Why I Oughta...

While we were up in Michigan today for our annual NYE/NYDay trip, we stopped at the Great Lakes Antique Mall to try to snap up a few vintage Christmas pieces.  Last year, we bought a few little Christmas treats, but this year, we happened upon this display of what must be 100+ little porcelain Christmas figures.   This person clearly is focusing on carolers and angels, but there was one little spaghetti trim Santa (that's him on the very far left, second shelf from the top). Unfortunately (for us), the prices were on these were a bit too high, but we did come across a few other Christmas pieces that we snatched up at 50% off their list prices.

This post marks the 354th - and final - post of 2012.  That puts me 11 short of my annual goal of 365 posts - one each day.  Not bad, but not the full Monty like the past two years. Between things at work, the addition of a new family member, a ton of travel (Disney World 2X this year alone!), a heck of a lot of projects and crafts around the house, and plenty of pizza eating and making, things around the Parrillo homestead were busy. 2013 looks to be another great year ahead and I'll be sure to chronicle all of it - in it's glorious minutia - right here on the blog. Here's to a great 2013. A great wife. Two great daughters. An amazing family. A good job. Even more surprises. And...maybe even another whole year of blogging (almost!).

I don't actually know the craftsman who put this together, but Nat tells me that it is made entirely with reclaimed materials.  I'm thinking that it is going to hold up just fine once it goes outside in the Spring.  

Santa Claus also brought me a bright green Stump .  Sure, they advertise it working with the ipad and iphone, but it works perfectly with my Nexus 7.  Take that, 'made for ipad' sticker.

The Babe and I rounded up a few pinecones from the tree in our alley a few houses down and with a little bit of felt, a wood bead and some pipe cleaners we had ourseves an elf.  The Babe even drew the face herself.  She couldn't have been more proud of herself after this we made these.

Although I haven't read many books in the past few years, I'm going to give it a go with this new book that my brother-in-law gifted me for Christmas called "The Victory Lab - The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns".  It was on my list, so I'm excited to give it a go.

I put the snowmaker up on Christmas Eve, but the temperatures were a few degrees too high to get any accumulation.  Maybe for New Years?

These two ladies had quite the Christmas Day and Eve.  Santa treated them right.

With the help of Nat, we made it under the Christmas Eve deadline to get the dollhouse.  We left the top floor walls just primed so the Babe can pick out what the wall coverings look like up there herself.

With the help of Nat's Dad, we built these dollhouse stairs by slicing a 1x1 in half on a 45 degree angle.   Then I glued them to a thin veneer board. A little bit of obnoxious pink paint and we have a sweet set of stairs.  For the dollhouse, I had to make two of these - one for front, one for back.