My Little Wise Man

The holidays are so much more fun and meaningful when you can experience it with children. 

Do you remember what it was like when you were little? 

Drew was a wise man in the Christmas pageant this week. 

 It was precious.

It's so easy to get stressed out and overwhelmed this time of year. 

I hope you're feeling the true spirit of Christmas as we near the big day.

people like fire

Our party was on Saturday and it was a lot of fun.

Of course I forgot to get pictures of everything until the party was winding down.

I managed to have some form of fire in every room and even outside.

Of course I had the kitchen fireplace blazing, and it's the first thing you see when you enter our house. 

In the dining room there were candles flickering. 

And/ or into the sunroom where the Fireside Reflections DVD was burning away. (It's a recording of a fire and I think it's hysterical.) It's one way to make the big flat screen TV look interesting when your not watching a show. 

(here my funny friends are acting like they're warming their hands by the fire)

We had floating candles in the pond.

and a fantastic fire burned all night in fire pit in the yard.

(complete with s'mores fixins)

It seemed like everyone had a good time.
I think it must be because the warm and cozy feeling you get from a fire.
That, or the Poinsettia cocktails were really good :)

We've got Spirit, yes we do!

We are in full-on Christmas spirit mode over here at Monkey Grass Hill.

Making gingerbread houses

Visiting the train/holiday exhibit at the National Botanical Gardens. 

They featured these ornament terrariums throughout

 I think I'll make these next year

 The theme for the train exhibit was animal homes 

constructed with natural materials like twigs, and leaves.

 some of them you couldn't tell what they were made of

some others it was very clear

notice the leaves of the balloon

I've also been doing more decorating on the outside then before. 

A Tree For Me

To my surprise, my guys have completely embraced my pink and green living room. They like it so much that we've been spending a lot more time in there and decided to put our live christmas tree that room. 

So, I thought I'd push the envelope a little more in the girly direction and this year I got a slim tinsel tree from Target which I've decorated with lots of purple and white bird ornaments complete with feather tails (Michael's $1 bin). I also draped it in pearl garland as any jewelry designer is apt to do :) 

The stand that came with the tree wouldn't fit in the urn I wanted to use for the stand. 

So, I stuffed the urn with newspaper to get it to stand then covered it with that good ole white burlap I use for everything. 

Remember my ikat pillows I recently added to the sunroom?  The birds go perfectly -- it's all coming together people! :) 

This sparkly girly tree for me is in the corner of the sunroom where we also spend a lot of time -- we HAD to have another tree right?

I'm still in the process of decorating the house, so I'll be back with more later. 

Vintage Sunday Breakfast

Matt and I have an ongoing discussion about which meal is better to host. I prefer a nice dinner with candle light and a glass of wine. He likes having friends over for breakfast. 

In his words, "it's very relaxed and the the perfect amount of time to spend with friends."

Sure, he would say that--He's not the one getting up at the break of dawn to crack 20 eggs, slice pineapple, bagels and flip pancakes. :)

(He does run out to buy fresh bagels though.) 

I went with a vintage table setting.

Retro table cloth, thrift store china and roses in milk glass. 

I usually forget to get pictures of our guests. This time I remembered to get a picture of a few people at the table as our visit was winding down.

I used to enjoy "coffee talk" every morning at work with these two guys when I had an office job. 

Although we've all moved on to different jobs we manage to get together, with our equally wonderful spouses, a few times a year and it's always a lot of laughs.

Whether it's breakfast or dinner I do like to enjoy a meal at home with friends.

Best boss ever and all around great friend- appropriately named Bud.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thrift Store Brawl

It never really turned into a brawl, but there were some crazy ladies looking for deals in the thrift store last week. 

I asked the manager if she could give me a better price on a set of china marked $75. 

 She said," $30". 

I said, "sold!" 

and a voice from behind us said, "Wait! I wanted that! 

I just asked her (pointing to another staff person) about it." 

There was a bit of a heated discussion between the three of us, but the manager was with me and I had my hand on the goods. So I walked out with a basket of these.  

And I'll be setting a table something like this on Sunday for breakfast with friends. 

I didn't really need another set of china. But I just love that it's such a happy design 

and for $30 I can use it everyday.