Happy New Year!

Dale and I celebrated Christmas last night--finally! He had to work late but we went for a late dinner at our favorite place and came home and opened presents! It was fun. We both had a great night and got some goodies we'll enjoy all year long. For the nosie ones: Dale got a circular saw, a case for his light stands, and a few smaller items. I got a BodyBugg, Twin Peaks Special Edition DVD, a couple of books and the CuteOverload calendar.

Had a great holiday season--hope everyone can say the same!

If it's Christmas? It's a road trip...

I forgot to take pictures for most of the weekend--I was too busy socializing! But I did grab a couple of photos. Here they are...

Pipi lives in the sunglasses case in the car--she is always excited for a road trip!

Those of you who were curious about the giant present under the Christmas tree? It was for Dale's dad. It was some Gorilla Gear for his car. It's almost impossible to buy for him so we were super excited to have something we knew he might like--and since he put the gear in his car asap we think we made the right choice! It's a heavy duty liner for the back of his car. He liked the Gorilla Gear we got with Betty.

The kids were rather excited to get Nerf guns that quickly turned into a non-stop game of finding the Nerf sponge bullets.

On Christmas morning we went to Wayne and Lisa's house--and everybody got to play with the Wii, which was fun--Barb is obviously kicking ass here...

Lisa even made a turkey! We had a tasty turkey lunch before heading over to my Aunt Diane and Uncle Randy's for ham and all kinds of family favorites. Amazingly, I never got around to taking any pictures there! Can you believe it? I'm super sad I forgot to do that. I got to meet my cousin Ryan's little baby Riley--he looks like a Gerber baby! And got to catch up with the family. It was really nice!

The day after Christmas we stopped in to say hello at the bowling alley where Lauren and Ian were enjoying the annual "Day after Christmas Bowling" that everybody does. Right? Dale got some cute pics of the kids bowling.

That evening we took Dale's mom out for dinner--the 27th is her birthday and so we feasted at a steakhouse called Lucky's--it was good! I didn't get any pics of that either. Gah!

Trying to take a serious portrait of the children is not the easiest thing to do!

Ian throws the ball pretty much straight up in the air--he's lucky it doesn't take out his toes. Even so? He's still a better bowler than I am. Sad, but true. In other news, I got my mom's bowling ball with the custom bag that my father made for her. So now I have my own purple ball with my initials on it and a leather bag with my initials on it! My mom and I shared initials for those slower kids playing at home...I got the bowling ball from my Aunt Judy. I met up with her and my Aunt Charlene for lunch last Sunday and it was so great to see them and hang out. I wish I'd had more time with them!

Dale and I took a little time between visits with people to check out the slowly-revitalizing downtown Flint. Very cool! The ol' town is lookin' pretty good, all things considered. I wish we'd have had time to check out the restaurants there.

On our last night in town we met up with our friends Meghan and Bravin and had a FEAST at the Japanese steakhouse at Great Lakes Crossing called Miyako. It was quite tasty! We really had a nice time catching up with those two and stuffing our faces. Seriously, that place is delish!

We wish we could have seen more people and spent a little longer with everyone we saw!

And, after several days of eating out, I'm ready for one of those detox diets or something. Wow, we feasted our way around Michigan and had a really great Christmas! Thanks to everyone for hanging out (and for the presents and the food, of course).

Dale and I are celebrating our Christmas together tonight so we can savor them over this long weekend. Is there anything better than having four days off with no plans but to relax?

I told you it would be like this...

Monty, protecting his Christmas tree.

Sidney snuck in to get his picture taken--and sleep near the cozy glow of lights.

I've shamed Dale into getting me some photos so expect some late night updates this weekend.

Merry Christmas

We're heading to Flint for the holidays! Maybe we'll see you there. If not, have a happy holiday.

2009 Christmas Decorations

It's a double update, people! I have scads of Christmas decorations, 99% of which were my moms. I'm thankful to have her decorations because she LOVED Christmas. Anyway, my favorite not-hand-painted decorations are these little Home Interiors Angels. The blond disappeared a few years ago and I scored a replacement on ebay last year. She's a cutie! I adored them when I was a kid and still think they are super adorable. They're in my dining room on a shelf.

On the opposite end of the long shelf are the Home Interiors elves that correspond to the angels. I always thought of them as belonging to the little angels as a kid. The yellow and red one went missing years ago and I just bought the replacement piece of ebay this year! I LOVE ebay!

The bulk of my Christmas decorations are knickknacks hand-painted by my mom! These two little scenes light up. They each feature a brunette girl hanging in a cozy living room--of course, girls were always painted with brunette hair because they all represented me. I come by my narcissism honestly.

Our fabulous Christmas tree! I love this tree to bits. I have a hilarious video of Dale cutting it down and he was embarrassed because the video pretty much consists of Dale shaking his butt as he cuts the tree down and then the tree tips over. It's like Dale's butt and the tree had a dance contest and Dale's butt won!

An aerial view of my little Christmas village. My mom did an awesome job painting these! They are very cute and very detailed.

