No holes

Merry Christmas!

Like sweaters for my feet...

Happy Christmas Eve!



I have the best friends in the world universe!
See above sweated feet? I wanted those sweater boots so badly, but they were all sold out here in Vegas (I told you this is a horrible place to live!), which only made me more obsessed with getting a pair. I checked online, and they were sold out. So I called all the stores in my surrounding states and they were sold out as well (all horrible places to live, too!).

I finally conceded defeat.

But then out of nowhere, Memzy found a random pair at her store in my size, and took time out of her busy busy day to ship them to me. Good, good friend. Thoughtful n' stuff. Can't thank her enough!

We had a quick visit from Markie and family, who were on their way to D-land, which is where they're spending Christmas this year, again. If you're wondering why he hasn't blogged much in the last few months, it's because of THIS, still. But he won a $75 Sears gift card, iPod speakers, and several more calls from various Disney princess, so...

Hope everyone has a jolly Christmas Eve!

Don't Move...

...cuz I just sent out my Christmas cards. I have this file of addresses on my compy that I print out for sending out Christmas cards, and I had to update about half of them. Apparently, 2009 was the year of The Move.

I also noticed that I am missing a few key addresses of a few key people, and I should have these addresses because I'm pretty sure I sent these key people cards last year. I'm trying to decide if I should track them down, or just let it go. What do you suggest? Keep in mind that these key people might be you. They for sure might be you.

Our Christmas card is a picture that you're familiar with that I photoshopped until it was practically unfamiliar, but not entirely unfamiliar. You'll think you've seen it before, but on second glance, you'll notice it's somehow different than you remembered. Fun, huh?!

I bought slightly bigger envelopes to send them in, cuz I thought maybe I'd glue them to some scrapbook paper and add some embellishments, sprinkle glitter into the envelope, etc. But no, when it came down to putting them together, I just stuck the slightly curled, hot-off-the-press 4x6s directly into the envelopes and tossed them haphazardly into the mail box. Some might have landed on the ground and some might have blown away in the wind, so that might be what happened if you don't get my card. Or I lost your addy.

Lastly, I haven't had a chance to blog in a while, so you might not know that my BSILF (Michelle--yay!!!) came down from the Portland area to spend Christmas with us. I suspect this is going to be the best Christmas ever!!! But I don't know how bloggy it will be. I'm thinking sparse, but I'll try. I'm also supposed to get various quick visits from surprise blog people (eeeekkk), as Las Vegas is a stopping place between two better places, so I'll try to keep you posted on all that too. We'll see.

You feeling it yet?

Christmas is about two three things.

#1. Baby Jesus

#2. Hershey's Kisses, studded with tiny bits of candy cane, Mmmm



#3. And snow



I feel like I'm forgetting something. Anyway, the problem with living in the brown dirty desert, is that we don't get any snow, unless reverse global warming occurs, and that's not going to happen this year. (It's 55 degrees today, with clear blue skies.)

BUT, did you know that if you drive a mere 20 minutes from my front door, you can get your pearl-toned '02 Suzuki XL7 stuck in a bank of snow, and have to be towed out by a giant snow shoveler-type truck?

Yes, 20 minutes. Real snow!

I'm talking about the majestic Mt. Charleston:


(Matterhorn pictured, but very similar looking.)

I don't go up to Mt. Charleston often if I can help it, cuz it's freakishly cold up there, but if I'm going to go up there, it's gonna be in December, on account of snow equaling Christmas spirit.

Last weekend, my sister and BIL (Erin & Scott) reserved a 4-person cabin up at Mt Charleston for themselves and my nieces (Maddie, and France), but Scott ended up having to work at the last minute, so Erin was kind enough to let my other niece (Emma) and me (Jenny) and my 3 kids (Cord, Gus, and Homer) all squeeze in his place. You do the math.

(I came up with 8 people in a 4 person cabin. Is that what you got?)

Well, the cabin was adorable, despite the broken fireplace and the spiders in the bathroom, and the lodge had a cozy restaurant with a big working fireplace right in the center, so for those reasons I must insist that you add "Get a cabin in December at Mt. Charleston" to your Bucket List, yo. Right after, "Stand in some quicksand."

We went sledding in an insufficient amount of outerwear, ate at that cozy restaurant, watched movies, DRANK! hot chocolate, and played games. It was fun and Christmasy and I feel a tiny bit guilty for mooching off of Erin & Scott, but I swear I'll return the favor some day.

Bummer thing is, I was worried about taking my phone (aka camera) out in the snow so I only got one picture and it's random and blurry, dangit:

You feeling the Christmas spirit yet?

Sec-tion-als!!!

My Annual Unattainable Christmas List

Last time I made an unattainable Christmas list, I ended up attaining pretty much everything on my list, so we're gonna try this again. It wasn't easy coming up with this stuff, as I already have every material possession known to man, including a Kindle, but here we go. A-hem.

#1. This bookcase with a built in cave that you can sit in.

^^OMG, I want to be her!!

#2. This magical upside-down bookshelf:

^^Look at those books just hanging there. This defies gravity and logic which is why I must have one.

#3. Good, sturdy socks without holes in them (except for the two holes at the top. bah-dum chick):

^^Are these man socks? I want the girl version. And in white.

#4. A staple gun:

^^If I had a dime for every time I've said, "If only I had a staple gun..." I'd be a multimillionaire. Why can't I get paid for making repetitive statements?!

#5. These three books:

^^This series is one of my all-time faves, and can you believe I borrowed them from the library? For shame. I need to own them. And read them in my bookcase-cave.

Plus, the fourth book comes out in April of 2010, so I need to reread them to prepare.

^^Yay!

#6. Um, more Diet Coke?



K, I'm grasping at straws here. Like I said, I have pretty much everything I could ever want except for that bookcase cave.



What's on your gizes unattainable Christmas list this year?

Huge! Important! News! Stories!

You know on Glee last night, how it was all about the principle not wanting to put the glee kids's pictures in the yearbook, because they always end up getting defaced by the other students?

Well, this local news story came on right after Glee, about this high school girl (pictured below), who is very upset right now, because her school is refusing to put her school picture in the yearbook.



Why are they refusing to put her picture in the yearbook, you ask? Well, because it looks like this:

I know, right? She looks waaay happy. What's the biggie?

But the REAL good news is that nobody was murdered yesterday, so FOX 5 News's breaking story was all about this high school girl's open-mouthed smile, and her weird half-side ponytail-rat ball. What this really adds up to is that crime is down, people!

In Hunger Games cake-makers news, our humble cake contest it still making the Twitter rounds. It really started to pick up Tweet-steam when Scholastic tweeted about it:

"#HungerGames fans! You MUST see this Hunger Games cake decoration contest of scenes from the book http://bit.ly/17gRQu. Tell us your fave."

But that's not all. The scholastic people mentioned our cake contest on their official-type blog, and gave us a link! But wait. Before you start shrugging, they mentioned our cake contest in THE same post where they made a huge official-type breaking-news announcement regarding book three:


^^That's right! They announced the release date for the much-anticipated book three in the HG series. Eeek!
(Notice that date is a whole week shy of one-year from when CF came out. Earlier than we thought. So go ahead and rip an extra 7 links from your construction paper count-down chain today.)

Read the scholastic post HERE. Notice that they call our contest "crazy." I think that's a compliment.<--said like a question. Hey, do you think this means Scollins might stumble upon our gloriously humble cakes someday? 'Twould be an honor, no?

We're Famous...

...well, ten of us are famous, at least. Mostly Landee, since her cake was featured.

What I'm talking about is: remember that humble Hunger Games cake decorating contest we had way back in September? Yeah, September is a big blur for me too, think hard. Or click that link. Anyhow, a few elite Hunger Games people, just like us, have found it and linked it to their way cooler HG-themed websites/blogs (Jabberjays.com and themockingjay.vndv.com). Plus, it's been twittered, so it's only a matter of time before Ashten Kutcher sees it.

You know what this means, right? Next year's cake contest is going to be not humble at all! It's gonna be way huger! So you better start drawing up your designs now, and... how do I say this gently?... perhaps take a cake decorating class or two? Ahem. Anyway, you have approx. 10 months to prepare if you're planning on entering next year, so you better get started now, K?