Mistletoe Madness

I love Christmas time...the smell of pine, warm sweaters, crackling fires and mistletoe! Monday 12/22 my friends and I enjoyed each others company at the Mistletoe Madness party thrown by one of our friends.

There was mistletoe EVERYWHERE.

Ryan and I in, what appears to be, a very serious conversation...


Sean Duggan...oh how I adore him. Some say he looks seductive. Some say he looks evil. I say he looks French, which is both seductive and evil...

I'm sure if it wasn't for Eddies fiance he wouldn't have been able to resist my charm....

Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow...

Lovely ladies...

SANTA?...No....No wait....that's Jared Fox. The beard is real by the way!

I know, we look like twins...

Umm, yep...French.

Mike, Rachelle, Kim-babe and yours truly.

My Ryan. It was good to have him back for a bit...

On my "Being Single Pro's and Con's" list, I would say a definite PRO is the fun social life. There is always some fun to be had...

I got crabs at The Stockton Builders Exchange

Friday Dec. 12th was the much anticipated Stockton Builders Exchange Crab Feed. My company looks forward to attending this event every year.

All you can eat crab + a 1000 drunk construction workers= a crazy good time.

I brought Becky along with me this year for the festivities. Becky always makes it a good time.

They raffle off big screen TV's, Coach purses, $1000 cash-money, go-carts, ect.

These are all my loosing tickets.

The man responsible for my ultra-weirdness....
Towards the end of the evening, as the crab settles and the alcohol intake becomes a bit excessive for many of the attendees, things get a little crazy.

Here is a lady at the end of our table sending her bra up with the balloons...

Up-Up-And away!.....

Santa! I KNOW him!

I came to the conclusion tonight that waiting in line for Santa pictures is worse than waiting at the DMV. At the DMV you take a number and sit. In the Santa line you stand for an hour and a half around a bunch of screaming kids. Really. An hour and a half.

But it was still fun. Ryder and I took the time to talk about the reason Santa comes. Ryder knows that Santa brings gifts to us so we remember the birth of our Savor, Jesus Christ. Just like the three wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus, Santa brings us gifts to celebrate.

Once we finally got close enough to see Santa, Ryder was overcome with excitement. He jumped up and down and squealed. It made the hour and a half totally worth it.

When it was his turn he ran as fast as he could up to Santa and jumped up on his lap. It was clear to me in that moment...my baby is getting old. Last year he cried. This year he was all about telling Santa he was a very good boy this year and wants a red car (big shock) for Christmas.

I jokingly told Santa Ryder wants "an official Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time". When Santa looked at me like he was going to award me "Worst Mom of the Year" award for saying my two year old should have a BB gun for Christmas, I realized, he has obviously never seen A Christmas Story. It was totally over his head. I guess they don't have that movie up at the North Pole.

Aside from Santa's major flaw of never seeing A Christmas Story, I thought he was great. He was quite jolly and his belly appeared to be made of jelly. All the requirements of a nice Santa.

Oh Christmas Tree!

We have a tradition in my dad's family that every year we all get together and go out in search of the PERFECT Christmas tree. We are, what you may call, Christmas tree snobs in our family. The tree cant be too short, or too skinny, or too bare, it has to be just right...or should I say PERFECT! This year we met at Dad's house Saturday morning for waffles before heading out for the great hunt.

It was FREEZING, literally, this weekend in our neck of the woods. Despite the cold, we had a great time. We did however miss Heather in Florida, Devon in Tennessee, Diana in New York, and Danny in heaven along with their families! Looking forward to seeing them all soon!

There was a little dusting of snow the night before.

The walking got to be too much for the little guy....okay, that's a lie...truth: mommy (me) got tired of telling Ryder to stay out of the mud and stop eating the dirt/snow. Uncle Bryan was nice enough to let him hitch a ride. Though, as you can see, Ryder was less than thrilled.

Santa's little helper. He insisted on wearing this hat all weekend....he even slept in it!

We found it! The perfect tree!!

My little brother Bryan and me in dad's new truck.

We have a lot of little traditions we do at Christmas time. For example, every year before decorating the tree we have Chinese food. We LOVE Chinese food in our family and this is our little way of paying homage to The Christmas Story. (you know, fr-ra-ra-ra-ra-raw-ra-ra-ra)

Dad and Bryan putting the tree up!

Decorating the tree...

He's so proud!

Yeah, he's kinda cute...I'm kinda fond of him....

Such a beautiful tree!

Animal cruelty.

Santa and his reindeer.

Ryder the cutest lil' Reindeer.

Give Me Some Sugar (cookies)

I guess with all the Christmas tree gettin and freezing-cold snowing thats been going on this weekend at our house I am starting to get into the holiday spirit because I started craving Christmas baking tonight. So, Ryder and I made sugar cookies. It was lots of fun...

He was such a big help cutting out snowmen, stars and angels.

Hey, I saw that! He sneaks cookie dough just like mommy!

Ready to go in the oven.

Icing them oh-so-careful.

The finished product: Some of the most unsightly sugar cookies you've ever seen....

But they tasted pretty good to us!!

Don't eat yellow snow(men)...

The Reason for the Season!!

Oldie But Goody

So, I took like 5 million pictures this weekend and thus decided I needed to take my memory card out of my old camera. To my surprise I had pictures on the memory card I had forgotten about. Here are a couple for your viewing pleasure.

Oh, and don't worry, those 5 million pictures I took this weekend will be blogged very soon.

Kim and I taking useless pictures. It happens...

My dear friend (of 16 years!!!) Jen's baby shower. She has since had a healthy beautiful baby boy! Congrats Jen!

Sean's birthday. I think it's apparent he got all he wanted for his birthday this year...