Thanks.

I feel like I'm breaking some sort of rule.  It's been an entire week since Thanksgiving, and I'm going to bring it up again.  Go ahead.  Feel free to gasp.  Every other person in the universe has charged full steam toward the glittering, pine-scented, stocking-stuffed, hot chocolate-y, Rudolph-infested day we like to call Christmas.  "Infested" makes it sound terrible.  You know what I mean.  I'm in love with Christmas, I'd just like to have at least a week to properly procrastinate on my Thanksgiving musings, without feeling like the lone beacon of Thanksgivingness.  Can a girl catch a break?  I mean, I still have leftovers in my refrigerator!  Granted, they're probably no longer good, but they're there!  This is turning out to be less about Thanksgiving, and more about my motivation problem...

So we had family!  Lots of them.  And instead of cleaning my house in anticipation of their arrival, I whipped out some gold glitter spray paint and created a Thanksgiving wonderland on my mantle.  Behold.

Is "wonderland" too strong? 

Really get in there and soak up some of that glitter.  Don't really.  I'm sure it's hazardous and not intended for soaking.

It's hard to properly portray that extreme glitteriness of this spray paint.  You know what isn't hard to portray?  The price tag on the back of my chipboard letter that I was too lazy to remove.  This "project" took approximately ten minutes.  Plus drying time.  I just sprayed the letters not very carefully, then took some extra linen material, burlap and a ribbon I had on hand, and cut out my flags and letters for the "Give" banner, and hot glued them to the ribbon.  Sooo quick and easy.  

I got my extra fancy (and extra free!) Thanksgiving printable, from here.  Oh, and I stuck a Command strip to the back of that frame and just smooshed it in a approximately the correct place.  Don't tell my husband I didn't use a level...

So where were we.  Ah yes.  Festive mantle, dirty house.  But hey, it wouldn't feel like company if I weren't dashing about mopping or something as they walk in the door.

Is it just me, or do you feel like this post is turning into a gigantic confession?  Lack of motivation, laziness, procrastination...

Well, things got cleaned, and we had a grand time.  Here's a representation of most of the party animals occupying my house.  We're missing Grandma...she came the next day.  We've got Anthony's twin brother, Andrew with his wife Rachel, and their three girls: Alayna, Hannah and June.  That's Anthony's sister Angela in the middle.  Lots o' Johnsons.

Rather than give you a play-by-play of the week (though I'm sure it would be riveting), I'll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures.

And by "favorite pictures", I mean mostly pictures of my adorable nieces.

Hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving!

Insta-Coasters...and a little living room update.

A few weeks ago we drove out to Ft. Riley Kansas to visit my bestie and her family.  There's a whole lotta not much between here and Kansas, y'all.  We're talking out in the sticks.  I mean, what was General Custer thinking...

We really had the best time.  Makes me want to move to Kansas for a few years just to keep hanging out with some of the coolest people we know.  Here we are looking appropriately festive for the 4th of July...

One day we headed two hours away (!) to the "big city" - Kansas City.  We tooled around and ended up at one sweet antique market kind of thing.  While we were digging through all the treasures, JP handed me a tile and said, "You'd like this."  He was correct!  So I got five more.  Actually six more (totaling seven) because the dear lady at the cash register couldn't count, and rather than try to get my money back (all whopping $1.50 of it) I just grabbed one more.

 Aren't they adorable?  And to think that pig would still be sitting in a bin in Kansas City if that woman had charged me the correct amount...  What a travesty that would have been.

Fasten your seatbelts.  Here comes a very detailed, step-by-step tutorial for making tiles into coasters.  I know.  You've been waiting your whole life for this.

Grab some sticky rubber things from your nearest home improvement store:

And stick them on.

Ya got all that?  If you need to scroll back up for a refresher, I understand.

I love them!  I think they have a lot more character than the ones I was using.  And whose coffee table couldn't stand a little more character?

 At that same shop, I found this tiny bust of Beethoven.  For seven big ones, how could I pass him up?  He is however, a bit more scary looking than I remember him being.  Just don't look directly into his eyes...

When I was taking this picture, I remembered I forgot to tell you about a little addition to our living room.  Meet our new buffet, a la Craigslist!

Staring at the back of our couch while coming in the door and up the stairs was getting pretty old.  I really love it!  I don't necessarily love that it looks like that bird is about to eat Beethoven's head, though...  A work in progress, I'd say.

Speaking of a work in progress, my son is screaming rather than taking a nap, so I'll quit rambling.  Go make something into a coaster!

Weekend Happenings

We had a full weekend.  And a full Monday.  So happy Tuesday.

We took a jaunt over to Thomasville, Georgia to see my parents and brother.  My parents actually hail from Tennessee, but they are in evangelism (which means they're traveling nomads) hence, visiting them in GA.  I'll have to expand on that another time.

Here we are at "Victorian Christmas".  We got me, Aaron, Mom and Dad...

I'm glad you asked.  Victorian Christmas is an excuse for the city of Thomasville to eat fried food on a stick.

Not sure of the background of this festive occasion, but some folks really get into it...

We also checked out a local coffee shop called Grassroots Coffee.

It's hard to say, but I believe my husband is mocking my state of glee in this particular photo....

The coffee was roasted there...its was excellent.  The barristas were weird.  The couches were comfy.  And the patrons were worth watching.  All signs point to a Grade A coffee shop.

We hung out for a while.  I was starting to get bored while Anthony was reading a comic book.

 Thomasville is pretty adorable.  You should go sometime.

Holiday Happenings

Oh boy.  Have we ever had the good times since last time we chatted.  Goood times.  And lots of food.  And lots of family.

In fact, here they are now...

Anthony's twin brother, Andrew and his wife Rachel and their kiddos Alayna and Hannah all came from Ft. Worth, Texas.  Anthony's mom, Leslie came from Houston; and Anthony's sister Angela and her boyfriend Luke came from Pensacola, FL.  Oh, and Angela brought her two huskies.  Our house was at max capacity.  And max awesomeness.

Andrew and family were able to stay with us for a full week.  Everyone else came through just for a few days.  Here is the pictoral recounting of our time together (or, an excuse to post pictures of my super-cute nieces):

This is the day we went to the park.



This face is because she did NOT have a fun time walking a very hilly half mile to the park.  In her boots.

Someone thinks she has to be a part of the action...

Rachel and I put our cooking skillz together for the big day.  Oh, and Mom Johnson personally took care of the giblet gravy.  She had a mild fit when she saw us trying to throw away that cute little bag of turkey innards, so we told her if she wanted them she could go for it.  I don't really like gravy, sooo giblet away, Mom.  Giblet away.



Andrew stepped in to turn the turkey at the appropriate time...

Here's the bounty we ended up with

 (You can thank hungry little Alayna for the gash in the middle of our picture-perfect turkey)

 We have so much to be thankful for.  Not the least of which is finally getting to sit down and eat!

Here we are at yet another park...

What a photogenic little group of people.  I'm not sure these pictures accurately describe the great time we had, but I'll just tell you...it was pretty great.  We were sad to see them all go.  And boy is our house quiet.