Blue & White Christmas!

It's become a family tradition - we go on the Christmas Tour of Homes in Waxahachie, TX during the holiday season! The decorating is always incredible, and this year was no exception! This tree, decorated in blue and white china, graced the front porch of one of the homes this year. It was just a small taste of the fabulousness inside!

CHRISTMAS BIRDCAGES!

My Mom and I had so much fun decorating last night for an extended family Christmas party today! Decorated birdcages were the main centerpieces. More photos to come.....

SHOPPING AT NORTHPARK MALL

Northpark Mall in Dallas is one of my favorite places to go shopping, especially during the holidays! The flowers were gorgeous! Hope you're enjoying your Christmas shopping and taking time to smell the roses.....well, or to at least admire the poinsettias!

REASON FOR THE SEASON!

I was over at Mom & Dad's house admiring their new nativity (I've never seen one like it!) and wanted to share it with you! The reason for the season!!! I love the things that remind us of what Christmas is all about.

EMBELLISHED SNOWMEN CARDS!

Mom has been working on embellishing these cute 3-dimensional snowmen cards we found at Ross. She's adding twigs, ribbon, buttons, etc., and we're going to set these down the tables at our extended family Christmas party coming up soon! Snow cute!!!

VINTAGE GOODNESS FROM LAURIE ANNAS

Mom got this darling silver bird and vintage-looking letter "M" wall hook from Laurie Anna's Vintage Home in Canton recently. I love the way they look in this vintage white pottery.

GIFT-WRAPPING

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Wrapping gifts for the office Christmas party coming up this week!!! Our first party of the season!

WINTER WONDERLAND!

I guess get my love of Christmas decorating from my parents! Dad has already decorated the backyard with tons of lights! He and Mom can look out their big bay window in their kitchen, while sitting at the kitchen table, at their own "winter wonderland"!

THE SMART DENTIST IN THE SMART CAR!

I had posted here about my boss (a dentist) getting a Smart Car this past Spring. It's sooooo tiny and cute that we decided to incorporate it into our office's latest ad shown here!

You can't help but notice Dr. T. when he's driving around town in this teeny, tiny car! The photo doesn't really do it justice-----it's an eye-popping bright, bright metallic orange!

Did you know the Smart Car is made by Mercedes? It is! My coworkers and me were really concerned for his safety at first but then found out the Smart Car has a steel safety shell that tested really well in test crashes.

This car is so little and cute that it literally makes me smile every time I see it! What do you think? Would you ever consider getting one?

PUCKER UP!---INTENSE LEMON CAKE!

I asked Big D what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, and he requested lemon....so lemon he got. I took an easy lemon cake recipe and tweaked it a bit. If you get a craving for something lemony, this cake should do the trick. It has a really intense lemon flavor from using 3 lemon ingredients. And it's super easy....

EASY INTENSE LEMON CAKE

1 (3-oz) pkg lemon flavored Jello
1 cup boiling water
1 box lemon cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)
3 eggs
¾ cup vegetable oil
1 TBSP lemon juice

GLAZE:

2 cups powdered sugar
3 TBSP lemon juice

DECORATING: 1 lemon, washed and sliced

Dissolve jello in water. Cool. Then combine cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, lemon juice, and gelatin. Beat until smooth. Pour into greased 9 x 13” baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees 30 – 35 minutes.

Combine glaze ingredients. Pour over cake, while cake is still warm.

After cake cools, place lemon slices on top for decoration.

Optional: Add 1/2 tsp. lemon zest to cake batter and 1/2 tsp. lemon zest to glaze.

TRACY & JOSEF

I went to a really sweet wedding shower recently for the daughter of some very dear friends of ours.

Congratulations, Tracy & Josef!

May you share a lifetime of happiness together!

Love, Patti

VINTAGE FARMHOUSE CHIC TO THE MAX!

Mom and I made a spur-of-the-moment trip to Canton for the Fall Preview Show at LaurieAnna's Vintage Home which was also the opening of her new 6,000 or so square foot shop next door to her previous shop. Can you say amazing! Could anything be more fantastic than her other shop? I didn't think so but when you magnify all that vintage home goodness by a zillion times, the answer has to be "YES!!!"!

