Our Christmas
It's hard to believe another Christmas has come and gone. We had a lovely Christmas at home, and it was wonderful. We all felt so blessed to be able to spend it together, unlike last year, where my husband had to FaceTime with us since he was stationed overseas. We've been such homebodies this entire Christmas break. My mom even came up from Florida with her two poodles and we barely left our house. It's been great!We went to Mass on Christmas Eve and then came home and had a great dinner, my husband cooked the entire thing! He is awesome!Then we hung out by the Christmas tree and called his parents in the Dominican Republic. I miss them so much and I wish I could snap my fingers and have them here with us. I'm sure they miss us even more. They've not seen my husband in over five years since when they visited last summer he was on tour. Hopefully, in the new year, we'll all manage a way to spend some time together God willing. It's always fun hearing our kids who don't speak Spanish (shame on us) try to communicate with their grandparents who speak very little English.Michael is especially hilarious. I snapped this photo while he was trying to say "Feliz Navidad" and just couldn't get the pronunciation right. His facial expressions are so funny, I wish I'd had it in my mind to try to get it on camera.
He has grown to be such an amazing kid. He's so patient with his little sister and he loves her and his little brother (though he doesn't show it quite as much).
Sharing Christmas with Ellena this year has been such a blessing. I've so enjoyed watching her learn and LOVE all things Christmas... except for maybe, Santa. We'll give him another try next year.
Ellena and I have some-what matching hats. Aren't we cute? These beanies are by Carhartt. You can find Ellena's beanie here and mine here.
His face. I just love him so much.
All in all, we had a wonderful, quiet, uneventful Christmas. You really can't ask for much more. Finally here are my mother's beautiful Standard Poodles. Mother and Daughter, Chole and Lilly. They are so sweet and smart. 
Making Military Housing a Home: Holiday Edition Part 2
I'm back to share a bit more of my home - Ok.. actually I'm here to share a re-do. I moved my tree. Yes. I moved a fully decorated tree. It's much easier than it sounds. I simply slid it over a few feet no biggie. Especially since I've been known to do this before. The first year we were in Italy I moved my tree three times, I couldn't figure out where I wanted it, and seeing it in the spot was the best option for me. I also do this with furniture. I can visualize until I'm cross-eyed, but seeing the furniture in the room in the space is what I prefer. When you move as much as we do, sometimes furniture doesn't work exactly the way you thought it would, it's all part and parcel with making military housing a home.
Anyway, in my last post I know I mentioned I wasn't exactly in lov with it being in the corner. So I moved it today. I like it much better centered in our living room, like an anchor or something. Plus, it gives my daughter even more tree to explore. So far she's broken 5 bulbs and I've had to redo the garland on the lower half at least as many times. It's cool. She likes Christmas and I am fully encouraging her to LOVE Christmas. As I type this she is currently napping on the floor by the tree.
Seriously is there anything more magical than sleeping beneath a Christmas tree? I can't really think of anything.
Here is my dining room table. I'd like to add some evergreen branches in the jug along side the cotton stems. These lanterns are pretty much on my table all year except for during the fall when they get changed out, but I like that they can be used for various seasons and holidays.
This little tree is a fun tree. The colors I use in the dining area are shades of green, red and turqoise or blue. It all blends in nicely and looks cohesive.
This is our advent wreath. It's super simple. It's not the traditional advent wreath you'll see in many Catholic homes who do a wreath. I don't have colored candles and there is no evergreen in it, but I like it and it works. It also stays out all winter long to help remind my family of Christ's light.
As you enter my home this is directly in front of the front door. I really wish we had a bit more room as we don't have a mud room so things like coats and boots get stored beneath the table and behind the door on a hook.
When we go out for walks, my husband and boys will give me pine cones. These ones have were collected in Florida and Italy.
This blue dresser is an antique I bought when we lived in Italy. I spruced it up and really have become attached to it. We recently moved it to the landing on our stairs, so I could place the tree in the corner. I may have moved the tree, but this dresser is staying where it is. I like it in this little nook.
I have been on the hunt for several weeks for stockings that were simple and white. I had envisioned having each of our names embroidered on them. I couldn't really find anything I liked that didn't cost about $25 a piece. I happened upon these in Target and was immediately drawn to them because of their simplicity, and a sort of vintage feel to them. At $3 a piece, they were also a steal. I'm going to make some dough tags with either initials or everyone's name to hang by each stocking. I'll be sure to post a tutorial on what I end up making.
That's it for now. Be on the look out in a few days where I'll share the holiday trees in our bedrooms.
