Some Homemade For The Holidays

Forgive me for the TERRIBLE blurry pictures (taken in dim light, on a dark carpet, with a camera phone...can it get any worse??). Our camera broke and blogging is not easy...nor is it much fun...when you don't have a camera.

Anyway...Some members of our family may or may not be getting these aprons I made for Christmas this year. I'm pretty sure those members of our family don't check the blog very often, so I think we're safe posting them here...but just in case... don't squint too hard to try to read the to/from tag.

Don't worry Brett... you are not getting an apron for Christmas. Your present is very masculine :)

I Love These!

Don't we all preface our gifts with some sort of disclaimer? I know I do!

You can print these out here from one of my favorite creative blogs!

It's That Time Again

Brendon took his mom to the White House Christmas party last night. She was completely thrilled!

I didn't get many details about the event out of Brendon (granted he was exhausted because he had to go back to work afterwards), but Jeri had plenty to say about the party. An avid people watcher, she was surprised that her attention was captured more by the decor (her second love) and she said she just sat around trying to figure out how she could recreate all of it in her home.

Jeri shares my feelings in that there is just something magical about being there...you just don't want to leave when the party is over. She has no recollection of what she said when she shook the hand of the President - which I can understand because I was totally "starstruck" last year when I took my picture with him. He is absolutely charming!

Please Note...

In a few days we are temporarily taking our blog private (subscribers only).

We hope that if you are a current fan of our family blog that you will please send me an email to tarynmerkley@gmail.com to be added to the subscriber's list.

We don't want to lose any of you readers ... even if we don't even know who you are ...if you read our blog and would like to continue to do so don't hesitate to email me.

~Taryn & Brendon

Oh Yummy!

Just when I think I've risen above my shopping urges and committed to being frugal, Anthropologie mails me a new catalog...and it has this super-duper-cute-coat-i'm-in-love-with inside!

*sigh*

Christmas at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave

This past Saturday was the annual White House open house to show off all the wonderful holiday decor in the East Wing.

Here we are in front of the HUGE Christmas tree in the blue room. This year the theme was "Our National Parks"...so the ornaments on the tree were all representative of a national park. The ornaments were sent to each park and then local artist decorated each ornament and sent them back. My favorite was Lady Liberty...although it was hard to get a good picture of it.
They have such great decor ideas. They used lots of gold this year...as you can see from the mantel in the Red Room.
We took our friends Blake and Kayla along. Here's the annual White House gingerbread house. This year it was made out of all gingerbread and covered in white chocolate. Yum! You could actually smell the chocolate when you were near it. We debated what happens to it after...do you think someone eats it? I would like to volunteer to be that someone!

Afterwards we had lunch at one of my favorite DC restaurants...Old Ebbitt Grill.