MIA and a new direction

Well.... where do I begin.... four months ago I gave birth to a BEAUTIFUL baby boy! You may have noticed I was smuggling a watermelon in the last post, so as you can imagine I've been busy ever since then. They say life changes when you have a baby and even though I believed them I wasn't really able to grasp HOW much it was going to change and how it changes instantly.

It has taken some getting used to but it has been amazing at the same time, what a beautiful experience. Liam is such a cutie pie - such a happy and healthy baby. Thank God!

This has been a humbling experience, a learning experience and an inspirational experience - I thought I had it all figured out before Liam was born and QUICKLY realized I hardly had it figured out, I am learning something new everyday now; how to take care of a baby, how to be a good Mom and how to be a better person. Inspirational... having Liam has inspired me in many ways that I can hardly put them all into words.

Having a baby for me has given me more clarity (actually I'm hardly "clear" about anything lately I think I'm always in a fog now LOL) and made me more focused. I am focused on providing the BEST life I can for Liam and one of the ways I'm going to do that is providing him with the best meals I can made with REAL food, of course he's only four months old and hasn't started on solids but when he does I'll be READY!

With all that being said I'm going to stop this blog.... and start a new blog that will just be about our culinary adventures not about everything since thing in my life, I think that will help me be FOCUSED on blogging and not feel pressured to have a blogable (LOL) life. Cooking has been a passion of mine for a long time and I can't wait to share that passion with you all.

Stay tuned to for the release of my new blog in the next few days. In the meantime here's a picture of the little cutie patootie.

Spring Time in Savannah

Recently we were fortunate to have a visit from one of our bestest friends in the whole world. We had such a great time and one of the best things is that besides enjoying each others time we were able to enjoy some beautiful views of springtime in Savannah. All the flowers and trees are in full bloom right now and it's a beautiful sight to see. I hope you're enjoying Spring where ever you are in the world.

Thanks for the visit Miss Pea. :)

New Blog Banner

Well I'm finally sweeping away all the Christmas Decor from my blog and freshing it up with a new blog banner.

Spring Cleaning

Man oh man it has been a LONG time since I've had a minute to sit and pay any attention to my little blog, well it desperately needs the cobwebs dusted off and to be spruced up a bit and hopefully I'll be getting to that shortly.

There have been A LOT of changes going on in our lives and still one more major one to come - all have been extremely positive and beyond our wildest dreams.

Stayed tuned for the updates, some spring cleaning, some decorating and even some cooking.

And when all the details come together....

you have a great time! This Christmas was really special for many different reasons; one of the main reasons was for the first time in a while Fernando's whole side of the family was together and wanted to all come and spend the holidays in our new home. We really had a nice holiday and are truly blessed.

we EVEN had some snow, just to add to the magic of the whole holiday weekend.

and hey what's Christmas without a pirate in the mix. LOL

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday this year and many happy ones to come. That concludes the Christmas 2010 portion of my blog.

Now onto the NEW YEAR!!!

Some more of the Details: Christmas Table Setting

For our Christmas Eve dinner I tried out two different centerpiece place settings. One I had been planning all along the first one you see here but the other I wanted to try out just to see how it would look. I think the second one would have worked well if I had had a white or blue table cloth but it was just not working with what I had.

This first table setting is very rustic and I love it. I had purchase a bag of pine cones last year at and after Christmas sale so they were muy cheap and then I got the round faces this year I used fresh cranberries and floated them in water with a tea light candle in each vase - totally worked and very easy to put together.

Here's option two - again could totally work but just not with the color scheme I had going. Also I had been planning to make pom poms with each person's name on them for everyone's place setting and have that be the place card but in the end that did not happen.


Ornaments could make a great place card and I may try that next year since I bought some clear glass ornaments I could work up something cool with those, like perhaps putting each person's picture in it... ohhh already planning.

Here is what made the final cut - I added a few more candles than I had previously designed and I think it looks/looked great. Simple yet beautiful. I was pretty impressed with myself.

The details in preparing for Christmas 2010

I'm sure you're all Christmassed out but let me back track a few days and go over some of the details that went into our Christmas this year. One of the things that Fer and I really wanted to do since we were having the whole family come to stay with us this Christmas was have a wall of stockings hung waiting for everyone that was going to be here. We felt that it would be such a welcoming statement to them when they entered our home. I hope they felt that way.

Since buying 9 stockings with their names embroidered on them or even just the initials could run a pretty penny we decided to purchase simple traditional stockings and then I would make the initials for each stocking... somehow.

I found in Microsoft Word a good "block type" font that would be easy to cut out of cardboard and work with, so I printed everyone's initials in like a size 250 font and traced those letters onto cardboard.

Then I covered them in glue and glittered them. :) Green for the boys and red for the girls.

Love glitter.

And here is the finished product. I attached the letters with fabric glue directly to the stocking. We hung all the stockings with good ole command hooks - got to love them. Hung easily and took them down easily.

So there you have it. Stockings for the whole family 101. :)

2010 Christmas Card in the Making

Once again Zico was the main focus of our Christmas Card, he's such a cutie and such a cooperative model. Here's a quick look at all the photos that I took and that it takes in order to find just the right one.

Here's the winning picture. I just love it, he's such a fluffy little guy.

Here's how the final product turned out, isn't it great. I ordered the cards from Costco which I've been doing for the past few years, for $15 dollars you get 50 cards plus envelopes - that's the kind of deal that works for me. :) Can't wait to work on our Christmas card in 2011 should be fun.

4 Days till Christmas

Stockings are hung, guest room is ready - 4 days till Christmas...bring it ON! Later on today or tomorrow I'll post a photographic tour of our home all decked out for the holidays this year and also some details on the stockings and holiday art.

Some Changes Going On

Last night I made some changes to our Christmas tree - I didn't like the colored lights anymore so I took all the ornaments down and put up white lights NOW I'm much happier. I also added some more silver and snowflake ornaments to the tree to help balance out all the red. Okay now (for the most part) I can relax and enjoy it. There may be one more change I need to make we'll see. How is your Christmas decorating going at home?

And just for a cutie pie picture update, look at this little guy. Could he be any cuter? In his little sweater all snuggled up in a pile of blankets. Looking very distinguished.