Catch Up

We've had a busy couple of weeks lately. I'm not sure what we were exactly doing, but we've been busy! :-)

• We went to Wild Lights at the zoo with Veronica, Carlos, and Juliana (Waylon's former boss who also moved here this summer). The whole zoo was lit up and they had real reindeer and Santa. We enjoyed some hot chocolate and a large chocolate chip cookie while Veronica's family decorated sugar cookies with Mrs. Claus. It was quite cute. But freezing, so we only stayed about an hour.

Kind of blurry but it was cold. I forgot my camera so I used my phone. The buttons are activated by heat so you have to use your finger, not your glove. I only took this one picture.

• We traded my beloved Mustang in for a GMC Acadia. It's much harder to get out of a Mustang as a 28 year old than it was when I was skinny and 18. And the whole rear-wheel drive thing wasn't all that great. The Acadia is All Wheel Drive which we are very excited about.
  


best picture I could get while it was in the garage




• The Acadia BARELY fits in the garage. We thought it was smaller than the Tahoe. Wrong. I have to pull about an inch away from some metal shelving and the trash can. No anxiety or anything.
  


Seriously, this is how close I have to get just to be able to shut the garage door. Yeah.

• We purchased our first artificial tree. Waylon was not the happiest camper but at least we got a good deal.
  

Our tree with one present. Sad but true.

Some of my favorite ornaments. I'm going to get a small tree just for my hope ornaments.

My absolute favorite ornament. "Our First Christmas Together 2000"

• We decorated the outside of our house for the first time ever. We felt very scrooge-ish with all the other houses decorated. We put up some lighted garland along the porch and put wreaths on each side of the garage. The next night we had high winds and I had to go outside at 1am to pick them up off the ground. They have since been re-hung.
  
  
• My friend Sara invited me to a Cookie Swap Party at her friend Joelle's house on Sunday afternoon. It was really fun and everyone was super nice. I had met Joelle once and she was kind enough to invite me. The night before, I baked 137 Oatmeal Scotchies. They were really good but it took me about three hours.

My cookies...doesn't look like 137 but the ones in the back are triple-stacked.

• Christmas is in two days and I still have about 7 presents to purchase. The only thing I've bought for anyone in my family is for my brother. He's so lucky.
  
  
• In addition to our shopping not being completed, I also have not sent my Christmas cards out yet. :-)


• We are (obviously) not going "home" for Christmas. We were planning on cooking our dinner ourselves and just being together but we had several invitations to join other families here in Ohio. We felt kind of bad saying no to everyone. After we thought about it, we decided to join Veronica's family for Christmas lunch. Their family is in Texas so it will just be the three of them, plus us. We will do our own thing on Christmas Eve, I just don't know what yet!


• Sunday, we will head to my grandparents' farm in Indiana for Christmas with my family. My parents will be getting there on Saturday night. We will just stay for the day because we don't have anyone to watch Max.
  
  
• We don't have plans for New Year's Eve but on New Year's Day we will be going to Sara and Anthony's to watch the Ohio State v. Oregon game. They are getting pizza and stromboli from their pizza shop. It's the best in the world. We always get two stromboli's so we can take one home. Some days I just love Anthony's mama (well, her cookin'!)!


• We've had snow since last Friday. It doesn't melt like it does in Arkansas. Imagine that. I thought it would be gone by Monday but it's still here. It snows a little bit each day. I think it's supposed to rain on Christmas though so it will probably melt it all.

Max loves the snow. He enjoys just standing there and making me stand with him. It's a lot of fun. Seriously though, he loves to play in it and try to catch snowballs with Waylon. It's quite adorable.

The pond frozen over with snow on it. It was completely covered a few mornings.

• Waylon's off work for the next week and a half. I'm so excited!