Ornament-aholic

Our tree is eclectic, with lots of different ornaments. Some are ornaments from childhood, some are vintage I've collected over the years and the rest are from local boutiques, Hobby Lobby, Target, Pottery Barn etc. Here are some of my favorite this year:

When I saw this ornament at a local boutique I had to have it! It's tough to find black dogs-- this is our Jack Bauer ornament!

My lion & lamb (I realize it's classic Christian imagery, but it's also a great Twilight reference!!)  

 a fun ice cream sundae & a cupcake from Pier One-- I have tons of Pier One ornaments:

 I had to represent my home state-- Boomer Sooner!

 But Mike has two degrees from Oklahoma State, we don't discriminate in our house:

 I have a growing collection of fairy tale themed ornaments, here are a few:

 this one represents our Hawaii honeymoon:

 Mike's favorite ornament on the tree!

 a giant NYC taxi cab to represent my favorite city. I'm hoping we'll head that way on one of our next vacations. 

coming to a mailbox near you

I'm typically the kind of person that can make a decision. I'm not saying it's always the right decision, but I usually don't have a problem pulling the trigger... except when it came to our Christmas cards this year! My good friend Allison designed our cards again this year and I truly loved every design she made! So I had 3 of them printed and just did an "eeny meeny miney mo" and put them in the envelopes. :-)

So you should be getting one of these in the next few days!

Christmas Cats!

just goofing around this afternoon. ;-)

Christmas Exploded All Over Our House

that's the text message my dear husband got last week while I was decorating for Christmas. I had tupperware containers everywhere with all kinds of ornaments, garland, wrapping paper and odds & ends. I guess I went a little wild at the after Christmas sales last year-- remind me that I don't need to buy anything when the sales roll around in January, okay? ;-) I tried to go a little bit more modern and fun this year. I packed away all of my gold and went with more of a red & white candy theme.

I'll start with the entryway:

The candy dish is from Kirkland's and the little Christmas sign is from a local craft fair:

 I believe I got the "ho ho ho" letters at Pier One last year. The tin tray was a Hobby Lobby find last week and the candle is from B&BW. Mike picked out the scent this weekend-- Homemade Cookies. Heavenly!!

The mantel-- the wreath is from Pier One. I put the garland together with greenery from Wal~Mart, & mesh ribbon, decorative picks, and ribbon from Hobby Lobby. The stockings are also from Hobby Lobby-- can you tell it's my favorite place?! 

 

 I always add ribbon and a decorative pick to my lamps-- I went with a completely different color scheme this year-- red & white:

  

 The tree! 

I plan on making a proper Christmas tree skirt but the temporary fix is just a big piece of red burlap.

 I made my tree topper this year-- I used styrofoam disks, red felt, wooden dowel rods and cellophane to make "candy". I really like the way it turned out.

   

 The chargers are from Target, the glasses are from Pottery Barn, and I've had the Santa teapot for years. You can't see them but I have some adorable jingle bell napkin rings that I got at Pier One last year. I can't wait to set the table and use everything for Christmas dinner this year! 

Winter Wonderland Date Night

On Saturday Mike and I went to the Winter Wonderland Lighting of the Square event in Bentonville. It was so much fun! It was also the grand opening of the new ice skating rink-- (we decided to watch this time, not skate)  plus lots of music, vendors and Christmas lights. 

Such a great day.

 Mike being a dork as usual :)

  

 After checking out the rink, we headed to dinner at our favorite Thai place right off the Square. We still had some time to kill before the lighting so we headed over to a new frozen yogurt place-- which also happens to have two vegan sorbets! It might not sound like much, but any place to get a vegan dessert in our area is a big deal! This picture of Mike cracks me up:

I got a mixture of the mango and the valencia orange... so freaking good!

Okay, back to the Square! Can you tell we live in Arkansas?? 

 one of my favorite restaurants is shown in this pic--- Table Mesa. Fantastic Mexican food!

 The first W@l-Mart-- it's a museum and it's currently being remodeled. 

  no town square is complete without a courthouse:

 the sun finally went down and it was time for some Christmas lights!

  

The Christmas House

**edited to add-- I have no idea why some of the pictures are only loading a little bit-- you can still click on them and see the whole tree.*

Here's the S@m's Club Christmas home. Every room had a tree and most trees had themes. All the decor and trees can be purchased at S@m's.

the formal dining room:

 the foyer:

 the formal living room:

 the game room:

 little girl's room:

 guest bedroom:

 family room tree and mantel decor:

 master bedroom tree:

 little boy's room:

  some iPhone shots of the family room and dining area: