Merry Christmas!

Love,

Josh, Laura, Monkey & Hobbes

Mr. Poleri in the Family Room with the Poultry Shears

So we just had a little Christmas Eve excitement.

We were going out to grab a few last minute things and when we opened the front door there was a box from Josh's dad and step mom. Josh grabbed the poultry shears (I know, interesting choice) to cut through the tape, and I went to grab my camera because I thought the postage was funny (thirty 41c stamps). Next thing Josh is running to the sink and I see a trail of blood behind him. Apparently he had accidentally stabbed himself in the hand!

Once we got the bleeding to stop we discussed whether or not it needed stitches. In the end we weren't sure so we made Urgent Care the first stop on our errands. He ended up needing 2 stitches and the doctor kept joking that I'd done the stabbing - HA HA.

I don't have a picture of the wound (since its bandaged right now) but here's the weapon:

Hope everyone is having an injury-free Christmas Eve!

Holiday Questions

I saw this on Becca and Brandon's blog and thought I would steal it.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper! In fact I love wrapping paper so much I dream of having a job at the gift wrapping counter of a store.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Fake! This is going to make me sound like a major dork but one of my favorite things about fake trees is their perfect symmetry.

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the weekend after Thanksgiving.

4. When do you take the tree down? By January 1st.

5. Do you like eggnog? Eewwww

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Probably my newborn baby doll - I got him when I was 7. His name is Baby James and I still have him. He's actually kind of creepy looking - maybe I'll take a picture of him and post it on here.

7. Hardest person to buy for? Josh - he always says he doesnt want anything.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Monkey and Hobbes. Foam golf balls? Check.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? No.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? None immediately come to mind.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Love Actually. I guess technically its not a Christmas movie but its set at Christmas.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? November-ish.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Probably.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Ham, my mom's stuffing, mince pies, fruit cake (why do Americans hate fruit cake?)

16. Lights on the tree? White.

17. Favorite Christmas song? I have no idea what its called but I only ever hear it when I'm in England. But really, I love pretty much all Christmas music.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? This year we're staying home but hopefully next year we'll get to spend it with family.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? I thought I could but I just went over them in my head and I'm missing one.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas day? Christmas day. When I was a kid my mom let us open one on Christmas Eve.

22. Does Santa Wrap your presents? Yes. But he has skipped our house the past few years.

23. Snow, Love it or Dread it? Love it if I'm staying inside, hate it if I have to go out and drive in it.

24. Candy canes: Yuck or Yum? Yum if they're mint flavored.

25. What the most important thing about the season? Family.

Festive

Last night Josh and I went for a walk around our neighborhood to look at everyone's Christmas lights and decor. It was all really pretty (well except for the few that went way overboard a la Clark Griswold) but we were stumped by this one:

What is that white yeti/deranged polar bear thing and how does it relate to Christmas? Anyone?

Bad Cat

This is Hobbes' latest trick. One of these days Monkey is going to try it and he's going to be very sorry - agility is not one of his traits.

Our New Digs!

We've had the keys to our house for almost 2 months now and I cant believe I haven't posted a picture of it yet!

It needs a little TLC inside and out but we love it! I still need to take some pictures of the inside. I am planning on doing before and after pics of each room and I'll post those, but seeing as we haven't actually finished a room yet it could be a while.

I think I have finally found a cure for my wedding obsession - decorating and renovating! I guess technically its more of a new obsession than a cure but hey, whatever works. My dreams are now filled with paint, window treatments, light fixtures, etc. - its fabulous!

Yosemite

A while back my Dad came to visit and we went camping at Yosemite. I am more of a hotel girl than and camping girl but I went along to be a good sport.

We had some fun roasting (burning) marshmallows ...

we enjoyed nature ...

my dad hiked Half Dome ...

while Josh and I hung out at our campsite and watched the cute little rodents running around.



Then it rained really hard all night and my Dad's tent got soaked by a puddle that formed around it (see pic below) so he decided we should go home early. I tried really hard not to be excited that we were ending the camping trip early :-)

I took this overcast, dreary photo as we were leaving - unfortunately the beautiful mountains are covered by clouds.

Happy Halloween!