Our stockings are hung (not pictured) by our big speaker stands with care so that we could put some real swag on our mantle--and tape up all of our Christmas cards. Can you spot your kids? You probably can if you sent us a photo card.

Christmas Morning...

We had a lot of fun going home to Flint to see friends and family! We spent Christmas Eve at Dale's dad's and Christmas day we hung out at Dale's brother's house (until we headed to Uncle Randy's). The day after Christmas I got to hang out with my dear friend Meghan and Dale got to hang out with his dad and grandma. I also got to see my very dear old friend Michelle while Dale hung out with Chase and Greg! We also spent time with Dale's mom and she kicked our butts at Scrabble!

We just had so many great visits! One of the highlights of our trip was Christmas morning at Wayne and Lisa's watching the kids open presents. Dale took the following pictures...

We stayed with Dale's brother's family on Christmas Eve! They had an adorable Christmas tree all lit up! I thought it was adorable.

Lauren was up and ready to open her gifts! She was excited; can you tell?

Ian was also eager!

Lauren and Ian opening a joint present--Twister! They were so cute. When they got a "shared" present they each took a side and politely ripped open their end of the box.

And each time a present was opened, thank yous were voiced all around and hugs given freely. Even when they gave presents to each other. Here they are thanking each other for their mutual gifts! So cute!

The kids made hand print garden stones for mom and dad.

In the midst of unwrapping--it was quite a scene!

Daddy Wayne gets to thank Ian for his hand print garden stone.

Lauren and Ian love to play sports and they both were very excited with their new gloves and balls.
Ian opens another present! He was so cute. He loved to open presents!

Dale posted a gallery of images from Christmas morning! You can see them by clicking here.

Christmas Lights Extravaganza!

Last week, Dale and I went for an awesome drive over to the suburb of Lincolnwood. It is famous in this area for its concentration of spectacular Christmas lights! First up on our trip? The Leaning Tower of...Niles! I don't know, either, but it's spectacular isn't it? According to my sources its roughly half the size of the original--but twice as exciting because it's so unexpected! It's also located in front of a YMCA hotel. So it's inspiring to them, I guess? I dunno. It's better to be a mystery sometimes. On to Lincolnwood...

A very famous stop along the Lincolnwood way! The THREE-STORY CHRISTMAS TREE! Did I mention you should click on these photos to make them bigger? Because you should. It's so fantastic. I don't even know how to explain it.

Located nearby is this GIANT Reindeer and a wee baby reindeer wrapped in lights. That big boy is bigger than the house behind it. Awesome.

A lovely and elaborate nativity--we featured this one in 3D previously.

And finally, this is just adorable! It's a giant tree house that seems to be helping Santa by employng some busy little elves. There are little creatures all along the windows and climbing up the rope ladder. And the gentleman that owned the house came outside to drop off his garbage and chatted Dale up for a few minutes. Nice folks!

Holiday Walk in River Forest

Tonight Dale and I went over to the Forest Park Holiday Walk! Forest Park is so much cuter than I usually give it credit for. It's just really been built up since we moved here! Tons of cute shops--a beautiful wine store, a boutique chocolate place, a bunch of pubs and restaurants and antique shops as well as little indie gift shops. Anyway, it's adorable!

The holiday walk featured well-decorated businesses and lots of perks--free sleigh rides, samples from a few neighborhood restaurants and even a free bonfire with complimentary smores! Adorable!

The tea shop had REAL reindeer you could pet in the lot next to it. The Reindeer was incredible soft and I wanted to snuggle it very desperately! A couple of the businesses also had cats and dogs up for adoption and I wanted to take all of them home, too.

Many of the shops had "animated" window displays--many with real people! Our favorite was the hardware store (Dale's favorite local shop) where they had Elvis Santa's Blue Christmas.

He was quite the ham, that Elvis Santa. It was hilarious!

Official Tree Lighting, Daley Plaza, Chicago

On Tuesday, I wandered over to Daley Plaza during my lunch hour to watch the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony featuring the actress Keri "Felicity" Russell and Chicago's own Mayor Daley (donning a hat in the photo above).

I took the liberty of taking this video of the tree lighting countdown! However, when I rotated the video in stupid MovieMaker the video got all tiny and wide and weird but you get the idea!

After the tree lighting ceremony Keri Russell hung out in Santa's little house--free visits for all the kiddes, from what I understand--and was swamped by the local media.

I kept an eye out for about 10 minutes and then I had to go and pick up my lunch (chopped salad from Au Bon Pain, if you're interested).

On my walk over to Au Bon Pain I noticed the county building was decorated the congratulatory banners that proclaim "Congratulations Chicago's Own Barack Obama" were still on ever light post! I'm guessing they'll come down when he's sworn in?

O Christmas Tree...

We went and bagged ourselves a Christmas tree this weekend! We drove all over Illinois for this baby. Finally we found a great tree farm that featured our favorite kind of tree--a blue spruce--at a reasonable price. It was a pretty basic kind of place. I wore fake antlers.

Dale did the the big unveiling...(and we had to cut a foot off the bottom, as usual).

Isn't she a beauty?

And here she is rockin' a whole slew of decorations!