Soup Weather

Lately I have been in the kitchen throwing together lots of soups sans recipe. It is super satisfying and feels very old school to throw a bunch of things in a pot that results in a filling meal. When adding ingredients that I am not so confident using, I just add them in small quantities as to not spoil the bunch if I don't like where it's going. This one I made last night is a little fiesta chicken soup with corn, Monterey jack, rice, plently of spices and some cilantro and avocado on top.

If you clicked the photo to enlarge it and could actually see the texture on the ground pepper that is because Holly got a brand new Canon Powershot S90 for Christmas (!!!!!). Oh yes, I love it. {Thanks babe}

Scenes from Christmas: Part II

Hope all your Christmas' were bright and full of family and friends. 

Scenes from Christmas: Part I

Mexican themed Christmas dinner this year at my parents house. I highly recommend. Margaritas, guacamole, sangria, tamales, oh my!

Potting Bench

One of my favorite presents this Christmas was this potting bench my dad made for me! He used reclaimed wood from my parent's lake house to build the bottom half and all vintage odds and ends for the rest. An old window supported by beams from a salvage yard make up the top half. And the removable vintage water basin, vintage fixtures and knobs finish off the actual potting surface.  The whole thing was complete with some new & old (of course) gardening tools. I absolutely cannot wait until spring when I can start putting this to use and cramming it full of little plants.

Thanks Dad!

Merry Christmas

Meet Pete.

Say hello to the newest addition of our family, Pete. Cleo would rather not we had a new addition, but Jon and I are thrilled! We were lucky enough to adopt him last night from my parents who willingly let us have first pick when my mom's co-worker could no longer house him. He is an 11 week old Siamese Lynx Point. This morning he waited until I was stirring to come over, purring full force, and rub his little nose on my lips! If that isn't love, I don't know what is.

Dear Santa,

THIS DRESS. I will be a very good girl from now on.

(DVF, natch)

Scenes from the weekend

I got all dressed up yesterday to surprise my dad with two tickets to A Christmas Carol. We drove out to San Francisco, had a great lunch at The Grand Cafe and watched the famous play that undeniably gets you in the Christmas spirit.

Afterwards Jon and I headed out to our friend Stephen's Christmas party where I brought the peppermint bark I made that morning. (I used this recipe).

It's starting to look like Christmas around these parts

This is the only place you will find a red & green motif at our house and it's not like I could have avoided that without painting our door another color! I picked up this gorgeous bay leaf wreath the other day mostly because of its shape.

We don't have a formal tree topper so I re-purposed one of the Halloween poms I had lying around.

I got an H and  J last year to hang on our stockings. They are made from vintage wallpaper applied onto a wood backing. Love these!

Can you believe this gorgeous stocking holder is from Kohl's? Ahhh, it is so perfect how it reflects the tree.

P.S. This blog will get kicked up a notch if Santa brings me the fabu camera I asked for this year.

The day after Christmas

I will be at Anthropologie scooping up these holiday cuties.

I hope one day I have little girls...

...and they look just like this! The bun, that twirl, those dresses! Ahhhh.

Photos: kelsey foster

Kids belong to: katiedid

Blog that scooped this: i am a greedy girl

For: Her

Pretty turban headbands from HopelesslyDevoted.

(Psst. I think it is entirely possible to do 98% of your Christmas shopping on Etsy.)

Scenes from the weekend

Other than the big things to decorate as the tree and mantle, I like to have little decorations in the living room and family room nooks and crannies. I worked on creating little corner decor so I feel holiday cheer at every turn.

Something easy was to place some fake snow at the bottom of a couple hurricanes and place my collection of vintage ornaments on top.

I also made this magazine tree I saw demonstrated on Martha last week. Can you believe this is just a magazine, some spray adhesive and glitter? Brillant! Full directions here.

I also glittered some plastic animals, magnets, letters and basically everything I could find around the house. More on that later. All this crafting worked up an appetite, so I made some cookies naturally. Hope everyone else did little things around the house to make it feel more like the holidays!

Timber

We chopped our tree down again this year and as we were leaving I was looking at the pre-cut ones and realizing just how funky our tree was. Hopefully once it is all decorated it won't look so shocking and non-traditional. That's to come in another post.