The grinch's heart that grew 10 sizes

Confession: I used to be the grinch who stole Christmas.

It's true, when we got married I told Andrew he could forget about any decorations and I only very grudgingly agreed to let him get a tree.

I guess I've gradually softened up, though. Our second Christmas together I made some ornaments, and little by little by decorations have evolved into handmade everything.

On a side note, Andrew and I have a running disagreement about lights on Christmas trees. I think colored lights on trees are hideous/tacky and detract from the ornaments. Andrew thinks trees with only white lights are completely bland and boring. Fortunately for me, it looks like my aesthetics have won (at least for now).

What do you think?

Also, neither of us are red people so most of our decorations are pink and teal (each of our favorite colors).

Washington DC

This past week Andrew I were in Washington DC with his family. While I fell in love with the Virginia countryside, the humidity made me rethink my plans of buying a cottage and a farm and settling in. Here are some pictures compliments of instagr.am.

Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial

Great Falls Park

Great Falls Park

Mt. Vernon

Colonial Williamsburg

Richmond, Virginia

On a side note, how did people live before macaroni and cheese was invented (read: we ate some really good Southern comfort food while there)?

More England and Ireland Pictures

Wow, I feel like I've gotten so behind on reading blogs/writing my own posts I don't know if I'll ever catch up.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip. Andrew still has two rolls of undeveloped 35 mm film, so I might be putting some more up in the future.

We went to England with my family because my dad was invited to speak at a conference at Oxford University and my parents decided to rent a house and said Andrew and I could stay with them for free. My dad has a Masters and PhD from Oxford in Anthropology and I was born in England while he was attending school. When I was little we lived in England and Africa (where my dad completed his anthropological fieldwork) before moving to the United States when I was almost 5 years old. Before this trip I hadn't been back to England since I was 15, so needless to say, I was really excited. I think I have Andrew almost convinced to buy a cottage in the Cotswolds and move there permanently. We'll see, haha.

Wallflowers

Check out these brilliant photographs at Dustjacket Attic.

Toms

This weekend Andrew and I got some off-white Toms and used fabric markers/fabric to make our own designs on them.

Andrew's had a tree design.





Mine had pink flowers.





I secretly like how his turned out better than mine, but I'm still excited to wear them when it finally stops raining.

Coconut Cupcakes

It's no secret that I'm a little obsessed with cupcakes. I made these yesterday and took a few pictures.

Strawberries

Normally I'm not much of a tennis shoe wearing girl, but I guess I make an exception for ones with strawberries on them. Plus they were on sale at Urban Outfitters.

Photographing People

Do you read the Sartorialist?

"You know you never know what it is. What that thing is that draws you to that person. But you just let it happen."

Love this video.

Cupcakes!

Last night my friend Emily and I had a cupcake party. It was really fun except when we started a fire in the fireplace and forgot to open the flue and almost died of smoke inhalation.

Here are a few pictures of the cupcakes I made:

Surprise

My sister decided it would be a good idea to throw our mom a surprise birthday party for her 50th, and I agreed, so we did.

It involved some near-death experiences:

• Several visits to Zurcher's. Yes, I love my mom enough to patronize a place with a giant clown for a logo.
  
• Desperately clutching a table in the back of an open minivan that only half fit inside and threatened to break free from my grasp for the entire drive.
• Sharing the driver's seat of the minivan with my sister while she drove because the rest of the car was too filled with chairs and tables for me to sit anywhere else.
• Loading all the Martha Stewart inspired pom poms into my car while my super creepy neighbor sat smoking and watching. "You going to be cheerleader," he said in his smoky Eastern European accent.
  
• A stress breakout of 50 zits on my chin.

Here are some pictures of the grand event:

Complete shock

Complete happiness

The spread

The flowers

The pom poms

More Flowers

Cake

In its entirety

Overall:

Near-death experiences = 5
Surprise party = one million