cupcake garland

In addition to finding fabulous fabric for pillows at Ikea, I also grabbed some of these paper cupcake liners (well, they're more for candy and chocolates). I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but they were pretty. I thought I would try stringing them together to make a pretty garland. It worked surprisingly well and was quite easy and fast. I was planning on making several strands of varying length and hanging them from a doorway, but for now I've only made one and it's enjoying a spot on the Christmas tree.

And...they match my pillows!

decorating with washi tape.

I picked up some festive Japanese washi tape awhile back. My original purpose was to cover clothespins with it and use them for a new advent. But that advent is still a work in progress. Instead I used the clothespins (and some lovely twine from Ikea) to hang Christmas cards. I'm kind of in love with all of the possibilities for this tape.

gingerbread + getting cozy by the fire

We've been having fun with our daily Christmas activities from our stocking advent. Amelia has made it clear that no matter how many advents I add, she will never fall behind with the daily advent duties.

A few activities from the last week: decorating a gingerbread house, watching Christmas movies, reading Christmas books by the fire (using our makeshift YouTube fireplace), having hot chocolate, and making secret elf assignments (we each draw a name and secretly do nice things for that person during the week).

The kids were mesmerized by the TV fireplace.

oliver stands. let him stand.

(that blog title is for my family)

Oliver is incredibly excited about his new skill of standing up (without holding onto anything). He has been practicing whenever he gets a chance. For the first few days he would only practice in the kitchen for some reason. Now he's working on his new skill everywhere and getting better every day. It's so fun to watch him work so hard and be so pleased with himself. Sadly, the next step will be walking toddler and I think I'm going to miss this cute crawling baby stage.

A video of Oliver working hard, being encouraged by his sisters. (If you make it to the end, you'll be rewarded with some Oliver giggles which are plentiful around here.)

the table.

We've never been in love with our table. It was sturdy and could expand to a very useful size. But it wasn't our style. And it had upholstered chairs. Upholstered chairs with kids = worst idea ever. It was getting pretty worn and instead of refinishing it, we sold it on Craigslist to a very excited man who thought he could fit it in the back of his small VW (I can't tell you how many people have shown up at our house in small VWs to haul huge Craigslist items).

And then Ben built us a table. We came up with a design and Ben built the table top. We ordered the steel hairpin legs online. And voila. A table we are in love with.

It was actually a fairly easy process. But somehow still took a few months. The hard part being finding the time (daylight hours with good weather so Ben could work outside). Building the actual table top only took a few hours. We had a hard time getting the stain just right. Stained it, didn't like it, sanded the whole thing down and started again. We ended up mixing a few different colors.

We got the chairs online. They're light, stackable, and EASY TO CLEAN! We plan to either buy two more mismatched chairs or Ben might build a bench.

Next up is a makeover for the rest of the dining room...

Ben's favorite new tool: the kreg jig!

the tree by day.

The Oliver barricade: one part bin, one part basket, one part popcorn tin.

I saw this fabric at Ikea and knew that I needed it for something. Last night I whipped up some Christmas pillows to make our couch a little more festive.

the tree by night.

festive friday.

We got right down to Christmas business at the beginning of December. We had friends come over and decorate Christmas sugar cookies with us Friday afternoon. Friday night we went downtown hoping to see a gingerbread village that was created by a local architecture firm, but it had already been taken down. We strolled through the Downtown Holiday Market, a highlight being the fresh hot mini donuts. We met up with some friends and walked down to the ice rink at the sculpture garden. (This was part of an itinerary my friend Hannah was testing out for her new blog, Discover Your D.C. Check it out! She posts a new itinerary every week and readers can contribute as well.) The girls had fun watching the ice skaters (we didn't join in on the ice skating since I'm not sure how that would have worked with all the kids). We stopped by the National Tree at the White House and discovered that it's rather...short this year. And kind of lumpy. The tree that had been growing there for years came down in a wind storm so they planted a new one that is much shorter. I really wish they would decorate it to look like a real tree instead of draping a big net over it.

We would have ended the evening with some sipping chocolate from Pitango (did you know you can get gelato IN your hot chocolate?) but the kids were wiped out.

The kids were completely wiped out when we got home.

one year older...

We had a little party last Wednesday to celebrate Ben's birthday which included opening presents and eating cake (mini dulce de leche trifles to be exact). After the kids were in bed, Ben and I continued the celebration with a date to Rasika, an awesome Indian restaurant in D.C. Their famous palak chaat (crispy fried spinach with tomatoes, tamarind sauce, and yogurt) was just as good as we remembered it from our last visit. Everything else we ate (and we ate a lot) was also delicious and worth the wait (reservations can be hard to come by and we didn't eat until well after 9).

Ben sporting his new shirt and hat.