It's New Year's Eve!

Hola mis amigos!!!
Just wanted to wish everyone (well whoever reads this, really) a safe and full of love New Year's Celebration!

So here it is:

Hasta 2009!

Adri

Christmas has come and gone - New Year here we come!

So the Christmas Holiday was WOOOOOOOOOONDERFUL. We got to celebrate with Family and Friends while Honoring Jesus Christ on his birthday.

We had such a good time and we got several fun gifts. Remember back in the last post that we had done a home made gift exchange? Well my recipient liked what I made for her and I LOVED what my gift maker made for me!

My grandma (who is my bff!) picked me and I don't think she understood how wonderful her gift was to me. One of my favorite item to wear are scarves... yes you read correctly. Scarves. I love how they can add texture to an outfit and make it look complete. Anyway, back to the homemade gift that I received - whoa, wait. Before I go there, let me tell you a little back story on my grandma. She is one of the most wonderful, caring, sweet, loving, and has the greatest attention to detail that I have ever known. She is the primary make of all the pastries in our restaurants. She made my beautiful wedding cake. BUT just a few months ago, she started complaining about pain in her right shoulder (she is right handed). After several dr visits, chiropractic care, and other medicine type stuff - she couldnt take it anymore and had an MRI that revealed that she had a torn tendon and needed to have it repaired. When she found out about this, she went to work - serious work on my homemade gift. She said that she would knit wherever and whenever she could. She really is a most thoughtful person I know!

So, you wanna see it??

Oh and Jon Pierre wanted to get into the picture taking...He found a new warming spot (the top of the DVD player..lol)

Hasta!

Adri

HomeMade Gift Update!

Ok.. so this is becoming something a little harder to make than I thought. I had such high hopes for this HomeMade Gift that my expectations started to slowly dwindle down to what has inevitabley become - a simple rack to hang stuff on. I am going to continue to call it a purse hanger, but well, it may not come out that way... ugh.

Here are some pictures of before, during, and after...

I am constructing some homemade necklaces/bracelets that I wil hang from them. Basically I want this person to be able to use it for whatever now that its too small to use as a purse holder... lol.. Like maybe hang it behind the door in the RR for her accessories. I am also making a small fabric type thing that she can hang earings from.

So anyway, we'll see how it goes!

Hasta!

Adri

Homemade Gift making progress...

Ok... so there has been a change in plans since I started constructing the piece and it did not look good... So I am going with a different approach.

Originally I was going to make a purse caddy or something similar to it, but when I started putting it together, it was not coming together the way I had expected. So I am going with a hanging rack which is simply a piece of wood with some decorative hanging (or hooks) on it. I am still going to make the dust bags but this time, I am going to add handles that can hang on the hooks.

I actually bought these cute (cheap) cabinet pulls in silver... tre' cute!

well I just got done spraying the first coat of pain on it. Once I get more construction done on it, I will update.

Hasta!
Adri

Christmas at work

So we had our annual Christmas luncheon at work today and it was really fun. Prior to this Luncheon, we had a tree decorating contest with three winning categories. Most Creative, Best Interpretation, Best Overall. The theme behind each tree was a Christmas song and at our last Employee meeting, we got to randomly select a song. I got Jingle Bells. So here is my tree:

I had a sleigh with Mrs. Dash (dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh)
I had little 'jingles' on each bell. You can't see it here, but this one said "The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup!"

Here is a pic of my coworker Melly Mel's tree: (she had Deck The Halls)

You can't tell too well, but she had HALLS menthol throat drops hanging on the trees 'decked out' with holly... in this pic you can see it better. Freaking Genius!
Ok.. so here’s the recap of the actual party.

We had Boudreaux's for lunch, which was ok because I'm not a big fan of Cajun food – but they did have a pasta thing that was pretty good. Anyway, then we had pie for dessert (pecan – my fav) Right after we ate, we played a Christmas word search - which my other coworker Carm won!

