Christmas in Ohio

My Christmas pictures are obviously incredibly overdue, and in an attempt to consolidate my efforts a bit, I turned to collages.

Family Time

Christmas Morning

My Big Fat Slovak Christmas Party

Okay, maybe not the fat part, but the rest is certainly true.  It is our annual family reunion/Christmas Eve party, complete with 50 relatives, a huge table of food, and gifts passed out by Santa and his elves.  I guess I never really appreciated how crazy it was until our generation started bringing boyfriends and spouses and saw their reactions.  It certainly is a big, loud party, but luckily it’s also fun. 

There is always some “thing” that the uncles put together to up the entertainment factor a bit, and this year it was these “New Dad” tool belts.  As you can see (top left and bottom right pictures), the new dads’ belts were stocked with face masks, goggles, rubber gloves, trash bags, diapers, antibacterial wipes, ear plugs, duct tape (because it can be used to fix everything, of course), hilariously hand made pee-blockers, and a pacifier on a string.  It was great!

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Sometimes it Does Not Pay to Improvise

I am probably not alone in saying that, when I try something new and it goes well, it bumps up my self-esteem in that area a little bit and I am tempted to try out something slightly more daring. But just slightly. Last month, after having some success with Christmas cookies, I saw these amazing-looking hot chocolate on a stick cubes here (pictured below), and I had to try it.

I had been planning to make these for over a week, and was happily melting a bunch of dark Ghirardelli chocolate when I realized that I don’t even have an ice cube tray. So much for my planning ahead skills. I started rummaging around looking for alternatives, and discovered that I did have some popsicle molds. Since I needed to make the most of naptime and the already melted chocolate, I decided to make good use of them.

Two turned out really well,

and the other two didn’t. I had been planning on giving these out as a few gifts, but who wants to receive chocolate on the end of a broken spoon?

Or with a broken spoon included?

Here is yet another failed idea. Hey, maybe these votive holders would work! No, they did not. The spoon came out, the chocolate stayed in, and the votive holders and I all frowned.

Then I remembered that I did have an ice cube tray. Instead of giving hot chocolate on a stick, I gave out my love in the form of hot chocolate cubes (See how I spun that? Clever clever). And my friends still graciously accepted them.

And I added “ice cube tray” to my grocery list. Though the heart molds would have been perfect for Valentines Day. I’ll keep that in mind.

Also, don’t worry about my fallen friends, the broken spoon sticks. Chris and I put them to good use ourselves, and they still turned into good creamy cups of cocoa with little bits of chocolate covering the top of the mug. It certainly was still a worthwhile project, even though it didn't go as planned.

Linking to A Soft Place to Land.

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I Heart Faces: Faces

Chris was kind enough to let me get a new lens for Christmas this year. I am still trying to get used to it, but of the first 150 or so pictures that I took, my favorite one is of my favorite pair of baby blues. Luckily it’s faces week at I Heart Faces. Check out more faces here.

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It’s An Honor to Be This Proud

Last May Chris submitted his thesis to be considered for The John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, given by the Research Center at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. 

And he won!!!!  Oh my gosh, he won!!!! 

We found out at the end of December, just before we left town to visit family.  Chris called me when he got unofficially informed by one of his references and former Head of School.  I was in the car at the time, and started screaming and laughing.  It scared poor Jayce at first, but he eventually laughed at my laughter.  Chris screamed and yelled in the hallway at school where he had received the email.  He was the only one there, which is apparently how it goes in that post-exam pre-Christmas season.  Unless you are writing in your office, which he was.  Last week when we arrived home from our Christmas travel, he had the official letter waiting for him, which caused another round of freaking out and celebrating.

The award comes with a cash prize, which obviously we are thrilled about.  It also comes with additional money to cover his expenses in travelling and speaking at universities upon invitation, and he has already been invited to 3 good ones despite the fact that the news hasn’t even been published on their website yet!  Furthermore, the award winners are expected to attend an award ceremony and colloquium held in Heidelberg Germany, so we’ll be headed there this May. Yaaaayyyyy!!!!

