Goodbye, 2011

The problem with getting a laptop for Christmas is that you're tempted to "check your email" before you even get out of bed in the morning, and next thing you know two hours have gone by and you're still there, playing on Pinterest.

I'm not saying I'm still in bed right now (at 10:30 am), but I'm not saying that I'm up either.

What I AM saying is that it's a good thing Christmas break is almost over. Things are just way too relaxed and low key around here!

But back to the point of this post. It's almost 2012!

It's been a wonderful year, full of many wonderful things for my family, and I'm excited for the new one. I don't have any set goals for the new year yet... I still have a whole day to come up with some after all, but I can guarantee that weight-loss and better eating habits are going to be in there somewhere. I started out 2011 with high hopes and dreams of weight loss, did pretty swell for half the year (losing 16 pounds), and then failed miserably the second half. (I'm not a good winter eater. And I'm not going to tell you how much I gained back.) Things definitely need to change. And THEY WILL, BY GOLLY.

I also went into 2011 dreaming of being in our new add-on by the end of the year, and let me tell you... we are so, sooo close. There is literally 4 or 5 things left to do, and we just need to take the time to do them, mid-basketball season or not. I can't wait to share pictures of the room all completed.

So okay, maybe my 2011 goals weren't quite completed, but that's not going to stop me from making new ones.

Here's to a Fabulous NEW YEAR!

A little Christmas catch up

It seems that my blog has been on Christmas break, along with the rest of us. Time for a mini catch-up!

So.

Christmas was excellent. From our amazing church service on Christmas Eve morning all the way through three solid days of Christmas celebrations that didn't end until last night, we've enjoyed every second of our time with family and friends, celebrating the birth of our Savior, and the goodness that is holiday eating.

The Wilson clan, Christmas morning. 

The cousins from the Halverson clan, Christmas afternoon. 

Now it's all over and I'm left with 225 pictures to sort through, an unhealthy number on the bathroom scale, and numerous gifts that are still needing to find their home in our house and are currently residing in the middle of my living room floor.

I'm also left with quite a few favorite moments from the weekend... here are some of them:

- Singing happy birthday to Jesus with our kids to kick off Christmas morning.

- Kendall's retelling of the Christmas story, especially the part where "Mary consumed a baby in her belly", and her vivid description of the journey to Bethlehem on a donkey, where Mary and Joseph apparently had to cross a dangerous river containing a water snake that tried to attack the donkey, but luckily Joseph grabbed it and saved the day. (I'm going to go with "artistic liberty" on that one.)

- Seeing the beautiful job my sister did in transforming a school gymnasium into a beautiful Christmas sanctuary.

Our family at church Christmas Eve morning. 

- Surprising my husband with tickets to the NCAA basketball playoffs next March... totally shocking his socks off. It was awesome.

- Finally getting to open my new laptop - which we bought on Black Friday but kept wrapped under the tree for me to open Christmas day - and then still getting surprised by a secret gift from my husband (gift card for a shopping trip for new bedroom decor!)

- Receiving this awesome apron from my brother...

(I was a little excited)

And a Cricut Create from my parents! (I'm so spoiled.)

- Giving my mother-in-law the photobook I made of the past 5 years of our annual family summer beach trip... she loved it! Yay!

- Watching my kids open all their gifts... I'm sure that's what 80% of my Christmas pictures are of!

- Breaking out Kendall's new Just Dance 3 game and LOVING IT!

- Having special time with not only our immediate family but also grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and dear friends.

And that isn't even the half of it! So much to be thankful for this time of year. Including 6 more days of Christmas break - yeah!

Until it's over the blog posts may be a little sketchy ;)

Christmas Card 2011

(It may appear that we're trying to be all pc with the "happy holidays" greeting, but the truth is I just liked the color/layout of this design. Merry CHRISTmas :)

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

Insta-Friday

I've actually remembered to take a couple of cell phone pics lately! 

Welcome to the Christmas edition of Insta-Friday :)

I'm linking up with Jeannett over here...

 My friend Amy's adorable headband she crocheted herself... after just learning how to crochet. 

I could use some sweet skills like that! (Ok, not exactly Christmas related, but OH THE CUTENESS.)

One of my favorite Christmas decorations... the kid's nativity sets from kindergarten. So cute. 

 My favorite tree ornament. (Her little legs dangle freely - it's darling.) 

 You know you have a good friend when they buy you the PERFECT gift! Love!!

 Lovely lazy mornings with the kids, who haven't killed each other. Yet.

My cupboard doors are filling up!

The best part about the plan-free days leading up to Christmas? Relaxing in front of the tree :)

Merry Christmas!

Proof

We got our tree up. Christmas can now begin :)

The weekend in pictures

 Friday with Jana

 Fun presents!

Friday night - cute kids. 

Cooper with a classmate.

 Kendall and her girlfriends.

Even later Friday night, Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows.

Hello, Pastor Carolyn!

Saturday night - Partaaay!

Beautiful decorations.

 The birthday girl. 

 Girlfriends. 

The end. 

Monday confessional

While shopping with Jana on Friday (fun, fun day... pictures tomorrow), I tried on a really cute belted striped sweater. I didn't end up purchasing it though, because after Jana questioned whether I needed one more striped clothing item in my wardrobe, it got me thinking... how many striped tops and sweaters DO I own?

Well here's the answer:

THIS many.

I may have a thing for stripes.

We're down to single digits!

9 days till Christmas!

Although the shopping is done, the wrapping has yet to commence.
 And we still don't have a tree.
 But I bought the kids new Christmas stockings yesterday and hung them up, so there's that.
 Kendall came home from her basketball game last night, saw them, and said, "you decorated!"

