someday kitchen...

As of now...
My ultimate kitchen inspiration comes from the show Sarah's House on HGTV.
Here are a few pictures of this beautiful kitchen


Sarahs Houses Photos - Sarahs House: Season 3  Facebook

Sarahs Houses Photos - Sarahs House: Season 3  Facebook
I love the soft grays and yellows.
the antique pieces with the new appliances.
the usability of each and every square inch.
the backsplash! so unique.
the countertops. so fresh and clean.
the tall cabinets.
the polka dot chairs.
the incredible light fixtures.
everything about it. I LOVE.

On a side note, I love everything Sarah Richardson designs. I kind of wish we could be best friends...

new music for the new year...

someday I'll get this great music and listen to it over and over and over and over [cause that's what I do with music I really like]

1. Lady Antebellum: Need You Know
2. Paramore: Brand New Eyes
3. Adele: 19 & 21
4. Dave Barnes: Very Merry Christmas [ok maybe this will have to wait until next year...]
5. Jesus Culture: Come Away

ok that's enough for now...

Christmas Inspirations: Food

The holidays often seem to be all about food. This year I'm not making a whole lot, but I thought I would share what I'm making for the Christmas season this year...

Desserts:
Peppermint Bark:

Recipe from Paula Dean, Food Network
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/peppermint-bark-recipe/index.html




Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

Recipe from Paula Dean, Food Network
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/chocolate-gooey-butter-cookies-recipe/index.html




Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Recipe from the Neelys, Food Network
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/neelys/coconut-cupcakes-with-coconut-cream-cheese-frosting-recipe/index.html




And maybe some sugar cookies too...














For Christmas Dinner:

The Classic Green Bean Casserole
http://www.campbellskitchen.com/recipedetail.aspx?recipeId=24099&fbid=WvrTkrEDbdS


Extended Family Christmas on the 26th: [we're doing hor d'ouerves]
Asian Lettuce Wraps






Recipe from Crock-Pot
http://www.crock-pot.com/Recipe.aspx?rid=1402









Cranberry Orange Juice Punch
My own recipe:
Some Orange Juice, 7up, frozen cranberry concentrate. Mix it up! Serve!

I think that's about it... Well, Merry Christmas & Happy Eating!

The Need to Read...


Lately, it has been like a calling. A call to read. Keep seeing books, thinking of books, etc that I WANT TO READ! Some of the books...
The Memory Keepers Daughter
Harry Potter Series
The Help
The Poisonwood Bible

Ok I think this is a good place to start...
*Also, signed up for goodreads.com

Christmas Inspirations: Celebrating Christ

Ten Things to Do on Christmas Morning When all the Gifts are for Him
From Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience

1. Birthday for Breakfast

Serve Birthday Cake for Breakfast — with ice cream and an arch of balloons and birthday hats and light the candles and sing of wondrous grace! He has come! And for us!

Our tradition is angel food cake for the birthday cake — made with freshly ground wheat — and I think of the wheat that fell to the ground, died for us and the harvest of the many.

2. Sup with Him — Feast Fit for a King

And we make breakfast a feast fit for a king. One of our best meals of the year is reserved for Christmas breakfast — recipes we serve only for Christmas Morning Breakfast —- Victorian French Toast with whip cream and fresh fruit and a cranberry raspberry slushy drink and Sausage bake and orange juice and pineapple and we decorate with floating candles and and a nativity scene center piece and our best linens.

He’s invited us to His table, adopted us, made us one of His own— and we have time to come, to say yes to His invitation!

3. Gifts for Him, the Birthday Child

After breakfast, we gather together to give gifts to the birthday babe, the King Come —- and these are all gifts to the least of these, because Jesus Himself said, when you give to the least of these, you give to me, so we pick out more gifts from His catalogues. We don’t open presents but we open a far deeper joy.