After a short break we had Secret Santa – the person that got me had it easy because I was pretty specific on what I wanted so I got a wallet. After everyone got their SS gift we played a few games 1) Christmas Jeopardy – my team won (candy) and 2)Christmas Pictionary – again my team won – each one got to choose a gift bag that contained a Christmas movie as our prize, I got ELF

Then came the white elephant – I was #12 so not the first or last, more like the middle - when I picked my gift, I got a bag full of Cold remedy stuff (tissue, hand sanitizer, airborne, halls, wipes, Gatorade, chicken soup) which in this time of year is pretty cool - BUT - there was cooler stuff to be won, so as the game went on, I tried to sell mine to everyone but no one would buy it! - Then the last person decided that she would steal mine and I ended up with hers, a plastic snow globe that you can put a picture in. BUMMER! - but all is not lost because I could definitely use this at another Christmas party coming up! lol...

All in all it was a GREAT party.. super fun!!!
OH and My door won most creative!!!! Woohoo!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Hasta!

Adri

PS... before I go, here is a progress pic of one of the dust bags for my Home Made Gift:

HOME MADE GIFT.

yup.. we do it.. that's right. homemade..


I believe I blogged about this in previous posts (our traditions) but you will see in the next couple of posts, progress reports on my home made gift making. In case you missed it. There are too many people in my family so we do the exchange and no one gets their feelings hurt. (and if we were to go out and buys each person a gift, we would be BROKE) - Each year at Thanksgiving we do two exchanges - one exchange consists of buying a gift with a min price amount of $25 and a max price of $40 - the other exchange is homemade. This means that each person that is involved goes home with atleast 2 gifts!! woohoo!! Tis the Season!!


So this year was a GREAT pick. for both. because I got the SAME person for both! bwahahahahahahah!!!!!!! LOOK OUT gift exchanger!!!! I'm coming to get ya!

I could go into detail on who my person is and what they mean to me and all that - but I am not sure who is lurking, so I don't want to give it away!!! lol...

So since I will not reveal who I got this year as my Home Made Gift exchange recipient - you will have to wait until after Dec 25th, but I will tell you what I am making and how I plan on making it.


Here are my materials:
fabric in all different colors (similar textures, just different colors)
needle/thread
buttons
wood
sandpaper
nails
wood glue
spray paint
newspaper or other stuff to keep work surface safe from spray paint


Actually I couldn't find a picture of what I wanted to make so I made a blue print of what I want it to look like.

**note** I tried to make the picture better, but hey what can you do...

Anyway.. this is a purse organizer or better a purse holder. Basically the bottom is a flat piece of wood and then the sides and back are smaller cuts of wood to make the frame. The little squares in the frame are dust bags (or simple bags that you put purses in to make sure they don't get damaged or discolored)

So I am handmaking the dust bags. Super Cute (if I do say so myself) I will post pictures tonight of the one that is finished.

The idea of this project came because this particular person has a pretty hefty collection of bags and might just be in need of some way to organize them. I tried to come up with another way of organizing them, but it wouldnt work with the dust bags... (like a hangy one, but nope)

So anyway, be on the lookout for more progress reports on my HomemadeGift!!!

Hasta!

Adri

Facebook.

So there is this hit thing out on the net called Facebook. Anybody who is anybody is on it. It's like.. well do you remember the whole MySpace phenomenon?? This is like that only a smidge different in that you can't just look at someone page (on MS you could do a friend search and then see their page in its entirety - but on fb, you can't. You can only see that person's friends, and if you know them, then you can ask them to be your friend and voila - you are in!) - it's a lot easier than it sounds and quite funny cause you get to see what people are doing.

for example. When you sign up, you write all this stuff about yourself, what school you went to, who you are dating, etc. As time goes on and you start talking to people and stuff, those people can see when you change something because it gives update. Like friend a was dating friend b and then they broke up - facebook told me friend a is no longer dating friend b - just like that... I was like whoa?!!?!?!

