Whew! Has it really been a week since Thanksgiving? I had three visiting family members staying with me for nearly a week, so I'm still trying to get caught up on all the cleaning/laundry that ensues with houseguests. It was really wonderful though, to spend time with my mother and grandparents, and we had such a wonderful, relaxing time together.
We were joined by additional family members, for a total of eleven people around our Thanksgiving Dinner table. They came from Cleveland, Ohio; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Grand Junction and Colorado Springs, Colorado, and we were truly blessed that our family traveled from near and far to be with us on our first holiday in our new home city!
Although we are currently renting a small house, we didn't really have the space for eleven people. So we decided to get creative, and we actually served Thanksgiving dinner in our basement. The biggest room in our basement is long and narrow, and we have it divided into a den on one side and my office on the other, with a wall of curtains separating the spaces. So for Thanksgiving dinner, we moved the furniture to the edges of the room, pulled back the curtain, patched two tables together and covered them with a big tablecloth. We nabbed chairs from all over the house, not to mention the patio, so that we could provide a seat for every bottom. I was a little concerned that it would be too cold in the basement, or too unconventional, but nobody seemed to mind.
When you set a pretty table and ply people with good food and good booze... people tend to be very, very happy. ;-)
There wasn't much space on the table for decor, so I kept things simple with gold glittered trees, arrangements of holiday greens and gold roses, gold pinecone candlestick holders, and some assorted mini pumpkins.
My mother penned some placecards in her gorgeous handwriting, and provided her beautiful pressed-cookies as favors for each of our guests.
It was a lovely holiday. I hope your Thanksgiving was lovely, too. I think I should go eat some leftover pumpkin pie, now.
Images | Floral Design | Styling by Lauryl Lane.
Less than a week after I arrived in Denver, I woke up one morning to about eight inches of snow!!! First snow of the season, and in October!!! And exactly one week later, we got ten inches more! The locals here say all the early snow is unusual and probably means that we're in for a mean winter. I'm slightly terrified and also terribly excited. The prospect of a white Christmas absolutely thrills me to pieces!
A ballerina was my go-to halloween costume when I was a child. Now, Joan Holloway is my go-to. Yes, I dressed Mad-Men style for the second year in a row. I spent a long time getting the "Joan" walk down pat, and now it seems wasteful not to use it at least a few more times... ;-)
Is the air getting a little nippy where you are? I love-love-love the crispness and that autumny smell... Fall is always, always, ALWAYS my favorite season of the year.
When Martha arrives, all I want to do is brew a cup of tea and cozy up on the sofa to flip through page after glossy page of stunning images. Martha Stewart Living has been my favorite magazine since I was a young girl. When I was in grade school, our next-door-neighbor, Mrs. Rubottom (if you're reading this, Mrs. Ru, hi!), would pass MSL issues on to my mother after she'd read them. I devoured those issues. Later, my mum got her own subscription and I would often intercept the latest issue before mum even knew it had arrived.
I saw most of my family last week at my cousin's wedding, family members I hadn't seen since my little sister's wedding more than a year previous. I couldn't believe how many people mentioned that they missed my regular blog posts! Sometimes I forget that people actually read this blog on a regular basis- and frankly, I didn't know that the majority of my sisters were among those regular readers.
Hello! Hello! Big changes happening here in the studio and I'm busy-busy-busy. I have lots of pretty weddings and events and other fun photos to share, but just haven't had the time to sit down and write the posts. My baby sister (aka 15 going on 25) Maggie will be interning for me this summer and I can hardly WAIT to have her help. She asked how much the internship pays and I said "room and board." Apparently she doesn't quite understand the concept of an internship yet. She will by the time it's over! ;-) She arrives in just two weeks and I've got MAJOR PLANS for the weeks she'll be with me. Hopefully you'll get to see the fruits of our labor, I might even teach her how to do some blog posting... you never know. You'll get to hear about our time together, regardless!
I am still trying to get caught up on business + life after traveling for the past two weeks. For Memorial Day weekend, {lovah} and I drove up to the Bay Area to visit with my family. My oldest sister and her husband are moving back to Berkeley after many years out East, so we went house-hunting with them. It was such an enjoyable, relaxing weekend. Here's a little peek at our adventures, courtesy of my iPhone!
On rainy, dreary days such as this... I imagine myself in a horrific castle à la