There was so much decorating love everywhere you looked that it was almost hard to take it all in! We came away with some real treasures and tons of decorating ideas! In fact, in talking to each other the next day, we found out that neither one of us got much sleep that night because we kept thinking of all the great stuff we saw-----lots of unique vintage-looking lighting and gorgeous chandeliers, galvanized metal, tissue-papered walls done by hand, white pumpkins with curly vines, mini gourds strung together, alphabet hooks, paper flowers, beautiful jewelry, handmade wreaths, little turkeys, burlap ribbon, burlap pillows, large santos statues, black & white cafe signs with the coolest sayings---I could go on and on----just click here to check out all the shop photos on her blog! I think my very favorite thing was the white china display on the wall. I love pretty dishes. I've bought the square white plates from her in the past (and have gotten so much enjoyment from them), and on this trip I bought one of the little white china dishes that was made up of 3 flower "bowls" attached together all in a row, that was hanging up in that display. It's too cute! I'll have to do a post later and show you the goodies that came home with us.

Here's the extremely talented Tina of the fabulous Cherry Hill Cottage.
Be sure to check out her beautiful photos of LauriaAnnas Fall Preview!























She is always so sweet and helpful. I'm a HUGE fan of her blog!

We got to meet jewelry designer,Michele Busch of Plano, whom we had just read about in the Dallas Morning News, and see her beautiful handmade jewelry in person. Click here to see her photos of her trunk show at LaurieAnnas. She was so sweet.

And to top off our visit, it's such a pleasure to see Zeek, LaurieAnna's sweet shoppe dog! He is such a darling! And thankfully he is feeling much better (for those of you who keep up with him through LaurieAnna's blog).

We had lunch and then came back again to make sure we didn't miss anything. It was so much fun and we left with our brains totally swirling with decorating ideas!

LaurieAnna's shop and (her booth in the Arbors on the TradeDay grounds) are open Thurs. through Sun. during First Monday TradeDays. The next TradeDays start Sept. 2nd.

ANOTHER UNBELIEVABLE MILESTONE!

I can't believe it---another milestone birthday to someone who does not look their age at all!----my beautiful sister-in-law & friend, Gena, is turning 50! You would never guess! We had celebrated early, so we could surprise her! So, here's to you, Gena!!! Hope your birthday is as special as you!!!

CO-WORKER'S BIRTHDAY--THE BIG 5-0

Looking at my co-worker, Angelle, you would never guess she recently turned 50, would you? We had a walker waiting for her at the restaurant--- something we figured she might now need in her "old age" (ha! ha!)---as well as lots of other gag gifts.

We all went out to Brown Street Cafe/Kolache Depot for lunch to celebrate!

Above - friend of ours at the next table. (Actually, we ran into several friends there that day! ---It was fun!)

I can't name all of the gag gifts in this post, as I have a family member (you know who you are) who reads my blog, who may be "honored" with more of the same on their 50th, which is coming up soon! (Get ready, G!...and next year 3 more milestone 50th birthdays in Big D's family and my family--- P, A, and D! Am I missing anyone? You know we'll get you!)

We had so much fun humiliating, I mean "teasing" Angelle on her milestone birthday! She was a very good sport! Happy Birthday, Angelle!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RANAE!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful friend, Ranae, who is celebrating a birthday today! Our office took her out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, Don Jose's, where she had to replace her birthday tiara with their sombrero! We celebrated by giving her several funny gifts & a gift card to one of her favorite shops! So full of energy, you would never guess her age--- OK, so maybe the necklace might give you a hint! But, it is very hard to believe!

She is such a sweet person! Best wishes for a Happy Birthday, Ranae!

PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!

America the Beautiful! Land of the Free! I'm so thankful to be an American with all the freedoms we have! God bless America, and God bless the men and women serving our country.

Happy Fourth! Patti

FASHIONISTA GOOSE!

I drive past this house a lot and think it is so cute with its green paint and red & white trim! And I like the way it sits at an angle on its corner lot!

But what's really cute is that concrete yard goose with its own little flowerbed built in a circle around it (see last photo above).

Not long ago, it was sporting swim goggles and a colorful plastic floatie around its middle---ready for summer! Now it wears a stylish matching pink scarf and apron!

Have a great July 4th weekend! Patti

MORE BROMELIADS!

Remember when I posted about Bromeliads at Northpark here? Well, the next time I went over to Mom & Dad's, look what kind of plant they had in their entry........you guessed it!---a Bromeliad!

BLACK & WHITE AND LIME GREEN

Thought I'd share with you Mom & Dad's guest room. I love the colors: black and white with touches of lime green!

Thank goodness tomorrow's Friday! Have a good one! Patti

COUNTRY WEDDING

We went to an outdoor wedding out in the country earlier this month, at a local photographer's property. I had to share these photos I took with you.

Had to get a photo of Big D!

A simple but oh so sweet wedding!

I was told the weed-eating alone takes 8 hours, after mowing!

We enjoyed walking around looking at the beautiful property!

The photographer's log cabin, where he and his wife live on the property:

The little storage shed: