Another funny Nolan story...

Yesterday Nolan woke up with a really bad earache. I took him in to the dr's office and sure enough it was infected. So funny though, Dr. Fikkert asked Nolan what he wanted to be when he grew up. For a while it was of course a garbage man (cause he wanted to drive the garbage truck and then it was a farmer. In fact, it was last year about this time when she asked him and he told her a farmer and she asked him what would he grow and he told her Rutabagas. She asked him why and he said because "You just don't hear of very many Rutabaga farms." Seriously? Where does he come up with this stuff? Yesterday when she asked him, I wondered what his answer would be since he is kinda over tractors these days. He thought about it for a long time and then very seriously responded "A Monster Truck Driver." Hey, if you are gonna dream, dream big!

Chinese Christmas 2009

We get together every year with our extended family for a big round of Chinese Christmas. This is something that we have done since I was a little kid. I was so little that I didn't even get to do it with the adults the first few years... we had a kids round but then we all grew up. :) I would guess that we have been doing it for about 15 years. It's a family tradition that my grandparents and great-aunt and great-uncle started. I am so thankful that they did! I remember when we first started doing it I would also have to explain to everyone what it was because no one had heard of it. It is one those events that I really look forward to each year. I love my dad's side of the family, everyone is hilarious and witty, it really makes for a good time. Over the years there have been MANY gag gifts given...including this NASTY dollar store cologne called "Talley Ho", silver car wheel spinners, a reading light that you strap to your head, an adult sized baby onesie, and a giant bra (like seriously one cup would have held a basket ball), a multi-pack of Du-rags, weird sculptures and many many more. Most of the gifts are good gifts and the gag gifts are usually accompanied with a giftcard which makes it even funnier to watch our family fighting over Du-rags. The other great part of Chinese Christmas is the FOOD. I am not talking just a little food...everyone brings a couple of different snacks plus a dessert and there are a lot of people. It is ridiculous how much stuff there is to eat. The picture below is just one of the tables that was full of food. Hudson had a great time sneaking treats and eating junk the whole afternoon. This year it was at my Granny and PaPa's house. PaPa has a train that goes around his tree and the boys (including my youngest cousin Matt) had fun playing with it.

Jingle Bell Run 2009

Okay, okay...so we did NOT run the entire 5K like I had wanted us to do. Not even close. Everyone kinda bailed on me with the running and I certainly wasn't going to run it alone so there's always next year! I did go ahead and wear my chip for my official time...that is going to be hilarious. At least my time pretty much has to improve next time. :) I really liked training for it and I don't know if I will ever be a hardcore runner but I love the challenge and I am sure I will do it again. I had a better time hanging with my friends than I would have if I had ran it all alone... I might just have to sign up for the next one solo if I wanna run it. Lisa is NOT gonna do it. Ha ha! It was freezing cold but a neat way to get in the spirit of the holidays. All the teams were so cute - lots of cool costumes and team shirts. We got a lot of ideas for next year. Including the team that did a "Bar Run" (going from bar to bar along the 5k route, taking a shot and then running to the next stop...it was really funny!) After the 5K we all went to Fox & Hound for a few drinks and dinner. Check out how Lisa snuck into almost every picture - I didn't even notice until I started to post them tonight. Nice.

Lisa also Elf'd us - http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/F8mmM311TxqbZaoJ?cmpid=ey_fb_friend the video is hilarious!

Mom's Birthday

Nana's birthday was on Thursday and so we celebrated it on Friday night with a little dinner party. Becca and I made WAY to much food... fajitas and all the sides and fixins , Sangria spritzers and Coronas, and cookie monsters for dessert - yum! We bought my mom a charm bracelet for her birthday present - something she has wanted for a while. I love this first picture of my mom and Grandma...they are having too much fun with their sprizters!





Of course our new masks had to make an appearance...Nolan want to scare Uncle C with it. Then when Conner put it on and tried to snuggle with Becca she was totally weirded out by it - hilarious, just look at her face in that last picture.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

The other day we woke up to a little bit of snow. It was pretty exciting since we rarely see snow - especially this early into winter. I only remember seeing snow before Christmas a few times. I wish that it would have stuck to the ground and that the boys could have played in it. Nolan still had fun just being able to run outside all bundled up before school. I even snapped a picture from the car of my big boy walking into school in the snow.

Black Friday 2009

Once again it was time to wake up a 3AM and shop till we dropped on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Me, Mom and Becca were up before the chickens or at least before Chick-Fil-A. Now, we are not that crazy family that camps out at Best Buy but we definitely like to get in on some the good deals. :) This year we mapped our route the night before, clipped all coupons and I even bought us each one of those 5 hour energy shots to take after a few hours in to keep us motivated. Scott called me at about 10am and realized that he left his wallet in my car. He wanted to come get it so that he could take the boys to McDonald's for breakfast. We were just about to go into JoAnn's up in the Highlands so I told him to come up there. Becca wanted to send home the Christmas lights that she bought so that Conner could go get them and start working on them. I realized that I was going to have to open the trunk and dig out the bags of lights and panic set in. There were A LOT of bags in the trunk and in the back seat. I didn't want Scott to see all of it and freak out. So Becca and I were in a mad scramble to get her bags of lights out and get the trunk shut before he pulled up. It's not like they were all my bags, but it would not look good for him to see all of that! Ha ha! I took a picture of the trunk at that point and that was after about 7 hours of shopping. We continued to shop until about 4:30pm. It was a little out of control but at least I can say I am done with my shopping and got great deals. YAY!






When we went into JoAnn's, Becca came across the clearance isle with all of the leftover Halloween crap. She found this nasty mask of a pirate?Caveman?homeless person? and decided to put it on and scare the crap out of me. We laughed until we were crying. (It could have been that we were delirious by this point but it was SO freaking funny to us.) I told her to put it back on and I took some pics of her just casually shopping in the store. We were laughing so hard we kinda made a scene. One of the managers even cruised by us to see what was going on. Just our luck the next isle over had another one of those masks and we decided to buy a matching set! They were marked 90% off at $1.61 each. Best buy of the day for sure! We have already scared Scott, Conner, the boys and a few friends that have stopped by the house. So much fun. I have a feeling that these masks will be in the family for a while. Ha ha! When we got home and we were unloading the car and separating out the bags and putting them in Mom's car and Becca's car we put them back on. Cars were driving past, our neighbors were out working in the yard - it was hilarious to see the stares. The next day my next door neighbor asked me if I got a hair cut. Hilarious! It was another successful Black Friday!

Thanksgiving at Grandma's House

I only pulled my camera out at our first stop of the day on Thanksgiving. It was a really hectic but day as usual. We had planned to walk in the Turkey Trot that morning but Scott was still battling a bad cold and didn't feel up to it. We ended up just hanging around the house watching the parade and I went to let out PeeWee at Irma's house. (We dog sat PeeWee and Sophie over the weekend but I didn't take any pictures of the sweethearts.) They were both good doggies! Speaking of dogs, Michelle and Kasey found a little cutie pie last week. They put up signs but have not found the owners so they might just have a new member of the family. They were trying to decide a name for him and I think decided on Scrappy. He was so cute - they boys just loved him! After lunch at Grandma's we headed over to Mimi's for 2nd lunch and then to Granny's for dessert. It was a super busy day but what a blessing!