Christmas Card Photo and Holiday Decorations

Hubby has a great tradition of sending Christmas cards... when I met him, he was the only guy in his mid-20s that I knew that sent greeting cards.  It's one of the many things I love about him. To make his tradition truly ours, I have added extra complications (a tradition of mine) to the process.

Hubby used to send regular cards with a Santa or funny phrase, but I insist on sending photo cards.  It wouldn't be that bad if we sent cards with photos of just hubby and me, but I don't do simple.  I insisted that we take a picture of us as well as the two dogs.  I had been thinking about this photo since October when we had plenty of capable visitors to take our photo, but instead we waited until late November and hoped for the best with a tripod.

I thought the whole thing was so entertaining that I made a video of the series of pictures that made up our photo session...

Beyond sending out Christmas cards, hubby and I have decorated the house so that there are holiday greetings coming out of every corner.  With two Christmas trees (one real, one fake), the cutest tinsel trees from Target, stockings, and ornaments galore, it truly feels like the holidays at home.

Our real tree is joined by a snowman who is so excited that the holidays are here

 Our fake tree is a little more folksy and has lots of homemade ornaments

Here's a close look at the ornaments... my mom and I made all the little girl ornaments that are joined by store bought home-y ornaments

 This is our red tinsel tree bringing glimmer-y goodness to the coffee bar

 These cold weather birds are bundled up and keeping the coffee warm

 A vintage Starbucks advent calendar is one of my favorite additions from hubby's Christmas collection

Fall in Dallas & Ice-mageddon

We just had our first big ice storm in Dallas.  We lost power, and all the fall colored trees are covered in miniature frozen icicles.  Before the ice came, however, everything was in full fall mode.  The tree in the backyard was a bright yellow, and there was a small tree in the our secret garden, which had turned a crimson red.  Hubby and I have spent time raking up leaves and taking in the crisp fall air. 

 Proof of fall in our backyard

 Maui gladly posed near our pile of raked leaves

 We just got a fire pit, so we can enjoy the chill outdoors while having s'mores

 The pups are enjoying the cooler weather... this is them after a long run at a dog park

 Although not very autumnal, I love that our roses were blooming

This weekend an ice storm, called by some "ice-mageddon," disrupted the fall feeling in the neighborhood, and now everything is covered in a snowy/icy layer of white.  It's been quite an experience living in a Southern winter wonderland.  The pups are exploring the backyard with a whole new curiosity... perhaps the ice gives everything a new smell. 

The ice is so heavy that it has been bending trees

 You can see the icicles covering the leaves

Icicles are hanging from street signs and, in this case, the garage

Happy (Belated) Halloween!

From the title of this post, you can see that I'm a little behind in my blogging.  Though I haven't been blogging, I've been getting great blog ideas and can't wait to share them with you.  But first, Halloween...

We were told when we first bought our house that Halloween in Oak Cliff was a big deal.  We heard stories about the thousands of children that descend upon our neighborhood each year.  At first, hubby and I were skeptical... Where did all these kids come from?  Do people really spend that much money on candy?  Just in case, hubby and I (and some of our friends) loaded up with 1,000 pieces of candy.  I was a little afraid that we would be left with most of the candy, but that was not the case.  As promised, there were children everywhere.  We had a constant stream of trick-or-treaters from 6pm until we ran out of candy around 8pm.  If we hadn't had friends over to help pass out candy, we would never have found the time to eat dinner.  Now that we know what to expect, we are really looking forward to Halloween next year.

And what would Halloween be without decorations...

I made lasagna (not pictured) for dinner on Halloween night with skull shaped cakes for dessert and plenty of Halloween-themed wine.

Thanks to my mom, who gifted us the skull cake pan, I was able to make some very gruesome cakes.

 This is my attempt at exploding brains.

 We had spider webs all over the dining room... watch out for the black cat!

A skeleton garland hung on the fireplace with pumpkins all over...

There were LOTS of pumpkins!

More current holiday posts to come!