An Update.... with more decore!

So Halloween is long gone. And my Mantel has once again been switched up. Although I don't have a picture of my Christmas mantel yet, my poor Nativity suffered some fatalities during storage and is in need of a bit of glue to repair a few wise men and a shepherd. Once they have been repaired I will take some photo's.

In the meantime I did put up my tree and once again my niece and nephew were such good helpers. I hear they have been bugging their mom to put up their tree ever since. Too bad my brother (their dad) won't put the tree up before whatever he deems as appropriately close to Christmas.... bahumbug!

The tree we have is one I adopted from my parents, it is at least 18 years old and is really doing pretty well considering. It is starting to lean giving the appearance of a heavy star on top. I assure you this is just our old tree getting a bit of a hump in it's old age.

without further ado, here it is!

I think it has character, don't you?!!?!

I always have such a wonderful time decorating my Christmas tree. Something I started on my many travels was to collect a Christmas ornament or something I could hang on the tree from the lovely places I've visited. It is such a fun time walking down memory lane as I pull out the ornaments from all over the world. I have had friends purchase ornaments for me on their travels as well and I'm so grateful to have such wonderful friends and family in my life. I just look at my Christmas tree and am reminded of the rich blessings of people and experiences I've had in my life.

Another pre-Christmas tradition I have is making Christmas chocolates, this always makes me think of my lovely momma who makes the yummiest chocolates every year. I have not yet attempted to make chocolates by myself and am thankful for having willing helpers. Some years my mom makes all the hundreds and hundreds of chocolates and goodies all by herself and often with just a bit of help, it blows my mind as I know she does it for her family and friends who she loves to share them with! This year I have made (with plenty of help) Turtles (my favourite), Cuban Lunches (another favourite), Strawberries, and peanut butter balls (although I still need to dip these in chocolate).
I'm still planning on making a few different chocolate barks, when I told my husband I was planning on making white chocolate peppermint bark his face fell.... SO I promised I would make another white chocolate bark with NO peppermint and just nuts for him! I'm going to take pictures of all my goodies and will post about Christmas chocolates soon!

What a fantastic time of year! Now if only I can get motivated to finish making the few handmade Christmas presents I have on our Christmas giving list this year.

Merry Christmas!

Decorating and Halloween fun!

 I did put up fall decorations, they were a work in progress moved around a bit, but at some point I took a cell phone photo.

Now you might notice that my hemp wrapped bottles aren't on that mantel. It's true, they WERE on the mantel and then they were moved to a lovely little nook in my entrance way to add some beauty when you walked in the front door. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo... I know, I know. But trust me it looked fantastic, with some fall coloured gerber daisy's and an antique looking trunk and the bottles as well as a give thanks pumpkin fall decor thingy, that my  mom gave me. I'm not great at describing it but trust me it is super cute.

ANYWAYS... then came halloween and out came the spooky decor for the mantle (which truth be told has not been put away yet... shhhh...... )

Here is a photo of my Halloween Mantel (again crappy cell phone photo, sorry lately that's how I roll).

I had fun decorating, I had my adorable niece and nephew help me with my halloween decorating, so those spiders and pumpkins tend to move around a bit every time they visit! Glad they had fun helping!

I also carved a few pumpkins, my neice helped me pick out the designs and scoop the guts out. It was so cute after we finished them we put some LED tealights inside and she went to get my husband who was doing work upstairs she made him close his eyes "and no peeking" as she guided him down the stairs and once he was right in front of the pumpkins he could open his eyes! She was thrilled with surprising him with our pumpkins.

you can see my spooky gargoyle peaking out behind this guy

My niece called the Jack Skellington pumpkin zipper mouth ... made me giggle!

Finally I will share our Halloween costumes this year. We had a lot of fun at the party we attended and we won best couple costume!

creepy zombie couple!

I'm going to have to remember to take more photo's (and better photo's) next time I decorate!

The beginnings of my Autumn decorations

So I've been feeling a bit behind on my Autumn decorating.  But tonight I started on my mantle.

It's coming along but needs many little projects, which hopefully will mean I can track my progress on here, and then the Mantle reveal!

SO first project is inspired from Pinterest and friends.

you've all probably seen this floating around pinterest.

I tried to find the original source but the problem with pinterest is sometimes it can get tricky to track it down. And I'm not sure where it comes from, there are a few people who have done their own tutorials, And the lovely Elva at More Than Just a Drop in the Ocean did a lovely tutorial with an added bit of paint. You can find her tutorial here.

I used a Jones soda bottle a Martinelli's bottle and a wine bottle to create these.

I used Hemp string and my trusty glue gun, turned on netflix to watch some shows and got to work.

I decided to do mine a bit different, for the soda bottle as you can see I completely wrapped it, the clear wine bottle only got wrapped in the middle kind of like a label, and the Martinelli bottle I started at the bottom and worked my way just over half way up. I like the look!

I'm thinking of painting with black something spooky on one side of each of them to give myself the option of turning them to the spooky side for Halloween and back to the plain side for other times, I haven't decided on that part yet. What do you think? I am thinking I will likely use them a lot in my Autumn decor so having them reverse does make the switch from Autumn to Halloween particularly easy.

These beauties are now sitting on my mantel with the beginnings of the Autumn decorations waiting for the Autumn mantel reveal.

