It's the most wonderful time of the year!!

Warning: This post is a little picture happy!
I can't get to Christmas without showing you my Thanksgiving. What a grand time I had with my family, I always do!

Everyone in my family cooks. So I had a lot of help. I think at one time we were ALL in the kitchen!

We ate outside because the weather was PERFECT!! It started out a little chilly for here in AZ, but soon warmed up nicely :) (Oh, and that's my son there on the end. If you know him, you know it's a RARE thing for me to get a pic of him, especially one of him smiling!)

Here's my sweet mama. The one who created this kooky girl. Isn't she the cutest??

And what's a family get together without silly pics with your sister!!

We played Bocce ball in the sunshine,

While my sweet niece held on to Wallace so he wouldn't break his teeth chasing the Bocce balls! (no, he's really smart. I promise!)

Then Friday came around and it was time for CHRISTMAS!!! Yeah!!! We worked on the outside first :)

My favorite green feather wreath. Found it at TJ last year :)

Then came the inside. As I looked at my beautiful china cabinet, I couldn't help but feel like my Christmas china was going to get washed away in all it's whiteness. Sooooo...

I grabbed my tools, (my husband silly!) and went to work. I had a little sample of green paint in the garage and in my typical instant gratification fashion, I used it. I mean, who wants to go to the paint store and take the time to find that perfect shade? Not this impatient girl!! Case in point- I'm already painting while hubby is taping!

Anyhoo, she turned out like this!!

She's happy, and I'm happy :)

I filled her with my green Alfred Meakin china and a few of my fav Krinkles that I found at (a moment of silence please) the now closed M&Co.Papery :( I keep thinking if I blog about it enough, my sister will reopen her fab store?? I wish... :(

I think they add just the right amount of red doncha think?

The tree I had last year in the little rental bungalow just seemed too sad and Charlie Brown like to grace my front window. So I (was an idiot) braved Target on Saturday to buy this 9 ft. beauty. Sooo much better!

This sweet snowman sits on my kitchen island smelling the heavenly scent of a fresh rosemary tree I bought at Trader Joes :)

This Santa was my first really "expensive" Christmas decoration. He's sitting on my counter near the candy maker cabinet.

And the Charlie Brown tree? Well, she ended up in the front bedroom window :) She's happy there :)

Happy Decorating!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to start this post, and my brain is not cooperating . Maybe because I'm high. I came home from doing last minute Thanksgiving preparations, (getting a mani/pedi! Duh!) to a house with every window open, ceiling fans on, and the heater cranking. Not one foot in the door and the fumes hit me. My sweet love of my life decided to put a coat of something that will forever damage your lungs, on the cellar floor.
(This is a custom carving that my daughter had our carver in our shop make for the hubby 2 years ago in anticipation of his beloved wine cellar. Our last name is Understiller- get it? Cute huh.)

I held my breath and braved the toxic elements to get these pics for you. Anything for my blog buddies!!

This is the cellar floor (originally a root cellar). The brick we found in the back yard when we bought the house, and the wood is again- our old fence. The hubby spent all weekend putting it down. No easy feat! The boards being so old were a pain to work with. But with much persistence and my constant cheering "you can do it!!" he completed it! How cool is that!! The hubby is nothing short of amazing I tell ya :)

Yes, I'm soooo very thankful for my husband. His talents many, his heart huge :) He puts up with more than his fair share of crap from me, and still wakes up every morning and says "good morning beautiful". I don't deserve him, but somehow the Lord thought I did :)

Have an amazing Thanksgiving everyone!

Craving a craft... :)

After spending what seemed like an eternity cleaning the garage these last two weekends, I was dying to do something a little creative :)
I came across this blog a few weeks back where Susan showed this tutorial on how to make these cutest felt flower pins. Susan suggest sewing hers, but I just used hot glue.

They were soooo easy. I'm not kidding easy. So I made a bunch, and I love them!! I made this one out of a scrap of burlap I had lying around :)

You can wear them on sweaters,

Or on a scarf,

Or on a scarf on a sweater!! :)

I wore this one to work yesterday :)

Now git to gittin!! Christmas is right around the corner!! :)

I always feel like somebody's watching me....:)

This is where I spend hours doing all kinds of stuff I find highly important. You know- blogging, facebooking, online shopping, emailing :)

But seriously? Sometimes I feel like I'm not alone. Maybe because I face the "wall o dead" as I like to refer to it. All those old pictures are of my hubby's family, in the most beautiful old frames. I really do treasure all of them. But one in particular, just stares. And stares. At me.

I try to break the creepiness by taking a glance at Wallace's baby pic, (I know! he was sooo adorable) but then I look up- and there she is!!

She has such a stern look to her, but her eyes seem so gentle. It's like she's keeping me in line or something? And it's like she knew I was going to say something about her being a little creepy, because no sooner had I taken this pic that I hear WHAM!

I turned around to see this. My sweet baby Wallace pic on it's side. Hmmm. My hubby said "are you okay?" from downstairs.

I had to laugh. "yep, I'm fine!" And then I turned to her and said a very respectful "I'm sorry". For without her, I wouldn't have that amazing husband of mine :)

**Oh and that shelf thing on the "wall o dead" is an old plate rack I found in my son's backyard when he bought the house. Score!!

Hideous mantles and microwaves... :)

After just cleaning off my mantle from Halloween, I'm sort of in a funk. Can't figure out what to put up there for Thanksgiving. No really, I just keep staring at it with the hopes that something will inspire me. Nothing. So I went searching. I googled Thanksgiving mantle decoration and look what came up!!!!

SERIOUSLY??? What the??? Huh?? Oh, come on!! I've been laughing so hard over this picture!! It's HIDEOUS!!! I mean, I don't think I owned even two of those dried thingys back in the 80's when they were popular!! Maybe I should have typed in Thanksgiving mantle decoration 2010???
In other hideous news: I broke down. I bought a microwave. (what you can't hear is the applause and whistles from the hubbs.) I hate microwaves. We've been living without one for about 2 years now. On purpose. I heat things up old school. In a freaking pan. On the stove. Like we all used to before the microwave. But after listening to my hubby complain time and time again about my old school ways, I caved.

So here sits the beast. A tiny beast, the cheapest tiniest beast I could find.

She's ugly and doesn't deserve the prime real estate she's hogging on my counter. But worse? She's supposed to be sitting on a shelf in my pantry.

Yep right there. The hubby even put a plug in there while we were building in hopes of someday owning his precious micro. But when I look at my lovely organized pantry, I can hardly bear the thought of making room for that ugly. And I weirdly think it's going to emit some crazy something all over my food.

Counter? Pantry? Counter? Pantry? It's a lose- lose situation :( Your thoughts??