Christmas in words....

Pictures to follow when I get around to dumping to the computer and sorting.....

Christmas Eve I was actually off, a MIRACLE in retail!  So, alot of baking and cooking went on.  Chocolate Snowflakes, Cutout Sugar Cookies, Thumbprints, Russian Teacakes, Cocktail Meatballs, and Veggie Pizza.

My Cousin Tommy and his wife Shannon came to the giant Christmas pageant at our church, seriously, this thing was HUGE!! I should have brought a camera, but in my rush to get and shower, dry hair and makeup on in the 35 minutes I had when I realized I was still washing dishes and we were leaving in 35 minutes, I forgot to find a memory card, so the camera was worthless.  But, anyways, HUGE!! They had live sheep, camels, a donkey and oddly enough, an ELEPHANT in the play! I don't know about you, but I've never seen a nativity seen with an elephant in it before, but whatever, it was still cool looking.

After church they had planned on having a sledding hill going for the kids, but the whole 50 and raining turned the hill into a mudslide, so I didn't get to go see any snow :(  I just wanted a look, really, even if I am one of the few people in the city with actual snowpants, I could deal with the 12 and under only thing, really!

Christmas Eve my aunt and her fiance (long story, but I'm the only one who won't call him "uncle" after they've been together almost 20 years) joined her son and his wife at our house for hors d'oeuvres and cookies and "It's a Wonderful Life".

We started our Christmas morning as late as I can ever remember, with Apple Cinnamon Muffins and Caramel Lattes and presents around 10am.  I love adult only Christmas mornings for that whole, sleeping in and coffee first set up!

My husband paid attention to my hints and shopped at James Avery, and my mom added to my kitchen collection with a set of LeCruset bakeware.  I got my pots and pans for our second anniversary, in the royal blue, and now I've added the Caribbean bakeware to my collection. :)  Can't wait to get my own kitchen again!

We got my parents a webcam for Christmas, and I must say, I topped everyone else's gifts! My mom cried, I was happy.  Later Christmas day we were able to Skype with my sister and baby Vivien (who slept through the entire call) and my mom is dying to use it again. 

Later that evening we went touring Christmas lights and to my aunt's house for dessert. I'll post picks of the lights later, seriously, Houston lights are like no other lights I've seen!

I worked day after Christmas sales, but today we cashed in our Christmas money (which we still get from some of my family, totally didn't expect it!) on our own modern TV.  We'd donated our old tube TV's to the Youth Group we'd worked with in NY and had been using a 19" hand me down tube TV since we'd moved down.  We decided to browse open box deals for the fun of it this afternoon, thinking maybe we'd get lucky and find some 32" whatever brand LCD for $400, and somehow, miraculously, stumbled upon a formerly $1100 37" LED for half price! Needless to say we scrounged the difference up from another savings fund we'd started for an expense we knew was coming next summer, and grabbed it up! 

So, Merry Christmas to us! My husband can now see his sports and video games again, happy happy joy joy :)  I need to find a book series I think!

Well, I'm caught up on this week, so I'm off to try to drag my husband away from the XBox and ESPN and to bed, wish me luck!

Some Christmas Cuteness.....

It's better than my grumpiness from everything else!

Vivien dressed up in her Christmas Dress from me!

Just about enough to make me un-angry about work garbage, and being way too far behind in my cleaning and baking, and having had a constant headache from not having enough time to drink enough coffee and dealing with too many stupid people in the store and driving in the WORST TRAFFIC ON EARTH and everything else this week.

Going to go find some chocolate, and make a latte, and make some cookie dough, and do some laundry and wash some dishes. All before bedtime, and it's already 8:20.

Happy December.

Okay, more cuteness required.  She looks so much like Allie! Lucky little baby girl!

I'm an Aunt!

Vivien Grace arrived at 2:48pm, Thursday December 9th.
8 lbs, 8 oz, 19inches long. 

Somehow my eternally skinny sister and her equally skinny husband got a chunky baby.

Can't wait to meet her one of these days, Minnesota's a long way away!

Congratulations Allie and Stephen!

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

Yeah, so I'm waaaaayyy behind!  But here we go anyways.....

I haven't been in retail in 5 years, so I'd forgotten how exhausting Thanksgiving weekend can be.  Not smart when planning your baking list and Black Friday shopping list. 

So my baking list looked something like this.....

We didn't get to any pictures of us because Thanksgiving dinner with two people over the age of 80 goes REALLY FAST!  I'm used to Thanksgiving involving multiple generations and households, and starting when people show up to help cook at 1:00, and then eating around 3:00, then laying around stuffed and talking and playing dumb party games until you realize how late it is and serve dessert around 8:00 and then cleaning up and leaving sometime after 10:00 and then getting up at 4:00am to shop.  This year it was more like, show up at 4:00, eat, clean up, eat dessert, clean up, leave at 6:30.  Yeah, a 2 1/2 hour Thanksgiving.  It was interesting, and I got the most sleep I've ever gotten before a black friday, as in some.

Speaking of, my shopping list involved Best Buy(new cool person phone for FREE), Target, Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, Ulta, Office Max, Staples, Mardel (local Christian book store) and a handful of clothing stores, all of which were highly successful stops, we got everything and then some on our lists, and all in time for me to come home, shower, eat and get to work by 3:00. 

Work was fun too, our new District Manager, is not a nice person.  She decided at 6:11pm on Friday that instead of being open until 8:00pm, we should stay open til 10:00pm, and didn't have a say in it.  Also, instead of opening at 9:00am the next morning we had to open at 7:00am and stay open until 9:00pm instead of 7:00pm, and then on Sunday we had to be open from 10am til 8pm instead of our usual 12-6pm.  Yeah, NOT FUN!!!!  Especially since I was working all of those days. We won't even start about her visit to our store during my shift last night......basically, she makes me think some very not nice things that I'm at least slightly ashamed of.

Anyways, off to do more baking for our Sunday School class Thanksgiving/Christmas potluck.  Pies are mostly done, but I need to get all my extras finished.  And get more coffee, coffee first!