After Christmas sales

As you might remember, after Christmas sales are my favorite. And while I didn't go as crazy as I normally do – I'm still super excited about my ornament purchases.

Some of my favorite ornaments are the paper mache ones from Crate & Barrel (the 12 Days of Christmas and Nutcracker series to be specific). These ornaments are beautiful and not made of glass. While Crate & Barrel isn't offering any new ones, their sister store, Land of Nod, is.

I ordered their herringbone ornaments:

And their lace stencil ornaments:

I am so excited about these! And they were both 50% off.

And to keep with tradition, I bought a Le Bien ornament at Pier 1 for also 50% off. Not sure when I'll feel brave enough to put glass ornaments back on the family tree, but it will be waiting for me when that day comes.

Happy shopping!

Christmas

I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday! I'm now back at work and in denial that it is all over. Le sigh.

Over the weekend, we went to Manhattan to visit Brent's parents. This was Audrey and my nephew's 1st Christmas, so it was an extra special one. My mother-in-law had lots of fun decorations out for the kiddos.

And of course, the grandkids were spoiled.

Audrey modeling her new jacket vest:

We hosted Christmas morning at our house, so all the grandparents could watch Audrey open her presents. I had no idea how difficult it is to host a Christmas gathering and have a new-found respect for my parents who host 3 Christmas events each year.

The Christmas morning loot:

Audrey received an Anywhere Chair from Santa, which she used as a step ladder to get ornaments off the tree.

And the graphic designer in me couldn't pass up this board book:

And then it was time for Christmas for my parents:

Yep, not spoiled at all.

Santa

Yesterday, we visited Santa. It went as expected.

It's beginning to look...like a giant mess

I'd love to report that my house is clean and all decked out. While a lot of the holiday decor is out, my house is a mess. A major mess. Well, really Santa's present shop.

This year I'm buying pretty much all presents online, and they are arriving faster than I can wrap them. Think I'm embellishing?

Yeah. And that's after I removed certain presents from the photo.

ebates

I found out about this gem last week, and I'm now obsessed. As you all know, I'm a sucker for a deal – and well, getting paid to shop on top of a bargain is just the cherry on the top. And it's free.

So seriously, join right now – here's my referral link: http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=iCEBp6t4OT9dMMvL7sevIg%3D%3D

Here's some of the goodies I've gotten cash back on this week with my holiday shopping...
- Snapfish – 20% cash back
- Lands End – 8% cash back
- Land of Nod – 4% cash back
- Overstock – 5% cash back
- Vera Bradley – 6% cash back
- Kohls – 8% cash back

I will warn you though, ebates is going to make you mad for awhile. Once I learned of all the cash back I had passed up (such as the $50 Groupon I bought about 30 minutes earlier), you'll feel a little sick to your stomach.

Join now...and happy shopping!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Sadly, Audrey was getting over the stomach flu, so a lot of her Thanksgiving was more like this:

Versus this:

But today she's doing much better, and she even got some playtime in with her cousin Marcos:

Rainbow baby shower

I co-hosted a baby shower for my friend Sarah last weekend. A twins baby shower. Because a baby shower isn't cute enough.

We did a rainbow theme, because she saw a rainbow before her IVF success.... success after round 4. Yep, this was the most deserving baby shower ever.

Now, on to the details...

The food:

The cake (yep, a rainbow cake):

And most importantly, on to the decorations. We wanted to make the decor practical, so we did rainbow-themed banners with onesies, socks and bibs.

For the guest book, we used the super cute book "What Makes a Rainbow?"

And a shower wouldn't be complete without a diaper cake (or two):

The hostesses + mom to be:

The shower was a blast. And I can't wait to meet the twins!

*Photos by Brooke German Photography*

The separation of church and state

Hehe. Not really. I just wanted to picture all my readers thinking "@$%@$^%@" all at once.

The title does hold some relevance though. I've debated about doing a family blog for awhile, and well, it's time to divide and conquer.

I want a place to post tons of pictures of Audrey, show off her wardrobe, store videos and talk Westies. I don't want to do that on Decorating Obsessed, because that's not what you guys signed up for. But that is what The Miller Project will be about – a photo/caption type of blog about the Miller household.

So what does this mean for the Decorating Obsessed reader? Absolutely nothing. Decorating Obsessed will still be for design and entertaining, as well as my health and the occasional family update. There will be a post crossover from time to time, but that's as exciting as it gets.

Just wanted to let everyone know.

