Holiday Madess Begins...2012!

The holidays are off to a great start; as you likely read in a previous blog, my last 3 years of Thanksgivings/Christmases have been...well, not that great, and I was feeling a lot of anxiety going into this year with a new guy in the picture. Thankfully, so far everything has been just fine, starting with a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend.

I left work Wednesday and rushed home to start on my contributions to the Stacey family Thanksgiving: salad and deviled eggs. If you've been to a Stacey family holiday in the past couple years, you know that I make a killer spicy deviled egg, complete with jalepeno in place of scallions. Dee-lish. They always disappear quick and I need to make warning stickers for the plate so little ones don't accidentally eat them, lol. Anyways, so Wednesday I chopped veggies, boiled eggs, and got things ready while watching my shows. I slept in Thursday, which was a much welomed treat, and woke up around 10 when Mark called...mostly to tease me for being asleep at 10. We didn't really have any major "talk" about combining holidays or not, it came up early last week over dinner at Old Chicago that we were both looking forward to time with our respective families, and neither of us invited the other one of us along. I expected to have some hurt feelings about this, but I didn't. I have accepted things as they are with Mark; they are moving forward but moving slowly, and it works for us. So why rush it along when I don't need to?

My mom picked me up so we didn't have to take 2 cars when we were going to the same places all day anyways, and we got to the Stacey party about 1:00. It seemed to be a bigger turnout this year than in 2010, but I haven't heard a head count yet. Big. Loud. Lots of littles, which I love. Blake was his usual charming self, flirting with the ladies and running around. Finn is just about at the age to be causing trouble, which I also love. And then of course Archer and Oskar are just so damn cute in their baby suits. Love! We had a great meal, lots of laughs, a riveting BINGO game (as always), funny prizes, and before we knew it, it was 4 and we were late for Whitmore Madness! Mom and I said goodbyes and headed out, and knowing the Whitmore Madness for what it is (and especially without Laura and Karen this year), we grabbed beers from the garage fridge on our way in. LOL. Fortunately, Carolyn and Jake were there with Lilly and Eloise, so we had more cute baby distractions and entertainment. We had dinner, dessert, and helped clean up before mom drove me home and I spent a bit cleaning up from my food prep the night before...why can't I make food without DESTROYING my kitchen??

The rest of the weekend was also fantastic, and a much needed 3 day weekend from work. Friday I spent the whole day in my jammies at home watching Christmas movies, cleaning up, and snuggling with Juno. I had fully intended to decorate the bachelorette pad for Christmas, but I am painting next weekend, so that has to wait. I am SO excited to put up all my decorations in my own place this year and not have anyone bitch about them! I can't wait to pick out my tree and decorate it and see what Miss Juno does to tear it apart. :) Anyways, so Friday was super lazy until about 5, when Mark picked me up after doing some shopping with his sister. We had dinner at his place and watched The Ring...which left me terrified beyond belief...that movie was effing scary! Saturday morning he dropped me off at home to feed Juno and shower, then picked me back up just in time for lunch and the Civil War game at his place. The guy knows how to make sure a girl enjoys a football game - homemade lunch, fresh baked cookies, and girly beers on hand for me...and we spent halftime watching Paranormal State, my new favorite show. After the game, we ate dinner at his place and spent the evening vegging out; we watched a couple movies and headed to bed relatively early since I had to work this morning.

And now here I am, back to work today, ready for the next couple weeks of craziness. I think the transition into my new position at my new property will be a chaotic one with all the staffing changes and the timing being at the beginning of a new month...we'll see. I am excited and nervous, but definitely ready and excited for the change.

I need to start my Christmas shopping. I think this is the first year ever I haven't been done before Thanksgiving. I hate holiday crowds at the mall, so I am usually much more on top of it, but I just haven't had the money this year, and was waiting on this extra November paycheck in order to knock it all out. I am babysitting Blake this weekend, so we're gonna head over to the mall to see Santa and do my shopping. I don't have a long list, and I know what I'm getting for the most part. I am still in search of a 2012 Christmas ornament...I am struggling to think of what to get that symbolizes my year for 2012!