who needs leprechauns when you have your own cute little shorties

On Valentine's Day I swore that I would stop putting so much energy into my holidays for awhile... the kids are probably too young to enjoy it and I am fairly sure my husband would survive if a day passed without decorations, themed desserts and craftiness.
aaaand here i sit on St. Patrick's day covered in icing and glue bits. In other words, I lied to myself :)

Not completely though- I have toned it down considerably. I didn't put up any decorations until this morning when N and I slapped a little banner together in 10 minutes. Since his little hands cut and glued and stickered, it was perfect.

and we made cupcakes and other green food and corned beef and cabbage. we slapped on our green and pinched and pinched and pinched but that is all. It was low-key but it felt nice.

Let's be honest, who can live up to a pinterest holiday these days anyway??
Happy St. Patty's Day!

everyone is all summing up their years and I just ramble aimlessly about one day

We had planned on staying in for New Years. Well. Actually... we had planned on having a get together with some friends at our very merry home but my being sick all week put a damper on a sanitary and even a vaccuumed home and also put a damper on assuring that my guests would avoid a pandemic producing plague.
Anyway, we were not going to leave the house except to return the final Harry Potter DVD that I may have stayed up until three am the night before watching. And oh my gosh- so. very. good. I couldn't even talk about it with A because he has sworn off watching it until he finishes reading the series. Since he only reads them on breaks and has about 14.7 billion pages to go in book 5, it might just be awhile...
So anyway AGAIN (maybe my first resolution should be to only let one of my personalities write a blog post at a time but where is the fun in that really) when 6:15 rolled around and I couldn't get a solid answer about what to cook for our personal home bound "party" I declared we were eating out. Which was perfect because I felt very strange about wearing sweatpants and not having any makeup on for New Years Eve and A would've thought me crazy(er) if I had gone up to change into knee high boots and jewelry for a night in. In retrospect, he probably still thought I was crazy because we were not driving downtown or anything but going to 1 of about 3 restaurants here where the other diners were probably wearing Happy New Year sweaters and pleated jeans.
We arrived and the place looked a little empty but the sign said they close at the very late hour of nine... we figured we'd have time to totally rock out and close the place down before taking out our false teeth and turning in for the night far away from all the crazy youngsters. But then everyone was all bitchy and we second guessed our decision. Of course we had already ordered and then found out that indeed, on this very festive holiday, they were closing their doors at... seven. A mere 12 minutes post ordering. Sooooo we changed it to go and came back home to eat. It was perfect because we avoided the inevitable restaurant meltdown that surely would have come from not being able to spend more than 12 minutes staring at the fisheeees in the aquarium and plus we didn't feel like we had to leave a huge tip. Plus I got to wear my new motorcycle boots and return Harry to his redbox.

I did feel like a wasted an outfit though, and since this is a period in my life that I like to refer to as chubby girl in holiday pajamas, every single ensemble that makes me NOT want to smash my mirrors is a personal triumph. So I asked N if he wanted to take my picture and my very talented four year old jumped at the chance:

And then I thought I should acknowlege my accessories since you can't see them in the masterpiece above:

Cardigan: Target, Belt: Gift, Necklace: Kohls

Boots: Old Navy

Bracelet: Gift (but i think it's from Kohls)

I notice that I recently posted a picture of me in a belted sweater. Lest you think that I am in a style rut, let me assure you that I have not worn the look since that last post. I have however, been sheathed in a scarf almost as often as my yoga pants so maybe I do need to examine my rut potential (that sounds dirty but I am not going to change it).
Once we were home, I couldn't trudge around in my boots all night because my badass-ness would scare Carson Daly off the TV and plus the dog barked everytime I stepped too hard on the kitchen tile.
Sooo I tried to find a cute little "effortless" hang around outfit that made my husband happy to have someone to kiss at nidnight but since chubby girl in holiday pajamas is all up in my bedroom, I had issues and just sorta took my accessories off and rolled up  my jeans. Resolution number two is to kick that beoch out because she is stretching out my expensive underwear.

Then came our party. N declared that it must contain hot chocolate (done) and cookies (done) and I declared it must contain alcohol, even if it was only for A (the husband, not the daughter) and I.

I made up this GORGEOUS holiday sangria because it doesn't seem like you are lushing it up if you drink one glass at a time from a pretty pitcher. Mark it down as yet another pinterest success along with the equally GORGEOUS cranberry salsa that I may as well have just eaten with a spoon and ignored the tortilla chips. Seriously, yum.

It also included Super Mario Cart, pointing out body parts on stuffed animals and the usual squabbling but honestly who would I rather spend the night with??

