Is it a crime that I want one of these?

They are Nigerian Dwarf goats and they apparently make great pets and weed whackers. My birthday is coming up...



Being a husband is hard work.

Why yes, yes I did drag that Christmas tree out of my living room down the driveway and wrestle it into the yard waste can. They won't take it away, by the way but NOT being, in fact, a REAL husband I of course did not know that.



My roommates and I work together to clean the house, buy household items, etc but because my parent's are my landlords I feel an obligation and responsibility to do the dirty, "husband" work around the house.

I change lightbulbs, and pay the bills (my roommates pay me their portions of course), haul christmas trees to the street, dump dirty vaccumm bags, move furniture, put the trash cans out, clean out the fridge, fix the hot water heater, you get the picture.

Let the record show that when I get married I will bake and clean and do laundry and be all domestic, but I will not wrestle an 7ft Douglas Fir into the yard waste can down the driveway only to discover it still sitting there in the morning daring me to haul it out again and find SOMETHING to do with it. Not to mention all the nettles it dropped.

Anyway props to all you husbands and men in general out there. Women can do the work you do, but we certainly would rather you do it.

Tuesday night "crowded house"



Every Tuesday night Greg and I and some wonderful friends get together, prepare and eat dinner together, and then we have a small bible study. Last night we were finishing up James and it had such good reminders and lessons that we ended up talking about the last section even after the bibles had closed and the yummy cake Natasha baked was being eaten. We celebrated Chad's new job at Sebastopol Hardware. Goodbye Target!



Congrats Chad on your new job!





 I love getting together Tuesday nights to connect with friends and live in community with  each other. I love community. I always have. I have always had a dream that my house would overflow with people and guests. (My mom can atest to the fact that at one point in my life I wanted TWELVE children.) I love entertaining, hosting, and making people feel welcome and at home. I have long decided that although I don't want a huge house I always want to have a guest room or a pull out couch (or at least a comfy one) for people to come and stay. For missionaries to stay when they come to visit our church, or for out of town guests or family.

How do you invest in the lives of the people around you?

The newest member of my family.

Isn't she beautiful?

So sleek. So sexy. So ready and willing to whip any cookie, cake or pastry concoction I dream of. So Sassy.

Check the spects on this machine.

Cookies anyone? Martha thinks so.

You trip, I trip, we all trip for ROADTRIPS!

Sleepy boy

Churchill's Pub, love the sign, and the red telephone booth. It was 40 cent buffalo wing night. SCORE.

Boba tea at Boba Tea House in San Marcos

Hotel Del Coronado Christmas tree

The Hotel Del Decorate a MASSIVE tree differently every year. The Santa in front was a little unsettling looking, but then again when is Santa not a little iffy.

Rosemary fries. Delish

On Christmas Eve we ate at the R-Gang eatery in Hillcrest in San Diego. The chef was on the Food Network and the food was DELICIOUS! Apparently they were supposed to be closed on Christmas Eve but forgot to check if they had any reservations on Open Table...guess what...they did. They sent all their staff home and the chef and his mom waited tables, mixed drinks, poured beers, served us and made all the food. They were such troopers.

Christmas morning. Happy Boy.

Guess what we got Greg's parents for Christmas?! We were wired ALLLL day.

Goodbye SoCal (and Happy Birthday Jesus sign cracks me up!)

Hello NorCal. I have missed you.

So there you have it. Christmas with the Hortons. It was amazing, very restful. There was a massive storm the first 4 days we were there so it forced us to lounge around by the fire with a good book, a cup of coffee (or ESPRESSO!) or just watching a movie. Something we never do. I hope your holidays were wonderful, now back to real life!

Christmas today and tomorrow...and then NO MORE CHRISTMAS!

I love Christmas, I really do. All the yummy baked goods and food, the presents and celebrating Christ's birth. All WONDERFUL things, especially celebrating the birth of Christ! But...I am always a little relieved when it is over. I have been running around like a mad woman accomplishing christmasy crafts, and cards, and parties...all before the 17th this year cause we were headed down to have Christmas with the Hortons. : ) 

So like the title says, I will share a Christmas post today, a Christmas roadtrip/Horton extravaganza tomorrow and then we will be done. Deal? Deal. 