I JUST got into this whole fb thing and prior to getting on people would tell me to get on and oh how it's sooo cool and all this. So one night I thought what the hey. So I get on and instantly I am connected. I find a bunch of church friends, non church friends, friends from HS, just FRIENDS everywhere! It's soo cool.

I ended up finding one of my good friends from HS. We started chatting and found out that we still have a bunch of stuff in common. It's awesome! She sounds like the same cool person I knew and it's great to know that we can just pick up right where we left off!

Anyway... if you are not on FB - just check it out. Nothing to lose... who knows, maybe you will find a long lost friend..

Hasta!
Adri

Christmas Comes Early at the Faz House...

So hubby was itching to open presents and I caved! He got me two wonderful new bags... I was sooo surprised on one of them, but the other - I had hinted that I wanted it.

Here are the newest additions to my bag collection. This means that I will definitely need to make some changes on how I care/store my bags.

bag #1 - Tignanello - is the brand name. I had never hear of this brand, but when I saw the bag, I just knew that I wanted it. It's super comfy and roomy!

bag #2 This other bag is the 'surprise' bag. The reason I say that it is a suprise is because I would never expect hubby to buy me a colored bag. He usually sticks to black or brown. Done.That's.it. So when I opened the box for this one, I almost fell over. It is sooo beautiful and fits just right! It's a Liz Claiborne hobo style purse in a mustardy yellow. It's a beaut!

Way to go hubs!! You rock! I got hubs a cologne that he wanted and a new watch (as well as a new pj set that features Family Guy) We have decided that we will give each other stocking stuffers to 'open' on Christmas Day.

Hasta!

Adri

Christmas Decor.

So hubby and I had talked a little about decorating for Christmas - as you probably read in aprevious post - but we didn't do anything about it as we knew that we would not be having a ton of people at our house during Christmas Eve or Christmas. Even so, I was getting a little ansy about it being our first house and not doing any decor Christmas related. So I told dh that I was going to the Dollar Tree (a nicer Dollar Store in our area) and I was going to get some decor stuff for our mantle/fireplace.

Here is how we have it normally decorated on a regular basis:

I really am wishing for a new camera for Christmas (fingers crossed) - Anyway in this picture we have two sets of candle holders, a beautiful iron hanging that hubby picked out (good job!) our unity candle from the wedding, our cake topper that we picked up from a vacay to mexico, and one of our engagement pics.

Here is what I did for the Christmas make over:

I tried to make this picture a little bigger so that you could see it closer, but yeah all I did was make it blurry! lol... ok so what I did here was get some pretty red and gold ribbon, some gold and red ornaments, some gold star cookie cutter ornaments, three stockings - one for hubby, one for John Pierre our beautiful cat and my stocking.

Here is another angle of the mantle. I forgot to add that I got these cute glitter trees - super cute. Anyway I took the ribbon and hung the ornaments from the iron hanging. I took out our unity candle as well as our engagement pic. I wove red and gold ribbon through the candle holders as well as hung the cookie cutter ornaments. In the next pic, you can see a closeup of what the cookie cutter looks like.

oh and I personalized each stocking with initials for each of us. I just used glitter glue and drew them on. This one is for hubby.

Here's another quick closeup:

Feliz Navidad!!!

Hasta!

Adri!

cooking...

So I decided it was time to stray away from the regular dinner stuff that I cook. I happen to be looking at another bloggers menu for the week (can't remember the blog though..oops!) and I saw that they had this for dinner on Thurs of this week, but I thought what the heck.. I'll cook it now.

The only thing I changed from the recipe (because I didn't have any) was the nutmeg. I traded it for Garlic Salt - and it added a good flavor to it. Yum!

Here's how it looked like at the end:

the sauce came out REALLY great! I was surprised that it would taste so good!
oh... and I didn't have any french bread, so I made garlic toast



Everything came out real good and it didn't take long either. Yum!

Hasta!
Adri

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

It's December and it's the Holidays!!!!

I am so excited for Christmas to get here! This is by far my favorite time of year! Not only because we get to surprise those that we love with gifts, but because of the reason for the season - Jesus Christ! Praise God for the wonderful Gift! Thank you!