Happy New Year All- May you have a truly blessed year~

PS- Linking up with Mandy and Harper at  The Haps  today- check them out!

it's like there is this little voice telling me that i am a failure if i don't get my darn Christmas pictures posted to the facebook. as if my friends cannot live without a glimpse into the plague infested stupor that was my holiday. but the voice wins- naptime doesn't last forever. i will have to blog the Christmas adventures another day. but don't judge. we are watching you...

it's been awhile blogger but i haven't been resting

i am still alive.
if anyone ever asks you to put your home on a Christmas tour, just turn around and run away laughing maniacally.
or you could appreciate a challenge and say yes. you will still be laughing maniacally, only it will be 4:00 am and you will be covered in pine sap and glitter, driven purely by caffeine and determination. you may or may not hem all of the curtains on your ground floor the night before the house shows and you certainly will not be able to afford groceries for two weeks. white lights and pine cones are expensive!
i went with option two.

let me point out quickly that i have a very normal house.
very.

she (my house is a girl) is not huge or new.
in fact, she is almost 100 years old.
she is storied and lived in. and she needs work like most old things.
we in contrast are quite young. and we have kids. that means that at least some of our furniture is broken, some of our carpet is stained and all of our bank accounts are an eensy bit strapped.
when they asked me to be on the tour, i asked if they knew where we lived.

they did. our house is old and storied, remember? historical, if you will.

anyway- that was a big digression. the point is that me and my house have a complex. we feel a little self-conscious around all these huge, new and beautiful homes and we didn't want to be the "crap" house on the tour so i got all stressed.
i think we did pretty good though. here are just a few pictures of a few rooms. we currently have five trees up though one is teetering on the brink of toddler destruction.

the pictures don't do her justice. they really don't, but i think you'll agree that the old girl cleaned up pretty nicely ;)
for an old broken down home with a young and broke family...

It was an exhausting weekend.

But it was good.



Hanging out in the bathroom around hour 4...



obligatory halloween post: fun! candy! stress!

and so it goes......
today i cleaned up my Halloween decor and put out some harvest stuff. I love this time of year, but am going to get a little neglectful on the house decorating to save it all up for the Christmas extravaganza that has to roll out a little earlier than usual this year (more on that later).

We had a super great Halloween- all October actually. I think there is no better place to be in October than here. Weather is perfect- cool nights, warmish days and leaves that change ALL month. It is spectacular in these hills! I always get into the Halloween "spirit"

Exhibit A: My mantle (ignore the hideous fan.... a switch out is on the to do list)

Halloween itself was a fun day. N dressed up as a crab, and seriously a truer costume has never existed :) Of course, crustaceans are hard to come by so I made his costume myself. It looks much more impressive than it really is- it was barely a challenge and I am sure it would have only held up for a few more hours, but it did the job and he loved it. The hardest part was figuring out the shell- I serioulsy lost sleep over what I was going to use. I went to the store the day before and bought 3 colored serving bowls to nest together like a spirally hermit crab shell. I glued them all together and was ready to fashion then to his shirt when I spied the random cardboard pizza pan from a pizza mom had brought with her.... and it won. I sprayed it with a little paint, left it stained with sauce and rubbed rotting brown walnut skins over it (from the backyard)... so his shell is totally earthy and refined. Wish I would've noticed it before I ruined the 3 bowls but what can you do?? Also, I realize I am two legs short.... sue me, I got sick of sewing!

What can I say, the kid rocks!

A was Minnie Mouse, a costume that occured by default when she freakishly left on a Walmart bought Minnie balaklava for two hours one night. Since she won't leave in bows or hats, I thought I'd run with it and made her a cute little polka dot dress and skirt out of a pair cheap fleece pj pants- it was perfection and enough for me to call my mom and exclaim "did you know i can sew?!?"

Great view of the back alley, I know. It is hard to get her to deliberately pose anywhere. This little rodent is the only kind allowed in my house!

Why I do this to myself is not a question that today's personality can answer. It was fun but time consuming. I guess I take issue in dropping wads of cash on a one night only outfit.... granted I may have spent more on the homemade duds but at least they can be taken apart and the pieces reused. We'll see if that happens though because N has decided that it is AWESOME to hit people with his crab legs and say "tickle tickle".

Trick or treating was fun! So was handing out candy and going to the Safe Halloween event at the school. All the resident here really get into it- get dressed up and sit on their decorated porches. It's wonderful, but then the holiday is dripping with Reeses Peanut Butter cups so you really can't lose! A's bucket got a little heavy for her but she pushed through and N is still on a sugar high.... I'd call it all a rollicking success!