santa loves me

if by santa we mean my darling fiance, then yes, santa loves me.

this year for christmas the future-mister totally fooled me. i love to get clues from him to try to figure out what is going to be under the tree, and i'm always right. this year, however, he became keen to my tricks, and his clue of "Belgian Waffles" really threw me. could he have bought me this gorgeous waffle iron that we registered for {and that i have been lusting over long than i have even known him} but then i thought "he knows better than an obvious clue like that." so then i thought maybe he got me the leg massage machine thing from brookstone-and tried to throw me off his scent by telling me an obvious clue to a big ticket item. so that's all i came up with. my mom suggested he was surprising me with a trip to europe, but even i know that's a little far fetched at this point (with the wedding and everything, there's certainly no time/money for a trip to europe, let alone vacation days...) so i was stumped.

christmas morning he brought me a very nondescript manila mailing envelope. inside was a 5x7 note-card, and the picture was a replication of an oil painting by an artist we had scoped out at the farmers market two years ago. i still didn't quite get it, until he told me that the real thing was waiting at the studio for us to pick up. he also told me he was a little fearful to pick out the frame himself (yet he was confident in his choice of paintings...) so that would be a little task i would need to help with.

so, when we returned to chicago from our trip back to my parents on the east coast, we set out to art de triumph and commenced picture frame designing. with all the options out there in the custom framing world, i'm not surprised that he was afraid to do it without me-not that i'm particular or anything (hehe).

yesterday i went to pick it up and today i set out to hang it. that involved going to the hardware store (twice) for a stud finder and the accompanying 9 volt battery to make it work. a quick tap of the nail and we go from

before

boring

to

after

 well that flash isn't very attractive

there we go.

he did pretty well, i think. this will be a gorgeous piece that we can enjoy for years to come, and i'm so excited to hang this behind a {hopefully new} sofa when we get a new place in a few months!!