Christmas at the Beach

It's been a week now that we have been down here in Amelia Island and I know I've been bad about blogging... sorry the beach is very distracting.... We came here to celebrate Christmas with my family, we could not have more lucky with the weather, it's been unusually warm.  We are still unsure when we are heading back north, we just heard it's snowing... 

We would like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!  Cheers to blogging in 2009!   

We took a big family photo with everyone at the beach, after it was all over Chris tried to throw me in and my brother got this great shot.  

On a walk on the beach with my mom I discovered all these great branch like forms in the sand, it's amazing how nature can create it's own work of art.  

Here they are.... we made the cookies from my earlier post.  They were a FREAKING nightmare. They were impossible to cut out with the cutter, we got about 1 cookie for every 4 that we tried.  Once they were done we hung them on the tree....

They actually looked really cool with the lights behind them..... until 1 hour later you noticed that all the lifesaver inserts MELTED all over the tree.  Yes you heard me, we looked over and all the holes were empty, it was actually quite comical after all our efforts to make the darn things.  

Our florida tree... topped with an angel made out of a conch shell with feathers made by my mother last year also adorned with golf balls, sea shells, beer bottle caps and of course those darn cookies.  

Winter Wedding

I made these wedding bouquets for a wedding on Sunday. It was a very small event, they only needed a few flowers for just the wedding party.  The bride wanted all white but with a christmas theme.  I hope she had a wonderful wedding, I wish them all the best in their future.  

Happy Holidays!

We attended a bad Holiday sweater party on Saturday and Chris won a prize for his great outfit. As you all start your holiday season this week we pray for your safe travel and we hope you have a wonderful celebration.  Merry Christmas! Love The Williams

Christmas

This year Chris and I will be celebrating Christmas down in Florida with my parents.  We went back and forth on if we should decorate and in the end we decided not to.  I feel like I am missing out on something, I really want to decorate, so when my father showed me these cool stained-glass cookie cutters he saw at Williams-Sonoma I got excited.  He thought it would be fun to make them down in Florida and hang them on the the tree.  My parents don't live down there so last year they made a make shift tree with golf balls and sea shells.  I think this year it will be fun to make these using blue and green sugar to keep with the ocean theme.

 

Chris can't wait

Chris has been talking about this episode the whole week.  It's on tonight!  

So Cute!

Last Friday I had the opportunity to go read this book to my friends 2nd grade class. I was really honored that she asked me to be one of their mystery readers and I was extremely excited by the children's reaction to the book, they actually knew what an architect did.  It has been over 2 months now that I have been out of work and I am just now starting to realize how valuable this time off is. I've done things I wouldn't have done had I still been employed, like go read to 2nd graders. But really it has pushed me to try different things, meet new people and explore what else life has to offer.  In the coming months I hope to share more of these other life experiences.... like LodaFloralDesign.  

After the book, the kids went back to their desk and had to draw a plan of their pet rock, labeling what materials they were going to use.  Here they are picking out their rock.  HOW CUTE IS THAT! I want to make a pet rock now.  

Got tagged. 4x4x4x4

I never do these but since I have time today I will.  My friend Armin tagged me with the "4 things"post.   Here goes nothing; 

4 Things I did today:

1. Volunteered at the Elf Store

2. Ordered our Christmas cards from snapfish.com

3. Studied for Pre Design

4. Researched Floral Coolers

4 Things I need to do:

1. Go grocery shopping, my husband needs food

2. Return books to the library

3. Re-caulk my bathtub

4. Pick out the cover for my wedding album

4 Guilty Pleasures

1. Taking a bath

2. Buying flowers for no reason

3. Buying expensive design magazines

4. Cupcakes (these are from Georgetown Cupcake) 

4 Random facts about me

1. I am obsessed with xoxo pop containers and tell everyone they should buy them

2. I eat oatmeal every morning except on the weekends

3. I love to clip and use coupons

4. I love Martha Stewart (ok that's not random you all know that) 

4 people I want to pass this on to:

1. Ashley at Ashley's Favorite things

2. Adam at Everything Worth

3. Jason and Grace at The adventures of Jewboy and Schoozle

4. My husband even though I know he won't do it

Worth It

I sat in traffic for 2+ hours to go to the Domino Book signing last night held at Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams.  Was it worth it? I will have to say yes.  Although I didn't buy the book or obviously get there in time to get a free one, I did get to hang out with Architect Design and meet a few other DC bloggers. I took a few photos at the end of what other than, the flowers.  If you want to see more photos check out My Notting Hill.

  

Antique Hydrangea, Jade Roses and Cymbidium Orchids

White Amarilis

Simple chic idea that anyone can replicate.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of this little chair, I want one in my nursery, it's so cute!  