This is my darling Monkey in his Halloween costume. As you can see it doesn't quite fit. You would think that since I bought a dog costume in size small it would easily fit a cat. Not even close!

Long time no post ...

Is it wierd that I feel guilty about neglecting my blog? We've had a lot going on so unfortunately blogging went to the bottom of the priority list. Since the last post my dad came to visit from England, we got the keys to our house(!), quickly packed, moved our stuff into the house, and went to Philly for a week. Stayed tuned for pictures and more details.

Woohoo go Phillies!!!

One Year!

Today marks one year of marriage for Josh and I. It has been a great year - in fact it doesnt even feel like its been a year. I guess its true what they say: time flies when you're having fun!

Some wedding day favorites:

And a few from last night before dinner:

Farmers Market Loot

Organic deliciousness - Yum!

Reason #621 that Farmers Markets rule: The Heirloom tomatoes (my favorite) were only $2 per pound - much better than the $5.99 per pound I paid at Whole Foods a few weeks ago!

29

Dear Josh:

Happy 29th Birthday!!!

I'm so glad we're the same age again. Hurry up and come home from work so you can open your presents and we can start celebrating.

Love,

Laura

Guess what?

If all goes according to plan Josh and I will be home-owners soon!!!
We have been looking at homes for the past month and found out this past Tuesday that our offer on our number 1 choice was accepted. Inspection and appraisal are next week so please keep your fingers crossed that nothing big comes up. We are extremely excited but also nervous about this major purchase!

Cupcake anyone?

I was bored this afternoon so I decided to try something creative with soap. I made these cute calorie-free treats. The 'cake' part is scented with buttercream & snickerdoodle fragrance and the 'frosting' is scented pearberry. They smell delish and I kind of wish I could bite into one ...

Apparently I have way too much time on my hands ...

What the ?!?!

We had a bizarre mishap in the kitchen yesterday. Josh had just heated up some leftover risotto in the microwave and was stirring it to make sure it was evenly heated. I had my back to him when I heard a crash and I whipped around to this scene:

Apparently the bottom had fallen out of the bowl! The bowl was in one piece and then all of a sudden it cracked in a perfect circle and the bottom just fell out - I've never seen anything like it. Pure madness! Josh was really disappointed that his snack was all over the floor and contemplated scooping it up and eating it before common sense set in.

Now we're nervous to use the rest of those bowls which is a pity because I really like them.

Wedding Planning again!!!

One of my co-workers is planning her sister-in-law's wedding and asked me if I would help her and of course I could barely get the words "yes of course" out of my mouth fast enough! I really, REALLY loved planning my wedding so I am super excited to help out on this one. The wedding is in January and the couple wants to have an engagement party next month so we went out to the marina on Sunday and I took some engagement pictures of them. It was my first attempt at taking portraits of people and it was a lot more difficult that I thought it would be - the professionals make it look so easy! Here are some of my favorites ...

Soap Progress

For my first attempts at making soap I used Melt and Pour where you melt down the soap base, add fragrance and color, pour into molds, and once its set up you can use it. Well I got bored of that pretty quickly and decided to try Cold Process soap making. Cold Process involves using oils, sodium hydroxide and water to make soap from scratch. Each oil contributes different qualities to the soap and you can make up your own soap recipes to create the perfect bar. If you're kind of a nerd its awesome!!! The only downside is that the soap has to cure for 4 weeks before you can use it - its really hard to wait that long! Here are some pics of my first batches:

This is my very first batch - the creamy color is the natural color of the soap mix. In case you're wondering why I chose to make black swirls, its because I wanted to test out my black pigment.

I read about making soap with goats milk so I tried it out with this batch - supposedly it makes the soap really creamy. I also added some ground oatmeal for exfoliation. I am really excited about this bar!

As you can probably tell from the color this batch is scented with mint fragrance. I am still an amateur at making swirls, which is why the green doesn't go all the way to the bottom.

I have some ideas for some new soaps so stay tuned for more pictures. Josh is going to PA next week to visit his family so I'll probably work on some projects while he's gone.

Bad hair day?

