I think it's incredibly hard for little kids to figure out a really valuable and useful gift for parents. So I try to think of things that are in a kid budget and that can be personalized by a kiddo for parents. This year I asked for a binder that I could keep all my latest recipes in. I have a set of beautiful green and white binders where I organized all my printed and clipped recipes I've collected over the years. Unfortunately they are all still packed in boxes because we are still waiting a year later for our contractor to fix our brick floors which continue to sink. They've been "fixed" once but it didn't really work and we've been waiting for them to come back. Sigh. So I haven't really unpacked or set up one side of our kitchen yet where a bookcase will be and where I can store all my binders.
So I have printed out a few old recipes and then I've been collecting a few new recipes and just putting them in a stack in a kitchen drawer. Not super tidy, effective or pretty...plus the recipes were getting food stains on them. Ick. Kiddo, with a little help from The Man, decorated a nice binder with plastic sleeves that I could put those recipes in. I loved it and it's going to be a favorite keepsake for our family, I am sure. It is so nice to have all my most used recipes all neatly organized in the binder!
image via Kohls
Another gift I received that I am really excited about it a great new blow dryer. My old blow dryer died a month or so before Christmas, well it didn't die, but the heat element went out. So that didn't really work so well for me, but it's being used elsewhere for other things that don't require a lot of heat but do need forced air. One of my gifts from The Man was a new Conair Infinity blow dryer and it is the best blow dryer I have ever owned. My hair gets dry so fast and my hair looks super smooth. Amazing.
And there is one gift that hasn't arrived yet that I am very excited about now that it has turned true winter here in New Mexico. My parents got us an oversized king down comforter that should be arriving sometime in the next 48 hours. My parents gave us the money and I did the research to figure out what to buy and then ordered it. It has been so cold here the past week that I cannot wait to add a big fluffy comforter to our bed. We have a queen size one that we threw on the bed a few weeks ago, but it's just a place holder and not very pretty.
image via Amazon
Now with the down comforter I can finally finish up the bed decor for our room. I purchased a dark blue embroidered Nate Berkus comforter cover early in 2016 and it has just been waiting for a down comforter to fill it. Along with that I purchased an olive herringbone quilt to fold and put along the foot of the bed. I wanted to go for a more masculine bed and paired with white sheets I think I definitely hit masculine.
I picked up some pretty light gray velvet 12x18 pillows at IKEA last summer while in Utah to give our bed some feminine touch. I also want to add just a touch of fuschia with some embroidered or patterned pillows of some sort at some point. I did find some I loved at a ridiculous price last winter and I blew it and didn't pull the trigger when I first saw them and when I went back they were all gone. Lesson learned. When get the bed all pulled together I'll post a photo with some details.
Oh I should also share with you what I got from Santa Claus. He was very good to me and got me quite a few things that were exactly what I wanted. How did he know???? The best thing I got were four books that I've been enjoying since Christmas and am looking forward to looking at again -- all home design and decor books that I've wanted for a while. I got both books from the Young House Love team of John and Sherry Petersik: Young House Love and Lovable, Livable Home, Gabrielle Blair's book Design Mom: How To Live With Kids and Emily Henderson's book Styled.
It was fun to have beautiful and inspiring books to thumb through the week after Christmas! I have read all four of them now, but am looking forward to thumbing back through them and just taking in all the images again for more inspiration. I grabbed a composition notebook and took notes for our house, room by room from the ideas I got from each author.
So there is my "gifts I received" holiday wrap up. I am so grateful for people who love me, know me and were so generous in their giving to me. I love my family. I like that all these things are things I needed and will use - a lot. Can't wait for that first nights sleep under our down comforter and every time I make a meal or blow dry my hair my gratitude warms my heart!
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