Karaoke Christmas Eve Style

I had a fun Christmas Eve with my family in Albuquerque. We had our usual Christmas Eve dinner at my Aunt Patti's where I brought a very tasty corn casserole! The evening continued on with majority of us joining in singing and playing a Karaoke version of guitar hero. It was a great time. My little 12 year old second cousin Riley, who I am very close to, sang "Hotel California" and "Crazy Train". He is quite the little man. It was a lovely addition to what has become our ever changing traditions.

Riley~singing like the rock star he is

The family jammin' out

Son and Dad~Riley learns from the BEST!

Rock on!

Blue Tree

So I mentioned here to take notice of the blue tree in my Mom's Christmas decorations, and I also mentioned that my color of a Christmas tree is blue. Well my friend Shaun, who I didn't even really know read my blog, well he read my blog, and got me a blue Christmas tree for Christmas. I really had to put the pieces together, because at first I didn't get it. I was thinking "why would he get me a blue Christmas tree?" The actual tree he spray painted, and at first I thought it was a reference to blue balls-not too sure why, but really that is what I thought. He kept asking me "haven't you always wanted a blue Christmas tree?" So anyways now I have a blue Christmas tree. I think it is very pretty! And I love how he incorporated my blog into getting me a gift, how cool is that?!

...more Christmas time stories coming.

A favorite moment from my Past

I just asked my Mom the moment I learned Santa Claus wasn't real. She doesn't remember, and neither do I. But I do remember a moment when I found myself believing in Santa even though I knew he wasn't real. I think I usually forget about this moment, but remember it every year when I am back in my parents house at Christmas time, ....like how I am now.

One year my Grandpa Egan was staying with us. I think I was 9 or 10. (Grandpa Egan passed away when I was 11.) And my parents and I had our own little mailboxes on the outside of our bedroom doors-a craft project that I made at school-I thought they were SO cool! (i used to rush to the mailbox everyday and distribute the mail to the appropriate mailboxes.) Anyways, even after I found out Santa wasn't real, I would leave him a little note, some cookies and milk. I always got a note back, ...in my mother's hand writing. But it was fun to do. Well the year my Grandpa was staying with us was no different. I left out the note, milk, and cookies. Well when Christmas morning came, I went to the fireplace to see what "Santa" wrote, and it wasn't my mom's handwriting. It looked like an old man's handwriting, it looked like Santa Claus' handwriting. I was freaking out!!! I truly at that point in time thought "maybe Santa is real, and this year he came to my house". ...i used to think that Santa would never have time to travel the whole globe every year, so I thought maybe he did regions-and that year was the year we came to New Mexico. I was so excited. But of course still had my doubts, I asked my mom over and over how did you do this? where did this come from? well it was my Grandpa Egan who wrote the letter. It was such a special moment, that I know I will never forget.

My parents have a scanner, but I can't figure out how to work it. I have a bunch of pictures of my Grandpa Egan, some with his hand writing on them, and I wish I could scan them so you could see, but I don't know how. Oh well. (seriously just spent like 30 minutes trying to figure it out.)

Christmas Decorations

My Christmas Tree in front of the bay windowChristmas decorations on top of my entertainment center

decorations

the pillow says "be naughty, save Santa a trip"!

My kitchen table

kitchen

my parents house. This is on top of their entertainment center(notice the blue tree)

the mantel

mom and i by the Christmas tree

I love my house at Christmas time, it completely transforms. Even though I am the only one that sees it, I love it. I got this from my Mom. Growing up and even to this day, she puts up a ton of decorations, and I have followed. Growing up our Christmas tree was always in the living room, which is in the back of the house, and I always wanted to have a tree where you could put the tree on display in front of the house. Needless to say when I was house shopping almost 3 years ago, I knew I wanted a window in the front of my house to display my Christmas tree. ...and that is what I got! I have a beautiful bay window in my house, and every year I completely rearrange my living room to put my Christmas tree on display.

I hope everyone had a beautiful and blessed Christmas!

Christmas Ornaments

I love all of my Christmas ornaments. This is a tribute to some of my favorite ornaments. Enjoy!

