ornaments

Crystal is doing a little tree tour over at her blog about the ornaments and why they're special.  

Here are some of mine. 

(Sorry for some fuzzy pictures.  It is very hard to take pictures of ornaments.) 

a Santa that my grandma painted and put in my stocking this year!

a moon shaped Santa I bought in Amsterdam in '97 and the Marshall Fields shopping bag from my first trip to Chicago with my friend Sheryl, my mom and Aunt Kim!

a cube ornament that my suitemate Beth sacrificially gave to me in college

I love that thing.

my alma mater

a chubby little Santa bought in Germany at the most amazing Christmas shop!  

the turquoise ball from my Uncle Lynn's travels and the Golden Gate for our honeymoon

the nativity is Adrian's - a gift from his mom

the dove was tied onto a package at our wedding from my friend Paige

My friend Marla brought the camel back from Bethlehem.  It is made of olivewood.

doesn't look like much?  I bought this beautiful glass ornament in Venice but it broke seconds after I walked out the door of the shop.  I loved it so much and put all the little broken glass pieces inside a clear glass ball and put the ribbon back on top.  Sometimes things don't turn out as we expect and that's okay!  

I just received this in the mail from my friend Julie!  She brought it back from her birthday trip to Germany this fall!  It shows a woman making lace.  

a cute little knit stocking from my mom

fun, funky shoe from a special student, bell collected in my antiquing trips

reminder of a special date with Adrian

a gift from a dear friend

purse from the same special student as the shoe

college days

bought while in Indiana for my friends Betty and Cliff's wedding

another made by my grandma

snowman with orange earmuffs a gift from my friend Jenny this year, the orange earmuffs are because orange was one of my wedding colors :)  

ornament in my stocking from my grandma

candy colored tree from my grandma

icicle as an ode to my favorite childhood ornament that broke

one of my favorites, a gift from a student this year, Merry Christmas!

Kelly

how could I resist?

merry Christmas

This is a pic of my little brother and I back in December 2004.  

I think it's cute.  I am so thankful for my brother and the wonderful relationship we share.  

winner!!

I just won my third blog contest in the little over a year I've been blogging.  I can't believe it!  Check it out here.

It's from Sandy at Reluctant Entertainers.  If you don't read her blog I highly recommend it.  

Thank you Sandy!  Kelly

teacher gift

Remember my herb garden?  Look at that fun little present peeking out amongst the foliage.  :)  It was one of several very nice teacher gifts I received from students this Christmas.  This afternoon begins 2 weeks of vacation which is one of my most favorite gifts!

If you're a teacher, what is one of your favorite Christmas gifts you've ever received?  

If you're a parent, what is your favorite thing to give as a teacher gift?  

Merry Christmas and for everyone who is off of school for a little while, enjoy!!!  Kelly

question - smores?

I can't quite get the photos of some VERY delicious looking smores out of my head. I saw them on a blog. Somewhere . . . somewhere out there in blogland. I think they may have been peppermint smores? Is this ringing a bell with anyone? If so, could you please leave me a link to where this post is with the huge pictures of yummy, gooey (peppermint?) smores? Thanks! Kelly

family

"The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:  the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other."  - Burton Hillis (Better Homes and Gardens)

Travel Tuesday - California redwoods

Today's travel Tuesday is about one of the things we did on our honeymoon.

(the love birds)

I had always wanted to see the redwoods.  We spent our honeymoon in San Francisco and then renting a convertible and driving south down Highway One.  

It was the greatest!  

We went on a whale watch which was incredible but the day we were originally scheduled to go it was canceled because the water was too rough.  

We decided to drive through some old growth forests with the top down and to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park instead.  We enjoyed our drive and hike so much!  It was so peaceful.  I marvel at God's creation.  There are SO many different things to see in the world!  

If you are in the San Francisco area and don't feel like driving north to see the famous redwood you can drive through, etc. but would like a peaceful experience and opportunity to see these beautiful trees, I would highly recommend it.  

Do you have any blog posts about redwoods?  I'd love for you to put the link in your comment.  

Have you ever been to see the redwoods?  When was it?  Tell us about your experience.  

Holiday Open House

Last year I did a blogging holiday home tour and I wanted to do another one this year seeing how it was oh so much fun.  I heard about Kimba's and so here I am.  :)  

Thanks, regular blog readers for "visiting my home" as well as any of you who are visiting from Kimba's open house today!

Welcome!  Come on in.  

To see my newly created "mudroom" all decked out for the holidays, click here.  

This is my centerpiece on the table.  I like it a lot in its simplicity and old fashioned feel.  My new sisters-in-law gave the deer to me last Christmas!  (Keeping it real, notice the half decorated for fall still and half empty shelve behind the dining room table?  It doesn't have to be perfect.  Sometimes you just have to notice what you've had time to make beautiful and ignore the rest. )

My wonderful husband put this shelf up for me in the guest bedroom.  Childhood Santas and a VERY old plate I just bought antiquing with my mom at Thanksgiving.  I love its graphic green plaid!  

