Valentines Crafting

My friend Jessica has a craft night every month where she comes up with an adorable craft idea and a group of us make it. This month we made Valentine's countdowns. Here is how mine turned out....

It's a muffin tin & the little circles have magnets on the back of them, that way, you can put little treats or love notes behind each circle. I love how it turned out. Luckily my cricut helped cut all of the circles, hearts and letters. I imagine this would have taken me a lot longer without it.

And speaking of Valentine treats, I was at Target on Friday and I saw some of these....

I love them! They are my favorite v-day candy (yes, even better than conversation hearts :) ). So I bought a bag. I really tried to resist temptation, but I gave in. Dan and I ended up eating the whole bag by Sunday!

I've also been making a lot of cards lately. Here is one of the ones I made. I like how it turned out.


It's for... YOU. Thanks for reading my blog :) haha.

I think I'm going to put up all of my valentines decorations today. Hooray! I love decorating :)

Lately

hmm... what's been happening at the Deceuster household lately? well... last night Dan decided to try on my coat, it was pretty hilarious (hope he doesn't mind me posting this photo).

I love my husband, he always makes me laugh!

We also got a new faucet. Our old kitchen faucet was kinda broken. Here is Dan fixing the faucet... way to be handy, honey!


This is the old, broken faucet:


And here is the brand new, beautiful faucet (with soap dispenser!)


Other than that, not much else has been going on. Dan is still doing fabulous at his job and I am still unemployed! It is nice being able to sleep in and have lots of free time, but I am ready to start working. Yesterday I found a teaching job at a school right by my house, it would really be ideal! I am currently in the process of applying for the position. Wish me luck :)

new furniture!

Remember that one post when I talked about all the money we won at Dan's work party? Well now I am here to report what we bought with the money... :)

First thing we got was a love seat. We already had the couch, but now we have the set. Our old apartment wasn't big enough for both, but our new condo is.

Here is what it looked like before we decorated....

And this is after! Ta da...
It's funny because the love seat is much puffier than the couch. haha. We're trying to sit on it lots so they will match :)

And the second thing we got was a new kitchen table! We've been wanting something larger for a while.

This is what we had before... (now sold on craig's list for $50)

And this is our new table:
It's one of those extra tall tables- perfect for Dan. I love it, my feet don't even touch the ground when I'm sitting at it. It also has a leaf in the middle that folds out to make the table into a large square. I love the square table, but we keep it folded in when it's just the two of us. And I love the dark wood!

I swear I should be on HGTV :)

Christmas time

If I were more on top of things, this post would have been multiple posts. Since I am not, it's going to be one really long post of Christmas photos! This year we visted Dan's family and had a fabulous time. Before we left, Dan and I exchanged Christmas gifts at our own place. We thought it would be easier than packing all of our gifts and taking them to CA.

Here is Dan with his gifts. I got him Boggle because he loves word games- we have played it several times and I already know it's a game I will never beat him at. I also gave him a movie to go along with his large tv.

Here I am! Dan got me perfume & a camera... where is the camera, you might ask? Taking the photo :) The camera is the gift he got up at 4 am to go get. I love it.

And here we are at the airport waiting for our flight to San Jose. We had to do something to keep us entertained!

Once we got to San Jose, one of the first things we did was cut down a christmas tree! It's a Deceuster tradition- one I have never done before. Dan's parents were kind enough to wait until the 23rd of December to get a tree so that I could take part in the festivities. In CA they have Christmas tree farms where you go cut down your tree. So here we are at the farm. I'm sure at this point you are thinking "what the heck is Dan wearing?" I thought the exact same thing- apparently it's his outfit he always wears to get a christmas tree.

To the tree! haha

And here it is- the chosen one!

Then I helped cut the tree.

Time to take it home and decorate!

We did a lot of other fun things, but I forgot to take pictures!!! I went to Stanford Mall with Dan's sister and Dan's dad. On Christmas we had fun opening presents and eating a delicious meal (actually all the meals while we were there, were delicious). The day after Christmas I went to the scrapbook store and spent the giftcard I got for Christmas- and I found that scrapbook supplies add up fast! After that Dan, Anna, and I all went to the Winchester Mystery House. It is this huge mansion and it has all these weird things in it- staircases that lead to nowhere, windows with walls behind them, windows in the middle of the floor, crazy architecture. It was great fun! And I remembered to take photos of the event:

Anna and mom and I also made a gingerbread house:

A few other fun things we did were played our new favorite game Bohnanza every night, watched lots of movies, tried to go see Princess and the Frog- it was sold out, so we went to Cheesecake Factory instead.

Another fun thing, on the last day we were there, Dan's mom gave me tons of children's books she had collected- most of which were signed by the authors! She used to go meet the authors all the time at a local bookstore and get books signed for her kids. They are a great treasure and something we can one day share with our children.

We always have such a fun time in California. It was a very merry christmas! And see, I told ya it'd be a long post! :)

family photos

Ok, this post is more for my mom than anyone, but you can all enjoy the photos. A few days ago Dan & I got family pictures taken for Christmas. We haven't really had professional pictures taken of us since our wedding (a year and a half ago). So Dan's co-worker's wife took them for us. Her name is Kate Weaver (kateweaverphoto.com) and she is just starting out a photography business. Anyway, Mom, go ahead and pick the photo you would like for us to print for you (just tell me the number you like the best in the comments).... And I'm not sure if my husband's parents read my blog, but if you do, let me know if you would like a photo printed too.

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Ok, those are the ones I liked the best (#3 is my absolute favorite).