My Favorite Kids

The weather on Thanksgiving was incredible.  We fried our turkey this year, so while the turkey was in the fryer, we hung out outside.  Cam decided to play catch.

Just so you know, the purpose of this post is to show you just how cute my nephew and neice are (seriously, they are so cute).  They are my favorites.  Their little faces, their little voices, their little noses, toeses, and smiles.  I love it.  I love it all.  Good luck finding the end of this post!  Don't say I didn't warn you.

 I love how he puts his hands together when he's getting ready to catch.  It must work because he does a great job!

He is rocking that outfit.  Jeans, flannel, and boots.  Does it get any cuter?  We love the shirt Auntie Sharon!

Throwing isn't as easy as it looks.  Sometimes you work so hard to get the ball to go straight and it goes backyards instead.  Such is life.

And then sometimes you wind up and throw the ball at your favorite aunt.

And then it was Hannah's turn.  She was hanging out with us outside.  The light was lovely, so we grabbed the diffuser and got to work.

This little lady did a wonderful job looking cute and being fabulous.

This one is my favorite.  That little worried look and that little tiny nose - it's just too much to handle.

Charlotte said I wasn't allowed to post any photos with her tongue out.  But, I love her tongue.  It looks like a strawberry and I love it.

Thought I was done?  Oh no, not yet.  Hannah and her grandma have a great relationship.  Hannah loves my mom and my mom loves Hannah, but really, who doesn't love that little girl?

The view from the other side.

Oh that face.  I just can't handle it's cuteness.  She makes me melt - which is why I may or may not have bought her 10 outfits at Target tonight.  I cannot confirm or deny this.

Can I have those eyelashes?

Man that's one cute kid.  Not that I'm biased or anything.

2013 Calendar

Well, I've finally added another item to my Etsy shop! This was the project I told you about that I was working on over Thanksgiving.  Plan A was to screen print this calendar, but that didn't end up working out - it's a long story thats too frustrating to tell at the moment.

Plan B was much simpler and gave me a better result.

I designed this calendar to be simple and sleek.  I love to take photos (wait until you see tomorrow's post), so this quote really stuck with me.

"A snapshop keeps a moment from running away." -Eudora Wetly

I had it printed in three different, bright and fun colors.  My favorite is the blue, but I've been loving green lately so I had to add that in.  The orange is for Esther and for anyone else who loves that color, as well.  Orange-lovers seem to be very passionate about their favorite color.  I like that about you orange-lovers. :)

As much as I love the color and design, my favorite part of this whole project is the paper.  The linen texture kicks the design up a notch and adds a lot of depth.

After weeks of planning, scheming, and planning again - this calendar is officially for sale right here.

Hopefully, this is only the beginning! I plan to add more prints to the shop very soon!  It's exciting when a plan comes together, right?

Merry Christmas!

Well, so far this season I've broken all of our family holiday traditions; I put up decorations, watched Christmas movies, and listened to Christmas music - all before December 1st.  That was our rule - no Christmas anything until December 1st.

But I just can't wait.  I love Christmas!

And I'm especially loving my white Christmas tree.  This year I went with a bright theme instead of colors to match the room like I did last year.  I bought the ball ornaments at Goodwill (which is explains why some of them are broken) after Christmas last year for around $5, I think.  The swirly ornaments are from The Flower and Craft Warehouse and they are AMAZING! I'm definitely going back to get more because 4 is not nearly enough.

My West Elm ornament and Chris-moose (thank you for the awesome name idea, Claire!) are looking fabulous on the tree.

I also added the other decorations I bought from the Flower and Craft Warehouse.  They look awesome, as well.  Can you tell I'm loving this tree?

I'm also loving that quite a few of the ornaments I already had matched this tree.  This ornament was a gift from my mom.  She bought it at Anthro and it's just wonderful!

I also have a lot of ornaments from my childhood that didn't fit in with the rest of this tree.  So, I set up a tree in my living room.  I bought a small pencil tree online from hayneedle.com.  I needed it to be skinny so it could fit into my room (although I would have loved to have space for a large tree).  Its small, skinniness fit perfectly and I love it. During my trip to Target tonight, I bought a star for the tree, but I accidentally left it in the car and it's too cold outside to go get it.  I'll update you on that one later.

Having a tree in every room is one of my life goals (right along with get married and make babies).  So, I figure, if I buy one tree every year for the next few years then I will make my goal!  I even bought a tree from Target tonight for my desk at work.  So far, I own three artificial, white trees.  When I have my own place, I'll always make sure to have one real tree in the mix.  But for now, white is just fine.

How many trees do you have?  Would you fill your entire home with Christmas decorations? Or maybe you already do. :)

Thanksgiving Macro

Who knew that taking the dog out could land me some great photos?  I sure didn't.  On Thanksgiving morning, I was taking Charlie out for her morning you-know-what and I noticed the frost.  When I had the brilliant idea to take some photos, I ran inside, grabbed a blanket, ran upstairs, grabbed my camera, and ran back outside.

The sun was up and it was a mad dash to photograph the frost before it melted since it was turning out to be a very warm day for November.  

Now this isn't the first time I've ever seen frost.  It's just the first time that I've ever had time to photograph it with my macro lens.  Seriously, how amazing is that?  What's incredible is that I couldn't see it unless I was looking through my lens.  

Photos like this really remind me of how amazing the Lord is.  The beauty and detail put into this seemingly insignificant thing is truly amazing. 

