Advent-ageous

Tay made me the most adorable advent calendar this year for Christmas. 24 red and green boxes stored in an old pepsi crate and filled with fun little things. I've gotten malt balls and sushi erasers and a matchbox car and allllll sorts of stuff. Its made mornings super awesome.

Well, mornings are never awesome, but it makes them better...

Holiday Party #2

Rob and Emily threw an ugly sweater party up in Philly that we drove 4 hours to attend. Luckily I adore them. They have to be one of the cutest couples ever, in that "we love each other and don't have to gross everyone out to prove it" kind of way, plus Emily and I share a birthday. The pictures are blurry and ridiculous, but a good time was still had by all.

As you can see by the top "prom pose" photo Sean and Patty also came to the party. We love them too.

Emily also won my heart by doing a pinterest craft from construction paper. Wins all around!

Light Tour

Early in December I bought a living social deal to go on a Light Tour with the Richmond Trolley. We went on the 4th with Jay and Kristel and had a lot of fun!

Holiday Party #1

We were invited to a holiday party hosted by some old friends of Taylor's - the Gobe's - not too long ago. Always happy for an opportunity to dress up and spread holiday cheer we trucked out to middle of nowhere Virginia and quite enjoyed ourselves.

Will and Jori, who have both made appearances on the blog before, were in attendance as well, and a good time was had by all!

Also, can we talk about how much I love that holiday parties always have meatballs and baked brie. Both of which should be consumed at all points in time.

Our Christmas

Here's to hoping you all had FANTASTIC holidays! Ours was lovely, though I am slightly glad it is over now. Holiday's can be exhausting!

Friday Tay and I went to see the lights at Lewis Ginter and then he made a delicious dinner. It was out personal Christmas Eve. Saturday we opened our gifts and stockings to each other, I have to say we are both awesome gift givers. His big gift was a digital camcorder that records in like old fashioned cameras used to. He got me a pair of hunter boots as my main gift. I was super excited and LOVE them. Then we each did family dinners before his parents came over to meet my parents. Fun family time! There was champagne involved.

Christmas we spent with our respective families, though I went over to Whitney's for a bit to admire Becca and Joey's new train table and to open awesome gifts from his family. I was quite spoiled this year.

Overall it was pretty awesome, full of family and food and wrapping paper.

We're headed to New York this weekend for New Years Eve. Should be quite exciting!

Another Mega Present Post

Here comes another present post coming at you. Its been an eventful week filled with parties, gigs and cat moving, but we are getting set to settle in for Christmas! Well here we go!

Day 14: This starts the "See, I do listen to what you tell me!" section of Ev's gifts to me, filled with random stories I told her, or random things I told her I liked. This mug rules. It will make me happy every time I drink my morning coffee out of it, and a shark attacks me. I don't remember this, but supposedly I sent this to Ev and she bought it on the spot. I desperately needed mugs too, I currently have 1 good one, and thats at work.

On Day 15 I opened this delightful 3-D drawing pad. You draw on the special pad, put on some 3-D glasses, and watch images come to life. I have not given it a try yet, but I'm stoked to have my mind blown by my doodles of dinosaurs and monsters.

Day 16 was a gift that Evelyn remembered from my "Tales of Recording with Punch Button". When we were in the studio, in-between takes, we got a little bored. We were entertained by Pedro's (who recorded us) pick punch, cutting out guitar picks out of whatever random stuff we had in our wallets. Its basically a giant hole punch that allows you to make guitar picks out of any piece of plastic. Finally a use for all those random fake credit card's and membership cards you get. A very cool gadget!

Day 17 was what Ev called a filler gift, thought I love it all the same! Check out this awesome dinosaur! My favorite, the brontosaurus. Don't you dare tell me that the brontosaurus isn't a dinosaur anymore, I refuse to give up on my childhood favorite.

Day 18 was a wrapped magazine, my FAVORITE magazine. Ive been in love with GOOD magazine for a while, especially their info graphics, but i can never find it anywhere. Well now I will get it delivered directly to me! 

For Day 19, Ev attempted to go to Sam Ash to pick out a lovely present for me. Once there, realize that she had NO idea what to possibly get me from there. Now I am the owner of a gift card to go get whatever my heart desires. There is always something I can use from there! (sorry no picture)

Day 20 was the largest gift under the tree, and by default the one I was most interested in. After opening, and a moment of confusion, I discovered that it was a critter cabin for the menagerie of pets we have! The cats didn't even wait for it to finish being constructed before they started exploring inside. Ev found this (from her home country Canada) and decided that she wanted, and by default, I wanted it to. It is quite a funny addition to our home, plus, there is a super cool moose head mounted on the front!

I opened day 21 last night, and 22 this morning, but have not yet taken photos. Ill add a new post tomorrow with days 21-23. The days are dwindling, and Ev has said she saved the best for last! All of my presents for her are now wrapped and under the tree for her to stare at and wonder. I think I'll make her do a massive blog post of all of her presents too!

Another Weekend

This weekend was the Pratt Family Christmas Party, during which I took absolutely no pictures.

Because I suck. 

However it was a smashing success. People loved my mothers decor, my pretty engagement ring, and the table of cookies.


