Art Nouveau

Fortunately in our house, we have a budding interior decorator. He takes plain, boring colors and designs around the house, and makes them better. He makes them POP! if you will...

Sheets generally have no texture. Not in this house! Not only did he give us a print, but it has a delicious sticky texture too.

Hand fluffed toilet paper. It is much more comfortable this way. And attractive. You'll never go back to boring old rolled-tight toilet paper again.

Plain green soooo boring. Here he favored us with a limited edition abstract design. Much more interesting.

Mood lighting inspired by Louis Tiffany perhaps?

Here is a detail of one of the mood lights. If you look closely, you can see not only the blue design but a brown substance that I hope is chocolate.

I bet crabs in the wild wish they had this shiny green top coat.

The beauty is everywhere!

More.

And more.

He wanted to do frescos but had to settle for murals.

Thanks G. Our house is the most interesting one on the block.

Proverbial Wilderness

I wanted to give a shout out to the things that have been giving me a little bit of joy lately. Sometimes it is the little things that keep me going.

Pepsi Throwback. I think I might like it better than Dr. Pepper. Maybe.

Gummy candy and Sees lollipops. Anything gummy has been so wonderful to me lately. And these suckers have always been one of my favorite things.

My new black hoodie that I got at Target for 5 bucks. It's so warm and cozy. Plus it goes with my black hair, black nail polish, black eyeliner, black eye shadow, and black mascara.

The line up of snow clothes. I feel so happy when this stuff gets some use. Especially because they can mostly put all of it on by themselves.

So good. Can't wait until the 13th.

So so good.

Here comes some cheese...

All of these things are great, but I would throw it all away a million times just to see my family happy. That makes me the happiest of all. And it is a real happy. A happy that can't be replaced.

My family gives me more joy than I could ever deserve. Even though sometimes they are the ones who are making me crazy, they are always the ones who make me the happiest. Especially when I concentrate on their needs and not my own. They all become manageable and wonderful. I wonder how I ever get mad at any of them in the first place. Or how I can be sad with them around. I love feeling like I live with the 6 most perfect people in the world. I just need to remember that more often...

Decending

It is hard for me not to imagine snowboarding every time I see this mountain. And I see this mountain at least 3 times a day, everyday. It hurts me. {sniff sniff}

Isn't it beautiful? We love the snow. The kids can't get enough of it this week. They are spending hours in the front yard. Every night I have to put their snow clothes in the dryer so they will be ready for the next day. I accidentally dried the hoods of their jackets when I wasn't supposed to. The fur doesn't look quite the same. Bummer. I suck. Laundry is my sucking specialty.

The snow was too heavy for them to lift one ball on top of the other to make a snowman, so they just put the balls in a row and made a caterpillar...

It's not done yet. But I love it.

Trophies

I think I have mentioned before that G is the biggest contrarian I have had. And I have some bad ones. He started early, and he has just gotten worse. I have almost given up trying to tell him what things are. He never believes me. It's not just me. He does it with everyone. It cracked me up the other day when I overheard this exchange...

Mads: Hey Dad, do you want to play cars with me?

Nate: Sure.

Mads: You can me this car, and I'll be the jet.

Nate: Do you know what kind of jet that is, Mads?

Mads: No. What kind?

Nate: It's an F-15.

G: No! Eighteen!

I didn't even know he knew the number 18. I guess being stinky brings out the best in him.

Singing in 2010

We spent New Year's Eve with the Wests. I'm going to be honest, I was a little worried about spending 6 straight hours with them. Turns out, I was right to be worried. It was torture!

Just kidding. We had an awesome time. First we had dinner. Then we listened to music. Then we got out there karaoke machine, of course. That is clearly the next step to create an awesome New Year's Eve party.

G loves microphones! And singing! Anyone who has ever sat by us at church knows that when we sing, G is always the loudest and most enthusiastic. He pretty much just made noise constantly in the microphone. It didn't get irritating at all.

Eew. I look tired.

Suzy was by far my favorite person that night. She did a beautiful rendition of 'Love is Strange'. I tried to be her duet, but I was laughing too hard. Luckily one of the boys saved us and turned the song off.

Then we played a bunch of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. We learned that Cody is not a team player. And we ate lots of snacks. Our new hot chocolate maker was a big hit.

G and G (Gavs) were the only two who didn't make it to midnight. Luckily Suze provided plenty of pots and spoons.

These kids were doing this while Ethan was riding his bike around. Crazy kid. It was freezing and there was ice everywhere.

Even though we were the Wests 6th choice of company, we were glad they invited us over.

Plaid

The girls got Christmas/Winter dresses from Grammy. She made them, and they are gorgeous. The girls loved them, of course. They got mad at me for making them take them off right away after church. I was informed by my mother that they are "DRY CLEAN ONLY!" They are lucky I let them wear them long enough to take this picture.

*****

This was the night after my family Christmas party. We went to Tom and Theresa's for dinner. My parents were there, and Monica and her family were in town also. It was a really great time. We played a game with white elephant-type gifts that no one wanted to end.

Christmas Morning

We didn't buy a lot of presents this year because Wesley was their Christmas present. And although I love buying gifts for my kids, it felt much less stressful not having to worry about presents. They still had a blast on Christmas morning opening a few gifts from us, and all the ones from family.

Mads got a flashlight. Seriously made him so happy. He carries (carriED, since he lost it recently) it everywhere and is very resourceful.

Christmas Eve

We've started our own tradition of fondue on Christmas Eve. Last year we did cheese for dinner, but not all the kids loved it, so we decided to skip it this year. But we didn't want to skip the chocolate.

Like our fondue pot? We're just not that fancy over here.

I was going to skip the catch-up, but I decided it was worth it.

With My Own Family

I've been trying to get back in the mood to blog. But in the meantime, here are a few of our new family pictures...

This is my favorite. That is why it made it to the Christmas card.

I love looking at the progression of the perfect photo.

I'm glad Rhon's smile became slightly more real after this one.

I'm sure they were supposed to be looking at the camera. Oh well. The smiles are all real.

Could Nate look any hotter? No. No he could not.