Making Military Housing a Home: Holiday Edition Part 1
I love Christmas! I LOVE decorating for Christmas. When you're in the military and move every so many years, making each new home yours can be a challenge. One I happily accept. I love to put our personal touches on each of the homes we live in; even if those touches need to be temporary. When it comes to holiday decorating I usually keep it minimal. I REALLY don't like moving this sort of stuff around - because honestly, we never know where we'll end up. Will the house be smaller, larger, have a garage? We can't say. Next we need to factor in damage. A lot of our belongings inevitably disappear between the packing up of our stuff and the unpacking, or are damaged with each move. It's frustrating, but we deal.
Over the years, I've learned I need to limit how much holiday decor I allow myself to have. What this means is decor for holidays other than Christmas get relegated to no more than two bins and Christmas gets four. That's it. The bulk of the ornaments on the trees were collected over the years at our various duty stations or can easily be replaced if I need to purge excess items in preparation for a big move.
The Friday after Thanksgiving I began decorating our home. My boys have never showed much interest in the tree. Even as babies or toddlers they left it alone. I can not say the same for Ellena. She has been all over this tree and took a keen interest in watching me decorate it. I can't tell you how many times I've caught her touching or pulling bulbs off. I love her curiosity, and the challenge she's given me to keep the lower half of our tree to the shatterproof decorations and bulbs. I think I may have FINALLY gotten my Christmas decorating partner. I'm looking forward to future Christmases where she and I will really decorate our home together.
I still want to tweak a few things but here are a few photos of what I've done in my living room so far. I love the small wreathes between each of the windows (we've four in our living room). This prooves decorating for the holidays needn't be over the top. Sometimes the simplest of touches, have the greatest impact.
I picked up this countdown garland from Target this past weekend. My advent calendar got ruined in our last move, so last year I used store bought ones for my kids. When I spied this one I sort of fell in love. Apart from the candy, which my boys love to look for each day, my husband and I are writing little notes to our boys. These sort of traditions are so wonderful and I hope when they are older they'll want to continue them with their own families.
I love these reindeer pillows. I bought them in Italy, but you can find similiar ones in many stores. I also love this one from Joss & Main. The black and white pillows I also added this week. I've wanted a black and white check or plaid pillows for these sofas since we moved into this home a year and a half ago, but I didn't want to spend a small fortune on them. I found these four pillows at Kirkland's and they were very affordable. Here is a comparable pillow from Walmart!
Check back tomorrow, I'll share a bit more of my holiday decorating and how I make military housing a home.
Wine Tasting at Willamsburg Winery
This week my best friend and goddaughter are visiting from Miami. We decided to go out for a wine tasting at Williamsburg Winery. I haven't been to a wine tasting, much less a vineyard since moving back Stateside from Italy last year. The drive to Williamsburg Winery on this particular autumn afternoon was lovely as the leaves on the trees were dressed in the color of sunsets.
The property itself is located on the Wessex Hundred Farm. When you first arrive, y
I wanted to have an open mind and not compare the wines produced by the Williamsburg Winery to the amazing wine I enjoyed while living in Europe. I didn't really know what to expect, but I'm happy to report the wine I sampled from
What I found absent with respect to first impressions was the lack of warmth from their employees. We got none. Williamsburg Winery right off the bat received a zero with respect to their hospitality. We weren't welcomed in, and I had to stand in line and basically figure out where I was supposed to go to pay for my wine tasting (hint it's the room
Our party consisted of three adults: myself, my husband who was our designated driver, and my friend Michelle, her daughter and our three children. My daughter was in a stroller. The staff member who helped me complete my purchase informed me there was a seating area for children and non-drinkers. There are a few stairs you have to navigate - to actually get into the tasting room. The staff member seeing my stroller didn't inform me of a ramp or other means to enter the tasting room; if there was one, I couldn't speak to it. We were left to our own devices to get into the tasting area. My husband helped me hoist up our stroller the few steps that led into the tasting room. This was a bit annoying, not because I had to lift my stroller up a few steps, but because there was no customer service, not even an offer to help lift the stroller, which would've been appreciated and politely declined since we're more than capable of doing this ourselves.
In Europe, many of the vineyards I visited, welcomed you in like old friends and had places for children to play which included playgrounds, or swing sets or even a few toys or crayons and paper.
The area for the non-drinkers is basically a few tables and chairs off to the sides. I have to mention there are two places on the property you can buy food or lunch, I learned this by overhearing other guests. I totally understand a winery need not be kid-friendly and making your establishment as non-child friendly as possible (including the absence of baby changing tables in the restroom off of the tasting area), but not doing more to make your guests (all of them) feel more welcome and appreciated I found distasteful.
The tasting area is standing room only, which is pretty standard. I hope they do have stools available for guests should they need it. I didn't see any, but I also didn't ask about this or purposefully look for them. Tables are set on wine barrels which was fun. I would've loved to have had the fireplace crackling, for my friend because fireplaces are scarce in Miami, but alas it wasn't exactly "fireplace" cold on the day we visited. The tasting room itself is spacious and reflects the "old world" style of the facade. The area was clean, inviting. and felt cozy despite its large size.
