wonderful:

adjective

 

1.excellent; great; marvelous: We all had a wonderful weekend.

 

2.of a sort that causes or arouses wonder;  amazing; astonishing: The storm was wonderful to behold.

merry christmas

christmas kinda blew me away this year. 

there wasn't anything overly special about this one though I guess I was a little less busy than normal. I just had so many moments where I was in love with how we get to celebrate jesus coming. 

this celebration didn't have to be this way. 

Yet, the world celebrating our savior coming is made up of everyone stopping, gathering, and being incredibly generous to each other. 

i love it.

tree hugger.

hug your christmas tree today

gingerbread feeling. literally.

note the gingerbread ninja.  christina's cookie cutters.

our little chalkboard

feeling that gingerbread feeling

more pictures from my house in ohio at christmas.  just because I can.  And because, like in the words of songs from home alone, I want you to 'feel that gingerbread feeling'.

we normally put up two trees. this picture is the slightly more ghetto tree.  the village is a pop-up book, it has the macaroni ornaments and the ones made out of colored paper that my mom doesn't like putting on the extra nice tree.

a fun thing about my dad is that he makes a point to decorate the back yard as well.  His thinking is that you can't see your front yard in most of the house, so he decorates the back so when you're washing the dishes, or sitting at the kitchen table, you can look out at lights.  The lit up deer were considered too cheesy for the front yard, but perfect for the back.  He put in a little pond this year and in the pictures I've seen of this years backyard, the little fake deer are drinking out of the pond.  good stuff.  

SIDE NOTE:  everyone.  download the home alone movie medley.  holy cow, that's some heartwarming stuff. Thankfully I've also included it on this blog so you can listen to it RIGHT HERE. 

SIDE NOTE 2:  Have you watched the video of Mariah Carey and Justin Bieber singing 'All I Want for Christmas is You?'  Mariah is pretty sketch in it...like, really innappropriate considering Justin is 17, but at the same time, I personally find it really hard to dislike Mariah Carey.  

it's christmas which means......

...i can  post excessive amounts of christmas imagery.   
look out. 

not the greatest photo of mi casa

ahhhh....home.

-soooooooo pretty!!!!!

stories from the side of the road (in action)

we didn't keep the horse.  We're classier than that.

we almost kept the stickers.

christina.  our getaway driver.

there's no way to make this look good.

while stalking stuff, we stumbled on a good view.

christina and our good view.  we do appreciate some nice things.

that's right.  we're a good looking bunch.  you'd be happy to see us prowling around your neighborhood.

banksey's christmas.

I live in australia where thankfully Black Friday does not exist. I don't miss it.  In all the news sites I follow, Black Friday was all over the headlines and I can't explain exactly what it is, it just all seemed a lot more sinister this year.  I read about stores opening at 9pm on Thanksgiving day and being open all night and I thought, wait...9pm?  Isn't that the time you're supposed to be spending with your family?  What in the world could be so important to purchase that people would need to shorten one of the best family holidays there is?  As someone who grieves missing those unique family times, it blows me away that you would have the option to be there, and choose going to...WalMart instead, with all it's terrible lighting...

I absolutely love Christmas. To me, it really is the most wonderful time of the year!  My Christmas's were literally out of a movie.  Beautiful decorated homes, huge family gatherings with lots of good food, and gifts and more gifts and more gifts.  I'm so thankful I grew up with that. I'm in no way against the giving of gifts, or spending money to get something special for someone you care about. It's a very real way of expressing love, one that my family is so good at. I actually want to be more like that. I want to be more generous with my money. I want to value my relationships so much that at times I'm willing to spend extra money to show that.  I see that displayed around me by people who don't stress about how much a meal costs because the return of having spent 2 hours with people they care about was more than worth it. My dad is a lot like that.

As a lot of Americans are realizing though, the pursuit of more stuff as a main reason for existance is just becoming sad.  There's no relationship attached to the spending. It's stuff for the sake of stuff.  This Christmas season has that feel.  Everything you read talks about how retailers are worried about their books balancing, so they're encouraging people to buy more. In our times where family isn't coming through as much as it has in the past, I doubt most of that spending is happening to better a relationship, strengthen a father/daughter bond, or bless a home.  

Banksey is a famous graffitti artist from England and I found this picture of Jesus by him.

 

movember.

In Australia, the month of november is fondly known as 'movember'.  In the states some people do 'no-shave november', but it's kind of informal.  In Australia, it's something very, very official.  The whole nation participates in 'Movember' where the guys grow out their 'mo's' and raise money for prostate cancer research.  You can upload your photo to the official website and people can sponsor your mustache.  If you don't believe me, you can check out the website:  Movember Australia.  

The guys in the house we live in always get on board.  I didn't get the best photos of the mustaches and some of the guys hadn't trimmed up the rest of their facial hair recently...but you'll definitely get the idea. 

Take a moment to admire some mo's.

Mr. Jesse Lee (USA)

Mr. Sam Street (Australia)

Mr. Andreas from Sweden

Mr. Josh Irwin (Australia) and Mr. Stevie Lujan (Hawaii/Australia)

Mr. Jeff...something (Hawaii)

Mr. Jack Narvel (USA)

Stories from the side of the road Part #2

Here are our lastest photos of stuff we found on the side of the road.

the wide shot. 

scategories and a collection of really terrible c.d.'s.  Like Evanesence and Alanis Morisette.

trying otu a heavy duty file.  Jesse says no shed is complete without one.

christina with our painting collection.  Does it seem like Jesus is looking at you?

what will hopefully be our new t.v. cabinet.  After we paint the fake woodness out of it.

Items we found were:  a canvas of an Indian looking boy (girl?), a potential t.v. stand, a side table cabinet thing, a painting of Jesus, a metal file, scattegories, various c.d.'s, and a vaccuum cleaner (still don't know if it works). Another successful outing.

'Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

 '-Mark Twain