12 Days Of(f at) Christmas...

See what I did there? Clever, right?

If my title didn't give it away, I am officially off work until January! Pretty excited to say the least.

Although, my first day off started out with this:

My new favorite drink is the Flat White from Starbucks. And FWIW, I dig the red holiday cups.

It was shortly followed by this:

I've been having some trouble with numbness in my fingers so my doc scheduled an MRI. On my first day of Christmas. {sad face}  I don't know if you have ever had an MRI but holy cow that was loud! But, I think the scrubs add a little something to my overall look...like about 50 pounds.

I then proceeded to a couple stores by the mall. Because I'm cray-cray like that. No pictures as it was every man for himself and I was afraid of suffering the wrath of last minute shoppers.

I did come home to this:

Which is a picture of my people chopping wood for THIS:

And THIS is something I can totally get behind. I hope to see a lot more of this over my remaining days off.

Currently, I'm sitting looking at this:

Which makes my heart happy. 

And I'm currently eating one of these:

Which Mark and the girls made while I was at work yesterday. If you don't recognize them, here is a description the girls printed out to attach to the plates they are taking to the neighbors.

Kolache

A traditional Czech pastry with fruit filling like poppy seed (the most traditional), cherry, lemon and apple. The poppy seed kolache can also be called orechovnik or makovnik, in the modern words. In the past, kolache referred to and Czech pastry that was round and had a filling. The symbolism of giving kolache to neighbors and friends is sharing good will and holiday cheer in preparation for Christmas and Three Kings Day.

I think they can give all the poppy seed ones to the neighbors. ;-)

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Responsibility

This morning, in my usual Saturday fashion, I was unable to sleep past 6 AM. Which totally makes sense since on weekdays, I'm having to drag myself out of bed at 6:45 so I'm not late for work.

As I was sitting there drinking my coffee, I heard Peyton's shower go on. I was thinking she forgot it was Saturday and was going to be super annoyed. About the time I realized what was going on, Mark came out and said "I completely forgot Peyton was taking the ACT today." Oops.

Peyton was not excited about being up early on a Saturday. She was not excited about taking the ACT. She was stressed, nervous, irritated, and completely annoyed with us. Yet, in the back of my mind I could only think "She is becoming responsible!!"

All through her breakfast, she was complaining. As she was getting ready, she was complaining. Before she left, she was complaining. But, still, I was happy. She's becoming responsible!

We tried to talk to her, but that only seemed to make it worse. And then I started to get annoyed with her bad attitude. Which also made it worse. Shocking, I know. But, at the end of the day, I'm elated. She's becoming responsible.

And I couldn't be prouder.

Baby showers, busy-ness, and boring

The blog has been pretty quiet lately. I keep teasing the girls that they need to do something "blog worthy."

I did get to host a baby shower for my friend Jamie. It seemed to go well. There WERE a ton of people in my house though. Enough that we had to open the doors and windows because it was way too warm. And my mail box got mashed. But, that was more funny than anything.

We seem to be just generally busy lately. I got to take a day off to hang out with some girlfriends last week. I miss hanging out with them like we used to. The girls are studying for finals. Peyton has the ACT coming up. They've had a couple choir concerts.

See? BORING!

I even looked on my phone to see what photos I've taken. This is all I could come up with:

Seriously though, I have gorgeous friends, don't I?!? And they are all amazing. I'm pretty lucky they let me hang out with them.

And now? Christmas...