you want one too?

I have Adobe Illustrator at my fingertips, and I have been tinkering around with the program. I'm sure I'm not even using it the correct way, but I have managed to figure out how to draw things. I originally got the idea when Leslie said she wanted a drawing of she and Jonny for their christmas card. She sent me a photo of them, and I traced the outlines of their faces and hair. She told me the outfits she wanted them to have, so I did all that, and then added little Red, the cat. I think it turned out excellent, if I do say so myself. She got many comments on how great the card was.

Well Aaron Snow said he thought I should do these for people, and sell them. Well, I'm attempting to do it! I didn't want to open up an etsy just for this because it is too personalized to be able to have enough examples. I did come up with a few examples though. See my cute family below. Little Gibby is just so precious.

Contact me if you want one too. You'll send me a photo and I'll get going on it. We will discuss over e-mail all other details about the drawing. I did one for the Stephens, too.

Do you want one too? I know you do! It will cost you only $50 and here is what it includes:

- 2 people and 1 extra (animal or child)

- 3 proofs

- all rights to high resolution file

If you wish you add more than 3, it will be $10 for each additional being. If you require more than 3 proofs, it will be an additional $5.

Email me @marthagcarter@gmail.com for further details and make the subject line cartoon.

exterior house phase 3

When we first bought our house, I'll be honest that I had a hard time with envisioning it looking great one day. Well, with new paint, new door, no nasty bushes, new numbers it was already looking great! With phase 3, it's so much better. I mean, SO MUCH BETTER!

And I reveal, phase 3.

New shutters!!!! Merry Christmas to us from my parents. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We love them.

We got them from J&L Shutter and they will last a lifetime. We picked Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze for the color and it looks perfect.

Now we just need to powerwash that bottom area that the bushes used to cover up, and some landscaping. It's a slow process, but I love our first home.

Happy Christmas to everyone!

We wish everyone a happy Christmas and wonderful New Year!

Love, Dudley, Martha and Gibson

holiday baking

Last week we had our big cookie exchange. There were 23 people. There were a lot of cookies to taste. They were ALL wonderful. Leslie also wrote about it here.

I found my cookie recipe on Joy the Baker, and they were delicious (if I do say so myself). She actually wrote about them on Saturday. Red Velvet Black and White Cookies. I renamed them Black and White and Red all over. Dudley said, "these are the best cookies I've ever had." Thanks, Joy. He devoured the leftovers I brought home from the exchange. He also requested that we take some to his granny's this weekend. Hopefully I'll be up for making them again. Glazing over 100 cookies = tiring and time consuming.

Here are some photos documenting this process...

The staple ingredient...








The little boxes...






Here is proof of how many cookies I ate... :)





Hi Laura!



I also made Darby's cinnamon honey butter and it IS delicious. I'll be taking a jar to each of Dudley's aunts and his granny this weekend. Thanks to Darby, all the 4 oz jar supply in Memphis has been depleted. I managed to find mine at Superlo.

I'll leave you with a few of our holiday decorations around Fiesta.



O, Christmas tree, O Christmas tree. How lovely are your branches.



From Laura...




(I spy Gibson. Do you?)

Merry Christmas! Now I need to get some shopping done.

dear santa

If you think I have been good this year, I would like some of these for Christmas this year. They are just beautiful.

The clothbound penguin classics that everyone has been raving about. Why wouldn't they be raving? Sister did here.

My faves would be: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights. The other ones I would love in the collection that I don't know if they are available anymore are: Crime and Punishment, Oliver Twist, Emma, Little Women, Odyssey, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

It looks like anthro and amazon are selling them, amazon with the better price. Or you can pay in euros and get those unavailable to US ones from here.

I would also like this bag:

via, here.

And these shoes. Hey, a girl needs some comfort and color.

And these, please.

Any kind of candles will work, but these are my faves...

And these... In eucalyptus spearmint.

Thanks, Santa.

some things we did last week

Last week we got a lot accomplished around the Carter house.

My Aunt Gwynne (Guinn :)) bought a tree for us to plant in our front yard, and it got planted last Tuesdee. It's a commemoration sugar maple. It will be beautiful and big one day...


We bought a new rug at PB outlet for the entryway. It's s'nice.


I gave in and gave T something more "manly" for our bed....


He found the Griswold house here in Memphis and took me and gib to see it. If you want to see for yourself, I'll tell you where to go.


We finally bought a vacuum cleaner. The shark navigator infomercial came on one Saturday morning, and we watched the whole thing, and we were sold. We have all hardwoods, so we didn't need anything super fancy. The shark is perfection for Fiesta vacuuming needs.


The Stephens had us over for dinner last week. Gib joined, and he and Bama played all night. They are now besties.


We put up our beautiful tree that smells divine, got it decorated s'nicely (if I do say so myself)...


And the minute the skirt went around, Gib assumed position.


I also did some other decorating for Christmastime, but I'll have to share later. This is all I had on the phone from shakeit. T got Gibson a Santa sqeaker toy. And he loves it.


We are ready to enjoy the holiday season!

december desktop wallpaper

I have a little treat for all my readers! Here is a little desktop wallpaper that you can enjoy for the month of December. Hopefully it will bring you some cheer! Over at DesignSponge they started doing a wallpaper every month with a calendar. I have been using theirs, but I thought this month I could create my own.

Lovelydesign posted a December pattern, and I put it to good use for this wallpaper. I've never really done a whole downloading thing here, so let me know if you can't get it to work and I'll email it to you!

Enjoy!

December wallpaper 1024 x 768
December wallpaper 1600 x 1200

a tardy little thanksgiving post

Dudley and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We got to spend time at his Granny Ree's in Scooba, MS. Bet no one knows where that is!

