Happy New Years Eve

This year like years past, I'm left at work reading all your "3 day work week" and "Off for 3 days" Facebook status. You would think I'd be over this working on NYE and New Years day thing since I've been doing it for what feels like forever...but I'm not.

But it's still the holidays and I am trying to stay positive. I did have Christmas day off so that was a first and I enjoyed every minute of it. Also, when I have to work, that means the hubs has to clean, cook, and prep for our annual NYE party (3 years in the making). That makes things a little less stressful right? So when I get home today, I will just be able to enjoy the night with friends and family and Chicago's finest, Goose Island.

PS Per Minne, this year the poppers aren't invited.

PSS If you're wondering why think back to the NYE we spent in Naperville. At midnight the poppers went crazy and Minne got so scared she pooped herself. 3 time.  No lie.

Random Blackberry Photos Take 2

A few more Randoms to clean up before the new year. (Other's found here)

My daily view on my way to work. Love Chicago!

The 1tt tree we ever had that we didn't cut down. It's also our 1st ever Griswold tree, more here.

Our new house has really bare walls. Our tree was lacking presents since Landon and I decided our house was our Christmas. Most of these presents went to cousin Buddy.

Minne running away from the cold at our old apartment. You can tell my the door that it was ghetto.

My custom jersey that you'll see featured on our Holiday card that should arrive sometime in 2011.

Minne super pissed that I brought my work home with me.

The start of putting together our basement.

REMINDER: Need to update this hallway for work.

Minne making sure Buddy isn't doing anything bad.

"Can we sleep in a few more minutes mom?"

Classic Buddy, waiting for someone to feed him.

Catching Up On The Holidays: Nutcracker

Yikes, I am a little behind. A few weeks ago we took my mother in-law to see Joffrey's Nutcracker for her Birthday. Before the show we went to Rosebud's in the Theater district. It was a fabulous private dinner. I say private because we got there right when they opened and we were the only ones there for the first half hour. It was great. It also allowed for my mother-in-law to be super silly, which is exactly what you want on your Birthday.

Photo taken after walking from our car while waiting for Rosebuds to open

After dinner we walked over to Macy's to see the Walnut Room and the beautiful Macy's tree. The in-laws had never been so it was quite a treat. Although, I think we had more fun taking photos in the display rooms at Macy's.

smile sis

Merry Christmas from Macy's living room to yours!

After our photo shoots, we made our way to the auditorium. Thanks to my favorite little ballerina friend, we were sat in our own private balcony. Happy Birthday Beckers!

After taking this photo we got in trouble, apparently photos aren't allowed in the theater - Sorry Joffrey

Random Blackberry Photos

Since my camera has been broken I've been using my Blackberry to capture everything. Figured it was time to start cleaning out the 2010 photos. Here's some 2010 randoms.

Crop out I65 and you have some pretty snowy trees. I take snowy photos and send them to my grandma in Florida since she can't experience the snow from down south. Here's another

My aunt and uncle have an ice skating rink in the back yard. The boys play hockey and the girls in my family pose for pretty photos.

Grandma and Grandpa enjoying the perks of me and my uncle's job.

Not a great pic of grandpa but a pretty cool shot of the United Center (shameless plug).

Minne waiting to move into her new house

Me and baby Buddy from January 2010

Christmas Eve: One crazy scary game of spoons

 

Bestie Alert From Germany

My bestie who moved to Germany just told me over GHhat that they just decided they are going to Paris for NYE. I guess when you live in Germany, you can make last minute plans like that.

XOXO
Jealous

Minne Monday

When we first moved into our house, our Boston was a wreck. High anxiety, hives, shaky legs, fast heart rate, ect. After being in the house for a few days Minne made her self at home in every room of the house except the kitchen. It was and to this day is the scariest room in the house for her. We couldn't figure out why since the kitchen is where her toy box is, it's how she gets let out to go potty and to play outside, it's where she gets dinner and it's where we give her treats. Sounds like dog heaven to us but we're people so what do we know?

