I bet you thought I forgot about “Happy Fridays.” Well, I didn’t! And I’ll try to be better about them from now on! Here is a little bath time fun!

When I was in GA, Nikki and I went over to her friend’s house, who also happens to be an interior decorator. While we were there we got to cute holiday-house ideas that I thought I should share.

1-Framed Santa Pics: Obviously, over the years, we will build up quite a collection of Santa pics. (side note: Sadly, we don’t have one from Sam’s first Christmas because I was too scared to have him go sit in the lap of a germy mall Santa when he was just 2 months old and we were in the height of H1N1 season. Oh well. We started the tradition this year.) Nikki’s friend Keri had all of her kid’s Santa pics framed in matching red frames. They were different sizes (5×7, 4×6, square, etc.) but all bright red frames. Simple and cute. Nikki and I decided to copy this idea, but instead of buying all the same frames we are just going to buy a new red frame every year. I think it will have a cohesive feel because they will still all be the same color. Then at Chistmas time I can just clear off some shelf space for my collection. Hopefully it will be a simple yet festive display. Here is the first one:

2- The other thing I loved that Keri had done was create a scrapbook to house all of her family Christmas cards that she’s sent out over the years. This may seem like an obvious idea and maybe most of y’all are already doing this, but it hadn’t even occurred to me. I like to keep a copy of our holiday card each year, but so far I have just been cramming them in a drawer. So Nikki and I went to Hobby Lobby and got matching scrapbooks and black insert pages (so the cards really pop!). Keri’s scrapbook was red, which I do think would be more festive, but they didn’t have any red ones. I think black will be nice too. And with the festive picture in the front window, it will be obvious that it’s a holiday book. So now, every December I can pull out this book along with our other decorations and proudly display it for all to admire:

My goal is to write something on these pages (the year, maybe a sentence or two) in silver or gold pen perhaps…

3- This third idea is not from Keri but from a blog I read. It’s an advent calendar for grown-ups! Each day you get to pull down a different ornament to hang on the tree. The original idea is actually from Pottery Barn.

But at bowerpowerblog.com, they have instructions on how to make your own! I think I am going to use a bulletin board that I DIYed earlier this year. I was inspired by this one from Ballard that my friend Janna has in her home. I think it turned out really cute except that it has ugly little seam lines going through the cork because I used cork tiles (I couldn’t find big sheets of cork anywhere). I’m definitely going to copy their idea of spray gluing some nice linen on the cork. Then I can finally hang up the cork board in our living room. When Christmas rolls around this year, I will hopefully have all of my ornaments and number tags ready to go and can just swap them out for whatever I have up there at the time. I’ll be sure to post a pic once the cork board is up! In the meantime, here are a few pics of my Ballard inspired bulletin board in the making:

For Christmas this year, Ben gave me a new lens for my camera. I am SO excited about it. The awesome thing about this lens is that it has an f-stop of 1.8, whereas the lens that came with my camera  only allowed me to get down to 3.5. For those of you not familiar with SLR cameras, the f-stop is what allows you to get that look where the subject of the picture is in focus and the rest is blurry. The lower the number, the closer your focus can be. The lens just arrived in the mail yesterday so I have been trying it out. I know I could use some lessons, but I am pretty happy with with I can already do now that I have this new, awesome lens.

Notice how in all these pics, the background is so blurry but the foreground is nice and crisp. I love that!

These are far and away the best pics I’ve ever taken of Henry. Normally you can’t see any of his features because he is so dark. Not sure if I should credit the new lens or good lighting. Let’s say both!

My best subject…

The best part about this lens is that it is really cheap for a DSLR lens. You can find it for around $100 online. The downside is that you can’t zoom in and out with this lens. But that is no problem for me since you have to be fully zoomed out anyway to get the lowest f-stop number. Here is the link to the lens if you’re interested in getting one for your Cannon. And here is where I learned everything I know about photography (which is admittedly very little).

This year we spent Christmas in Georgia with my sister and her family. Since Sam and I had no obligations, we decided to flee town on the Monday before Christmas. Unfortunately Ben had to stay in DC and work a few extra days, so we flew on our own. I was more than a little nervous about this 2 hour journey but it went well. Sam was a great little traveler.

We did all of the requisite Christmas activities: baked cookies, made gingerbread houses, played in the snow (it snowed on Christmas!), and visited Santa.

Ok, so that last one didn’t go so well. I blame Sam’s newly discovered stranger anxiety and the fact that he was tired and hungry after searching all morning for a Santa that didn’t have a 2 hour line! Ah well, I’m sure it will be fun to compare this early Santa pic with those to come.

Once again Sam had a fantastic time with his cousins. Asa (7) had fun reading Sam his favorite book, Me Hungry, And Sam and Ella (2 1/2) just had fun palling around together and “sharing” their toys. We did a shameful job of taking pictures while we were there. But here are some that we did manage to get. I can’t believe I didn’t get a single one with Asa (bad auntie!!).

Me, Nikki, and Rozy (Nikki’s other half-sister)

Yummy food on Christmas Eve:

Sam hanging with Daddy:

Having fun with my sister:

Trying to pose and looking drunk:

Family photo:

Princess Ella wearing/carrying literally every Christmas gift she received:

Blurry but cute pic of Sam and Ella playing with their toys on Christmas morning:

Happy 2011! And happy birthday, Dad!

I hope you all had an exciting night. At the Miller house, our night was pretty tame and full of food. We started out the evening with a delicious family dinner of cheese ravioli with Auntie Nikki’s butternut squash sauce. Sam loved it and signed “more” to get seconds!

But apparently that wasn’t enough food because after dinner Sam discovered the box of oranges sent by (great) Grandma Katie and (great) Grandpa Gene. We cut him off after downing two of them!

Then after Sam went to bed I got busy baking. I just was planning on making gingerbread cookies. I got a good recipe from my friend Nicole, and I figured this was the last night I could get away with baking gingerbread for a while. But then I talked to my mom who was busily making a flourless chocolate cake and that sounded pretty good too. So I made both.

And so, Ben and I rang in the new year at home, with champagne (or cheap prosecco from Trader Joe’s), gingerbread, and chocolate cake. Not the liveliest of new years, but enjoyable nonetheless! Happy 2011 everybody!

Last week we finally got a Christmas tree! Nothing gets me in the holiday spirit more than a fresh cut pine tree!

Sam even helped us trim the tree.

Actually he just pulled all of the “safe” ornaments that I had hung on the bottom branches. So despite my best efforts, we have a halfway bare tree. Oh well, it still looks beautiful.

And Sam loves those ornaments!

On Thursday we got our first real snow of the season. Sam really enjoyed plodding along the snowy sidewalk and soaking in the falling snowflakes.

And look what a difference a year makes!

I know this is late, but we would like to wish everyone a happy Hanukkah! Sam certainly enjoyed lighting the candles every night. And he even got to open a few presents.