I'm dreaming...

...of a White Christmas! 

Well, we may not get a white christmas, but December got off to a good start here in Texas with a little snowfall on the morning of December 1st! 

Randall woke me up as he was leaving for work, and I thought something must be wrong but he just wanted to make sure I saw the snow. It was so nice eating my breakfast at the table and watching the flakes come down! It really put me in the Christmas mood. So a few days later we got to work making the house ready for the holidays and decorating the tree. 

Of course we had to watch The Christmas Story as we decked the halls! 

Here it is all done with the presents wrapped. 

I'm a little OCD and have to have all my gift wrap coordinating... 

This year the color scheme is brown/red/cream and is a little on the country side. I love wrapping paper! I think wrapping the presents may be more fun for me than unwrapping them! I know it's crazy. 

Speaking of paper... I also love scrapbook paper, and my mom gave me a big stack of Christmas printed scrapbook paper last year. Since I haven't done much scrapbooking lately (okay more like not any at all!) I decided to use it to make some Christmas decorations. I came up with an idea for a banner that I hung from some of my shelves. It was REALLY easy to do. I just printed letters spelling out PEACE in a font I liked off the computer in a really large size. Then I cute out the letters and traced them on the scrapbook paper and cut them out again. Then I glued them on a square piece of coordinating scrapbook paper, used a hole punch to punch some holes, strung it on some twine and voila! A festive Christmas banner! It looks homemade but that was the look I was going for. You should try it!

November in a Nutshell

Yes I realize that it's December 12. I also realize that I am a MUCH better blog READER than a blog WRITER. It's just more fun to see what other people are up to instead of writing about something you've already done. But I want to have some recollection of my life as it is now so I will do a little recap of November since it came and went so quickly without a word on this blog! I'll warn you now it might be a long one, so just look at the pictures and make up your own fun story to go with them if you don't feel like reading!

So, we had a pretty rough start to the month of November (read with heavy sarcasm). We spent it lying on the beautiful beaches of Cabo San Lucas. I have an awesome job, and as a reward they gave me this wonderful vacation! Needless to say, we were pretty ecstatic! 

To get to the resort you go through a tunnel through a mountain lit with flaming sconces and candelabras and it opens up on the Pacific Ocean. 

Once in the resort the mountain separated us from the rest of the city and gave us an amazing view of the ocean. 

The place we stayed at was sort of a timeshare/condo thing so it was even more fancy and secluded than a normal hotel. Here's our kitchen & living areas:

Both the main balcony and the balcony in our room had infinity pools.

We were forced to eat a huge Mexican breakfast each morning and I even got my first massage from the spa there! I also think I took a nap just about every day - that sun wears you out! 

One day we did manage to ventured away from our little paradise and took a fishing trip. 

We rented a private boat and two men took us out into the pacific to fish for Mahi Mahi and Marlin. I was enjoying the boat for about the first hour and then not so much... Randall caught two Mahi Mahi though so the day was well spent! Too bad I didn't feel like eating fish that evening! 

Our last evening there we decided to go all out and order room service for dessert. We order something called "Tour of Chocolate" yes that's right, the "Tour of Chocolate". It was an amazing assortment of chocolate in all shapes and sizes, souffles, mouses, creme brulees, raw, with coffee, you get the picture. It was fantastic and I only wished that we had gotten it earlier in the week and I could have ordered it every day!

All rested and relaxed, we came home from our sunny vacation to see that fall had arrived while we were gone. The trees on our street were beautiful and our yard looked like this: I loved it! Not so sure about Randall since he was doing the raking.

Then finally Thanksgiving came and since my camera battery died that day this is the only picture of Thanksgiving I have. These are my in-laws.... a little odd looking if you ask me ;) 

Let's Pretend Halloween Party

For those of you that don't know, Halloween is Randall's birthday. Needless to say, it is his favorite holiday. He loves to think up fun costumes and try to carve the best pumpkin and play with dry ice and all that. So for the past two years we have hosted a Halloween party to celebrate his birth and favorite day. But this year we aren't going to be in town... we will be in Cabo Mexico! So he's not too sad that we aren't celebrating in the usual way ;)

The trip was actually given to us by my generous company and we are beyond thrilled to be going! The resort we are staying at is top notch and much nicer than any place we would normally get to stay at! We can't wait! But more about that later.

Since I'm not actually planning a party this year I thought I'd share some good party ideas I came across online that I would use if I were throwing one. 

Of course you would be invited with some handmade invites like these:

(I especially like the owl one!)

And I thought these pumpkin votives would be a quick and festive. I would get lots of them since the little pumpkins are pretty inexpensive and spread them all over the house on tables, mantle, and shelves to fill the house with soft spooky candlelight!

The mice silhouettes might be a little time consuming to cut out but worth the effort- aren't they cute!? I'd just sit down with some black construction paper and scissors while watching an classic Halloween movie like Hocus Pocus and cut away. 

A few crows and cobwebs would do the trick to make a creepy scene:

And of course there would be plenty of yummy treats like these frosted sugar cookies:

So what do you think? Would you come to my imaginary party? Maybe I'll save a few of these ideas for next year!

(all pictures from marthastewart.com)

Fall Campout

Finally here are the pics from our camping trip last weekend. We headed out on Friday to Lake Ray Roberts. The first order of business was to set up the tents... Dad and Randall refused to read the instructions on the new tent, but sure enough they got it set up in no time:

It was really nice to get away. We had perfect weather. After what seemed like a month of straight rain, it seemed that everyone had the same idea to go camping this weekend since it was finally nice out. The evenings were chilly and I would get a blanket and sit as close to the fire as possible without actually sitting in it! But oh my goodness - the stars! I guess it has probably been 5 years since I last really saw the stars without all the city lights. I forgot how breathtaking it is. They look so close! It made me kind of sad to think that God intended us to enjoy this beautiful view every night, yet all our city lights distract us and don't allow us to see it. ....Guess I'll just have to move to cabin on a secluded mountainside :)

Anyway, Saturday we went into the town of Whitesboro for their annual Peanut festival. The kids really liked the parade, and we all enjoyed walking around the shops and boths on Main St.

We also enjoyed lunch at a local Catfish place while in town. 

Here is the gang:

After lunch we took naps and a bike ride.

Good thing the playground was right across from our campsite- the kids loved that.

And of course the best end to a day of camping is smores. Reese gave them a thumbs up!

Going on a camping trip...

and I'm taking with me:

-Two new sleeping bags

-One borrowed tent

-Stuff to make smores

-Bikes

-A guitar

-A good book

I'm so VERY much looking forward to spending some time relaxing with people I love and enjoying God's creation a little closer up!

Hopefully I'll have a few pictures to share when I return.

Have a good weekend everyone!