Halloween Pics

Happy Halloween!

To be completely honest, I am not a Halloween girl. 

I LOVE the fall but I am not into the witches and goblin kind of stuff.  

We do go trick-or-treating and the kids love that.  

We only for a couple of blocks and then give out all our candy.  

I always buy the "good candy" from Trader Joe's and the kids eat that instead.  

I hate all the sugar and artificial crap the put in stuff.  

Kids do not need that junk!

They actually have no problem swapping out candy.  We do it every year and they are used to it.

Do you go trick-or-treating?

How do you feel about the holiday?

How do you feel about all the candy?

What did you do tonight?

I wanted to share some photos of our night with you!

Grace was a sailor girl!  (I couldn't believe all the inappropriate girl's costumes in the stores.)  I thought this was cute and modest a different than the usual "princess" that she has been the past couple of years.

Michael was a Star Wars guy and Matthew was a little rocket.  He freaked out when we found that costume because currently he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.   

And Andrew was a little monkey!!  I just love when babies are animals!

Baby's first Halloween!

 Matthew was always the last one to get the candy! :(

The kids loved racing house to house!  

He also got easily distracted. Lol!

We had our cousins come over and trick-or-treat with us.

I bought costumes for us to dress up but we ended up not using them so I will just save them for next year.  Did you dress up?

Yup, the candy is still there....just checking though!

One of our neighbor's had a jumpy out and were handing out hot dogs and hot chocolate!  They are so nice!!  

Andrew loved his stroller ride!

The kids loved everything!

Trying to catch up!

Happy Halloween!

After we went out, we came back home for chili and hot apple cider!  We ate with our cousins and talked with them until 8 or 8:30, did homework, got ready for All Saint's Day tomorrow, read books, and put the kiddos to bed!

Scott is studying for a mid-term tomorrow for his MBA so I decided to hop on the computer to catch up a bit.

What did you do tonight?

Bonnie :)

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Interior Designer Lori Pepe - Lunché : Relaxed and Beautiful

The portfolio of Berkeley, CA interior designer Lori Pepe - Lunché evokes several adjectives: relaxed, unstuffy, warm, welcoming, and refreshing. All very good things. Here are a few of my favorite rooms by Lori.

White bedding...I think white bedding is my favorite.  I have lots of printed linens, but I always think my bedroom looks prettiest when my bed is done in all whites...

I adore this bathroom.  The cool slick marble contrasting with the branch sconces and decor is glamorous, but not too overt.

The small Berkeley kitchen below is full of cool storage solutions

How cool are those utensil holders?  I've never seen anything like them before.

Check out Lori's fab blog, Design Salon.

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The Danish apartment of By Nord owner

This is the stunning family apartment of Hanne Berzant, designer and owner of Danish brand By Nord.  

Femina via Design Attractor

I love the grey, white and wood colour combination and of course the beautiful way they've furnished the apartment. I spy many items from By Nord, the cushions for example, are high up on my very long wish list!

I also have a huuuuge design crush on any lighting by Tom Dixon and am so envious to see they have his lights throughout.  My absolute number one light is the CopperShade which they have over the dining table, spot on!

Right, I'm off to enjoy my last few hours of London over a bacon butty and a cup of tea...yay!

Have a lovely evening and happy halloween!

And as always, let me know your thoughts! x

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SPOOKY NIGHT / KÍSÉRTETIES ÉJJEL

Book / Olvasnivaló

Sources on my Pinterest

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The Non-Scrapbooker's Scrapbook (Photobooks)

I'll admit it; there's no shame. :) Scrapbooking is something I never have gotten into.  Well, that's not entirely true.  There was that sad attempt with crayola markers, stickers, and a Mary Englebreit scrapbook to document my college years... but that was both the beginning and the end of my scrapbooking attempts.

But over the last few years, I've discovered these easy photobook publishing websites (and no, I'm not going to mention them or do a plug for some certain company; I've used a couple or three companies and found them all to be just fine for our purposes).  In this digital age, where we take skads more pictures than our parents or grandparents ever did, it is ironic that we are often less likely to have actual physical prints of our photos.

(Do you find this to be true for you?  It was for us, until I started photobooking.)

To solve this problem, I've opted to start regularly documenting our family's life by printing photobooks.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to a 60% off coupon in my e-mail inbox from a photobook company I've used before...  but the catch was, the coupon had to be used by midnight (last night).  Since I haven't yet done a photobook for most of 2011, I went ahead and did the whole year's worth of our favorite pictures in one book.

Previously, I've done entire portions of our lives in one book (like our 4 years in Istanbul: 2007-2011, or our family trip to Cairo), but I like this method of doing one year in one book.  It gives me the opportunity to share more, without having to be so exclusive and choosy.  So my plan is to wait for the photobooks to go on sale each year (like they did yesterday), work like mad all day on a book (which I did throughout the entire day, yesterday), and make family yearbooks.

I find that we revisit our photobooks fairly often; I keep them on a handy reachable shelf so they are easily accessible, even to the children.  The kids will often pull one out and giggle about or remember experiences or funny moments we've shared as a family.  Course, we've had to teach them to be very careful with them, as (even on sale) they're not cheap to print.  But I really love this way of keeping up with family photos.


How do you deal with family photos in this digital age?  Are you a scrapbooker?  Do you have a routine of printing out favorite pictures?  Please share!

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BEDROOMS / HÁLÓSZOBÁK

Sources on my Pinterest

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White and wood home in Lomma

Hello! Back to something Scandinavian today and closer to home in the Southern Sweden west coast village of Lomma. This pretty white and wood home has been photographed by blogger and interior shop owner Daniella Witte for Nya Hem. I love how the pared back look has been softened by the use of patterned textiles for a homely feel.





Stylist: Suzanna Nilsson, Photographer: Daniella Witte for Nya Hem.

We're kind of used to seeing all white spaces so it's kind of interesting to see a wooden floor with a wooden ceiling, what do you think of this look?

Pictures shown with kind permission from Daniella.

I'm actually in London today (re-charging my British batteries for a few days). I can't believe I'll have lived in Sweden for 10 years next summer! This is definitely reflected in the way I have styled my home.  It's always nice to pop home though :)

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