holidays – thosecoolkims

The Nightmare Before Ruby’s Birthday

With Ruby’s birthday only being two days after Halloween, I’ve always worried about lumping them together because it just didn’t seem fair. Turns out, Mom was completely WRONG on this one! Ruby absolutely adores Halloween and was thrilled that it fell on a weekend this year so that she could have a Halloween birthday party! We’ve always had a crew to trick-or-treat with, so we just invited folks over for a little extra fun before hitting the neighborhood.

One of her very favorite movies is The Nightmare Before Christmas, so we did our best to make the celebration worthy of an event in Halloween Town. She was pretty happy.

Of course, Daddy had to be Jack…

My last minute costume was dressing up as Shock, one of the troublemaker kids in the movie who kidnaps “Sandy Claws”. She dresses like a witch but wears a big, oversized green mask. Props to Ed for constructing this last minute for me! (And how great did Daddy pull off Sally‘s awesome makeup?!?)

Matchy-machy Tim-Butron-esque tights. :)

Ed went all out and decided an Oogie Boogie piñata needed to be made. He did the whole thing … paper mache and all. I didn’t know how he’d pull it off, but he sure did — it turned out incredible!

A few pics from the celebration:

And finally, the Annual Halloween photo — AKA, the Orange Couch Session!

Trick or Treating in the neighborhood

Valentine Photo Shoot

We consider ourselves pretty lucky to have friends who introduced us to Isabella’s Cookie Company. (Thanks, Kim!) Not only are they amazingly delicious, super adorable and the best cookies we’ve ever eaten, they just so happen to like to take pics of Ruby munching on cookies. It’s a win win ’cause we all end up getting some pretty adorable photos!

Since she did such a great job around Christmas time, they asked us to be a “cookie pal” again this year! These Valentine’s Day photos just melt our hearts.

We love Isabella’s! :)

Christmas 2013 Highlights

As usual – we had a great Christmas! We feel so fortunate to have wonderful family to celebrate the holidays with. We hosted Christmas Eve at our house for Ed’s side of the family, and we were especially thrilled that Auntie Shannon could join us! It was a cozy evening of good food, great company, cookie decorating, and of course – a few presents. :) We kept things casual this year and went with paper plates! But I still made special place-setting favors like I do every year — it’s tradition!

An 80 degree Christmas Eve at The Kims

All ready for dinner!

Mommy made a trifle!

Love for Halmoni!

Cookie decorating time – everybody got into it!

On Christmas Morning, Grandma + Papaw arrived early to watch Ruby open presents. Looks like Santa made it to our house this year – thank goodness for that key!

She asked Santa for a Sofia the First Doll for 2 months straight, grateful he came through .

Ruby gave a few gifts, too…

After a bit of relaxing, we headed to Grandma + Papaw’s to spend the day. Unfortunately, not too many pics captured there, but lots of memories were made for sure! Dad made his mini sugar fest cakes (!) and Mom made the traditional family favorite, Ribbon Salad. A sweet way to end an epic day!

This is my favorite pic with the best gift of all …

Merry Christmas 2013! More pics here.

Wigwam Motel Holiday Lighting and Donut Exchange

When we found out Charles Phoenix, The King of Retro!, was going to host a Holiday Lighting & Donut Exchange at the uber kitschy Wigwam Motel in San Bernadino off Route 66, we knew we had to be there. We stayed at The Wigwam in Holbrook, AZ a few years back on our kitschy southwest road trip and we were dying to see what the one in CA was like, and come on — any event hosted by Charles Phoenix doesn’t take much convincing for us to attend. :)

The Wigwams were in great shape, much nicer than the ones in Holbrook.

But the real sight to behold was the solitary teepee Charles adorned with lights. Here he is counting down before the switch was flipped on!

People took the donut exchange part of the gathering very seriously. There were SO many donuts! Someone even kept the kitsch theme alive by creating an Astro-DONUT Tree (inspired by the Astro Weenie Trees of the era). Boy was it a beauty!

Ruby had a blast – “The teepee has lights on, the teepee has lights on!”

We got to meet Charles, too (he was a fan of our glasses!), but unfortunately my iPhone flash turned everything this ugly green color. :(

All in all, there couldn’t been more of a perfectly fun & festive way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We love Christmas, we love Charles Phoenix, we love kitsch – and we love donuts!

Santa Visit Success!

After two years of terrifying visits with Santa, it seems that Ruby has finally warmed up to Ol’ St. Nick. We’ve been taking her every year to see the Santa Claus at Lil’ Devils Boutique, a super rad shop on Retro Row in Long Beach. It’s casual there, Santa is slightly punk rock with a small tattoo under his eye, and we just like to support small business.

The 1st year was easy … Ruby was just about 5 weeks old. She slept through the whole visit.

Then, at 13 months, Ruby was NOT feeling it.

Last year, at two years old, the visit was equally as terrifying.

But this year, somebody wised up and figured out there’s nothing to be afraid of … and, you can even ask him to bring you something that you want!

I guess it’s all just proof that this little girl is growing up!