Nifty Gifties

If you know me, you know I LOVE giving gifts. Store-bought is fine - and sometimes even great - but my mind always goes to personalized first. Anyways, here are a few of my favorites from this year. 

Now you see my mom's handwritten (and uber blotchy/dirty) recipe for the world famous "Aunt Judy's Potato Casserole")...

 

Now you see a tempered glass cutting board w/ said recipe!

 Seriously, this is one of my favorites. Ever. I think I'm going to order one for me too. Thanks to Cary Brege and Luke Mezger for some new photoshop tricks...I feel this scanned-text-as-photo skill opens up a world of crafty possibilities. Watch out world.

 (I also did one for Nana - BB's famous chocolate cake, actually from Johnny Seymore - in Nana's handwriting. But I didn't get a picture.)

But speaking of pictures...it was time for the third generation of Mezger grandbabies (aka Gen 3) to have their Christmas photos taken for Nana's wall. Mel and I boycotted Picture People and decided to try it ourselves this year. After 2 mini shoots, here were our best shots of the girls.

 And Nana opening the finished product.

The last project was ultimately a success, but it started as out a BIG FAT PINTEREST FAIL. I saw a post where someone made the game "Memory" out of 2x2 photos - printed and glued to 2x2 wood squares. The best part was some of the photos were sort of generic images, but the others were family photos. Personal! So, I decided this was going to be our gift for family friends. I selected some of my favorite "generic" photos and photos of all our family friends (most of which I had, but others I either asked for or stole from their blogs - a little, creepy, I know.) I ordered 2x2 wood squares from etsy. Bought spray paint and spray adhesive. Then it started to go downhill. 1) Not enough squares (how did I count wrong???) 2) Spray paint worked fine. 3) Spray adhesive did not - got all goopy on the spray painted side and sides. ...Sticky, yucky mess. Ended up in the trash. 

Then I went back to my comfort zone - I reprinted the photos, bought fun paper - glued it to the back of the photos, cut out and laminated. And cut again. Each family ended up with 20 squares (10 matching sets) - with anywhere from 1 to 5 family photos (depending on the family) and the rest are the fun generic photos. I thought it was pretty fun. And if I had only done it the final way it would have actually been really easy. I need to remember I like the computer and paper etc. a lot more than I like wood and glue and paint. Perhaps we'll play "memory" with some friend soon and I'll take a picture for you (and me)! 

That was pretty much it for my Christmas projects this year. I wonder who I can give a cutting board or memory game to next year? :)

More on our actual Christmas celebrations below. 

Three Days of Christmas

Christmas Day #1 (December 23rd) - Christmas with Dahdo and Pam. 

I have no pictures of these festivities - and boy, they were festive! - because they keep their house super dark and I'm totally intimidated by ambient lighting/flash photography. Plus, it was a small space with a lot of giant toys (that we skilfully left behind to be assembled by those that purchased them, ahem) so it was just too crazy. It was the first time we were together with them, Alex & Deidre and all 3 Uhr boys. Good times were had by all. Except maybe Pam who spent the entire next day putting together the castle she bought Rebecca. That's no exaggeration - even the door hinges had to be put on the doors. Never again, she says. :)

Our Christmas Day #2 (Christmas Eve) begin with a PARENT CHALLENGE: Put together a trampoline in the backyard with the at home without them knowing about it. I'm happy to report that due to some outright lying and all-around sneakiness the mission was a SUCCESS!

 The kids thought Kyle was at work and I managed to keep them out of the backyard (not hard, because I usually have to force them to go play in the backyard...hence the trampoline). I think it took him about 4 hours. Superdad. Especially considering he's going to have to take it down and put it back together in a few months. 

Christmas Day #1 Part 2: Christmas Eve at Bee & JoJo's house. Again few photos.
 Dang mood lighting. 

Can you see Rebecca in there? It's a sandwhich!

 Looks like we've got another wanna-be-photographer in the family - Alex, with his super cool underwater camera - for all his shark dives. He's pumped and we're all terrified.

 JoJo just taking in the mahem.

Christmas Day #3 - Actual Christmas Day!

Sporting the matching jammies they received at Bee's the night before. (They match the Other Mezger's kids jammies too! We'll need to do an after Christmas jammie party!)

 Stocking time!

 Spinning in the Bilbo Chairs (thanks Bee!)

