Christmas Presents #1

In this family, picture-themed gifts are always the favorites! We gave picture calendars and picture frames to Josh's parents and grandparents, and his mom received a camera from his dad. Perfect!

If anyone has any picture-related gift ideas for future reference, please leave any and all ideas in my comments. Much appreciated.

Ornament Guessing Game: Answered

Clark: So, when did you get the tenament on wheels?
Eddie: Oh, that uh, that there's an RV. Yeah, yeah, I borrowed it off a buddy of mine. He took my house, I took the RV. It's a good looking vehicle, ain't it?
Clark: Yeah, it looks so nice parked in the driveway.
Eddie: Yeah, it sure does. But, don't you go falling in love with it now, because, we're taking it with us when we leave here next month.

My friend Kristen got it right - it is in fact Cousin Eddie's RV from one of our very favorite Christmas movies - Christmas Vacation*. The Brown family introduced me to their hallowed tradition when I first joined the family, and I've watched it every year since.

Cousin Eddie is our favorite character.

Maybe we just have a warped sense of humor around here, but we consistently find this movie absolutely hysterical. Which is why we LOVED our RV ornament. It will get a spot of honor on our tree this year!

*Just a warning: before you key this up for the whole family, be aware that there is a certain "pool scene" that is a bit raunchy.

Ornament Guessing Game

We opened Christmas presents with Josh's parents earlier this week, which was a ton of fun. We alternate holidays between families, and when it is our year to spend Thanksgiving with the Browns, we open presents early.

And do you know what one of our favorite gifts was this year? I mean, aside from my new camera lens?

An ornament. A very special one.

Can you guess what it is? It is directly related to one of our favorite family Christmas traditions.

10 points to whomever gets it right.

And on that random note, I wish you all a very happy and joyous Thanksgiving.

Random Thoughts

I've tried, for the last few days, to come up with something to say.

It usually isn't difficult for me.

But this time, I was going for cohesive. A story? Nothing coming to me. An opinion? Nope. So here we go - some random thoughts for you all.

1. We're in Phoenix right now visiting Josh's family. We haven't been out to visit in almost two years, and it is nice to be here with them again. Our 6 days will be filled with our favorite Phoenix restaurants, card games, movies, cookie decorating, and cooking for the big day tomorrow. What more could we ask for?

2. This trip marks the end of my constant travel, and I'm thankful for that. I haven't been to Bible Study in over a month and I worry that they think I've dropped out!

3. The holidays snuck up on me this year. All of a sudden I was all, holy cow Thanksgiving is next week. And now it is tomorrow. But I love this season, and am thrilled that it is upon us once again.

4. We always do presents with Josh's family when we're spending Thanksgiving with them. So we've done half our shopping already, and even opened presents last night.

5. We're going to try Pioneer Woman's turkey tomorrow. I've never taken the lead on the turkey before, and am excited to try my hand at it. Thankfully PW does a nice job of including step-by-step instructions. And really, it better be good after I spent $18 on Williams Sonoma brine. I'll keep you posted.

6. I'm totally excited to decorate for Christmas this year - our first year in our house. Before we left, I put up the first decoration - a wreath on the door. I'm working on Josh to agree to a real Christmas tree. He claims our little fake one will be fine, but I completely disagree. That thing is stingy-looking and doesn't deserve to make an appearance. And really, it cost us all of $30 4 years ago. It is time for it to be put to rest.

7. We're going to attempt family portraits later on this week, with Josh's grandparents, parents, and us. I'm hopeful for a good Christmas card picture.

8. Although these last couple months have been busy and stressful and all kinds of other things, there is just so much I'm thankful for about my life.

Thank you, Jesus for my husband, for keeping us safe, for our families who love and support us, for our home, for encouraging and honest conversation with friends, for our dog, and for planting my feet on your solid ground, even though I seem to fall off so very often.

Baby Gray

I spent last week in Grand Rapids, and was thrilled that my trip coincided with my cousin Chrystin's trip to town.

I love Chrystin and am always excited to see her, but what made this especially exciting for me was that she brought along this little treasure:

Gray Delano.

I loved meeting him for the first time. Isn't he sweet? I could just eat him up.

Brownie Boy

Last Week

I know, you're totally curious where I am week in, week out.

I spent last week here:


Chicago. Always a good time.

Work all day, party all night.

Well, not all night.  I get sleepy around 10.

I came home Thursday, recharged my batteries all weekend, and will soon be off on another adventure.  

Our New Bathroom

Yay, we're finally here!

It took two weeks, several trips to hardware stores, and many hours of work, but we're really pleased with how it turned out.

Sea shells? Gone.


Faucet, light fixture, and mirror? Updated.


Walls? Painted. We were going for gray, but ended up with a blue! But we liked it enough to keep it.


Vanity? Also painted - a chocolate color we have dotted all around our house. We also changed out the hardware to match the faucet and light fixture. By keeping the existing vanity and just spicing it up a bit, we saved ourselves some cash.


See the old towel bar? When we took it off, a big bunch of drywall came with it. I patched it as well as I could, but we felt it might be best to hang some pictures to hide the evidence. I really loved seeing all kinds of ornate fountains when we were in Rome this past summer, and thought some of our snapshots of them would be appropriate in a bathroom.


We've had a lot of fun with this, but are definitely glad it is all done now! It wasn't a super cheap project, but by DIY-ing it all the way and buying everything at home improvement stores, it was really pretty reasonable. And really, not too difficult. It has given me confidence to tackle other bathrooms 'round here.

But I think we're "over" home improvement projects for the next couple of months. We need a break!