AF---FeaturingThe Dinning Room

AKA ----- The Reindeer Room. When I was little the flying reindeer always amazed me. A few years ago I learned that NASA had always reserved the airways on Christmas eve for Santa and his Flying Reindeer. this must mean It is TRUE! Oh yes I am a believer, even in my Older age. Found a book on this subject some time ago. It was then that the dinning Room was Pinning the name The Reindeer Room. To Salute their duties. I love decorating this room.

so, here is the book I wrote about.

don't forget to visit An Island Life to see more Friday questions.

Your Friday Holiday Question:

What is your favorite holiday Look? Do you like Snowman, Santa, Reindeer, Angles or maybe you have another. I would love to hear yours.

Tuesday News....Holiday decorating

Today I will feature the Solarium. I love this room in our home. In the room we have a Pellet Stove, when it is on it is so Cozy. Therefore the room gets a snow village feeling.








Here is my daughters Tree. the ornament are ones that where given to her my a Family friend all home made. There are a couple that where given to her different Christmas'. she has a few about 17. One for each year of her life. when she leaves the home she will have a good start on her Tree.


Now the Village is the main theme. this year we used a real snow covering. it comes in a jar, you add water and the snow grows. It feeling and looks like snow. I really like it because there is very little mess.

This is a close up of the snow.
I used cocoa for the Walkway.

Getting House Ready

Have been decorating the house for a party next week. I started decorating a few weeks ago. First the Tree went up. Then some outdoor lighting. It took me a while to get to the Kitchen and Solarium. Still working on them. Getting House Ready is fun, I turn on the holiday music and start moving.

Planning a Holiday party for this Friday. So Planning the Appetizers and drinks is on going. there is a show called the Chew, Love the show. They had some good ideas on the food side. I might try out the stuffed Mini potatoes. Looking for a good kid friendly punch now. Of course the Mulled Gluhwine is a must for the adults. Maybe even Spiced apple cider.

I hope the weather will be nice. Want to have the outdoor fires going. I will have to post the Photos of the house throughout the week. Thinking about featuring one room per day. I have six rooms that are holiday decked out. That will work out fine for the upcoming week.

Today I wanted to show the Hallway. It can cost a lot to purchase Holiday photos. I have been adding to mine each year. This year I had gone out to look a came back empty. With the ecomony tight, there was just nothing in my price range. Driving back home I got an idea from remembering a Germany friend. Every year she would use her own house pictures and deck them out. So, with a cost of about 2.50 per picture this is the results.

A Hall lined with Presents.

Now if you viewed the first photo, You noticed one of the photos is not hanging straight.
Well, That is because there is a noise maker attached.
Folks will want to straight it and it will make a glass break noise.
The tag says nice/ naughty.
Now if they straighten it the tag will says...
Naughty.
I just had to do something funny for the party.

The hall entrance view...

So your question......
Are you planning a funny thing for the holiday?

don't forget to visit An Island Life to see more Friday questions.

Aloha Friday.....It's begining to look.......

Are you starting your holiday decorations?

I have been working on the outdoor lighting. figured with the warm weather this is the perfect time. Then I can enjoy roaring bonfires and Hot Gluhwine. All this in my own backyard. Christmas in the yard. Still working on the hot tub house, I think I will light that area with the snowman lights. Together with the snowfall machine it will be like the ski resort. What a happy feeling!

Just had to post this on 11/11/11 at 11:11.

don't forget to visit An Island Life to see more Friday questions.

Monday's News-Getting Ready...

This weekend was a getting ready for the Christmas Holiday time. We did a little shopping and Decorating.
On Saturday I finished put up the tree in the Family room. We decorated it later that night, listening to music and hanging all the ornament from years gone by. My daughter remembering her preschool years, and the making of various ornaments. Hubby and I remembering our years overseas and Christmas' of the past. I love doing that tree, it is so fill with Memories of Years gone by.

A view of the Memory Tree.
(click on tree for a closer view.)

After the tree I was still in the festive mood so, I started decorating the whole room, From the fire place to the villages. This year there is a ocean complete with a Light house,(Photos of that on Wednesday this week).

Sunday was church time and then when we came home , I started tweaking the villages and the dinning room. Our dinning room is very Blue. The theme is Reindeer. Each year a add a new reindeer. This year is was ornaments.

The Reindeer Room
(a sneak peek)

Now to the Kitchen,it's the Snowman room. This is one of the areas in my Kitchen. Check out the blue...My daughter made that some time ago.

