Christmastime is here!

Here is a little peak at our home right now:

L: The kitchen table centerpiece, we decided to add some silver to the room!

R: I love this wreath and ornaments... it was exactly what the space needed.

Our crocheted stockings (there wasn't really anywhere else to put them lol) and more silver.

The gorgeous Willow Tree nativity that we received as a wedding gift. I was so excited to pull it out for Christmas! ...and one of the silver mirrors haha

And moving on to the more woodsy, rustic-style living room.

One of my boutique purchases from the lovely Julian Dolen. I love it!

My camera takes good macro shots!

L: So we got this cardinal pillow for FREE at Kohls because we got a coupon in the mail for $10 off and the pillow was like $9.99 so we were able to walk out with it without spending a penny. So good...

R: The deer that I decided not to sell at the boutique along with an engagement pic.

I am pretty happy with how our mantle turned out. It was one of the more frustrating things, but in the end it makes me really happy. Funny story though, the star to the left was supposed to be our tree topper, but as you will see in a bit, our tree is rather small, so it was literally pulling the tree over. The topper was too large and heavy for our poor tree, so I thought it fit well here instead. Now to figure out an alternative tree topper...

And finally, our little no-topper tree. It fits perfectly in the space between the air conditioner and the tv. And it now has lights on it which makes it so much more adorable!

While I was having so much fun playing with my new camera, my hubby was diligently studying for a test. Even though this picture turned out blurry, I still really like it.

Another note about my new camera: I finally decided that there is pretty much no way to take an amazing picture inside our poorly lighted apartment at night, so from now on I am going to try to focus on taking more pics outside and with better lighting at least.

our lovely day of thanks...

This year for Thanksgiving, my husband and my families united for a joyful day of thankfulness and celebration. I spent most of the morning cooking my food contributions while he woke up at the crack of dawn to play football. In the afternoon, everyone united to let the fun and food begin! Here are a couple of my favorite pics. I am still waiting on receiving the rest...

The feast (excluding desserts)!



Robyn and Ash

All of the Jones girls!

Neither of these two people are me, but don't worry even I get confused sometimes.

My love...

The engaged ones.

After the feasting, there was a significant period of time for family-picture-taking (of which I don't have any yet), and after a while we did the traditional "thankfulness exercise" where everyone says something they are thankful for about each other person. As you can imagine, with 2 whole families (16 people), this would take quite a while so we said that not everyone had to contribute for every single person. However, it still lasted around 3 hours. At some point during the evening, the girlies browsed all of the ads for the next day, and then we went to bed around 11.

3:00 a.m. Buzz Buzz Buzz - click - ugh kill me now... Rise and shine! Time to go shopping! I really wish I had pictures of the next few hours of our morning, but you can probably understand why I wasn't thinking about that. We (all of the girls in the pics above plus a couple more) started off at ampm for coffee of course. *P.S. Starbucks, you really need to get on that day opening a bit earlier - you would make serious bank.* Then first to Target, dashed to Kohls, headed over to Walmart, then to breakfast at McDonalds, a quick trip to Old Navy, and then home to sleeeeepppp... Besides getting sick (my body is pretty sensitive to non-sleeping), it was a pretty awesome experience. There is just something rather amusing about seeing grown adults climb, crawl, brawl, push, shove, and yell.

I would consider it a pretty productive shopping experience - I got alot of not 8 sweaters from Target (don't worry I returned some), cheap movies, some Christmas presents, seasons 4 and 5 of House (yay!), and a cheap 8 GB memory card for my NEW CAMERA! I decided not to get a dslr yet. I am going to save during this next year, enjoy my new point-and-shoot that I got super cheap from Target on Thanksgiving, and practice with its manual settings to learn how to actually use it well. It is a Canon SX120IS and I really like what I have seen from it so far. I used it to take pictures of our Christmas decor, which I will try to post soon. Well, that is pretty much the highlight of my week so far. I ordered our Christmas cards (from Shutterfly) and they should be coming soon so I can't wait to see those!

What did you do for your Thanksgiving?

Six.

Yesterday was my husband and my six-month-iversary. It was also our 4-year anniversary since we officially began to date, but he says that that doesn't count anymore. I think I am going to keep track anyways =). Here is a little of what happened...

I went to work like normal, but when I got there there were a couple things in front of the door! Ronnie had dropped by before I got there (and he said he went to the prayer meeting!) and brought a chai tea latte (my favorite!) and a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

After I got home from work, we rushed off to have dinner at El Cholo. It was so delicious! I ordered blue corn chicken enchiladas, and he ordered beef fajitas. Mine was better. =)

Then we went to Birch Street to walk our tummies off and get a yummy "Joy" tea from Starbucks. (Yes, I had it twice in one day, but this was tea so it was way different) Of course, we had to play with the reindeer a bit...

