from our house to yours...

everybody's doing it...

...and with good reason. darby's cinnamon honey butter is delicious. many thanks to darby for sharing the recipe and to the guinn sisters for their tip that the jars were available at my local superlo.

this little elf and her big brother brought me my baby grand piano more than 20 years ago, and they have been reunited this holiday season :)


that reindeer is my fave too. holy goodness, I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

it's the most tedious time of the year

so here's what we've been up to:

stripping. wallpaper.


uuuuuugggggghhhhhh.


after scoring, dousing in glue remover and ripping, we were left with a second layer...which we scored, doused in glue remover and ripped...aaaaaaand ripped and ripped and scraped and ripped in teeny, tiny, wee little pieces until every last bit was gone. then scrubbed the walls down with water to remove the rest of the glue residue. it. took. for. ever. thank goodness it was only the hallway. thank. goodness.

then we replaced one section of quarter round


...and flexed our scraping muscles some more to clean up approximately 50-yrs-worth of gunky paint on the baseboards.


after forever and a day, we finally had a clean slate



then it was time to fill in a bisquillion little holes and gouges and scuffed up edges...


and, drum roll please...PAINT!


wooho...

ok. so, technically...still not done. because we're painting stripes. however. that will have to wait until after christmas. baby steps.

don't worry, there's plenty of holiday cheer chez stone in addition to all the paint and brushes. holiday vignettes forthcoming. and the tree is coming home tomorrow.

...at least that's the plan.

eggcellent

behold the Big Green Egg, grill of champions (and captains. of fantasticness.):


complete with custom grill table featuring granite counter top, storage drawer and fold-out extra workspace. just-arrived wedding gift from best man, cousin joe bob, and fabulous friends, matt & wendy. i know. ridiculous. ridiculously generous. ridiculously awesome. captain fantastic is ridiculously thrilled. me too.

but lauren, you don't eat meat, whatever will you do with that grill?


BOOYA. frigging spinach and mushroom pizza. on the grill. so not kidding.


best. grill. ever.


you can also bake bread on it. and make cookies. MAKE. COOKIES. we are so doing this all the time. too bad the back porch light suddenly refuses to operate. no matter. improvisation, meet holiday spirit:


the hedges are jealous.