Deck the Halls......

............... with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Don we now our gay apparel,
Fa la la, la la la, la la la.
Troll the ancient Yule tide carol,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.


yea yea you get the picture. Well I wasn't going to decorate this year for Christmas because Gabe wouldn't be home & really I mean whats the point. No one was gonna really be seeing all the hard work that would have to go in to the tree and everything else. But then the more I though about it, I decided to go all out and deck the halls. I mean my Mother in Law was coming out to spend the week here over the holidays so I wanted to make it festive for her as well. The tree, kitchen table, stocking were hung, the wreath was on the door. It was officially Christmas in The Gabriel's house and I was loving it.






After it was all said and done I am really happy that I decided to decorate this year for Christmas. It helped put me in the holiday spirit. Not to mention I love all our lovely festive decor. we have gotten over the last couple years.

Ginger Bread House's

I was invited to a friends for a GINGER BREAD decorating party. WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!! I love love decorating ginger bread houses and it is something that Gabe & I have started doing together during the holidays. I picked up our kit at Target earlier in the month so we could make ours when he came home.
Now this was not just a deal were you buy a kit and use just the items included oh no, it was MUCH MORE THAN THAT. I fumbled though my pantry and found all kinds of goodies such as: left over Halloween candy, graham crackers, Hersey kiss candy, sprinkles and pretzels. Be time I was done I had a bag full of different things ready to use for decorating my house.
I picked up my MIL at the airport and we headed up to Makakilo to join in on the festivities. It was so much fun hadn't really gotten in to the holiday spirit till this evening and I'm glad that Cathy was able to join in on the fun.

~the kiddo's house's~

~the Gabriel's house~

~the Wiseman's house~
~the Estrella's house~
~the Brook's house~

We ended the night watching The National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Go ahead and get your laugh out now because everyone else did. I had never seen the movie before, I know I know call me crazy. Gabe got online while we were there and while we were chatting I'd asked him if he had seen it and of course he had. "A Classic" he said. blah blah blah!!!!!
I love the Army Family I had made here in Hawaii and would not of been able to make it were I am today if it were not for them.

~NEW FINDS~

Thought I'd share a few new finds that I've managed to come across over the last couple weeks. I'm always up for new decor around the house & of course some Christmas festivity decorations as well. Not to mention showing off how much I love & adore my husband and what we have together. These are just a few of my resent purchases through out the holiday season. Shopping for others is fun but shopping for myself is so much better!!!!!!! I love more than anything something that is personalized and made specificly for our home.


*Custom ceramic Tile w/ our names & the year we got married.*


*A find from Black Friday shopping, when I saw Mr. Smurf I had to have him*


*My newest Necklace hand stamped w/ our anniversary date (courtsey of~ http://www.facebook.com/pages/StephieMc-Designs/79189542741)*


*Im truly PROUD to be his Army Wife!!! a buy @ the Hickam Craft fair.*

You can't take the Texas outta the Girl

I am from Texas born and raised 22 years. I have never lived anywhere else before I moved to Hawaii, and I was so looking forward to the move. I mean come on its Hawaii for crying out load. The ocean, beach, sun all the time, no cold weather, no hail, no snow, new people, new atmosphere, my own home, the food. There was so much I was looking forward to. Once I got to Hawaii, I fell in love with it and still am to this day but the minute I went back home I realized how much I MISSED TEXAS. My family, friends, restaurants, shops, the city just everything that Texas has to offer. I am proud to say that I am from Texas and can't wait to moved back. So proud and I love the GREAT State so much that it has pretty much taken over the whole decor. of our home. So when I was in Texas and found the most amazing, awesomest bed set ever I just knew I had to have it. Of course I checked with my dearest husband first and sent him a picture of it and he said but "I am not from Texas I am from Arizona", I told him he could have the office to decorate or the upstairs bathroom in Arizona stuff. He gave in and said he didn't mind and so once again the Texas theme is moving more and more through the house.
I love our new bed set so much I thinks its super cute and works great with the house. I am so excited about moving back to Texas soon and buying our FIRST HOME :)
(I just opened the package & put the bed set on our bed this weekend)

I'm Dreaming of a white....

CHRISTMAS!!!!
I have been thinking allot here lately as I see the Christmas decor going up in the stores on weather or not I want to decorate our house or just keep it simple. Over the last 3 years that Gabe & I have been together we have gotten around 2 or 3 Christmas ornaments each year that are meaningful to us and we have stockings as well. However that is about the extent of our supply. As we walk around the different stores seeing what they have I am not ready to have a mass amount of stuff to store in boxes only to bring out once a year. I am not one for clutter and my theory is, "If it has to stay in storage in a box or closet you don't need it." I just remember growing up we had loads and loads of decor to put out each year, which don't get me wrong I loved it. I just am not wanting it all in my house quite yet. We don't have kids, we don't have family here so really there is no one to decorate for or show our house to. We have people over allot which we enjoy but I don't even think that I really care to much about that to go all our just for one month of the year. DON'T GET ME WRONG I LOVE LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME OF THE YEAR, I just love even more my house the way that it is.
Now to my point, Gabe wouldn't mind setting up a tree and a few decorations so hints the reason for looking. I know we will get ornament's this year to represent the year and our life in Hawaii, so no question there. Now for the tree, something small and easy to put together is a must. A real tree is out of the question well because the make a huge mess and I get enough of that with the puppies. So artificial it is. When we were at Lowe's we were looking at their trees and they had tons from small to large prelit to not and even some with decorations already included on them. However the one that caught my eye was a "Palm Tree Christmas Tree" it was prelit and so unique, I just loved it. It was in this giant pot like thing and was just calling my name. It was $165.00 which to me is kinda steep for a Christmas tree seeings I didn't really care if we had one or not. Oh man I just love love this tree though. BUT Gabe is not a fan of the little light bulbs on it, he likes the big ones. So we are going to keep looking to see what we find, I am crossing my fingers that there is more tropical like Christmas trees out there.