The Snowman Room
(click to enlarge)

After the dinning room and Kitchen updates, I moved on to the villages and the people. A sneak preview for you here...

The Solarium Village
(click Photo for a closer view)

Today I am still working on the solarium tree as well is the villages around the home. I love all the villages surrounding all the rooms. This year I plan on getting out some of the older house from year gone by. We will add a new one, Just haven't found the one yet. Was thinking about adding a type of store or maybe a new a Post Office. I will be looking for one later today.

So how was your weekend?

Be sure to visit Writer Cramps to see more Monday's Miss Marple. You never know when you need that Alibi!
I add this post to Blue Monday this week, you can see more Blue Photos at Smiling Sally

Monday's News-It's Decorating time

As the Holidays are underway now, we stayed busy. Having a teen who wants to go out and then scheduling things around that can be tricky. Friday I managed to get the tree up in the living room. It is rather large so it took some time. Has been two years since I had that tree up. I had to do some furniture arrangement to get the tree in there. No ornaments as of yet.

Saturday We managed to get my daughter to her new friends home. Met her family, very nice people. They had their home all decorated for the holidays. Villages and their tree up in the home and lights and blowups in the yard. So hubby and I hurried home to start ours. We worked on the outside first. The weather was quite warm, so that was the day to start. I got the front idea from our Christmas Town visit last weekend. I loved this look....

Photo from our Christmas Town trip

So we purchase a Giant Nutcracker that lights up at night and during the day just looks good. I had color lights garland and we place color light along the railing. All we needed was the candy cane ribbon. I worked inside the house that evening. Mostly in the kitchen on my Snowman theme. I did put some glowing color balls on the Living Room tree and put all the three trees on the main floor on a remote for turning them on and off.
My daughter had her BF over for Hanukkah celebrations. We had Latkes and Olive oil and herb breaded Beef roast. They played dreidel a little before we took him home.

Sunday was Church day. We saw the Family and Critter. They had been away last weekend. Checked our calender for upcoming events, added some. Had lunch together and then went our separate ways. My family stopped off at a couple stores to look for the candy cane ribbon and decorations. Picked up a few. I worked on getting the platforms ready for the villages to go up this week. As well as planing furniture arrangement for the Family room. I will be putting the Family tree up down there. Each room has a different theme. The Living room is an Old Fashion Rockwell Christmas. Solarium has the Villages and outdoorsy feel, Winter Wonderland I will call it. Our Dinning room is the Reindeer room and candy cane. Kitchen is Snowman village. In the family room It is Santa and a family tree complete with all those ornaments made by our daughter and family members through out the years . Ones purchase through travels as well as all the wooden ones from years gone by. It's a Memory tree. With the fireplace in that room, the Santa feeling is really there.
The decorations has begun here. I'm hoping to be done by next week. To post photo's of the rooms.

So how was your weekend?

Be sure to visit Writer Cramps to see more Monday's Miss Marple. You never know when you need that Alibi!
I add this post to Blue Monday this week, you can see more Blue Photos at Smiling Sally

Monday's News-Computer and Shopping

My weekend was rather calm. Did some computer work, cleaning up my Blog Landing Pages. I am a Member of Adgitize and Ken Brown, the Creator, has a Forum there. I learn a few things last week on Blog Landing Pages and about Bounce Rate. Never knew that the Landing Page should be under 50K in size, in order to control the Page Loading time. It is always nice when one lands of a fast loading page. So I did a few tweaks to my blogs Landing pages.

Saturday I limited the amount of post to appear when the page opens. Put a List of my post title for the past week on my side bar. that way visitors can see what has already been posted. Also worked on cleaning up some old stuff on my pages. Have been blogging for about two years now. Some of the things have been there that long! Bloggers come and go in this Bloggerland. So I needed to clean up. Kind of like house cleaning. I have seven blogs, so this took some time. Oh, In case you do not know...You can find out your page size by Right clicking on your Blog page and choosing"View Page Info". I was able to get mine under 20K.

My daughter wanted to go to the Amish Market for some Fruit. Of course we also got a few other items. Can you believe it.... the Egg Nog was out. We tried some last night ,it was very good. So Dad, I will be bring some with us for our visit. After we got home I made dinner, a Beef Goulash served with Noodles. Worked on the menu for our Thanksgiving Brunch and the week at Dads. We planed out some activities to do while with Dad. I called my Brother to Let him know his Grandson, Critter, will be coming to Thanksgiving Brunch at Dads. He was so excited, Haven't seen his grandson for over three years. I was trying to think about the last time. I think it was when critter was 2 1/2, he is now almost seven. My how times flies!