One family writes of their creative Christmas mornings of giving Christmas gifts only to Jesus:

On Christmas morning this year, we had our oldest dress up as a wise man, and he went around the house, finding tin foil stars and taking the gifts he found there to the baby Jesus that we had in the living room. It was great! We plan to give the same kinds of gifts that you have to Jesus this year…

What a creative way for kids, the whole family, to celebrate Christmas morning– tinfoil stars that have notes of donation to the least of these, a boy dressed up as a wise man, really worshipping!

It sounds, yes, terrifying, to not exchange gifts on Christmas morning, it did to me —- but the utter and unadulterated joy we unwrapped in giving away to those Jesus says He’s with, the poor. And we discovered all that He is absolutely true to His word: it is always better to give than to receive.


And when we give to them we are giving to Him, it leaves us filled and satisfied in the realest sense.

Satisfied that everything fits and nothing will be returned and no batteries are needed for we have done the one thing that is needful — touched the hem of God, murmured adoration and offered up gifts to Him.

4. Serve Him a Meal

A loaf of fresh bread to an elderly neighbor spending his first Christmas alone, a still-in-the-dark cup of coffee and an egg sandwich delivered downtown to a homeless person, ladling bowls in a soup kitchen at lunch time, delivering sticky buns and a hug to the family who buried a child this year, gifting all the neighborhood with cookies and a card rejoicing in Christ come —- serve Christ a meal this Christmas, bread of heaven come down for all the hungry.

5. Invite Him In

It may be a single relative in need of a welcoming hearth, a lonely person from your faith community, a widow from down the road, a grieving friend, a lonely stranger, but to invite someone in need to His party because Christ who came to a world that had no room in the inn now calls all to come and He calls us to His kind of hospitality.

We have done this and this is His party and this is who He wants to come — the one who feels as unwanted as He did when He came to us. So we open the door and say come and celebrate with those He came for…

6. Give Yourself Talent Show

We know a family who gives the only gift we ever can really give, the gift of ourselves, by offering a little Christmas Day Talent Show. He does a crazy little tap dance — and everyone laughs —- and she joins him —- and everyone howls. What can you give of yourself to offer to Jesus, your family, on Christmas morning?

7. Join all of Creation

We spend hours outdoors on Christmas day, joining all of Creation and the heavenly throng in giving Him praise. We walk through the bush and sing Christmas carols, we go sledding down the back hills, we play in the snow and we laugh. We’ve decorated trees outside with treats, strings of popcorn and cranberry, suet and peanut butter and, if the conditions are right, it’s the one day of the year that we pour maple syrup over snow and eat taffy — we taste and see that the Lord is good!

8. Tell the Story

Over the years, we’ve told the Christmas story on Christmas morning with cousins and kids getting dressed up and re-enacting it for us, with kids written-performed-directed puppet show, with blankets and spotlight and silhouettes. Old men have been Joseph and toddlers have been Mary and this is the story that we love to tell — to remember the gift who came.

9. Sing the Hallelujah Chorus

Sing it in the woods, on the streets, in a nursing home, a hospital hall, a prison lounge, around the piano with the family, for the next door neighbors, a shut in across town. We join the angels this day and we fill the world with the music of the Messiah here. Find a way, somewhere, to sing because isn’t this the day of all days, we need to sing?

10. Follow the Light

And come Christmas night, we follow the light and some years it’s outside in the woods, luminaries, candles in jars, lighting a path to a nativity scene and we sing worship in the deepening dark, and some windy years, its filling the house with candles and spending the last hours of Christmas day singing glory, glory, glory, glory to God in the Highest.

...Now this seems like the best Christmas inspiration I have ever heard...

Christmas Inspiration: Mantles

Our new home has a lovely fireplace and incredible mantle... As a result I have been thinking a lot about just how I will decorate this mantle.

Here are a few fireplaces and mantles that I really enjoy:


I'm really liking the red/whites/silvers....

Maybe I'll post a before/after shot of my new fireplace and mantle!
Pictures from a few places- younghouselove, pottery barn, etc