After being in the house for about 3 weeks, we decided that she was terrified of the sliding glass door in the kitchen. We're still not entirely sure why but we've narrowed it down to the door itself because it slides or it could be all the shadows and reflections the big glass door makes (we're thinking that's it). We still don't have curtains up and Minne is still terrified of the room. But the other morning I walked into the kitchen to find Minne laying in front of the window. Perhaps she was sun bathing? Either way there she was calm, collected, not shaky and looking the glass door right in the eye like they were bffs.

2 hours later, Minne was terrified again. I'm not sure if she does this every day or if this was a weird one time occurrence. I'm not sure if I'll ever know, but I am happy that for at least 10 minutes of on Saturday morning, Minne made peace with the sliding glass door. 

Christmas in a Nutshell

Christmas this year, like every year before (since college) was hectic. I luckily had Christmas eve off this year, unlike years before. This allowed us to leave on the night of the 23rd to drive to Elwood (4+ hours there) to spend Christmas eve with the inlaws. We had a wonderful family dinner, lots of presents and the dogs played forever.

From there, we headed over to see grandparents, cousins and aunts and uncles. It was a great night filled with awesome food and a wicked game of spoons. My husband is the only male cousin and he makes up for it by picking on all the girls. It was a wonderful night.

We got home super late, watched a bit of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and slept for a bit. A few short hours later we made the 3.5 hour drive back home. We tucked Minne into her bed with her new blankie from cousin Buddy and then made the drive out to my relatives about an hour NW of here. More food, more sweets, more presents followed by some outside ice hockey. It was great. We made it home by 8pm and finished Christmas by watching Elf.

Sadly Christmas is over and today I am back to work. I need to remind myself that the holidays can be hectic but it's super important to enjoy every minute of it because it ends so fast.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and got to enjoy every minute of it! I have 100+ blog entries in my reader to catch up on today in between work of course. Can't wait to read all about your holidays.

Shipping to Germany Costs how much?!?!?!

Did you know sending a small little box that weighs less than 5lbs to Germany costs $100!! Good thing by bestie is totally worth it.

But seriously, that's a lot of money and the hubs and I were shocked when the gentleman told us.

I want to go caroling

My God daughter just sent me this video of her singing in one of her new Christmas outfits. It's a little dark and it gets cut off at the end but I absolutely love it! She's so beautiful and she sings wonderfully, everything about this video makes me want to go caroling. Unfortunately, I am stuck at work, so I'll just have to watch this one a few times over and over.

This girl is smiling

I think I've mentioned how nice all my coworkers and even my vendors are in the past but in case I haven't here's an extra Kudos to them. I walked in last Monday and all of these things were on my desk. 

Awesome right? I think it's fair to say that I think they like me.

Where's the Level for Inappropriate?

Any one see anything inappropriate with this? Or do you think this is just awesome like my husband?

Please keep in mind that the United Center is my place of work.

Things that make me smile

Just another thing that makes me smile...driving into work and seeing the Chicago skyline. Or better yet, pulling off the road to take this photo and having everyone that drives by beep at me. BEEP YOU!

Boys and their toys

Last weekend my in-laws brought up a few containers. In these containers were my husbands childhood, everything from his childhood actually. There were hats from every team sport he ever played, a train set (which will be going around our Christmas tree apparently), old uniforms, trophies, photo albums, frames with photos of an ex girlfriend (which the husband swears his mom saved, not him), sporting equipment (you can only imagine the smell), baseball collector cards and the list goes on. One of the few things that we're for sure keeping for our kiddos some day is the boxes of old legos. Why would we keep them?

Because I am hoping that some day, when my kids open them they will give me a happy little grin just like the one pictured of the husband below:

Boys and their toys...I tell yah

5 Guys Burgers

The hubs and I ran to a local burger place (5 Guys Burgers) and while the hubs was ordering I noticed there was a nice little kids station. Here, kids could draw photos and place them on the cork board for every one to see. Almost everyone drew picture about 5 Guys, so I figured I should follow the theme.

