Personalized Vintage Bookplates

I love bookplates, and these from etsy seller oiseaux are definitely my top favorite that I've ever come across.  I saw them on a cute new blog called the etsy addict.  I just ordered some for Lois and look forward to when I have to get the next gift for a little one--these will surely make a great gift.  

Pretty Flowers

Lisa has a few oil paintings in her kitchen of bright, colorful flowers.  I love this one (above) and thought I might try to copy it one day.  I think about this painting often.  It's pretty, simple, fun, elegant and sweet all at the same time.  I don't know anything about this painting. Maybe it's something fairly common and popular?  I found this version of it below on etsy.

Anthropologie Ornament Sale

Every year I try to build up our ornament collection a little bit and always love the ornaments at Antropologie. I wait to buy a few after Christmas, though, because they're so much cheaper then. We haven't had our own full size Christmas tree yet, mainly because we don't have enough ornaments to fill a tree. Next year I think we'll have enough ornaments. Here are a few of the really cute ornaments that are on sale at Anthropologie. I just bought a handful and can't wait to see them on our tree next year!

Alicia's Tumbprints

We made some delicious cookies last week--Alicia's mom's thumbprint cookies. My mom often made thumbprint cookies when I was growing up, so I wanted to try this recipe with her because I love thumbprints, and I love Alicia's blog. Oh my gosh, I cannot tell you how good they are! You'll just have to make them yourself to know. Amazing. That's about all I can say. I think the key to getting them right is the butter because some of ours came out a little flat and deflated looking (how you handle the butter can make or break cookies, among other things). And I think what made them taste extra special is the almond extract. If you don't have holiday baking fatigue yet, I highly recommend making these. We left some out for Santa. He liked them too.

Santa Baby

A few days before we headed out of town I took these pictures of Lois in her Santa hat and cute crawlers. Aww, so adorable, right? I was hoping for the same sweet smile for her picture with Santa, but it just didn't turn out that way.

Today we went to see Santa, which was an adventure filled with the oh-so-fun holiday things like traffic, a packed mall parking lot, and a long Santa picture line filed with bored, whiny kids. But I was determined to get a picture of Lois with Santa even if it was a at the very last minute. Lois wore an adorable, tiny red and green polka dot dress that I bought on etsy along with her mary jane socks and her Santa hat. She looked sooo cute. Everything was going well for the first hour that we stood in line. Lois was mostly just smiling and looking around at all the mall action (well, she liked looking at the tree lights nearby at least). I was hopeful for a Gerber baby picture moment for her first Christmas.

Then just as we were getting to the head of the line, she had a meltdown. She was screaming her head off in her Santa picture! Oh well--it's still really cute (I don't have a scanner here so I can't post it to show you). But doesn't every kid have a picture with Santa where they're screaming? I have plenty of adorable pictures of her anyway. I'm sure I'll take quite a few tomorrow--baby's very first Christmas--a special day indeed (even if she doesn't know it). From me and Lois, we hope you have a very Merry Christmas!