A Couple of party pics:

Those YUM trivets can be found here with Ashley's DIY, it is how I made mine too. : )

IKEA

Roommate love, cups are wrong. BS is right.

So many things coming up this week! Stay tuned for Christmas Roadtrip extravaganza tomorrow and Christmas with the Hortons. Also sewing with Marj, the newest member of my family (I almost cried when I saw her for the first time), the simplest DIY in the world (finally right!), and P/30 Restaurant dinner. Yum.

Love, Sav

I was wrong.

I didn't (and won't be...sorry!!) posting the easiet DIY in the world this week because I forgot my camera cord to upload the pictures. Boo. I know. But next week, you have my word (which after 2 times promising and NOT delivering sounds a lot like a work-a-holic father promising to toss around the baseball after just ONE more call to the office...I know...I'm sorry) It will be up as soon as I get home. In other news I hung out with Greg's grandma Marj today and she showed me how to sew a pattern and I am making a dress..woot woot. I am pretty bad at it and the dress it looking funnn-ky. But the fabric is adorable, so I hope that distracts people from the uneven stiches and uneven hem lines. : )

I have PARTY PICS coming from Christmas at my house last week and also sewing the Marj-ster. Stay tuned!

Love, Sav

Christmas Tradition-Baking with momma.

 My favorite Christmas Tradition.

My family doesn't have a lot of Christmas Traditions. My mom being a nurse and my dad being a fireman means that one or both could be gone for Christmas Eve, Christmas day or both! This has had a lot of downs, but also some pretty neat and unexpected ups. : ) It means we don't take ourselves too seriously around this time. We flex with schedules and rearrange shopping trips and dinners to be together as a family and celebrate each other when we can! Since Greg and I will be spending Christmas with his WONDERFUL family again this year, there has been even more flexing and rearranging to fit everything we need to do before we leave in. But one tradition that I look forward to every year and is baking with my mom. Like I said, we flex, so sometimes it is the week of Christmas and we are scrambling to toss cookies and fudge into cellophane at the eleventh hour, but this (like so many years before it) was a nice relaxing 2 weeks before. We took our time. We made thumbprints and sugar cookies and peanut butter balls and mint chocolate cupcakes. And we didn't even stress or break a sweat, but we did make a heck of a mess. Thank goodness we weren't baking at MY house my dad works 48 hours at a time...like I said it has it's ups too. : )

p.s I used butter and not shortening. ; )

I used an amazing recipe out of a vintage cookbook called "The American Woman's Cookbook" given to us by an elderly neighbor before she passed away that she had gotten as a wedding gift! So precious. I'm gonna shoot straight with you though there is a recipe in it for how to properly cook a turtle. I thinks I will stick to the cookie recipes in it.

Remember I said i would share the successes AND failures. Failure. i literally forgot about these and found them when I put the cupcakes in the oven. The picture does not give their burnt and unappealing-ness justice. They were burnt.

 

I Shared my favorite tradition...what's yours?

Vacation Countdown...

Greg and I with his family at Howard's in Occidental

Greg and I are southbound for Christmas to visit his family. Will be back the 26th (or 27th...asking the boss for one more day off...pending.) I have a couple blog posts that I scheduled to come out while I am gone, so stay tuned!

That cake plate DIY (aka THE SIMPLEST D.I.Y. EVER!) that I promised will be one of them. Enjoy!

Thrift Store Goodness

Not much to share tonight, except some goodies from St. Vincent De Paul Thrift store. Got some adorable stockings, a cute rooster pan, a plate and vase (for a tutorial tomorrow!) and a picture frame. All for about 5 bucks. Win.

I love me some thrift store shopping. I am heading to "Nothing New" tomorrow in Sebastopol, I'll let y'all know how it is...and if I find any junk treasures that I don't need just have to bring home!

