Early Christmas Presents!

Michael surprised me with an early Christmas present - a beautiful ivory pea coat from J.Crew! Since it has been SO cold here, it was perfect timing. I sort of have a coat obsession, so naturally I loved this gift!

J. Crew Wool Harbor Pea Coat

But my REAL Christmas present is being installed today - new granite countertops in our kitchen! I am so excited - I can't wait to get home and see how they turn out. I'll be sure to post pictures :)

On another note, today is my last day of work until January 4th. It's ok to be jealous :) Merry Christmas!

Junior League!

I had my first Junior League meeting last night! It was so fun. I'm really glad my friends, Grace and Susan, wanted to do it! I highly recommend JL to anyone, especially if you are new to a city (like me). It's a great way to meet people and get involved in your community. Looking forward to all the fun things ahead!

Happy Wednesday!

Just wanted to share a few pictures of the cutest baby in the world.

My adorable nephew, Gates!

Just one of the guys...hanging with my brothers and Michael:
I love this little guy!

Updated house pictures!

So we are finally unpacked in our new house! We also had tons of rooms painted over the last week. We even updated the master bathroom some! Without further ado, here are some pictures...

Living Room - we painted the fireplace,mantle, and hearth (it was this horrendous painted red...)

View from the Living Room into the Dining Room. We still need to replace that ugly brass chandelier:
Another view of the newly painted fireplace:

Powder Room - we painted this room a light grey with some hints of green. It used to be this extremely bright sea foam green:

Kitchen - this was painted yellow (NOT my favorite). We painted it a greige (grey + beige):

Another view of the kitchen:

The sun room - this was also painted the yellow:

We removed this massive, outdated ceiling fan from the kitchen ceiling and replaced it with the flush mount light fixture:The hallway to the bedrooms. This was painted BRIGHT red:

And finally...the bathroom! We put in a new vanity, counter tops, and all new fixtures. Eventually we'd like to tile the floors, but that will have to wait.

You can see the before pictures in the post below. Next up on the list are new kitchen counter tops! Hooray! Also, do you like our Christmas decorations? If you can't tell, I LOVE colored lights!

Our new house: Before pictures...

Well, we are FINALLY moved and unpacked in our new home. So far, we absolutely LOVE it. This house is so much larger than our rental home, which is really nice. It's 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Of course, there are MANY things that I want to do to the house to make it more my style...so here are some before pictures. We have painters coming this week, which I am so excited about, since red and yellow are not my favorite colors inside a home :)

Exterior - we plan on painting all of the red!

Living Room - we will be painting the fireplace white this week:
Dining Room - the horrendous window treatments are now gone and hopefully the chandelier will be gone soon as well:

The front room, which will probably be an office:

Kitchen - yellow will be gone this week!

Sun room - not our furniture...

Bathroom #1 - we love the built-ins:

There are 2 more bedrooms and another bathroom, but I don't have pictures for some reason. Luckily for us, most of the changes we want to make are mostly cosmetic. After we paint, we plan on re-vamping the kitchen a bit. I'll be sure to keep you posted with pictures and updates. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What I DON'T want for Christmas...

I absolutely LOVE Christmas. Everything about it! But before I get into the things that I am most excited about, let me share with you a few Christmas items that are just not my style (to put it nicely)...

These creepy Santa dolls. I mean these things are seriously expensive too!

The Chipmunks Christmas music...like nails on a chalkboard:

Creepy Christmas Caroler Dolls:

Yard blow-ups. Seriously? And my least favorite of all...the Christmas Village:
I think this is because I despise clutter so much. I seriously can't stand these! This is just my own humble, personal opinion. Any that you would like to share?

Where I've been...

I'm so sorry to have been such a bad blogger for the past 2 weeks, but Michael and I were busy buying a house!!!


We close on Friday and I can hardly wait to get started with decorating and renovating! The house is a 1920s bungalow about 2 streets over from our current rental house. We love the area and the house has so much potential! The house is in great shape, but needs some cosmetic changes. I'll be sure to update the blog with before and afters, of course. Have a great week!

Scary Movie!

I am ALL about seasonal activities. During October, I LOVE going to apple orchards, pumpkin patches, haunted houses, and seeing a good scary movie! Normally, I'm not really too huge on scary movies. I saw Paranormal Activity last night and I actually liked it! It was very realistic and it definitely got me a little scared (and in the mood for Halloween)!

What Halloween activities do you have planned?

