December Favorites

One final time.....here's a look at my favorite pictures of the month from Project Life and Instagram: 

The day we picked up Kyle's advent calendar. I waited too long to get it from Amazon so I did the store pickup at Walmart and Kyle was SO happy!

Here's to a year of car selfies! And also actual pictures of myself in Project Life.

Mr. Attitude wasn't convinced that this was the cutest hat ever. It's Thing 1 (or Thing 2....the tag is on the back) from the Cat in the Hat books.

Tyler and kitty selfies.

Kyle and his "Halo purse".
 

Coco under the Christmas tree.

Silliness, giggles and one handsome haircut.

Tyler's Lego hot air balloon.

So there you have it. And for anyone keeping track, I didn't make it to 1000 posts. This is 996 and while I came close, I'm done regardless. It was a good 8 years, but I'm moving on.

What We Got For Christmas

Here's a look at some of the things we got for Christmas:

Tyler:

It's no surprise that some of Tyler's favorite gifts were Minecraft things. He loved the Blockopedia, and cookie cutters and already wore his new shirt on Christmas day.

He also got a few Lego kits and spent the majority of today building this one, which is a super cool bike shop and cafe.

Kyle:

One of Kyle's favorite toys this year is the Q-BA-MAZE, which is like a gravity maze marble run. He's also excited about the Simon game and Life Junior.

Also for Kyle a new Pokemon hat, a sweater and some new books. Even Carmelita will be happy about new books for storytime.

Rick:

A heat gun, a weight belt for the gym, Lord of the Rings DVD's and a Clinique for Men skin care set.

New clothes: gym shorts, polo shirt, a button down and some throwback to childhood t-shirts.

Me:

Mostly beauty gifts for me this year and I'm not complaining. I got this Clinique set that includes both skin care and makeup items. I haven't tried any of it before so I can't wait to start using it.

Also some Lorac eyeshadows, a Butter London nail polish set and Tarte blushes.
 

And a 6 month subscription to BoxyCharm. I already got 2 of the boxes (November and December) and everything looks great!

Christmas 2015

I was the first one up Christmas morning and had just enough time to make some coffee and warm up the oven for cinnamon rolls before the boys came downstairs.

Coco was under the tree as usual and I'm sure she was looking forward to the presents clearing out so it'd be a little easier to get to the bowl of tree water she loves to drink.
 

Cinnamon rolls on Christmas is the tradition and I've been making Alton Brown's overnight recipe for 3 years now. It's honestly the best recipe I've ever used.

Then it was time to open presents....

For dinner we made ham with mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beans and rolls with the choice of Costco apple or pumpkin pie for dessert.

It was a struggle to get the kids out of their pajamas for a family picture, but I was able to get it done right before the sun went down for the day.

Happy Holidays!

Advent Calendar: Days 21-24

Tyler's Lego Calendar:

Day 21: A campfire, sticks and marshmallows

Day 22: Part of a rocket (boosters)

Day 23: Rocket to attach to day 22

Day 24: Santa with a sack of toys

Thoughts: The Lego calendar remains a favorite. Santa always comes on Christmas Eve so that was no surprise, but it was nice to see new pieces like the campfire and rocket.

Kyle's Mega Block Calendar:

Day 21: A tree

Day 22: A unicorn

Day 23: A robot or maybe a drone (?)

Day 24: A festively dressed minion

Thoughts: The Mega Blocks calendar was a nice idea with a terrible execution. The faulty pieces were a joke. I just can't get over the fact that this calendar cost the exact same as the Lego calendar when the quality was so much less (and no bonus/extra pieces). As for the daily items...they seemed random at times, but we realized that everything was either holiday related or an artifact from a minion movie.

QVC Beauty Calendar:

Day 21: Mally lip gloss. Value: $6

Day 22: Algenist Anti-aging oil. Value: $20

Day 23: Clean Warm Cotton rollerball mini. Value: $10

Day 24: Peter Thomas Roth Firm X Peeling gel. Value: $7

Thoughts: According to my calculations, the total value of all 24 days is $279, so the $80 price tag for the calendar is completely worth it. Also it's cheaper than some other beauty calendars such as the one from The Body Shop. If only it had something from Laura Geller!

New and Old Favorite Ornaments

Spoiler Alert: I'm not carrying this blog into the new year. After 8 years, I'm bringing it to a close. This is post #992, so let's try really hard to make it to 1000 and go out with a bang! Yay! Okay, let's go...

Remember back in the day when I had a really big Marvin the Martian collection? And then we moved to this house and I gave it all away. I only kept one ornament and a few coffee mugs.

My oldest Hallmark Marvin ornament from 2005.

My favorite is this one from 2013.

And this one is from 2015. We don't have a Hallmark anymore in town so I had to order it online.

Recently we've started collecting the annual snowflake ornament from Swarovski. These are easy to pick up at Costco every year.

The award for the most "hugiant" (huge + giant) ornament, as Kyle would say, is the new AT&T holiday ornament. This whopper is SO much bigger than anything else we have on the tree. AT&T just wants those other ornaments to know who's boss!

Anniversary Date Night

Although our anniversary was on Monday this year, Rick and I went out to celebrate on Sunday night since that's when the sitter was available. We decided to eat somewhere downtown, but once we got there, it became apparent that most of the restaurants in the area were closed.

5 North, Carousel, and the Barrel House are all closed on Sundays, so we ended up at 2nd Street Grill. We started with drinks, a lava flow and gummy bear and a bruschetta appetizer.

For the main course I ordered the angel hair spaghetti and meatballs.

Rick had the pork medallions with garlic mashed potatoes and sauted vegetables.

For dessert we had some Starbucks ugly sweater gingerbread cookies.

 

Then while everyone else in town was over at the Majestic watching Star Wars, we went to the older Yakima Cinema and watched Brooklyn. It was a nice old fashioned love story. I'd never heard of it, but it turned out to be really good. Also we were the only ones in the theater....so that was weird.

Anniversary/Christmas flowers.
 

The traditional 5th year anniversary gift is wood, so I thought it was the perfect time to order a ManCrate for Rick's gift.

It comes with a crowbar and Rick was easily able to open it within a few minutes.
 

Inside was a breakfast kit with a box of Kodiak Pancake mix, Kodiak berry syrup, a batter dispenser, egg molds and a bacon press. Mmmm...breakfast for dinner sounds good!