Ugly Sweaters and Christmas time

It is almost Christmas!!!! I am so excited. I love Christmas time, it is my favorite (smiling is my favorite). This year has been a little hard with Dave being gone but it has been a learning experience also (just like the last 5 months). We are approaching the end of Dave's deployment!!!!!!!!! He will be home before I know it and I can not wait. I don't even know how I am going to sleep the last couple weeks before he gets home. He is doing really well, just got a new roommate that snores so he hasn't been getting a lot of good sleep lately.
I have been busy as ever the past few weeks. I am almost done Christmas shopping but I have not wrapped anything yet. I guess I will be doing that this week. I have also finished the sunroom. I am very happy with how it turned out. Now when Dave gets home we just have to finish the office and the downstairs is done! Here are some pictures:

This weekend my sister and Zane had an ugly sweater party. It was really fun and we played Michael Jackson's Wii game. I must say that I am actually pretty good at it. Here are some photos of the family, I think this might have to be the family Christmas card next year. 

The reception is sneaking up on me. I still don't have a cake, have not sent out invitations and don't have what I need for centerpieces. I also don't know how we are going to run the whole thing.... I need to get on this! I did buy some stuff I need this weekend and my goal is to mail some of the invitations this week. Any help/advice for the reception would be greatly appreciated! 

I already gave (mailed) Dave his Christmas present. He opened it before he was supposed to! We are going on a day trip to Lanai when we are in Hawaii for a snorkeling trip, catamaran sail, trip around the island and a barbecue on the beach followed by a sunset sail back to Maui. I can NOT wait for our 2 weeks in Maui, it is going to be amazing. Here are some pictures I put in his Christmas card from the dogs: 

Hope you have a very Merry Christmas! 

Christmas time is good, Life is GOOD!!! : ) 

Fun winter weekend

This weekend I spent a lot of time with my wonderful family. Last night I watched Gage and Teagan and we went over to my sister's house to spend the evening with her nieces for our "annual" Christmas get together with the kids.
 It snowed yesterday and my sister lives on a big hill so we decided to let the kids sled. That was entertaining to say the least. The hill is huge and my mom tested it out first, she ended up in the street! It seemed a little unsafe so we let the kids slide down the side into the driveway then the adults stopped them from going 60 MPH into the street. They had a blast and it was really funny.

After we went sledding Teagan and I went inside to stay warm. She helped me mix the gingerbread cookie mix while the big kids played outside some more. Teagan told on my dad for eating some of the cookies my mom made to mail to Dave while her and I mixed the dough together, she is too funny. My mom helped the kids cut out ginger bread cookies. Then we ate pizza, made gingerbread houses and watched the Grinch and Charlie Brown's Christmas special. The kids ran around like crazy and stayed up late. Gage cried the next morning because he didn't want to leave-I think it was a successful evening. 

Not happy my dad took some of her icing. 

Now she is happy because she has sprinkles. 

Today I spent the day with my siblings. We went out to eat then went Christmas shopping. It was great spending the day with them. I got some presents bought and some stuff done for the reception. I found this craft at Michael's when we were shopping and had to buy it. I think it is cute.

It was a GREAT weekend and it really reminded me how AMAZING my family is and how much I am truly blessed. Tomorrow is my favorite because Dave calls and wakes me up! Plus this week I only have a 3 day work week because I have staff meetings/holiday luncheon on Wednesday. 

Winter is good, Life is SO good!!! : ) 

Time is flying!

I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last post! I don't know where time is going????? (but I don't really care). We have approximately 41 days left until Dave comes home (YAY!). I have done a lot of things since my last post. I think the most exciting thing is that Dave and I booked our vacation to Maui for after the reception. We are staying in a brand new resort for 10 nights!!!!!!! I can NOT wait.
Dave is good, ready to come home. I just mailed him a package full of Christmas decorations and he decorated the pharmacy. I wanted to make sure he still felt like it was Christmastime even far away. He STILL has not sent me pictures to post on here. I will get on him again about that.
A reception update: I have booked a photographer and got a really great deal. I need to get shoes this week because I get my dressed altered in 2 weeks!
A couple of weekends ago I went to Denver to visit with my sisters-in-law, brother-in-law and nieces. It was a really great weekend and I am very glad I was able to go out and visit while Dave was gone. I was able to see Boulder and Denver, it is very pretty. Dave surprised me with a massage the day I got there at this really nice spa. He is so thoughtful, the best ever! I am looking forward to them coming in for the reception in February. I got to see one of my friends from Grad school while I was there and it was great to catch up. Here are some pictures of the trip:

Thanksgiving was really great. It was low key but nice to spend time with family and relax. We ate really good food then watched the Bengals lose. All in all it was a great day. The day after Thanksgiving my family went on a train ride to Metamora for their Christmas walk. It was cold but fun. 

My parents have helped me do some things around the house. My mom redid the downstairs bathroom for us one day when I was at work (she is the best ever!). Then today they hung a mirror in the sunroom. I am waiting for the chairs I ordered to come in next week and the sunroom will be complete. 

I have been busy putting up the Christmas decorations. I have some of them up but still need to put up the tree in the dinning room and decorate the tree in our bedroom. I put our downstairs tree up all by myself and was pretty happy with how it turned out. I got a new ornament for the tree when we went to Metemora. 

Tonight my sister and my friend Tabitha came over and we baked cookies to send to Dave. We tried to make 3 different kinds of cookies and only one of them tasted good.  I am going to make some more tomorrow to put in his box so he will have a variety of cookies to eat. 

I will end with a Charlie update. He hasn't done anything too terrible lately. He has only broken one ornament at my parent's house, chewed some more bags on the pool cover and destroyed a piece of my parent's outdoor furniture. We dropped out of doggy school, I didn't feel like going anymore and they were not teaching us anything new in the second class that we had not already learned in the first one. He goes to doggy day care during the week and that really helps me out in the evenings.

Well that was a really long post. Hope you enjoyed the quick update on our lives. I will try and not wait so long in between posts again. Have a great weekend! 

Life is just plain good!!! : )