Matching Christmas Pajamas and Other Random Things

NOTE:  Here are  the pajamas we are eyeing this year.  

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We have a long-standing Christmas tradition in our family (dating back to when Glen was a child) that on Christmas Eve we each open a new pair of pajamas.  Up until a few years ago we've just bought random pajamas for everyone....

Then, I'm not sure what got my brain going in that direction, but one year I decided it would be fun if all of our pajamas matched. 

These were our first matching pajamas, which I must say were quite "rocking"...

Then in 2010 there were these awesome footie pajamas that were comfy cozy as can be...unless you had to use the potty in the middle of the night.

Then last year brought us these festive jammies, which I must say are the softest, most comfortable pajamas I've ever worn.  Even after a year of heavy usage, they look and feel brand new...

My sister took this photo of us on our back deck on Christmas Day 2011--- just a couple of weeks before Spencer's diagnosis.  I love that even our dog jumped into the picture (unnoticed until later).  When I look at Spence I am struck with how thin and pale he looks and while he'd already been to the doctor once at that point, we were all still clueless to the monster that was ravaging his body.    This picture now has become a very poignant memory to me as one of the last moments captured of the carefree family life we enjoyed before that fateful day in early January rolled around. 

 Shortly after the photo was taken,  I  posted it to my blogs as a Christmas greeting to my cyber friends.    I got a several comments pretty quickly about how cute they thought the jammies were,  but little did I know that 11 months later it would become the closest thing to a viral blogpost as I've ever had.  It has been my most popular post by a long shot ever since mid-October and people were constantly contacting me to find out where we'd bought the pj's.  I since have added the link to the store and the words to the post, but it strikes me as ironic that after four years of food blogging that my most popular post has nothing to do with my cooking.  :)

Here was our 2012 version...

On a totally different note, I just wanted to show off my new entry way decorations.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am not big into home decorating.  In fact you could call me the anti-decorator.   I've had the same Christmas decorations for well over a decade and haven't ever thought twice about it.    Then the other day, I caught a bug.  A bug that many women have year round, but for me it was a new feeling.  I had the strongest urge to put up something new and different in our entry way.  

It took a few days and a trip to JoAnn's to figure out what I was going to do, but here is my very first totally original Lara-inspired Christmas entry way creation...

Ellie found the stick in the backyard for me and I added clip-on birds and berries to it...

I put it with floral foam into this very cute basket and SEWED MY OWN TABLE RUNNER (without a pattern I might add) to go underneath. 

It's pretty much the randomest, craftiest thing I've ever done for our home in my entire life, so please feel free to shower your adoring accolades on me.  Or at least refrain from mocking me for the unpainted wood trim in the background of the picture that may or may not have been there for almost an entire year.