Two Posts in one Day?!? It's a Christmas Miracle!

I saw this over at Just a Happy Housewife. I think it's fun! Feel free to fill it out too!

Tag, you're it! A Christmas Meme

1. Hot Chocolate or apple cider?
Hot Chocolate

2. Turkey or Ham?
Definitely Turkey...with gravy, corn pudding, mashed potatoes and green beans. YUM!

3. Do you get a fake or real-you-cut-it-yourself Christmas tree?
Fake. Next year, we hope to get a real one.

4. Decorations on the outside of your house?
YES! My first time ever since moving out of my parent's house almost 10 years ago! I lived in a second story condo for 9 years and now The Husband and I are finally homeowners and can decorate outside - YAY! I wanted to go crazy, but The Husband talked some sense into me and said "No need to do it all the first year." I think he was just afraid of what the neighbors might think :)

5. Snowball fights or sleddin’?
Sledding

6. Do you enjoy going downtown shopping?
Yes

7. Favorite Christmas song?
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

8. How do you feel about Christmas movies?
Adore them. "A Christmas Story" is one of my all-time favorites.

9. When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?
Is June too early? Just kidding! I usually start to get a hankering for a good christmas carol sometime around the middle of October.

10. Stockings before or after presents?
Before.

11. Go to someone else’s house or they come to you?
Depends. We split the holidays with The Husband's side so every other year we go to my parent's and on the other years, his family has been coming to us.

12. Do you read the Christmas Story? If so when?
I don't usually read it (but I hope to once we have kids) but I usually hear it once or twice each season.

13. What do you do after presents and dinner?
Clean up, have a drink and relax. Listen to chrismtas music and chat with family, watch christmas movies on TV. My favorite thing to do, once everyone leaves, is to turn off all the lights and lay on the couch with my husband in front of the fireplace or the christmas tree and listen to christmas music and just talk with him.

14. What is your favorite holiday smell?
Pumpkin.

15. Ice skating or walking around the mall?
Mall.

16. Do you open a present or presents on Christmas Eve, or wait until Christmas day?
Growing up, we had a family party on Christmas Eve so I would open gifts from aunts and uncles. Everything from my parents and Santa we mostly opened on Christmas morning. However, there were a few years when we wouldn't be home on Christmas morning, so Santa stopped by early on a random night because he knew we'd be gone on Christmas morning.

17. Favorite Christmas memory?
I have a two great memories. One, the year I got my first Cabbage Patch Kid doll. My mom fought tooth and nail for it and I loved her so much! Two, one year when I was a teenager, my family was going to be either up north or on vacation on Christmas Day. My parents took us out to dinner on a random night and we all piled in the car. However, once in the car, my mom said "Hold on a minute, I forgot something..." and went back in the house. Afterward, we went to dinner and came home. We walked into the house and I saw our stockings had been stuffed and the space underneath the tree had been completely filled! Santa had come early, on a Wednesday night!!! We spent hours opening our gifts and enjoying the time together. It was such a magical night and I always remember it.

18. Favorite Part about winter?
The first snow and the month in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love that time of year. It's so festive and everyone is always (usually) in such a great mood! There are lots of get togethers with family and friends and lots of laughs.

19. Ever been kissed under mistletoe?
Yes.

Tantilizing Tuesday...on a Friday

So, I already missed my second Tantilizing Tuesday! I am on a roll!

I decided to go with a stocking stuffer theme today. These are some items I would love to see in my stocking on Christmas morning:

World's Largers Reese's Peanut Butter Cups


Holy peanut butter cups, batman! Both The Husband and I are lovers of the Reese's Peanut Butter cups and I just know this would be an awesome treat for us to share. One full pound of chocolate and peanut butter goodness to enjoy between the two of us. YUMMY!!! I've seen them at CVS Pharmacy.

Gift card to Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, Amazon, Borders...just about any store, really. I love gift cards! I know some people don't think they are very good gifts or think that they aren't personal enough, but I disagree. Unless you know exactly what to get or what size to buy, a gift card is a great option. This allows the receiver to pick out anything they want! Plus, it's stress free for the giver. If you want to make it a bit more personal, get it to a store you KNOW the receiver loves, not just some place easy like Target. Go to the clothing boutique or the salon/spa the receiver frequents. You could also wrap it up in a scarf or a cute set of mittens to make it a bit more special.

Tickets to a concert or a broadway show
I love going to concerts and I love theater. This would be such a great stocking stuffer for me. As it is, his mother and I are surprising The Husband with tickets to the Kid Rock 40th Birthday Show in Detroit and he is going to freak!!! We tried getting tickets the day they went out sale, but couldn't get through. The event sold out in under 19 minutes. His mom and I went in together to buy them off a website. Yes, we paid a lot more then we should have and I hate that I had to go through a scalper, but he wants to go so badly. We saw Kid Rock in July of 2009 and it was A. MAZING! So I know he's going to really love and appreciate this gift.

