It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (OK, not outside but in our house!)

I LOVE Christmas time! I am so excited this year because it's our first Christmas in our new house. I am constantly looking/shopping for Christmas decorations that will fit well in our new home. This year I was finally able to put all my Christmas china out on display. Did I mention I love china? Yeah, it's an addiction...especially Spode. I mentioned in the previous post how I am starting to collect Spode Woodland china....well I already have tons of Spode Christmas Tree china and it's beautiful! This year I set some of the place settings out on our dining room table. Here's a picture of one of the place settings.

Can you tell I like red and gold? Here's another photo of our dining room table. I'm still working on this...I think maybe I need a couple more things down the center of the table.

When we bought our house our dining room was set up to be used as a dining room and sitting room so the light was at the front of the room instead of centered in the room. Given my love of china I knew we needed to use the room just as a dining room so I could fit a china cabinet (or two or three), buffet, extra chairs, etc. But this meant getting the light moved to the center of the room so while we were at it I thought we would replace the original light fixture with a chandelier. I was on a mission to find one! Luckily at Canton (will do a whole post on the awesomeness of Canton later) I found this chandelier for an amazing deal! My wonderful husband was really understanding of all this and hired an electrician to move the light and hang the chandelier.

I have been on a search for Christmas garland too but was not about to pay $250 for the garland I saw at the Nutcracker Market in Houston with my mom a couple weeks ago. It was AMAZING but really, $250? So I bought some $15 garland with gold glittered pine cones from Garden Ridge Pottery and then bought some glittered poinsettias for $1.50 and added them into the garland to wrap around our banister. It's not nearly as pretty as what I saw at the Nutrcracker market but it looks pretty in our house with just the light from the dining room chandelier. I might add some glittery red/gold bows. Here's a photo.

Although we might not get snow in San Antonio it's definitely going to look like Christmas inside the Roller house! Next project...the Christmas tree!

Hunting in South Texas

I grew up hunting, in fact I was hunting before I was even born. My grandparents hunted, my parents hunted thus my mom was hunting even while pregnant. It's something our whole family has enjoyed and been quite successful with. My grandparents were avid hunters traveling to Africa, Canada, Alaska and Argentina to hunt. My dad is an excellent hunter, the best I know. He is the most accurate shot. The deer he shot in Canada scored a 171 Boone & Crockett. Jason was quickly introduced to hunting when we started dating. I was so glad he enjoyed hunting and he has definitely gotten very good at it! Recently while bird hunting he killed two doves with one shot (he's pretty proud of that)!

We hunt on a ranch in Pearsall, TX. It's a beautiful place that has tons of bird hunting - doves, quail, turkeys, ducks. My favorite are quail. What a beautiful bird! I have become completely obsessed with quail - I have started to collect Spode Woodland china with quail on the center of the plate and I love anything that has quail feathers! We get to hunt pretty frequently now that we live about an hour from Pearsall. I thought I would post some pictures I took with my iPhone (forgot the camera) when we were hunting recently. I think it's beautiful but some probably don't think cactus and mesquite trees are too lovely - it's all in your perspective I guess.

Kelly and Brendan come to visit!

This past weekend we had Jason's sister and her husband in town for their first trip to San Antonio. We were so happy to have them come visit and it gave us an opportunity to visit some of our favorite places in San Antonio. Luckily the weather was perfect! We had a great time visiting the Riverwalk, eating some great bbq & mexican food, seeing the Alamo, watching football, playing cards and hitting the Market Square. Kelly and I even managed to get some shopping time at one of my favorite accessory shops - Charming Charlie. Here's a picture of us hanging out on Friday afternoon at the Riverwalk enjoying some margaritas!

A Trip to College Station

I just had to post some pictures of my cute nephew! So I am posting about our fun weekend and will go back to my San Antonio posts later this week! This past weekend Jason and I went to visit my sister, her husband and our nephew in College Station. It was Halloween weekend and my sister said Rett would really like his Aunt Ninny (that's what he calls me...my nickname is Keni) and his Uncle Jason to come visit, so how do you say no to that? I love College Station anyway and really wish I could get there more often. I did my undergrad at A&M so naturally I love the place! We also figured we should see an A&M game while we were in town (they were playing Iowa State) and got some great tickets and enjoyed seeing A&M win! My youngest sister Blair and one of her friends were able to come in from Houston and join us for the weekend too. After the game we took Rett around his neighborhood for some trick or treating. Here's Rett dressed up in his sweet little lamb costume! Next year his dad says he's going to be something a little less cute and more masculine like G.I. Joe.

Here's Rett again in his pj's playing with some of his toys. He thought since his Aunts were in town that he wouldn't have a bedtime! Isn't he adorable? I happen to think he's the cutest boy in the world but I am biased. Especially when he would come in the room Jason and I were staying in early in the mornings and say, "Morning Ninny!" and then proceed to crawl in bed and play with my hair.

And since we enjoyed such a GREAT A&M football game this weekend I thought I would post this picture I took of Kyle Field. I'm no photographer but it was such a pretty day and I'm feeling pretty proud of the Aggies this week - we'll see what happens this weekend!

And a picture of me with my sisters - Brook on the left and Blair in the middle.