 Maggie marveling at her way-breakable porcelain tea set. Rebecca got one at her age. Apparently the tradition is to give the kids things they can't play with for several years. :) Is that it, Bee? :)

Owen realizing the "fragile" box is the microscope he had been asking for since he learned what a microscope was. We've already looked at lots of the slides including the flea, bacteria, white and red blood cells and Owen's hair.

 After opening their gifts to each other, Kyle and I told them we thought there might be one more gift outside that we forgot to wrap. Kyle got this on video.

Yippee!!!!!

 After breakfast caserole and monkey bread (I think we have a tradition now) for breakfast, we cleaned up a little and headed to Franny's for Christmas Day #3 Part 2. We were greeted by Buddy himself. (I really hope the Mezgers do a Christmas for Halloween costume thing some year. Now they have no excuse.)

 I seriously took NO pictures at this joyous event either because Luke and Mel got a new DSLR camera. I'm off the hook now! Thanks to Mel for the photos. 

After gift-opening craziness...we celebrated Jesus' Birthday with (of course) his birthday cake. Mel did the cake this year and had the awesome idea to use the Little People Nativity people on top. Genius! Blake seemed to like it too!

 Happy Birthday Jesus!

We are so thankful that we have most of our family sooooo close - what a treat to not have to get on a plane or in a car for more than just a few minutes to celebrate with everyone. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Amanda and the Fabulous Coat

Full Christmas Report coming soon, but in the meantime...

My dear friend Amanda (from my famed Bookers book club) gave me the best gift ever - she asked me to take her pictures! She had been given her grandmother's fur coat from the 30's and her mom and aunt wanted her to have pictures taken in it - her grandmother is ailing and they knew it would mean a lot to her. She had her hair and makeup professionally done (a little bit period, but totally beautiful) and we had a whole afternoon set aside. We were going to go to the Capital grounds or the Driskill Hotel but ended up at this incredible historic home in the Castle Hill area of town thanks to a friend - we had awesome locations within our one location!!! I think we kept about 40 photos from the shoot, but I definitely have 3 favorites...

 Favorite Contender #1

Favorite Contender #2 (probably my favorite)

Favorite Contender #3

Honorable Mention:

Seriously, isn't she gorgeous????!!!! I seriously can't tell you how fun it was to take picture of someone other than my kids. I love my kids. But they don't listen and they don't sit still and they're not GORGEOUS AND FABULOUS! Seriously, one of the best afternoons I've had in a long long time. I have sooooooooo much to learn about photography stuff but I really really enjoy it and it was such a treat to get to practice with such a fun subject! Cheers Amanda! (PS - these are the raw images - no editing yet!)

2 (not 50) Shades of Gray

I know this stuff is bound to happen in the process of building a house, and I'm honestly surprised we haven't had more of it (or maybe we have and I just have a selective memory) - but we had some house angst/drama last week. PICKING PAINT COLORS IS REALLY TRICKY!

There is a new home in our new neighborhood and I've always liked the color scheme. It has a similar style to our house and every time I've driven by it (all times of day, all times of weather) I notice how much I like the gray paint they used. It's a good gray - not too blue, not too taupy, not too dark or light. A good, solid, gray. So, after looking at it with our architect and confirming that she also thought it was a good gray, Luke called the builder, got the exact color and we said - YES! - paint the house! No color test swatches, just paint it. Oooops. 

Looooooooooooong story short. It was the wrong color. Well, it was the right color, but on the wrong/different base, so the color looked a lot different. You can sort of see it here - the entire house got painted what you see (kind of taupy gray) - and the color from the other house is that little square wrapping the corner - much more grayish. Yep, we figured this out after the entire house had been painted. Luckily for us, since they goofed on the base they repainted it on their dime.

 So, after a half day waiting around on the painter and the paint, and comparing it again to the other house, blah blah blah, the house got painted the right color. And I'll be honest - I don't love it. I'm not even really sure I like it. Even though I'm convinced its the same paint as the other house, I still don't think it looks the same. Some of it is the direction the house is facing (they face W, we face N) but a lot has to do with the fact that they have a lot more white trim. And yes, we used the same color white paint (we even have the exact same dark gray roof - after it was torn off and put on again - after being put on in the wrong color - oops!). It's just one of those things that happens. I think once we get everything finished - the porch/front doors, landscaping, I'll warm up to it. It is what it is. But just don't tell me you love our brown/taupe house.  It's supposed to be gray. :)

 On fun happy news...these giant piles of sheet rock are going to be our walls soon - probably tomorrow! (I think they did spray-foam insulation yesterday but that stuff is pretty nasty so we have been staying away._

About 2 weeks ago we spent about 4 hours walking through the house w/ Luke (builder) and Celeste (architect/designer) going through every little detail re: plumbing, electrical, framing so that stuff is right before the walls go up. Found lots of little things - most of which were things we decided to change "in the field" - Celeste confirmed that Luke runs a tight ship! So, we should have walls very soon! Merry Christmas to me!