oH tHe JoY's Of LiViNg In HaWaIi

This past week has gone by super fast it seems like, but hey I'm not complaining at all. Gabe was home from work by around 2 or 3 every day but Tuesday so not to shabby at all. I was able to get allot of house work done over the last week as well. Seeings we are going to be having some friends stay with us for a couple weeks I wanted to get a head start on the cleaning and getting the house ready for more people. We managed to do a bit of shopping at Kmart as well. They had a rug there I was wanting for the other half of the living room. It fits just perfect under our new desk I got for my birthday and the colors are super awesome. I was a bit worried on how it would go with the rest of the room but its just right. Also at Kmart we were looking at the kitchen appliances and accessories, one of our must do's when we go to any store. I had been wanting a Wok forever now, but not just anyone I wanted the biggest one I could find & well just so happened that they had one that I just loved and it was a bargain that I wasn't going to pass up and the cool part was it was a Martha Stewart brand. Hee Hee. It was a must. We ended up using it that night for dinner and the next night as well. It works just perfect and the best part, clean up is a breeze. Thursday I managed to relax with Dingo for the early part of the day. Had a wonderful lunch with My Love & then back to work he went. The afternoon ending kicking back by the pool chit chatting away with Rae as we played with her 10 month old son in the pool. Friday was a early day for the guys. Thankfully just a PT test and they would be off by noon at the last est. Rae & I decided to take full advantage of the wonderful weather we have been having here & hit the beach bright and early (oh the joys of living in Hawaii), it was perfect. We went down to Kunia Resort and just hung out and enjoyed the sun and watched the waves with the lil. one. After some much needed girl time, we headed back to Schofield to part ways with our hubby's. Gabe and I ended the afternoon with lunch at Jamie & Anthony's house as we watched the movers pack up the last of their HHG's (they are leaving in 2 1/2 weeks to return home). A trip to the commissary, some spaghetti & garlic toast for dinner, and Bride Wars yet again (I talked him in to watching it, even though I had just watched it not even a week ago) was the ending to a very relaxing layed back week.
The weekends are the best, today we are going to be hanging out with little Gage for the day. He is the cutest 3 year old I have ever met. I told Gabe if we could clone him right now I would totally do it. It's gonna be a ball of fun though, filled with lots of outside time. Its so bright & sunny out and the weather feels great. I feel a super fantastic weekend coming & can't wait. I just love our life here in Hawaii together. It just keeps getting better & better.
Living Life & Loving it one day @ a time Together!!!!!

What was Empty is now Full

With this being our first home together we didn't have any furniture at all, so when Gabe was home on R&R in November we went MEGA shopping. Thankfully from our wedding shower & the wedding we had all the house hold items we needed and more. Just no furniture, not really knowing how the house we would be getting here in Hawaii would be laid out and the space we were going to have made it alittle hard but we managed. I moved in and got everything put together the pictures hung and the boxes unpacked, and the house was now a HOME!



However there was this huge spot right in our family room that was empty and really didn't make any sense. For weeks & weeks now we have been talking about what to do with the space. Should we put a desk there or a work out unit, a over sized chair or what. We just couldn't figure it out.

So yesterday we went to Pier 1 Imports to see if any thing sparked our eye, & well there was this desk unit that caught Gabe's eye right off the bat that he liked. "I asked him were we would put it" and "he said I don't know I just like it". I wasn't so crazy about it at first because the color was not the same as everything else we had in our family room. (I like for everything to some what flow) We looked around a bit more and headed off to the furniture store down the road, didn't have much luck there. Then it hit me....we got out entertainment unit from Target so why not look there. I found a table / desk that matched but wasn't able to find any bar stool's to go with it and that piece was only sold on line so I wouldn't be able to see it before we bought it. Today we headed down to Target to see what they had (I just love love love having Target in Hawaii now, I don't know what I would have done living here for so long and having to order everything I wanted from them on line) they really didn't have much to choose from so I was a bit bumbed out. We decided to stop off at Pier 1 on our way home again and just look at the table there a bit more, (by this point after looking at it the day before and just getting so many different idea's on what we could use it for in our empty space was kinda growing on me). We stood there and pondered for a while and then decided to go with it. It is a 5 piece table all sold separate (the table / desk and 4 stools), we went with the table and 2 stools (figured if we wanted at a later time to get to other two we could). YEAH!!!! I was so excited, I had so many idea's and best of all our empty space would be empty no more. Thank goodness for my Babe and his good eyes.


As soon as we got home after eating lunch Gabe got everything put together and set up and I started putting everything on the shelves (it worked out perfect for our cook book collection we have started because we have alot now, and my photo albums as well as a few other things), there is open storage on both side for plenty of stuff to go. I am just loving it so much, it is going to work perfect in our family room for so many different things and I am definitely going to get the other 2 stools as well as some type of shag rug to put under it to help make it is own little space.



I never though our house would become a HOME so quickly. Before he came home from Iraq, that was my one goal when I got here to Hawaii. I wanted My Love to be able to come home to everything complete and put together were he didn't have to do anything and I did just that. Now this just top's the cake and really completes this room and our home.