I had wanted to make this wreath last year but I ran out of red ornaments. I waited until this Christmas hoping to find the same or similar ornaments on clearance again at Target but I was not successful. So I had to make do with what I found on Clearance at Michael’s. It looks nice enough, but I see all the flaws that occurred while making it.
I had bought the extra-large Santa gift bags from Pottery Barn Kids last year (on clearance!), thinking that it would limit me to that many gifts…except holy cow were the bags HUGE! Santa had about 10 gifts for each kid and barely filled the bottom of the sacks (though, granted, none of their gifts were that big)! At least we’ll get to use them for many years to come…
Picking out our first cleaner shrimp, hermit crab, and Astrea snail!
Looking at the birdies.
Katie: He’s tweeting!
He did about three scoops and he was done. 🙂
He said we had to put out five cookies because that’s what we did last year. I asked if he was sure. He went over and pointed to the picture (on the calendar) of Christmas Eve (which is the picture of him with Santa’s cookies last year) and yep, five cookies. 🙂 I should know not to doubt his memory.
Long story short, we have a new saltwater tank!
Long story long, we haven’t had a saltwater tank since before we were married and lived in Lansing! We’ve wanted one, of course—and Tom even bought a few tanks along the way—but with moving every few years it just isn’t practical. He had an 80-gallon (I think it was) tank specially made…that we eventually sold after moving a few times. Then he found a used system that we were planning on setting up here…but it got trashed in the move. We were reimbursed for it and Tom wanted to buy the same tank right away, but I told him to wait because we were in no hurry. Fast forward five months and he was perusing Craigslist and saw a really great tank for a really great price—and snapped it up!
It won’t have fish in it for a few months (we have to wait for the water to cycle and get healthy so it doesn’t kill the fish) but in the meantime, the kids LOVE it. Especially Katie. She will just go sit in front of it.
The kids love pizza and they love cupcakes, so I thought they’d love pizza cupcakes! And it was a fun little dinner project.
It went pretty well…
After three she was DONE. So it was Owen’s turn!
He wasn’t thrilled. And neither one liked them.
FAIL.
I asked if we couldn’t blow them into a pile for the kids…but Tom said no because they were a little wet. Maybe next year…
He does this every time!
This is the first time she’s done this…but the table is NEVER that free and clear. 🙂
Prepping the bar!
My Andrew!
The kitchen table ended up being the center of the party. We definitely need a bigger kitchen AND a bigger table! 🙂
Skyping with a good friend who couldn’t make it!
About 1/3 of the food that we had. Which was way too much. 🙂
The sign comes out! I gave the background story and told them that since he’s five, you know even if I HAD tried to tell him to do it he would have likely screwed it up, so it had to have been completely random! Everyone LOVED it!
The only two guests who weren’t Tivo peeps—our realtor (who helped us find this house) and her friend “Moral Support.” 🙂 They got along with everyone and had a good time!
I learned later that they were making fun of my pantry labeling—this ketchup was the “LAST ONE.” 🙂
Maggie got along with everyone and actually wasn’t too much of a pain!
Charlie was right in the thick of things, too. I know she’s the people person cat, but we didn’t think she’d stick around with 25 loud people…but she did. She was in the middle of it for the most part…and didn’t mind the attention! 🙂
Amy wanted to steal the kids’ minion backpack.
Those of you who know…KNOW what this box means!
Rivals…on the chair of truth. I’m not quite sure how it got called that, but by the end of the night it was THE name and probably half the people had been in it. 🙂
The kids came home from the sitter’s at 8 and stayed up for a bit since there was just so much going on it was way too exciting to go to bed. 🙂
One of the many, many things I never saw happen until I was looking at other people’s pictures!
The night was pretty much wrapped up by 10:30 or so, with most of the major cleaning done and the last people leaving about 11 (gone are the days when we were partying hard until 2am!). 🙂
We agreed the party was a great success! There was too much food, lots of laughs, and lots of wine…and no one got hurt and nothing got broken! There was one red wine spill at the very end of the night, but considering how many people were drinking and sloshing red wine glasses it could have been lots worse many times over.
And we can’t wait to do it again!
Morning relaxing…Eddy was encroaching on what Maggie thinks is her new bed. 🙂
So this just blew. my. mind. Owen apparently brought this home from school Friday—just a completely random art project they did. But the letters? TCF? The abbreviation for the Tivo forum where we all met and how we have always referred to the group! I asked Owen how he came up with those letters. No reason, he liked them. He knows NOTHING of TCF. He knows the word Tivo, of course, and knew we had Tivo friends coming, but we have NEVER said or mentioned TCF in any capacity. I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!? I decided right then that we would have to incorporate it into the party later!