Jewelry
I always think getting jewelry in a stocking is great because it's unexpected. You don't expect "the big gift" to be part of the first thing you look at on Christmas morning (at least in our family). Among the candy, lottery tickets, lipglosses and notepads, you find this beautifuly piece of jewelry that someone picked out for you and it's magical. Just like Christmas should be!

Simply by Clinique perfume
I absolutely adore this perfume by Clinique but it has been discontinued for a number of years now. I have about three bottles at home that I have stock piled. I used to wear this scent every day, but now that I know my time with it is limited, I hoard it. I know you can get it online through Amazon and some other websites (which is how I've ended up with three bottles), but eventually my 3 bottles will be empty and I won't be able to find it online, so anytime someone helps me stockpile my favorite scent, I am a happy girl :) I would also be happy with DKNY Cashmere as well as Chanel Chance. All lovely scents!

Huh. This is a pretty good list I came up with. I should shove it into a pair of The Husband's shoes so he "accidentally" comes across it :)

Tantalizing Tuesday

I've decided to try and start a weekly subject called Tantalizing Tuesday. It will be a list of things/vacations/ideas I am currently loving on or desperately wanting or just just plain loving to look at. Since Christmas is fast approaching, I've decided to come up with a list of things I'd like to see under the tree or in my stocking from Santa :)

1. iPad or Kindle
I would love an iPad, but since we are a non-internet family (haven't had it in years and not sure if/when we are going to get it in the new house. I'm on the computer for 10 hours a day at work, I don't need to be on it at home when I'm with my family, too), a Kindle would probably be better and used more. I'd really be happy with either, I think. However, I'm sure there will come a day when we will have the internet (The Husband thinks we should be one now, he misses iTunes), so the iPad would be more useful then. Such a dilema! :)


2. Martha Stewart Collection Cupcake Carrier
I have started baking a bit more and am just in love with cupcakes. Iw ould like to try my hand at making different kinds and I will need something to transport them so they don't stay at home and get all eaten up by myself and The Husband.

3. Tiffany Mini Twist ring and Paloma Picasso Hammered ring
To wear together - YUM!


4. The Original Christmas Classics DVD Collection
I LOVE all of these classics and would love to be able to watch them whenever I wanted instead of waiting for them on TV!

5. Bose Radio and CD Player
We have a Bose iPod speaker and love it. I would love to get this Bose radio so we can listen to music wherever in the house. It's easy to move from room to room and has amazing sound quality.

6. Kate Spade all wrapped up bow ring
Absolutely love this ring. So pretty!

7. Keep Calm and Carry On print
I want this in red to go in our new home. I love the saying and with my overly active (nice way of saying "ANAL") personality, I think it would calm me down and just remind me to breath and keep moving on.

8. Curtains from Target
LOVE these - love the colors!

9. Keep Calm and Eat Cupcakes t-shirt
I love cupcakes and this shirt is just so cute. Love all the different colors.

10. Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Sparkle Shoes
Sparkles and more sparkles - need I say more? These would be so cute with jeans and black shirts/cute t-shirts.

11. Keep Calm and Eat a Cupcake print
We recently painted our kitchen a very bright, but soft, green. Kind of like a celery/sage/avocado mixed together. This print would be so cute in there! Now if only I could match the greens. What other color would go? We have a few red accents right now, but not sure if those will stay.

A fun giveaway!

Just wanted to let you know that the H.I.T. (Housewife-in-Training) over at Surburban Housewife-in-Training is doing a very cute giveaway! It's called Secret Santa and I think it's a great way to do a giveaway. She is going to pick a winner and then either go through their blog and/or ask the winner a bunch of personal questions. From the winner's answers, she will then pick a gift that she thinks you will like. Isn't that fun?

Here's the link to the contest over at Surburban Housewife-in-Training. Goodluck!

Christmas cards vs. Our new address vards?

I always have such high aspirations of being this Martha Stewart-Betty Crocker-Ty Pennington wife, but I can never quite get there. I work long days in a city that's about a 40 minute drive from where we live and by the time I get home and either cook dinner or eat dinner with The Husband, I have no energy and it's pretty much bedtime. I subscribe to Better Homes & Gardens, I read tons of blogs that give such good decorating/home improvement/cooking ideas, but the reality is, I'd rather spend those few precious hours (sometimes minutes) after work with The Husband before he falls asleep (which is usually the way it works in our household. I'm a night owl, he is not).

We got married on 12/27/08 and last year would've been the year to send out our first family christmas card with a wedding photo on it. Well...we missed that bus. Now we have moved into a new home and I'd really like to do a christmas card with pictures from all the fun stuff we did this year, as well as a photo or two of our new home. However, I haven't gotten on the ball yet (did I mention I work 10 hour days?) and now I don't know what to do. I've designed a couple and have been happy with the result, but because we are thinking about including a picture of the house with our new address, we;d have to get a folded card, not just a flat one. I've designed one I really like at Shutterfly but, while not expensive themselves, we'd need to order around 100 cards, maybe more, plus postage = more money then I'd like and money that we should really be putting toward the house.