Believe-it is fun to still Believe

This is one of three very pretty Christmas ornament trees my Dad got me a few years ago

I bought this one and "love" a couple of years ago at a grocery store, love 'em

My mom got me this one-don't remember where, but she got it because it has 2 cats on it

From my God-Daughter for her first Christmas

Sears Tower I got from Chicago, and the Panda bear. I have a special bond with panda bears. My Grandpa Egan bought me a stuffed panda bear in celebration of my birth, I named my panda bear "booboo". I love booboo.

I bought this last year when I went to go see "The Little Mermaid" on Broadway in Denver. It is actually a key chain, but it works as an ornament too.

From my visit to Animal Kingdom in Orlando, FL

This is part of an ornament set my mom bought me while we were in Alaska in the summer of 2003. This one is a whale.

love-I need love!

My favorite flower-the bird of paradise, my parents got me this a couple of years ago while they were in Hawaii.

I bought this in Chicago, when I saw "Wicked"

The year on this one is 2008-from Florida.

Cookies, Ipod, and Snow oh my!

This weekend I made these cookies! All for my co-workers to enjoy throughout the week! For the most part these cookies were really easy, and are super tasty.

yummy cookies

Today while driving to the gym it was freezing-literally. So I bundled up in a jacket and a sweatshirt. My sweatshirt had a pocket in the front where I put my ipod, and since my usual routine doesn't include wearing a sweatshirt and having the additional pocket, when I did a load of laundry-that included the sweatshirt. ...I washed and dried my ipod! It is so sad. I love listening to my ipod while working out. The good news I have a replacement, I guess this is why I never got around to selling it. A long time ago, an employee I represented in the Union quit, and gave me his ipod he had won at work. I don't really know what kind of ipod this is, but I know it is much much nicer than the one that died. It is very pretty, and black!

what a washed ipod looks like

The cold neighborhood. While driving to the gym this morning the thermometer in my car had a high of 3. Then while driving to the grocery story this afternoon it was -1. Brrr!

taken from my garage

Reading

I love to read. I wish I knew this about myself when I first started HS. I probably would have gotten much better grades. I just finished reading "The Time Travelers Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger. Great book, and an easy read considering it is 500+ pages. I let the size of a book intimidate me, and I really shouldn't let that happen. I think I let that happen, because I'm a really slow reader.

The book is a little bit confusing to follow at first, but once you get into the characters it is very delightful. I didn't really like the ending of this book, but I find that I don't really like the ending of most books, just because I don't want the book to be over. When you google this book, it says it is going to be made into a movie with Clare being played by Rachel McAdams(love her). The last release date was November 2008-well this movie hasn't been released, so does that mean it is shelved and it won't ever be released as a movie? I hope not, I would love to see this book as a movie.

I remember one of the first times I started reading as an entertainment value was when I was a Junior in HS and my friend Emily let me barrow a book by Mary Higgins Clark. I loved it, and finished the book quick. I remember being at home in my bedroom after school and calling my mom upset that I didn't have a car so I could drive to the library to get a book. I was so upset. It was one of those teenager moments where I seriously thought it was the end of the world! -melodramatic, never! ha! Plus the library was super close to my parents house, I'm not too sure why I didn't just walk, if I wanted a book that bad. Anyways, I was into Mary Higgins Clark for a while. Then in college my friend Tina recommended Janet Evanovich, and her Stephanie Plum series. To this day I love this series!

And now I read like crazy.

Last night I started "The Reading Group" and in the front of the book they reference a book I had remembered reading in HS. So it made me do some research on the books I read in HS. I googled "books to read in high school" and it really came up with a bunch I can't wait to go back and read. -I have decided this will be my new project-once I read all the books on my current "to read" list. My favorite in HS was "Native Son", I'm really looking forward to that one. I am remember reading this book my Senior year of HS in my honors English class with Mr. Usmar. I think that this book was the first book I actually read and didn't have to get the cliffnotes. I remember him giving pop quizzes on the book, and always knowing exactly what the answer was. ...majority of my HS pop quizzes, I had NO idea what the answer was. But for this class, I was that student.

I had completely forgotten about "Animal Farm". Is it nerdy that I'm so completely excited about reading?! And is it bad I talk about my HS days a lot on my blog, considering that was more than 10 years ago?!

Who cares, it is my blog, I'll write about what I want to write about!