Christmas Eve at Mom's

On December 24th, we celebrated Christmas at my mom's house in Enid. We had a great time visiting with everyone, opening gifts, and playing Christmas games! In the evening, my mom hosted her annual Christmas Eve Party and Dirty Santa with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their families. We had such a great time! It was a memorable year because we had a White Christmas! (Jason had a first-hand experience the the snow...he was nice enough to shovel the driveway :)

Jason, Carrie (Alan's girlfriend), Alan & Grant (my brothers)

Jason shoveling snow...brrr!

Mom and Chuck (my stepdad) in the One Horse Open Sleigh

Family pic

My cousin's daughter Makenzie

Mom getting the food ready....yum!

Makenzie (cousin Stacey's daughter) and Haley (cousin Brent's daughter)

Jason and Ashley (my cousin Scott's wife)

Playing Dirty Santa with family!

Grant got an OU Snuggie! (I couldn't convince him to do the dance :)

L to R: Stacey (cousin), me, Jill (cousin), Ashley (cousin Scott's wife), Avadelle (cousin Brent's wife)

Christmas Decor

I thought it would be fun to practice some photography "skills" around my mom's house. She had a lot of neat Christmas decor, so there were plenty of opportunities. I am hoping to take an Adobe Photoshop training class at the Wichita Arts Center this month, so hopefully I can learn some editing skills as well! Enjoy!

This is a real "One Horse Open Sleigh" from the late 1800s!

Christmas Dinner for the Birds

Downey Woodpecker and female cardinal

Kitty dreamin' of a Christmas dinner

Male Cardinal

Woodpecker in the tree

Woody the Woodpecker

My dad and stepmom have a beautiful backyard view from their house. They also have a variety of birdfeeders to attract some feathered friends! These are a few pics I took on Christmas morning out their window. They looked so pretty against the blanket of snow!

Christmas Lights

This year, we got to decorate our first house for Christmas! Jason did a great job putting up the lights and making our house "festive!" He was going to try and hang lights on the steep parts of the roof, but it was pretty dangerous. Hopefully next year, we'll have a better ladder that will reach. For now, we're happy with the results! (I wish that more people in our neighborhood would put up lights). Thanks for all of your hard work, hun!

"Tacky Christmas Sweater" Party

Last weekend, Jason and I were invited to a "Tacky Christmas Sweater" party by one of my co-workers, Patti! Unfortunately, the thrift store was running very low on Christmas sweater inventory, so I had to improvise. My "ensemble" was more of a winter theme, but Jason's sweater was pretty funny. It was a shiny gold sweater, complete with metallic thread. It was a touch small for Jason, probably because it wasn't exactly a men's sweater (although it looked ambiguous :). He made it "work" by adding a turtleneck and pretending to be "Cousin Eddie" from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation....haha!

Here are few pics - the first pic is with Patti and Cindy (my co-workers at the VA)

Merry Christmas 2009!

Thanksgiving at Lake Texoma

This year, we spent Thanksgiving with Jason's family in a cabin at Lake Texoma - surprising, this is a lake on the border between Texas and Oklahoma! :) This is the second Thanksgiving that we've spent at the cabin, primarily because we need the space for everyone. The weekend got off to a bad start after it took us 7 hours to get to the cabin from Wichita...normally a 4.5-hour trip!! There was a ton of traffic on the road, and the several construction zones we encountered didn't help a thing! Thankfully, we made it safely to the cabin.

The cabin is part of a camp owned by the Catholic churches in Oklahoma. Since Jason's parents both work at All-Saints Catholic School in Norman, OK (yes, the same school Jason and I worked at when we first met), they are able to get a great deal. It has seven bedrooms, so there is plenty of room. It was really nice to get to spend time with the family. Jason's parents (Harlan and Cathy), his sister (Heather), her husband (Chuck), their daughter (Eden), Jason's other sister (Kellie), her husband (Marcus), and their respective kids (Chelci, Kail, Marquel, and Marquis) were all able to come. Since the weather was so nice, we spent a lot of Thanksgiving day outside. Cathy prepared a delicious turkey and Heather prepared the ham. The rest of us all brought various side dishes and yummy desserts. My contributions were a sweet potato casserole, homemade cranberry sauce, and homemade white and wheat hot rolls. Jason was in charge of making the green bean casserole.

