St. Nick's Day 2012

Last year was our first married Christmas season and with that, comes St. Nicholas Day; it has always been one of my favorites.  I loved getting a new ornament each year.  I loved to wake up and see what "St. Nick" got me.  It was always personal to each of us.

Nick and I decided this would be a good tradition to continue within our own little family.  We love the idea of a personalized tree with ornaments that each hold a special meaning.  Last year I found Nick the perfect ornament...a Weimaraner that I had personalized with Yadi's name, the year, and wrote "Our First Fur Baby."  Nick is beyond obessed with Yadi and this year I just had to accept that I would not ever find an ornament he would love just as much.  I was already feeling defeated.

On St. Nicholas Day Eve, we set out to shop.  We both had slacked hardcore and hadn't bought an ornament.  So off we went to various stores.  Hobby Lobby (fail), Joann's (fail), TJ Maxx/Homegoods (fail.)  Then it was off to the mall. We walked in and parted ways.  I honestly had no idea what to get Nick.  I was thinking something along the lines of aviation but wasn't having much luck.  Thankfully Hallmark pulled through for me.

We came home and secretly tucked our ornaments into each other's stocking and then went to bed.

The next day we opened our stockings to discover our ornaments.  (We decided to forego candy this year because we have soooo much in our pantry plus we're on a very tight budget this holiday season.)
I made Nick go first.

Playing with the propeller

He loved his ornament.  We realized this was one plane in a series.  It was #16 but we had no idea how many more there would be.  We then looked them up on eBay and now I have ornament ideas for Nick for the next 16+ years!!!  He wants to collect them all.  We somehow have the Spirit of St. Louis plane from a few years ago so that's two down! lol

Then it was my turn.

I loved it!!!!  Nick knows I LOVE penguins (it's kind of a thing between us) and I just love penguins at Christmas time anyway.  And he knows I want an ornament every year with our "family" on it so this was perfect!  It's our first "family" ornament.  I really wanted one last year but didn't end up getting one.

I just love this tradition and can't wait until we have a child to buy ornaments for!

And now I'm excited to go home and get my ornament from "St. Nick" back at my parents house!!!!

Thanksgiving Trip at "Home"

I've posted a few blogs about specific events while at home but I figured I'd just write a quick post about an overview of our time at home.

In addition to the wedding, my appointment, with Dr. Adkins, Six Years Remission, My 28th Birthday,  and Thanksgiving, a lot of other fun things happened while we were at home!

• My cousin, Teeny, bought her very own condo.  I went over one evening and enjoyed some Imo's and Bud Light (two of my absolute favorite things ever and the BEST pizza on the planet), caught up on life, laughed a lot, and spent the night with her.

• My Uncle Gary and Aunt Anne are moving.  Anne grew up in the house they live and it's been their home as long as I've been around.  We've celebrated many holidays, birthday, graduations, random barbecues, and wine nights at their house.  It holds a lot of memories.  We all gathered at their house to enjoy more Imo's (yum), have a few drinks and say goodbye to Gail Court.

My cousins: Melissa and Teeny

My wonderful Grandmother!

Mom, Aunt Anne, and Aunt Janet

My brother =)

• As we always do, and my absolute favorite thing to do with my family, we gathered on another day for a Game Day.  Of course this included lots of delicious food, alcoholic beverages, and waaaaaayyyy too many laughs and inappropriateness.  We also had some second and third cousins we haven't seen in far too long stop by!!!  Games with my family was probably the highlight of my visit home.  Not to mention we played Telestrations and you can't not have fun with that game!  Especially when Grandma plays!!!

Just some of the drinks

cousins

Nicholas and Benjamin

• My brother came in town for the weekend after Thanksgiving (he was with Randy's family for Thanksgiving, but they'll be with us for Christmas.  Sadly, Randy had to work and wasn't able to come in).  When Ben is around it's the best time ever.  If you know me and follow my blog, then you know he's my best friend and one of my favorite people ever.  We hung out at the house and decorated the Christmas tree (the one that holds all our personal ornaments from St. Nick over the years)

 We went out to eat with Dad's old high school gang

mmmm...it's so good to be back in St. Louis for this reason!

And we sat around using our new found app on our phones.  It makes you sound like you're high on helium...or a Chipmunk.  Either way, it's HILARIOUS!  And I got some AWESOME videos of mom's typical reaction to my obnoxious, perverted, and inappropriate comments =)  But I am going refrain from putting those on here ;)

Dad and Sierra

So Nick decided he wanted a photo of him holding his dog...

