The Christmas Serpent

Okay, so the title may be a little dodgy, but really, check out what my awesome husband made this time!

The inspiration was one of the structures at a local park, which does a great holiday lights display for people to drive by. Last year, my mother in law commented that she really liked their Christmas sea serpent and my husband, of course, said, “you want one?”


He cut out the pieces out of plywood, then my in-laws helped with painting, drilling EIGHT HUNDRED HOLES for lights to poke through, and painting.

It looks pretty awesome, doesn’t it??

Here’s Mr. Awesome checking out his masterpiece, on his parents’ front yard:

Hope your weekend is wonderful!!! I am off to see if I should change the name of the blog to My Husband’s Awesomeness ;D

Serenity Now blog

Puttin’ some flair out there

Our sweet little Christmas tree is now up and delighting my boys with the colorful lights:

But when it comes to the outside of our home, we like our lights clear and steady. No blinkin’ for us ;D

We got a few extra pieces, some to replace items that had gotten damaged over the years. Like these huge red ornaments, they look great against the white garage door!

Between our two windows, we place this lighted wreath, which I love.

The swirly drop ornaments are also new this year. I like the different textures on them; smooth metallic, glittery, etc.

Our entryway has a bit of whimsy with a hanging Ho Ho Ho decoration that Steve painted, and a couple of welcoming pieces leading up to the wreath on the door.

On the front lawn we have some candy canes and sparkly accents:

I didn’t notice my youngest’s big wheel until I was editing the photos ;D but you know, that’s part of our home’s charm.

Are you decorating outdoors for the holidays?

We’re not letting it mellow

When we moved into this house eight years ago, the living room was painted a dismal grayish-peach that made the space look small and drab. Wanting to lighten it up, I chose a buttery yellow for the walls. My husband Steve wanted a tan color for the trim so this is what we went with:

Both colors by Behr.

Eight years later, I’d had it with the yellow walls. So had my husband. We knew we wanted a warm neutral since those are the colors we gravitate to, our living room is filled with browns, creams, tans, reds, so to throw a grey or pure white wasn’t going to work. Steve picked Chamois Cloth by Behr, which looked lovely on the paint card, but it turned out to be pink. We don’t do pink. I do pink occasionally in my clothes, but pink walls are not us. Here are the painted and unpainted areas side by side after the Chamois Cloth snafu:

So it was my turn to get paint, and since it’s closer, I went to Lowe’s and got Valspar’s Cream in my Coffee:

Yes, that’s my youngest helping out, and you can see the difference between the yellow walls and the new color. Not a huge difference, just a subtle de-yellow-ing that left our walls looking brighter.

The color was a bit lighter than my husband had imagined, I think, he kept mentioning tans and that he wanted “color”, but he ended up liking it because a) our house is so dark that we need all the brightening up we can, and b) because it made for a peaceful, serene backdrop and accents in bright colors could then shine.

Speaking of our youngest, Alex, I have to say that one of the things I love the most about Steve is that he encourages the kids to jump in and help with whatever we’re doing, as long as it’s safe for them. Alex asked if he could help so out came a little roller he could handle and after covering up the floor, off he went to roll paint on the wall to his heart’s content.

Alex kept saying how happy he was to help — it was such a big deal for him to work alongside mommy and daddy! It was a big deal for us, too 😀

Another shot of the new color on the walls:

I love how our wrought iron “pops” with the creamy walls. Even though the color is lighter, the living room feels calmer without all that yellow. We are super happy with the results and if you ask Alex, he will grab your hand and show you the wall he helped paint ;D

Christmas lights

This is what one side of the house looks like at night:

I would show you the other side but cars are parked in front ;D

The wreath looks so festive with the lights – all white – and in front there is a net of lights thrown over the ivy bush so the elephant on the ball can rest there. My boys were obsessed with all things elephant and we just had to get that decoration for them. They also love the snowman and little elf next to the elephant.

You can barely make this out but it looks so cool in person – to the right of the windows you may see some large snowflakes falling on the wall. My husband found this projector years ago that has disks for every holiday – hearts for Valentines, pumpkins for Halloween, etc. – that we project at the appropriate time of year. It adds a little flair to the outside of our house. We don’t have a porch, just a little entryway that is pretty dark so most of the decorations and lights are on this side of the house.

Things are ramping up to our holiday weekend, we’re visiting with friends and relatives and I am enjoying seeing this wonderful time through my boys eyes. That’s truly the best gift of all.

Christmas inside and out

My two oldest men took on the task of putting up Christmas lights a couple of nights ago. My youngest decided it was too cold and went back inside with his mama.

Our house is all prettied up now – good job, boys!

We set up the tree a few nights ago, with my oldest son being the main decorator. I should have gotten some video. “I can’t find the perfect place for this one, mama. It just doesn’t make sense here.” Mm-hmm. I helpfully said, “just put it down and leave it for later.” He glared at me.

