-- Slurpy --

I have an awful lot of christmassy stuff to write up, and I'm almost ready to do that, but in the meantime we had spaghetti for dinner last night. Check it out.




He actually didn't get much spaghetti on the table, but his face was VERY dirty when we got done.
Later!

-> Christmas Decor 3rd and final part <-

The tree! This is kind of long, are you ready??
Take a look:
It was tough to get a good picture of the whole thing, so this is about as good as it's going to get.
We're happy with the tree this year. There are less ornaments on it than I usually have, because I was afraid the combo of the little Max, the big Sultan and the hardwood floor would result in some broken ornaments. I think I made the right call, at least none of my favorite ornaments have been broken this year so far.
A little bit of a closer look. If you've ever seen my parent's tree it makes this one look a little sparse, we're cool with how it looks for sure.
A few old classic and favorite ornaments for your viewing pleasure.
I got this little fish when I was probably 10 or so. It's one of my all time favorites. I love how sparkly it is.
Another, much more special fish. My mom made this fish last year for Max. It's a spitting image of his "Mama Fish" who has been his best friend ever since I gave it to him on his first christmas. :)
This is the adorable new ornament my mom made for me this year. I love it. The beads are so beautiful and I love the starts and the sheep. Thanks mom!
This beautiful snowflake my friend Amy made for me last year. I love it. Amy's a really skilled knitter. It's fun to have a piece of her on our tree.
A total classic! This is Kris's cosmic santa ornament he made for the Randle Christmas party the first year. I love it.
Kris's mom gave us this sock monkey ornament last year. He isn't on the tree right now. If you guessed that he's maybe sleeping in Max's bed with him you'd be right! Yeah, Max has adopted him. We'll see if I'll be able to put him away with the rest of the ornaments after Christmas. I'll tell the full sock monkey story on the blog one of these days.
One of my new favorites, Max made this beautiful snowflake at school this week. I love it!
So there's the tree. We've really been enjoying it and I'll be sad when it's time to put it away.
Thanks for all the wonderful ornaments that we've been given over the years, it's so fun to get them out and remember them every Christmas time. Oh, and I got a couple of new ornaments in the last couple of days that I haven't had a chance to get a picture of yet. I'll post them soon hopefully.
To all a good night....

~ K ~

A quick glimpse into Kuh week at Max's wondrous school.
For snacks among other things they ate:
Kiwis
Kale
Polish Kielbasa Sausages
and Kohlrabi

Wow. I just can't imagine how they got the kids to eat kohlrabi. I'm lucky I even know what it is, I don't think I've ever eaten it? Anybody out there ever snacked on kohlrabi? I have eaten kale, but only once. It was pretty good.

My favorite thing they talked about that week was Komodo Dragons. You know, those crazy huge endangered species that live in Asia somewhere?
I was quizzing him about the dragons and I asked him what they eat. He told me very matter-of-factly, "They eat other komodo dragons!" So I figured that was just him being a little silly weirdo. I just laughed and told Kris about it later.
Today however, I looked up komodo dragons online and learned that in fact they are carnivores, and in fact they do sometimes eat smaller komodo dragons!!!
So now I've learned my lesson... next time he tells me something like a snake is a mammal, or a bear lays eggs or that Land Grovers live mainly in South America and they're mammals I'm going to go and double check it before I tell him he's wrong! He's a smart little goofball. It's fun that he gets to teach me stuff sometimes. BUT he did tell me that Komodo dragons are warm-blooded though, and I know that's not true. I checked into it!

+) The Festive Preparations Continue (+

I think the following photos speak for themselves:
I love the sparkley ribbons below. They make me really happy.
I actually really like to wrap presents. Well, I like to as long as the house is quiet and the rug isn't covered with dog hair and if I can watch TV or listen to some music while I do it.
I actually tried to get Max to help me wrap some stuff the other day and it was a fiasco. It was like he all of a sudden grew about 10 extra hands and was grabbing and squashing everything in sight. There was nothing I could do to make him stop. Then he started jumping around and that was the end of it.
So I'm not going to try that again for a while.
If there's anybody out there that wants to trade cooking dinner for wrapping presents I'll do it. Just let me know!

I also like to make cookies. Ok, well let me be a little more specific. I love the IDEA of making cookies, and think about doing it all the time. I also like eating the cookies (I mean seriously, who doesn't?) but I don't so much like the stuff in between, I mean like the cooking and stuff.
But I do end up doing it sometimes anyway. Christmastime especially.
Do these pictures make you drool? I hope so!
Yum Yum.

|| Super-Cool Sledding ||

What could be a better christmastime activity than sledding?! Max has never yet gotten much of a chance to play in the show. It doesn't really snow as much out here in Missouri as it does in Utah or Colorado, and the snow usually ends up pretty icy. So anyway, we had a bit of an ice storm last week, and then this last weekend there was a fun snowstorm. The ice with the snow on top of it made our local park into a sledding mecca. It was great.
I was a little worried though because Max doesn't have any snowpants. He was just wearing his jeans with PJ pants underneath. By the end he was looking like a walking snowman, I figured he was soaked. So I decided we should leave and it broke his heart. We told him he could sled two more times and he said "I need to go LOTS more times!!" We got him home and he was cold and freezing but dry, thank goodness.
It was a blast! Hopefully we'll get to do it a couple more times before the winter's up.
Here's a fun video I made, it's kinda like being there except not as cold. Enjoy!