I just have to vent about my hair. I'm having a bad hair day. In fact, I have a bad hair day about 80% of the time. Granted, its partially my fault because I don't take the time to do anything with it except tie it up in a ponytail BUT its also my hair's fault. Its thick, bushy, frizzy, and wavy - just a bad combination. If I want to wear my hair down and have it look decent I have to invest approximately 1.5 hours working on it: blow drying it results in a huge 80's frizzy mess which then has to be flat ironed, followed by some kind of smoothing/de-frizzing serum. Seriously, who has that kind of time in the morning? I'd rather get more sleep!

I keep hoping that one of these years it will miraculously stop being unruly and start being fabulous but then I remember this picture in my baby book from when I was 8 months old:

This hair situation has been going on for 29 years - I'm not having a bad hair day, I'm having a bad hair life!

Not so agile ...

Josh's mom and step-dad just got us a Wii and the game that came with it has all these different sports you can play. You can also do a fitness level test (although in my opinion its technically more of a hand-eye coordination test) where it makes you do a variety of different sports so we decided to give it a try.

Josh went first and this was his result:

Pretty close to his actual age of 28.

My turn didn't go quite as well. I wasn't so hot at bowling, didn't hit a single ball in baseball and had poor performance in tennis resulting in this embarrassment:

I guess this means I have the hand-eye coordination of a 71 year old. Should I be concerned?

Couch Potato

I know I posted a picture before of how Hobbes likes to spend her day (sleeping/lounging on the couch) but a few days ago she took it to a whole new level - she was actually using the couch as a recliner!

I love how they are both in the same pose in this one - it makes me laugh every time I look at it!

Can this be true?

Most of you who know me know that I'm not a sports fan. I don't enjoy participating in sports, nor do I enjoy watching them. (Well I do love watching rugby and equestrian events but since they're never on TV I'm not even counting them.) Josh has tried really hard to turn me into a football fan and although I have learned a little I really wouldn't call myself a fan.

Anyway ... A couple of months ago I noticed that Josh was watching Nascar on the weekends so I half jokingly asked him if he was becoming a Nascar fan and to my amusement he said he was "because football isn't on right now." I made fun of him a little because really how can you enjoy watching cars drive round and round in circles - the whole thing just seems pointless!

Fast forward a couple of weeks and somehow I have guys I am rooting for. I cant sit and watch the whole race but I check in frequently to see how 'my guys' are doing. And I actually care who wins. This is really embarrassing - the girl who hates sports has somehow become a Nascar fan. I don't even know anyone who likes Nascar!!! This is so un-me. Hopefully its just a phase and will end soon so I can go back to my sport hating ways.

I'm in love ...

... with this ring. Basically, I need it.

Yesterday I reminded Josh that there are 3 gift giving occasions coming up in the next six months and let him know that this would be an appropriate gift for any of those occasions. He responded with a somewhat blank look and I knew he was trying to figure out what the 3 occasions were - ummm, wedding anniversary (our first!), my 30th birthday (not a birthday I'm looking forward to but I definitely wouldn't turn down a fabulous gift), and Christmas. I even did all the homework already and found out where to buy it ... and its not even very expensive!

Hopefully there is a pretty blue ring in my future :-)

4th of July Recap

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July! We didn't do a whole lot ...

Monkey spent the day lazing on the bed

Hobbes spent the day messing with the blinds and shedding on the couch

Josh and I barbequed tri-tip (and had a little mishap with the marinade - it was so extremely salty that I had to rinse the cooked meat under the tap to make it edible!) and then watched Spellbound. Yup, we're pretty hip and happenin'!

Smoke Alarm

So we've had this smoke situation for the past week. There were wild fires to the north and south of us last weekend and lucky us in the Bay Area ended up with all the smoke in our air. Usually we enjoy clear blue skies every day. This week we have been forced to endure grey, smoke filled skies - it looks like its overcast but there's actually not a single cloud in the sky. Its kind of creepy actually. We've been instructed to stay indoors as much as possible to avoid any health complications - although it took the authorities about 3 days to issue the warning.

This is Monday June 23rd. At the end of that road you should be able to clearly see hills in the background but they are barely visible.

This is Thursday June 26th. You can barely even see the outline of the hills - way too much smoke in the air!!!

Things are looking more normal today and there is even a hint of blue in the sky. Hopefully we'll be breathing clean air again in no time!

Here are the 3 pics side by side for your viewing pleasure :-)