The award is given annually to only 12 post-doctoral scholars from all over the world, and is given for the best doctoral dissertation or first post-doctoral book related to the topic "God and Spirituality."  There were only 2 New Testament recipients and Chris was one of them.  If interested, you can read more about the award here.  I tried to wait around until things were announced on their website, but I just can’t hold it in anymore. :)

I have so many thoughts on this.  I am so proud, but still processing, just trying to wrap my head around it all.  I will never actually publish this post if I don’t just cut myself off though, I’ve been trying to write this for days and I keep going off on long tangents.  So perhaps expect a post (or more) on the subject in the future. :)

For now, please just excuse the fumbling and bumbling of a proud proud wife. 

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Be Nice to the Kitty

I just came across this picture of Jayce at my Mom’s house last week.  After a week of trying to ride the cat, I think I can tell what we were telling him when I snapped this picture.  And what he thought about it.

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Bags Bags Bags

Now that Christmas is over, I can finally share this great project! I could not resist making these cute tote bags for everyone and did not resist. I saw a great tutorial on V & Co a few months ago on making wheat pillows with freezer paper and spray paint, and I was hooked. Unfortunately I didn’t really have a place for them in the house, plus there is that whole “no sewing” thing that I try to stick to. So I decided to see if it would work on these tote bags, and luckily it did!

I printed this wheat stencil from Vanessa’s site, traced it onto some freezer paper and cut out the leaves.

I arranged the leaves on the bag and ironed them down. Luckily, they peeled off easily and could be re-ironed on if I changed my mind about spacing or whatever.

I taped off an inch at the top of the bag because I wanted to keep a beige rim, and then spray painted it with two light coats of paint.

When it was dry, I just peeled off the freezer paper and was done!

It turned out so great! The freezer paper sealed really well so the paint didn’t bleed at all, and the stencil lines looked really sharp.

Once I saw how well this turned out I had to make more! For this brown bag I followed the same steps as for the blue one, and just spray painted the whole bag, including the handles. It turned out great, but took forever to do the entire thing and used most of a can of spray paint. But I still really like it.

I thought that a quicker way to make a bag like the one above would be to just start with a brown bag and spray paint the stencil area white, but this just didn’t work. The paint just soaked through the bag and didn’t show up at all. So I used a few leftover scraps of linen from my cheater pillow, taped off little squares, cut out leaf and tree stencils with the freezer paper and spray painted those.

I then went against my no-sew policy and hand stitched them onto the bag. I was reminded why I don’t like to hand sew-it took forever!! But the end result was perfect and I was really happy with it. The spray paint did bleed a little into the leaves on the linen, but it wasn’t that noticeable and still looked good.

The finished product.

I made another brown bag with this blue leaf stencil that I hand-sewed for my sister, but since I finished it the night before we left I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the finished product! Crazy, I know!

Everyone seemed to like their bags, and now I get to make one for myself! My brother and sister-in-law kept telling me that I should try to put some of this stuff on Etsy, but I think that once people see how easy it is to make, they would just do it themselves, right? I don’t think I’m ready to dive into Etsy yet, but it is fun to think about.

Next week I will be back to let you know what I ended up doing with these fun blocks.

From Windows Live Writer

I’m linking up to the Girl Creative, Metamorphasis Monday, Make It For Monday, It's So Very Cheri, A Soft Place to Land, Today's Creative Blog, Blue Cricket Designs, Shabby Chic Cottage, Somewhat Simple, Thrifty Thursday, Creative Cats and Funky Junk Interiors.

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Holidays and Blogs

I’m sure that I am not the only one with this dilemma, but during the time around a major holiday, such as Christmas or a vacation, my blog stresses me out just a little.  This year, after spending 10 days travelling, visiting with many different family members and friends, attending various events, and entertaining Jayce for 24 hours of driving, the thought of wading back through it all makes me feel a bit woozy.  So I’ve been putting it off and tending to my sanity instead.

Maybe it is just the OCD side of me.  The part that doesn’t want to write a blog out of chronological order, so if I want to tell a story, I have to tell the stories that occurred first.  Or the camera-happy part of me that took too many pictures and doesn’t want to wade through 500+ to choose the best to post.  Or the perfectionist side of me, that after finding the best ones, edits them before posting, which adds so much time to the process.  Or maybe it’s the part of me that knows how I need to make the most of naptime to unpack bags, sort new and old toys, and do laundry, even though I just want to curl up with my coffee and finish the Twilight series. 

Regardless of these things I will tend to my blog, even though some days it is quite the time-consuming project.  Because, in the end, it allows me to savor the moments that might otherwise have been forgotten.

Hope you have a wonderful new year, full of moments worth remembering.

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