The Snowman Room

As I promised yesterday, here are the pictures of our snowman room. The walls here are white, and the floor is a blue rug, so it works perfect with the snow theme, and my mom keeps it up until February.

This advent calendar is in the foyer, which connects the living room to the family room. Its like the transition between the Christmasy room, and the snowman room. My brother and I took turns changing the days, but I'm not sure who is going to change it now that we are living in different states!

This year, I got to do the snowflakes on the back door.

And this is the little snowman family that lives on the coffee table all winter long!

Tomorrow, I'll be back to share all the crafty things we did yesterday!

Christmas Decorations

Now that Thanksgiving is over, and the Christmas season has officially begun (yay!) I wanted to share some photos of our decorations. My mom and I spent Friday afternoon decorating the house, and we spent Friday night crafting :) 

This year, we decided to be a little more relaxed with the decorations and only put out some of the things.

One of the first things we do is replacing the regular china with the Spode. Every year we do it a bit differently, and every year, we forget that the Santa only fits on the top shelf, and we have to re arrange the middle to make him fit!

I made these candles last year, but my mom kept them because she liked them so much! And of course, she has some of her birthday cards up too :)

This Santa was our neighbors' and when they moved to Florida, they gave it to us. No matter how "uncluttered" we are doing Christmas this year, this Santa is always there! And of course, Ben is looking at me in the background wondering why I am photographing everything in house!

I love this nativity scene. Its from Willow Tree. I would love to have one like this when I grow up and have my own house. But for now, I have my mom's old one, that my dad's mom gave her, which I'll set up and share this week :)

Well, tomorrow I'll be back to share our snowman room, and our crafts on Wednesday.

Then Thursday is the start of December Daily!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday {11 26 2011}

I'm posting this on Saturday, and I always feel bad when I finish the scavenger hunt! I like being on the look out for all the different prompts, and I won't have any more until tomorrow (which is today for everyone out reading this!)

Fortunately, Ashley is doing a series called Memories, Dreams and Reflections, and I'm searching for those photographs in my files, so it gives me something fun and photography related to do today!

Waiting
I had two pictures for waiting, and I couldn't decide which I liked better, so here they both are!

 My plane waiting to take off at Midway.

All of the people waiting to board that plane!

Foliage

I love the evergreen trees, which still have all of their needles, and the birch trees, which have none of their leaves!

Candid

My brother attempting to climb a tree in front of my parent's other house. He tried a few times, but never got higher than this!

Fork, Knife or Spoon

Every year just after Thanksgiving (or right before if we are hosting Thanksgiving!) we take out all of the Christmas Spode. I love the little Christmas trees on everything, even the flatware!

Rule of Thirds

It was so overcast when we were flying you could just see the sky between the layers of clouds!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and enjoyed the nice extra long weekend!

A Very Scrappy Weekend

I spent the past weekend at The Paper Doll House in Sycamore, Illinois. Brooke, an awesome blogger over at MyBoysterousLife (I'll link over to her when I am not blogging from my blackberry in Midway!) invited me to spend the weekend there with her and two of her girlfriends.

The Paper Doll House is basically the cutest bed and breakfast I've ever seen, where Mary Kim (the fabulous owner) feeds you delicious food every time you turn around, and you can just scrapbook until you can't scrapbook anymore!

I got so much stuff done (14 pages!!!), but so much of it was for Christmas, that I can't post it yet!

Also, I know I've been a bad blogger lately. But I've got something very exciting coming up in December. . .

I am doing a December Daily album!

I decided to make it using Shutterfly and have it printed after Christmas, because I waited waaay too long to set up my book!

But, I can show screen shots of my page every day, so that is what I will be doing.
Last year, I gave up on my album on day 4, because I hadn't laid it all out before, but my album is all made and saved on Shutterfly, so all I need to is take the pictures and journal. I'm hoping that, and being held accountable here, will keep me going until Christmas Day!

Well, I need to run, we are boarding :)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Thanksgiving Banner

I've been working on this banner for almost two weeks now! I've been able to cut a little bit here and a little bit there, but I finally got to sit down today and finish it!

I really love how it turned out! I might make a little version of the banner and use it on a scrapbook page about Thanksgiving, along with the thankful cards I made a few weeks ago...

Have a great day!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday {11 13 2011}

I spent a lot of time at Navy Pier this week. AJ ran the Perfect 10 10k there (there was also a 10 mile race - wow!) So I was at Navy Pier Friday afternoon to pick up his race packet, and then Saturday morning I was there while he raced.

I wondered around Navy Pier while the runners were out in Chicago, and took most of my pictures for this week!

1. Before and After
This picture is actually from my archives. I was walking through Lincoln Park last month, and saw this tree. It reminded me of the Robert Frost poem, "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood."

