The Christmas "Vacation"

The time between my snow days and going back to work after Christmas flew by. Saturday morning I literally flew out of bed and packed as quickly as I could. My dad had called and was going to the ER. They kept him overnight for observation and then sent him home since he wasn't having a heart attack. Christmas Eve was a lazy day after the running around that went on Saturday and Sunday.

My brother made Oreo Truffles Christmas Eve - they were yummy!

It's the time of year where visiting the dogs means they come in :)

Christmas the dogs got their gift from us and the rawhide bone gift from Bree.

We had bacon, eggs, and cinnamon rolls for breakfast after opening our gifts. 

Later on in the day we had Christmas lunch/dinner and then I packed up my car to head to T's parents for Christmas night festivities - Monopoly and brandy slushies :)

The day after Christmas led T, Pat, Erin and I to get those day after bargains. I got my icicle lights for the head table and some string lights that I'll wrap with tulle for under the stage. I scored some gift wrap and got a Rubbermaid tub for all our Christmas things.

I went back to work Thursday and Friday to plan and organize the classroom. I found out late on Thursday that my dad was having a procedure Friday to see if he was blocked. Good thing I was planning to work a half day as he was blocked, but he was able to come home and I was his ride.

I spent Saturday and Monday at the bridal shop and shopping. We looked for my mom's dress for the wedding and I tried on and picked up my bridesmaid dress for Erica's wedding. I also saw my dress - I'll have to post all about that on a Wedding Wednesday update!

First Gift Exchange

Merry Christmas Eve! As we are starting to begin our Christmas festivities with my parents, I had to quickly share the first gift exchange I had with my bestie and her baby yesterday afternoon. I was so excited for Riley to open my gift and I took quite a few pictures!

Every year it never fails, Erica's gift is always alcohol related now that we're over 21. I'm excited to use these glasses and mix with her. The jelly bellys will be gone before we get to make the drinks. Haha.

Watching Mama trying to tell her to pull on the paper.

Not much of a smile there, but a picture with part of her gift.

Getting some help from Mama opening the next gift

Playing with the wrapping paper

She loved the lid :)

So excited to see what Santa brings Miss Riley for her first Christmas!!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

A few weeks ago T and I decided it was time to put our day after Christmas steal of a tree up in our apartment. It's super exciting to start decorating our first tree in our first place together. We opened the box and were about to start putting our tree together until we noticed a very important piece was missing....the plastic piece that the tree goes into that also has the slots for the feet to slide into.

The next day T called the customer support and had a sort of interesting experience. He had to leave a voicemail since no one answered. Luckily, the lady called back and T had to fib when we bought the tree since it was last years model. She told him that she would call if they couldn't find the part or he could just go by a tree stand and wedge the tree into it. Umm, no thanks. 

I was very excited to see a little box near our door last week so we could put our tree up. It was the right part, so we were ready to start fluffing and decorating our tree.

T fluffing our tree

Some ornaments on and a few wrapped presents under.

All decorated!

On a Hobby Lobby run, I picked up this ornament for me :)

One of my students gave me this ornament for Christmas when I was student teaching for my future tree. I just loved my fifth graders!

My classroom is starting to look decorated as well. I picked up a little tree and ornaments on a Target run and grabbed some lights at Shopko. I got the tree skirt last year when we got our tree after Christmas.

This project was a lot of work, but it was worth it. On a sad note, all our snow is gone. :(