Annual Dessert Party

For those of you just DYING to see what my dessert table looked like at our party.....here it is:

During this Christmas season, don't forget about those less fortunate than yourself. Here's hoping you have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Decor in the Maertens Household

Christmas is my FAVORITE time of year! It makes me so happy! I love to give gifts! I love to wrap gifts! I love to bake! Are you understanding all my excitement with my many exclamation points???

So Mitch and I have an annual dessert party with our friends and close family. We unfortunately had to skip it last year because our house and our lives were way too chaotic because of just getting married/settling in/not having a floor/not having an oven that baked evenly....you know...the usual. So this year, I'm happy to say that we were able to start the tradition back up again! I was a baking fool and didn't take any pictures, but my dad at least took one of the dessert table. Unfortunatly he hasn't emailed it to me yet, so you will have to wait until the next post for that one.

Let's move onto home decor. I really love decorating and I ESPECIALLY love decorating for Christmas....because I kind of love the holiday...if you didn't catch onto that yet. So, here is the Maertens household Christmas decor:

Our newest furniture addition to our house. I am finally able to display our china and have it easily accessible so we can use it! I kept decorating simple on this. On one doorknob, I must a pearl letter "M" ornament and on the other doorknob I used some white ribbon to hang a berry wreath. And then you have my "Dr. Seuss" trees on the floor next to it. I call them that because they are curved.

I always LOVE to share when I get a good deal on something....it's a downfall of mine. So I had been holding out for the Willow Tree Nativity collection. I fell in love with it, but I just couldn't afford it because it was almost $300 for the entire set. I had decided that I was just going to have to save up and buy it piece by piece. The reason I loved that particular set was because they are faceless and simple. I feel like so many nativity scenes out there today are glitzed out and I feel that that is no a correct representation of that night when Jesus was born. Anywho....long story, I know, Mitch and I went to Kohl's on Black Friday and I fould this almost identical faceless set for.............get ready for it..........only $28!!!!!!! What a deal!!!!

My brand new lovely mantle made by my husband.

Entryway table. That tall manzanita tree was actually a centerpiece at our wedding. I kept the hanging jewels on it and added tiny little glass ornaments. That framed printout came from Pinterest. The silver ball things in the glass jar on the right came from Hobby Lobby. The little sparkle balls around the manzanita piece came from Pottery Barn. I unfortunately DID NOT get a good deal on these. They were WAY too expensive, but I loved them so I splurged a bit.

These beautiful sparkly snowflake ornaments came from my new fav home decor place on Myrtle Avenue in Monrovia, Charlie's House.

 

My sister got me this little metal tree from Target and the sparkly star things came from Pottery Barn.

This tree is one of my favorite decor pieces. It is the sparkliest tree ever. I randomly came across it at Marshall's one day and although it was a little pricey, I totally feel like it was worth it because it's beautiful. I wasn't sure what to cover the base with or what to put around it so for now there is a papertowel underneath it so it doesn't scratch our table.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little tour of our decorated home!

AAR Annual Installation Party

Every year my office has a fancy cocktail party for the installing of our coming years Board of Directors and leadership team. Our party was last Friday and we had a photobooth there for the first time! These are our pics from that. This is the event that Mitch and I met at 5 years ago, so it is kind of a fun tradition for us to attend every year!