5th Annual Cheesy Christmas Movie Night

I'm slowly getting into the Christmas cheer this season. It helps to have fun traditions with friends. One of those traditions is our Cheesy Christmas Movie Night. This year we were down two of our original members: Joanne and Becky. But this year, I sent them a text so that they could cast their vote for which movie we watched.

As usual, I can never decide whether to go flash on or flash off.  So we do both.  This year was Kinsey's first year to join us.  She was a little flabbergasted at all the rules and traditions that we adhere to during Cheesy Christmas Movie Night.

Here are our three choices this year:
1. The Night Before The Night Before Christmas.
2. A Boyfriend for Christmas.
3. Lucky Christmas.

And the winner is....by an almost unanimous vote:  A Boyfriend for Christmas

Popcorn, a cozy Christmas tree, hot chocolate, and cinnamon ice cream.  And a cheesy Christmas movie, of course.  I'd recommend it, if anyone is looking for a good cheesy movie to watch.

The Year My Mom Got 62 Cereal Bowls for Christmas

These are four of the bowls mentioned in the title.  Just so you know, 62 is a slight exaggeration, but not much of one.  Here is the tale of these bowls:

Once upon a time (think high school, which really was ages ago), in a land far away (Georgia), Christmas traditions were a little different for a family of three.  Growing up, my dad lived in Illinois and my mom lived in Georgia.  So, most Christmas breaks, my brother and I spent in Illinois with my dad.  Because it was one of the longer breaks we could spend.  So, the tradition during that time was for us to open our presents the evening we got out of school for break, since we would normally fly to Illinois the next day.  Often, I would want my mom to have presents to open on Christmas Day, so she would open some of our presents with us and save some.  I usually had her open the presents that I wanted to see her open.  This particular Christmas, she asked for new cereal bowls.  So I got them, but I really didn't care if I saw her open them, so I left them under the tree for her.  Fast forward to when we got home from my dad's house and I went into the cabinet for the first time to find a HUGE stack of cereal bowls, more than I had bought her.  Had they multiplied?  No, between me leaving for Illinois and Christmas Day, Mom went shopping.  She didn't think any of the presents under the tree looked like cereal bowls, so she bought her own.  And then she opened more on Christmas.  And for some reason, we just kept them all instead of returning some.

So, now I have four of these bowls because a couple of our bowls at the apartment broke, and I didn't really think Mom would miss a few bowls!  If you ever visit her, you can have ice cream and cereal and soup and anything else you might eat out of a bowl without ever having to wash anything for several days!

Needless to say, we instituted a new rule that you cannot buy anything for yourself in the month of December, especially if there are presents under the tree.

Oh, and they all lived happily ever after.  The end.

Gearing up for Cheesy Christmas Movie Night

I was on the computer tonight looking for this year's selection for our annual Cheesy Christmas Movie Night.  I have five movies on hold at the library.  Apparently, you really can google anything.  I entered "List of Cheesy Christmas Movies" and got quite a few ideas!  I'm not spoiling the selections by giving you a head's up, but here is part of one of the descriptions:

"Only watch this movie if you're not easily offended by extremely contrived plot lines, family "games" that consist of sucking up to everyone around you, or dialogues like "you...are my destiny", because [insert title here] has all of these things and more...I say this like I didn't enjoy it, but I did.  And not even despite all of these things; I liked this movie because it was over-the-top ridiculous.  Sometimes we need a little extra cheese in our lives."

I mean, if that does not fit the description of a cheesy Christmas movie, I don't know what does!

On a side note, my very favorite made for TV Christmas movie, "The Night They Saved Christmas" was only rated 1/2 an ornament out of 5 by one list.  I promptly decided I could not in good conscience believe anything the author said after that as far as what she would or would not recommend!

Forgetfulness much?

Everyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I thrive off of lists.  To do lists.  Grocery lists.  Packing lists.  Lists of people to invite to an event.  I make a list for a majority of my life.  When I was in college, I created a template of the basic things I had to pack every weekend that I went home, so that I wouldn't have to re-write the list every week.

I travel to my mom's house a lot of weekends.  A weekend is not a big deal.  Just two days.  So often I don't make a list.  Shocking, I know.

This weekend, my dad was in town so we went up to see the family.  We were in my apartment for less than 30 minutes for me to pack.  During that time, I wrapped two presents to take with me.  Half way to the suburbs, I realized I had forgotten the presents that were sitting on the floor in my living room.  That was just the beginning of remembering the things I forgot.  I also realized that I forgot the cord to charge my phone.  Once I was at the house, and I realized that my pants were a little lose, I also remembered that the belt I had pulled out of the closet to pack was still sitting on the bed at home.  When I went to bed, I got my glasses case out of my bag, opened the case, and realized that I had packed the case without the glasses.  The next morning when I was putting my contacts back in, I realized I forgot the eye drops that I normally put in my eyes when I put my contacts in.  That was in the cabinet that I specifically looked through to make sure I had not forgotten anything.

