4th Annual Tacky Christmas Sweater Party

Once again, we were able to host our annual tacky sweater party at our house with our friends, and it was so much fun! We always wait until the last minute to buy our sweaters and I swore this year that I wouldn't do that, but of course I did. A few days before our party, I went to the Alabaster Thrift Store and I was so surprised when I got there and saw 3 full racks of tackiness waiting for me! I actually had a hard time deciding what to get for me and Robert so I called him and described the sweaters that I found. He told me "you don't sound very enthused about those sweaters, they must not be tacky enough". I had to remind him that while I was looking for the tackiest sweaters out there, there were people in there looking at the same racks as me seriously shopping for what they thought was a beautiful sweater. It's hard to laugh at how tacky a sweater is when an old lady is standing next to you looking at the same thing saying "oh that is just beautiful!". Even after describing them, I had a hard time deciding so I got 3 (which turned out great because Martha had a tacky party too so we just gave her the 3rd sweater). My sweater was black with a Christmas tree design on the front made out of presents, balls, and other things with leopard print on them! Yes, I said leopard print! What in the world does that have to do with Christmas? Robert's was very tacky. It had a very feminine collar and lots of "pretty" Christmas items on it. It was a big hit!
Our theme for dirty Santa this year was board games and alcohol. We had so much fun with that theme last year that we decided to do it again. Of course all the alcohol was liquor and I don't drink liquor so I thankfully got a board game. I think next year if we do that same theme, I'm going to bring wine just so I know I will end up with something I would drink. There wasn't as much stealing this year as in year's past, but we still had a blast. I don't know how we do it, but we managed to cram about 25 people in our little house. Thankfully we have such a huge kitchen. Here are some pictures from the party this year.

 Everybody hanging out before Dirty Santa

 Moonshine cherry bombs! No thank you. I can't believe so many people had one. And somebody left them in our freezer.

 Paul, Robert and Steven showing off their tackiness.

 Robert and Lisa

 Dirty Santa time!

 Everybody with their gifts!

 Showing off our tacky sweaters!

 Everybody sharing their gifts.

 Our attempt at a good girls picture. (Thanks Carl)

 All the guys

 The traditional jump picture! (all the new guys had no idea what was going on!)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

 I usually go to Walgreens to make our Christmas cards but after looking at their crummy selection, I decided to try Snapfish and Shutterfly. Snapfish will send your cards to Walgreens for pick-up which is great since there is no shipping. However, they have the same crummy cards as Walgreens. So I decided to go with Shutterfly. They had a much better selection and were actually cheaper than Snapfish even after shipping. The only downfall, we have to wait for our cards. So until then, here's a preview.

Photo Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Helena Christmas Parade 2011

This year was our first year to go to the Helena Christmas Parade and we had so much fun! There were a ton of people there but thankfully we were able to walk to the parade since it was right outside of our neighborhood. Since we had never been before, we weren't really too sure of the best place to watch it, but I think we ended up with a pretty good spot. I think we only missed 1 float. My parents came to watch it with us and so did Will and his 2 cousins McNeil and Alexander. It's so nice that Bryson lives so close to his cousin so they can enjoy these things together. At the very beginning of the parade, all the firetrucks and police cars rode through with their sirens on. Bryson did not like this at all but I can't say I blame him because it was really loud. I think Bryson's favorite float was of course Santa, but everybody (grown-ups and children) had fun catching all the candy. I definitely think this is something that we will do every year and hopefully be able to do it with our family. Here are a few pictures of our fun time at the parade.

 Ready for the parade to start!

 Bryson enjoyed all the candy that was being thrown, especially the suckers.

 Bryson wanted to sit with his Uncle "Obbie" during the parade.

 Here comes Santa!

 Bryson's first look at Santa!

 He was amazed to see Santa!

 He was sad to see Santa go

Bryson and Will enjoying their candy after the parade.

Halloween 2011

 Bryson had so much fun the whole month of October celebrating Halloween! He is now obsessed with the Charlie Brown Pumpkin Patch movie, pumpkins, ghosts, and monsters. As much as he loves pumpkins, he had no interest in helping Robert carve one. We found some Sesame Street stencil's at Target and let Bryson choose which one he wanted. We thought he would have chosen Cookie Monster, but he chose Elmo. It actually turned out great! Aunt Lisa also painted a Plex the Robot pumpkin from Yo Gabba Gabba and Bryson loves it. He loves it so much that he tore up almost immediately while he was trying to play with it.

We had the hardest time finding Bryson a Halloween costume this year. We had a few ideas of what we wanted to dress him as, but they were all too big for him. (we were thinking Woody or Buzz since he is obsessed with them). Apparently if you are a toddler under size 2t, all the costumes are babyish little animals which is not Bryson's personality at all. After going to 2 Halloween stores (including Party City), we had almost given up. We got to the last store and they had a few cute things like a firefighter or a Marine; but then we saw it. The very last Elvis costume and it was in Bryson's size! Oh I got so excited, Robert, not so much, until we went to the dressing room and tried it on him. It was the cutest/funniest thing ever, so we bought it. Then we went on a mission to find him a microphone, since the store we bought the costume at didn't sell one. Of course we found one at Party City where they did not sell the Elvis costume. Once Robert drew sideburns on our little Elvis, his costume was complete.

 Our Halloween celebration got started by trick or treating at my aunt's house with Will. She loved seeing them in their costumes and they had a lot of fun!
We started out Halloween morning by going to the parade at his school. All the kids were so cute in their costumes but of course Bryson stole the show in his Elvis costume. I think it was because all the other kids were dressed in babyish animal costumes and then there was Elvis, the most awesome toddler costume ever! Bryson had so much fun walking around school getting treats at every classroom. We had a hard time getting him to leave!

After the parade, we went home and rested (well me and Robert took turns running errands so Bryson could take a nap) then we got him dressed again to go trick or treating at Publix. I had always heard about people taking their kids their and really wanted to check it out. It was pretty fun, but Bryson was still a little young for their games so it was mostly Bryson running around the store getting candy while everybody talked about his costume. We even had people that wanted to take a picture of Bryson in his costume. After Publix we headed back home to wait for Robbie, Martha, and Will to go trick or treating. Bryson was singing Old Macdonald in the car which of course made for a funny picture.

For actual trick or treating, we walked around our neighborhood with Will. We started at Martha's sister, Katy's, house. We had the hardest time getting the boys to leave. They had a lot of fun playing on the piano.

Once we finally got them to leave, they had a blast going door to door getting candy. Bryson was so funny because we would tell him to go "knock, knock" and he would go knock on the door; so we just followed his lead all night. Once the people would come to the door, he would get his candy, but then try to go into their house. It was hilarious. The boys both had a lot of fun this year.

Of course the only way to get them to take a picture together was to get them to give each other a hug. Oh well, maybe next year.
After trick or treating, we went over to Amy and Mark's house for dinner. We had planned on doing some more trick or treating, but nobody was out. We were a little disappointed but Bryson still had fun. He was way too distracted to eat dinner though. When we first got there, he loved the decorations they had outside but then he started talking about the "monkers" (monsters) so we went outside and he freaked out! Needless to say he woke up in the middle of the night talking about the "monkers". Bryson had so much fun this Halloween and was interested in everything, I'm hoping he's the same way about Christmas. We have started early by listening to the Christmas music on the radio and we have even bought him a Christmas toy. So far he loves Santa, so we will see.