Christmas Break!

Well...I'm over a month late on this post. I guess I'm suffering from post-Christmas-depression and wasn't ready to write about my wonderful past quite yet.  After several nights of movies and hot chocolate I think I'm finally ready to relive my Christmas break. Boy, was it a BLAST! I feel like I say that in every post but how could I not have a blast with two weeks off of work (oh the perks of working for the school district!), hanging out with friends and family, and going on a cruise?!! I mean, it really doesn't get any mo betta than that. I wish I would have taken more pictures to document our fun time but I was too busy enjoying being in the moment.  At least Steve and I have our mental pictures that will hopefully stay in our brain forever.

Here are some of the fun things we did:

-First, we decorated our house to get into the Christmas spirit!  I had to get creative since I didn't have very many decorations.  It's one of my favorite things to be creative on a budget. I then get to use my creativity to revamp items I already have or buy new cheap items and try to make them look cute. I figure I can start by having a cheap looking Christmas house this year (thanks Walmart for livening up our tree!) and slowly work my way up to having a classy Christmas.  We also decided to start a tradition by making an ornament together with a picture of something that happened during the year.  We should have put three ornaments up this year since we had three big events happen during the year (our wedding, our house, and our Benj) but we decided to just make an ornament with a pic from our wedding. 

-Benj was definitely feeling the Christmas spirit all month long and loves his new toy Santa brought him!

-I don't even know where to start with the Cruise...Steve's parents took the whole Miller clan and it was the best Christmas present we could have ever gotten!  We enjoyed LOTS of food, sleep, trivia and family time. We stopped at Cozumel where we played at a beach resort and played ping pong and other beach games, snorkeled, raced down some water park slides, and (the best part of the day) played on an inflatable obstacle course in the middle of the ocean.  We hung out at another beach in Roatan where we hung out on the beach and played more beach games and our final stop in Belize we went Cave Tubbing in the juggle.   The whole trip was un"belize"able!  We all rolled our stuffed, well rested bodies off the boat and came back to reality...unfortunately.  We were excited to see Da Bunj though.  He sure got spoiled staying with his Grandma.  I think he may have had more fun than we did ;)

-We sure enjoyed this theater below.  The cruise puts on a show every night and we got to see some pretty fun/funny/scary/cool stuff.  We learned our lesson the first night when we sat on the VERY first row of the theater and got more than we expected with the cheesy singers and dancers right in front of us.  I don't think I'll ever forget Russ's face while watching the male dancers hip thrust their sweaty bodies on the end of the stage right in front of him.   We then realized the show is a little less scary from five rows back where we didn't have to hold back our laughter at the cheesy dancers.  We also got to see a magic show, comedy show, and some other musical concerts.

Grandma and Benji sure bonded while we were gone.  I don't know who loves Bunj more, Steve and I, or my mom.
He's sure lucky he's got so many people to love him!

ode to gizmo

The weekend before Christmas we found out that my childhood dog of 14 yrs had a tumor in his mouth that was rapidly growing and causing him a lot of pain.  I knew the day would soon come when we would lose him, but I was really hoping we wouldn't have to make the decision to put him down and that he would just die peacefully on his own.  We knew this was probably the best way since he was only going to be in more and more pain.  We decided to give him as much love as we could through Christmas and then the day after we put him down.  It was a sad day for all of us since he has been in our lives for so long.  I remember when we got him 14 yrs ago.   I was only 12 and in 6^th grade when my mom and I went and picked him out of his litter.  He was just a little fluff ball and was the.cutest.puppy.ever!!  He has been such a good dog through all these years and we are so sad to see him go!  

I will forever remember...
how soft and cuddly he was.
how he would run around and chase his squeaky toy.
how he would play hide and seek with us and spaz out when my mom would hide.
how he would sleep under the covers with me every night and keep me warm.
how he would howl when I would sing to him.
how he would somehow always know when I was going to give him a bath and would run from me while his whole body would shiver in fear.
how he would sit in the bathtub patiently after I had washed him (I think he secretly loved his baths even though he would always hate getting in.)
how he would run around the entire house after he had been bathed and then run to me after so I would blow dry his fur.
how he would LOVE getting blow dried and would just sit perfectly still letting the warm air blow through his fur and look up at me like I was the best person in the world.
how he would hop through the snow like a bunny.
how we would sprint like a lightning bold down our street chasing our car and beat us to our house.
how he would run to the door to welcome me home after a long day.
how he would be there to cuddle with me when I was upset.
how even though in the last few years of his life, when he was getting old and crippled, he would wag his tail when he saw me to prove, in the only way he could, that he still loved me.

My heart will always have a spot for my sweet, sweet Giz.

