Does Christmas come any cuter than this????

Frosty the Snowman......was a jolly happy soul.

or do you think Cooper is wishing he could just melt away?

HAHAHA - have you ever seen a 5 month old give you the 'Stink-Eye'? I have now.

Ohhhhh Fudge....

Last November (2008) I dragged my husband from New Jersey all the way to Cleveland, OH (8 hours of driving each way) for a convention celebrating the 25th Anniversary of "A Christmas Story". It was one of the most fun trips I have taken in a long time. We stayed for three nights at the Cleveland Renaissance where the convention was being held. We got to meet some of the actors and listen to their stories. Then on Saturday we got to go the "real" house that the Parkers lived in. The house was mostly used for exterior shots with a few interior shots of the living room being used. The backyard was also used for filming the famous "Oh My God, I Shot my eye out" scene as well as the Black Bart scenes. Here is a photo of us outside of Ralphie's house.......

The actual shed still stands in the backyard.

The famous leg lamp...."the glow of electric sex gleaming in the window". HA!

The living room

These were the two evil elves from Higbee's......

On the left is the delivery man that brought the FRAGILE box to the front door. On the right is Black Bart.

My favorite photo - us with Grover Dill (on left) and Scut Farkus

Joey with the"Toadie" Grover Dill

Me with Scott Schwartz who played Flick.

Me with "Randy Parker"

Higbee's Department Store went out of business many years ago, but the occupants of the building still have the sign up and every Christmas they decorate the front windows to commemorate the movie. They do a fabulous job!

Only 3 more days until the 24 hour Marathon on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day.

I swear I don't miss a second of it!

Its beginning to look alot like Christmas.....

I decided to jump on the bandwagon a little late, and join the Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes. Here are some photos from our humble abode decked out in its holiday best!

Here are some exterior shots that we took before our Christmas Party a few weeks ago.



Our Family Room with our beloved C-9 huge Christmas Lights.

My Byers Choice Carolers Collection. I have about 30 of them now and have been collecting them for the last 10 years. If you are ever in the Philadelphia area and are a lover of Byers Choice, make sure to go visit their plant. Its amazing to see how they are made and how much work goes into each one!

Possibly my favorite decoration, my wall of Autographed pictures from "A Christmas Story". We drove all the way to Cleveland last year for the 25th Anniversary weekend. I could go on and on but thats another post for another time soon.

Our Living Room, with a "Christmas in Connecticut" Theme.

Other view of the Living Room

Living Room Tree. I picked out this one and Joey picked out the Family Room Tree.

Decorations in our Theater Downstairs

Hope you have enjoyed my Christmas decorations! Enjoy the rest of the Tour of Homes!

New Mascot? Wally the green "monstah" ain't got nothing on this kid!

Halloween 2009

I hope everybody had a Happy Halloween! It was so nice that it was on a Saturday this year, although I didn't get very many trick or treaters. Here are a few photos from the night, including my adorable niece and nephews!

Where to begin?

Wow, almost three months has gone by since my last post. I guess that means its been a busy summer!

I will have to start with the most important thing that happened, I became an aunt! My nephew "C" was born on June 26th and I have spent most of my summer weaseling my way back and forth from Connecticut for plenty of visits with the little guy.

Here are a few photos from his first couple of months:

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Next we traveled to Cape Cod for summer vacation and had a fabulous time! I am already counting down the days until next summer. We had the best time as usual with Jen and Don and her amazing family.

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August came and that brought our annual Cousins Weekend to my family's beach house in Old Saybrook, CT.

I had a terrific summer, but am certainly glad that we are getting into pumpkin/hot chocolate/halloween time of year!

Before & After

This project came about when we were looking at new houses to buy a few years ago. We happened to visit an open house where the family had a home theater in an extra room in their basement. It was very small, but cozy and they did an awesome job with it. It got our wheels turning that we could recreate something like that if we bought a house with a finished basement. Fast forward about two years and when we finally did settle on a home, it had a perfect basement to create our dream room. Not only did it have a finished basement, but there was another room for storage - so we didn't have to compromise anything.

Without further ado, here are some before and after shots:

This project was certainly time consuming but so worth it in the end. Luckily for us, our brother in law's are an electrician and a contractor, so there was alot of help given to us, which we greatly appreciated!