Happy New Year!

This year we spent New Year's Eve with Brittney and Dan and Becca and Travis at B & T's place. It was definitely one of the best New Year's Eves we've had!

Games and food, the ball drop, the fun!

Wow, Travis. Very nice.

Dan was getting cold....and sleepy (?)

Marcus giving Travis the "awkward hug."

Girls picture! Brittney called this pose "Twin Towers."

Cheers!

I think this is the countdown and everyone is saying "One!"

Happy New Year!

Christmas with the Carletons

Every year we spend Christmas day with my family. We go over early for breakfast, open presents, lounge around all day, and then have a big lunch/dinner.

My sister went all Martha Stewart-y and made these cool place settings.

Look at her pajamas!!! and all that eye shadow!!!!

Marcus got some coffee...and a new French Press (since ours got ruined in the kitchen flood)!!

We got my dad some hand-held games and I made a cover for a little basket to put them in.

I had to post a pic of my sis in real clothes... :)

Emily, my bro's girlfriend, and my brother, and me doing a crossword or two. Classic.

ZamZam got some shoes (and lots of other things) which she was quite excited about. :)

That'll do it for the Moline Christmases...
What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

Christmas with the Andersons

I suppose I should probably blog about Christmas! Several things have happened since then that I also want to blog about, so I need to get a move on!! :)

Every year we spend Christmas Eve with Marcus's side of the family. We have dinner, open gifts, and then have a Gingerbread House contest. It is always loads of fun!! :)

Enough babbling, here are the pics:

WE WON!!!!

I hope you all had a great Christmas!

More to come...

Barbie Room News

Well, the much anticipated Barbie Room is almost finished.

What a great husband I have!

I have loved Barbies since I was little and played with them on up through high school (embarrassing fact, I know).

In high school my love for playing Barbies began to mature into a love of collecting them.

I knew one day my home would have a Barbie room in it.

When we bought this house, I immediately picked out which room I'd want.

I choose the "coal chute" room.

I wonder what Marcus's great-grandparents would think of their coal chute now. :)

Below is the process:

After the boiler/furnace was put in several decades ago, the coal room was no longer needed. Marcus's great aunt and uncle put in shelves and used the room for storage. They even kept some coal in a jar for sentimental value. :) But, by the time we bought the house, the coal room was spic and span and looked like this:

That there is some prime Barbie display space, wouldn't you say?

Well, turns out those shelves are a little too short to actually house any Barbies. :(

So, we took them out and started painting.

Way back during the summer (oh, it seems so long ago!) I participated in Glidden's free paint giveaway. I ordered up myself three FREE quarts of a lovely paint color called SEXY PINK. I couldn't resist. It was nearly back-breaking (at least quite the ab workout) to paint these porous surfaces (which varied from brick to plaster to cinder block throughout the room), but we managed.

First, a little spackling to rescue the crumbly plaster...

Then, the paint makes its glorious debut!

Next, we added some light pink for the window and the door. It adds such a cute touch!

Meanwhile, the boxes of Barbies and Barbie memorabilia were sitting outside the door, just waiting to be set up!

Once the paint had dried, I measured out and selected my favorite calendar pages from years of collecting Barbie calendars. First, I tried using some wallpaper glue to adhere the pages. After that didn't work, I went to Lowe's to get some 3M spray glue, which worked like a charm! First, I put my all-time fave Barbie on the door.

In The Pink Barbie (my license plate's namesake)

I'm going to frame it with some ribbon, but I didn't get that far this time around...

Marcus had the great idea of choosing some of my favorites to put in the window. I love it!

Next came the carpet. 

Remember this lovely upstairs bedroom?

We measured the floor of the Barbie room and cut a piece of this purple carpet to fit in the Barbie room...

It looks great in there! :)

Next came the shelves.

We got them from IKEA for $14.99!

Some of my Barbie boxes are really tall, so we took out one of the shelves so we'd have one that is really tall...

Next came the setup!

There is a little area on the floor with Barbies that can be played with (for all the little girls in my life)

and then back on the shelves are the collectibles!

The last step will be curtains....which I have at our apartment, but I didn't bring them to the house this Christmas because I never imagined we'd get this far! I also have this chandelier from IKEA, which unfortunately is not going to work, so I need to go plan B for the lighting.

But for now, I am so giddy with the results of the Barbie room. It's everything I ever dreamed of!

Who wants to come over and play?