handmade christmas

This year my siblings and I decided to make gifts for the family instead of spending bundles of cash. It worked out swimmingly.

For my mother: tea cup candle





For my father: caramel corn



For my sister: word art



And the "for my brother" will have to wait. It needs to be re-glued and therefore was not photographed. You would think whoever made that gift would make sure that it was properly glued before presenting it to the receiver. Ahem.

one thing is certain. I have caught the crafty bug. Stay tuned for a cool mirror DIY project!

the merriest

This week has been a whirlwind of activity - mostly because we are making a lot of presents this year, which is fun but time consuming. I'll share all about that next week.

But for now...Merry Christmas!! I hope it's the merriest.

image found here

list update # 1

Since it's been about a month since I first posted about my list, I thought it was time for an update.

10) renew our passports the new passports are super groovy. if you haven't renewed yours in a while, you should. You'll be impressed. If you don't have a passport - get one!
12) attend more community functions - we attended the lighting of the city's Christmas tree. We sang carols. It was awesome.
19) establish a weekly date night we have actually been going on Saturday mornings. It still counts.
20) organize laundry room REALLY happy about this one!
21) love people at work that are hard to love. I'm working on this one. It's hard. I'm praying a lot.

Pretty good so far right?

and the cutest thing i've ever seen award goes to...

this little guy:



cutest thing ever right? I thought so! My co-worker made him and a bunch of his little mice friends for a cookie exchange we had at work. He's made up of a chocolate covered maraschino cherry, a Hershey kiss, almond slivers, and a bit of frosting. Clever!

SCORE!

I had a muffin in my desk drawer that has been staring me in the face for the last two days, and I was not looking forward to eating it because I thought it was carrot with raisins...I cut into it....what's this? I see???.....SCORE....it's gingerbread walnut....YUM.

ta-da!

tree time

One of my all time favorite Christmas traditions: chopping down a tree

Piling in the car, turning the radio up and singing along, hearing my sister complain about Neil Diamond....perfection.

Piling out of the car, traipsing through the snow - although this year we sadly had little - and searching for the tree that will reside for the next several weeks in our living room.

Then there's that moment. The moment when you see from afar the perfect little tree. Then you claim it by taking a picture in front of it.



chop chop chop



saw saw saw



hooray for tree chopping!



Stay tuned for pics of the tree all pretty and decorated.

hit the road cone!

Our dog has now been a cone head for 5 weeks. Five. Weeks. That is like a million weeks in dog years right?! It sure feels like it. We have had it up to here (I'm gesturing with my hand close to my head right now) with that stupid cone! Olive doesn't seem to mind it all that much. She's still happy as a clam.





Ok...dont pay any attention to the fact that she looks quite sad in these photos. I'm telling you...she's happy.

This is what happened. Olive is a digger. She loves to dig holes in our back yard. It's pretty much her number one passion in life besides eating and playing fetch. Because of her crazy digging habits, she broke a nail. That doesn't sound that bad, but it was. Real bad. Her foot was swollen and puffy and then it was a big open sore. Gross. That ushered in Wretched Cone Phase I.

Then she had her woman parts removed. This was seriously no big deal compared with the foot fiasco. But alas...this ushered in Wretched Cone Phase II. And unfortunately these two phases were back to back bringing the total weeks of cone wearing to FIVE!

All I can say is HIT THE ROAD CONE AND DON'T YOU COME BACK NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE!