My Christmas Tree!!

Big day! Favorite day in the challenge AND my new blog design is up! What do you think? Head on over to Munchkinland Designs and tell Jenn what a great job she did!

I wanted to share my Christmas decorations the next few weeks and I thought why not tie it in with Amber and Neely's Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge. Today is the Holiday Decorations category, I want to feature my Tree! It is by far my favorite Christmas decoration. The rest of my decorations will be up later!






My husband and I bought a fake Christmas tree a few years back for like $20. Well you definitely get what you pay for. I call it the Charlie Brown Christmas tree because you can see RIGHT through it! Here is our first Christmas of putting it up....

HELLO holes!!

Well I want a big huge thick beautiful tree someday...but for right now I want to make this Charlie Brown Tree work...So this year, to stay in our white and silver theme, I tried to put as much stuff on our tree to cover the holes as possible! So here goes....

I wanted to start with a huge ribbon bow with tails going down the tree. I had glitter EVERY where, but it wasn't so bad. If you want to do this at home, I followed this video.

I started with this glitter mesh ribbon

And after some hand cramps and fumbling....it turned into this!

Then I wanted to add the pretty tails on and I chose the same glitter mesh ribbon and another solid glitter ribbon

Once that was done I wanted to add some glitter leaf branches to the top and throughout the Tree



Next I filled in the tree with little silver and white berry branches

Then sparkly silver curly q picks

Then I doubled up on silver and white ornaments

I added the glamorous ornaments from Hobby Lobby

And mirrorballs

I finished the tree with the gorgeous tree skirt my mom made out of white fur, silver trim, and crystals!

And it all comes together and TA DA!

I'm still a huge fan of my traditional/keepsake ornaments, so I will be sprinkling those throughout.

So this is by far my favorite Christmas decoration! Have fun decorating!



Also...did you enter my Michael Buble Christmas CD giveaway yet? Enter here.

Holiday Blog Challenge #2!

It is Day 2 of Amber's and Neely's Holiday Blog Challenge.

What is one of your Holiday Traditions?

Well it is very hard to start certain traditions when marrying a football coach because who knows where we will be...this year we know we will not be home, but we haven't for sure heard where we are going to be....sounds crazy, huh? Yes, yes it is. :-)

So one tradition I have fallen in love with and have had since I was a little little girl is the collection of my Dickens Houses. My Granny wanted to start a Christmas collection for me and my sisters where she can add on a piece each year. She had the Dickens Houses so I wanted them too! Now my collection has grown to 10 houses, a decades worth! (9 pictured)

Right now my bookshelf is the easiest place to place my village, so please ignore the dangling electric cords! I cherish these houses and look forward to putting them up every year! This is a great tradition that I have been able to grow and continue every Holiday season. Thanks to my Granny :-)

See you tomorrow for Challenge #3!

Go enter my Holiday Giveaway! You have until Monday! Here!

Thanksgiving Wrap-Up and Holiday Blog Challenge!

I survived my first Thanksgiving in which I cooked the Turkey! There was one snafu....I dropped the Turkey....well Juanita and I did....



Oh Thank goodness Juanita had a camera. That was dripping with sarcasm. I was actually completely disgusted by this raw Turkey, 17lbs that is....lots and lots of ickiness beforehand. But it all turned out well in the end and tasted pretty darn good!

So I thought I'd share with you some of the pictures we took while preparing.....

Brine



Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Homemade Cornbread for the Cornbread Stuffing

Chocolate Pie!

Mac and Cheese (yes, this was my first time having Mac and Cheese on Tday)

Sweet Potato Casserole

Basting was my favorite thing to do!



And the Turkey is done! Juanita and I after 24 hours of cooking and preparing for this meal!

The Husband made it home just in time to do the honors and carve this darn thing!

We could have fed a small army

Not Pictured: Green Bean Casserole, Corn, Mashed Potatoes, Rolls, Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie

Then my friend Kara arrived with the most amazing cupcakes! My favorite was the mashed potato cupcake!

And here is my table....I decorated with my Reindeer Dishes and Christmas Theme....we won't be at home for Christmas, but I was bound and determined to use my Christmas China this year!

All in all it turned out to be a wonderful Thanksgiving. The hubby even pitched in to clean all the dishes! In heaven. We were stuffed full and I've been eating turkey for the past 4 days! Besides fumbling the Turkey on Wednesday....all went well. But let me tell you I gained a WHOLE new appreciation for my mother and Granny that cook EVERY year...I was exhausted, I literally took ALL day Friday to recover, that is some hard work! All for about an hour dinner!

So now on to Amber's and Neely's Holiday Blog Challenge! Day #1! What is your favorite gift you've ever received?

Wow. That is a hard one. My family spoils me each and every year, so it is very hard to pick just one. I wish I could say it was a puppy my husband bought me...but no, that hasn't happened.

But I'd have to say last year I received my most favorite gift ever. It was my first year as a wife. K and I had split up Holidays before that, but this would be the first year we stayed together no matter what. We decided we would do Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his. This was the first time I've ever been away from my family, specifically my sisters and I was pretty bummed.

