Christmas Update

My little family had a fantastic Christmas. Ty, Nuts and I did our Christmas the weekend before Christmas. Because we are living off of my meager income and Ty can't justify spending his student loan on money on me (I don't know why!?!) we didn't really exchange presents. Ty took me out to dinner and I bought him a couple of stocking stuffers. I have bought him an ornament every Christmas since 2003. This year I found this cute round Santa that was wearing a stethescope and carrying a doctor's bag. Perfect for Ty! We did get Nuts a present for his stocking. He loves chasing squirrels, so we bought him a stuffed one. It was too big to fit all the way down in his stocking.

We couldn't find stocking holders that we liked so when I stuffed the stockings I just hung them on the tree. Nuts' stocking looked like it had a rat sticking out.

We headed to our hometown Monday night. Ty's mom marked some redbud trees for us last Spring for us to transplant to our front yard. We walked all over their land searching for them. It was really cold and Ty found these coveralls in the back of his closet. They fit perfectly. Don't worry I glammed the camo up with some houndstooth gloves!

Ty and I woke up really early on Christmas Eve morning to check out our stockings--3:30 AM!

I woke up and went to the bathroom and saw them all sitting out, stuffed full. I was so excited that I couldn't fall back asleep, so we just got up and opened them. Beverly always has the best stocking stuffers! One of the things in my stocking was a gift certificate for a blog makeover. Yay!

Lucas discovered the dancing Santa. That kid has some crazy dance moves. It was very entertaining!

Nathan's 1st Christmas. His santa hat was adorable!

The kids with Ty's grandparents.

We went with Ty's family to see the Christmas lights at Medicine Park.

Can you tell I am standing on my tiptoes? Every little bit helps when you husby is a foot taller than you!

Christmas day we headed to my parents house. It is so nice that our parents only live 10 minutes from each other. We opened presents and then went to the movies. This is one of our family traditions. We saw Four Christmases. I thought it was good, but I'm not sure my parents appreciated it. Any movie with Vince Vaughn is probably not a good choice for my conservative parents.

My brother and sister.

We couldn't leave out our dogs. (ignore the creepy eyes.)

After Christmas in our hometown we headed back home for a day and then left for a couple of more Christmas celebrations. I will write about them later...

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

(I couldn't copy the picture from the site I made it on so I took a picture of it. It turned out pretty blurry, but oh well.)

I just wanted to pop in and wish everyone a

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I am off work until January 5th. Yay! My blogging will be pretty spotty.

Victorian Christmas Walk

This past weekend Ty and I headed to Guthrie for his nephew's 1st birthday party. He was an adorable birthday boy and loved all the attention. Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead. Or at least I thought it was dead. I guess it restored itself a little. Just long enough for me to get a few pics at the Victorian Christmas Walk. The walk happens two weekends in December in historic downtown Guthrie. There are lots of neat little shops and antique stores that stay open late. They all serve hot apple cider and have cookies for the shoppers. There were several groups of people dressed up victorian style. There were several Santas and even a few elves.
It was a really neat event.

I did manage to get one shot of the birthday boy! It was absolutely freezing outside and Lucas was bundled up. What movie does this remind you of!?!

I had so much fun browsing all the antique stores. I saw these cute canisters, but resisted the urge to buy them. Maybe if Ty hadn't been with me reminding me of the fact that I don't have any room for them. And the coffee one was missing a lid. But now I am wishing I would have bought them. Aren't they cute!?!

I did make sure to get a picture of baby Nathan. (I didn't take a single picture of him the last time that I saw him.) He was wearing the onesie that I made for him.

Introducing

my friend Whitney. Well, before I start with Whitney let me preface this by saying I started this blog for my family to read and keep up with mine and Ty's life. It has definitely evolved into something completely different. I have developed this great circle of bloggy friends and I never expected that! But this post is for my family. Anytime I talk to my family about Whitney I always say, "you know that girl in my office, Whitney, her husband is in Ty's medical school class..." Well, that has become quite a mouthful. My parents have always known who my friends and I don't want that to stop now that I am all grown-up. (well, sorta grown-up).

