Look what I found...

I always have so much fun looking at the Christmas ornaments from over the years. Both of our parents have given us a bunch of ornaments from childhood, and I love opening the box each year and thinking back on all the memories they hold.

 

Luke tends to tell me the same story about each ornament year after year... it's the sentimental side in him :) I took a picture of one of my favorites. He tells me each year that he made the ornament, cut the metal out himself. I love the picture...and it dawned on me that he pretty much makes the exact same face today as he did then. You decide...



Regardless, I think it's still pretty darn cute.

 

(And yes Luke, this is what you get when you leave the blog in the hands of your wife...)

Holiday Cheer!

So, since we spent that last two holiday seasons in our tiny Chicago apartment with not much space to decorate - we decided to fill our new Seattle apartment with lots of holiday cheer, this year. We have a nice mantle over our fire place (which is electric, by the way... sigh). Of course, Luke has outfitted the entire apartment in white Christmas lights, but here's what I came up with!

I had the red vase already, so I moved it to the mantle for a pop of color. I picked up the Christmas tree at Crate & Barrel, and the little owl from Target (I think he's so cute!). I shopped around for a bundle of sticks to use in the vase, but they were all too expensive. So, while Luke and I were out cutting down our Christmas tree last week, I picked up some sticks (literally), and Luke kindly spray painted them silver for me. I LOVE them!

 

The "H" is a permanent piece up on our mantle, but I added the gold circular votive holder, which was leftover from our wedding centerpieces, and then I picked up the holiday snowflake votive holder from Crate & Barrel to complete the look.

 

I've since moved the tree to the left side to balance it out a bit more, and now it's just perfect.

 

And here are our stockings, which we've been using each year that we've been married. It's hard to believe this is our 5th Christmas as the Hills :)

Happy holidays, everyone! Hope you're filling your home with holiday cheer too!

Thankful

This is a bit of a belated Thanksgiving post, but here it is nonetheless! We weren't able to travel back to Minnesota for the Thanksgiving holiday, so our friends John and Elise invited us to her parents' house on Whidbey Island. We took the scenic route there and stopped at Deception Pass to hike around. It's a beautiful view...

For some reason, Luke always has to show his muscles...

As you can see, it was a little more challenging for me to get down than Luke. Good thing Elise was there to document the whole situation.

Victory!

So thankful for my amazing husband, my family, friends and all the many blessings in our life.

Something to make you smile...

I wrote about Nick, Sarah and Claire's visit to Seattle a few weeks ago. However, I failed to include these two amazing pictures. Hopefully these brighten your day :)

 

 

Claire decided to model Luke's old glasses. Yes, he actually wore these. We figured she was getting a bit dizzy with how strong his prescription is... This photo makes me laugh every time I see it.

 

This is a shot from our epic game of hide-and-go-seek. Luke pretended he didn't see her and laid down on top of the pillows. However, that was a bit too scary and after that, the game was over. But, I still think this picture is pretty great.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

The holiday season has arrived! This year we are excited to announce that we have graduated to a real Christmas tree. We've never been able to have a real one since we've been married - so we went for the real deal this year. Yes, we cut our own tree down off of a mountain.

In Washington, you can buy a permit to cut down a tree anywhere in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, so that's exactly what we did. I mentioned the idea of going to a nice tree farm to cut one down. I mean, namely it was the idea of sipping cocoa afterwards that made it so appealing. But Luke took it to the next level (as usual) and we found ourself driving an hour and a half out of the city to get our beloved Christmas tree on Friday afternoon in the pouring rain. 

We thought that the forest would be full of those lush, green Douglas Firs that come to mind when thinking of Christmas trees. But, we soon realized that we were not going to find that exactly. A lot of the trees are only full on one side, where the light hits. 

Meandering through the woods... 

Luke's tools... which, I may have left on the top of the mountain. We didn't realize until we were 20 minutes down the mountain that they were still up there. I promised to buy him new ones :)

Searching for our tree. 

After searching for well over an hour, we found our perfect tree. It may not be what we had thought we would find, but it is perfect to us! 

After we got it home, we realized it was a little too tall. 

A man and his tree. 

It may resemble more of a shrub, but we love it :) Merry Christmas, everyone!