Here are some of the cards I found at Shutterfly. We have a lot of friends/family who do not celebrate Christmas, but I still want to include them in our seasons greetings, so we prefer to stay away from the "Merry Christmas" cards.


I love the colors and style of this card.
This card is my absolute favorite. I LOVE the saying and the monogram! Plus, it has enough room for us to put pictures of all the fun things we did this past year on the front and then room for a picture (or three or four) of the new house! Plus, this song ("What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong) played while The Husband and I did our candle lighting during our wedding ceremony.

Absolutely LOVE this card. The message is so simple and the perfect way to send our friends and family joyous holiday greetings.

Again, I love the colors of this card and the message is so simple, yet is exactly what we want to say.

Some flat cards I've found that I really like, but not sure will work for including our new address (They don't give you a lot of room to add anything more than your name):
So cute! Love the colors, love the message and LOVE the picture of the two little ones. Adorable!
Super cute!
Adore this one with all the fun colors and it's a very cute way to let your family and friends know what you've been up to this year. I love it so much, I think I might have to try and make this one work for our card. I'll keep you posted!

So what do you all think? Is it better to do a holiday card with our new address...or would it be best to just send out store bough christmas cards and through in a card that has our new address? I know store bought is so not Martha Stewart of me, but with time closing in and our "house want" pile growing bigger and bigger, what's a girl to do? Or do you think we should wait until after the holidays and send out a "We've moved" postcard? What do you think?

Welcome Home!

Well...we did it! We closed on our house last Wednesday, 11/10, painted/cleaned/ripped out carpet on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and moved in on Saturday. Needless to say, it has been an exhausting, exciting, crazy and chaotic past couple of days. I returned to work this morning for the first time since last Tuesday and it was definitely weird to wake up in our new master bedroom in our new home and get ready for work. My routine was the same (pack lunch the night before, watch the news, shower, do hair, get dressed, leave) but it just felt different. Closing the garage and pulling out of the driveway definitely felt different, but it all felt different in a good way. A great way. A phenomenal way.

We got the three bedrooms painted (including all of the trim, quarter round and closets and ceilings) before moving in. The kitchen, master bedroom and second bedroom are all unpacked and organized, minus curtains (Yikes! Gotta remember to be careful getting undressed - HA!) and closet doors (that were taken off for painting).

Many filled boxes remain that I hope to get to before Thanksgiving, but we shall see. I am a Christmas fanatic (I am that person that wants Christmas music to start playing before Halloween) and I can barely stand waiting for Thanksgiving to pass before getting all my holiday decorations out. Some years I don't wait, but most of the time I do. So, I'd really like the boxes unpacked and everything put away and in its place before I get out the Christmas stuff, however I might have to settle for putting some boxes down into the basement until I can get to them. There is NO WAY I am missing out on decorating for our first Christmas in our new home.

I hope to have pictures of rooms as they get finished, so fingers crossed I actually do it!

This close...

We are thisclose to closing on the house. The husband and I are just anxious and excited to get in there and start working on it. We did some shopping this past weekend at Home Goods, Ikea and Bed Bath and Beyond. We have only bought little things, like lamps, pillows, and sheets (for the guest bedroom), but we've also looked at a lot of furniture, like side tables, night stands, bookcases, chairs, foyer tables and kitchen storage. We've found quite a bit that we like, but since we aren't in the house yet, we don't have exact measurements and don't want to purchase anything that might not fit.

We are hoping to close next Wednesday, 11/10. We'd like our closing to be first thing that morning so we can head right on over and get to work. We'd like to clean the house from top to bottom (no one has lived there for almost a year so I'm sure it needs it), paint a couple rooms, replace the kitchen floor and install a shower into one of the bathrooms....all before we move in over the following weekend. Think it can be done? If The Husband has anything to say about it, it will be accomplished! He wants to pull out the air mattress and sleep there even though none of our furniture, tv, etc., will be there. That's how ready he is to FINALLY be in his own home.

The Husband and I spent Sunday going to Ikea with my Mother-in-Law and Home Goods. We found a couple of great furniture pieces that may or may not work. Once we are in the house with our furniture, we'll be able to see what we might need and where things can go. That evening, while my husband and MIL stayed home to hand out candy to the trick or treaters (all 4 of them!), I headed to another Home Goods to find a pillow that I just HAD to have. I had seen it at one Home Goods, but ended up purchasing it in another color scheme. However, once I was home and thinking about it, I realized I wanted the other one. I went back to the original Home Goods, but it was gone! Of course I continued to call other locations until I found it. I had to drive about 20 minutes one way to pick it up Sunday night, but it was totally worth it. It's going to look great. I know you ladies know what I mean and have done this yourselves at some point :)

Going back a couple posts, where I talked about getting more readers/followers, I got some great suggestions from Angela over at Sweet Tea Diaries. I've tried a few (except for that whole Google Reader thing...No idea how that works or if I even installed it properly) but nothing has really worked yet. I'm still trying, though! I hope to post more once we get into the house. We don't have internet access at home, so posting pictures can be difficult, but I will try!

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!