Hot Fun in the Summertime

It's not exactly hot here in London, and we won't be going to a lake house for the 4th, but a girl can daydream. Here's what I'll be doing in my daydream: having a great meal at this lakeside table with my friends and family, going for a dip in this amazing bathing suit, eating a big o'l mound of that strawberry shortcake, and then taking a nap in that cabin. 4th daydream complete! Hope you enjoy your holiday.
Sources: Top two images from a very old Country Living (late 90's), suit, red house. 

Roses, Rugs and Such

Well, we've moved! Now we're unpacking. Wow, it's amazing how your stuff seems to expand when it's in boxes--looks that way anyway by the amount of boxes. Yesterday I took lois for a Valentine cupcake at Hummingbird Bakery. She loved it. It was quite tasty. The roses above were for me from the hubbers. I picked them out :) I love the red, pink and coral-ish orange-yellow together. (Both of those pictures are with the iPhone photo app, Instagram, which I'm really liking.) We also strolled over to a shop on Portobello Road to look at rugs. I found this one below (not a great picture, sorry about that). The guy there quoted me one price, which was good, I thought, so I called the hubbers who ok'd it and went back in to buy it. The shop man as concerned that he gave me the wrong price, so he made a phone call and told me double what he said before, ah, drat! I was not a happy camper. He felt very bad, though, and said he'd see what he could do and give me a call. We shall see. I do love the colors and design. I don't think it's Moroccan, but I really like it a lot. So that's what we've been up to. We don't have internet access at our house yet, so I might not be updating here much for the next few days, but our new little place is coming along quickly and I'll post some pictures soon. 

O Christmas Tree

This year our tree is really just some ornaments on branches in a vase. There really isn't a good spot in our apartment for an entire tree, so I thought a little tree on a table would do. I've had branches in a vase for a while now and thought it would be easy and cute to decorate them instead of a real tree. Unfortunately the vase this was originally in fell over and broke so I decided to used a glass canister from the kitchen instead. So here it is our wee branch tree, including one new ornament--a salt dough elephant ornament that Lois made! And of course it includes a few family pictures too. Merry Christmas!

Bight Lights, Big City...Parties and Snow

London is looking quite sparkly at night lately! They really go all out with decorations here. It's really fun to walk around and see all the lights and decorations. Last weekend we went to the Winter Wonderland market in Hyde Park. It was a little too packed to really enjoy it with little bit in the stroller (we could barely get through the aisles), but it looked very pretty and was fun to watch people on all the rides. Here's a bit of what London looks like at night these last few weeks, these first few from the Winter Wonderland. 

And a bit of the sparkle in the city...

In related news, we went to a Christmas party. Hubbers looking classy in the red lights. 

And it snowed! Someone in our neighborhood has snowy clothes.

Lois had fun after she got over the initial fear of what in the world is this stuff?!!  Good times. 

All iPhone pictures here, using either PictureShow or CameraBag.

Sewing Christmas Cards

I'm a little behind in getting my cards done this year, but I finished last night. I thought I'd experiment with sewing on cards, and it worked! It worked well enough anyway. I was trying to only use papers and supplies I already had, but I did ruin a few cards, so I ended up also using some leftover cards from previous years. For these cards I cut little tree shapes out of some vintage papers I've had for a while and sewed a zigzag stitch around the border. Cute! Here are some other fun handmade card ideas I read about recently on Seeds and Stitches.

Woodland Cake

I bought these fun holiday stencils at Michael's, in the Martha Stewart section of course, and I love them! My woodland stencil didn't turn out perfect, but it's still pretty. You gotta go easy on the powdered sugar, but in a very even layer. I think that's the key. They also carry stencils for cupcakes. Happy baking!

Decorating with Branches

We leave for Atlanta for Thanksgiving this weekend, and I won't be back until December 8. I'm staying a while longer than the hubbers to spend extra time with family and friends, whoohoo! I'm so excited! But that won't leave much time for Christmas decorating when I get back. Santa will be here before I know it, so I'm thinking something simple. I still have the vase with branches in our foyer, which will likely become the Christmas tree, and I just love the idea of some simple branches here and there to make things festive. Here are a few ideas for decorating with branches this holiday season.

1. Southern Living, 2. Country Living, 3. Country Living, 4. Country Living, 5. Casa Diseno, 6. Families Online. 7. Dottie Angel, 8. Emily Thompson via Little Love Blue. 

Lois Makes a Valentine

In general I think Valentine's is a silly commercial holiday that tends to make a lot of people feel bad rather than good, but it is a fun holiday for arts and crafts, and I'm all for arts and crafts. Earlier this week Lois made her very fist Valentine card for her daddy at play group. Mostly pink with some red, and a touch of glitter and gold, here is the result. Happy Valentine's from me and Lois to you!

Happy New Year

Christmas Dinner

We had a great little family Christmas!  It was the first time it was just the 3 of us, and it was really relaxing and fun.  Lois got a lot of great toys and books, and she even got her first bike, a Skuut! She won't be riding it for a while, but we all still love it.

We also had a great Christmas dinner.  One of our guests was our friend, Mark, a rabbi, so we had a kosher Christmas dinner! To start we had cheese, olives, and our friend Doug's homemade quince paste.  We drank prosecco with pomegranates and Jason's homemade eggnog. We ate short ribs with pearl onions, polenta, roasted cauliflower, and a salad. Then we ate delicious thumbprint cookies for dessert.  Great food; great friends. Christmas was a success!

And thanks, Lisa, for letting me borrow your great votive holders! They helped to make everything merry and bright.