My one Word

It's that time.  Time for a new year!  Time to set new goals.  Time for a new word for 2011.  Last year my word was Focus.  I did pretty good remembering about it til about...February.  Then things seemed to get busy around here and I forgot all about Focusing.  So, I hope I will do better with my word for this year. 

My word is:

Capture

To capture the moment.

Capture the picture.  I'm going to try doing a picture a day for 2011.

Capture the time with my family.

I have one more day to change my mind.  But I think this is going to stay.

Are you doing one little word?  What is yours?

2010 in Review

I started this little blog when we purchased our new home.  I thought it would be a fun place to share what we were working on and what we continue doing around here.  And the little fun things that make up our day!

The end of the Year is coming real soon and I thought I would highlight what we accomplished. 

We Painted

Tried decorating

That was a little hairy...(the spider ha. ha.)

My real first furniture redo

Made grape juice for the first time

I also thought it would be fun to see what posts caught the most eyes.

So what have you liked seeing?

The number one post has been

What to do with sticks!

followed by

the big Desk Redo

Another big one has been

Making our Mickey Shirts.

Thanks for following along and supporting me!  I look forward to a new year and New Projects!

I joined Southern Hospitality Top Projects of 2010 party.  Click to see others!

Happy New Year,

Melissa

Magic

The Magic of NOW

 The lights, the stockings, the anticipation.

 Santa brought it all.

 I even got my hubby to wear his Christmas socks.  It's been a great day.

Merry Christmas!

3 More Sleeps

It's crazy, crazy I tell you!  Christmas is almost here!

We stayed up til 2 a.m. wrapping presents and watching Psych.

I think we are about ready.

How are you?

I want to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Have a great weekend with your families and eat lots of yummy treats!

More Christmas

I finally got the "one" other item done.  It took about 5 minutes.  I wish I hadn't put it off for so long.  What is it?  Ta Da!

I have always had my Nativity set out in the living room.  But, in this house there isn't any good spot to put it where my very busy, curious, rough housing, 2 year old couldn't get to it.  So it was suppose to be put downstairs.  I felt a little sad about that.  There needed something upstairs that signified the true meaning. 

Hello Silhouette.  We are becoming good friends.

This was such a fast project!

Here it is on the table.  I love it with my favorite picture of Mary and the baby Jesus.  It's done by Liz Lemon Swindle, love it.  Morty the elf made it into the picture too.  He is our elf friend for December.  Morty finds new places to watch over us each day.  This just happened to be it.  And since you can't touch Santa's elf's (they won't be able to get back to the North Pole if you do) we told him to smile big.

So here is the Living Room, one last time. 

It feels just a little more complete.

Christmas Tour

I have a lot of fun decorating for different holidays.  But as I am looking around my house I think I need more Christmas stuff.  Oh, my husband will love reading that one!  I think I had more for Halloween.  Which is not okay...

My mantle is totally different than in the past.  I found an adorable print on eighteen25's blog and had to get it printed.  Amazingly it's the perfect color for my living room.  I think it's a great focal point.

I can't get my silly stockings to not twist.  So sometimes you see the front, and sometimes you don't!

Our tree didn't change this year.  I have bought some stuff to spruce it up a little but that would require taking off all the ornaments.  Once was enough for me!  So it won't happen until next year. 

Tree's are so hard to photograph!  We have a red, white, and green, candy cane, Santa theme going on. 

Over on my curio is where I put a lot of stuff.  Seeing that I don't have any shelves or pictures put up on the walls yet, I tend to put it here instead.

I made these fun Joy stands last year from a post on shanty2chic.  It was really fun to make something from scratch all by myself (kind of).  They were great to put the how-to on there.  I think that's when I decided YES, I can make stuff!

That is almost all the decor in my living room.  I have one more table-but I need to finish one more thing up on there before I show it off...  How many more days til Christmas?  Ha :)
Linked to these fun parties

Snowflake Shower

We have a lot of fun events going on for the month of December.  Two weddings, one baby, and a special 60th wedding anniversary.  I helped decorate for a bridal shower the other day.  It was a fun red & winter theme.  They are getting married just after Christmas so we thought it would be fun to add some snowflakes and pine trees to it.  I used the little tissue paper flowers again. 

 They are just fun, and since they turned out so well for the baby shower, why not?!

The snowflakes have been collected over the past couple years.  They go on my Christmas tree.  But I can share :)

The tables had red table clothes on them with the little pine trees.  We sprinkled little peppermints on the table to bring together the red and white theme.

It was simple again.  But I like that it doesn't take away from the cute couple.

Hope all is well with all of you!

Dessert Table

Remember that baby shower we had a while ago? 

I thought I would share how the dessert table turned out.  It was a lot of fun to do.  Plus, I had lots of help from my 2 cute helpers.  And when you have all that wonderful help the kitchen becomes wonderfully messy.

My decor all started with the fun tissue paper flowers.  I know they are all around but this was my first attempt making them.  They were pretty easy and I think they make a big impact.

I had a cute picture of a little girl picking at her toes.  She is sitting in all her cute chubby nakedness while she is doing this.  I think its really cute.  So it went on the table too.

We served pretzels dipped in white chocolate with pink and red sprinkles on them, this was the favorite treat by the way, rice crispy treats with heart sprinkles, and water with floating raspberries.  Everything had a little touch of pink.

So, nothing crazy.  Tried to keep it simple.

Start it Right!

Happy December!

:

December 1st is the day we drink Hot Chocolate, break open the count down calendars, and our special visitor arrives. To add more fun to December 1st, we decided to give one gift to everyone.
:

Jammie's!

I know, it's a big tradition to receive new p.j.s on Christmas eve, but it seems my kids get jammies from others that day as well.  So, we decided to do it the first of the season and set the tone for the whole month!

:

 What fun tradition do you have this Christmas season?