Monday Confessions.

1. Today at work was a big fail for me, as I had court and completely forgot to bring copies of the court report with me. This doesn't always mean catastrophe, but in this certain case it did. For some reason no one could find the copies of the report that I faxed them last week, and I didn't have any reserves in hand. Now I'm definitely on a certain attorney's you-know-what list.

2. I've had an early morning workout bag packed every night for the past 20 or so nights. Every night I tell myself that I'm going to go to the gym early the next morning and even set my alarm for the crack of dawn. Can anyone guess how many times I've gone to the gym in the early am? The correct answer is zero.

3. Dylan is officially the world's pickiest eater, which is sure to drive me to drinking and drugs. Yesterday I set a piece of delish chocolate cake in front of him to see if he would even try it, as he refuses to try anything that doesn't look like ravioli or yogurt. And just as I expected, he wouldn't even touch the chocolate cake. This boy surely can't be mine if he refuses cake.

4. I have eaten approximately 538 peppermint Hershey kisses since last Wednesday. Take that, Weight Watchers.

5. I actually made dinner tonight (a Christmas miracle in itself) and was deeply offended when Ben said that he didn't like it. I took it as a personal attack, which means that I am still shooting him dirty looks three hours later.

6. Christmas is in less than two weeks and I have no idea what to get Ben. I refuse to get him any golf paraphernalia, as it would be like giving a drug addict a new crack pipe for Christmas.

Please share your confessions, as I want something to laugh at other than at myself...

* Sorry if this list is a little gripey and whatnot, I'm just in one of those moods. Will work on an attitude adjustment for tomorrow.

Christmas questions.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. It's more work, but those beautiful wrapped packages look so pretty under the tree.

2. Real tree or Artificial? I've always done real, but I'm definitely open to the possibility of a real tree in the coming years. Maybe when Dylan doesn't want to tackle the Christmas tree?

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually a day or two after Thanksgiving.

4. When do you take the tree down? Whenever we get back home after all the festivities. Usually around New Year's.

5. Do you like eggnog? Nope.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Not sure. I remember being so excited about getting Birkenstocks when I was 12. I definitely wore them with socks all winter. Ha.

7. Hardest person to buy for? My brother in law T. Seriously, he always ends up getting random weird stuff from me cause I never know what to get him. This year he's getting UnderArmor, which I think that he'll actually like.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Dylan Danger

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Snail Mail, Yo.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Not sure. Ben's grandpa died on Christmas Eve 5 years ago and that really sucked. Does that count?

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Elf!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Right around Thanksgiving

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? An insane amount of cookies, of course.

16. Lights on the tree (colored or clear)? White lights!

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel home to Indiana this year- hooray!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Yes, simply because of the song.

20. Angel, star or ribbon on top of tree? A crooked star- my tree is too tall for my living room, so the star is smushed between the tree and the ceiling and is all tilted over. Keep it classy, Mrs. Harris.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? New pajamas on Christmas eve, the rest of the gifts on Christmas morning.

22. Favorite children's Christmas song? Not really sure. The only one that comes to mind is Jingle Bells.

23. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? How all of my clients at work seem to have some crazy crisis that desperately needs my attention right before Christmas. I'm such a scrooge, right?

24. Favorite ornament theme or color? Oh goodness, I don't know. My favorite ornaments are the ones from my childhood though.

25. Turkey or ham on Christmas day? Turkey.

26. What do you want for Christmas this year? All sorts of things... Tory Burch Revas are at the top of the list, but I think that they may be a little too pricey to justify for a Christmas gift. 

27. Does anyone in your family dress up as Santa? No.

28. Age you discovered who Santa was? Sometime in elementary school... it was a gradual understanding I think.

29. Eggnog, hot chocolate, or apple cider? Mmmmm hot chocolate. Or a peppermint steamer from Starbucks.

30. Traditional colors (red and green) or other colors? Mainly red and green, but I love turquise and silver too.

31. Do you have any Christmas decorations on your roof? Not yet... although Benjamin has promised to put our lights up on Saturday.

32. How does Santa get into your house? Chimney or magic key? magic key

33. Do you prefer gifts or gift cards? Gifts, but please know that I'd never turn away a gift card!

34. Favorite children's Christmas Cartoon? The Polar Express... the book and movie both seemed to magical to me!

YOUR TURN!!

A little late jumping on the bandwagon...

At the risk of sounding like a cougar (and not the BYU kind), have you all seen Zac Efron?

Can you say dreamy? And I'm pretty sure that he's legal too, right?

I am aware that many ladies have come to this conclusion awhile back, but since I've never seen more than 10 minutes of High School Musical, I never got to watch a feature-length Zac Efron-fest. Wait, scratch that... I did see Seventeen Again. Wonder why he didn't captivate me then... maybe because he was playing a 17 year old in the movie and was therefore still jailbait? Yes, that's definitely it.

Sorry Dad, you're probably cringing at this post. And my husband too. Don't worry Benjamin, Zac's no match for you.

Anyway, I just had to let you all know that after watching Charlie St. Cloud (thank you Netflix) I am no longer a member of Team Edward or Team Jacob... I'm on Team Zac.

And yes, I know that I'm {cringe} 26 years old and Z. Efron is probably like 22.

No longer 25.

It's only 8 am and my birthday has already been great. Thank you to my lovely husband and my great friends!

Feeling like I belong in Oz...

And no, it's not because I'm on the shorter side and feel like a munchkin.