I think he did a wonderful job:

The little village underneath has been collected over the years and adds a sweet touch. My boy took these pics:

We like to turn the tree on and enjoy the sparklies. I light my candles and sip a bit of cocoa — my boys do not like hot chocolate for now — and we snuggle in the cold California evenings. Laugh if you will, but it is 45 degrees out there as I am typing and we do not turn the heater on in the evenings.

I am waiting for a couple of things before I show you the mantel – but for now I hope you enjoyed seeing our outside lights and our tree. It’s fake, because the cats can’t help themselves.

Birthday weekend, part 4

After lunch and a nap, we got ready for dinner at Allegria.

Last year, our friends C&D had come to Napa with us and they’d gifted me a bottle of Caymus zinfandel.  I decided to bring the Caymus to my birthday dinner at Allegria and share it with my hubby and our friends J&M.

The wine went perfectly with our entrees and it was a delightful dinner.

Little did I know that our friends C&D would gift me another bottle of Caymus for this birthday – score!  Now I have wine for next year’s birthday dinner ;D

On Sunday, we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed home because we had invited people to celebrate with me – the party started at noon and we got home about 90 minutes before that.  My mother-in-law had watched the boys for us, my father-in-law got the house ready for guests, and both of them along with my husband did all the food.  I am so grateful to them!

I saw something this board on Pinterest and decided to make my own:

The afternoon was wonderful, it was so nice to see so many people from so many facets of my life.  When thinking about what to say if people asked what I wanted for my birthday, I took my inspiration from the book that started my veggie garden adventure – Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver.  For her 50th birthday, Barbara asks everyone to bring her a plant.  I couldn’t do the same since her birthday was in May, perfect for planting, but mine is in November, and I was guessing many plants would not survive the winter.  So instead, to those who asked, I simply asked for seeds.  Any type of veggie or flower would do.  And oh my goodness, I now have a serious stack of seeds for my 2012 garden!  Plus other, very generous gifts that will all come in handy.

I didn’t want to blow out FORTY candles so my husband, helpfully, decided to get four “decade” candles.

My boys had tons of fun as well since they had lots of friends to play with.

It was such a wonderful end to my birthday weekend, so many wonderful friends and relatives.  Despite all the whining and moaning I’ve done about turning forty, I know am a very lucky girl.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

My house colors

We’re in the middle of a little living room project:

0813livingroom

and I had to look up my living room wall color. I did a post about my house paint colors in my last blog so I thought it better to list them here for future reference.



Our master bedroom has a sponge-finish treatment on the wall combining the 2 shades of tan. The wall where the lovely mirrored closet doors got the dark burgundy but lord knows I regret that decision. My plan is to do away with the closet doors completely and paint the wall to match the rest of the bedroom.



Our living room has a similar warm palette but instead of the burgundy we’ve added a dark chocolate brown accent color in the form of our new IKEA TV console and the project we are currently working on, which will be painted to match the console.



My little man’s room has two shades of light blue, and we seriously need to upgrade his bedroom soon. Aside from a few Mickey-themed items, there’s nothing else there and he outgrew Mickey a couple of years ago.



My kitchen/dining room colors are super warm and cozy, I talked about the changes we made 8 years ago in this post.

My bathroom got a cheerful coat of bright, warm yellow paint, which I continue to love, and it’s going to get remodeled in the next couple of months (fingers crossed) – I’m debating tile choices.



The paint color is Ralph Lauren’s Chamois. The cabinets were painted dark brown, echoing the living room console.

I will be updating the progress on our living room project in a few days!

Pop of color

I don’t love the color on my house’s exterior. It’s a medium gray. With black trim. And an orange roof. We’ve lived here for 7 years, so sometime in the next 5 years we will probably paint the exterior.
I’d prefer a warmer gray, something like one of these:
In the meantime, I believe in being as happy as I can with my surroundings, as they are, so I decided to brighten up the front door. Please don’t mention the hideous mailbox and light fixture. They are evil. They are brassy. They will be destroyed, er, repainted.

I got an urn at a garage sale a couple of years ago and never really found a good place for it inside the house, what with kids and cats and dinosaurs all over the place. But I wondered if it could find a home right outside our door.

The color was very blah, though, so I decided to paint it a happy, sunny yellow:And I love it!!! The color is Bauhaus Gold by Krylon, it is a rich and saturated golden yellow, and I love both the contrast between the warm yellow and the gray and black, and the fact that it pops against the wood door.

That’s how our front door is looking these days, bright and cheerful and ready for summer!

On the (new!) fence

Our backyard fence was in a sorry state – it was old, and the wind and rains had done so much damage to it that parts of it were tilting dangerously, and some boards had started to fall off.

We got it fixed this week and couldn’t be happier with the results.

The fence is torn down and we get a really good look at our neighbor’s house 😀

Willie-Boo supervises the workers:

My husband takes a look at the nearly finished new fence:

Isn’t it lovely? I love the lattice top!

This is the longest side of the backyard and there are veggies planted all along the fence. A couple of flower and corn seedlings did not survive the new fence installation but other than that, our veggies are looking good:Now all that’s left is to seal it and we hope to not have fence issues for a long, long time!