Friday, December 28, 2012

...And we have HEAT!

We have been so busy I promise I'll do a little re-cap of the holidays over the weekend...however I thought it calls for a bit of a celebration because as of yesterday, our heat finally works again!

 Praise Jesus!

We have had quite the time with trying to figure out what was wrong with it for the past month....first the thermostat stopped working so it took us about a week to go get a new one and replace it (the weather wasn't cold enough yet so we weren't rushing), then we get the new, fun, energy-saving thermostat installed and......the heat doesn't work.  It just never turned back on.  The thermostat was installed correctly, by yours truly and the best hubby in the world, but that was about where our HVAC skills ended.  So, my life has been full of bundling up in about 20 five layers, plus blankets while at home.  Jake was of course loving it because he is abnormally hot-natured.  So what was the cause?  Well, about a month ago when I asked my adoring husband to get the Christmas decorations out of the attic, he must have accidentally hit some switches and turned off the heat pump.  The thermostat breaking was just a coincidence of having a 10 year old house with a cheap builder-grade thermostat.  However, I am looking forward to seeing if the whole "energy saving" piece of this new one works.  We have it programmed to certain temperature settings for during the week and on the weekends.  It says it can save you up to 30% of your bill.  We shall see.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Santa's Cure Hot Chocolate

I was trying to come up with ideas for co-worker Christmas gifts this year and stumbled upon this for inspiration:

hot chocolate with marshmallows and Baileys
SANTA'S CURE:  Mason Jars of Hot Cocoa, Mini Marshmellows, and a mini bottle of Bailey's Original Crème.

So after brainstorming and getting my supplies, here's the final product:

I added some Christmas fabric to the mason jar lid, got some clear cellophane paper with holly leaves printed on it, and put everything in an oversized ceramic mug.  I also got Bailey's Caramel Crème instead to add some more flavor.


Here's a picture without the mug.  I also used some of the cellophane paper to wrap the mini marshmellows, so that it could be separated and scooped easier. 

Super cute and affordable; perfect for co-workers, neighbors, hostess gifts, etc!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

A Year & a Half...

Earlier this evening I realized that today marks exactly a year and a half that Jake and I have been married.  It's crazy how time flies.  I love this man with my whole heart.










<3 

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Weekend Happenings


We went to Jeremy & April's 2nd Annual Tacky Christmas Sweater Party last night and had a blast...great fun with great friends!
Sad that this turned out a little too blurry to use on the Christmas card :(

The studs

 And today I've been in an organizing/decorating mood so lots of laundry has been done and I decided to change up the draperies in the living room.  While picking up some gifts for our Angel Tree child, I found these at TJMaxx for only $19.99..I thought that was a great deal for the set of two panels.  I love that they are linen, so they add texture but they're going to let lots of natural light in.  The pictures make them seem a little blah, but they are beautiful in person.  They have a silver threading going throughout them so they pick up on the lights, and I can only imagine the effect that they'll have when the sun shines through.  Yay :)

Please ignore the bag from Michael's...those are the Stockings that will be the next project.  Just have to find some stocking holders first.
I gathered them with a brown ribbon that I had a scrap of at the house.  It helps to give some contrast to the wall color.

That's all for now.  Hope you all had a good weekend!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Keepsake Ornaments

I found the idea to make keepsake ornaments with wedding items, and so tonight I stopped by Michael's on my way home to pick up some clear ornaments and ribbon.  I found some with a silver swirl, and since they're for wedding items I thought that was a cute little extra jazz to make them sparkle :)  Here are the pictures of the final products:

My Bridal Shower Invitation

Our Rehearsal Dinner Invitation
 
Our Wedding Invitation and the Ribbon that was wrapped around it.

A letter of Welcome from our Honeymoon Resort...The first item written to us as a married couple :)



I love the way that they turned out.  If you want to make something similar, here is a tutorial that is most like what I did: Ornament Tutorial





Wednesday, December 5, 2012

These are the special times, the times we'll remember...

Probably my absolute favorite Christmas song...Girl's got issues but you can't deny her voice.  Celine Dion sang the original but I love this version. 


Speaking of special times, I just need to take a minute to say that I am really loving this time in our lives.  People always say that high school was the glory days, or college was the best time of your life.  I have to disagree.  I am loving this new stage of life, shall I call it the "Wedding and Baby Boom".  That time when you've graduated college and all of a sudden everyone you know is gettin' hitched and having babies.  Let me clarify very quickly that we are not but I have been helping a few friends with wedding planning and gotten some save the dates in the mail, Jake's cousin and one of my best friends are both due with their second children very soon, and also finding out earlier this week that two of my very best friends from high school are pregnant with their first child!  I feel like I am surrounded by so many fun and exciting events for people that I know and love, and how could that not be the best time of your life?  Even with buying cars and houses, there are so many of those "leaps of faith" and jumping into big decisions.  We used to look so forward to Spring Break and those crazy weeks at the beach, now we're planning anniversary trips and summer vacations that are not even comparable to a week in the Dirty Myrtle.  As we are getting so close to the end of 2012, I am eagerly looking forward to the 4 weddings, countless showers, and sweet little babies of 2013 :)

  

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Door Decor

Here's a picture of our new winter wreath:
 

It's a little bit hard to tell but the ribbon is a sheer light green to match the W color.  I already had the wreath and ribbon, and the wooden snowflake and "W" only cost $5 at Michael's :)

I put up some of the other porch decorations last night but I haven't been able to get a good picture of them yet.



Tis the Season!
  

Sunday, December 2, 2012

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We put our tree up last weekend and today I finally made my bow for the topper...I went to the after Christmas sales last year and bought a pretty star topper but our new pre-lit tree is too tall to use it :( so that went back into the decoration box for use in the future.  I figured a bow would look cute and I found some awesome ribbon at Hobby Lobby.

The Christmas ribbon was on sale 50% off at Hobby Lobby so I got a 30ft roll of 3" wide ribbon for only $4.99!  I already had some craft wire at home...and, voila!


I used the entire roll of ribbon and I think it came out a great size.  I might try to get more ribbon and put some bows like this on our trees outside of the dining room window.  Here is the tutorial that I followed:  Bow Tutorial

I was surprised at how quick and easy it was.  It's great to know how to do it because they charge you $10 plus the price of the ribbon at a lot of places to have one made.  


Next step:  outdoor decorations!



Well, our bulldogs lost yesterday but what a game!  I'm just so proud that they actually showed up and that was one heck of a game to watch.  We had a bunch of friends over to watch it and had a great time with lots of great food.  It was quite the little spread, this picture is from before a few more trays of sweets:


The crock pots were Buffalo Chicken Dip and Velveeta Sausage dip.  Yum!