I am extremely blessed to have a great job with great co-workers and a fun, laid-back boss. One of the things that has made this job so much fun is Whitney. {You know that girl in my office whose husband is in Ty's class! :)} She is a year older than me and we have so much in common. Especially since we are going through the same things with our husbands in medical school. We even took up sewing together last year to pass the time while the boys are studying.

We are the young (silly) girls in the office. We are always e-mailing back and forth even though we are only about 5 ft. from each other. And we always have some new obsession to look up online. Lately, it has been baby stuff because Whitney is preggers and she just found out she is having a boy. Yay!

I am so lucky to have lots of amazing co-workers, but especially Whitney! She makes office life a lot more interesting and fun!

We played Dirty Santa yesterday for our office party. We are showing off our loot. She did get more than one of those plates...

Ty: the best uncle ever

My husband is so good with kids. They just flock to him. Of course his niece and nephew are no exception. This year we missed Thanksgiving with my family and my aunt wrote on my facebook wall saying that she missed us and that they needed Ty to entertain the kids. There are 3 young boys on my dad's side of the family and they think that Ty is their human punching bag! (I'm not kidding.)
Last weekend we headed to Ty's grandparents for the first of many Christmas celebrations to come this season. We had a great dinner and enjoyed the time with everyone. Ty loves to see Lillian, Lucas and now we have Nathan as well. For some reason I didn't get a single picture of baby Nathan. Next time...

Lucas is a year old today. Happy Birthday!

Such a big boy with his tie on!

Lillian was not ready for her Uncle Ty to leave!

We get to see everyone again this weekend for Lucas' 1st birthday party. It should be really fun.

Holiday Ball

The Holiday Ball, aka med school prom, was this past weekend. It was held at a new event center in town. The place was pretty nice. Although there was also a mixed martial arts fight in the arena that is attached to the banquet hall. It made things pretty interesting. (The fight was not scheduled when the school booked this place.)
Ty and I had a great evening. The food was okay--at least my plate was. I pre-ordered chicken and Ty chose steak. All the steaks at our table were blood red. Not okay when Ty likes his medium-well. He ate it anyways. I don't know how. I don't think I could have choked that thing down. That is why I always go with chicken at events that food is being produced in mass. Its always the safer choice.
Dinner was followed by a hypnotist. It was by far one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. My cheeks were hurting from smiling and laughing so much! I told Ty that we should get out the hypnotist tape from our high school prom. (I didn't go under thanks to Ty falling on me and waking me up out of the trance!) He was hilarious during the whole thing. My parents took turns recording it and I'm pretty sure that there is a lot of up and down movement of the camera from them shaking with laughter. So, momsy get that tape out and have it ready!

It was late by the time the hynotist was done so we headed home and skipped out on the dancing. We are such an old couple! It was a great evening.

Red Box

I always walk by this machine at Wal-Mart and wonder how it works. I know that my bff Chesley has used it before in her hometown. But whenever we rent movies I never think to find a redbox. My thoughts always go to Blockbuster. Well, not anymore! Ty and I went to Wal-Mart on Sunday and decided to try it out. We rented Tropic Thunder because he has been wanting to see it since it was released in the theaters. (It was an okay movie.) We went back yesterday afternoon to return it and decided to just rent another one. This time I got to choose: Hancock. I love any movie that Will Smith is in. He is my favorite actor.

I went on their website last night and discovered that their is a redbox machine even closer to me than the one I had originally used. Yay! And if you go to their website and enter your e-mail address they will give you a promo code to use for a free rental.

All you have to do to get a movie is slide your debit/credit card. They charge you a dollar per night. The movie has to be returned the next night by 9 pm. It is so easy and cheap! Especially compared to $4.99 for a 2 night rental at Blockbuster. I'm so glad we tried it!

