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Our most unique gifts so far. The videos speak for themselves.

Christmas Lights!

Holy Frijoles, it's that time of year again! Time to look at all the decorated houses! It is always interesting to see how much or how little people do with their lights. You know the house down the road that puts one strand of lights halfway up the tree and then tosses another strand so it barely fits on a bush, those are not the houses in today's spotlight. Only the biggest and brightest are allowed.

These folks have the largest tree in the world! And a very considerate floor plan.

Soooo many lights. Jenee and I were wondering where they store all of this stuff during the rest of the year. The lights would probably fill every room in that little house.

Look at all those toy soldiers!

Santa hulked up to wrassle that SUV! It's on like Donkey Kong!

You can barely see the red bulb for the nose. Rudolph looks very surprised.

That's inventive; don't decorate the tree in the house, decorate the house in the tree.

Santa got a little tipsy at the Log Cabin and forgot his keys. Now I know where he got the rosy nose and the beer belly.

Posted by Jason.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We're starting the celebrations today and tomorrow in Chicago with Jason's parents and then we'll be heading to Michigan. Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday!

More Thanksgiving

After Thanksgiving Dinner, we took a walk to see the Christmas trees in the city and the Macy's windows. This is the tree at the Hancock Center.

Yesterday we did a little Black Friday shopping in the morning and then had another nice Thanksgiving Dinner at Jason's dad's. Today we're eating leftovers and relaxing. Long weekends are so nice.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We're thankful for so many things! Friends and family are on the top of the list. Last weekend we got to hang out with my friends from school. Wendy and Eric flew in from San Fran and Katie and Brett came from MI to visit. We had a really great time and wish we all lived closer so we could hang out more often. On Saturday, Kari joined us and we went to the DIY Trunk Show. Here we are after:

A couple of weeks ago we had professional photos taken with Jason's mom. This is my favorite so far (we've only seen a handful of them - more to come).

Today, Jason's mom was in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade (balloon handling) and then came over for Thanksgiving Dinner. The turkey is in the oven now. Last night we made two pumpkin desserts. This is our pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.

And these are our pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. We saw these on TV yesterday and got the recipe here http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/george-duran/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe/index.html. They are delicious and we'll definitely make them again.

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Cookies Are Comfort Food

Cut-out cookies were always our favorite holiday treat. This week we got this little package in the mail from MI. Thanks mom!

Jason and I made cookies that I took to work for a co-worker's birthday today. They are thumbprint molasses cookies and I got the recipe at a cookie exchange a few years ago. This year we are having a bake-off at our office so making these was good practice. I still haven't decided on the recipe to use yet, but this will be on the list of options.

Practice Thanksgiving

We practiced making Thanksgiving dinner recently. It seemed like a good reason to eat one of our favorite meals. We did a pretty good job and we're looking forward to the real Thanksgiving Dinner in a few weeks!

Jewelry Class

I took a jewelry class yesterday at Beadniks. We learned how to stamp on metal pendants. It was fun until I missed the stamp and hammered my thumb. I don't think I will make this a long term hobby. Here is a necklace I made. I really like it. Even though my thumb hurts, I'm happy I went.

Birthday Cupcakes

We had a lot of cupcakes for Jason's birthday. I went to the bakery a couple blocks away and picked up BLT (yup bacon) cupcakes that Jason took to work to share. I should have gotten a picture - they even had a tomato on top!

I also got a couple cupcakes (not bacon) for us. This is the pumpkin cupcake with pumpkin seed brittle on top. Delicious.

On Jason's birthday, we met his mom and went to a play about Wrestling, but before...we stopped at a cupcake shop (they are popping up all over the place) and got cupcakes. Yum.

And since we hadn't had enough cupcakes, we made some at home too! Most of them are still in the freezer so we can enjoy them for a while.

Weekend in Indianapolis

Jason's birthday was last weekend. The weekend before we took a weekend trip to Indianapolis - to celebrate his birthday. Neither of us had been there and we really enjoyed it. We spent some time in the city and in the suburbs. We went to wrestling, had dinner and saw a movie, went to a pumpkin patch, and an apple store.

Here we are at the pumpkin patch:

This donkey really wanted to eat our pumpkin.

Oops, I mean this donkey. He really tried to eat our pumpkin a few times! Donkeys will eat anything!

Crochet - My New Craft

When Jason and I were in Geneva this summer, I was inspired to learn how to crochet. I bought a handmade crochet hat and matching yarn to make a scarf. After a crochet class with my mom in MI and a granny square class last weekend, I am on my way.

Dishcloths are good for practice.

These are my granny squares. The big one isn't as square as I would like, so I've decided to make little squares and stitch them together...hopefully I'll have an afghan one day.

This little critter (he's a manatee) will be going to Florida for the winter with my mom and dad.

Necklaces

Going to Renegade always inspires me to get crafty. This has been on my to-do list for a while. I made this one last night and it just seemed too big...


So I made this smaller one today. I think I'll wear this one more often.

Renegade!

We went to Renegade today. I look forward to it every year and this year was great. The weather was beautiful and there were so many amazing crafters there. And we even ran into my cousin, Marcy. It was nice to see her. Here are my Renegade goodies and a couple other pictures from today.

Quilts

This one was delivered to baby Reed on our trip to MI.

And this is my latest quilting project.

Houghton Lake - Wildlife

Michigan - Houghton Lake

Relaxing at Houghton Lake...