We headed down on Wednesday night, and had to leave little Gib at home, but he was well taken care of by his auntie. I had many photo updates and he was happy as can be! We got to spend time with Dudley's cousins that we hadn't seen since our wedding and played many rounds of wii bowling and had some tennis tournaments, too.

We enjoyed delicious food the whole time, of course. We are in Mississippi for crying out loud! The smell of homemade biscuits in the mornings to wake you up can't be beat. They are delicious and t and I could eat the whole pan. I've got to get her to teach me how it's done. She doesn't follow a recipe, that's how good they are.

The night of Thanksgiving we had a weenie roast, apparently it's tradition at Granny Ree's. My favorite part was this...


I love s'mores. They are so delicious.

I'm thankful for so many things in this life, but T and I discussed how this year it was so much easier to be thankful for the little things in life.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. - Col 2:6-7

Christmas is right around the corner and we are full speed ahead with decorations. I love the holidays, and I'm so thankful to be able to spend them with T and our new little pup.

exterior house phase 2

This has turned into a series of activities for the exterior of our house. [will probably continue for years, too]

See phase 1 here.

Phase 2 is way more exciting, to me. I feel like our house is finally starting to look like a 'real' house. We got this guy installed on Friday...

We got our door from Gates Lumber, Co. here in Memphis. We ordered it back at the end of September. It was a long process. Gates gave us the name of a stainer and installer that was awesome. We just need to paint around the frame where the ole iron man framing used to be.

We ordered our hardware from Home Depot...

And they showed up Friday morning, door in hand, and took down the ole iron man and replaced with this beauty. It is just lovely, I think.

Gibson wanted to peek at me and see what I was doing. :)

I can't wait to hang up our Christmas wreath on our new door.

Stay tuned, phase 3 will hopefully be making its debut sometime in December. We are keeping our fingers crossed!

happy happy birthday dad!

Today was my sweet sweet dad's birthday. We got to celebrate with a yummy dinner and strawberry cake from whole foods (after we had already gone to 2 other places looking for cake).

As I have gotten older I have realized just how funny this guy is. He seems to always keep us laughing at every dinner we have at Long Leaf. Tonight was no different. He 'posed' with his cake and moccasins we got him and said, "is this good for a BLOG?"

Hilarious.

The proof is in the pudding.

Happy Birthday Dad. I Love you.

this time last year

This time last year we were here....



It was just lovely. We enjoyed drinks of the day, guacamole, queso and chips on the beach, all the food we can eat, relaxation with nothing to think about except relaxing, beach, ocean, pool, naps, I could go on and on, but I don't want to make myself jealous any longer. Azul Beach was good to us, and we would go back there one day if the chance came around...







Ahh, such nice times. I miss you, honeymoon.

One Year

What a weekend! It was our anniversary weekend this past weekend [Nov 15], and we had a lot planned. The Lotts with their friends came to stay with us and go to the Ole Miss vs. UT game. Hotty Toddy! It was so fun spending time with them and meeting their sweet friends.

Dudley joined them at the game, but I stayed here to attend a wedding for some of our friends from reach group/church. Congrats to the Midyetts, glad we can share a similar wedding weekend!

We had some great plans for Sunday. We were going to spend the day playing with Gibson outside, go on a walk, go eat dinner at one of our favorite places, Do, and then enjoy eating our cake. Sounds awesome, right?!

These plans changed in an instant. I'm waiting in line for food at the reception and my phone rings. It is a number I don't know [which I usually don't answer], but it was a (662) area code so I did. "Martha, it's Tim. Don't freak out. Dudley has gotten sick and we are at the ER."

WHAT?????

How can I stay calm? Dudley thought he was crazy and told me not to come. Yeah right! My sweet sister took me home from the reception and stayed with Gibson until the Lotts got back to our house from Oxford. I headed down there immediately, still not really knowing what's going on with T.

When I got to the ER he was getting up and leaving, so we headed to his parents for the night. He didn't really know what was going on, and they didn't really find anything wrong with him. He felt nauseous, had a terrible headache, his body was tingling and hands were shaking. He said he felt like he was dying. [Let me just say that T doesn't go to the doctor, doesn't like needles, he just brushes sickness off usually and just treks through the pain. I knew it was serious if he told his parents to take him to the ER.]

So yes, we spent the night before our anniversary at his parents. A little change of plans.

Dudley slept for about 12 hours, and I woke him up to see how he was doing. He said he thought he could get up so we could go home. He got up, but instantly felt worse. He slept late into the afternoon, and finally I just said, let's get in the car. You'll probably feel better when we get home. He did it! He got in the car and made it all the way home.

We took it easy the rest of the night, but he did seem to perk up a little more once we got home. It sure was an anniversary to remember! He wanted me to tell this story so everyone would know why he is looking so tired in the photo below.

I wanted to share some of our favorite photos from Nov. 15, 2008. The best day of my [our] life!

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

Dudley felt just good enough to enjoy a small slice of our cake. It was wrapped very well because it [surprisingly] tasted so good. It's weird to think about cake that's been frozen for a year. You don't know what to expect, but our cake was so tasty!

All wrapped up...

Lots of saran wrap...

Here is a little reminder of what the cake looked like last year. Beautiful fall cake with perfect leaves falling down the sides.

[photo courtesy Aaron Snow Photography]

It immediately smelled wonderful and sugary, and there she was, in perfect form with 2 leaves still in tact.

My sweet husband got me "paper" tickets to Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles at the Orpheum in January. We played hangman for me to discover what it was. I made him a silhouette of a wedding photo.

It was such a special first year for us. We have already done so much together, and I can't wait to share so much more with him in the future.

Here is our 1 year photo.

I love you, T.