Christmas 'round our house

When we first looked at our house with the realtor we commented how fun it would be to decorate at Christmas. And here we are! It has been a lot of fun and I'd keep it up year round if I could, haha :) Here are some glimpses around our house for Christmas, makes it such a pleasure to be at home! I've always wanted a kitchen tree and I started one this year with a baking theme. Last year I received 12 Days of Christmas dessert plates & they fit perfectly on the plate rail in the kitchen. I've always loved copper cookie cutters & they look so pretty in front of windows :)

I started collecting the Dickens Christmas Village last year & just love it! It looks so cute lit up at night. I found the German pyramid at an estate sale last month, it was $30 & it retails for about $400, so I was pretty excited! I grew up with one of these that my mom has & have always liked them.

Anyway, enjoy our version of Christmas at home. We wish you & yours the merriest of Christmases and many blessings in 2011!

Dining room with Dickens Christmas Village & German Pyramid

My kitchen baking tree

Breakfast room

Copper cookie cutters & 12 Days of Christmas plates

Christmas Cookie Exchange

I have a Cookie Exchange Party coming up this Saturday. I want to bring something fabulous and have found so many fun things!

I love these parties and hope to host my own next year, they are so fun!

What do you think I should bring from the below choices?

Yum to all of them, I can't wait :)

Peppermint Candy Cookies
Molasses Spice Cookies w/Orange Sugar

Chocolate Caramel Cookies w/Sea Salt

Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles

Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies

Pomegranite White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Oatmeal Cookies w/White Chocolate & Dried Cranberries

Thankful

We are thankful for....

~Our health. All year I have heard of so many young, wonderful people getting diagnosed with something awful. Its hit pretty close to home recently.

~My husband. Sometimes it still hits me that I can't believe I ended up with him. He truly is a gift from God!

~Our jobs. Despite being frustrated with my job a lot, I am grateful for it. And grateful for Eric's and that he does enjoy it! Plus, the airline miles & hotel points are a nice perk :)

~Our family. We really are blessed with the sweetest, most caring family one could ask for. So thankful to have mine nearby and that my sweet Nanny is still with us at 91. And grateful for Eric's so we have fun places to visit!

~Our fur baby, Capone. This dog is our little man. He is so much company, especially to me when Eric is out of town. He is the best dog (most of the time) and I can't imagine not having him!

~Our home. We are really thankful for this house we were able to get into this year. Such a blessing. It is truly feeling more like home each day as we make it our own.

~Tulsa, Oklahoma & the United States. We love living here. We love this city, the houses, trees, quiet, good food, limited traffic, & downtown. We are thankful for all the freedoms we are so blessed with & try to never take them for granted.

~Our church. Grateful for our pastor, our Life Group, and the music program at church. All our such a blessing to us!

~Our friends. They are so spread out, and we wish more of them were in town but we really do have a wide circle between both of us all. Also thankful for recent new friends we have made recently in Tulsa.

~OSU football 2010 :) This season has truly been a blessing and so much fun to watch! Praying for a Bedlam win this weekend and more fun games to enjoy in the coming weeks!

Happy Halloween!

I am sad October is almost officially over :( Its been such a lovely month!

Eric was gone for yet another Halloween, its one of my favorite holidays & I had in mind a cute couple costume that would've been perfect, but that will have to wait for another year :( I went into the weekend kind of bummed because of all the fun stuff going on & no kiddos or hubby to enjoy it with really.

Saturday morning I met my sister for a manicure---I gave in and got one because its "shellac"..aka hard as a rock polish that won't chip. Hooray! I finally have a french manicure that won't be peeling in a day!

Then we went to Anthropologie for a while so I could use my gift card that was burning a hole in my purse! I had several things in mind I wanted, but settled on these for our guest bath because I've had my eye on them a while! I am happy with my decision :) If anyone has any creative ideas on what to put in them other than cotton balls, I would appreciate it :) Hopefully I can come up with something fun.

Then I'm going to get this knob to replace the boring ones that are in the bathroom now.

We ate lunch at Queenie's in Utica Square & I got a pumpkin cookie, it was delicious. Next, Lauren found out a friend of hers couldn't got to the event she was planning on for Saturday night, so I was able to tag along with her. She has been my Halloween backup the past 3 years, and its always at the last minute :) It was a masquerade ball, so we had to go find a mask. It was a really fun evening and a fundraiser for the March of Dimes, so definitely a good cause!