The BEST Pumpkin Bread Recipe

You might have noticed that I might like pumpkin. And by "might like pumpkin", I mean I am obsessed with it! I had some leftover pumpkin from making my Pumpkin Cheesecake the other night, so I decided to make some quick Pumpkin Bread. It turned out fabulous! Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Bread

• 1 cup pumpkin
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/3 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups and 1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Pre-head over to 350 degrees. Grease bread pan. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Stir until well-blended. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Beat until smooth. Stir in walnuts. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Enjoy!

Dreaming of a White Kitchen

I could spend hours looking at pictures of these beautiful white kitchens. Unfortunately, Michael and I are still looking for that perfect house (for us) to buy, so my dream of having a beautiful white kitchen will have to wait for a while. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites that I have saved just in case :)

LOVE LOVE this one. I love the bead board, the contrast of the island, and the huge hood:

Love the subway tile here. So classic and fresh. I also love all the hardware:
This is just beautiful. These marble counter tops, the arched hood, the windows...LOVE:

This one is just so big. Love the huge island...love the simplicity of the cabinetry...love the beautiful, dark hardwoods:

I could move right into to any of these houses...

New clothes...

I finally broke down and bought yet another pair of Tory Burch Revas. Since I love wearing flats so much, these are perfect for me. I LOVE them in the gold!

Tory Burch Reva in Gold:

The Splendid Jersey Cardigan in Navy:

This is seriously the most comfy, soft cardigan EVER. You must get one immediately. I still need some new Fall work clothes. Any suggestions?

Supper Club

One of my favorite things lately has been our little supper club that we have started with two other couples. It's so fun! Every 2-3 weeks another couple cooks dinner for everyone at their house. Last night was our 2nd time! Here is what was on the menu last night...

Appetizer: Cranberry Delight Cream Cheese Dip, Spiced Pecans

Entree: Chargrilled Pork Tenderloin, Spinach with Pine Nuts, and Biscuit Poppers

Dessert: Pumpkin Cheesecake

(This is actually not what my cheesecake looked like, but we can pretend, right?!)

New boots

I've been wanting these boots for Fall for a while. So when I found them on sale on Piperlime, I knew they had to be mine!

Steve Madden Cybul Boots in Cognac

Do you like?

Cutest Pumpkin Ever!

We met my family last night in the North Georgia mountains for a Halloween dinner at my Aunt's house. It was so fun to see my family, especially my new little nephew! I couldn't wait to hold him!

Later in the evening, his parents put him in his little pumpkin suit...it was so cute!

I miss little Gates already!

Nutty Pumpkin Muffins

I am still alive! I have had the busiest and craziest last two weeks with work, so I haven't had ANY time for blogging. So sorry for the hiatus and I will be back to my regular blogging starting now :)

I thought I'd share this delicious recipe with you all. My mom visited me 2 weeks ago and I made these for a breakfast treat. They were super easy to make and we both loved them! They're traditional pumpkin muffins, but with some nuts added (which makes everything better in my opinion).

Nutty Pumpkin Muffins

- 2 eggs, beaten

- 1.5 cups sugar

- 1 cup canned or cooked pumpkin

- 1/2 cup vegetable oil

- 1/3 cup water

- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 3/4 cups chopped walnuts

In a large bowl mix eggs, sugar, pumpkin, oil, and water. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir into pumpkin mixture; mix well. Fold in nuts. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are done. Cool on wire rack. Enjoy!

A little shopping...

While Michael was visiting with friends in Greenville on Saturday, I was busy shopping at a few of my old favorite stores! I had so much fun - the only thing that would have made it better is if my Mom had been there to shop with me. Here's a few of the things I picked up:

Lilly Pulitzer Soni Printed Turtleneck

Vineyard Vines 5 Pocket Corduroy Skirt in Navy

J. Crew Shimmering Stone Necklace

The always classic Jackie Cardigan in Navy:

J. Crew Single Wrap Skinny Belt in Fresh Melon

I am so ready to bust out my Fall clothes...too bad it's still about 80 degrees here everyday!

I'm an Aunt!

My precious nephew, Gates, was born on Monday night at 11:15pm! I am SO excited! As soon as my mom called me to tell me that Michelle was in labor, I immediately jumped in the car and drove to Atlanta...and he was already born by the time I arrived at the hospital!

Chris, Michelle, and Gates!

7.0lbs...such a cute little bundle:
I love this picture...I just want to hold him all day:

Congratulations Chris and Michelle, and welcome baby Gates!