2016 Christmas Tree Extravaganza

A look back at our 2016 Christmas Home Tour

We love decorating for Christmas!  When we do it, we go over the top you could say!  This year we drastically pared down the trees we put up.  This year we had a total of 16.  Each tree has its own theme.   We started decorating right after Halloween this year.  We hope you enjoy these creations as much as we did making them!  Merry Christmas everyone!

Honey Buns and Buster checking out the snow and birds!

Elf Mischief tree with Buster

On The Road Again 

Peppermint Dreams

You Can't Catch Me,

I'm the Gingerbread Man

A Ginger Baker Girl I made!

Lenox gingerbread man

One of the Noelville Houses from Hallmark, I have the complete series.

It's The Real Thing

Year of A Million Dreams

Personalized Mickey head ornament from Walt Disney World.

Smoky Mountain Christmas

I bought most of these ornaments at Pottery Barn and Incredible Christmas Place.  Ribbon is from Michaels.

Custom ornament from Southern Style on Fifth Avenue

Pottery Barn tree

Tennessee room decorations

You're a mean one Mr. Grinch

Merry Grinchmas

Santa sleigh and reindeer from my Daddy.  He would make these every year.  I wish I had a photo of him woodworking!

Tea At the Grand

Lennox teacup

Coffee, Chocolate, Men...Some Things are Just Better Rich

This tree is filled with ornaments from Hershey, PA, Starbucks, Hallmark, and Tis the Season Christmas shop in Berlin, Ohio.

Antique Wax Kissing Ball from Avon.  Fitz and Floyd tumbling Santas

Winter's Majesty

Blown glass Santa from Bon-Ton

Tuscan Vineyards

Filled with all wine ornaments and grapes.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Cardinals From Heaven

Williamsburg Inn

Jim Shore Williamsburg Santa

Cookies for Santa plate and mug from Southern Style on Fifth Avenue

We hope you enjoyed looking at our trees!  We put love and extensive planning into each theme.  Please keep checking back for more exciting happenings in 2017!

November 16-Happy Birthday To Me

November 16...Happy Birthday To Me!

Today is my birthday!  I totally love birthdays!  It is so exciting to plan a dinner out with my entire family of 9 and know that there is a yummy birthday cake waiting for me at home!  Actually, the birthday cake might be the reason I love birthdays!  My daughters are so generous and I always get fabulous birthday gifts!  Next to Christmas it is the absolute best day of the year!  

We have been having our birthday dinners at Longhorn Steakhouse in Washington, PA at The Old Mill for the past couple years.  We love to go there.  The food is good and usually it is quieter than most places, provided you get there before the evening rush.  They also have call ahead seating which is so convenient.  We had a great time tonight and they brought two large desserts for the table to share!  Everyone loved them, except Isabella who could not eat them due to allergies to all nuts and coconut and sesame seeds.  It was a fun evening, ending with opening my gifts at home.  There was a lovely gift bag at the door from my sweet friend, Susan.  Yummy croissants with orange marmalade and a Gooseberry Patch cookbook called Cozy Christmas Comforts.  I am so in love with the Christmas in Evergreen Hallmark movies and I adore my Christmas in Evergreen throw, pillow, beautiful tray, lovely note cards and two boxes of Christmas cards!  I got a huge box of my favorite Echo Park papers for scrapbooking too!  I can't wait to use them!  And the Vera Bradley purse was so pretty, along with ta-da...a Vera Tote in the new pattern of Beary Merry, WOW!  Was this Christmas or my birthday?  Thank you to all of my grandchildren, my daughters and husband and my friend Susan for my lovely gifts.  Y'all spoil me too much!  

Beautiful Hallmark Christmas in Evergreen Tray from Isabella

I just love this cozy Christmas in Evergreen pillow from Hallmark

Karina, Me and Lauren

Oh my goodness the blanket too!

Vera Bradley totebag in the new Beary Merry pattern

Jackson, Nate, Caroline and Nana

Check out this beautiful cake from Bethel Bakery!

This was a wonderful birthday and I was thankful to be surrounded by my family.  I love spending time with these growing grandchildren.  Now back to more Christmas decorating tomorrow so check back!