God bless her heart. We're a sad case over here.

So what's been keeping us so busy that we haven't had time to drive down the street to pick a tree? Hmmm, where should I begin...

Husband's basketball team's practices and games and pre-season tournaments. There's a LOT of them.
Daughter's basketball practices and games. Thankfully over as of last night.
Sister-in-law's 40th birthday bash that I've been helping plan and am decorating for this weekend. So excited!
Miscellaneous church and school related events, and the baking required for them. Not that I'm complaining.
Grocery shopping. (Yesterday, and oh, was it a looong one.)
Late night stocking-stuffer shopping with my mother, ending with her locked out of her running vehicle in an empty parking lot AT MIDNIGHT, in 25 degree weather. Fun times. 

And today Jana and I are off on our annual shopping day to buy something new to wear on Christmas day, because we can and who needs another reason besides that? Eating out will also be involved, something we are quite passionate about.

Shopping day 2010

After that it's our kid's school Christmas program in the evening, followed by a late night date to see the new Sherlock Holmes. Then Saturday is decorating and partying it up for Tricia's 40th, so it looks like Sunday's the day. ON SUNDAY WE SHALL HAVE A TREE, I SWEAR IT!

I hope your weekends are all swell :) 

I made something from Pinterest

And I feel like I should get some kind of award or something, because Pinterest is fun to look at and all, but who actually goes out and recreates all that awesome and amazing stuff?!

Oh, lots of people? 

Well, I've officially joined the club then! Or I should say, Kendall and I joined the club, because this was a joint effort for her class party today. 

Pinspiration:

via

And ours:

(Those are supposed to be bows on their heads - for all the girls in Kendall's class)

So fun to make... I barely contained myself from completely taking over and making Kendall watch :) 

Monday joy (10 things)

- It's my absolute most favorite time of the year. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

- It's the kid's last week of school for the year, hurrah!

- The new Sherlock Holmes movie comes out this Friday and I have a hot date to go see it with.

- It's holiday baking season and my daughter loves making treats as much as I do. So fun to work with her in the kitchen.

- So fun to have a kitchen slave ;) 

- The fact that even though we don't have a tree yet, I'm not stressing about it. We live in the Christmas tree mecca of the universe... I can go grab one from 10 different locations within two miles of us if we don't get a chance to go pick one together this week. (And let's be honest, it's me that does the picking anyway, being  the huge tree snob that I am.)

- The huge stack of books borrowed from a friend this weekend, just waiting to be dove dived dove into over the holidays. (I'm still not sure.)

- My kitchen cabinet doors filling up with Christmas photo cards from friends and loved ones. I like to tape them on and leave them till Valentines :)

- Speaking of Christmas cards, I didn't have a good family picture for ours this year, so yesterday I enticed my sister over with the offer of a roast for lunch, borrowed my sister-in-law's DSLR camera, dressed my family to coordinate with my church outfit (I liked it and didn't want to change ;), told Kelly exactly what I wanted during a quick 10-minute photo session outdoors, edited my favorite in Photoshop, uploaded it to Costco, and am picking our cards up tomorrow at noon. Bam! Done.

- And I'm still laughing over this outtake:

(Russ lost balance trying to crouch, and pushed me and the kids over while saving himself. Very chivalrous.)

Friday nothingness

I love me a good day of nothingness. Not all the time, but as a break from the busyness, and sometimes craziness of life.

Of course, nothingness for me still includes rotating the laundry, doing the dishes, hauling firewood (alright that's a lie, I make my kids do that), keeping the fire stocked, and preparing a meal for dinner, but other than that, nothing's going on at all!

Except watching a friend's kid after school today, taking Kendall to basketball practice, and then going to my husband's basketball game this evening. Which I'll have to shower and get ready for at some point.

Okay so maybe it's not a complete day of nothingness... but it's been a nice morning of it at least.

With my little buddy Blake, who has watched the same movie two times in a row now while I sit next to him on the couch catching up on shows on the laptop. In our jammies.

Have a great weekend, my friends, and take some time this busy Christmas season to relax and enjoy your family :)

The Ugly Sweater party

Yesterday I posted a picture of Russ and I in our ugly sweaters, but I didn't talk about the party yet, and you better believe I have more pictures to embarrass my friends with share with you all.

Linley & "Grandma" Mike

Dave & Kelly

Treats galore (And Alan in a lovely hand-knitted design)

After the name game, some yummy food, and general visiting, we had a white elephant gift exchange. With 53 people playing. Holy chaos, Batman! To try and shorten it up we played by the rule that an item could only be stolen twice before it was dead - the 2nd person to steal it got to keep it.

Um, that would be our SENIOR PASTOR on far right in the red hat and vest. Festive! 

And by a miraculous turn of events, Russ ended up with this:

Yep. A flat screen TV. THAT WORKS. 

Of course we didn't know it worked at the time, because who in their right mind brings a TV to a white elephant gift exchange?!! We all thought it was a gag gift, and a hugely funny one at that. But afterwards the sweet couple who brought it told us they still had all the stuff that went with it and they'd just got a newer, bigger set and didn't have room for this one. 

Well, hey howdy hey! (As Woody would say.) After that I couldn't complain about my sad little set of old Christmas cards that I won!

Truly, it was a white elephant Christmas miracle. 

Cooper's latest

Copied off the front of the movie case (with Walter Matthau).

Drawn by Cooper, age 8 1/2. 

Cooper's words as he handed the drawing to me to see: "It's horrible, Mom."

Sometimes an artist is his own worst critic, no?

I, of course, told him that was absolute nonsense, and that I was going to put it on my blog immediately.

That got a shy grin out of him. Love that boy.