The Fighter's

Doug and I took off for Columbus for the weekend (thanks grandma & grandpa!!) for a couple of Doug's work parties.  Friday night we were at the North Market in downtown Columbus - such a great setting and even better company.  Saturday we slept in, went to one of our favorite restaurants for a super yum lunch (Cap City), tooled around town and then back to the hotel to get ready for the second party - so nice to take our time throughout the day, relax and just be with each other...like the old days!  We had a great time both nights - the people Doug works with are fantastic...and their better halves even better:-)  I am truly thankful for this group of people! The T-town "office".  It's growing!   T-town boys:-)     The gang on Saturday night!   Danielle taking a break:-)   Jeremy the Italian bartender.   Sean "the boss" drink mixer and his sidekick Tancredi.  Doug can't believe his eyes.   Our favorite Canad...

Winter party time at school!  Winter owls, Christmas cookies, jingle bell reindeer, snowflake coloring and a game of Jack Frost Freeze were all part of the day.   Ava has such a sweet, sweet class of kids - they had so much fun (Kate did too!).

Christmas party time!  Our second one of the season - love these nights out this time of year with my favorite guy in the whole world.  Not much gets better than yule tide cheer! Another favorite thing...10 years ago we took our very first Christmas tree picture in front of this very tree.  The tree is now leaning at an 82 degree angle...but it's still lovely in my mind mainly for the sentimental factor:-)   Some of my fun T-town girls!  Yay for Christmas!

What happens when you cross an Ava Bean with a trip to Grammy's + lack of sleep + Christmastime? Slap Happy Bean. I love the last pic...Kate's looking at her like "girl...you're so crazy!"  Olivia just got the heck out of there.

9 years ago : Tradition inauguration.  We were young whippersnappers and thought it would be brilliant to bring ingredients, make cookies from scratch in someone's kitchen while consuming appetizers and drinking wine.  This only lasted 2 years as it was a recipe for dance party distractions and a colossal sprinkle, cookie dough mess. 7 years ago: We grew smarter and decided to bring cookies to exchange.  No baking from scratch - more eating and drinking wine and chit chatting and of course dance parties with some of my favorite girls. 3 years ago: Husbands, kids and busy work schedules started coming into the mix - so...we dropped cookies all together and moved to an ornament exchange instead.  I started documenting our shenanigans (see link) .   2008 may go down in history as one of my faves. 2 years ago: Secret Santa tradition commences.  Throughout the year - my girlfriends and I send anonymous gifts to one other specific person in the group...

Ava, Kate and I constructed our first gingerbread house.  It was so much fun!  Took a few minutes to figure out how everything went together - we lost a few pieces of candies to my sweet tooth girls - but they were so proud of it when finished.  In between letting the sides of the house dry - we made chocolate covered pretzels - girls were on sprinkle duty.  See below what happens when you leave two girls alone with sprinkle jars...abundance of sprinkles!

Stockings are hung...   Both trees are up...including our girly candy ballerina tree (poor Doug:-))...   The village is up!  Doug and the girls surprised me with this village last year...and this year we have the perfect place to put it.  On top of the piano I grew up learning on (thanks Mom & Dad for passing this treasure on)! It is so much fun to sit and look at my village while I'm playing the piano.  I'm such a kid:-)   This is my favorite piece. My mom had (has) a church that resembles this.  I would spend hours as a kid around Christmas time staring at the church and imagining people going inside and having big extravagant Christmas parties after they sang Silent Night.     My new favorite chair (got it on sale at Pier One a few months ago - it's red:-)) with some fun snowmen!   Our nativity scene - given to us by Grammy when we were first married.  Also another favorite to put out each year.  So thankful for Love t...