He better get me a good ornament this year!

Nick and I get each other an ornament every year to put in our stockings. This is the one he got me last year:

He said its because I was pregnant, but still wanted to go skiing. I still don't appreciate it.

Answer

Yes, we got our tree on the side of the road. Amander, you are correct!

Last year, we bought a tree at a tree farm that we cut down ourselves. It was nice, but then we were driving home and realized that we kept seeing trees everywhere on the sides of the road. So last year we decided, never again are we paying $40 for a stupid tree, when there are plenty to spare here in Oregon.

However, it did require us to be quite stealth. I drove around during the day and found one that I thought was acceptable (I am generally pretty picky about my Christmas tree). The problem was it was on a fairly busy street. So we went back at night, I dropped Nick off, drove away, then he called me once it was cut down. We shoved the tree in our trunk as fast we could and sped off.

That's right, we are tree thiefs. We are living outside the law.

Guess where we got our Christmas tree this year?

Big Mouth

Briz does everything these days with her mouth wide open.

Standing on her Dad's hand. Apparently, it helps her consentrate.

Taking steps with Dad. Her hair looks so funny in this picture.

Her face is getting so chubby. I love her big cheeks. But doesn't she have a slight resemblance to Fat Bastard in this picture? I told Nick that was my new nickname for her and he did not appreciate it.

Nick's B-day

For those of you who know Nick, you know that he hasn't actually had his birthday yet. But on Saturday, I threw him a surprise bday party. That's right; I'm a really good wife. But mostly I did it because I was trying to figure out how to get out of celebrating his birthday on its actual date (this Saturday). I hate his birthday. It sucks because no one cares about it, being a few days before Christmas. But his party was really fun and I successfully surprised him.

We wore ugly Christmas sweaters, which apparently is trendy (a girl at work told me that today; I had no idea), and we exchanged white elephant gifts. We ate a lot of food and played a hillarious game called Quelf. I highly recommend it for a group of people that are pretty comfortable with each other. Just a small example: the very first turn our friend did a belly dance on another friend (both male), while lifting up his shirt and rubbing his stomach. It was a good time! Here are some pics.

Brett and Julia. Brett had to do the most embarrassing things the whole game, but he loved it. Their adopted son was born yesterday :)

Billy and Kera in their sweaters. Billy's was my favorite, because it could sort of pass for normal, but just ugly.

Kristi decided to go the whole nine yards and dress her entire outfit with the ugly Christmas sweater. In the words of Kera, she looked like a sister missionary! Hahaha.

Kyle reading the directions to Quelf. The reason I came to like Kyle more this weekend: he wore this sweater to church the next day.

Nick's sweater I bought for him. I never did tell him that I got it from the Women section at Value Village. I thought the ears would top it off nicely, and of course they remind me of Dwight Schrute.

He got attacked with silly string. I told them to go for his eyes.

For more pics, go to Kera's blog.

Courtney Cox-Arquette

Let me preface this post by saying that I know my daughter has a very different sort of name, but still, I draw a line at being unique and just plain weird . . .

I was in line waiting to purchase a few things at Target last Friday, and I heard a mom call her daughter's name, "Come here Coco!" I of course instantly thought to myself, Courtney Cox-Arquette is here in Salem. Oh no, it was a regular ol' mom with a few other kids. Who names their kid that? Honestly!

Thayne Family Pictures

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Here are the Thayne Family Pictures I took a week or so ago. It was a hectic day for them, but even still, they looked beautiful. And Piper was the best baby ever! We ended up taking these in the Willamette University Library (stole the idea from the Nielsons' pictures), and then took a few outside. It was really too bad it was so cold outside, because the lighting was beautiful and there are so many places to take pictures on Willamette campus. I wish we could have taken more!