It was nice to have a large crowd filled with people from all corners of our lives. Everyone seemed to get on incredibly well and everyone loved Taylor.

But who wouldn't?

Its super nice to have the whole house decorated and ready for Christmas. Now we can spend the next week doing absolutely nothing stressful and just building the anticipation for Christmas Eve and Day.

I love Christmas.

A lot.

And I love you all. Have a picture of some vintage Christmas decor. I think they're adorable.

Presents Mega Post!

To echo what Ev said in her most recent post, we have been a little busy. Here's a rundown of the last bunch of days I missed!

Day 9 was this beautiful box of crayons to go along with my coloring book. I love the vintage tin! I stumbled upon this a few years back in doing research for a project, but had no idea they re-released it. This gift is the perfect illustration of "whats yours is mine" as seen in the photo below, when Ev started coloring in my book. I told her she wasnt allowed to solve the puzzles though.



Day 10 started the wardrobe additions. Ev knows I love the MadMen style, and this skinny tie fits perfectly into that aesthetic. Way better than the sort of navy blue/black skinny tie that I always complain about. This is actually the second skinny tie Ev has given me for Christmas, the other one she gave me about a month ago for a wedding we were going to! Both equally awesome.

Day 11 was wardrobe addition #2. Today was a delightfully soft and warm flannel shirt. Perfect for bundling up during the cold months. Funny thing about this shirt is when i uploaded the picture to instagram, our friend Jay just so happened to be wearing this exact shirt. Good thing we didn't run into each other, because I too put the shirt on that day.


Day 12 was a perfect addition to my bar collection. Going along with my love of Mad Men skinny ties, I've also developed quite an affinity to the booze drinks (in a responsible way, not in a Dom Draper booze hound sorta way). These "stag" drink stirrers are the perfect compliment to my whiskey rocks, when I don't feel like drinking strait booze. The deer head top goes perfect with my "Design Buck" moniker I routinely use.


And finally, day 13 (if you've made it this far) was a delightfully illustrated book called "All My Friends Are Dead". Ive seen the cover floating around for a while, (its hard for me to miss anything with dinosaurs on it) but I am yet to actually look at the book. It is a very cute story, despite the bit morbid name, and I love the illustration style! You can see some of it here.


I'll try to be quicker with these!

-Taylor

Tis the season

Its the season alright. The season to be freakishly busy. Sorry for the complete lack of posts, its been a bit hectic around here trying to get ready for the Christmas party on Saturday and still make it to work and all the other holiday commitments we have. We popped by a few holiday parties on Friday, babysat on Saturday so Whitney and Jason could go to their holiday party, and helped mom with various tasks to get ready for this upcoming weekend. I've made buckets of toffee and hung up more paper stars than I can count.

Have a few instagram photos to make up for lack of posts. 

Tay did this in chalk on the chalkboard painted walls in the hallway bathroom at my parent's house. Hes got some awesome skillz.

We swung by a tacky light house on Saturday before going to babysit Becca and Joey. One year I'm going to make everyone go on a tacky light tour with me.

This is just adorable and no explanation is needed. 

I promise eventually there will be plenty of wedding talk, just let me get through the holidays first! 

6 7 8

Sorry for the lack of posts, I don't even have an excuse, i just forgot. I never forget to open the gifts though! The past few days make me think Ev might love me just for my rock-star cred. I better keep playing guitar, or i might be in trouble...

Day 6 was started with the Indie Rock coloring book! Little did Ev know that I once gave this to Becca for Christmas, and I've wanted one for myself ever since! Filled with indie rock inside jokes wrapped up in adorable black outlines and classic games. A gift for a child, only an adult could enjoy!Day 7 was a fun new instrument to play around with, Snoopy's harp. The harmonica did wonders to capture Ev's heart, maybe this instrument can do the same. I will say, haven't quite figured how to play it, but ill figure out how to serenade my love in no time! My bizarre instrument collection will always accept new members!

Today (day 8) was proof that Ev really just loves me for my rock star appeal. A collection of fake tattoos to make me appear way more tough and rock and roll than i actually am. A cheese grater tattoo on my wrist would really help my badass hipster cred!

Days 4 & 5

Well, yesterday was a little busy for me, so forgive me for again missing a day. If you haven't read the last post by Ev, your missing out on some wonderful news!

My wonderful fiancée (i enjoy saying that!) has filled my last two days with music, which i will always appreciate. The first one was something i had no idea even existed, a gift box from Turntable Kitchen. The website offers pairings boxes that include a limited run 7" vinyl including two songs they chose, themed recipes to enjoy with the music, and ingredients for the recipes! Cooking and Vinyl are two of my favorite things to pair. The box will be mailed to me from them, so now I have to patiently watch my mailbox for this months pairing, but Ev wrapped this very lovely note so I had something to open.


My gift from day 5 will be super handy when I am no where near my record player. Record players, despite being my favorite way to listen to music, just aren't that portable. The little guy below cranks out some pretty clear sounding songs, despite being only about 4 inches tall! Perfect for guerrilla music playlists.



This is looking like a pretty special Christmas for the two of us.

-Taylor