Thanks for the break!

It's only Saturday, but I feel like I've been on vacation for a week! Work has been slow, so really, I guess I have been coasting along since Monday. And we did our best to try and simplify the holiday this year -- no new recipes, just old favorites, and a few shortcuts (boxed stuffing from Trader Joe's is pretty good in case you're wondering!) -- so the cooking part was fairly straightforward. That has left plenty of time for hanging out with family and friends, which is the whole point, right?

Molly and Jamesy bouncing together

Princess Molly stealing apples meant for pie

First movie at the theater - we saw Frozen, the latest animated Disney movie

It's been nice couple of days away from work. And there's still good stuff to look forward to. We have chili night tonight with Izzy's family and plans to get our Christmas tree tomorrow. Thanksgiving may be over, but I'm still feeling thankful!

Outtakes

Molls and I had a little impromptu photo shoot this morning. One of the holiday card companies is having a 25% off sales that ends today, so I thought I might try to get a good picture and see if I could take advantage of the discount.

Molly is not the easiest child to photograph, but I did manage to get a bunch of good/funny pics by promising her a lollipop at the end. The winning shot is not included in this post, but here are a few that show off her silly personality:

Small improvements

I'm home alone with the Molls this weekend, so I thought I'd try to make a few small and inexpensive improvements to my front room. Better?

I pulled the couch away from the window, centered the rug and coffee table with the fireplace, added a throw pillow, staged my coffee table, and placed something below the painting so it doesn't look so high.

Like my fake candles?

Ignore the "JOY" stocking holders. I forgot to take them down for the picture

Maybe the leather chair should stay. I'm torn.

My houzz

Assuming I get a holiday bonus and not a subscription to the jelly of the month club, my plan is to get a couple of chairs for the front room to form a little conversation area. People have been hanging out in that room now that we've set up our record player and speakers and I'm sick of dragging chairs in from the dining room!

Since there's still a little time before the holidays, I decided to upload pictures to houzz.com to get opinions from wannabe designers on styles and colors. Ha! Within minutes, I had opinions on a million different things and nothing about the chairs.

Eventually, someone recommended chairs from West Elm and even did a little mock layout for me. So now I have a style and arrangement to keep in mind when I start furniture shopping. And plenty of other decorating ideas to consider :)

I'm laughing a little bit about the feedback I got from people on houzz, but I'm actually pretty happy with how it all worked. Thanks to Kylie for the recommendation! Who knew it would make such a difference to pull my couch away from the window?

Here are a few pictures of the room now. I'll post again after the new year whenever I've made progress.

Memories

I love school picture time. While I'm not technically supposed to scan these photos, I don't feel too guilty because I always purchase the prints. This year, they range from adorable to hilarious.

We'll start with the good. This is definitely frame-worthy

Say cheese! Should I buy this one just to embarrass Molly later in life? 

A forced smile if I ever saw one. But at least she's trying

And now for her surly look. Apparently Molly was not happy to have to pose with her cousin. She really does like him though! I promise.

We'll end with the best photo of all - little Fabio