the way through town to Union Square.

Rob stood on the back and snapped pictures while Jacob and I sat safely inside. Ha! Yes, our cable car is about to meet the one in this picture. I really think you could reach out and touch the passing cable cars!

Jacob surprised by the camera! :)

This is a view looking back down the hill we had just come over

Union Square was about 2 blocks from our hotel, so needless to say, we spent LOTS of time there! :) They were starting to put the Christmas tree up in the middle of the park.

Lots of shopping!

Our last night we had sushi at a place called Sanraku. Jacob had been craving sushi all week and we finally found him some! It was YUMMO!!

Doesn't he look happy? I know I was! :)

I, of course, have LOTS more pictures but I don't want to bore you guys to death! San Francisco is a beautiful and fun city! We would love to go back and drive up into the vineyards....maybe someday! :)

San Fran Part 3 - Alcatraz

If you've ever been to San Francisco you know that Alcatraz is a MUST SEE! I've always been intrigued by Alcatraz and even more so after seeing it. We took a ferry over and this is what you see as you approach the island.

The shell of a building on top of the hill used to be the barracks where the guards lived. One thing I never realized before going to Alcatraz, was that guards and their families lived on this small island. While we were there, I just kept thinking how I could not imagine raising my family that close to a maximum security prison.

The lighthouse at Alcatraz

Our ferry ride over

One of the corridors of cells.
As you can see, the cells were TINY. On the left you can see two metal shelves, one being the table and one being a seat! On the right is the bed frame....the mattresses were about 3 inches thick!

This is the shower room. In the early days there were stalls but after some security issues it became just one big shower room!

Alcatraz also offers some of the best views of San Francisco. That's the Golden Gate Bridge behind us.

Notice the hilly streets of San Francisco behind us.

I have TONS of pictuers from Alcatraz but didn't want to go overboard on the blog. HA! It really was intriguing and SOOO interesting!

San Fran - Part 2 - Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square

We also hit the classic tourist places, Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, and Ghirardelli Square. Fisherman's Wharf is an older part of town is lots of small restaurants, bars, and shops.

If you have seen these "toilets" before you know how funny they are. It looks a lot like a phone booth or something. They are public bathrooms and after each use they go through a 50-second self-cleaning cycle. I didn't use one, but as you can see Jacob experienced it. Too funny!

Pier 39 was also really neat! Lots of shopping and eating! The view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the pier.

That's Alcatraz behind us! (that post will come later)

We ate at Bubba Gumps....great food and awesome atmosphere (since it's southern based) :)

The sea lions at Pier 39 are so much fun to watch. I think we could have sat and watched them interact with each other all day! They are such funny animals!

So much fun to watch!


We also headed to Ghirardelli Square and got chocolate and ice cream! Yummy! I did not know that Ghirardelli was originally from San Fran!

More to come soon! Stay tuned!

San Francisco - Part 1

As most of you know, we spent last week in San Francisco. Rob had to go for a work conference so I tagged along (which I do for most of his work trips) and I took my brother, Jacob along as a companion. We had a great week sightseeing and taking in San Francisco. It only rained one day and the rest of the week was absolutely beautiful with the highs in the upper 60's and sunny!

We arrived in San Francisco and headed straight to our hotel which was located in the Soma District. We were in the middle of LOTS of shopping! (Yes, I was in heaven). We got to the hotel to watch the second half of the Bama/LSU game. BOO!!! We should have gone on to enjoy the city! :)

Our view out of our window....we were across the street from The Container Store (for those of you that know me well, you know how excited this made me), a 4-story Old Navy, and a huge Apple store. I was SO excited to see all of this right out of my window!


We asked some locals and chose to eat dinner at a swanky, local bar and restaurant called Anchor & Hope. It was DELISH and such a neat place. If you've ever been to San Fran, you know that there are TONS of small and very unusual eateries!

Rob had the Ahi Tuna, which was unbelievable!
I had the lobster roll on the brioche bun! SCRUMPTIOUS!

Rob also tried the beer sampler........I'm not a beer drinker but even some of these were good to me!

We took SO many pictures and I have SOOOO many things to share from our trip! I will probably have to blog our trip in 4 or 5 different posts! :) I'll leave you guys with these for now!