Christmas Montage #2

 We went to South Lake Tahoe with Lee's dad, step-mom, and some of his sisters for a few days before Christmas.  I LOVE TAHOE.  It was so beautiful, even if it was a little blinding.

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 You can tell you are really loved when two people fore-go actually snowboarding/skiing and instead stop on a hill on the side of the road to spend time to teach you the ropes.  In spite of these photos, I did actually improve.

 

Lee managed to make several snow creatures, as well as eat snow that had been trampled by children for the six previous hours.  

Delicious.

And how cute is Lauren?

Pretty cute.

 We also spent time opening presents, hanging out in the spa, gambling (Lee) and catching up on a little reading.

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On Christmas day we spent time with my family and with Lee's mom and step-dad.  It was all awesome. 

Plus, we were gifted THREE "Lee and Robin 2010" ornaments.

This one is my favorite because Lee is the gingerbread person in a dress.

(You have to look closely at the names written on the feet)

Christmas Montage

Oh, hello blog!  December essentially swallowed me up, and I have carelessly neglected you for the better part of a month.  Well...I also dropped my personal computer and cracked the LCD screen and it is just now getting fixed by the GENIUSES at the Genius bar (to the tune of $300.  Vomit.). I tried to hold out until it was fixed so I didn't have to upload my pictures to my work computer, but my camera is now full, so it's time again to blog.

Because I waited so so long to blog about most of Christmas events they will be presented to the world in a short montage with some biting (humorous?) comments to ease the pain of what will probably come across like a modern day slide show.  Hold on to your hats.  Also, MERRY CHRISTMAS (four days later).

 

For some reason I decided that I am a candy maker.  

Lots of people received homemade caramel for their Christmas present.  You see, caramel is cheap AND delicious.  I think it was a hit, and if it wasn't, no one let on, as the TRUE meaning of Christmas is pretending to like gifts you'd actually like to send back.  Way to go, family!

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The Norrells had a party.  They are some of my most hilarious/wonderful friends.  Kristy is world's best homemaker.  She made EVERYTHING in the pictures above.   It's too bad she's not Mormon because she would be really good at the whole house-wifery and feeding large numbers of people thing.

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Camera Found! Holiday Shwag Created!

My camera has been found.  It was hiding in the couch cushion just as I had suspected.

More importantly, I spent the whole weekend doing Christmas-y things and watching movies (The Sting loved and The Big Chill meh).

I've always known that I love Martha Stewart, and I don't even care about the whole prison thing.  As far as I'm concerned, she left that prison in a blaze of glory with perfectly folded sheets and passed the warden a hand written thank-you note (on beautiful stationary with die-cut corners, no less).  That prison has probably never smelled better, nor experienced such expertly crafted center pieces in the cafeteria.  So, yes, I love Martha Stewart, but I've recently gotten really into her website.  It has delicious, fairly easy recipes, and they are always so cute and creative.

Being that it is nearly Christmas, I opted to make the Candy Cane Marshmallows.  Wow, I never knew marshmallows were so cute or so delicious.  Go me! (Or, I guess Martha.  I love you, Martha.)

 You have to let your marshmallows congeal in a pan dripping with cooking spray.

Delicious.

Then, you cut the marshmallows into a hot-chocolate-flavoring size.

Finally, you store your marshmallows in a jam jar because you wish you were Martha Stewart.

In a less edible endeavor, I've decided that I want to have a lot of home-made holiday decorations.

I saw this garland on anthropologie.com, and I think it's pretty cute.

But do you want to know how much it is?  

$128.00.  

That's a lot of money for some holiday cheer.

Please see expensive garland here.

Not wanting to blow my entire Christmas wad on one home made-ish item, I went on an excursion to Michaels and compiled these materials:

• ribbon
• felt
• bandanas
• hot glue
• yarn

 I laid them all out on my desk so I could take a picture of them for the blog :)

Next, I cut the bandanas into triangles, glued a contrasting ribbon on top for trim, and glued letters that I cut out of felt on front.

Then I hot-glued them to a piece of yarn.

Ta da!

Speaking of my desk...

I found this desk at Excellent Williams (Good Will),

 painted it the color of macaroni, and added cute knobs.

And radioactive desk was born!

The Best Part of the Holidays

First of all, I can't find my camera, which is making the blogging a little difficult, but a large-scale search involving the depths of the couch cushions and the bottom of a pile of laundry is being launched tomorrow, so to be continued on that.

More importantly, Christmas season is here!

I really love Christmas.  I love the smells, I love snow, I love scarves, I love the trees, and the presents, and the magic.  (I really do think it's magic).  This year; however, I've found something that I think I love most of all:  The Holiday Target Lady.  You can check out all of the commercials here, but I warn you to do so with an empty bladder.  I nearly pee myself every time one of these flashes across the TV.