And then Ben wanted a picture with one of his dogs lol

As always, it was a wonderful trip home.  So there you have it.  A quick overview!

Stocking Traditions Continue On...in Reverse

While I was home during the summer, I blogged about the stockings my Grandmother made all of us (her children, their spouses, and kids).   And how we decided to keep our stockings at home at Mom and Dad's.  But we still wanted them so we headed to Grandma's to make our own with her help.

My brother then came up with an awesome idea.  He suggested we make Grandma and Grandpa their own felt stockings.  We knew they'd absolutely love them, because they'd be so meaningful and heartfelt.  And obviously because it would bring up such amazing memories!

My brother is a fantastic artist so it took him no time at all to come with these designs for their stockings.

{I think Grandma's is so fitting because along with crafting with her when we were little, we also did LOTS of baking!}

Leah and I worked together on Grandma's stocking and Ben took care of Grandpa's.  We wanted to present them with the stockings well before Christmas so they could hang them up and actually enjoy them.
We decided to give them to them while we were home for Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately Leah wasn't able come home for Thanksgiving but she was a great sport about it.  She didn't mind that we gave them to our Grandparents without her, as long as she could be watching.  {Obviously she wished she could be here but understood it just wasn't possible.)

So during our family game day, we sat Grandpa and Grandma down and told them we had a gift for them.  Then we got Leah on FaceTime.  Mom made sure Leah could see while Ben and I presented the gifts to them.  (Sadly we didn't think to take a video or pictures and I so very much regret this.)

They LOVED them!!! Grandma even teared up a little.  They were so shocked that we did it and even more shocked that Ben made up the design 100% on his own.

I can't wait to go to their house over Christmas and see where they decided to hang them.  I will update with that photo after we get back from the Christmas holidays.

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving was....weird.  Good but weird.

It was small.  Very, very small.  No Nick.  No siblings.  No cousins.
It was just my Grandparents, my parents, one aunt and uncle, and me.  That's it.

My family is on a rotating schedule.  This year, they are all celebrating with their other side of the family.  (Next year, we'll all be together.)  Ben and Randy are with Randy's family.  Leah and Kyle stayed in Alabama and his family came down to celebrate with them.  Nick was with his family because their dinner conflicted with ours.

It was quiet.  And "appropriate" (as opposed to my family who is normally inappropriate).  Which made it very, very weird.

I decided to bring my dogs along since it would be a small and relaxing Thanksgiving.  BAD IDEA!  Yadi is crazy.   Not bad crazy.  Just energetic crazy.  But give her 5-10 minutes and she is calm the rest of the time we're with people.  It's just those first few minutes.

Oh, not on Thanksgiving!  She was an ass!  She lost the crazy excited energy, but she still had energy.  She refused to sit.  She refused to listen to me.  You'd think she didn't know what "stay" "leave it" or "down" meant.  She refused to NOT be in the kitchen, in the way of everyone cooking.  She refused to lay down while we were eating.  She was putting her snout on the table!!!  She NEVER does that!!!!!  She was just bad!!!  Yadi isn't a perfect dog but she's far from bad.  But you wouldn't have thought so on Thanksgiving!!!!  I wanted to beat her!!!!!  Thank goodness Vino is perfect otherwise I would have downed an entire bottle of wine.
Of course, after dinner, Yadi finally laid down.  When it was almost time to go.  Figures.

While the holiday was very odd, it was still good.  My Grandparents are not getting any younger and so it's always nice to spend as much time with them as possible.  It was obvious they were not their usual happy selves this holiday.  I don't know if it was the lack of family present or that my Aunt Dodie (whom passes recently) is still on their mind.  But they weren't as happy as they normally are.  Thank goodness the entire family will be together on Christmas Day.  Christmas is also a rotating schedule so this year, my family will be their other families on Christmas Eve and we get all Christmas Day together.  It's fair and less hectic and people aren't splitting the day.  Grandma is really excited and we're all staying into the evening, after the Christmas activiteis are had, to play games.  Grandma mentioned, (more than a few times) how she's really looking forward to Christmas and everyone being together again, and all the fun we'll have.  And I'm right there with her!
But none the less, I was happy I was able to spend this holiday with my Grandparents.  They are some of my favorite people in the world and they ARE my world.  While sitting at the table to pray and then eat, I couldn't help but be thankful that while my Grandparents are "old" (80+), they are alive and, for the most part, healthy.  That's what I was most thankful for this year.

