It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...

It's been a very busy few weeks for me and, as a result, the majority of my house is a bit disheveled. It's quite unorganized really.

But this corner is ready for Christmas, and that makes me very happy.

Party Schmarty.

We had ourselves a little christmas party complete with

gingerbread house building,

an ugly sweater contest,

a three-category mustache contest,

and a white-elephant gift exchange.

Behold the ugliest sweater (individual) of the night,
and the winners of the ugliest sweaters (couple) award.
And here we have the seven mustache contest contestants in which three prizes were awarded.
Jason receive the award for the fanciest mustache,
Dave won an award for the creepiest,
and Jeremy - perhaps the greatest winner of them all - won the Tom Selleck Award.
And Mark and I received two plastic swords and a James Dobson book during the white elephant exchange. Lovely prizes, if I might say so myself.

So, how's the adoption going?

Slowly

and

wonderfully

and

oh-my

it's alot of work.

Thanks for asking.

I don't want to give anything away here...

...but this just might be his entry into the ugly sweater contest at the Christmas party tonight.

If you are also entering the contest, you should be very afraid.

Hockey According to Arlee

"DU is dumb. Can I sit by you, Becky? When are you going to open the candy? See all the people wearing yellow? That means they are voting for CC. And in a minute, we are going to have to be quite because they are going to sing the song of the American, which is always really long.

And then the referees are going to come onto the ice. They are just there in case anyone gets hurt. At half-time we get snacks and the am-bo-neenee makes the ice shiny again. Can we open the candy now? I wish that I could come to the hockey game for my birthday and then go swimming.
If CC doesn't win against DU, I am going to be really mad. I'll be mad for like a day. What are those people cheering? I think they are saying 'boo-hoo DU.' Help me watch for the tiger. I want him to come up here so I can be on the TV. Is it half time yet? I'm hungry."
Caden, however, takes this whole hockey thing alot more seriously.

Far Away

We miss these friends terribly.

It's quite painful, really, that we haven't held their tiny baby yet.

When your besties have a baby, you are supposed to be there.

But we weren't.

But in just 20 days, we will be holding that baby.

Dear Christmas,

Thank you for brining our friends home.

And oh how we miss, miss, miss this friend.

But it was so good to "see" him today.

Dear Brent,

Thank you for being talented so that we can see you on the internet.

Finish then Feast

The Turkey Trot 5K...I can't think of a better way to kick-off Thanksgiving Day.

Go, Emmie, Go!
We finished in 37, 31, and 37 minutes.
Now bring on the feast.