Before:

After:

2. Opposing Lines

I loved this divider at Navy Pier. Its pretty and stops you from falling into Lake Michigan!

3. Custom Bokeh

Yes, I know this isn't custom bokeh in the traditional sense. But, I love how the lights are shining off the lake, and the moment felt custom made, I was walking around the pier, just after sunrise, all by myself, looking for things to photograph for the hunt!

4. Which Pair of Shoes Should I Wear?

This was not even a question this week! My brand new boots came from Macys. I ordered them back in October, but the first size I got didn't fit (oddly, as I wear this brand all the time, and am always a 6.5, but for some reason, these boots were smaller!). Either way, I didn't get ones that fit until Thursday night!

5. Little Features

The little penguins of Happy Feet are in Build a Bear for Christmas! I loved all the little sweaters, scarves and gloves to fit their little hands and feet!

I hope everyone has a great week!

11/11/11

First, I'd like to say thank you to all of our veterans and their families who give up so much so we don't have to.

Second, in honor of 11/11/11, I'd like to leave you with this:

My Desk is Messy...Again

Well, things have been crazy here. Last week was my first week of full time work here in Chicago (and really ever, I worked full time in NY, but I was teaching, so they hours are very different!)

But this week, I'm getting in a better groove - I've learned if I wake up at 6:30, instead of 7:15, I can get stuff done in the morning! This is a huge revelation for me, because with teaching, I had to be at work by 7:15, so doing morning stuff was out of the question!

I'm linking up with Julia to share my desk. I've only got a teensy tiny bit of work done...you see those four letters "G I V E". Yep, that's all I've done this week, cut them out!

But, I did get some laundry done, although I'm not sure why the tide ended up on my workdesk!

Wow! On the very very bright side - I didn't know AJ had put my keys on my work desk. I would have been going crazy looking for them before work, but there they are in the picture!

I'd like to add a note here: those are not my keys near the orange paper cutter and the ruler and the adhesive runner. That is a roll of tums. I'm really not sure how that got there. I'm going to hunt for my keys now. Then I'm going to make an appointment to have my vision checked!

Well, I'm off the shower and great ready for the day. Enjoy your Wednesday!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday {11 6 2011}

This is my favorite Sunday of the year! I love when the clocks go back! And I definitely needed that extra hour of sleep. This has been such a crazy week. I started working full time (finally!), but I've been having trouble getting on track with getting everything at home done! But then I figured out - I can get up at 6:30am, instead of 7:15am, and get lots of stuff done! Including scrapbooking, blogging and all my fun things!

1 Food

Yesterday night, AJ and I ordered in for dinner, and we had a coupon for a free dessert. Of course I picked cheesecake. This was Eli's Cheesecake, which is apparently a big deal in Chicago! It was soooo good. It tasted exactly like Dortoni's on Long Island in New York. Yum!

2. Purple

Near our apartment is a big scaffolding structure, And at all of the joints, its painted purple!

3. In Disguise

Ah! Who are those people?! ;)

4. Shapes

A new banner in progress...

5. Photographer's Choice

The last of the bright leaves in Lincoln Park. On what may have been our last after work walk through the park in a long time, now that it is going to get dark so early!

I hope everyone enjoyed their extra hour today! Have a great week!

Shutterfly Christmas Card

Last week, Ashley had an awesome give away from Shutterfly...25 free cards, and just in time for Christmas!

If you don't know Shutterfly, they are an awesome picturing storing/printing/sharing site. I use them for all my pictures and photo printing, so I was super excited when I saw her post. I love their cards, and used some for our new address announcements and for new address labels. I even make my calendar from them every year! They just have such great graphics, and they totally fit in with my style.

I really wanted to make my Christmas cards from Shutterfly this year (because let's be honest, I was never going to have enough time to make them all by hand!), so I was super excited when I won Ashley's giveaway! Thank you so much Ashley!

So I made this awesome Christmas card (yes, I know I'm sharing my Christmas cards way too early, but I'm just so excited!)

This is the "official" picture:

5x7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

And these are a little closer up, so you can see exactly how it looks :)

I just love that picture of us.

And I like the inside quote too :)

Well, its time for Big Bang Theory now, so I'm off to watch TV and eat a very unhealthy dinner of pizza and french fries that I'm totally going to steal from AJ (unless he puts ketchup on them first!)

*By including the "official" picture with a Shutterfly link, I am eligible to receive $10 off my next order. I would have shared my Christmas card anyway, but because of the offer, I decided to share it today, instead of in December :)

WOYWW

This has been a crazy week, and I am definitely behind on my blog reading and commenting! But my plan for this evening and tomorrow morning is to catch up :)

I thought I'd post a picture of my desk, and link up with Julia. If you want to see even more desks, you can go check her blog out!

Ah! Time for work! Have a great day!