Later in the day I headed out to the front yard to take some photos of a plant we have out there.  I have no idea what it is.  I just know that it's pretty cool looking.  

I loved the way the light was hitting this plant and highlighting all the little hair thingies.  Hmm...maybe it's time to start learning about plant anatomy (ok, maybe not).  I don't have to know what it's called to appreciate it's beauty, right? 

I took a lot more photos that day (424 to be exact), so there are lots more to show you.  I'm loving these front photos so much that I'm already working on designs for the December desktop wallpapers - so I'm going to keep my favorites to be a surprise.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

It's Today

Today is Friday and I have the day off! Hurray!  I'm so excited to be at home with my pup working on a new project.  I've been planning and scheming for weeks and today is the day.  It's sort of a secret, so I'm not going to share too much, but I will tell you this - things could go really well or it could fall flat.  So today, my mantra will be "you never know until you try".

Anyway...allow me to share with you some more Christmas purchases I made last weekend.

I admit that I may have a problem when it comes to saying no to Christmas decorations.  But, in my defense, I don't decorate for any other holiday and Christmas is my FAVORITE.  So when I saw this ornament from West Elm, I just had to take it home with me.

This isn't something I purchased, but they are new. :)  My mom buys my these ornaments every year because every year they have a different design.  One holds a picture of my pup and it's going to be hard to pick a favorite from this year.

This snow globe from West Elm is absolutely beautiful and it had to come home with me.  I fully admit that spending $25 on this baby is a little over board, but I LOVE it.  I love snow globes, but they are always a little cheesy for me.  This snow globe, on the other hand, gave me that good-cheesy-lost-in-my-own-world feeling without looking cheesy.  Did that make sense?  Hmm...

Serioulsy, how cool is this globe?  I love it.  I could stare at it all day and ya know what, maybe I just will.

These guys aren't really Christmasy but they are so stinking cute.  Plus, I have a feeling they will make it into the Christmas decorating somewhere because they are just so cute.  So stinking cute.  ps. They are from Target.

The design of these mugs is simple, but very cool.  I love the clear glass and the simplicity so much.  I don't really even like red, but these will be perfect for Christmas time.  Also, they remind me of something we had when I was little...

Pretty sure we had this exact mug.  Now, I know that red stripes and Garfield aren't exactly similar, but it was in my head at the time.  That...or I just needed a good excuse to come home with those two awesome mugs.  Either way, I got what I wanted.

Do you have any Christmas decorations that you bought because they remind you of your childhood?

Neon Pink!

Last week, I shared with you some of my new purchases for Christmas.  Among those items was this moose.  The plan for this moose was to buy him, spray paint him, and hang him on my Christmas tree.  So this pasts weekend, I set about making it happen.

The first step was getting myself set up on the deck.  Charlie was not happy with me invading her space with some smelly spray paint, but she eventually got over it.

And I even got a kiss.

As you can see, I chose neon pink as my color.  Oh my word, I love it.  Honestly, it's so neon and bright that it's hard to tell if it's red or pink.  I had to do some photoshopping so that the photo matched what it looks like in real life.  In the photo it looks completely red, when it actually is pink.

During the middle of the spray painting process, I broke his antler.  Oops.  Thank goodness for some super glue and spray paint...

You can't even tell I ever broke it.   After finishing up the paint, I braided some orange and white bakers twine to use to hang the ornament.  Then I carefully wrapped it in a plastic bag so that the antler wouldn't break again before it was time for it to go up on the tree.

You know what I learned while doing this project?  I learned that I have zero patience when it comes to spray paint.  Every person in my family that just read that sentence is scoffing and thinking not just with spray paint.  It's true, I don't have a lot of patience.  

So here's the best advice I can give you, just keep in mind that I'm terrible at following this advice - to get the best result, use light coats and repeat many times.  

Ugh, even typing that drove me crazy.  BUT! I will say that whenever my dad spray paints something he uses that technique and it turns out beautifully (like this awesome ramp he made for Cam).  

Basically what I'm saying is, don't do what I do.  

But, terrrible spray painting etiquette aside, I love my moose.  Now there's only one problem - what should I name him?

Charlie on the Deck

When my pup gets groomed, she goes from lioness to chihuahua in one day.  No one in the family really likes either of these stages.  She looks weird as a chihuahua and weird as a lioness.

In the last few days, my mom, Charlotte and I have all said that we like this hair length the best.  So when I saw Charlie basking in the sun on the deck, I grabbed the camera.

On beautiful days, we prop the deck door open so Charlie can wander in and out.  It's perfect, she gets to go outside and we don't get whined at for hours and hours.

Whenever I need Charlie to look a certain direction, I pretend like I have a treat in my hand.  This is Charlie finding out I'm a big, fat liar.

She likes to chase after birds and squirrels.  My friend, Jen, recently let us borrow her fenced in yard.  After checking every inch of fence to find a hole, Charlie went cray-cray and started sprinting all over the yard.  She only ran into Jen's one year old son once and (even though it was basically like being hit by a torpedo) her son just laughed.

Someday Charlie will get to go crazy in her very own back yard and maybe then she won't be running into any one year olds.

I spent my Sunday sunlight working on projects and taking photos.  I had to use the deck for a little spray painting and Charlie was not a fan.  Every time I picked up the can, Charlie headed inside.

Wondering why our deck is two different colors?  My dad is in the middle of power washing the deck to get rid of the dirt and grime.  The clean side looks so good! 

We really enjoyed our beautiful fall weather on Sunday, how about you?