Intrigue

I've tried to not pay much attention this year to the inauguration, but it's becoming almost impossible.  Today I drove by the White House and they were setting up the bleachers, the radio is non stop talking about where you can get tickets and how much to rent your house out for.  Up until visiting this site I honestly didn't care. The site shows 40 dress designs for Michelle and her daughters.  It's quite interesting and if I were her I don't know which one I would pick. Here are a few of my favorites. 

     

Chado Ralph Rucci

Monique Lhuiller

Michael Kors

Peter Som

Pretty in Pink

I've been having a hard time getting into the christmas spirit but last night when I saw this cute pink tree in the window of Coach in Georgetown, I thought it might be time to break out the decorations. 

Table Top

A good friend of mine grew up with Martha Bernabe and this weekend she was showing me her amazing website.  She's a prop and set stylist in New York and I've fallen in love with the series below.  Have a great  Monday!

 

Happy Thankgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I am very thankful for a lot things but especially my loving and supportive husband who let me destroy the kitchen while baking lots of fun pies.  Have a great day and eat lots of turkey!

  

  

A sweet Thanksgiving

This year Chris and I will be at his families house for Thanksgiving and I have been assigned desserts.  I've been doing a lot of searching on what we should have and although I love the traditional pumpkin and apple pie and I want to give it a twist.  We are only 7 people so I was thinking of giving this Pumpkin Chiffon Pie a try. I'll let you know how it turns out.

My time is running out

I have another Arch test tomorrow and I'm starting to panic.  I'd rather be making Poladroids from this new site I just discovered. It turns your digital photos into good old fashion Poladroids. 

"Chicago Winter 2008"

Happy Birthday Aimee

Happy Birthday Aimee, we all know how much you love your karaoke, once you pick up that microphone you're unstoppable.  I hope you have a wonderful day.  Let's go celebrate at General Lees!!

Happy Birthday Mrs. APH

Happy Birthday Ashley, we all know how much you love to monogram everything so why not your birthday cupcake too!  I can't wait to help you celebrate tonight, have a great day.    

A Hidden Gem

I never really got around to sharing much about Portland and so for a Friday treat I thought I would share my trip to the Portland Classical Chinese Garden.  Once a parking lot is now an oasis for the city.

 As a little girl we had a huge rhododendron bush on the side of our house, my mother would let me pick whole bunches and I would pretend it was my wedding bouquet. 

Loved this floor! One day in my garden the ground will have beautiful patterns just like this. 

Loved these openings in the wall, each opening was different but I loved this one because it reminded me of the dahlia flower, my favorite.

Happy Birthday Ashley

I'm sure these don't compare to the ones you made for Halloween but they sure do look cute!  You are such a great teacher and I hope all your kids wished you a Happy Birthday.  Let me know when I can come in and read them a book.  Have a great day!

Winter is coming

Loving this coat from JCrew.  Ashley and I saw it yesterday in the window and I said I would never be brave enough to wear pink but I still love it. 

I'm thinking green may be more my style, Ashley told me about this cute one and was raving how thick it was for the price, I just might have to go try it on.

Too Funny

I need to get these. 

Inspiration

I'm currently working on the logo and design for my floral design company and these tulip fields in the Netherlands are strongly inspiring me. 

My morning walk

This is what unemployment looks like, yes I'm in denial.  

Happy Voting!

When you show your I VOTED sticker you get;

Free coffee at Starbucks

Free star donut at Krispy Kreme

Free Ice Cream at Ben and Jerry's

Free Chick-fil-A-Sandwich

SO GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!!

Halloween

"House Wife from hell and her devil husband"

I know I'm a little behind posting about Halloween but I wanted to share a few photos from the party. As usual I didn't get to take that many good shots because I was running around trying to finish last minute things.  Over all I think the Halloween party was a huge success, thank you to all my friends who helped out with the food and drinks and of course coming dressed in some awesome costumes (sorry if I didn't get your pic, there is always next year)  

I wanted to keep it classy and use all real glasses, this was a huge time commitment because I washed all the glasses before and after the party, but I think it was well worth it. 

I love my new punch bowl from Crate and Barrel, it was a great wedding gift!  I served a green punch in it and rimmed the glasses with black sugar. (most people had black mouths the rest of the night, sorry guys) 

I got theses great wine labels from Martha's Halloween line at Michael's. I thought about making them myself but then came to my senses and just bought them.  

We bought dry ice and tried to use it for special effects but it didn't really last that long.  Chris also made sure we had awesome beer, Dead Guy Rogue was the featured beer. 

Ashley and I made these supper easy chocolate covered pretzels, and I served them on one of my favorite Nambe platters. 

Ashley took on this creative idea from Martha, I think her version looks even better because they are orange :) 

I LOVE carmel apples and I couldn't resist serving them, only 1 person actually was brave enough to eat one, but I did send a couple home with people.  You can also see my attempt at brain mini cupcakes (which was much harder than it looked on Martha) and I made decorated sugar cookies.  

Chris did an amazing job carving our pumpkin, it was the first thing our guest saw when they walked in the door.