If you decide to make some of these bottles I'd love to see how yours turn out.

xoxo

Being Grateful

It's been a while, I'm going to be completely honest and let you know I'm not sure how great I am going to be at this blogging thing. I do want you to know that I have a DESIRE to be great at blogging and I hope that I will become much better. So thank you for your patience.

I truly believe words are powerful! Don't you? I know the words we say out loud, the words we write, and the words we think gain power as we use them. The more we use words the more power we give them. So where am I going with this?

I have been impressed to give more power to my gratitude, by speaking, writing, and thinking more words of gratitude. What a positive impact on my life it would be if I chose to focus more on all I have rather than on other less uplifting thoughts. Could this make me grow as a person? Yes I truly believe it will, so here I am committing to you to be more grateful, and to back up that gratitude with words! I feel the desire for more personal growth in my life, and so it's time to do something about that.

Is it a coincidence that Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner? I doubt it, but I am awed that it is a natural time in our lives for Thanksgiving.

from Oprah.com

I want to start a gratitude journal not just full of things I am grateful for but also full of thoughts and findings while studying gratitude.

I may post on here about my gratitude from time to time, I hope you don't mind.

I am GRATEFUL for the beauty that surrounds me in this season.

pretty Autumn leaves, you can tell they would make a fantastic crunch sound just by looking at them.

I am GRATEFUL for a fantastic family who show me such love and support.

(I just realized I need to take a picture of my inlaws, I am GRATEFUL for them too!)

We've grown since this photo was taken I have a new little niece.

I am GRATEFUL for my supportive, generous, loving husband who works so hard for us!

He is just SO handsome.

I have so much in my life to be grateful for! 

What is your favourite quote on gratitude? Do you do something to help you focus on being grateful?

Jeepers Creepers....

Welcome to Day 27

Today I get the lovely task of sharing my favourite feature.

I LOVE my eyeballs... they are gorgeous ... (you like how I did that just came right out with it... ya I'm like that)

yup those are my eyeballs

Anyways, I don't have a lot of issues talking about my fantastic features so I'm just going to stop here and say that less is more.

Have a fantastic day and remember to remind yourself how beautiful you are today! (cause you are... promise)

xox

Life was beautiful then

On to Day 26

Fun times... A childhood Memory.

I had a fantastic childhood filled with a lot of fun happy memories. It is hard to choose one to share with you but I will try.



I have always loved Christmas, time spent with family visiting, laughing, and playing. Christmas meant extra goodies and treats and staying up a little bit later because of parties and dinners and get togethers. I have a fantastic memory of waking up one Christmas morning and seeing under the tree a stroller for my cabbage patch kid. I remember being SO excited and happy. I now know that stroller was made by my mom and dad, Mom sewed and my dad put together the frame with white pvc pipe. (genius). I'm not sure why that is such a strong Christmas morning memory for me but I do remember being a little groggy as I walked in to see the Christmas tree with all sorts of gifts and just knowing that stroller was for me and all that excitement just wiping away any sleepiness in me. I would have been very young (not sure exactly how old), but it's a special memory that I can't wait to make for my children when they come along.

I really should ask if mom and dad have any pictures of this stroller.... as this post is lacking in the photo department.

Absolutely DELICIOUS!

And on to Day 25

I hope you just ate because this post may just make you HUNGRY!

Today is a recipe day!

I have fallen in love with this blog

Check out Gina's Skinny Recipes!

Seriously if you have not yet checked out this blog you must.... Go! Seriously..... I'll wait!

Doesn't everything look SO SO delicious!

I have yet to try a recipe from her site that I have not liked! A huge crowd favourite around here is

Gina's Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken

Source: skinnytaste.com

As you can see Gina takes GORGEOUS photo's of her food! She is very talented!

This recipe is So simple, I've even thrown my chicken in frozen and it has still turned out fabulous! I usually cook up some Quinoa to serve this on, and I add sides of salsa, guacamole, grated cheese, sour cream, hot sauce (my hubby loves them) and anything else I think would be delicious to add on top.
It has always been a crowd pleaser and I doubt we will ever get sick of it! I definitely recommend you add this on to your menu plan next week!

Do you have any favourite cooking blogs or recipes? please share!

I'm Baaa-AAAck!

Well after a long Hiatus (sorry about that) I figured it's time to get back on the horse.

I have sat down to do this a few times and never seem to make it past clicking on "New Post". I figured I just needed a break, haven't figured out why yet and not sure why NOW is when I finally get back in the blogisphere, but here I am.

I am going to finish these 30 days because it's important for me to finish, so I hope you've been waiting in anticipation.... for Day 24.

Actually I'm going to switch up Day 24, It is meant to be - A Movie no one would expect me to love.  I'm pretty hard to disappoint with movies and I think most people know I have a fairly eclectic movie taste and love almost anything. So I decided I'm switchin' it up! Ya, that's right, I'm coming back to finish my 30 days but I'm hijacking them and doing it MY way (well at least for Day 24 I am.)

So rather than a movie no one would expect me to love, how about a movie that no one would expect me NOT to love.

The number one movie in that position is
... drumroll please.....

The Devil Wears Prada

source

I think I enjoyed the book too much to like the movie. I know that is a common experience for many people, but not for me. Typically reading the book doesn't disappoint my movie watching experience.  With this one I remember sitting through the movie SO angry half the time, and left the theater feeling cheated.

Are you surprised? Needless to say The Devil Wears Prada is not in my rather large DVD collection.

So.... did ya miss me? did ya? ;)