Picture People

Not bad for a $20 Groupon, even if we had to drive up to Park Meadows. We have a few extra 5x7s, 4x6s, and wallets of the far right pictures on the bottom two rows. However, let me know if you'd like to buy any others.

Santa's Little Helpers

Five Years Old

Our little princess turned five this week. Stacey's parents and her brothers, Matt and Pat, all flew down for Julia's big party on Saturday. Julia wanted a princess theme this year, so the party goods and her outfit were all part of the theme. She wore her Halloween costume that Michelle made to the party as well as receiving a few extra gowns, tiaras, and slippers for every occasion. Jonathan had to follow in his sister's footsteps, so he quickly wanted to change into his costume too.

She didn't want a big party this year with other kids her age, but she did want her neighbor friend Julia to come over for cupcakes and presents. She made out with a lot of presents this year. I don't know what was different this time around, but she tore into each gift, barely stopping to look at each one she opened. As you can see in one of the pictures below, Stacey got buried under a pile of paper, boxes, and opened gifts. It was all fun and games until Jonathan got a hold of the scissors and in the process of trying to "help", cut Stacey's finger deeply instead.

Jules was very happy to play with all of her new princess themed gifts as well as her new doll house. Very quickly she started talking about moving certain gifts up to her bedroom since she has a lock on the door and Jonathan can't yet open the new doorknobs. It's funny how she's starting to want her own space and play with her own toys without her "crazy brother" around.

Jonathan also received a few gifts just so he wouldn't feel left out. I think you can see from the pictures below that I have a beautiful family. It's hard to beat the cuteness in some of these pictures.

Apple Not Far From The Tree

I really like this picture taken after Julia's kindergarten Christmas program. Can you tell they are related?

Little Grease Monkey

On Sunday Julia and I went outside to play together.  She really wanted to do some work on her car and "empty" change some Christmas lights with the ladder.  The funny thing is that she knew all of the steps and equipment needed for the job.  Apparently, she was paying enough attention in the past when she's helped me change the oil for real.  I was her assistant this time, handing her the wrench and dumping out the oil. At the end we took a trip to the top of the block and back to make sure everything seemed OK...

Christmas Vacation

This will be our sixth Christmas in this house, and this year I finally got around to putting up Christmas lights. As some of you probably know, I've been otherwise preoccupied with painting, furnishing, and upgrading the inside and outside. I wanted to wait until the kids were a little bit older and I always stick to my philosophy of doing one thing at a time and doing it right. Otherwise, what's the point if you don't do it up right?

I took Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, off from work.  I wanted an extra long weekend anyway, but the best part was that it freed me up to put the lights up that day.  The temperature soared into the low 70s, which was really nice since I was outside all day. In fact, I checked around the country and we had the same high as Los Angeles this day, Thanksgiving Eve.

I ended up buying and clipping up 300 C9 bulbs, otherwise known as the warm glowing, old fashioned lights, along every inch of roof front and back. These days LED lights are all the rave, but despite their life, low electricity use, etc, they just don't look very good in my opinion.  What's the point of putting lights up if they don't look nice, warm, and inviting? Julia and I started putting on the clips and testing each bulb at 7:30 in the morning. By about 3:30 in the afternoon I was done.

One of my biggest problems was that I didn't have the right ladder for the job. I borrowed a massive ladder from my parents, but it was just two big and heavy to maneuver by myself.  I almost lost the ladder and created a new window in the house a few times. I'll buy my own ladder when I take these down, so putting them up meant climbing up on the roof and doing everything from above. It was so warm that I couldn't touch the shingles for more then a few seconds with my bare hands.  The other big issue was that the main roof has a very steep pitch (more then usual) and clipping lights means leaning over the ledge. I worked through it, but on any other day not as nice this might not even be an option. In the future I'll have to do it from a ladder.

I added some sparkling snow flakes and white lights to the porch and placed everything on a timer. Over the years I'll add a few more lights, for example, along the driveway and trees. It seems like more people on our street and neighborhood put up lights this year, probably because the weather was so nice. The kids love the lights and so do we. I told Stacey that between this and other projects around the house, the place is really starting to feel like a home.

Merry Christmas (Happy Hanukkah) Clark "Sparky" Griswold Jr.

Sleepy Head

What a lazy kitty.  She sure likes to sleep on or with anything soft and warm.  Here are a few more pictures of her over the past several days. 

The first is just me and kitty relaxing after a hard weekend of putting up Christmas lights outside, the Christmas tree, and getting all of the decorations up for the holidays and family coming into town.

The second picture I received at work this week. Julia and kitty decided to take a nap together to recharge their batteries. Notice both of them are wrapped nicely in their own ni-nights.

The third picture I took last weekend. Kitty really likes sleeping on Julia's bed during the day. This time the kids found her asleep, so Julia decided to make her more comfortable with her own blanket and pillow. The doll bedding is actually the perfect size for a cat, and kitty didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, she barely opened up an eye when Julia lifted her head up and placed the pillow underneath. 

Happy Thanksgiving

This year we decided to have Thanksgiving at our house - a first with just the four of us. It was somewhat last minute, so on Thanksgiving we whipped together a $10 feast that took only 15 minutes to prepare.  That's right, we had a full feast with nothing more then boiling some water.

The kids enjoyed the sparkling cider. We enjoyed a rotisserie chicken with yummy rolls and no prep or real clean up. We really enjoyed doing a holiday at our house for the first time. I think in the future we'll try and do meals and holidays at our house and then connect with the rest of the family. We need to start making our own memories with the kids in our own house, even if that means instant potatoes.
 

A Note From The Author

I finally used up all of my free online storage space. It only took 5 years for me to fill it with pictures from this blog. So, I had to either pay for more or delete some photos from older posts. I chose to delete the pictures from 2008 and earlier. If you try to bring up an old post and don't see the pictures, this will be why.

Yet another reason that printing out the blog each year has proven to be a good idea.

Thirty Sixth Birthday

Happy Birthday Stacey!  This year we celebrated with dinner at my parent's house and then left the kids with them overnight. Stacey and I went up to 16th Street Mall in Denver for a little rest and relaxation - but more importantly, so Stacey could do a do a little shopping.

It was nice to get away. We ate out and actually went to see a movie in the theater. Downtown Denver was great, but I'm glad I don't live there nor in another big city. I'll take a quiet house, in the suburbs, in a quiet town, any day, especially now that we are raising a family.