Love, Sav

Felt cup coozie tutorial

So I saw this ADORABLE felt cup coozie + cup at Starbucks that I wanted so bad! I thought I don't have enough money for this I can totally make this myself! So here I go...

Starbucks Inspiration 

My version

I like Starbucks version better, but I was pretty please with how mine turned out. : )

Materials:

1. Cup with no handle (I got mine from IKEA)
2. Felt (Got mine at Beverly's)
3. Big button (Beverly's)
4. Needle + thread
5. Scrissors
6. Hairband or anything else black and stretchy!

Gather your materials

Measure your felt around the cup you are going to be using and cut it accordingly. (make sure to leave a little bit of an over lap, don't cut it exactly to fit.

Tie a knot in your hairband and cut a slit in one end of your felt about an inch from the end. Fee the hairband through the bottom of the slit.

Measure your felt again and mark where the end of felt overlaps. Sew a button to the opposite end of the felt from your hairband where your mark is.

Enjoy your new homemade cup coozie! Next time I would find heather grey felt instead of navy blue, because it makes my hairband look brown. : ( But nonetheless a pretty cute version of the starbucks one!

Peter and Sarafina

For the past four years I have had the tremendous privilege of sponsoring a little boy through Compassion International. His name is Peter Ng'ang'a and he is from Kenya. About a year ago I added a little girl to the mix from Tanzania named Sarafina.

Sponsorship is like nothing else!

I got a letter last week from Sarafna that said "I am so happy that you picked me to be your friend, because now I see myself as a human being."

WOW. Powerful Stuff.

If you have ever thought about being a sponsor don't wait, don't hesitate. Make a difference in a child's life and help them see themselves the way God sees them. Valued. Cared about. Loved.   

www.compassion.com

In other news..

I desperately want these in my home.

The End.

Embroidered Christmas (or anything really) Banner tutorial!

Hello friends! I have another Christmas craft for you!

Enjoy.

Embroidered Christmas Banner

 Sorry for the poor picture quality, but you will see it in more detail in a little bit. Hold your horses!

Materials Needed:

1. Pretty scrapbook paper
2. Vintage book paper, sheet music, etc.. (i used tea stained hymnal pages)
3. Light colored paper to write the letters on
4. Scissors
5. Glue, tape, or mod podge
6. Needle and thread (i used embroidery thread, it was thicker)
7. Pen
8. Hole punch

First decide on the size you want each letter to be and cut out a background piece, your vintage paper piece and the piece of paper you are going to write/embroider on...

Here I am using the black and white striped sheet as my background, the sheet music for the middle and the beige sheet for the front to be embroidered on.

Ok now draw the letters on your light paper, my banner says JOY, but you can make your say whatever you want! For example you can do NOEL, MERRY CHRISTMAS, PEACE, JOY, Your last name, there is so many options! 

Now I embroidered mine, but you can just kick it free hand or stamp it on. I like the look of the mixed media, embroidery on paper, but it up to you!

Now finish embroidering (after like an hour!! and to think I only wrote JOY!) and glue or mod podge or double side tape all the little piece together. I embellished mine with a button. 

Punch holes in the top with a hole punch (I couldn't find one, so I used the tip of my pen...whoops.)

String all those puppies together and hang that fool! You are done...now go get a sugar cookie and some nog and enjoy your homemade wonder! Enjoy the amazement of friends when they come over and you can say "Oh yeah that is just something I made". 

Merry Christmas and God bless!

 

Roomates, family, and friends...oh my!

I want to take this time to introduce a couple important people in my life. I love them.

This of course is the wonderful Boyfriend. I think the polar bear hat suits him. : ) You can find his blog here.

This is one of my fabulous roommates and partner in crime. Watch out.

The third member of my household and also coincidentally a member of my family. My little sister, who as you can tell was super psyched about this picture being taken. : )

 And here is the whole fam.

You will probably hear me talk about all these people (and more...) and it is always nice to put faces and names together. Like salt and pepper.

Caroline the Christmas banner tutorial will be up in a jiffy.