One of the things I like best about home blogging is that it’s a chronicle of your life, a record of what you’ve been up to on the home front.  As the year comes to an end, it’s fun to look back and see the visual reminders of what happened throughout the months.  2012 marked the second year in this house and we definitely made some improvements.  I picked one post from each month to show some of the progress/projects throughout the year.  You can click on the picture to read the entire post.

JANUARY

I stared the year by 

We had a wonderful Christmas with a house-full of friends and family keeping things merry and bright.    Did you have a good day?  I cherish the holidays, but also enjoy the start of a new year and I’m really looking forward to 2013!  Before we pack up Christmas and start celebrating the new year, I wanted to highlight some of your beautiful, carefully decorated, and memory-filled Christmas trees.  Thank you to everyone who linked up at our Holiday Cheer link party this year.  We had such great participation, I’m sure we’ll bring it back next year. 🙂

One thing I like about these link parties is that it introduces me to new blogs!

Today is the final day of our Holiday Cheer link party at Michaela Noelle Designs.  Michaela is the purest, sweetest, (youngest!) blogger out there and a big thanks goes to her for spearheading our party the past two years.   She’s wrapping it up today with your holiday apparel, hair, makeup, accessories, and style ideas.

Being into metallics and sparkly things right now, I put two super shiny holiday looks together.  Because I’m so short, I like short dresses, but when showing a lot of leg, I typically keep the top more covered.

MICHAEL Michael Kors Sleeveless Sequin Dress is 50% off right now for just $79.98.

via

I think we’re all holding our loved ones a little tighter today.  I hope Connecticut feels the world’s love and prayers. 

Happy Friday y’all!  I’m definitely in the Christmas spirit over here and ready for the weekend!  Our weather has finally turned chilly and I can’t stop thinking, “Baby, it’s cold outside!”  Time to cuddle up!  I’ve had a chance to get a few thoughtful gifts for friends and family and I’m already anticipating giving.  Love that part of Christmas.  I’m thinking now about holiday food and fun as we plan to host this year.  It will be nice to stay in for the day. Eat, drink, and be merry!

As the Christmas cards arrive, we’re displaying them on a festive red shutter door that I turned into a card holder.

Thank you for linking up your gorgeous Christmas trees yesterday!  There is still time to link up yours, just go here.  I’ll be featuring some of them soon.

I’ve always wondered how to create that cool bokeh effect in photographs (you know, those glowy white circles in the background on a Christmas tree).  I googled around the other night and found Kevin & Amanda’s blog post, which really helped.  The “trick” is to place something in front of your tree (about 8 feet from the tree) and focus on that image with your camera in manual focus.

Hi all!  Welcome to our Holiday Cheer link party- Christmas Tree edition!  Our tree is strung with red wooden garland, white lights, and an array of red, pink, aqua, and green ornaments.  This is a bit of a departure for me, but I like how it turned out.

My favorite ornament this year is from Crate & Barrel- the colors and shape are so pretty!

Having no proper mantle, I hung our stockings on the iron scroll on our stairs and you can see our tree in the background.