'tis the season

The best part about Christmas is spending time with the ones you love. And I love these 4 girls a lot. A close second is decorating and eating cookies. We did a lot of both.

The hubby was out all night so my home was filled with Christmas music, sugar cookies, hot cider and girl-talk...aww bliss.

I am very blessed to have such amazing friends.

3 more days...

meet chubbs

Keeping with tradition (all one year of it) we went searching for the perfect Christmas tree at the good ol' Busy B Christmas Tree Farm. You may remember our tree last year, Thirsty. What a perfect little first-year-tree it was. I decided we should go a little bigger this year. We went bigger alright. Bigger and Wider! We got the tree into our apartment, set it in the stand and cut off the binding. The branches flew out of that binding and made themselves at home taking up half of our living room. I, of course, loved it. Who cares if it's a little big for the space. If Christmas wants to take over, that is ok with me. Trevor, on the other hand, was worried about sitting areas and walking room....who cares about that stuff. I finally agreed to let him trim down some of the branches that were a bit out of control. So our tree has actually slimmed down quite a bit, but the name stuck.

Meet Chubbs...

I know he doesn't look too chubby now but just wait till we get him out of his natural environment and into our tiny home.

Jack and Melinda found their perfect tree too.

Decorating Chubbs has been a work in process. I am waiting for a few more ornaments and then he will be picture (and blog) worthy.

giving thanks

It just kills me that I am so slow. I know everyone has long forgotten about that thanks-giving, turkey-eating, football-watching holiday, but in my uber slow blogging world I haven't quite gotten past it. And now all I can really focus on is Christmas...I will be posting all about our tree adventures next! But I don't want to leave out the wonderful 4 days that Trevor and I spent with my family.

We survived Seattle's "Arctic Blast" (if you live in Seattle you are well aware of the medias complete overreaction to snow, yet the city's utter incapability to prepare for it) the week of Thanksgiving and made it to Spokane. My Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle and cousins came over and my brother even came up from college in California. We did all of the usual Thanksgiving stuff...of course we made a lot of food and ate a lot of food, but the best part was hearing everyone share what they are thankful for. A few even regaled us with a full blown speech. We have a few theatrics in our family.

As soon as I woke the next day, on went the Christmas music.

23 days

I like to think that you, my readers, are eagerly awaiting each of my posts with bated breath. I know you aren't, but I can dream. I really wanted to have my Thanksgiving post up by now, but I couldn't let another day go by without acknowledging that there are 23 days until Christmas. I love Christmas. Trevor would probably call this an understatement.

I am head-over-heals, crazy about Christmas!

We are getting our tree this weekend and it is all I can think about.

Thanksgiving post to come...

the chain

Remember when you were in second grade and your classroom was all decked out in construction paper chains and you would count down the days of the school year? One of these chains now hangs under our calender and we are counting down the days until Thanksgiving. Yes, when I should have been studying or doing anything else more productive, I cut up strips of construction paper (in Fall colors, of course) and glued together this little chain. It has become our nightly ritual to break off a piece right before we go to bed. We look forward to it all day.

This either means that I really am meant to be a teacher or I haven't gotten past second grade.

my bubble

There is a special little feature in the wii version of Super Mario. If you are playing with a partner and your character dies, you don't have to start all the way over. You come back in a bubble and shake your controller until you float over to your partner who pops your bubble and gets you back in the game! If you don't have a wii or have never played Super Mario you probably have no idea what I am talking about, but this is the best way I can describe what my life feels like right now.

I feel like I have been living in a bubble...watching life happen down below me, desperately trying to shake my way back into the game. Unlike my little Mario character, my bubble is filled with work, homework, dirty dishes, and laundry. Lions and tigers and bears..oh my!  Trevor is in my bubble too, which is the only thing that makes it OK. Other than that I have no idea what is even going on in the world! Yes, I did vote and yes, I still shower. I have just been so overwhelmed lately. This feeling has been manifesting itself in one of two ways: 1) I don't sit still (except for the other night when I let Trevor give me a back rub. I sat still for that.) or 2) Inaction. My husband knows this all to well as there have been many occasions when he has come home to find me in the fetal position. The latter is becoming more common. The boy hasn't eaten a proper meal in weeks...thank goodness it's almost Thanksgiving.   

A lot of things are about to change for us, we just don't know exactly when. 

In other news: Prince William is engaged.

I hope this bubble bursts soon.

Linnea and Minnesota

One of my best friends came to visit from Minnesota. She just had to marry a guy from Minnesota. It's a good thing I really like him or I might be extremely bitter, instead of only slightly.

Trevor and I have done our best to convince them how much better it is here in Washington. I mean what do you really have, Minnesota?! Snow and Brett Favre. And which would you rather have: harsh winters and flat, boring prairies or luscious greens and beautiful mountains? Me and Trevor in the flesh or me and Trevor over skype? I rest my case.

 Of course, this isn't completely fair since I have never actually been to Minnesota. I'm sure there are a lot of positives...I just don't care to come up with any. We just miss our friends so we will keep doing what we do best...manipulate and harass them until they cave.

We were very cool in high school.

Here we are now. Still very cool.

I do think the Minnesota accent she has acquired is pretty cute.

I'm a sucker for accents.