In true Christmas fashion, I have converted our dining room from dining central to wrapping central! We don't have any Christmas decorations up. I have asked hubby if we would be doing any decorating and he has come up with the idea that since we are not having anyone here to our house, then no one but us would get to see it and why should we spend money to do it?? bah humbug! lol..

Anyway.. I was going to share what my dining room conversion looks like.

Here is the before and what I like for it to look like on a regular basis.

and here is what is looks like with the conversion to wrapping central.

This is the accessories, supply end of the station. This has tape, scissors, markers, tissue paper, ribbon, gift tags, gift boxes.

This is the wrapping paper end of the station. Check it! 6 rolls... ready to work!

So I put the wrapping station into action last night since hubby had his guy friends over to watch the De La Hoya/Pacquiao fight and of course I didn't want to watch that. So one of hubby's friends is my bff's beau so I asked her to come over and bring her gifts as well to wrap - Here is part one of wrapping. I still have part 2 of shopping. So should have a part two of wrapping coming up soon!

closeup of my mad wrapping skills!

Happy Holidays to you and yours - and Happy Wrapping!

Hasta!

Adri

She's here!!!!

Isabella Leilani is here! My beautiful cousin in CA Marcie had her beautiful daughter this week. I have not seen pictures, but I did talk to my uncle and what a wonderful Grandpa he is going to be. What a blessing!! This is exciting news and I can't wait to see pictures and meet this beautiful addition to our family!

Congrats Mom and Dad - and Welcome Isabella!!

Hasta!
Adri

whoa whoa...where are the posts????

So it's been quite a while since I last posted. I mean whoa. We even had Thanksgiving in between it all. So lets recap what has happened since my last post.

Thanksgiving - that was super fun! My mom goes ALL out! I mean she totally converts her house to look like a restaurant. You heard right. she completely takes away the family room, the dining room and formal living to make them the banquet room, buffet room, and conversation room. This makes for GREAT entertaining because there is no shuffling about, no crowding in one spot to get to the food. Just great fun.

At Thanksgiving every year we do a gift exchange draw. BUT here is where it gets good. We actually have two gift exchange draw - one is a regular store bought gift within $25-$40 the other is a homemade gift where we can only spend $20 total on our supplies. This is soo exciting as it keeps people guessing when they show up to the house and see all of the homemade gifts displayed. This is by far my favorite time of the year!

We definitely had good food, good laughs and good fun. This was the menu on the buffet:
Tossed green salad with artichoke
Spinach Cannelloni
Lemon butter drenched chicken
Broccoli rice casserole
Green bean casserole
Oven roasted Turkey

We also had a dessert buffet as well that had:
Pecan Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Chocolate cake
Italian Cream cake

It's like whoa... this was by far one of the yummiest Thanksgivings... def!

We also did something new this year that was a welcome change. We had everyone (friends and family alike) fill out cards that listed 3 accomplishments for the year. Then I picked up all the cards and read one from each card. There were some that were really funny, so I would read those. But then there were some that were really serious accomplishments. Let me give you some example of what some people wrote. You decide if they are serious or funny!

1) We have still $10 left in our 401K
2) I installed a garage light sensor and didn't get shocked!
3) The restaurant has continued to be successful
4) Thanks Dennis (my stepdad) for paying for Elle's (my sister) wedding - this was written by my dad!
5) Thanks Johnny (my dad) for paying for Elle's (my sister) wedding - this was written by my stepdad!
6) My business has taken off really well.
7) I got a new car
8) I bought a new house
9) I got rid of one of my biggest pains this year.
10) I got married and didn't get pregnant.

As you can see reading these amongst friends and family could be super funny!!! I encourage anyone that reads this to try it out in your family. You will see how much fun it can be!

Anyway. our TG was wonderful and I can't wait for Christmas - I hope to get a new camera so that I can have pictures of everything and can blog better.

Hasta!
Adri