Katie said she wanted to help…until she actually stuck her hands in the bowl and got flour on her. That was all she wrote.
Eddy finishing mixing the sausage balls!
Mark and Karen are BIG Ohio State fans so there’s a loving rivalry between them and Tom, of course being an MSU fan. And the MSU-OSU game was going to be on the night of the party! They had stopped at our house to say hello and as they were leaving, Tom slapped the Sparty S magnet on the back of their car! 🙂
First guest and first drinks for our TiVo housewarming party! Tom was out getting our second guest from the airport!
We’ve had the buffet and lamp there for awhile, but we finally got all the pictures hung and the junk put away. I really like it.
And a close up of the little signs:
I finally got Tom to hang up his military photos, awards, memorabilia, etc.—otherwise known as a me wall. He hasn’t had one since we left Jacksonville in 2008.
Since I had help, I made a triple batch of spaghetti sauce. This is what 9# of meat looks like at the beginning…
And this is before the simmer…
Our HOA sponsored a community-wide yard sale today, which we only found out about about a week prior. The good thing about the lack of notice is that we didn’t spend that much time prepping. 🙂
We had a good assortment of stuff and people were sporadic throughout the morning but we did pretty good. I had to haggle a bit more than I’d prefer, but I had to remind myself that the main objective was to get rid of stuff.
I only had one super annoying lady that tested my patience, but it taught me if someone is annoying at the start, they’re probably going to be annoying the whole way through. Stay tuned for that post. 🙂
We had one of these growing up and I always wanted one of my own but I never lived anywhere with a lamppost!
Until now!
I asked, and Gramma Jean made one for us when she was here! After seeing the neighbors with their decorations, I put it up after getting Owen on the bus.
Let’s just say the steps that were here were far from safe and definitely not built anywhere near code (no screws were used in the entire thing, there were five nails holding the steps to the house, and the support beams were just sitting on the ground). Our landlord said the last tenants put them up and long story…it was being left to us to fix if we wanted to. Don’t get me started. 😯
And since the previous install was SO completely horrific, it took Tom a few extra hours to make things right…so at about 6:00 he stopped for the night with most of it done. Now it just needs railings, some support work under the bottom steps, and a few finishing touches. (We reused the actual stringer section but the actual treads should all be—at the very least—removed and redone using screws instead of nails.)
And my favorite part of the redo—a 3′ platform at the top (instead of the two treads that were there)!
The eventual plan is to build a floating deck at the bottom, like this, to have somewhere flat to set our table and chairs (though that will require permits and fees, so it might be next spring):
I love having a handy hubby!
Owen wanted to go out and wait so I let him by himself. But then Katie wanted to go with Owee so Tom went out with them. Owen gets SO excited it’s crazy.
If you ask Katie if she’s a stink bug or a loosey goose or anything like that, she says “No, I’m Katie Bug.” It’s ADORABLE.
Boo to how much it costs, of course, but we decided it was worth it since it’s the main thoroughfare and constantly touched by the kids (flat paint just wasn’t going to last as it was already marked up after three months) and we didn’t have the equipment to reach the second story.
And a mere four hours later…
And Tom painted a bunch Saturday so almost the entire first floor is painted and it’s finally looking like a home instead of an institution! It also really makes all the molding stand out and look better, too. (Pics will be posted once things are put back together.) I probably wouldn’t have picked gray again, but we had about four gallons left from repainting at the Birdie house so to save money we decided to use it here, too.
Now we just have the bathrooms to do (one will be a dusty lilac and one will be a leftover green from Birdie).
I love that the door keeps slowly closing on her and watching her try to figure it out. 🙂
From 9/17. Oops.
We had driven to the playground on the next street over so I let her sit in the front seat on the way home.
Do you see what I see?
Since it was cool overnight we had our windows open. So did our neighbors, apparently, because their alarm clock woke me up this morning before 6…then went off three more times. 😐
It’s a good thing this house is temporary.
Now personalized!
Robots again—except we’re missing the cats this time.
The Michigan stickers that I got as a Christmas present but hadn’t managed to put on my car yet. I’m glad I waited!
And lastly, a Tardis sticker I’ve had for ages that I also hadn’t put on!
Unfortunately we were out of the right vodka so I had to take my new car on my maiden voyage to ABC. 🙂