I didn't really take many photos since it was just me as the only "kid" there.  I attempted photos with the dogs but getting BOTH of them to look at the same time is a hard task.  Or getting Vino to sit and not get antsy is a hard task (she always think she's in trouble and wants to go hide when we're yelling "watch me" and "stay" and "sit" at her lol).

Grandma and Vino

Yadi and Mom

My 28th Birthday

Welp, I'm now 28 years old.

I was lucky enough to be home to celebrate with those that love me most (minus Nicholas who had to go back to Florida for a few days to work.)  Yesterday I went shopping with Grandma and this afternoon Mom and I went shopping.  I was able to score some pretty awesome deals on three pairs of flat boots (all the boots I have have heels), some sweaters, and some sweater dresses.  It was a successful day!  We also stopped by Dad's work to open my other gifts from them.  Mom got me two HUGE bottles of my favorite wine.  It's a Missouri wine which means I can't find it anywhere but around home.  It's St. James Winery and it's a sweet red called Velvet Red.  I have tried sooooo many sweet reds since moving away from home but nothing even comes close to this!

After shopping with Mom today, Yadi decided to give me her own birthday present.  When we got home, I let the girls out of their crates and took them outside to potty.  Yadi doesn't need to be a on leash because she doesn't stray far from me at all (never more than 10 yards, if that).  Vino, on the other hand, loves to explore too much, so she needs to be on a leash.  Mom had Sierra on a leash and we were walking around to the back of the house with the girls.  My parents house backs up to the woods and I was standing on the edge of the woods with Vino as Yadi went about 10 yards in.  All of a sudden, I see Yadi drop and begin rolling.  I immediately called her name knowing that dogs (although neither of mine have done this) like to roll on things that stink.  She jumps up and comes running towards us.  She's about 5 yards and we smell it and see her.  She is COVERED, I mean, entire right side of her head, in her ear, down her neck, a little on her side, in SHIT!  Horrible, horrible smelling, what we assume, is deer shit!!!  She's running up to us, all happy and excited.  I gave Vino to my mom and marched Yadi's butt in the house.  I'm still wearing my nice jeans and sweater from shopping (ones that I wanted to wear out again tonight for my birthday) so I tell her to "sit" and "stay".  She does as she's told.  As she's sitting in front of me, I start taking off my boots and jeans.  Then she starts to wipe at her face with her paw, thus rubbing deer crap all over her lower legs and paws!  I tell her to "leave it" and she listens, stares at me as if she's in trouble (which she is, but normally she doesn't ever care if she's in trouble.)  Then I take off my sweater.  Once I pull it over my head, I look down and Yadi is on the ground rubbing her face against the carpet!!!!!!!  OMG!  My reaction was to reach down and grab her to yank her up....thus getting shit all over my hand.  I drag her butt to the bathroom and she's fighting me.  I shut the door and go to find my mom, who is on the phone with my sister, still outside, laughing at my expense.  I asked her to come in and help me.  She comes in and gets me the dog shampoo and some gloves.  I can't really lift Yadi into the bathtub very easily because she's 90 pounds and hard core fighting me.  In my attempt to get her in there, I get her poop covered face all over my t-shirt.  She was finally in the bath and then it was easy.  Once she's in there, she's pretty good.  I managed to get all the poop off her.
Talk about a horrible birthday present!  Of course my husband thought it was oh so hilarious.  I was less than amused.  From then on, Yadi was not allowed around the back of the house.

Later that evening, we went out to eat with my mother, aunts, uncle, three cousins, and 4 of my friends.  Jessie bought me this awesome mask while she was in New Orleans a few weeks ago (need to incorporate this into my next Halloween costume) and the best gift ever....a $50 giftcard to Hobby Lobby!  That girl knows me too well =)  (As she should.  We lived together for 5 years!!)

At dinner they brought me a delicious dessert which I shared with my entire table because I was way too stuffed from dinner.

After dinner I said goodbye to my aunts, uncle, and two of my cousins.  Then my mom, cousin, friends and I headed next door to Bar Louie where we enjoyed some drinks and hanging out...until I puked in the bathroom and needed to go home.  (Puking was NOT from being drunk.  I had one beer with dinner and one beer at the bar.  I just hadn't been feeling well that whole day.)

Mom and Me

Julie, Jessie, me and Teeny.  Wish we would have taken a picture with Kelli and Susi before they left.

The day started out great, had a major bump with Yadi, then got much better when I was with my family and friends, and then ended horribly with being sick =(

Was it the most exciting birthday?  No, but I was happy to be home and loved being able to celebrate with my family and my bestest of friends.  You really can't get much better than that.  Plus, it's not like 28 is anything to be really excited about lol.