a pug and his picture

I hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas!  How quickly it comes and goes!!  I'm waiting one more week before I take down the decorations so I can keep enjoying them...also I'm spent!!

Everyone cracked me up with your comments on pug's Christmas picture.  I promise it was pure luck with a tripod and my camera timer.  When I went to edit them and saw this I didn't know if I should laugh or cry because that picture really captures his onry-ness!  I thought I'd share a little background on the picture with y'all.

I should sadly say too that this was not the card we sent out this year (maybe next year though :-)).  The day before Christmas Eve I was running around getting ready for us to go out of town and remembered I'd really wanted a fun picture with pug for the blog.  I'd envisioned pug sweetly sitting next to my feet ha!  So, I tossed on a pair a boots (with no make-up on I might add), grabbed my tripod, camera, pug and a baggie full of HoneyCombs and headed to the backyard.

It was freezing, pug was so not helpful (he usually is a ham for a camera), the HoneyCombs were not working and just out of shear luck the camera timer went off while pug was proving his defiance towards this picture.  The funny thing is he wasn't even TT'ing he just runs around the backyard lifting his leg pretending.  I'm sure the neighbors are convinced I've lost it at the amount of times I screamed "sit here" or "do you want a treat?"

Oh the fun with pugs!

::merry christmas::

 wishing you and your family a very wonderful & peaceful Christmas!

with love, a girl and her uncooperative pug

christmas traditions

I love fun Christmas traditions and Libby had a genius idea of doing a linky party for everyone to share theirs.  I'm thinking I might even be stealing some of these ideas for when we have kiddos.

Here are a few of ours:

Growing up my dad would always read "The Night Before Christmas" right before we went to bed.  He'd add in some goofy voices to get us to laugh.  It's one of my fondest Christmas memories growing up.  Then we'd be sure to leave out a plate of cookies and milk for Santa.  In the 3rd grade I learned why Dad was so opinionated about the cookies I selected to set out ha!

Boy and I have added some of our own too.  We love Christmas movies.  So it's a tradition to watch Christmas Vacation on Christmas eve, we started this one even before we were married.  We also have to add in a few of our other favorites including Home Alone, Elf, A Christmas Story and Love Actually.

We also spend a lot of time in the car traveling around for Christmas so we love to spend that time belting out Christmas songs and boy will read from some of Luke from the Bible.  It's a sweet time just the two of us.

Can't wait to hear about everyone else's traditions!  Hope you join in too!

the gingerbread house

For years I've been saying I want to do a gingerbread house.  And then I watched a special on the Food Network and got awfully overwhelmed before they even frosted the thing.

I coming to accept that a career or even a talent in pastry making is not in my future.

And then I saw a gingerbread kit for dummies and decided to give it a go.

Here we are.  So far the walls are still standing.  I take that as a good sign.

It was a lot of fun.  Boy helped a little and we enjoyed laughing at each others gingerbread design skills.

I'm afraid I'm the one that jacked up the shingles.  Frosting just doesn't like me.

And I remembered I had a packet of faux snow that my parents brought me back from a recent trip to Alaska. 

This stuff is so cool.  So we added it for a final wintery touch.

 I am all about the kits I tell you.

::thank you for being a friend::

I've shared before my deep love for the tv show the Golden Girls.  So deep, I've expressed to boy that when we retire we're going to move down to Florida and buy a bunch of wicker furniture and send the parents to Shady Pines.  The sad part is he thinks I'm kidding.

A few years ago I met Lauren through the blog world and we realized we have tons in common including... yes you guessed it the The Golden Girls.  I think we were loving Miss Betty White way before it became cool; we're just trendy like that.

And that's how we quickly became Golden Girl Buddies.  Oh how I love the bloggy world.

Friday night Lauren sent me a text telling me she'd found the greatest thing ever....a Betty White calendar.

I said you're kidding and she assured me she wasn't.

Well then today I open my front door and look what my Golden Girl Buddy sent my way.