**It was so nice to have yesterday off due to icy roads, but it is back to work today. Ah, man! I was pretty disappointed when I checked my e-mail this morning and saw that we were to carry on as usual. I could get pretty used to staying at home every day.**

Get Your Kicks on Route 66

On old Route 66 there is this great little convenience store called Pops. Driving along Route 66 in this area you see lots of old farm houses and fields and then all of a sudden this modern, futuristic gas station is in your view. My boss and I discovered this place on one of our recruiting trips. The next time that Ty and I were in the area we stopped by. I just knew he would love it. We knew we were going to be in the area Saturday evening and made plans to stop.

All lit up at night.

Pops is celebrating Christmas, too! The pop bottle rotated through a couple of designs.


Both of the long walls of the store are lined with thousands of pops.

They also have a little diner inside the store, hence the table and chairs.

I've never eaten there because we always stop at random times. One day...
Check out the cute six pack boxes they provide.

There are a lot of coolers filled with all kinds of pop.

I tend to go with the safer choices and Ty likes to try new things.

My choices were Izze Sparkling Pomegranate (my daredevil choice!), Welch's Grape Soda, and Faygo Orange Soda. Ty had some really weird flavor with the name rat in it, but at the last minute traded it out for a good ole Coke.




It was such a fun trip! Ty and I had such a great weekend together. I had forgotten how much fun we have together when the stress of medical school isn't looming over his head.

The tempatures were a record high here yesterday: 75 degrees! This morning it is 16 degrees! Quite the dramatic change! The temps began dropping yesterday evening and it started sleeting last night. I went to bed with my work phone so I could wake up in the morning and check my e-mail. I was hoping that work would be closed and it is!!! YAY! All day at home with Ty! I'm so excited. Although getting Nuts to go outside to do his business is not going to be fun in these temps! :)

Christmas Break

Tonight official kicks off Christmas break for Ty. He will have taken 8 tests in 5 days. Crazy!

3 weeks of having Ty around all the time!!!! I am unbelievably excited! We will be celebrating the end of this semester with the Holiday Ball aka Med School Prom. Any excuse to dress up!
I am so proud of him. He is extremely dedicated and passionate about medicine. And he did amazing in all of his classes!!!

This is Ty post finals this past Spring.

He's looking a little scruffy! His poor eyes were so small from a lack of sleep. It also doesn't help that he hates the flash.

Last year at this time almost the whole city had lost power. We had the worst ice storm ever. The medical school lost power and the students were in a tizzy. It was Ty's 1st ever medical school finals. We have a huge open area that is almost all floor to ceiling windows. All the students had to take their first test of the week in this open area. It was the only place with enough light. Ty had to take his by the front doors. He said it was freezing. After the first day of tests they moved all the tests to a nearby campus that was lucky enough to have power. We didn't have power at our house, but luckily my aunt and uncle did. Even though their neighbors across the street didn't! We were without power at our house for 5 days. I'm still so thankful that my aunt and uncle only live 20 minutes away! We stayed there the whole time. I'm pretty sure that I have told this story before, but it was such a big deal in this area. We still have trees along the interstate with branches broken and hanging off of them. Our time during the icestorm was only made worse because of finals week. But all the students survived and we will still be talking about this when when we are old and gray.

Our campus lost all of our trees. They were so broken that they all had to be cut completely down. These two pictures were taken during the ice storm. (but they aren't of our campus.)

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

How lovely are your branches. Why is it so hard to take a great picture of a Christmas tree with a digital camera? I decided that daylight just might be the best time to do it.
Our tree has been up since before Thanksgiving. I'm hoping none of you remember my posts about hating Christmas decor before Thanksgiving. But when your husband is in medical school and he has to start studying for finals right after Thanksgiving you learn to be flexible with the Christmas decor. It was do it at the time with him or have to do it later by myself. The latter was not an option. Especially considering that he did most of the work!

My favorite ornaments: I love the big red one because it is huge, the little smores guy was a gift from Ty when we were dating (I think our senior year of high school), and of course our 1st Christmas ornament.

And my favorite part--the wrapping paper! The black and silver paper looks red in this picture but it is just reflecting off of the tree skirt. The black design is raised velour.