Cleaning the Tennessee room

and praying I can get it decorated today.  It is a large job because I was putting all the things that needed packed away in there for weeks and the time has come to deal with them and put them away for the season.  I have two large farmhouse/Tennessee trees to decorate in that room.  I am also considering a Ralph Lauren themed tree.  I love the green tree I saw on another blog and would love to add navy blue with green on the third tree in that room off the kitchen.  It would probably also include travel ornaments on it.  I have cut down to 20 trees this year.  I was going to stick with 32 like last year but I started late and I have other activities that are added onto our schedule.  We are volunteering at the Canonsburg Old Fashioned Christmas Celebration.  We will be working in the photography area and some of the family is going to be in other locations also.  Canonsburg was chosen by Hallmark for the second year in a row for their sponsorship.  It is a huge honor.  We are avid Hallmark fans and Keepsake Ornament Club members for years now and we begin to plan our Christmas in July when they reveal the new ornaments for that year.  We love to shop in the Hallmark stores and I have boxes of cards that I have saved over the years from my parents, family and friends.  We are so honored to be able to volunteer at this wonderful celebration.  My parents moved to Canonsburg when they got married.  They lived in the new projects after WWII.  We live close to that area and are so excited about this year's celebration!  

On to decorating...I have the Tennessee room empty of other items but I have to admit that other than that I have only added the 18 inch extension to our dining room table and put a cream and white tablecloth on it.  Actually I did not put the extension in...I just told my husband and daughter to be careful, ha!  I am not fond of my new tablecloth and am struggling with the decor for that room now as well.  I have a Martha Stewart tree that has beautiful, soft pine cones on it.  I use it in the dining room every year and it is decorated with white balls and snowflakes along with a few special white ornaments.  Everyone always loves that tree.  So it remains pretty much the same every year...why mess with perfection!  I have two trees that are 6 feet tall and very slim flanking the china cabinet.  One is decorated in teacups called Tea at the Grand Floridian and the other is themed...Coffee, Chocolate, Men...some things are just better rich.  Those three themed trees have been around since at least 2009.  

Coffee, Chocolate, Men - Some Things Are Just Better Rich

Coffee, Chocolate, Men - Some Things Are Just Better Rich

 

Tea At The Grand Floridian

Tea At The Grand Floridian

A few photos of those trees now and I am going to sit down to dinner with my family.  

Farmhouse Christmas

Farmhouse Christmas 

Check out our awesome Rae Dunn personalized ornaments!

Hallmark Santa and his reindeer!

 I love these ornaments on this tree.  Some are from Pottery Barn, Tis the Season Christmas shop in Ohio, some are handmade, and the Rae Dunn ornaments are from Southern Style on Fifth Avenue!

Handmade Snowman

I hope you are warm and cozy where you are tonight!  CMA Awards are on and I love me some country music!  You will find me cozied up on the sofa with my granddaughter and daughter listening to every song!  Have a good night y'all!

The Chef Approves!

Today we start the final decorating of trees in the kitchen!  We are so excited to get started.  The first to go up will be the Coca Cola tree.  My father collected memorabilia so this tree is a tribute to him.  Daddy, I hope you love your tree this year.  All of your great grandchildren miss you and are helping to make this our best Coca Cola tree yet!

Is there anyone who has not started to decorate yet?  We are so behind compared to the last 12 years.  We have been doing a lot of renovations in our house.  The warm weather meant we closed the pool late and scrubbed our furniture in anticipation of securing it for winter snows twice.  The furniture was ready to put away and then the hot weather returned from October 1st through the 3rd.  Being a southern girl who loves summer most of all, we simply continued to have more barbeques and swim parties!  Autumn shmautumn...it was 90 degrees outside in Pennsylvania!  That, my friends, is a miracle!  We enjoyed every minute of that beautiful weather!

So today we will show you some of the decor around the kitchen.  The trees can not go up today because...our senior kitty, Buster, decided to start eating strange things.  Like the fake snow on the two trees in the kitchen.  I am frantically looking for two new trees that will fit in the spaces beside the candy bar.  It is not an easy task and we need them very soon for photography purposes.  Here are the cocoa bar photos...

We always have hot cocoa every fall and winter.  Over the years we have tried many different brands of the chocolatey drink.  Some of our all time favorites are Hershey's hot cocoa, Hershey's York hot cocoa, and Williams Sonoma Hot Chocolate!  Our bar is stocked with Hershey's Hot Cocoa Kisses, marshmallows and of course Spangler Candy Canes!

Hot cocoa bar for those cold days and nights!

Our Hallmark mugs are ready to be filled with cocoa and marshmallows!  You could offer a hot cocoa bar in any corner of your kitchen too.  Grab your favorite hot chocolate mix or if you have a family recipe whip that up and get ready for these brisk, chilly winter days and nights!  I just love these small sweater mugs, dont you?  They say Comfy Cozy inside!