Here's the top of the fridge.  :)  Sorry it's a little blurry.  

tiny touch of kitchen festivity

This is how I decided to display my cards this year.  I just cut a bunch of different green trims into short lengths and keep those and a hole punch in one of the kitchen drawers.  

Seasonal sweets from my sweet mom!  

Mantle close-ups

I love how calm it is.  

Even though I didn't replace the burned down candles in the candelabra or manage to find the chalk to write "Unto us a child is born" on the chalkboard, it is still beautiful to me.  The "R" handkerchief was a gift from my aunt.  

a quiet reading nook with a quilt that a sweet, sweet lady from Adrian's church in Missouri made and a pillow that I bought in Italy in college. 

our first tree!  

one of the women who came to our shower from our church made this ornament for us with the blue beads,  the beads represent our wedding date, 10-4-08.  

my blogging spot :)  

May the peace of Christ dwell within you this holiday season.  

He is Emmanuel, God with us.  

Merry Christmas.  

Thank you for your kindness in visiting.  

Kelly

cool, cool, cool!

I just discovered this site through one of Jessica's blogs and checked it out on snopes just to be sure.  It is called free rice and you can answer vocab questions or identify the artists of fine art or even learn Italian a word at a time and all sorts of other subjects.  Every time you get a question right you are donating 20 grains of rice to poverty stricken countries.  This rice is paid for by advertisers but to be honest I haven't even noticed the advertising yet.  It's super fun!  Give it a try!  Kelly

a happy bargain!

My very smart husband is of the opinion that no home should have only ONE pie plate.  Pie is something that should not be hampered by such logistics.  :)  

So, I have been on the lookout for a second pie plate.  I like the glass ones.  I had looked at antique stores, etc.  Last weekend we were in a Marshall's.  I saw a glass pie plate.  aha!  $12.99!  What???  no way.  So I put it back.  The very next store we went to was Target.  TWO plain glass pie plates just like I like for $4.50.  Now that's more like it.  

I bought them wondering did I really need THREE.  Tried to give one to a friend but she already had a bunch also.  

Just this morning I realized a wonderful use for it.  

My super cool and talented at gift giving sister-in-law, Mandy, gave me an herb themed gift for Christmas (we celebrated at Thanksgiving since we'll won't be together on Dec. 25th).  First up, herb snips that I'd registered for!  Yea!  Second, a neat book called "a handful of herbs" with gardening, cooking and decorating tips and finally I opened a wrapped box to unveil a BEAUTIFUL pot filled with oregano, thyme, basil, sage and rosemary.  We used the oregano in a frittata this week and the sage and thyme in a salad.  Yummy!  

 

The only downside was that I did not have anything to set the pot in so it was still sitting on top of a plastic sack on top of an old towel and was not quite as pretty in our living room as it could have been.  You got it!  This morning:  brainstorm!  A glass pie plate!  hooray!!!  

wanna make a cute advent calendar for your kids?

how cute is this???  If I had kids I betcha we would be making one of these.  Let me know if you make it.  Kelly

heart shaped

Remember this post about where I blog with the red pyrex "ice cream dish"?  

Well here's that same dish where you can actually see the little heart in the corner.  How sweet is that?  My precious mom bought it for me and actually gave it to me instead of keeping it for herself.  :)  Thanks, Mom!  Kelly

one more garland

I wanted to show one more garland for Nester's Show and Tell. 

She makes these fabulous ragamuffin garlands and encourages everyone else to make them too or at least buy one from her because everyone *needs* one, don't you think?  

Well, approximately 10 years ago my grandma (Sweetie) made this garland for me and one for my mom.  We saw one somewhere and said to ourselves, "Sweetie could do that!" and so she listened to our explanation and then created it, "viola!"  (oh no, my friend Sandi who speaks French for real has a pet peeve about people mispelling that word and I am afraid I am but I am tired and don't want to look it up.  Sorry Sandi, please correct me and forgive me.  :)

So I'm living in Dallas as a single gal with this fabulous ragamuffin garland and I'm thinking I should hang stockings but there's just me and I am convinced that one stocking would look absolutely pathetic.  Nope, can't do it.  It will only rub my singleness in my own face.  So . . . 

I raid my sock drawer and find all of the mismatched, holey socks and go buy Rit dye and get out the tea bags and get to work dyeing those guys.  Then the first year I got out my needle and some skinny red ribbon and strung the socks on the ribbon and tied nice little bows.  After that when one or two fell off I just began to staple them onto the strips of cloth!  It works.  

(I added a few little red berries this year so the Nester would be proud of me.)