Sunday we had church. Alex and her Dad joined us for church. Alex had a sleep over so she was tired, you know Kids just do not want to sleep at those. Now I wonder why we call them Sleep overs? Sound to me they should be called, All Nighters. Saw Critter and the rest of the family after church. Talked about our upcoming Trip plans. Critter, being a boy, had an accident on the school play ground last week. He got a little scraped up. It will heal okay though.

We went out to eat at Eggspectations. This is a restaurant that serves any thing and every thing with eggs. It was very busy, always is on the weekends. After that we went to the mall. I was looking for Boots and my daughter a Hat. My fall/winter color this year is Gray. Therefore the boots had to be gray and not slick bottoms.

The Candle Shop was calling me to stop in. So I purchase some Holiday scented candle and a few other things. Oh yes I use a coupon and purchased items that were specially priced.


I like this shade, if you click and look closely you can see the Crackle glass. When it is lit that church image is cast on the wall. the crackled glass creates a snowing effect. The Santa shade and plate set has different views of Santa around the shade and plate. I chose the Blue boy for today's blue Monday view.

So how was your weekend?

Be sure to visit Writer Cramps to see more Monday's Miss Marple.
I add this post to Blue Monday this week, you can see more Photos at Smiling Sally

Our Stockings Hung with Care.

These are some of the stockings we cherish. Not all of them are on the mantel. However they all have sentimental value.

1. This one was made by my daughter when she was 2 years old.
Every year I bring it out a hang it on the basement door.

2. A musical one, from the Grinch who stole Christmas.
I love the song "You're a mean one Mr. Grinch".
That is what it plays, every year this one is placed on my Pantry door.
It is played each time we go into the pantry.
Oh, yes that is a snowman in side.

3. This was Hubby's first stocking for his Hanukkah bush.
That is what I call the Tree. He only wanted lights on it.
This one comes out each Chanukah and then is placed on the mantel.
It reminds us of Peace to all.

4. I made this one in 1990. The pattern can be found in the
Christmas with Southern Living 1990
Book on page 91.
Each year I put this one on the mantel.
It reminds me of childhood things and Granny.
I used the lace from my Granny's sewing things.
She passed away in 1989. As a Seamstress she had a lot things.
I always remember her when I see the stocking.

My Home Dressed of the Holidays.

This is part of a Decorating for the holiday Blog hop hosted by The Frugal Housewife. Today you can travel from blog to blog to check out their decorating and get some ideas. Getting our home ready for the holiday season is sometimes hard. However, it is a joy when it's done. This is how the Blog hop works. At the End of my post will be a link to the Next one to visit. Each blog you visit will have a different one to visit. There are 23 different blog participating. come along with us and have a wonderful Holiday Viewing Day.

I got into the home decorating while in Germany. A friend of mine did her home up and I really liked it. She would wrap her pictures in Christmas paper and put big bows on them, scatter a few Christmas books around and her tree would be decked out. It has now been over 25 years. I have collected a lot of things since then, winter pictures, houses, and other items. Each of my rooms has a theme, which makes it very easy to decorate. Also it makes it nice to shop because I know which room the item goes in.
Here are a little peek at some rooms.

Dinning room is Reindeer.

My Kitchen is snowmen.

This year My new item is a Refrigerator Snowman. It's A hoot, when You open the frig door he talks and sings!

Santa is in the Solarium .

On the Coffee table I have books all about The Santa Man.

In the Laundry room is my Village.

I love the villages and I tend to scatter them all around the home. They stay up all winter. This is so I can see the snow.... even if we don't get enough. I Love To be snowed IN!!!

The Living room is.....
Victorian Christmas and Poinsettias.

In this room I put out my Southern Living Christmas book Collection. As well as the angels and Angel tree.

Our Family room is...
An All American Christmas.

Each year we collect ornaments from all our travels. This year we had a lot because of our "GoWestMyFriend Trip". Saturday we decorated the tree and watch the The Santa Claus movie with Tim Allen. I just love that movie. We have a fireplace in the Family room so of course the Mantel get done. I also have a ski village in the room. I'll post More village pictures later.
I wanted to show you the whole house but there is so much and not enough space on this blog. You would probably have to spend all day with me, that would be fine.... but I want you to see twenty three other blogger friends Holiday decoration. So you can leave you comment and then hop over to Laane on theWorld to see what she has done.