Mugs and sweater bowls and canisters are all from Hallmark!

I fill this little cottage teapot with boiling water so its easy for us to make our mugs of Hershey's hot cocoa.  And you can get a good glimpse of the Martha Stewart gingerbread houses that adorn the buffet in the kitchen!  These ceramic ornaments came from Macy's years back.  These ornaments have been the hit of all our gatherings!  They are secured with the garland and wire underneath the cabinets.  I found the copper cookie cutter lights at WalMart and they go perfectly with the gingerbread town!

Mary Englebreit teapot

Oh the weather outside is frightful!

Today marks the first snow of the wintery season here in Pennsylvania.  My family has mixed reviews on this sparkly white stuff that fell all day blanketing the ground in fluffy snow.  Our pumpkin looks chilly with its snow cap!  Inside we were preparing the kitchen for the upcoming Christmas and holiday season. 

The frost is on the pumpkin!

I'll be back soon to share more of the kitchen decor and trees!  Until then keep warm in this cold fall weather!  I'm wrapped up in my blanket watching Hallmark!

The First Snow of Winter 2019

The First Snow of Winter 2019

I can hardly believe we got snow this early in November this year!  The snow began falling the morning of November 12, 2019.  It was a wet thick snow that just kept coming down for hours!  The snow quickly coated the ground and the pumpkin.  

An orb!  Definately my Daddy!

Our beautiful Sugarhill home surrounded by sparkling white snow is one of my favorite things in winter.  We painted our home with Benjamin Moore's most popular white, Simply White.  Now I have my white farmhouse!  It glistens in the snow.  

Sugar Hill in the snow!

Our new blue spruce

Today is the day for quilts and good friends!

Today is the start of Martha Washington's Quilt Show!  It is exciting to see all the new quilts that have been made by members and other quilters.  Everyone in my family makes quilts.  We love them for cuddling in winter and for a pretty bedcover or wall hanging.  If I quilted all day long for the rest of my life I would never finish all the quilts I want to make.  Today my friend Sherle and I will visit the show.  We will oogle and aaaw over all the beautiful quilts and have a great lunch.  We will visit my family's booth too.  They sell beautiful tee shirts and gifts related to quilting and the coming holidays.  I can't wait!  I will be taking photos of our favorites and posting them here later.  Have a wonderful day doing something your heart loves!

"Thankful for Your Service"

"Black Tie Required"

"Penguins on Ice"

"Iris Garden"

I just love seeing these four together!

"Don't Stop the Music"

Tag for Jackson's Quilt

"Living in Lancaster"

"Her Irish Eyes"

Isabella on the left "Mermaid Wishes, Starfish Kisses"
Caroline on the right "Gram's Garden"

John William's quilt "I Made It to Arlington"

"Gram's Garden" left, "Daffodil Beauty" right

Delighted with these two!

Little boys quilts

"Celebrating"

"Holiday Houses"

John William and Nate with their quilts

Nate's quilt on right "American Soldier"

The Chef Is In The House.

The Chef is in the house!  

And she is noticing all the changes for the Christmas Holiday!  Our chef is Isabella and she is most talented for a chef of age 13.  But like most chefs, she does not like her kitchen messed with!  Of course I wait until I have the rest of the kitchen decorated before I attempt to get her permission to put a little Christmas in her baking area...which you can see here...

This is Isabella's baking area with her two Kitchenaid mixers with new glass bowls.  She bought them from Macy's.  She gets her basics out so it is ready when she gets home from school.  Her new kitchen towel is from Primitives By Kathy, the spatulas are from The Old Mill store in Tennessee and her pan is Rae Dunn from Marshall's.

The cookbook is her own recipes with some passed down from her Mama, Nana, Auntie and Gram.  It is an album from Michaels Craft Store with the recipes slid into plastic protectors.  Nana made it for her birthday this year.  

These are treats for her after school today.  She collects spatulas with cute designs on them.  I found the Spangler candy canes that are a favorite as they were made by my mother's family, the Spanglers.  We bought them today at Aldi's-where we also bought the cutest Advent Calendars!  Love that store!  Notice that she is prepared to bake her favorite brownies, Isabella's S'More Brownies.  The chocolate jar in the back is filled with her Hershey's cocoa.  Everything she cooks is nut free as she is allergic to all nuts.  That is the reason she started baking and cooking.  She knows her ingredients and the dishes she makes are totally safe for her to eat.  

More decorations in the kitchen after the Chef is in the house again!