Another wonderful questionaire thanks to my friend Meredith- http://elliekateandpeyton.blogspot.com/ Definitely check out her blog! She has the sweetest family and her blog is always inspiring!
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? definitely paper! then you can have fun with ribbon.
2. Real tree or Artificial? unfortunately artificial- im SUPER allergic to real trees. Fortunately with artificial you can buy pre-lit! ;)
3. When do you put up the tree? The day after thanksgiving....it would be August if it were up to me. haha!
4. When do you take the tree down? well, one year it was March...last year it was Feb...this year i'll shoot for January-ish ;)
5. Do you like eggnog? LOVE LOVE LOVE eggnog! With whipped cream and nutmeg....sweet goodness.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? My barbie motorhome! I'll never forget waking up and coming in to see my dad, looking like he had NO SLEEP (cant imagine why;) putting all the tiny decals in the motorhome for me! Later in life was my full size keyboard for the praise and worship band!
7. Hardest person to buy for? well, it used to be my sister- but now she registers for gifts- haha! This actually is a tremendous help! Probably my dad because we get him the same thing every year- cologne and gift cards....exactly what he asks for. Every year I want to be creative and get him something special and different though!
8. Easiest person to buy for? Ryan- I write down hints all year of things he wants! I can NOT WAIT for Christmas morning. That man is going to be jumping around the house! :)
9. Do you have a nativity scene? actually no! I want one though, but haven't found one I really like. Also, our house doesnt have a ton of extra space to put a large scene, so it would need ot be smaller.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? MAIL! I love getting christmas cards so much it's kinda scary. EVERY day i can NOT wait to check the mail and see all the cards! I save them all and look through the past years' cards each christmas. This was our first year to send cards so I was VERY enthusiastic about the whole process.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? oh dear. a vest with teddy bears all over it. Not long ago. ha!
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? White Christmas by far!!! I LOVE that movie so much. My sister and I can perform the entire song "Sisters"- choreography and all.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually after Thanksgiving. This year I started MONTHS ago and was done BY thanksgiving- determined to not stress this year!
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? oh yes. haha. but normally within our family to where it's a running joke of "who will get it this year" type thing.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? My Grandma's butter almond toffee bars, her cheese grits, or mom's soup on Christmas day.
16. Lights on the tree (colored or clear)? Clear on the tree. Colored on the house.
17. Favorite Christmas song? Christian- O Holy Night. Other- Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. (is that the actual title?)
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Home...always home. We would love to go to Houston some year though to spend Christmas with Ryan's Brother Austin and his family.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? name, yes. spell correctly- probably not. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, aaaaaand RUDOLPH! :)
20. Angel, star or ribbon on top of tree? Finally got a tree-topper this year...a beautiful star! One of my favorite Christmas memories will always be making our tree-topper when Kelly and I were LITTLE. We made it out of cardboard, covered it in foil, and sprinkled it with glitter. I think it's still on the top of my parents tree. :)
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Used to be Christmas eve- now Christmas morning. I like doing one Christmas eve, and the rest the day of.
22. Favorite children's Christmas song? Santa Clause is comin' to town.
23. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? TRAFFIC, people forgetting what Christmas is REALLY about (im guilty), and traffic. haha
24. Favorite ornament theme or color? I have collected the Happy Holiday Barbies from my Grandma for Christmas since 1992 so I love those, but now my mom has been collecting shoe ornaments and beagle ornaments that look like our dog. Ryan thinks we have the girliest tree ever with barbies and shoes all over it! The beagles are OUR favorites tho!
25. Turkey or ham on Christmas day? neither! Mom makes vegetable or potato soup on Christmas day. Christmas Eve is usually ham though.
26. What do you want for Christmas this year? Already have it- Ryan's home this year :)
27. Does anyone in your family dress up as Santa? nope
28. Age you discovered who Santa was? not sure the exact age...sometime around 2nd grade i think. I cried a LOT! Still loved believing though...and pretending I believed. Dad would shake bells up on the roof- it was so fun! Ill never forget that! "santa" always left us a card in our stocking telling us the TRUE meaning of Christmas though- the birth of Jesus. Very neat how our parents kept the TRUTH alive, but let us have fun believing as children.
29. Eggnog, hot chocolate, or apple cider? Eggnog latte from Starbucks. ok ok just eggnog. i like eggnog. a lot.
30. Traditional colors (red and green) or other colors? traditional all the way! I do LOVE when people mix in fun one's though....such as- the Chesapeake trees! LOVE those lights. For our house though- traditional...mostly clear inside.
31. Do you have any Christmas decorations on your roof? yes, the big multi-colored bulbs. Very fun- reminds me of childhood, except we had all red. Another favorite memory- I was Dad's helper with hanging lights. I would hold them and unstring them for him....not sure if I helped at all but he made me feel like I was and I LOVED that!
32. What is your favorite holiday treat? Eggnog latte's. And Tamales from Pecos, TX...a new tradition Ryan and I are starting on Christmas night.
33. How does Santa get into your house? Chimney or magic key? ummmm not sure yet. haha. So far he uses his key to our house.