* Just a Bit of Christmas Fun *

It's been a while since I've put up any fun old pictures, so I thought it was high time to put some up. Here are a couple of christmassy ones.

Here I am with my favorite old car. I'm not sure what year this is, but I think it could easily be either 1990 or 1991. I found this picture on an old roll of film that was rattling around in my stuff in college. I got it developed and found a few great classics.
I totally remember those pants. Very cool at the time, high waisted, pleated and acid washed. That VW we had was the best car ever. Big enough for all of us and all our stuff on trips, and lots of headroom. It was also great the way we had to turn the heater on to get up really big hills in the summer time. I can't remember Dad, did we have to push start this particular van a lot, or was that the older ones?
You can see on my face how excited I am about the christmas tree. I love christmas trees, especially live ones and I always loved picking them out and bringing them home. They just smell so great and look so fun. I miss having a real tree. Sometime soon when we're done with school and all that we'll get to have real trees again!
Next:

Christmas dance at Provo High in 1996. Girl's choice. Oh look at all my friends that I never see anymore. How fun! And isn't that a lovely collection of sweaters? Quite a festive snowflake backgroud too. Amy and I had planned going to the christmas dance together in a group ever since we realized that we had semi-matching sweaters.
Merry christmas to all my old friends! I had such a great time in high school because I had such great friends. I definitely feel lucky.
Later....

-) Holiday Home Tour (-

Hi everyone!! Welcome to the holiday decorations tour of my home that I've put together for the BooMama Christmas Tour of Homes. I think that the tour is the best idea ever, by the way.
Earlier this year we moved into a small 900 square foot house, which was a big adjustment (we lost about 1200 square feet in the move). So I had to rethink a lot of my decorating this year.
Let's start in the breakfast room off the kitchen.
This isn't the greatest picture, but I hung these ornaments from the ceiling over our small table. It's the table we always use to eat at, so it's fun to have it a little more festive in there, and I love that the ornaments are out of the range of grabby 3 year old fingers.
Next is my dining room table.
I put together an advents calender type thing for my three year old where he opened one present per day starting Dec 1st. I put those little gifts in a red and green bowl and mixed them with pinecones and ornaments. They're on either side of my nativity that I love so much from Willie Rae studios. Click for a closer look. I don't think they make this nativity set any more, unfortunately.

I love how the bowls turned out, and the advents presents have helped my little one to keep track of the days really well. It's been fun.

The bowls are starting to look pretty empty now though, with so few days left....


Next to the living room. I have a great old fireplace in this house with a nice mantle, so I enjoyed decorating it.

I got those beautiful stocking hangers from Pier 1 two years ago after christmas for 75% off. Whoo hoo!
I love how the bowls of ornaments turned out, and the only thing I wish I could've done differently is had real pine up there on the mantle instead of fake. But oh well.
Here are some various friends I've collected the last few years on the windowsills next to the fireplace.
My mom made one of the reindeer. She's amazing!

The tree is directly to the left of the mantle. It has less ornaments on it this year than it usually does. We have a hardwood floor, and I was a little worried that between the 3 yr old and our large hairy german shepherd, some of my favorites might end up shattered on the floor. So those stayed in the box for next year.
I like my tree to have a lot of fun different ornaments on it, and I love the multi colored lights.
The only consistent thing on the tree is a whole bunch of red jingle bells. I got those when my 3 year old was 1. That was all I decorated the tree with that year. It was a good idea.
I love live trees the most, but this little artificial tree has been really good for us to have the last few years, it's accommodated our student lifestyle quite well. Maybe next year I can get a live tree.
Close ups on a couple of favorite ornaments:
I think this fish also came from Pier One. I've had it for probably about 15 yrs or more.
This is my mom's creation for this year. She makes at least one new ornament every christmas and I'm the lucky recipient. My tree wouldn't be nearly the same without my wonderful mom!

A lovely snowflake made by my dear friend Amy.

The finishing touch? A $15 dollar wreath from Costco that makes my house smell divinely like christmas every time the heater comes on. Thank you costco!!
So that wraps up the quick tour of our house. Thanks for looking! I wish I could give you some hot chocolate, but we'll just have to do that another time.

Merry christmas from our house to yours!!!

-> Christmas Decor Part 2 <-

Here is my mantlepiece. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I really don't have too much to say about it I guess, but it does make our living room feel really cozy and christmassy. I love having nice mantles or fireplace ledges or whatever to decorate. They're my favorite.
Some detail:
Some friends adorning the window sills:

The tree will be part three! Thanks for checking these posts out--these are mostly for my moms and family who won't be seeing us for christmas, but if they make anyone else smile then that's great!

...The Evening News...

One of my ice storm pictures got to be on the news last night!
I sent in a few to the weather team at our local NBC station, which we often watch, and sure enough, we watched that night and there was my picture! It made me happy.
Here's the famous picture itself. Yay!