My sister-in-law finally told me that I should be listing the things I remembered instead of the things I forgot since the list would be shorter.

Christmas 2014

Another year of decorating done. I didn't take any pictures of the process of decorating this year. Mostly, this post is just to showcase some of my new decorations.

Sometimes, as much as I love lights, I like to see the tree without the lights on because then you can see the ornaments better.

But the lights are SPECTACULAR!

My most recent decorations have a Peanuts theme for sure.  I opened my presents from my mom over the weekend since I won't see her for Christmas, so the above picture is a new gift from this year.  Each of the bases has a part of the Christmas story on it.

The above set is a gift from last year.  Have I mentioned that I love Peanuts.

And I bought the above ornament last year.  Guess why?  Maybe because I love Charlie Brown!

The above ornament is my 2014 ornament.  I wasn't sure if it was technically allowed to put it on the tree, but since I opened it early, I decided to go ahead and just do it.

The snowflake is my 2013 ornament.

Here is more Peanuts stuff.  The plates are several years old, but the glasses were a gift last year.  Here is each of them up close.  Now I can have chocolate milk in festive glasses all month.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Speaking of selfies with little kids

The night before I left for Texas, I was able to use hang out with family.  I really only went up to their house because my ticket was way cheaper from Chicago then Peoria.  But they were a very fun bonus to my trip (even if my brother might not agree that a 5:00am wake up call and ride to the airport was "fun").  Close to bedtime, I was laying in bed with my mom.  When I visit, John has a sleepover with Mom so that I can have a room to myself.  Apparently, John does not like anyone else lying by Grandma, because he quickly squeezed in between us when he saw me in the bed.  So then we took a picture, which turned into a 20 minute photo shoot. :)

Pretending to sleep. John is much more convincing then Mom and I, isn't he?

Funny faces.

More pretending to sleep.

And look at the face above.  Definitely up to no good.

Let the silly faces commence!

The creepy one eye in the corner.  And I think Mom is really trying to sleep at this point!  No more pretending for her.

Punching the scary one eye in the corner!

So many faces...

I love when I get to spend time with him.  Even if he would rather play video games or watch TV then do something with me!  Because precious moments like this are what being an aunt is all about!

9v batteries and pirate ships

This morning as I was getting ready for work I was trying to remember if I had put 9v batteries on my list for the store. Then I thought, "No. I already bought those while I was waiting for the pirate ship to get unstuck. " Wait. What?  And then I remembered that was just a dream. What is it with dreams anyway?!

Texas State Fair

My last day in Texas we went to the Texas State Fair. This was a new experience for me because I never went when I lived in Texas. It was BIG and crowded. It was the Texas/OU game, so there were a ton of college students and fans there. But it was still a fun experience.

"Big Tex" (at least I think that's what his name is.  Danell wouldn't stop to pose in front of him with me.  Party pooper!  In her defense, we were in search of food.  And all pretty hungry.

Selfies to entertain ourselves while waiting during lunch.  It was cold in Texas for October.  And kind of overcast all day.  Even I stayed in long sleeves all day.

Nothing better than eating meet off a stick at a fair.

More selfies.

Horses.  Made out of butter.  Seriously.

And you can't go to the fair without getting a selfie with the butter horse's butt with your best friend!

Really Big Ferris Wheel.  Yes, it made me think of Divergent.

Cuteness galore!  I love that scrunched-nose face!

One tired little girl.  No nap and a lot of walking (well, for her mostly strolling in the stroller, but still).  Fingers in the mouth=a sure sign that she is tired.

But not too tired to make some funny faces.

Hanging upside down while we wait.

Makes me kind of dizzy just looking at it.  I am so old.

And then it was off to the airport.  And that concludes my Texas vacation series on the blog!  I hope you enjoyed, even if it took a while to get every installment up.  Life is crazy busy right now.  I feel like all I keep doing is trying to play catch-up.

Hannah

One of the saddest things about living so far away from friends is that they have babies that you don't always get to meet right away. One of the things that made me stop procrastinating and make a trip to Texas is the fact that Hannah is 19 months old and I had never met her. So she was a delightful little highlight of my trip. And even more so, because the last time I saw Clare and Lucy, they were about Hannah's age!

More funny face selfies.  It might be an addiction of mine.  But only with children involved.  Hopefully I won't just start taking funny face selfies of myself!

Some after dinner entertainment.  Smooshing her face against the glass.

It's just hard not to smile when she is so excited about seeing herself on camera.

Reading books.

Look at all that hair.  And chubby cheek cuteness.

Looking at an airplane.

And tracking it through the sky.