Happy birthday to me!

This is quite possibly the greatest birthday present ever.
The signage - made by John to help me along the way since I'd be finding it precoffee - makes it even better.
He said Robert had a hand in this. Of course he did.
It takes two minds to put together this level of awesome.
Lucky for us, we have an outlet by the light switch. Only the one. No where else will do.

One down

Niall has big news!

 

The other one is loose, too!

I saw it on Pinterest!

I've been really enjoying the ideas I see on Pinterest. One of the ones that caught my eye this past month was an idea for how to store Christmas ornaments. I didn't think it would take much more work to put it together than it would to wrap all the ornaments up in paper to store them, and once it was done I'd have great storage for a long time! So, I've had the box of ornaments sitting around in the living room until I remembered to go out and buy plastic cups.
Today, I remembered!

 

Pinterest, I love you!

I also decided that it would be better to have more smaller boxes instead of two very large boxes, so I've been packing away things in groups. A box for the stuff that goes on the mantle. A box for the stuff that goes on the tree, a box for the Advent things... I hope I'm really happy with myself next year when it comes time to get it all out again.

Happy Little Christmas!

Christmas is now over for another year. I took the tree out of the house today. The pixie was not happy with this event, and stood on the porch yelling at me. "Hey! What you doing my Christmas tree?!" She did not agree that it was time for it to leave. I took the popcorn garlands off and hung them on our maple for the birds.

For our usual tradition, we went and got a Galette des Rois from La Farm bakery, so we could celebrate the arrival of the 3 kings to visit the infant Jesus.
Niall chose who got what slice because he was the one who got the feve last year. Who got it this year? Me!
And of course, I crowned John the king. Happy Little Christmas everyone!

It must be done

Today, we began a new phase of life. I have been diapering someone for 9 1/2 years. I switched Rowan to cloth diapers when he was 18 months old, so I have been washing diapers for 8 years. I am ready to be done.
Today's picture is part of the photo 365 collection on Flickr. This idea of taking a picture every day is pretty smart. I have to work on figuring out settings for light and shutter speed, and I also end up documenting what is going on in our lives.

 

We are not impressed with this idea.

We've been married for 11 years!

Our anniversary was last week. December 30th. According to the traditional calendars, the 11th anniversary is the steel anniversary. So, what do you do about that?

 

John got me a new stainless steel teapot, since my old one broke a couple of days ago.

 

And I got him Zoolander because, duh! BLUE STEEL!

I'm happy I married that guy. 11 years later, he's still a bunch of fun.

A post the grandparents will be happy about

One of the resolutions, added to the list, is to practice photography. I decided this kind of late in the day on Jan 1st, when the light was already gone, so had to use the flash to take a picture. I was going for one of all 3 kids, but the one of Niall, when I called him out for not listening to me at all, was the best.

 

You will find the whole set of pictures in a special album on Flickr. Feel free to call me out on it if one isn't added every day. It kind of reminds me of when Rowan was a baby, and I sent out a picture of him every day called The Daily Rowan. Good times.

2012 Reading list

I did this last year on the forum I'm on (soggy granola) and it was a lot of fun to track what I was reading and see how many books I could read in a year. So, I've decided to keep track of it on here, too. It's just a listing of what I'm reading - no matter if it's literature, doula related, or complete trash. A lot of what I read is the stuff that is offered as freebies on the Kindle - and those aren't always great books. But I'm one of those people who will ready nearly anything, and rarely walks away from a book, even if it's awful.
But I never understood the fascination of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That one is one I did walk away from. Snozz.
Anyway... this is more for my benefit than anything. It's fun to keep track of what you're reading. I might make a note of what it's about, but more often than not won't. I'll try to link the titles so I can find them again if I liked them.
So, to it!

1. Mansfield Park - Reading this one because it's Jane Austen, and I've had the movie in my netflix queue for a while now. It needs reading before I watch the movie so I can be properly disgruntled with the script. ;)
2. Murder at the Vicarage - An old Agatha Christie book.