Delivering Holiday Cheer

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Swearing we’ll send out holiday cards this year…  Our act was so not together last time, but I’m calling a November 7 wedding date a pretty good excuse.  I think we sat around in the “holy crap did we just get married?” fog for at least a few weeks.  Not to mention the very important yet rather tedious task of sending out thank-you notes for wedding gifts.  And really, I have to admit that we didn’t have our act quite together for those notes either.  I’m afraid some of our guests didn’t get their thank-you’s in the mail until Januar February.

So if the wedding came first and we got our notes out by February, you can only imagine when our Christmas cards would have arrived.  Opening a “Let it Snow!” card in March is bound to push people over the edge.

I’ve started rounding up a few of my favorite greetings with the hopes that we’ll do things like order them…sign them…address them…and maybe, just maybe, drop them in the mailbox.

And PS – speaking of thank-you’s – would it be so bad to go 1st grader style and send out these for my Christmas gifts this year?

(source)

…and do they make them for weddings?

 

Holiday Cards, clockwise from the top:

Merry Little Christmas

Gang of Gnomes

Custom Holiday Wreath

Daddy’s Stocking

Two Turtle Doves

Honey, have you seen my keys?

This past summer I caught a clever little DIY project on Young House Love and thought, I could totally do that.  John and Sherry, the delightful duo behind YHL, made a habit of holding onto the keys from their old living quarters.  Rather than tossing them into a junk drawer, John and Sherry have four keys from their past framed up in a shadow box and on display in their home.

To be honest, the idea of keeping our keys hadn’t ever occurred to me.  But this post popped up just as we were preparing to surrender our condo and I decided to get crafty.

My decision to get crafty and my actual attempt at craftiness occurred about three months apart (typical).  But within that time I also stumbled upon the YessJess Etsy shop and fell in love with her adorable knit creations. I found this Little Knit Heart in Mustard Yellow and decided it was the perfect addition to my key collage.  

Adorable, no?

A few drops of super glue later I had the newest addition to our home decor:

Probably the only missing piece is a tiny hammer with a “break glass in case of emergency” sign for when I inevitably lose my house key.

Ladies, just another example for your men on the extreme importance of decorating your home.

HalloWinner

Yesterday was our office’s annual Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest.  Competition is fiercer every year and the longer I participate the more I’ve come to learn that the competition isn’t so much about carving as it is about getting creative with props.  If you’re just showing up with a few dinky carving knives and “neat idea”, you may as well not show up at all.

My team didn’t win this year.  The winners turned their pumpkin into a Chilean miner rescue scene complete with escape capsule and segregated wife/mistress holding pens – how am I supposed to compete with an international miracle?  

And I know what you really want to see is how exactly the winners made their pumpkin into a mine but if you saw theirs you’d be all, AWESOME! and then when you saw ours you’d be all, Awww, A for effort!

So our pumpkin wasn’t miraculous but I really did like it – so much so that I brought it home to live at our house:

See?  Now you’re all, What up, Martha Stewart?  Who needs miners when you’ve got flying plastic bats!

Arts and Crafts

When was the last time you made a paper countdown chain?

My latest is hanging on the corner of my computer monitor at work – counting down the days until our anniversary trip to Chicago. 

And its made out of legal pad paper, so you know it’s totally grown up and office appropriate.

It Has Been Determined…

I spent last weekend at an incredible cabin up north.  While I was relaxing with my girlfriends and a very special bride to be, I discovered a few things…

face masks feel lusher by the lake

 

grapes taste fancier on the patio

 

sunrises look prettier through the treetops

 

And when I came home to my husband, we determined this:

 

s’mores aren’t easier on a George Foreman

 

Isn’t learning new things fun?

Return from Pretendland

 

We had so much fun at Homecoming last weekend.

 

Thanks for hosting us, Sistafriend!

This Time Last Year…

Lately I’ve become a bit nostalgic for October 2009. 

Last year Ross and I planned a little get away to Duluth, MN to celebrate our third dating anniversary and to capture the last bit of time we had to ourselves before the “one month ’till the wedding” madness really took over.

It was the first time we had ever taken a trip together and we had a fantastic time visiting museums, exploring our hotel and soaking up the fall scenery.

 

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A lot of fantastic things have happened in the past year including, of course, our wedding.  But does anyone else out there miss the anticipation?  Any wedding planning woes aside, I look back on the last month before our wedding with such fondness.  We were exhausted and nervous and excited all at the same time, and I think I miss it a little bit.

But what we missed out on last year, we get to take advantage of this year!  Our Duluth trip was the same weekend as Luther College Homecoming ’09, so we didn’t make our annual trip to our alma mater.  But this year, us married folk (along with several alumni buddies) are headed south for a magical weekend in Decorah, IA, or as we fondly call it, Pretendland. <3

Oh! And since the forecast for October 9 in Decorah is a balmy eighty-six degrees, I’m filing tubing down the Upper Iowa river under: “not completely off the table”.

See you on Sunday!

50-Yard Lines and Free Candy

Last weekend Ross and I had the opportunity to watch the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers play at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.  We were excited to see the stadium for the first time (it just opened last fall) and we lucked out with awesome seats on the 50-yard line.

Last weekend happened to be Homecoming so along with the elevated excitement the stadium was teeming with adorable senior alumni, including this snazzy dude who we’re pretty sure used to play for the team.

Ross almost died of embarrasment when he noticed me sneaking that shot.

It was cute to see so many of these old folks out to support their alma mater, but I can’t tell you how many times I nearly lurched into the aisle convinced that one of them was going to fall down the stairs while trying to balance their decaf and cracker jacks.

And speaking of food, we ate lots of it.  The worst of which, unfortunately, were the cheese curds and fries we bee-lined for immediately upon arrival.  Just look at me smiling with naïveté.  I was just giddy over the chance to eat fried food before noon.

Truth be told, they tasted like they were yesterday’s leftovers. Not to worry. We covered up the taste with mini dounuts.

So the food situation wasn’t a total loss in the end.  And while I was headed up the aisle one of those adorable alumni seniors gave me a huge grin and shoved a Werthers candy in my face.

Ross: What the…?

Me: I don’t know, he just handed it to me.  At least it’s gold!  Where’s your team spirit, Stedman?

Ross: Weird, don’t eat that.

While I was digging through my purse yesterday I found it. 

And ate it.

Still alive, honey!

Tastes Like Monday

Big news, you guys…

Cupcake Monday is back.

The baker at Ross’ office has finally fired up the oven again for the fall season. Yesterday I got the text message I’ve been waiting for from Ross: CUPCAKE MONDAY!  He went on to explain that it was, “I don’t know, some kind of, uh, rosewater something?”

It tasted much fancier than Ross made it sound.

The Curse of the DVR

Last night, while finally sitting down to watch last Thursday’s 30 Rock:

 

Ross: Oh God, honey. The Tivo is already at 70% capacity.

Me: I know. I don’t want to talk about it.

 

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