Holiday Decorating and Story Time

Advance warning: these are not the greatest photos in the world. I've been lazy.

However, here's the start of my Dept 56 village: Yankee Stadium in the back, an art studio in the foreground, and Ralphie with his decoder ring to the left and Ralphie's dad with his leg lamp to the right. DH said he didn't know what to get me for Christmas, and I'm kind of thinking I would like Ralphie's house, some trees/accessories and a skating rink.

What I'd REALLY like is for those atrocious bookshelves you see to vanish into our garbage pile and have built-ins added (in the opening between the office and the living room), but I don't know if he'll go for that. Other things I would like? Dining room furniture, crown moulding on our kitchen cabinets, a new camera lens, a shopping spree, some new unmentionables and paint upstairs.

He treated himself to a new lawn mower at Lowe's and picked up this cute foyer table for me. I love it. I need to get a tall lamp for it, but that can wait. Our little front room is starting to really come together. Of course, in two weeks, we'll be putting a tree where the couch is, but that's ok. Yay for Christmas!

DH resumed story time for Turtle tonight. Turtle is doing great with his sitting, and he's super calm, so we gave it a shot (usually story time turns into let's squirm and eat the book). He made it through quite a bit of The Ugly Pugling before he got wiggly.

Check out that posture. He didn't get that from me. And do you see Turtle's bodyguard to the left? Miss Molly is becoming quite the little baby-shadow. I'm still her primary human followee, but Turtle runs a close second. In other words, DH is chopped liver. We love her devotion.