The tasting room staff was much more cordial. We had one lovely young lady approach us because my husband was wearing a Yankees baseball cap, and she asked where we were from; as she herself was from the Bronx. Of all the staff she was the most friendly and the one person who FINALLY made us feel welcome and like we were actually wanted there. It was at this point, where I began to feel like, maybe this experience wasn't going to be a total downer.
The tasting room staff were knowledgeable enough to tell us about what flavors we may taste, and what mixtures were in the blended wines. As far as informing as to what part of the States grapes were grown (when they weren't grown on their estate or in Virginia) was unavailable - not a big deal as most people don't really care about this sort of thing.
They do have a class you can take to learn more about wines. This is something I was excited to see, and I think I would want to take. I love learning about wine.
About halfway through our selections, my husband took the kiddos outside to walk the property while Michelle and I finished up our tasting. I was concerned they would get restless and begin to disturb the other guests. As I mentioned before this winery is not kid-friendly. It doesn't even try to be. If you have an older child who wouldn't mind sitting for about an hour, then bring them along, but bring snacks and something to entertain them.
Now for the wine. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised. Their wine was good. I enjoyed all of my selections and the few sips I had of my friend's choices. They have a wide variety of offerings including sweet dessert wines. I stuck mostly to the drier whites and reds but did sample one dessert wine.
My favorite wine was the Adagio. It most reminded me of wines I could find in Italy like one of my favorite wines from Italy produced by Bessich wines called a Novello. The bottle of Adagio would've set me back $75.00. It stayed at the winery considering my cash of Italian and European wine is still quite plentiful. However, if you would like to try a bottle of wine from Williamsburg Winery the " J. Andrewes Merlot" was delicious and is affordably priced at $13.00 a bottle.
If red wine isn't your thing I would suggest you try their "A Midsummer Night's White" (love that name!) I tried a sip of my friend's, and it was sweet and fruity and easy to enjoy. I liked the James River White the best.
The Petit Manseng I also enjoyed. My friend Michelle did not. She thought it too strong. She prefers sweeter less bold wines these days.
Williamsburg Winery has a large selection of wines, and you're sure to find a selection to suit your pallet.
Overall I would recommend a stop at the Williamsburg Winery. Go for the ambiance and the wine -which is the true gem. Don't expect too much from the staff who I'm in no way bashing. They were never rude or impolite, but had they been a tad bit more welcoming or at least had a person greet me as I walked through the door, would've made my experience pretty perfect. In the future, I hope to try one of their two restaurants-sans the kids.
NaNoWriMo Week One Update
The first week was a real challenge for me.
Writing is hard and it’s a solitary experience but my soul has felt so much more peaceful these last few days. Writing is a balm for me, it brings me immense joy, why I ever stopped or put things ahead of it makes no sense to me.
I’m not as far along as I’d like to be with respect to #nanowrimo, but I’m so pleased with what I’ve written I’m happy.
Yesterday I sat and wrote for a bit and had a lovely view. You can check my Instagram post or read about it briefly in this video.
Here's a brief look at how my week went...
NaNoWriMo 2018 Let's Do this!
NaNoWriMo is a race to write 50,000 words in a single month - November and I haven't attempted it since 2013. The last time I completed National Novel Writing Month was in 2011 and 2012. I hope to reach the goal this year. I have a lot of stuff that will be fighting for my attention but I'm determined to achieve this goal.
Here's a little more about my thoughts on NaNoWriMo. I'll be vlogging my way through the month and post weekly updates on my progress on my YouTube channel and on my Instagram.
Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, Virginia. I FINALLY made it!
I've wanted to visit Fountain Bookstore since Maggie Stiefvater mentioned it on one of her social media channels. If you don't already know, she sends her signed books and other goodies to the store. I already have several signed books by Maggie from when I attended a signing at Books & Books in Miami several years ago, but I did manage to score a signed copy of The Raven Boys, which I didn't have a physical copy of. Apart from Maggie's signed copies they have a fairly large selection of signed books which is super cool.
What I love best about independent bookstores is the personal experience. The person who helped me, I think his name was Chris asked me about why I liked Maggie Stiefvater (they get quite a few fans - no surprise) but he'd never actually met one. I'm fairly certain I convinced him to read her books now. He, however, got me to buy Laini Taylor's Strange the Dreamer, which I have seen, but haven't really picked up. However, he said it was one of the best fantasy books he's read in a long time and that it had him in tears. He had me at "sobbing".
I also picked up my book club's next read which is, A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I'm super excited to read this one!