I tell you this girl is the sweetest.  What a fun surprise!  And my Christmas is complete. 

Oh and February might be my favorite month.

Now I'm going to have to owe this girl and cheesecake and a St. Olef story!  Lauren I adore you girl!

the one with the christmas cards

How is it almost just a week till Christmas?  The season is flying by way too fast.  I promised myself this was going to be the year that I was well organized, completely stress free and the pug wouldn't eat a single light off the tree.

Hahaha!

Yesterday one of my friends and I were chatting on the phone and began comparing our recent holiday meltdowns.  I'm so thankful for good friends like that were we can laugh at each other over the silly stuff.  I was sharing my most recent one with the Christmas cards. 

Oh the 2010 Christmas cards.

For some reason the Christmas cards were stressing me out this year.  Christmas cards are one of my favorite things about the season.  I love opening the mail to find how friends and family around the country are doing and how much their kiddos have grown over the year.  To make a long story short I wanted to do professional pics this year and never got around to it, decided we'd take them ourselves and then woke up last Sunday and realized I haven't ordered the cards much less taken the pic for them.  I ugly cried for a minute.  I think the stress of the season manifested itself in these silly cards and then a few hours later I got a plan together. 

The next day boy would get home early from work, I'd have my hair and make-up done we'd grab pug and set out to find a good field as a backdrop.  Monday rolls around, pug is being a hot mess (shocking) and boy decides maybe pug should sit this card out.  I hesitate then agree.  Poor pug I feel really guilty.  So we hop in the car and  after driving around forever in search of a good field to use as a backdrop we finally find one.

Perfection.

And then we see this.  Sorry...that would be a dead wild hog. 

We weigh our options...one we can get back in the car keep driving around forever or two move away from the hog and hold our breath while smiling for the picture.

We choose the latter.

And the pictures came out cute (sorry probably won't post those), got them ordered and hopefully they'll be here in time to address and mail out.

And that's why you should do your Christmas cards in October.

the pugefeller tree ceremony

Well I've spent a good portion of this past week doing a little Clark Griswolding to the house.  I started room by room making my way outdoors where I put up the outdoor lights on the bushes and discovered we have a plant that will make one break out into hives like nobody's business if you touch it for too long.  Despite the hives and my benadryl popping, I proudly lite our lights and I have to say it looks pretty good if you can tear your eyes away from the obscene amount of red lights drenching my neighbor's house.

With everything done and boy having some time this weekend to help we tested our marriage and got the Christmas tree out.

Oh the tree dragging ceremony.

Now please don't get me wrong we enjoy decorating it, but getting it out of the crawl space in the attic, down a flight of stairs and hooking up the pre-lit lights properly is about as much fun as passing a kidney stone.  You can read about our Christmas tree pasts here and here.  But first I got to thinking about how very different our Christmas tree lighting ceremony is to the gorgeously lit one in Rockefeller Center and of course I shall share.

1. Pretty sure the tree in Rockefeller isn't violently pushed and shoved out of a tiny attic door.

2. Pretty sure that the tree in Rockefeller isn't dragged down a flight a stairs while one complains about why Costco couldn't make lighter trees.

3. Pretty sure that the tree in Rockefeller doesn't have lights bitten off by a certain pug from the previous Christmas.

4. Speakings of pugs, I'm pretty sure that the tree in Rockefeller has a lovely pine scent while ours, if you get close enough, has a faint scent of urine from the early puppy years.

5. Pretty sure that all the lights on the Rockefeller tree work while ours has a big circle where they don't.

6. Pretty sure that if they don't work on the Rockefeller tree one doesn't just eventually give up and take their husband's suggestions and rotate the tree to the corner so no one will notice.

7. Pretty sure while Rockefeller has 50,000 people watching and cheering we have one.

One of which who is currently sunbathing under the warmth of the tree lights.

I say it every year even though it's a lot of work, I adore it when the only thing lit in the house is the tree.  It's my favorite thing!