34. Do you prefer gifts or gift cards? if they know me well- gifts! If not, money! I'd rather not have gift cards unless it's to a restaurant :)
35. Favorite children's Christmas Cartoon? hmmmm this is hard....I have to go with the first one I thought of- Claymation Christmas....Rudolph!
Now YOUR turn! GO! :)
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...
Wow, I can not BELIEVE it's been almost a month since my last post! This shows how CRAZY BUSY our month has been....so so fun though! I will try to give a general re-cap- I've never been good at the "long story short stuff" though...it's usually long story long! :)
1. Thanksgiving was wonderful! We had all of our family at my parents and more food than ever! Ryan decided he would make the turkey this year- it tasted AMAZING, but the cooking/carving part- a disaster! We definitely learned lots of helpful tips to make next year a little easier! ;) This year, my close friend- Stacy, from Life Church, also joined our family for dinner. It was wonderful having her with us....she even stayed til the last people left and helped us wash and dry all the dishes! It was truly a blessing to our whole family to have her there!
Oh forgot to mention- I ran a 5k Thanksgiving morning with my brother-in-law Brian, and his father-in-law, John. It was FREEEEZING...I mean BITTER cold! I was so bundled up it was ridiculous; so much so that when i got to about mile 2, i was burning up but couldnt de-layer because I pinned my number to the front of my fleece. haha- smart Kathleen, real smart. I was happy though- I improved my time by 2 minutes! :)
NOW TO DECEMBER: best Christmas ever already! Why? Ryan. That's why! Enough said.
*side note- i was so excited to have ALL presents bought and wrapped BY thanksgiving...the day after thanksgiving was spent converting our house into one big pile of lighted garland- ha! I don't even WANT to know what our electricity bill will be with all the lights we have on the outside AND inside our our house!
2. One of my favorite things we did this month was our Christmas card pictures with the very talented Abi Ruth, a photographer and close friend of mine from church. http://www.abiruth.com/
-We took a few pics in our living room in front of the tree...with Franklin of course, then went to the Devon ice rink downtown, then onto Chesapeake. This was the first time we ever had professional pictures taken, and it was SO fun. We especially enjoyed all the kissing pictures she "made" us take. ;) Just a fun, COLD, christmasy afternoon! Here are a few of our favorites:
3. Parties Parties Parties!!! First was a very fun Pampered Chef party I hosted for my best friend, Cassidy. We had LOTS of yummy food, and she made a strawberry tart that was PERFECTION! We had about 15 people come, and I was able to get Ryan (the cook in our home) lots of fun Christmas goodies he will love.
Next was our Life Group Christmas Party! Everyone came over in pajamas, brought their favorite christmas dish, and we played "yankee swap"! For those of you non-office fans, it's the same as Dirty Santa. It was a VERY intense game of Yankee Swap I might add....lots of stealing....made it very fun though! We ended up having Tamales (from Pecos, TX) and then lots of desserts....we were all on a sugar high so the night ended up being VERY fun! Any night with them is so great- we are so blessed that God gave us such a great group of other couples to "do life" with.
Then- the SWITCH Leader Christmas party! Another potluck...needless to say the diet has gone OUT THE WINDOW this month! haha. We had an incredible spread of turkey, ham, potatoes, green bean casserole, etc. We then played SWITCH trivia, SWITCH leader Bingo, then Christmas movie Charades. This became hilarious. For some reason I get competitive with this game. I am competitive at almost nothing...but charades. Because of this fact- things FLY out of my mouth that I can't quite catch in time. For instance, had you been at our table, you might have heard "Vomitting Christmas", "Death by Christmas", "Hanging Santa", and a few others. I promise I love Christmas! Like I sad.....flying out of my mouth. It was definitely a great night with some wonderful people. This ministry has been another GIFT from the Lord in our lives this past year. Without SWITCH we wouldnt have our Life Group, and I wouldnt have made some of the best friends I've had in my life. Here are some pics from that night:
Michelle Brown- LOVE this girl...She and her husband Jeremy are in our Life Group
WONDERFUL women: Megann, Stacy, and Whitney...these girls are seriously THE BEST!
Anna Light, and her mom- Robin Meadows...These two have truly changed my life in so many ways. Anna is my trainer and Robin is my mentor
OH AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST: MY EARLY CHRISTMAS PRESENT...my 2nd wedding band!!!! I have a video of him giving this to me- it's pretty funny! I was screaming and jumping up and down and accidentally dropped the camera- fortunately, it's still in one peice! ;) I had NO IDEA this was coming though- he said he had something for me to go with my outfit and then pulled out "the box"...the same color box I remember from almot 2 years ago! He is truly the BEST HUSBAND in the world.
Well, like I said long story LONG....that's me I guess! :) Thanks for those of you who actually read ALL this. I will close with one thing- last night we were settling in for the evening about to fold 9 loads of laundry. (that's another story- our garage and backyard filled with sewage thanks to a HUGE whole in our main line. That will be fun and expensive to fix next year....so laundry couldn't be done for 2 weeks!)
