How to Get Your Husband to Vacuum

Give him one of these:

That's the Dyson Animal 41, and it was SO generously given to us for Christmas by Jake's parents. And now, something he used to HATE is now something he finds entertaining and fun.

Anyway, the Animal is all kinds of fancy! And it really does work SOOO much better at getting up all the kitty fur these two leave behind.


And it is sooo much quieter than our old vacuum as well. Which is why Jake likes it so much better. Apparently, the reason he used to hate vacuuming so much is because he hated the noise the vacuum made. This one is also much lighter and can gets lots of different angles and whatnot.

Here's hoping the newness doesn't wear off and he will become the new designated vacuumer in this household for good!

Image found here

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and show the picture from our Christmas card this year!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday full of food, family, and friends!

A Christmas Sweater

One of my best friends, Mandy, has a sweet little baby boy named Wriston who will be a year old on February 1st, and I can hardly believe that milestone will be here so soon! But, that isn't what this post is about.

This post is about the present I made for him this year, his first Christmas. I gave it to him (though Mandy opened it up for him, obviously) last night at the annual Christmas party that Mandy's family throws at her parents' house each year.

A sweater!

Now, this is the second sweater I've ever made, the first being one for myself. But, this is most definitely the first baby sweater I've ever made. Let's take another look at it, shall we? Maybe from another angle?


I'm pretty proud of it because when my knitting patterns call for things like picking up stitches (in this case, for the underarms of the sleeves and for the hood), I usually take it to my mom for help, but this time, I did the whole thing by myself.

Except for sewing in this little nametag my mom had made for me to include in its neckline. She did that for me. Isn't it so sweet?


Once it was all finished (and photographed), I attached a gift tag I made, which said, "Made for Wriston with love by Lindsay, Merry Christmas 2011" and included washing instructions, and I boxed it up for him.


Wriston was asleep by the time we exchanged gifts last night, so I have yet to see him in it. Hopefully, it will fit okay. I may have to post an update once I see/get a picture of him in it, though.

What do you guys think of it? Not bad for my first baby sweater, eh?

Weekend Stuff

Over the weekend, I managed to get snag TWO of the $10 Target gift cards I previously posted about. I guess it helps that Target is less than five minutes away. And I use the term "helps" loosely.

Yesterday, I spent the day baking with my friend, Amanda. Please excuse the poor cell phone pics, and take a look at what we made:

1. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

We actually made two loaves of this. Amanda took half of this loaf home with her. I have no idea why she didn't want the whole loaf, because it is amazing!

2. Peppermint Bark (while really just following this recipe for Halloween Candy Bark)

This one is delicious, but would probably have been prettier done on white chocolate instead. And if you follow the link above for the peppermint bark, you'll see a variation using green mint chips. We looked for those when shopping for our ingredients because I loved how festive the green was, but sadly, we couldn't find any.

3. Cookie Dough Bites

Not a very pretty picture there, but I had to text pictures of everything we made to my mom. These are simply balls of cookie dough, but they are made without eggs, so they are safe for eating. And they are yummy!

4. Chocolate Chip Turtle Cookies

We have no pics of these because they turned out terribly! And we have no idea why! Into the trash they went.

5. Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows - seen here


These were soooo easy to do (and also delicious), and they were a perfect way to use up the rest of the marshmallows I had after making these melted snowman cookies last weekend:


The hubs helped decorate these little guys and gals. They were so much fun to make, and reeeeeally yummy, but I don't think they turned out half as cute as the ones I found online!

Most of the recipes we used (and more!) can be found through my Pinterest board here. Oh how I love that website! And I suppose my coworkers will be enjoying some goodies this week.

After we finished baking, Amanda went with me to Target to buy stocking stuffers for Jake. That's how I was able to get my 2nd gift card.

That's about it for me. Today was the usual... laundry, groceries, etc.

What did you do this weekend? Any baking? Any Target shopping?

Who Says Engineers Aren't Creative?

So, I'm a CPA who currently works in a finance position, but most of the people I work with are engineers. Civil engineers to be specific. And this week at work, three of them decorated the end of our "hall" with this Christmas tree made from a string of blue Christmas lights. Then, we all decorated it with whatever we could find at our cubicles. Being in a civil engineering organization means we found things like a foam dumptruck, a foam hardhat, an "Engineer Working" roadsign, and the orange cone at the top hiding behind the star.

It has actually acquired a few other "ornaments" since I took this photo yesterday, but I forgot to take an updated pic. And see the actual ornaments on it? The red and gold Christmas balls? Yeah, those are actually leftover from last year's office Christmas decor which have been hanging on each of our nameplates since then. Oh yeah, and the orange cone at the top has since been moved to the bottom to serve as the tree's stump.

This wasn't the only thing they adorned our cubicle walls with either. They spelled out their team name in those same blue Christmas lights in another section of wall, too.

Anyway, it looks pretty good if you ask me. It's definitely festive. Anyone else's office getting a holiday makeover?

Christmas Movies

So today while I have been at home on my Friday off, after wrapping some Christmas presents for Jake, I decided to take a little inventory of the Christmas movies we own. Admittedly, I was a little bored.

Anyway, here they are:

-Home Alone

-Home Alone 2

-The Family Stone

-Love Actually

-Elf

-The Holiday

Six Christmas movies. Somehow, I feel like that is not enough. I need more Christmas movies in my life. Now, granted, we have the classic Home Alone and Home Alone 2. And my favorite Christmas movie ever is Love Actually, so I've got that one covered. I love The Family Stone, too, and we all know Elf is hilarious. My owning The Holiday is actually kind of random, and I can't tell you the last time it was watched around here, but it is still a Christmas movie, so it gets counted. I may actually watch it tonight.

I love a good Christmas comedy, but my favorites are the sentimental/family ones. And then I started wondering if there are some movies out there that are set at Christmas time, but wouldn't really be considered a "Christmas movie", but I haven't been able to come up with any.

Anyway, what are your favorite Christmas movies? Which other ones are worth adding to my collection? Some that I know we need to get are Four Christmases, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and these. What else?

24 Days til Christmas!

and I am soooo excited! We've already given our kitties their Christmas present, because it came the other day, and since they don't know it isn't Christmas yet, we just went ahead with it. We got them the Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain. You see, one of them has this bad habit of wanting to get up in the bathroom sink and wait for us to turn on the faucet for him so he can drink. Naturally, we thought this pet fountain would be ideal with its adjustable stream of water. And it was for the first night and morning. Here is a picture from my cell phone of Milo drinking from it the first evening we set it up.

But, by the second evening, Milo was over it and wanted water from the sink again. Charlie (our cat who loves all things water), on the other hand, absolutely loves it. And it's already been worth the $38 we paid for it just to watch him play in it.

Oh yeah, and Charlie also loved the box.

Merry early Christmas, kitties!