New Year's Eve fireworks

We spent New Year's Even in Utah where (as I might have mentioned once or twice in my last post) it was COLD. Hauling ourselves anywhere in the sub-freezing temperatures held absolutely zero appeal, so instead we had yummy Mexican food take-out and stayed in the warm house. We did manage to inject a bit of festivity in the form of a box of leftover fireworks from my dad's garage. The women and children watched from the bedroom windows while my Dad and The Mister carried out the pyrotechnics in the backyard snow field. I had fun playing with my camera settings to get a few pictures. I'm not sure it transfers over in Blogger, but you can see the sparkle of the snow reflecting the light of the fireworks!

At 11 p.m. we told the kids it was midnight and let them bang pots and pans in the front yard. They didn't go too far from the front steps in the frigid night air! We wore tinsel bedecked hats, shot party poppers all over the kitchen and the kids blew horns enough to deafen all of us. No wonder I dreamed about geese that night.

We didn't get dressed up fancy or go to a sparkling party but as far as I'm concerned, our celebration was just right!

Snow fun

It was COLD in Utah. So, so cold. It's still cold and will be for a while, as they're mired in a nasty inversion.

There was snow on the ground everywhere, but at my in-laws' house it was DEEP. 36 inches, easily. Maybe more.

Because it's so cold it is dry snow, no good for snowball fights or building igloos but just fine for snow angels.

 Did I mention it was cold? Frigid but beautiful, truly a winter wonderland.

My in-laws have a long, sloping driveway. Perfect sledding hill for little kids because the curves mean you can't get going too fast. You can still go fast enough to have fun, though!

Porter held up for a lot longer than I guessed he might, especially since I couldn't find his mittens so he was wearing socks on his hands. They stayed remarkably dry, considering all the playing he did in the snow--let that be an endorsement for Smartwool socks!

It may be hard to judge scale from this photo, but the icicles in the center were a good 8 ft. long. They reached almost down to the first level of the house. In the next two days after I took this photo, they grew another 12 inches. Amazing!

The icicles drip onto these small fir trees in front of the house. The trees themselves are turned into giant ice mounds.

 There were more icicles in the back of the house. These were under the deck.

 And these were on the roof. Don't they look like teeth?

 Brrrr! Frosty, but fun!

pre-Downton musings

Oh, hello!

Happy new year to you all. I have 20 minutes before Downtown Abbey starts so I'm going to have to be quick. Late last night (technically early this morning) we arrived at home after a 10-day stay in Utah to visit our families. We even squeezed in a quick trip to Las Vegas sans kiddos thanks to my wonderful parents who kept the monkeys for a few days for us.

We left on the 27th after spending the entire day of the 26th getting ready to go, so you can imagine the disaster that greeted us when we stumbled through the front door last night! Christmas mess everywhere, plus the pre-Christmas stuff that got shoved out of the way in a last-minute hurry. Add to that the contents of six very full suitcases, and the result is that every single solitary room in my house is a mess. Even the guest room, where nobody even lives! Just about every flat surface in the place is piled high. The mess is driving me nuts!

We did manage to get the suitcases unpacked and put away today so tomorrow I hope to get started on the Christmas mess. It will take days to get it all done, the boxes Tetris-ed back into place under the stairs and the tree dismantled, and I'm honestly anxious to have it all done.

I haven't been a good blogger lately but hopefully I'll have some things to share in the next little while. For now, I'm going to go fix a bowl of peppermint ice cream with hot fudge sauce and check in with the Crawley family!

Greetings for 2013

A teeny, tiny calendar found at an antique store. Remarkable that such a small, fragile thing that was made to be discarded somehow survived for 100 years!

Happy New Year! May 2013 bring you happiness and adventure!

FREE Christmas banner printable!

I have a confession to make: my tree is not decorated. My house isn't either. It is a week before Christmas and my living room is filled with bins of decorations that have yet to see the light of December 2012. I've had a lot going on this month with custom orders and events that all had deadlines, but decorating the tree? No deadline, so it got pushed to the back of the list over and over again. I'm bound and determined to get it done in the next couple of days so I can put the boxes away and finally enjoy my pretty decorations before Santa shows up!

Whether you're all done decorating, haven't even begun (like me), or are still looking for a little more somethin'-somethin' to pretty up your home, check out the beautiful printable banner that Kelli from KCustomables is sharing with all of my readers! Normally this banner is for sale (with a lot of other fun party printables) in KCustomables' Etsy shop, but here on my blog you can access the banner for FREE!

To access the PDF file for the banner, simply click on the image above. You can print out the banner, cut out the letter pieces and string it on the ribbon of your choice (wouldn't red and white baker's twine be darling?). Please be sure to let me know in the comments if you make it--I'd love to see a picture!

Thanks, Kelli!

The Ugly Sweater Run

Saturday morning we rolled out of our warm beds and dressed in many layers so we could go participate in the Ugly Sweater Run 5K. It was a brisk 30 degrees so running in a sweater was not such a bad idea.

 

Some of us even donned mustaches

 

Porter was foul that morning and refused to wear his Ugly Sweater. He compromised by at least wearing his Minion hat.

This is the back of The Mister's sweater. Glorious.

 

We met up with our friends for a pre-race group shot. I love that I have friends who also think donning a hideous sweater and a fake mustache and then running a race sounds like FUN!

 After that, I amused myself by taking photos of perfect (and awesomely attired) strangers.

 

Ack! Misuse of vintage felt goodness! 

 

One of the race sponsors was Samuel Adams and included in our entry fee were coupons for both a pre-race and a post-race beer. I don't drink, but even if I did I'm not sure I could handle drinking a beer first thing in the morning when it is below freezing outside. And then running 3.2 miles. Maybe it warms you up? They were also pouring shots of some vanilla-flavored liqueur. My gosh, you should have seen the lines for the porta-potties all along the race route! Definitely ridiculous for any other 5K but for this one it was perfectly understandable.