I love the little gift box. Ignore the gift bag hanging out in the back. I got tired of wrapping and just stuck the present in the first bag I could find. There isn't even any tissue paper in there. This is what happens when you buy the cheap tape...don't do it! The tape I bought came in a neat casing that promised that you could use it with one hand. It was also the cheapest option. Not worth it. The tape won't stay down. The only other roll of tape that I had on hand was a huge roll of packing tape. I kept having to cut little strips. No fun. So, buy the expensive tape! Don't scrimp! :)

Christmas Mantle

One thing that I love about our house is the fireplace. Not because I like to have a roaring fire, but because I love having a mantle to decorate!

Turbo Jam

One day last year I was at home sick and randomly flipping through t.v. channels. I came across an infomercial for Turbo Jam. It seemed like the best work out ever. I just knew that if I ordered it I would automatically be motivated to work out and would have a fantastic body. I know, I know they sucked me in! Well, not completely...instead of ordering the dvds from the infomercial I went to amazon.com to search for a better deal. I do this for almost everything that I want to buy. I love amazon! When I got the videos I would only do them when Ty was at the school studying or when he locked himself in his office and promised not to come out for anything. I am not the most coordinated person in the world and I did not want him to see me jumping around trying to keep up with this energetic person.

Almost a year later and I still don't want him to watch me attempt this video. I'm not as adamant about it, but I still wait until he is deeply immersed in studying before I will begin the workout. Last night he decided to sneak up on me with his phone camera and snap a picture. AAAHHH!! I made him send me the picture and since it wasn't completely embarrasing and since it takes the worst pictures ever I decided to share my embarrassment here. But I will never, ever let you watch me do the workout!

Ty is a little behind the times and just got a phone with a camera this summer. He has been really proud of it and is always sneaking up on me and taking pictures. One morning he caught me outside with Nuts while he was doing his business. I was wearing a nightgown and my rainboots, bending over picking weeds out of our flower beds. Needless to say I looked beautiful! NOT! I had on the rainboots because I keep them near our back door. They are so easy to slip on and the grass gets really dewy here in the morning.

If you are looking for a great workout video I would recommend Turbo Jam. It is a very high energy workout. The best part is they have a 20 minute workout (along with a 45 minute workout and a weight training video). I can only last about 20 minutes!

Christmas Centerpiece

I have seen centerpieces like this at Pottery Barn and decided that I could make it myself. I love trees so this was the perfect Christmas centerpiece for my table. The snow came from Target, the branches came from my back yard and I already had the vase. The pictures turned out kinda weird, because there is a shadow behind the tree branches. But you get the idea.

Go Green

We went green at work several, several months ago. Besides having random checks to make sure computers are being turned off at night, we are trying to conserve energy by turning off the bathroom lights. As of September, our school has saved $2.2 million. (This is between 3 different campuses.) I'm sure the motivation behind us going green is to save money, but at least we are doing it.

Wind power has been all over the news lately. I grew up in a part of the state where it is always windy. Of course everywhere in OK is pretty windy, but especially this area. Hence a line from our state song, "where the winds come sweeping down the plains." Driving from my hometown to Ty's grandparents there is a mini wind farm. Everytime we drive by it I am always mesmerized. Those things are HUGE! I could stare at them all day. I wish I had one in my back yard, not to save energy but to watch. It would be nice to have the wind provide my electricity! I'm pretty sure one of these is just a little out of my budget! :)

Check out this great wreath I got last night at Kohl's:

Regular price: $50. I bought it for $15!!! Can you believe that??? I have been eyeing red berry wreaths since last Christmas, but just couldn't bring myself to spend a ton of money on one. Good thing I waited!

Beautiful Morning

I was standing at the kitchen counter this morning making Ty his lunch and I looked out the window and saw this. Absolutely gorgeous. I grabbed my camera and ran outside in my pj pants and robe and snapped a few pictures. The whole time I was hoping that the neighbors didn't look out their window at me! Then I said a little prayer thanking God for such a beautiful morning.

Its amazing how much the color can change in just a matter of seconds. I looked down to change the settings on my camera to manual and the colors had changed by the time I looked back up.