Clearly I am not the most artistic one in the bunch but when landon returned, I gave him this...

PS this night was a Paleo Slip for sure

PSS Minne was super pissed she didn't get a burger

Cousin Buddy

Minne's little cousin Buddy is quite the treat. I went into details here, but I wanted to share what he did exactly to one of my favorite shirts...

Can you see all the holes? Did you even know that was possible? I sure didn't.

Things that make me smile

Things that make me smile the most are the things that catch me off gaurd. For instance, this little number that was spotted in the Target parking lot.

Yes those are zebra spots on the bottom.

Things that make me smile

I love receiving mail and not that email junk kind of mail but real mail...the kind that gets delivered in pretty little envelopes. I especially love mail when the senders include lovely little photos like this:

PS I love that the sender included Minne.

Holiday Cheer

I know I have mentioned this before, but the holidays are always a bitter sweet for me. I love my job but it often involves me working over the holidays. Even before my current job I found myself working the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, the day after Christmas, NYE and New Years day even. Add in travel to these short stints of time I have off and well...theres only little bits of time to celebrate. Because of this I have started some of my own holiday traditions to keep my holiday spirits at a max throughout the month of December that I make time for around my ever so holiday hectic work schedule.

Some of my holiday traditions for the month of December and how I make the time to do them

• Watching Love Actually, Christmas Vacation, Elf, Santa Clause, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Home Alone. The nice thing with movies is that you can watch them any time, any where. They are great on Chicago blizzard days or I can watch them over lunch at my desk or in between my regular work day and the game start time. It also helps that none of these movies are particularly long.
• Holiday dinners with friends. Yep, I said dinners with an (s). I have friends that live in the city (where I work) and friends that live in the suburbs (close to where I live) so I try to schedule two dinners. A city dinner and a suburb dinner. Because of my schedule, this year I had to do my city dinner inbetween my work day and tip off but it still gave me a great 1.5 hours with friends that I don't get on a normal basis. The suburb dinner is this Thursday, I can't wait.
• Making and addressing holiday cards and catching up with friends who are long distance - yes almost every one does cards, but for me it's "me time" where I can relax, address cards and make a list of every one who I haven't caught up with in awhile. I try to use the month of December to call every friend in my phone list. I try to look at the 2+ hour commutes both ways as a positive in the winter. It gives me time where all I can do is drive but thanks to the Blue tooth in my car, I can hands free wise talk to all of my friends (or at least leave them messages anyway).  
• watching Nutcracker if all else fails, at least listening to the Nutcracker music. I have always felt the need for the Nutracker around the holidays. I am not sure if it's because of all the toy figures that you see around the holidays or perhaps it's just part of a nostalgic feeling that won't go away. Either way the Nutcracker is a must. The last few years have been a bit challenging to get to but luckily I have a few different CDs with nutcracker music to keep my spirits boosted through December.
• Making peppermint almond bark with the hubs. Every year around December the husband tells me last minute that he needs a treat for work. Last year I told him he had to help if he wanted it made. He did and it was so much fun that I think we'll be doing it again together this year. I do love making holiday cookies but it's been harder and harder to find the time to do them. I think that's part of what makes the peppermint almond bark so fun. It's super quick and easy to do, it smells so yummy and you can always try to do little things to make it a little different.
• NO Shopping. My goal is to get it all done prior to December because let's face it...after reading my above schedule and thinking about working 10+ hours a day there just isn't time for it. Also, if I keep a goal of getting my holiday gift shopping done before December, my gifts (I feel anyway) tend to be more meaningful and aren't items that I just bought because I had to buy something.

Do you do any fun holiday traditions to get you through December?

Moving In the Snow

Just an FYI, when you move in the middle of a snow storm, it's important that you shovel first.



This photo was taken less than 15 hours after we closed.. Note, we close at 6pm on a Friday night..