Pre-Christmas Festivities

Here's a little glimpse into some of our pre-Christmas festivities. 

  

Around the House

Owen was super excited to decorate our house. He was very sweet about wanting to help even though I used grabby-Maggie as my excuse to not get a real Christmas tree. (He and Rebecca both got to help decorate Nana's tree - which they loved. And Nana was super forgiving as more and more of her glass balls met their shattery fate on her hardwood floors in the process.) We hung up most of our favorite/special ornaments on this here metal tree thingy. 

 Our family of 5 Mezger ornament from last year. The lucky German pickle.

 Moravian star and of course a Gig'em Aggies shout-out. (I need a good Vandy ornament!)

 Lots of travel ornaments. And of course lots of handmade kid goodies.

 Our play nativity set. Maggie wreaks havoc. Rebecca lines everybody up at attention. Baby Jesus was missing for a long time - I honestly thought maybe he didn't get packed away last year - but Kyle found him hiding out under a bookshelf. Yea!

 Our little Advent tree. We are using the same set of little story book ornaments to walk through the Christmas story with the kiddos. I'll admit it's not every night, but we catch up. Owen enjoys them a lot - almost as much as he likes moving the candy-cane on his little count-down calendar. He is all over knowing what date it is but he says September a lot.

Christmas Cookies with Bee - An Annual Tradition

  Mom's Sugar Cookie Recipe... And my Pillsbury dough. Give me grace, people. :)

 Owen still wears his Christmas jammies from last year - a little short all around. Rebecca was sans clothing as usual - I was able to keep the apron on her for a little bit.

 Yum.

 Maggie joining in on the fun!!!

Yea!!!

 Yum!

Everybody gets a taste.

 Cookie facce?

 The finished products. Owen was very serious about keeping all the colored icing separate while Rebecca was intent on putting every color on every cookie (see Rainbow Angel below)...not exactly on the same page.

 Bee w/ her little bakers.

 Mee w/ my little bakers. (Do I always look that tired? Don't answer that.)

Christmas Performances

 Nana/Franny has been taking Owen and Bailey to a preschool choir "bootcamp" at her church every Sunday evening for the past 5-6 weeks. They sang once on Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago and then had their BIG PERFORMANCE at the church's tree-lighting ceremony the following Sunday evening. I'm not sure I can honestly say the kids did great. How about, the kids did what kids do. And that's great. :)

 Owen kept Rebecca up the night before because he "needed to practice for his big performance" - he kept naming all of the people (all the local grandparents) who were going to come watch - telling R that she could come too. He'd even let her have some hot chocolate afterwards. So serious!

 Then Preschool ended with the traditional Las Posadas (parade of the Holy Family looking for a room at the inn)...Rebecca's class sang two songs.

 Owen's class sang three songs.

 This one had cute hand motions..."way down in Bethlehem"...

Owen/Mommy Date

A month ago I bought tickets to see a play at the Scottish Rite Theatre on UT's campus - a production of a children's book (Junie B. Jones series) play called "Jingle Bells Batman Smells". A bunch of moms from preschool were all taking their kids from Owen's class. I kept it a secret and told Owen last week I had a special date planned with him on Saturday. And here are our feet as we strapped on our ice skates. ?????? What???????

Apparently, I bought tickets for a 2pm showing on December 2nd. I thought I bought tickets for December 22nd like the rest of his class. The show on December 22nd started at 1pm. So we were an hour late - too late to go in. So, in mommy panic, I started throwing out things we could go do. (Owen was so gracious, by the way, he immediately forgave me and then insisted it probably was the ticket person's fault. Sweet boy.) Anyways, we ended up at the ice skating rink on the top of Whole Foods at 5th/Lamar. I was thrilled this is what he picked!

 Here is he on the ice. (He will proudly tell you all about it, including the fact that his skates had 2 blades each since it was his first time.)

 On the rink.

Sharing a green smoothly (and maybe some less healthy stuff) afterwards.

And now it's Christmas Even. Whoa! And I can tell you this...Kyle is in the backyard as I type setting up the TRAMPOLINE we got the kids for Christmas. Shhhhhhhh! Merry Christmas everyone!