Hot Chocolate Station
I love me some good hot chocolate, especially when it’s cold outside, which seems like for ever ago here in San Diego. I do a hot chocolate station every year at Christmas. Even though it is usually hot outside at Christmas in San Diego we all drink it as if it is blustering outside. Our way of making it seem like a wintery Christmas for a day.
I pretty much use what I have on hand and then embellish it with festive decorations
I also include hot apple cider in with the hot chocolate station using the mulling spices from Williams Sonoma {that stuff is the best!}. I used my sillhouette machine to make all the labels
I put the mugs in a tiered cupcake stand which I embellished with ribbon and bunting
I added fake snow to the bottom of the tiers with mini ornament lights. I loved how the battery operated mini lights lit up wrapped around the tiers, it was so festive.
I made the mini Christmas bunting from decorative ribbon, super duper easy to do. You just fold 1″ of ribbon in half and then cut the triangle and glue it to whatever string or ribbon you like. Quick and easy.
I couldn’t of asked for a more perfect birthday
I always thought I would have boys, but I was given 3 beautiful daughters instead. Raising daughters can be trying to say the least, they are emotional, moody, and sometimes stubborn. But luckily they are also very thoughtful, caring, fun to hang with and very sweet. For my 50th birthday, my wonderful daughters went over and beyond what any mother would expect her daughters to do. It will be a day I will always, always remember.
I kept being asked by my family what I wanted to do for my birthday, the big 50, and I just couldn’t decide. I knew I didn’t want a big party, but I felt the need to do something but I just couldn’t come up with anything. They kept asking me day after day, so I just told them my dream day… I would love a day at the spa, lunch with some friends, dinner at my house with just my family prepared by a chef and served by a waiter, and play a murder mystery game during dinner. Sounds good right? Well, to my surprise, those three girls pulled it all together and made my dream day happen.
I want to show you my wonderful day, captured with unprofessional pictures, some of them not too flattering, {which I am sure is going to make some of my family members irratated at me}, but hopefully it will depict the love my girls put into my special day. {settle yourself in, cause there are lots, and lots of pictures!}
My new arbors
Sometimes when you build a home, and you finally get to move in, you just want to enjoy it and see all the workers gone. That is how I felt when we finished construction on an area of our yard back in 2007. I had big plans in my head on how I eventually would like it to look, but was just happy to be able to enjoy it as it was.
My dream was to have a wisteria arbor like this
Isn’t that just beautiful? My vision was to do it across the concrete walkway here
(See those table and chairs? They rotted and fell apart from the sun. And the fireplace behind it blew over and shattered. Such a bummer)
We have a wood bridge that connects the walkway to the bbq area. We put the columns up 4 years ago aded the Costco bbq island and some chairs but that was about the extent of it
I was dreaming of finishing off the columns over the bbq area by adding the dark wood beams like this picture {but no fireplace}
But I think I dream too big. Because once I got the cost of the engineering, materials and labor it was way more than what we wanted to spend. So there it sat unfinished for 4 years. It did not stop us from enjoying the area and having parties, but it was time for me to come up with a plan “b” and get it done.
People are liking my Houzz pictures
I have some professional pictures of interior design work I have done on a web site called Houzz . For what ever reason, lately my design work has been included in many Houzz featured idea books, which is exciting! Anytime someone thinks my work is worthy of highlighting on a front page of their site is always humbling.
Have you ever been to this site? It is a web site that has beautiful pictures of homes and gardens, mainly uploaded by designers or architects. It is a place where homeowners or soon to be homeowners can book mark things they like. If you see something you like, you can add it to an idea book that you create. {it is similar to Pinterest but only for homes and gardens} And, if you really like someone’s work, you can contact them and discuss working with them. I have never been contacted, {sigh}, but I am always surprised on how many people have added my pictures to their idea books. Like this one
Put into 1,212 idea books! Wow huh? The comments are fun to read, all are very complimentary and some even in another language! I put in the description that this is a kitchenette but people I guess don’t get that. There are some comments on how it isn’t functional for a kitchen. It’s a kitchenette people, not a full on kitchen. But for the most part, everyone loves the color combination. wasabi green and aqua. This kitchenette is part of a whole entertainment room, so I went with decorative shelving rather than functional upper cabinets. But there are still plenty of lower cabinets to store useful items.