At any rate, these folks are demonstrating one of the reasons Colorado is a great place to live. Colorado is known for being very health-conscious and we do a lot of outdoor exercise. We're also know for our beer (Coors, zillions of micro-breweries). So why not combine the two? It's perfectly reasonable in Colorado to run a race while drinking a beer.

 They obviously didn't pay attention to this sign. One of the items in our swag bag was a pint glass with the Sam Adams logo on one side and the Ugly Sweater Run logo on the other. I think it's my new favorite glass. It's pretty cute!

 Folks did not limit themselves to Ugly Sweaters. The outfits were really hilarious.

 Yup, he ran the entire race in Santa & Mrs. Claus slippers. Next year, The Mister wants to wear a pair of red long johns like this one. With the flap open.

 Knitted Adult Onesie. With Attached Santa Hat. I'll just let you enjoy that one for a minute.

I have to tell you, this race was SO FUN! In case it's not obvious, it was incredibly casual. There was no race clock. If you wanted an actual time, you had to keep it yourself. They let us onto the race course in huge waves and there were nearly 7000 ridiculously-dressed people there that morning. There were no mile markers and the race aid stops consisted of various giant inflatables that you could take photos with, a hot chocolate station, and a huge pile of trucked-in snow that people were using for snowball fights. People regularly stopped for photos, waiting in long porta-pottie lines, skipped, and sang. When the race course looped back on itself, we watched people just cut it and ended early (presumable to go snag their post-race beer). The finish line was another giant inflatable with a machine shooting bubble foam in the air. There was a Best Worst Sweater contest and a Best Mustache competition as well.

IT. WAS. AWESOME.

We are already planning our outfits for next year.

And because I love Ugly Sweaters, go here for a really adorable FREE printable of some Ugly Christmas Sweater gift tags that you can print and cut out.

Weekend Junk Finds: It's a Wonderful Life Houses

Today's junk finds were actually bought on a weekend back in 2011, right before Christmas, but I never posted them then. I literally bought them on Christmas Eve last year, which was a Saturday. So technically they are Weekend Junk Finds, just not from a recent weekend.

Literally two days before I had read about the It's a Wonderful Life village houses on one of my favorite blogs, 320 Sycamore. Because it was Christmas Eve, all of the Christmas stuff at the thrift store was 50% off.  I first noticed one house, and then another. And then even though I'd already walked through all of the Christmas aisles, I headed down them again and found three more houses!

Then I packed them away in my crazy vintage Christmas closet (remind me to show you that mess sometime) until this year. I had hoped to get them listed on eBay before Thanksgiving but that didn't happen. I didn't get them listed until December 2.

 This morning when I woke up I got the notification that the last one sold! Woo-hoo!!

Just wanted to let you know so that while you're trolling the thrifts this year in search of vintage Christmas goodies--keep an eye out for these! They're not really the style I'm looking for and I don't have room in my house for a village, so I've probably walked right by them in the past. It was only Melissa's post that clued me in and you can bet I'll be on the lookout for them in the future!

I've linked up with the Nifty Thrifty at A Living Space and Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday.

Weekend Junk Finds: Vintage Christmas Loot

 Blurry photo, sorry--it was taken with my phone and looked fine on the little screen. This represents the fruits of my Black Friday shopping. When you're in a tiny town where the only major store is Wal-Mart, you have to get creative. I hit the local thrift stores and turned up these. I'd rather have a pile of pink vintage Shiny Brites than a $79 flat screen TV any day!

The beautifully tarnished vintage glass glitter on this sleigh stuck out like a shining beacon on a thrift store shelf full of ugly figurines (one of those seasonal eye exams Barbara is talking about). It's a fun piece--it's marked Japan on the bottom but the fun thing is that the sleigh itself collapses almost flat! The flat part in the middle is actually two pieces connected with elastic string. They can be folded together, pushing up and making the glittered sides of the sleigh come together. Very handy for storage!

Why, oh why did the fashion of wearing a festive Christmas corsage pinned to your winter coat die away? Who's up for helping me to bring it back? My collection is getting to the point where I could wear a different one every day for the whole month.

 And one last small-town thrift store find. I saw this rubber-face Santa on my way out the door, after we had already paid. He was on the floor and I walked right by him the first time. I wasn't sure if I ought to spring for him, so I took the Phone-A-Friend option. Actually, I texted the owner of another rubber-faced Santa, who said she'd buy him.

I'm pretty sure I knew that would be her answer before I even hit "Send". I went back for him and I'm pretty glad she talked me into it. ;) My Santa is 24" tall with a rubber face, gloves, and boots. He's not in perfect condition by any means: there's a chunk out of the back of his peplum (the belt is cleverly attached to the peplum, to give him the appearance of wearing a separate coat and pants), there are marks on the rubber and some paint loss on his face and hair, and the tip of his hat seems to be covered in a glob of melted candle wax. I like him more and more every day! There are some faint markings on his gloves but I can't read them so I don't know anything about his manufacturer. Does he look familiar to any of you?

We dragged the Christmas tree up from the basement yesterday so that I can spend the week getting things decorated. I must admit that right now, the thought of having to haul out all of the boxes and bins, make a gigantic mess figuring out where to put everything, and then stow all the boxes again has me feeling completely overwhelmed. I have two events this weekend, and I have some other projects going on as well, all with top priority so I'm starting out the month already feeling completely stressed out. I think by a week from now I'll be feeling much better but for now I'm already feeling the holiday crunch.
What's your best tip for dealing with holiday stress?