Today I decided to step out of my normal pink/red/berry nail polish box and try something out of the ordinary.

I picked up a bottle of Essie nail polish in "Going Incognito" and decided to try having emerald colored nails.

I definitely don't not like it, but I feel a little bit like the Wicked Witch of the West or Elpheba or whatever she's called. Maybe I'm just not used to having nails outside of my typical polish color palate.

Thoughts?

On the definite upside, I can say that I'm a fan of Essie polish and like how it goes on and covers. Two green thumbs up.

Decking the halls.

On Sunday night we got started on all our Christmas celebrating. We put the Carpenter's Christmas cd on- a Bartnett family tradition- and started to put up all of our Christmas decorations.

Last year Dylan was just a few months old, so he didn't care about decorating, but this year he was all about it! The minute that Ben dragged the tree up from the basement he wanted in on the action.

We quickly realized that the tree would not be able to be set up in the enormous empty space in our living room (more on that empty space later. What the heck should we do with it?).

Behold, the empty space (and Dylan with my blowdryer. He loves that thing. This was two days prior to the Chi murder--- which btw, Ben fixed it! Yay! Resurrected Chi!)

I think that Dylan is telling the paparazzi (me) to go away.

We had to put the tree back into a little corner between our couches, since it was easy to see that Dylan was not one of those kids who could just look at the tree. Nope, he wants to climb up the tree, and take off every ornament in the process. See, he's already trying to use Ben as a stepping stool to get to the tree.

We ended up having to scoot the couches even closer since Dylan was so sneaky and had wedged himself between them and grabbed onto the tree. Who is this kid?

The finished product. Hooray!!!

Here are the other bits of Christmas decor around the house:



Let's all shed a tear.

My beloved Chi has died. Scratch that, my beloved Chi has been murdered. The culprit?

This guy

My seemingly innocent little boy grabbed my Chi (which was apparently too close to the edge of the bathroom counter- and it was turned off, thank goodness) and dropped it right on the hard tile floor. The result? Chi will no longer turn on. Anyone know a Chi repair person?

Thank heaven that my birthday is in one week- I have a feeling that a  new Chi will be my birthday present to myself.

The Score:

Mom's expensive things- 0

Dylan-1

Another reason why I love Shutterfly.

Drumroll please my friends, because Shutterfly has an amazing announcement!

Shutterfly.com is giving out 50 FREE Christmas cards to anyone who blogs about how amazing they are! Merry Christmas, right? This offer rocks for a number of reasons- 1. Who doesn't love free stuff, 2. Shutterfly is my go-to source for all photo printing and project needs, and 3. I was planning on ordering my Christmas card from Shutterfly anyway, so this will just save me some bucks.

 I use Shutterfly for so many projects: photo books, calendars, prints, party invites, and Christmas cards. In fact, I just ordered a photo book and am in the process of creating a photo calendar. 

Ever since we had our family photo session in September I have been envisioning our family's photo Christmas card (yes, I really do think of these things months and months in advance) and the first thing I did when I got our photo disc was click on over to Shutterfly.com to peruse the photo card selection. I thought that picking our photo card would be easy stuff, but it's harder than I thought! Not because Shutterfly is difficult to navigate- hello, how user friendly can you get- but because there are so many adorable cards and I can't pick just one!

Check out the link to jump in on this amazing offer!http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/Here are some of my favorite designs (although I can't share my very favorite- you'll have to wait for that one in the mail):

Thanksgiving 2010.

This year we spent our Thanksgiving in Denver with Ben's family. The visit seemed too short, since we were having a great time during the entirety of our visit. 

We flew in early Wednesday morning, which really is a story in itself, but I won't bore you with the details of waking up at 3 am and getting to the airport by 5 am. 

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving in Denver. We stayed at a swanky guest suite in my father in law's girlfriend Pamela's downtown Denver complex. I wish that I would've taken pictures, because it was awesome- better than any hotel I've ever been in. 

We spent Wednesday in Parker, at the family home and had a Christmas celebration, since we wouldn't be together for Christmas. We read from Luke 2, opened presents, and played games. 

 Silly Dylan and his rosy cheeks. The air was insanely dry, which caused the poor boy's cheeks to chap and get ridiculously red. 

 Dylan and his cousins. By this time, Dylan had been up from 3:30 am until 8 pm with a few little catnaps thrown in. He was one tired boy.

 He perked up for opening presents and fell in love with the hammer and peg toy that Grandpa Carl got him. Dylan is all boy!

 Thanksgiving Day he was a little more rested and was in great spirits. He kept getting into cousin Lucas's jumparoo.

 Here's the cool room where we had Thanksgiving dinner. There were probably about 30 people there with Ben's family plus Pamela's family and neighbors.

 Me and my red-faced boy.

 Ben chasing Dylan around in the theater room.

Love birds.

Happy Thanksgiving my friends! Hope you had a great one!

Saw it. Loved it.

There were so many things to love about this movie:
-The amazing Seven Harrys
-Bill and Fleur's wedding and Fleur's gorge dress
-The elimination of the Horcrux
-Ron and Hermione's tender love/hate relationship
-Dobby's rescue and death

The only things I don't love?
-Part two is not coming out for waaaaay too long
-Idiot sitting behind us did not turn her cell off. And it rang. Loudly.

Oh, and all the hullabaloo about the nude scene? Whatev, it showed nothing. Take a deep breath and move on.