Weekend fun & a new kitchen hutch
Over the weekend I took my nephew and two of his friends, his mom and dad (my sister and brother-n-law) to our river house for his 17th birthday. They were the best behaved teenage boys! We had such a good time on the water. It was so relaxing and fun. It has been hard to get into the swing of things back here at home. I think I am still on lazy river time..I can’t seem to focus on getting any posts up this week! {I have also have had out of town family and friends in this week, so that has kept me busy as well.}
When ever I go out to our river house, I am the main boat driver. 
(like the way I covered up my upper half with the label? wish I would of made it bigger…can’t believe I am showing you this!)
But being a boat driver means you have to focus on driving and watching where you are going so you don’t get to really enjoy what fun your passengers are having. But when I saw these pictures it made me smile, these boys were having a great time!
Look at their huge smiles!
I can be one fun driver!
And my nephew (in the middle) loves to see if I can keep him on the tube…
Got him! They had a great time, and his friends think his Aunt rocks! That just made my weekend.
Bloggers, we have each others backs
Recently, I was introduced to a new blogger. She would like her real name to be kept anonymous, so I will call her Nancy Drew, my new BBFF and hero.
About two weeks ago, Nancy Drew took the time to email me and ask if I had help when I did my pantry revamp. Uh, NO! It was just me, myself and I. She had noticed my pictures on someone else’s facebook and recognized them from my blog. She thought it was odd that I had not given any indication in my original post that I had help when I blogged about it. She also noticed there were pictures of a bathroom she had seen on another blog. Nancy Drew thought it was weird how this one woman could do all this work and know all these people at the same time. It set off a red flag in her mind, and she acted on it. I know it was awkward for her to email me, but she just kind of had this feeling. And boy am I ever glad she did! No, I did not know this person. This is what I saw when I went to this woman’s facebook link
Gift Card Tree
Here it is Christmas Eve Day, and I decide to do a project, as if I have I don’t have anything else to do! But luckily this was pretty simple. I got the idea from BH&G website here.
See, there are 11 grand kids coming over tomorrow, ranging in the ages of 2-19. It has become way too hard to buy them each a special gift. So this year I went with the one thing I hate to give…gift cards. Seems so impersonal to me. But buying for all those age ranges and so many of them, this is the only time I feel good about giving a gift card. Hand making these felt envelopes for each gift card just made me feel better. A personal touch behind the impersonal gift. I hung all 11 of them on a white feather tree to make it more festive and fun. It didn’t take long at all, and I am happy I took the time to do it, I feel much, much better now about giving them a gift card.
Anyone else doing last minute projects like me?
Santa’s Magic Key Giveaway Winners
First of all, I want to thank those of you who took the time to participate in my giveaway. I didn’t know how it was going to go, or if I would even have 3 people participate! I ended up with 12 comments, woohoo! I am so excited to have homes for my Santa’s Magic Keys. I wish had an extra 12 so I could give everybody one! I will be contacting the winners via email to get the information to send them out.
Here are the winners of my little giveaway.
I’m a new follower but love getting your new blog posts showing up in my email 
I would probably give the key to my 3 yr old daughter but would display it somewhere in our living room because it is just too darn cute! Thanks for all the darling ideas
The second winner is Barbara (I took it down to 11 since Caitlin had already one and I didn’t want to count her comment twice) and she left this comment
– I love this idea of the Santa key. My kids are grown and I have my very first grand-daughter who is one year old. If I won, I would give the key to my son so that he can start a new tradition w/his daughter – Thank you so much for sharing – Merry Christmas!
And the third and last winner is Sandy (I took it down to 10 since Caitlin and Barbara had already won) and she left this commentI’m not a subscriber nor a follower …. BUT I track you with google.com/reader … where I have all my favorite blogs. Love the key. I’d give it to our newest GC born this summer. LOVE you site.