:::::love:::::

Then, we scurried on home to decorate for Christmas!!! He knew I was so anxious and a little stressed because our fall decor was already half torn-down and the already-bought Christmas stuff was starting to take up alot of space in our little apartment. So, he set the mood by turning on KOST, and "we" decorated for the rest of the evening (he set up the tree). It was fun for about the first 15 minutes, but it quickly became a frustrating, not-so-fun endeavor because of little things not turning out how I had planned. I should have stopped while I was ahead, but I am the kind of person that can't stop a project until I am completely done... Anyways, in the end, I was relieved to finish, and I am pretty happy with the results of our first Christmas decor, though I am sure it will morph over the next month. We decided to try to make that day (Nov 22) our annual Christmas-decorating day because, come on, you just can't plan to do anything else on Black Friday except shop and sleep, and it should definitely be done as soon as possible. I am finally ready for the holidays to begin in our cozy, Christmasy little home.

Have you decorated yet? Have you thought about how you might want to decorate this year?

Joy to the World!

The boutique was so fun and such a good experience. I must admit that I had pretty low expectations, so I was surprised at how successful it turned out to be! Here are a few pictures from the event:

"Repurpose and Indulge" sign:



The "Indulge" part of the booth. Emily enjoyed sharing some of her past creations as well as helping people envision some holiday treats!

The wire star ornaments were a big hit! I may have to emphasize these more next time...

Mirrors - I am actually excited that they didn't sell because I know exactly how I am going to use them!

I loved these cards.

Ashley made these cute frames!

Our donation jar:

Ash made these flower hair clips! They were super cute and another best-seller. I snatched one up pretty quickly!

She also made these pillows that I really wanted... The fabric is SO cute.

Ok so I guess all of the cutest stuff was made by Ashley! haha She made this gorgeous wreath that fortunately was bought by just the right person...

I loved this one too but I love even more the Starbucks cup in the background...

In the end, I think I learned alot about this whole process. I need to think more about the products ahead of time so I don't go crazy buying stuff and get super disorganized and scatter-brained. It maybe would have been better if we had chosen only 3 different kinds of things to make and display. This would have avoided alot of stress, money spending, and presentation problems. If you missed the boutique and see anything in the pictures that you would be interested in ordering, contact us and we will see if we can work something out!

Shutterfly

Today I thought I would share with you all one of my favorite photo websites - Shutterfly.

(source)

I have used Shutterfly through the years for various projects. You can order photo prints, calendars, cards, photo gifts, and - my favorite - photobooks! I have ordered photobooks for wedding gifts, anniversary gifts, and I have used them this year for my engagement album and wedding album. Here is a quick snapshot of our first-year calendar I recently made:

They have a pretty good selection of tools and products to work with, making the process of creating beautiful products and gifts really easy, and I believe they are one of the most reasonably-priced places out there (plus, if you keep a look out for sales and deals, you could really walk away with a bargain!). Here are some of my favorite Christmas card templates this year (pictures taken from the Shutterfly website), I love their unique styles - ranging from crafty to classic to modern.

Since Christmas is coming up, now might be a good time to look into photobooks, pictures for family, or even Christmas cards. I am so excited to do my very first Christmas card as a married woman this year! I am still trying to decide how I want them to look, and there are so many good ideas out there... If you want a card from us, send me your information - since I don't yet have a list of recipients, now's your chance to make it on the list! Speaking of that - I should get started on our letter!
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P.S. For all of you bloggers out there, you can get 50 free folded or flat holiday cards from Shutterfly by writing a blog post about it! Click here for more information.



I haven't forgotten about you!

Hello all,

Sorry about the lack of posting recently - I have been really busy worrying about boutique stuff as well as not knowing what to post about! Speaking of that, I suppose now would be a good chance to remind you to COME TO THE BOUTIQUE! For those that haven't heard yet, my sisters and I are working a table filled with random crafts/decor (most homemade, some Christmasy), and more importantly all of the proceeds will be going to a family on the missions field. For more information, read about it here and here. It is this Friday evening and Saturday morning/afternoon at Green Hills.

Also, another thing that has been bothering me is having no comments. Please comment on my posts - it makes me feel better ;-). (by the way - thank you to those who have). I would like to hear what you are thinking about what I share, any suggestions from those who find it interesting about how it could be better, and just positive reinforcement in general. I am not too proud to beg. So, I will not take it personally if you comment on the posts, but I will take it personally if you don't!

For those of you who have made it this far with no pictures, here is a little sneak surprise that I am SOOOO excited about. My sister copied this wreath she found online somewhere and made one (even better than this) for the boutique! It is gorgeous and I want it for myself. However, I give you a chance to claim it if you make it to our table at the boutique.

(source)



Well, that's all for now. Come to the boutique. Comment on my blog. See you friday!

:::JJ:::

More on Oak Glen

So, as I mentioned in the October Goals post, we were able to squeeze in a trip to Oak Glen and it was absolutely beautiful! Some of our closest friends, Micah and Kelly, went with us. We stopped at Riley's Farms first.

We thought about picking apples, but decided to just explore the pumpkin patch instead.

Where's the Waldos?

Oh Micah...

My husband is such a naturally good photographer... sometimes I envy him.

And here are some other pictures I really like. For some reason I can really picture this first one as a puzzle (probably because I once assembled a puzzle that looked alot like this).

The boys played around for a bit, and then I made them stop so I could take the second picture. I couldn't resist that arch...

Did I mention it was cold?

Group shot!

After Riley's farms, we went further up the hill to enjoy some apple cider and apple pie! So yummy. I had such a great time. I am thankful for beautiful scenery, apple stuff, and most of all great friends!