Here is a pick of some of the cabin--see how close it is to the lake??


Cathy and Heather working in the kitchenKellie and Marcus watching all of the kids play
Jason and I
Heather and Eden -- Heather asked me to take pics for their Christmas card
Our niece, Eden...she didn't think it was funny when we sang, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."
Unfortunately, I just realized I don't have any pics of Harlan or Chuck. :(

On Black Friday morning, I got up at 4:00am with Kellie to go to the Wal-Mart in Madill, OK. She really wanted a laptop that was on sale, so I thought I would tag along. After all, I've never actually been to an "official" Black Friday sale. I couldn't believe how many people were at Wal-Mart so early! The aisles were so packed, you could barely move a cart! I ended up getting a great deal on a digital, programmable Crock Pot....I know...not very exciting!

Anyway, we ended up having a great time the entire weekend! We went back to Norman on Friday afternoon, and both Jason and I went to the OU/OSU football game on Saturday. I sat with my dad and Jason sat with Chuck (our bro-in-law). OU won! BOOMER SOONER!

"Today's Give Away"

Interested in free giveaways? Check out "Today's Give Away" for some great products and neat ideas!

Happy Halloween!

This year, the pharmacy theme was "Disney." This is a picture of the Ambulatory Care pharmacists (L to R): Christina (Lion from The Lion King), Corey (pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean), Valerie (Minnie Mouse), me (Annette from the Mousketeers), Patti (Cruella DeVille from 101 Dalmations), and Cindy (Alice from Alice and Wonderland)
Friday night, we carved pumpkins with our friends Sean and Christina. Below is a pic of our pumpkins in the dark. Jason didn't carve a pumpkin, but helped us with ours and was "in charge" of cleaning out the pumpkins. :)
On Saturday, we went to the Klausmeyer Dairy Farm and Pumpkin Patch. We were able to see lots of animals, and we took a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch. Although it was pretty much dried up, we found a few good "picks." I chose a green one! :)
Sean, Christina, Jason, and I at the Klausmeyer Dairy Farm and Pumpkin Patch.
This Halloween was our first one in our new house, so we were able to hand out candy to little trick-or-treaters! We had about 30 kids stop by, and luckily, we were able to get rid of all of our candy. :)

Fall Breakfast Idea

I made a tasty Fall breakfast yesterday morning, and I wanted to share the idea! It may not be a new idea, but I hadn't really seen it before. I bought some Raisin and Raisin Bread at the VA Farmer's Market on Thursday. It's called "Raisin and Raisin" because it has both dark and golden raisins baked in. I also bought some homemade apple butter. So what was my idea you ask??? Well, I made some French toast with two slices of raisin bread, then I put a layer of apple butter in the middle, topped it off with some maple syrup (sugar-free in our house :), and wah-la! A yummy Fall breakfast! :)

Our New House!

October Update

Well, we're counting down to being homeowners! I four days, we will close on our first home. We are so excited, and we've spent a lot of time lately "visualizing" how life will be in our own home. I'm sure it will be pretty much the same as it is now, but it's fun to imagine. Jason already has a list of projects that he wants to complete. Unfortunately, he's a very ambitious "designer" and I think that money may be the limiting factor in some of his ideas. Maybe eventually...but it would be hard to do everything at once! I have already packed most of our things, but still have several things left. I'm not sure why I'm so unmotivated to pack! You would think that I would be packing as fast as possible, but for some reason, I'm sick of looking at cardboard boxes and tape. It must be because I did this very same thing 4 months ago! I will post updated pics soon (after everything looks semi-decent!:)