As I'm sitting in Wisconsin, we were having a great time at K's house. All of a sudden late Christmas Eve morning the doorbell rings, K's dad said "hmmm....do they deliver mail on Christmas Eve?" I thought nothing of this question and Bam! My Mom, Dad, and two Sisters walked in the door! It was the most surprised I have EVER been. They were able to stay and share a delicious Christmas Eve dinner with us and left before Church. It was amazing to see them since it was such a quick trip we weren't going to make it over to Minnesota to see them. K has never been able to keep a secret from me, so this one was special. I had NO idea, seriously.

Sorry for the suppppeeerrrr long post! See you tomorrow for Challenge #2!

Speaking of Christmas....if you haven't entered my Holiday giveaway for the Michael Buble Christmas CD Enter here!

Boob Tube Babble!

Not a whole lot of TV watching got done this week since I was preparing for the Bird feast. However, Thanksgiving television is some of my FAVORITE tv all year long! So for today's Boob Tube Babble I am going to share with you one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. A compilation of all the FRIENDS Thanksgiving Episodes!

The One with the Late Thanksgiving

The One with the Rumor

The One with Chandler in a Box

The One with all of the Thanksgivings

HAHA. I've watched these Friends episodes a million times and I still laugh just as hard every single time. My favorite show ever.

Enjoy!!




PS: Did you catch my post on Monday? VERY first giveaway! Are you a Michael Buble fan? Check it out here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy today with your loved ones. K and I have learned that home is truly where the heart is. We unfotunately can't be home with our families today and for that we are bummed, but we are excited to share this Holiday with great friends we have met here in NC! I am so thankful for my family, friends, health, and career. I am so blessed.

I hope you and yours will have a wonderful holiday, don't eat too much! :-)

Just Add Color Fall Swap!!

Yeah! I participated in my very first blog swap these past few weeks and it has been so fun! I got to meet an awesome chick Michaela. She is so sweet and I think just as excited as I was to participate in this! Thank you Jessica and Ashlee! It was such a great idea!

So on to the goodies....I told Michaela I am crazy about color and she was right on! She got me such a gorgeous glamorous scarf :-) The color and light fabric is perfect for this warm Carolina fall weather!

And the intoxicating red nail polish! OPI is my favorite nail polish, Michaela read my mind! Such good quality and who doesn't LOVE the names they come up with? My new shade is Got the Blues for Red.

I am planning on painting my nails tonight after my prepping for Tday, so I borrowed this person's hand to show you how beautiful this color is! And the above picture did not do it justice!

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I abolutely love my goodies Michaela, thank you!! Go visit her at http://chasingtheextraordinary.blogspot.com/ and tell her how much you love this stuff!

On a side note, did you catch my post yesterday? VERY first giveaway! Are you a Michael Buble fan? Check it out here.

Holiday Giveaway!

Woo-hoo! Holidays are here. And I believe this is a perfect excuse for my first giveaway!

So I shared yesterday that I've had an early Christmas fever....so I wanted to share with one of my friends my FAVORITE Christmas CD!

Say hello to to this hottie....

I know....I know we haven't carved the T-bird yet, BUT don't you start listening to Christmas music right away on Black Friday? Or in my case, I blast it in my car as we are shopping at 4:00am on Black Friday!

So....by the time I announce the WINNER, don't worry we'll be done with Thanksgiving and for most of us....VERY full! Plus this guys voice will make you melt!

To enter this giveway you must be a public follower on Google Friend Connect of Ms. Mia Maree and leave me a comment and share with me what is your favorite Christmas album?

Extra Entries (Leave separate comments for each):
(1) Follow me on Twitter

(1) Tweet this: "Go visit @MsMiaMaree blog for a chance to win her Michael Buble Christmas giveaway! www.msmiamaree.com"

(1) Blog about the giveaway, I'll send my followers your way to read it :-) And of course when you leave your comment, send me to your blog to see it!

The Winner will be announced December 5th! In the mean time...I'll leave you with a sneak peek....

*This giveaway is being provided by me, unfortunately Michael Buble does not know me or anything about this giveaway.

My Very First Christmas Wreath

So I definitely have Christmas fever. I kind of felt guilty for surpassing Thanksgiving, I'm usually pretty good about waiting and letting Thanksgiving have its day. However I got the decorating itch pretty early this year. My mom assured me that was okay, as a coach's wife we might not be in town during Christmas, so I can definitely decorate a week early. Thanks Mom!

So I'm going to feature all the things I've made and/or decorated....don't worry, it shouldn't take long in our itty bitty apartment.

So I am decorating with silver and white this year. I wanted a wreath on my front door. I could not find one in white and silver! So I had the brilliant idea of trying to make one...now for those of you that do not know me very well, I'm not the Martha Stewart type. My sisters are. Not me. But I'm trying.....and once you see my wreath, I'm pretty darn proud of myself!

So I bought a plain fake pine wreath at Hobby Lobby.
Then I bought a few "picks" Poinsettas, Glamorous Bird, Sparkly flowers, and glass beads.

Then I placed everything where I wanted it and secured everything with floral wiring and I recommend NOT using regular scissors. Especially if you plan on ever using those scissors again. We had to run out for some wire cutters.

And there she is!!





I'm in love with this wreath! So moral of the story...if you can't find what you want to buy, do it yourself!

I can't wait to show you my Tree!

Check back tomorrow, I might be hosting my very first giveaway :-) Yeah for the Holidays!