Cute Audrie and Carley drew pictures for Gizmo.  Audrie's says: "Dear  Gismo, hope you have a grate life in heven.  We all love you very much."  Well, said Audge!  We love you Gizzy!

the most wonderful time of the year

I've never minded having my birthday in December.  It's far enough away from Christmas that it just makes this time of year even better!  I decided that I actually like having my birthday on a Sunday because not only do I get to chill all day with the people I love, I also get to celebrate it all weekend long! (And a week and a half later.)  My birthday was filled with a weekend of wonderful food from The DoDo and Little America and hanging out with the best people in the world.  Steve even watched a chick flick with me. (It’s the one night a year that I can get him to watch one with me so I've decided to make it a tradition!!)  We also went out with my friends this week to Cowboy Grub to celebrate my birthday and Christmas.  Just being at “The Grub” brought back too many good memories from my high school days when I used to work there (or more like where I attempted to serve people food but ended up just playing with all my coworkers in the back kitchen.  Oh, the good ol days).  We decided to do a white elephant gift exchange as well and had some pretty great gifts including a creepy baby doll, a beta fish (which has now made our kitchen counter it’s new home. Hopefuly Benji won’t get to him…), a random family’s framed photo, and much, much more.  We also had a party with #thisisfriends over my b-day weekend with a white elephant gift exchange which was a blast as well! I L.O.V.E. this time of year!!!!  

We went to Little America on my birthday with my family and cute Bubba was so excited to give me his gift.  Lindy said that when he found out it was my birthday he ran to his treasure chest and picked a ring to give me and told Lindy "She's gonna to think it's soooo beautiful!!"  She had told me this right before I opened it so of course I said "Oh, Bubba this is soooo beautiful!"  And he just shook his head confidently up and down and walked away arrogantly.  It was pretty funny.  His $.25 cent ring sure puts my worth-a-little-more-than-$.25 cent ring to shame! ;) 

I think my favorite part of the birthday dinner with my friends was Marci opening up the present with the creepy baby doll.  She reached in the bag and was squealing the whole time because she kept feeling "a creepy hand and bald head".  She was hilarious. 

What a cute lil fam!

The best part is the tag from the D.I. was still on...who would actually pay $2.00 for this creepy thing without it being a joke?  Hmmm....

BENJI BOY!! (aka Mr. Benjerman)

It was only a matter of time that we would fall in love with a pup and have to bring him home and that time happened to be this weekend!  There is a pet adoption center in our neighborhood that we always go to and play with all the dogs there but none of them have ever stolen our hearts like Benji did on Friday.  He’s been adorable so far and we are so in love! 

Welcome to the family Mr. Benjerman!

Gobble Gobble Gone

I can't believe how fast November flew by! I have too many pictures to upload so I'm just going to do a photo dump from the last month.  Here goes!!


Since the weather was so nice this November we decided to go to the Zoo with the women and children of the Child clan.  It's been so long since I've been and it was so fun!  They have some really cool animal exhibits and the kids were loving it!

Just Steve and I putting on a show for er body.
(We thought it was fitting for us since I'm always grabbing him in a desperate attempt to keep warm.)

Bubba was OBSESSED with Steve-O.  (I don't know where he got that name but he sure loves his Steeeeve-Oooohhh)

We also celebrated Steph's bday and went to Sawadee for dinner.  It's so great that we all have significant others now and can do group dates!  Poor Steve was dragged to way too many girl dinners where he was forced to talk about dating and relationship problems. (He was always a good coach though.  So good that his advice must have worked since they're all taken now!)

Got a spontaneous pedicure with my mama!  So glad I happened to call her while she was there so she could invite me. Thanks ma!

We celebrated #Thisisfriends Friendsgiving which was a success!  Who knew we could put together something so extraordinary?! The food was delicious and so was the company! Hopefully this will become tradition. 

Yum Yum to ma tum!

Of course we couldn't let the evening go without taking some chick pics...

Steve and I were staying at my parents house to watch Gizmo while my parents were in California so we ended up having the Child gang come over to my parents on Thanksgiving day.  We smoked a turkey in a garbage can in my parents front yard (talk about redneck).  The boys loved being all manly and stuff.  Even Parker wanted to be involved and watched them through the window from inside all day.
It was quite an entertaining day.  Not only did we smoke a turkey in my the front yard, we broke my moms crock pot, spilled wax on my moms expensive tablecloth, broke her oven light, and found a scratch on my dads jeep (that I had been driving previously that week).  Luckily, my parents don't know half of the items on that list so I think they'll let us borrow their house again one day! Don't worry, I did tell my dad about his jeep and was SO relieved to find out that it had already been there! (I don't have the best driving record and was terrified to tell my dad because of the grief I would get for wrecking yet another car of his!)

We wore Parker out!

I am so thankful for amazing family and friends to spend time with this weekend. I sure love them all and we made some great memories!