My Husband is Serious Business

Despite the wind blizzard in Chicago yesterday the hubs and I went out to get a tree. Typically we cut down our own but with not getting into our house till late and the negative windchill that have been keeping us inside, we figured this year we may have to buy one already cut down ::sad trombone::

We went to a few places to find the pickings very slim. We found some too short and some that looked like Charlie browns tree (which we may go back and get one of those too since really all trees need love right?) We finally found a tree that looked full and had branches from the top to the bottom. We had measured the tree and knew we needed exactly 1 foot cut off by the time we added the stand to the tree. We asked the guy to cut off a foot but we're pretty sure he didn't cut it. How can we tell? Check it:

This is our "Griswold" Christmas tree of 2010. The 9ft tree we will never forget (especially when we have to paint the ceiling in the spring).

Minne Monday

Happy Minne Monday. I should note that the last 2 weekends have been spent moving and unpacking. We've also had the in-laws up back to back weekends. First to help us move in last weeks blizzard and this past weekend to celebrate Landon's mom's birthday. Between work, moving and being sick, it's been nice to have the family around so that Minne has had lots of times with cousin Buddy, or as we've been calling him, cousin Eddie (think Christmas Vacation), to keep her occupied and not so stressed with the move.

We've nick-named him cousin Eddie because of a few things. The first weekend he came up, he was outside playing and tried to run inside and ran right in through our screen. Following that there was a poop on the stairs issue (think "shitters full") and there was some clothing items that cousin Eddie pulled out of the boxes and ate. He physically ate holes in 2 of my shirts and we later on found a shirt of Landons.

Despite Buddy's behavior issues, we still love him. He's really is a great dog and we need to take steps back and remind ourselves that he is still just a puppy and he was in a new environment and well puppy things happen. Just like cousin Eddie, there's so many things to love about cousin Buddy. Minne especially loves the times when she has a cuddle bug to sleep with.

More cuddle time:

As much as Minne enjoys and loves her cousin, she also likes when the family leaves (I think we all can relate). After Buddy leaves, Minne usually finds herself doing a lot of this:

Since we've moved, Minne's struggled finding things that smell or feel like our previous home. It's a comfort issues for sure. This comforter was from our old place and old bed. It got half way down the stairs as we were trying to get it to the washing machine when Minne claimed her territory. With everything else in our house being so new (since we have finally opened our wedding presents) we figured we might as well let Minne have this blanket for a few more days, just until she starts to feel settled.

More on Minne in the new house later.

Wedding Photos

I know I shared my wedding photos with you before but my photographer recently got asked to put together a slide show for the venue where we had our wedding and reception. I obviously loved the photos so I feel the need to share the slide show that Katherine Salvatori put together for the venue.

Hope you enjoy



PS I should note that our wedding was the first wedding that Katherine had ever shot. Incredible don't you think?

FB Number Game

Am I too old to play Facebook's number game?

The rules? You send me any number between 1 and 500 to my FB inbox and I will post something about you using the number you picked.

I think I am getting too old for these things but at the same time I am super curious. Thoughts?

Our New House

If you've been tuned out the past few months during our house hunt process you can do a quick recap by reading these.

But we finally closed on our house so enough talk lets get to the details.

Stats:
3 Bedroom
3.5 Bathroom
A full finished basement (with a wet bar that caused some problems at closing) - Landons favorite
A fenced in yard - Minne's favorite
Attached 2 car garage
A fireplace (my favorite)

Ok Ok enough jibber jabber lets see the house right?

Meet our new place!

The day we looked at the house was a Sunday Bears day and the Packer Fan of a husband of mine was forced to wear a Bears shirt, per a Pakcers Bears bet. What a good sport.

The Back of the house and the yard.

Minne can't wait for you to come play.

Shall we go inside?

Half bathroom main floor

Lets head upstairs!

Master Bath, I apprently I didn't take a pre photo of the master bedroom.

Spare rooms 1 & 2

Spare bathroom, note the cute little window above the tub. It brings in a ton of light during the day.

Laundry room off of the garage

Landons garage workspace

And the basement

All she needs is a bow tie and she'll be the best bartender there is!