As for today...Halloween itself, I went to church and then I had to work on decor for my Junior League event that starts Thursday. I made a Christmas music playlist that is 4 hrs long. And I have more where that came from! :) So I got in the Christmas mood on Halloween, ironic enough.

Eric's Halloween involved playing golf on a PGA, super nice course in Princeville (Kauai), HI. He said it was hard, but he shot a 102, which is still good I think!

I stayed home tonight to see what kind of trick or treater turnout we would get at the new house. I've been good all week and not broken into the bags of candy I bought.

Here is what was left at 10 pm:

This will be going to work tomorrow instead of straight to my thighs.

Hope everyone had a safe & fun Halloween & here's to November! :)

Make this!

I have always loved sweet potatoes. I first remember really liking them when we would visit my (Great) Aunt Ruby in Muldrow and she would make them, I always looked forward to our Thanksgiving visit. My mom makes delicious ones as well. My dad uses Dr. Pepper in his recipe. They are all similar--cut up in pieces, whatever seasonings you want to put on them, and bake in a casserole dish, then add marshmallows all over at the end.

Eric didn't like them when we first got together, which I thought was insane---now he loves them as much as I do!

I love all of these versions & would eat them every meal! But my personal go-to recipe that I started making a couple years ago is my favorite to actually cook.

Its courtesy of Pioneer Woman, of course!

She featured it on her site today, even though it was already on there. It is YUMMO. I've made it for several events & people really love it. Its more of a sweet potato casserole, which I was never a huge fan of. I do not normally like nuts in anything. Including sweet potato casserole. I think this one is good because the nuts are so fine, and they are mixed with brown sugar. And brown sugar makes all things perfect!

I would highly recommend this for any fall gathering! Another fun variation on it is to sprinkle rows of the nut topping diagnally with space in between, bake as normal, then the last 5 min or so sprinkle mini-marshmallows on the rows in between the rows of nuts. Makes for a pretty presentation :)

Here is the recipe, enjoy & Happy Fall!

Christmas in October

You can ask anyone that knows me well & they will say I'm obsessed with Christmas music. (And all things Christmas really!)

In high school I would make mixed tapes off the 24 hr Christmas radio station. Yes, I'm a dork & just make mixed cd's now, ha!

**Speaking of mixed tapes, RIP Walkman, which has officially been retired.

I usually can't wait to start listening to it & can always somehow justify it in October. I realize its not even Halloween yet :)

So I was playing on Amazon tonight & wanted to see what new albums might be coming out that I could add to my huge selection of Christmas tunes. There isn't much I don't have already, so anything new is a plus! Although I have yet to be able to find a downloadable or even on cd version of Christmas Vacation by Mavis Staples. Makes me crazy that I'm missing this song! Its a classic.

Here are several albums that just came out or are coming out & I'm very excited to download them!

Christmas with the Puppini Sisters

This is one of my favorite trios, it makes me happy a modern-day Andrews Sisters exists, since the 1940s is a decade I would definitely like to time travel to :) Love, love this music & so excited they have a new album!

Pink Martini- Joy to the World

I like this one because its super relaxing, more jazzy Christmas music if you're in a more laid back mood. And I've always liked the name Pink Martini, its fun :)

Olivia Newton-John Christmas Collection
Um its Olivia Newton-John, hello. She is still cute as ever & I like her voice. She will always be Sandy to me :)

Indigo Girls-Holly Happy Days

Its the Indigo Girls, enough said! And the album title is right down my alley :)

Glee-The Christmas Album

A Glee Christmas Album??? Yes, please.

Random

These recent pictures make me happy, Capone hasn't been featured in a while & he is pretty darn cute these days :) I took him to a local fundraiser for the Humane Society called Paws in the Park this last Saturday at the Jenks Riverwalk. The was every breed of dog there I think, its like dog watching instead of people watching at this event. We did a 1 mile fun walk & then had lunch on the patio at Los Cabos. He loved it & had to nap for the remainder of the weekend to rest from all the excitement.

One of the trees in front of our house started turning kind of early, and my favorite color--bright orange! I'm so sad the leaves are dropping now! They are so pretty! It smelled very fall-ish today when I was out with Capone, so I got some pics of him taking it all in as well :)