Sunday, December 6, 2009

That time of year

And just like that Christmas seems to be in full swing. I'm feeling pretty good about my shopping as I have about 75% of it done. I've made a couple of batches of cut out Christmas cookies already and have been stashing them in the freezer. Cards are in the process of being made. House decorated and tree up.

I had the "girl's" Christmas party at my office last week. We have the big party in January where we bring our spouses. Here are all of the presents we collected for Toys for Tots.

The sangria is always a highlight of the party. Lots of laughing at this party...2 of my favorite girls from work Tamara and Jill I just threw this picture in because Dolly looks like she is smoking a pipe :)
We have been babysitting Bella this weekend. It's different having 2 dogs in the house. Keith has been bugging and bugging me me to get another dog and I think we may seriously consider it this spring. So it's been good practice having Bella around. She has been keeping us on our toes! Keith has been trying to keep her in line...:)
Dolly isn't very good with sharing her toys...
Friday night I went out to dinner with some friends at Gringo's Grill. SO SO good. We had table side guacamole made for us. We could pick the ingredients and how "hot" we wanted it to be. Very good food AND there is a $25 gift certificate on RESTAURANTS.COM. Great deal...I will also mention that happy hour is 3-6pm everyday (we got there at 5:30!). $2 BIG margaritas and $3 Mojitos (the good kind with fresh mint!) After dinner we went to go see Disney's Christmas Carol is 3D. I had never seen a movie in 3D before and it was so very cool. It felt like the snowflakes were floating right in front of my face. (see how excited I was?)
As tradition would have it, Keith and I went to Blue Star Tree Farm to cut down our Christmas tree. We got a 7 foot Fraser Fir. It's a good one smells so good.

At the recommendation of the check out lady at the grocery store (seriously) we made a batch of warm apple cider, spiced rum, and cinnamon sticks. This made decorating the tree even more fun :) Our tree is *bright*. I think we might have put a few too many strands on this year. We put our tree in front of our window this year (normally it went in the corner) and I wanted to make sure it looked really nice from the outside. We really don't need any extra lights on at night with the tree plugged in..

5 comments:

Carol Sue said...

Another GREAT blog, you and Jen out did yourselves with these blogs...Love all the pics and info...Love the 3D glasses and the tree. I love all the lights.
Great going on the toys for tots gifts

VandenBerg Family said...

This blog post was AWESOME! You took a lot of fun pictures lately. AND...TWO DOGS!!! WHAT!?!?!? I can't wait!! Yellow lab again or will you mix it up a bit :)?

Megan Dieckmann said...

Wow.. you have been busy. Great pictures..I love the 3-D glasses one..3-D glasses sure are fancy these days, I just remember the paper glasses they used to have when we were kids..haha

The Hambergulars said...

Bren - As usual, great blog! Thanks again to you and Keith for taking Bella for the weekend - it sure helped us out - will you be home tonight? I have a small gift for you. Where is the restaurant you went to? It looks great - we love Mexican food and are always on the lookout for new places to try.....

Jenny said...

I love the 3-D picture..now I want to go see it! Like the outfit for putting up the tree :) I've been wearing my scarf around the house to keep warm too! I might need to add the hat as well...