Now carry on.  :)

My 30th: Part 3 – Cape Cod

My fascination of Cape Cod started with Nantucket in middle school. Instead of Snapple, my cafeteria served Nantucket Nectar. I would faithfully drink one each lunch period and learn a fact about Nantucket on the inside of the bottle cap.

Since then, my fascination with Cape Cod and my love of lighthouses has grown to an unhealthy amount.

Oh, and I'm happy to report that I saw 13 lighthouses this trip. Eeek!

Day 3

Our hotel was in Dennis. The logic was being, it was in the center or Cape Cod – so it'd be easy to get to everything. This was great in theory...unless you fall madly in love with Provincetown and spend all free time driving the hour to get there.

We stayed at The Breakers Resort, and it was rather fabulous. I went the cheap route and booked the studio apartment, which came with a kitchenette, balcony, fireplace and jet tub. The only downside was the murphy bed.

We did score a front room, with a view of the ocean.

Then we started our lighthouse road trip to Provincetown (and I fell in love). Let me explain. Massachusetts is basically all woods, because of this, you see nothing from the highway but trees. But once you reach Provincetown, everything opens up and you see this amazingly tall monument and it's just so beautiful (but more on that later).

That afternoon we walked halfway down the water break:

And walked Herring Cove Beach at sunset:

By the time we got back into the car, it was dark. We drove past the mysteriously tall object, which turned out to be the Pilgrim Monument, and then headed back to Dennis. There, we chilled on our balcony and enjoyed some local beer.

Day 4

We took a high-speed ferry to Nantucket from Hyannis. While high-speed is more expensive, you'll save an hour each way – so worth the money in my opinion.

When we got to Nantucket, I'm pretty sure I was glowing. My first view was this:

Followed by this:

Yep, this was exactly how I pictured it.

We did the senior citizen thing again, and took a 90-minute bus tour. I'm so happy we did, because there's really not an easy way to get around the island...plus we got to see an amazing lighthouse The tour guide was a Nantucket native, and we learn lots of fun facts about Nantucket, such as residents only have 12 exterior paint color options.

Once back to the Cape Cod mainland, we enjoyed another beach/lighthouse at sunset.

That night I tried to finalize our plans for the following morning. We were supposed to explore the west side of Cape Cod, but all I could think about was Provincetown and that amazing monument, and how great it would be to see again. I talked about the monument enough that I'm pretty sure Brent knew the question I was going to ask before I even knew what I was getting at.

Day 5

That morning we drove to Provincetown...again. I'm pretty sure I was giddy to entire drive, but how could you not be when the trees open up and this is your view:

I find the Pilgrim Monument to be completely unexpected, and that's why I find it so amazing. Provincetown is this old-school looking town with white churches and whatnot, and then there's this giant castle-looking tower. It doesn't fit in at all. It's eerily beautiful. Even now, I'm completely mesmorized by it.

Because my pictures don't do it enough justice.

This monument is 238 feet of fabulousness, and it's worth the exhausting journey to the top.

I didn't want to leave Provincetown. Thankfully, I got distracted quickly by the thought of our upcoming lighthouse tour in Truro.

And then on to the lighthouses in Wellfleet:

And then it was on to Martha's Vineyard, where we stayed overnight. We stayed at Harbor View. I don't think I'll ever forget that hotel. It was my happy place.

Even better? It's across from the lighthouse.

Yep, I was in heaven.

Aside from a nice dinner out at Seafood Shanty, Brent and I spent our time relaxing at either the lighthouse or our hotel's giant wrap-around porch.

Day 6

We had to jump back on the ferry at 10 a.m., so we made the most of our morning by watching the sunrise.

Once in Falmouth, we visited one last lighthouse.

And then it was time to head back to Boston.

I can't say enough good things about this trip. I especially love Cape Cod, and already have dreams of going back.

My 30th: Part 2 – Plymouth

Day 3

The original plan was to drive to Salem and then Plymouth, before heading to Cape Cod. Sadly, time wasn't on our side – so several days prior, I decided to cut out Salem, since it was out of the way.

Brent and I were only in Plymouth for several hours, but it was a fun detour and worth checking out. Plus, it let us get our history geek on.

We went to the Jabez House, which is the only house left in the US that pilgrims actually lived in.

And of course, there's the Mayflower replica:

And Plymouth rock (aka: the hardest thing in the world to get a picture of because of all the shadows):

Plymouth is the type of place I want to take Audrey once she's older. It's filled with history, touristy fun and beautiful beaches.