What's Making Me Happy Today...

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven

-All's right with the world!

~Robert Browning

These things are making my Monday a happy one:

Rain falling softly outside...

A pretty pot of plants on the patio table:

"The world's favorite season is the spring.

All things seem possible in May."

~Edwin Way Teale

The soft colors of the petunias in the hanging baskets...we always pot a few of these around my daughter's birthday in March:

"Spring - an experience in immortality."

~Henry D. Thoreau

The hostas with the rain drops shining like jewels upon their leaves in our flower bed:

"When April steps aside for May,

Like diamonds all the rain-drops glisten;

Fresh violets open every day:

To some new bird each hour we listen."

~Lucy Larcom

The roses abloom standing tall and proud as the rain ever gently kisses them:

"Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun."

~ Kahlil Gibran

My newly potted 'fairy plant' (fuschia) by my wicker settee under the patio...sitting there watching the rain today with a cup of coffee is so pleasant:

"Sweet May hath come to love us,

Flowers, trees, their blossoms don;

And through the blue heavens above us

The very clouds move on."

~ Heinrich Heine, Book of Songs

Pink and white petunias in an original terra cotta pot from Italy...a pot my grandmother used in her garden and now I use in mine:

"Sweet April showers

Do spring May flowers."

~ Thomas Tusser, A Hundred Good Points of Husbandry, 1557

Oh, and inside, my new ironing board cover is making me happy:

And of course the smile from this guy...he is making me happiest today:

Thankful Thursday...

Thanksgiving
The year has turned its circle,
The seasons come and go.
The harvest all is gathered in
And chilly north winds blow.
Orchards have shared their treasures,
The fields, their yellow grain,
So open wide the doorway
Thanksgiving comes again!
~Old Rhyme

Over at There Is No Place Like Home, Kelli has been hosting a 'Giving Thanks Week.' It is a great idea to prepare our hearts and homes for Thanksgiving. So many wonderful ideas and recipes have been shared there!

I am sharing decorating ideas. Here we have our breakfast nook where our everyday family meals are shared.

The basket on our table holds Autumn linens such as tea towels and napkins...I just LOVE my acorn napkin rings I found on sale at Kohl's last year after Thanksgiving! I think I paid something like 0.45 cents a piece for them!
I tied a fall foliage decorative pick to the back of each chair using a pretty fall wired ribbon.

Here is a close-up of the detail of the chair adornments:

And another one:

I have a chalkboard over on the wall near the table. I write menus or inspirational quotes on this board. I liked the saying I saw on the Warm Pie, Happy Home blog of "The Frost is on the Pumpkin" so that is what is on the chalk board right now. I have two wooden pumpkins hanging from the hooks, one pumpkin reads 'Autumn' and the other pumpkin reads 'Harvest'.

My home makes it easy to decorate for the Autumn months as my decor and colors tend to be very warm and cozy variations of reds, browns, sages, and tans. In my dining room I have this little vignette:
Here is a close up of the sconces. I bought the white pumpkins at Wal-mart and then simply tied a fall rust and cream checked ribbon around the stems and placed a few autumn picks behind them on the sconce:

I keep these toile buckets up all year on a wall in my dining room. I change the greenery in it for the seasons. Here I have it all dressed up for Autumn:

And here is my creation from Wordle. I found this through Heather and LOVE it! I used words here that represent the feelings I have around the Thanksgiving holiday. I will make a different one for Christmas and post that when I have it. I framed it and set it on my antique school desk in my entry. I found the wooden oak leaves and acorns just today on sale to set by the frame:

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my Autumn/Thanksgiving decor. Go visit Kelli for some more great ideas! Melissa also has her post up and still collecting comments regarding holiday decor! There are some great ideas out there in blogland!!!

Fall Decorating...Sneak Peek

I am posting just a little sneak peek at my fall decorating! See here in Texas, it is a 'crisp' 90 degrees still so it still feels like the dog days of summer most days! I am spending this week cleaning house and plan to finish all the fall decorating this weekend. I will post more pictures next week.

Enjoy!

Now, go visit The Inspired Room for more great Fall Nesting ideas! I'll be back next week to post more pictures of our nest.

"Besides the autumn poets sing,

A few prosaic days

A little this side of the snow

And that side of the haze."

~Emily Dickinson

Christmas Tour of Homes

A friendly little snowman waits by our front door to welcome you into our home, all decorated for the holiday season!

Won't you come in and have some fresh, hot coffee? We have some oh-so-good Eggnog creamer. Grab some white chocolate dipped pretzels too! My lil' princess's job is to sprinkle the pretzels as soon as I dip them in the white chocolate! The lil' prince holds the job of 'quality control' and tastes them for us to make sure we did a good job! ;-)

Here is our staircase all aglow! Along with our candy cane tree in the foyer, the 'formal' tree in the dining room, and our memory tree in our family room. (Notice that this year they are all decorated only about two-thirds the way down...we have a toddler this year!)

Below is a close up of under our tree in the family room...the children's nativity along with some favoriate ornaments...ornaments the children can play with, an ornament of Santa kneeling beside the Baby Jesus - I love this one because I bought it with a book about St. Nicholas and it weaves together nicely Santa Claus and Jesus, the real reason we celebrate Christmas! Oh and we can't forget mommy's ornament...a cup of Starbuck's Coffee of course ;-)

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

A close up on our wreath on the mantle:

The Princess' tree in her room and the Prince's tree in his room:

And finally, our 'countdown to Christmas'. This year I filled this cute little metal stocking with 25 candy canes and we have been keeping track of the days until Christmas every night by taking out one of the candy canes and hanging it on our tree in the foyer, then we change the number on the chalkboard. The little Princess loves this and the little Prince does too, but for other reasons...he was VERY quiet one day and I caught him eating one of the candy canes off the foyer tree wrapper and all!!!! So since then, I found some fake candy canes to hang on the tree but we put the real ones in back and so far he just thinks they are all fake now ;-)

As you leave our home, let me impart a favorite quote by Linus (straight from Luke 2:8-14 King James Version) in answer to Charlie Brown's question of the true meaning of Christmas in A Charlie Brown Christmas:

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will
toward men."

Jesus is the reason that our family celebrates CHRISTmas!
Our family wishes you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!!!

Now head on over to BooMama's to tour some other great homes!