Baby Birdy

One of my friends at work is 8 months pregnant and we had a baby shower for her. So fun!! I love baby showers and everything that comes with them! It's so fun to shop for cute itty-bitty clothes and toys and binks and... uh!... everything! :-) But this 2nd time mama-to-be is having another girl, so she doesn't really need a whole lot of essentials. She didn't register anywhere either, which makes it a little more difficult. But I had a plan...

I made her give me ideas about her new little one's room and decor theme... birdies, and flowers, and lots of yellow, and pink, and green! CUTE!

Then I had my "ah-ha!" moment. I remembered seeing some wall stencils in a catalog, and they matched perfectly with the birdy pics she already had! Excitement took over. I wanted to stencil one of the birdies onto something. What though?? What could a mama use in her new babe's room? Something functional, something for decoration only? Hmmm... how about a stool? Mama could use it in the room for decoration, big sis could use it to step up to the crib to see baby, and baby could use it when she gets older. Perfect! ;)

So I started with this... a simple wooden stool...

Then I painted it white. I suppose I should have painted it yellow, since that was one of her colors, but I decided that might be yellow overload, so white it was...

Then came the important part... painting the bird. I didn't have time to re-do this stool if I really messed it all up, so it was imperative that I get it right on the first try... stress... but I think it turned out pretty cute...

She started to cry when she opened it.... I think she liked it too.

Congrats again Kristie! And have fun with that new little cutie!

Date Night

This year, one of Ryan and my New Year's resolutions was to spend more quality time together, and to have more "date nights". :-) So we decided to have at least one (but try to do two) date nights a month, and trade off and on between the two of us to plan them.

Our first one of 2010 was a pizza making date night, complete with homemade pizza, lots of wine, and a fun movie! We were very proud of our little pizza... we made the dough from scratch and spread it out on a corn-mealed pizza stone. I also made some delicious pizza sauce, that is now (by far!) my favorite. Never use store-bought pizza sauce again! Then we had to decorate it with lots of fresh toppings... making me hungry right now!

Then, of course, we had to top if off with lots of yummy cheese...

Pop it in the oven for 25 min, and viola la! You have a delicious dinner for two on Date Night! So scrumptous. Let's do it again babe!

The End.

Oldies but Goodies

Recently, I had the great pleasure of meeting up with a few girls from back in the good 'ole days. One of my very best friends, Katie, was in town from her new "home town" of L.A. We miss her terribly up here, but it's always so good to see her smiling face! The same night I got to see her, we also met up with some old friends from Lake Stevens High: Danielle and Callie. :-) We had a great Happy Hour dinner at the Woodfire Grill and did some much-needed catching up. LOVE them!

Then, the next weekend, I was able to meet up with my friend from high school crew, Liz! She is an "Austrailian" now with her hunky Austrailian hubby. Although she adimately denies it, she has aquired an Austrailian accent. Hee hee! We love to tease her about it.

I was so happy to congratulate her on her acceptance into Columbia's Business School when she was here! She found out just a couple of days before. Yay! Now I can visit her while she is in New York, and then again when she moves back to Austrailia! I don't like to see friends move away, but it makes for a great excuse to go visit some pretty fun places. I can't wait!

I also got to meet Liz's cute and sassy friend, Laura. She is so fun! If only she didn't live in Portland... doesn't really allow for a friendship to really blossom. But there's always Facebook, right?

I am a Big Shot

... junky!

One of my gifts for Christmas was the Stampin' Up Big Shot Die Cut Machine. Well, actually, my Mom gave me the electric version, which razzles and dazzles you with 2-second cuts! Wham, bam, thank you ma'am!

But trying to think long-term, I opted for the manual version to avoid any chance of having to replace this fairly expensive hobby enabler, in the chance that it ever stopped working. Which, if my experience with other electronics tells me anything, it will eventually die.

So the future looks bright for me and my new life-long-lasting machine. I am already pretty much obsessed with it. How could you not be when you can make such cute things as this...

I've already started on Valentine's cards using my new best friend, but I think next I will make invites to the first ever Big Shot Anonymous.

Christmas Family Fun

Christmas this year was fun, as always. As all of the kids in the family have gotten older, however, it has been harder and harder to all gather together on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. But this year we were lucky! We had about an 85% attendance rate. I imagine one day, not so far in the future, our traditions will change dramatically with the expansion of the whole fam and the balancing act we all have to manage. But in the mean time, "cheers!" to a fun family Christmas this year!

We were exceptionally goofy this year and spent quite a long time organizing a silly photo shoot, victimizing Grandpa and Grandma in the process. Probably a bit too much wine before dinner. But they were good sports.

We also did our traditional White Elephant gift exchange. So fun! It is always a blast! We have a whole crazy set of rules that we have developed over the years (although I think they change every year too!). This year I ended up with a rachet set that my Dad actually asked for for Christmas!! I kept it so I could re-gift the next day ;) I'm so bad! Ryan ended up with a light that he can attach to a hat. He was so excited about it. Nerd alert!

It's also a tradition for the dog to sniff around the presents, drooling to get her paws on all of the Christmas goodies! It started out with Lizzy, and now Maisy has taken over that duty.

ADORE my cute cousins! I love how Madeline (the Cheerleader) takes her place in the middle, posing happily across all of us. Front and center is her natural element... heehee! But I love her for it.

Bah-humbug!

We kicked off the Christmas season this year with a trip to the downtown IMAX theater to see "A Christmas Carol" in 3-D!! First we had dinner at the Spaghetti Factory with some family friends, the Leverkuhns.

The 3-D was a little too much for me at some parts in the movie. It's cool, but it makes you a little woozy if you don't watch it straight on. But I loved the take on the classic! Jim Carrey always takes it to the next level.

The glasses are so fun! We look like little martians.

The Big Hunt

A couple of weekends ago, we partook in our annual outing to hunt for the perfect Christmas tree. Color (not too green, not too blue), height, girth (hate that word!), and symmetry are all key for the perfect tree in our household. Especially symmetry. Keeps me awake at night worrying about all sides being even, the separation between the branches being even... Ryan probably just needs to send me away. I am obviously not sane enough to stay in mainstream society with my symmetry obcessions.

Anywho, back to the hunt. We typically attempt to find a good Christmas tree farm, you know, the ones that are dedicated to Christmas trees, with lots of variety for us picky tree-choosers. We have lost a few farms over the years to people moving away, selling their farms, etc. So this year we were on a mission to find a new one. List in hand of the local farms in the area (I use the word "local" loosely... most on the list were in the outskirts of Arlington, approximately 20-30 miles away from where we live), we headed out to find a dandy.

We ended up driving to a "farm" that was actually a former nursery. I'm not quite sure how they managed to make it onto the coveted Christmas Tree Farm list, but I guess they had a few trees that could be worthy enough to be displayed in our living room. I was skeptical, but I got out of the truck with an open mind. We searched around for a bit, and low and behold, Ryan spotted one. It had great height, a little larger girth than we needed, but still not too big to handle, had wonderful color, and best of all... obtained that required symmetry. It was perfect.... so was time for a photo-op.

The man helping us had a chainsaw that he was willing to cut down our tree with. But Ryan, being the rugged man that he is (umm...) announced that he would be glad to cut it himself with the hand saw that we brought along. Go, hunny, go! Tiiiimberrrr!

Load it up! Time to get back to civilization and get some hot cocoa to round out our adventure.