We ordered Chinese and were about to start a movie when Ryan paused it, grabbed my hand and started praying...he prayed for us to remember, in the midst of the fun/crazy/busyness of this month what the true reason for Christmas is....celebrating the birth of our Saviour. It was the perfect gentle reminder I needed to get my focus back on Jesus. He truly is the "lifter of our heads".....and He often uses Ryan to re-focus me!
This is what I fell asleep to: :)
Merry Christmas to you all!
1. Thanksgiving was wonderful! We had all of our family at my parents and more food than ever! Ryan decided he would make the turkey this year- it tasted AMAZING, but the cooking/carving part- a disaster! We definitely learned lots of helpful tips to make next year a little easier! ;) This year, my close friend- Stacy, from Life Church, also joined our family for dinner. It was wonderful having her with us....she even stayed til the last people left and helped us wash and dry all the dishes! It was truly a blessing to our whole family to have her there!
Oh forgot to mention- I ran a 5k Thanksgiving morning with my brother-in-law Brian, and his father-in-law, John. It was FREEEEZING...I mean BITTER cold! I was so bundled up it was ridiculous; so much so that when i got to about mile 2, i was burning up but couldnt de-layer because I pinned my number to the front of my fleece. haha- smart Kathleen, real smart. I was happy though- I improved my time by 2 minutes! :)
NOW TO DECEMBER: best Christmas ever already! Why? Ryan. That's why! Enough said.
*side note- i was so excited to have ALL presents bought and wrapped BY thanksgiving...the day after thanksgiving was spent converting our house into one big pile of lighted garland- ha! I don't even WANT to know what our electricity bill will be with all the lights we have on the outside AND inside our our house!
2. One of my favorite things we did this month was our Christmas card pictures with the very talented Abi Ruth, a photographer and close friend of mine from church. http://www.abiruth.com/
-We took a few pics in our living room in front of the tree...with Franklin of course, then went to the Devon ice rink downtown, then onto Chesapeake. This was the first time we ever had professional pictures taken, and it was SO fun. We especially enjoyed all the kissing pictures she "made" us take. ;) Just a fun, COLD, christmasy afternoon! Here are a few of our favorites:
3. Parties Parties Parties!!! First was a very fun Pampered Chef party I hosted for my best friend, Cassidy. We had LOTS of yummy food, and she made a strawberry tart that was PERFECTION! We had about 15 people come, and I was able to get Ryan (the cook in our home) lots of fun Christmas goodies he will love.
Next was our Life Group Christmas Party! Everyone came over in pajamas, brought their favorite christmas dish, and we played "yankee swap"! For those of you non-office fans, it's the same as Dirty Santa. It was a VERY intense game of Yankee Swap I might add....lots of stealing....made it very fun though! We ended up having Tamales (from Pecos, TX) and then lots of desserts....we were all on a sugar high so the night ended up being VERY fun! Any night with them is so great- we are so blessed that God gave us such a great group of other couples to "do life" with.
Then- the SWITCH Leader Christmas party! Another potluck...needless to say the diet has gone OUT THE WINDOW this month! haha. We had an incredible spread of turkey, ham, potatoes, green bean casserole, etc. We then played SWITCH trivia, SWITCH leader Bingo, then Christmas movie Charades. This became hilarious. For some reason I get competitive with this game. I am competitive at almost nothing...but charades. Because of this fact- things FLY out of my mouth that I can't quite catch in time. For instance, had you been at our table, you might have heard "Vomitting Christmas", "Death by Christmas", "Hanging Santa", and a few others. I promise I love Christmas! Like I sad.....flying out of my mouth. It was definitely a great night with some wonderful people. This ministry has been another GIFT from the Lord in our lives this past year. Without SWITCH we wouldnt have our Life Group, and I wouldnt have made some of the best friends I've had in my life. Here are some pics from that night:
Michelle Brown- LOVE this girl...She and her husband Jeremy are in our Life Group
WONDERFUL women: Megann, Stacy, and Whitney...these girls are seriously THE BEST!
Anna Light, and her mom- Robin Meadows...These two have truly changed my life in so many ways. Anna is my trainer and Robin is my mentor
The Next party was the Oster/Goodman Christmas Party! I actually got to plan this as Andrew Oster's executive assistant. It was (to sound very cheesy) a magical night. The party was at Andrew's neighbor's home in Rose Creek, Nonna's catered, there were lights everywhere, heaters outside around the pool, live music...truly a perfect evening.
Well, like I said long story LONG....that's me I guess! :) Thanks for those of you who actually read ALL this. I will close with one thing- last night we were settling in for the evening about to fold 9 loads of laundry. (that's another story- our garage and backyard filled with sewage thanks to a HUGE whole in our main line. That will be fun and expensive to fix next year....so laundry couldn't be done for 2 weeks!)
We ordered Chinese and were about to start a movie when Ryan paused it, grabbed my hand and started praying...he prayed for us to remember, in the midst of the fun/crazy/busyness of this month what the true reason for Christmas is....celebrating the birth of our Saviour. It was the perfect gentle reminder I needed to get my focus back on Jesus. He truly is the "lifter of our heads".....and He often uses Ryan to re-focus me!
This is what I fell asleep to: :)
Merry Christmas to you all!
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