Lazy Sunday's Photos

Everybody up?

Read the paper, chew the bone.

Coffee on the porch.

Let's take a walk.


Gathering.

Look what we found.


Can we go outside again?

New Years 2008: Ugly Sweater Party

1st Place: A bold Golden Girl choice! Pilled texture, blend of white and coral pink, embroidered tropical flowers, gold embellished accents. In this photo, she merrily holds the trophy.

Best Team Effort: Jess, Pax, and Josh impressed with this clash-tastic ensemble. Jess' peach dream featured ivory woven ribbons, Pax's turquoise and ivory knitted romper boasted a matching hat, and Josh' chunky weave featured myriad of colors and textures. What a rainbow.

The 80s Are Back! A recurring theme throughout the night was the fabulous turnout of magenta accented roomy deco-pop tops, surely found waiting on hangers since 1983. (I particularly rooted for the sweater above left with the lip-kiss-esque pattern.)

The Hosts with the Most: Melissa dazzled in a long, black sweater complete with shoulder pads that could have served a quarterback, and a gag-inducing gold and blue marbled motif. (Mark is carefully monitoring a conversation between Rocco and their cat.)

Our clashtastic family photo! My sweater was a stiff extra-long ivory beast with sparkling holly and mistletoe, Dan dazzled in a cropped faux turtleneck black sweater with a winter wonderland of peguins, and Rocco matched with his white turtleneck, orange/neon green/red sweater--a gift from Melissa. :-)

Full frontal Christmas cheer! Dan did all the hard work, too. He scoured every Goodwill and Value Village in the Portland tri-county. (His secret? Men have to look in the ladies' plus sizes.)

Holiday Wrap Up

Just how easy was it to stick to the handmade pledge? Ummmm....Well, let's just say that it worked out well because we are poor and have to think creatively anyway. However, if I was makin' bank, I think it would have ultimately been very difficult for me to avoid the typical shopping festivities of the season. For the second year in a row, we made our own *edible* gifts for our loved ones, including an apple-ginger organic granola mix and mint cocoa:



Of course, Dan did all of the hard work in the kitchen and I just made pretty packaging...

As far as our gifts to one another went, I didn't succeed in the handmade portion as well as Dan did. His handmade gifts included:

• 1 personally handmade conceptual painting (more on that later)
• 1 personally handmade terrarium, complete with a plastic deer
• Two handmade wooden art panels (We like to collect framed cross-stitches and painted wooden panels from Goodwill and he has a knack for finding the funniest ones!)
• Potatoes. Yes, a box of potatoes. I reckon they were hand-planted and hand-picked somewhere.
• In fact, the only thing he presented to me that wasn't handmade was an ipod adapter for the car. You just gotta let that slide because the CD player in our car has been cranky and I NEED music for my commute, PEOPLE!

My gifts for Dan were a bit of a stretch in the handmade category, but let ye readers decide:

• A book on the history of football from Borders. Obviously we can't count a book that was made in China. I lose.
• A membership to the Oregon Brewers Guild, complete with a handmade membership card, and a tshirt and bumper sticker--which could be considered handmade by the lovely beer fellows here in Portland. Discuss.
• My final gift is too explicit to share in this format, or really, in any format, but let's just say it was completely handmade, involving a santa hat, a few dance steps, and a mixed CD.

Other fabulous handmade gifts included a hand-painted card from Allyson (see above) and our favorite cookies made with love by Dan's mom...

Vintage Find: Baby Crib

Future-Baby gets to chill in this retro find, only $50 from a couple in Sandy, Oregon. It pulls apart, changing into a toddler bed, too.