Scenes from a lazy Christmas Day

Hopefully by now, Peeps, you've all cleaned up the torn wrapping paper, you've turned off TBS' marathon of A Christmas Story, and you've had your fill of fabulous Christmas goodies and foods. By now, I hope you've cozied up on the couch to watch a football game, with happy kids and their twenty-million gifts surrounding you in a fabulous, cluttered, turkey sandwich-induced coma. Ok, well that's my Day After Christmas Dream for you, anyway.

Thought I'd share some of our favorite images from our Christmas day here in Hawai'i Nei yesterday. I keep thinking last Christmas we were in Rome, this Christmas was in Hawaii... What does the next year hold? We'll just have to see!

A glass seahorse ornament on our tree. I *heart* this thing like you just don't know and I pity the fool who tries to take it down before New Year's Day.

An ornament we bought in Europe at a Christmas Market last year. It made its Christmas Tree Debut this year and couldn't be prettier...

Christmas morning cupcakes for my Little Guy.

Little Guy's masterpiece of a gingerbread village. It's a little rough, but still so sweet!

Conspicuous Consumption at its worse. Now you know where my J.Crack dollars went this year.

*Sigh* The life of an only child, though not for long!

Santa brought a Little Guy-sized surfboard this year. Now he can catch some waves with Daddy.

Happy Holidays to you all!

Kelly's Mad Science Birthday Party, the New House & some crazy news.

What a week, peeps. I need to sit down and have a drink just thinking about it -- but I won't, and more on that later. Well, first we moved into the new house and that has been hectic. We had two moving trucks show up with all our furniture and belongings from Japan, and then two days later were barraged with two more moving trucks filled with things we've had in storage for the past 4 years -- aka, everything that we had decided not to bring to Japan when we moved there. I am awash in boxes.

But despite that little setback, I spent the first week setting up the public spaces and the most important private ones. So I'm proudly here to say that my living, dining, kitchen and bedrooms were set up and ready for use. Above is a photo I took of our family room set up. While living in Japan, we (ironically) acquired tons of Chinese antiques, so we tried to mix them with our furniture from the pre-Japan days. I've thrown in a cowhide for flair. I've always had a flair for the dramatic.

Speaking of dramatic, after 7 days of mad unpacking skills, we threw the Little Guy a Mad Scientist birthday party. Here's a photo of his Candy Lab. We had a mad scientist come and enthrall the kids with great feats of chemistry, including making cotton candy and their own slime.

I had found some beakers online, and filled those and some plastic, kid-friendly test tubes up with jelly beans, m&ms and other fun goodies. The kids had a blast and the Candy Lab got wiped at the end of the day.

& if that's not enough to make you tired --- We found out we are expecting another little one! Peeps, our Little Guy is 7 now. Hubs and I were President, Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms of our own One-&-Done Club. I'm sure it's like riding a bicycle and we'll get right back in the swing of baby things, right? We're excited to no end and really surprised, but we feel so blessed! We get to top off the year with exciting news and a growing family.

& if it's a girl, there's a Crewcuts wardrobe waiting for her. :0)

I Want to Get Off the J.Crack

Ladies, is J.Crack a "Gateway Drug?" & I mean this with all seriousness. This is something I've wanted to post about for awhile, but haven't had the time to really sit down to discuss with you all. As I sit here amongst a closet full of Tory Burch Reva ballet flats, Kate Spade suede wedges, and Gucci sunnies, I am pondering how I went down the path of $300 sunglasses without batting a Latisse-infused eyelash. It all makes sense, right? I mean, J.Crew is at the mall, it's not a "serious" fashion brand, it's a mall brand -- a catalog at that. But the Crew's prices are steep sometimes, and their Collection items can cost a pretty penny.

So when you buy a pair of J.Crew ballet flats, for instance, at $190 (just throwing a number out there for argument's sake) and a dress for just under $200, the numbers start to blur. Well, I know for a moment in time they blurred for me. & I thought nothing of doing this on a weekly basis. So when your shopping budget is in the arena of $500 - $1000 a month, you find yourself moving on to the next level --- Diane Von Furstenberg starts looking like a decent price. & you wonder why you haven't paid more attention to the sale rack at Neimans before. & then at some point, you move on from the sale rack and are moving on to bigger and better.
I've found myself here, peeps. I start to think I'm slumming it when I go to the Gap. Or when I land in Banana Republic! P'shaw!! They're dresses are $150 at Full Price!!

At some point soon, and I'm so ready you have no idea, I want to get back to reality. When I thought that $98 for a polka-dotted pencil skirt that wasn't lined was absolute highway robbery. Or when I thought that $68 for a hammered silk tank was just for suckers (do you even know how many hammered silk tanks lie in the dimly lit recesses of my closet?). I want to be a simple girl! I want to get off the J.Crack.