First Snow

Someone got to experience snow for the first time!!  He absolutely loved it.  I think he was in shock a little bit, but when I brought him inside, he whined because he wanted to go back outside!

Changes Around the House Continued

I mentioned in a previous post that we bought a new flat screen and mounted it above our fireplace.  We made some more improvements to that area this past week.  Meezy and his brother ran the cables from the TV, through the wall, into the adjacent cabinet.  We also bought a cordmate kit to help hide the cable coming from the outlet, since it's not on the same wall as the TV.  It looks awesome!

No cords!

Hidden cord from outlet to cabinets

Early Holiday Celebrations

We went to an annual Christmas party on Friday night, and in previous years the theme had been tacky sweaters.  This year, the hosts decided we should all wear festive PJs.  I made a Target run and was pleased to find they sold adult footed onesies.  I could've gone all out and purchased the cheetah or zebra ones, but I opted for a slightly more muted striped one with a monkey on them.  Imagine my surprise when my friend, Sharon, showed up in a similar pair!  Lol.

 

I didn't win the prize for best outfit, but I did win for best gift!  I brought a frisbee disc shooter and a marshmallow shooter.  You gotta know your audience!  A bunch of guys who have been drinking will love stuff like that!

This weekend, we also started putting up our new TV in the living room (merry Christmas to Meezy).  Our previous TV was also a flat-screen, but we had it on an entertainment stand in the corner.  We bought a new one to mount directly onto the wall above our fireplace.  It has really opened up our living room!  We haven't hidden all the cords and arranged the other electronics yet, but I'm already very pleased with the results.  I wish I would've taken pics of where the TV was before, but this is all I got.

Previous view of the fireplace

New view! (Casey doesn't move much)

Holiday Express Riding Train

My sister told me about a man in Richardson who set up a train in his backyard and opens it nightly during the holiday season for anyone and everyone to come ride.  It's pretty amazing to see in person, and if you've got little ones, you should definitely stop by!  They run the train every night from 6-10pm, between Thanksgiving and New Years.  I recommend you go on a weekday night because there will be less people there.  We visited tonight, and it was so much fun!  They don't charge anything to ride, but you can certainly make a donation to help offset their operating costs, if you feel so inclined.  It's a fun family activity, and your kids will love it!  You should check it out.  Here's more info.

 Train that goes around a large display of lights and holiday characters

Dutch's first train ride - trying to take it all in!

My niece and I having a blast on the train

And here's a video of it to give you a better idea:

Easy Update

I think I always have at least one home improvement project in the works at any given moment.  It's hard to find time to get them finished these days, but I can actually mark one off my list.  We bought cabinet and drawer hardware for our kitchen a few weeks ago and finally got around to installing them today.  Adding hardware in your kitchen is a relatively cheap and easy way to give it a little more character.  With almost 30 cabinet pulls and 10 drawer pulls needed, though, I knew the actual installation would take a little bit of time!  Once we created a template that could be used on all the cabinets, that sped up the process.  Unfortunately not all our drawers are the same size, so we had to create multiple templates for them.  The finished product came out beautifully, though, and I'm glad we did it.

    Boring drawers and cabinets before

Finished product