Resolutions and a Giveaway....

So, I have no excuse. Really. I just got busy doing stuff and being lazy. It happens. :)

We had a relaxing Christmas. Tons of goodies and Medved had no idea what was going on but he loved it.

He currently has only one of his Christmas gifts left. Everything else has been destroyed. We need to get him some more durable ones next time.

We went up to Ross' family for New Years. It was really low key. We "cheered" to Mountain Dew and Ross ate Taco Bell 2 mins after Midnight. (He gave up soda and fast food for a whole year)

Some New Years Resolution for me this year:

Lose some weight (I have yet to have a year without this one)

To not be so hard on Myself

Envy Less

Learn to Accept More

Make more time for Myself

Since I haven't been blogging that much lately, I wanted to make up for it with a Giveaway. We went to the Nate Berkus show this last fall and everyone in the audience was given this:

Goddess of Vengeance by Jackie Collins.

She was at the show. I wasn't totally impressed but apparently these are supposed to be pretty premium for their Genre.

I'm not a romantic novel reader myself, and Ross barely reads books, let alone girly ones. So I've decided to give them to two "lucky" readers.

What you have to do:

1. Post a comment here telling me a New Years Resolution of yours (if you can't post a comment, please email me at cathymschanck@gmail.com)

2. Become a follower of my blog.

And that's it. If you do both 1 and 2 you'll get added twice.

I'll be putting all the names in a hat (because I don't know a technical way of doing it) and drawing next Monday night. January 23rd.

Good Luck!

I did a little photo shoot with Medved with his Christmas Bowtie on. Yes, they aren't good. Yes, I don't know how to use a camera. And yes, I'm a little obsessed with my dog.

Isn't he so photogenic?

I call the last one the look away Blue Steel. He knows he's handsome. LOL.

Here's to a new year with new possibilites!

Cathy

Shiznit we got for Christmas.....

I asked Ross what I should call this post after telling him what I was going to talk about and this is what he suggested. We're tired. As you can probably tell.

So the "shiznit" we got for Christmas would be for our on going tradition. (2 whole years now!)

The ornament we decided on this year was a graduation one.

I graduated in May and Ross graduated earlier this month.

This is also Medved's first Christmas so we decided to get him his first ornament...

And his very own stocking. :)

Marla also gave me one of Ross' first Christmas ornaments from the year he was born to hang on our tree. Very special to us.

We just bought everything for Christmas cookies to make tomorrow.

It'll be nice to have some time to relax with my husband and puppy for a whole day, I forgot what that feels like.

:)

Now all it needs to do is snow.

Cathy

Oh Christmas Tree...

Hey guys!

I think today is the first day I haven't stayed late at work in about 3 weeks. I've missed chatting with you guys. (one way conversations, of course)

We've had a FULL month. I can't even believe how much we have done in the last few weeks. I had my birthday......22! Yay.... I feel a lot older than that. Haha.

Myles, Ross' brother, came home "early" from his mission a week ago. And by early, I mean that he decided to tell us a later date and come home a bit earlier then that date and "surprise" us instead. And by surprise, I mean us actually surprising him at the airport because we found out his "plan".

Okay I think I just did over kill with the "".

So he's home for the holidays and we had a fun week catching up with him and spending time with family.

He's spent the last two years in Romania, teaching people about our religion. Such a huge sacrifice. Learn more here. :)

We stupidly forgot our camera when we went to the airport. This is all we got of the handsome RM.

Hahahaha...

He's single ladies.

Now for some CHRISTMAS stuff.

This is when we got our tree. Medved smelling it, marking his territory - no big deal.

This is us, figuring out that it won't fit in our stand.

Here's Ross shaving down the bottom with a kitchen knife so it would fit.

Ah, finally.

He loved the lights. :)

Before the tree skirt and presents.

And after :)

I feel like I have sooo many things I want to talk about. But I think I'll just leave you with the tree for now.

Expect posts soon though! Like tomorrow and the next day and the next day. I have to make up for the last month!

And I have so many fun Christmas things to talk about.

:)

Cathy

GRADuate...

Ross finally graduated. He's (almost) done. He has one more paper and one more presentation and he's dunzoo. He'll have his BA in Russian Language from the University at Albany. :)

I'm very proud of my man. The last few weeks have been a little rough but he handled it like a champ.

Here's us before:

(Dave, Marla and us)

During: (all blurry)

And the party:

I made the banner, the mason jar candle holders, and the chocolate cake :)

It was fun to spend some time with family and friends, and bask in Ross' great accomplishment.

Medved and Trueman sleeping :)

Rinn and Medved. Medved's Best Friend.

She put this jacket on him, I thought this was the cutest thing!

(haha, he doesn't like pictures)

He did great!

We picked up our tree tonight and we're decorating tomorrow. Look forward to some fun posts soon :)

Cathy

Brown paper packages, tied up with string...

Honestly I could not think of a title for this guys. I'm gettin rusty.

Anyways... my main man is graduating this Sunday. Yea you read that right - he is FINALLY done. I'm very proud of him. More on that later though.

I wanted to give you a sneak peak of the decorations I'll be using for the party. :)

I'm pretty excited.

Here's our little snow monster. My parents had a ton of snow up north when we went up for Thanksgiving. Let's just say we had to drag him inside, he loved it soooo much.

:)

Cathy

No room in the Inn....

Found an incredible deal today.


5x8 for $115.70 with Free shipping.


I don't think it gets any better than that. Too bad we don't have any room.





















Isn't she beautiful? She comes in a few other colors too. Check her out here.


One day people, one day.




Cathy

The blues...

There hasn't been anything too exciting going on here. I have a few Arbonne parties this weekend and I talk in Church on Sunday. Totally nervous about it! My ward is HUGE, so much bigger than I'm used to talking in front of.

Oh jeeze, I can't even think about it.

Here are a couple additions we've made to our cute little apartment lately:

(blurry - I suck at taking pictures)

I spray painted this little mirror grey. Doesn't really go with all the warm colors we're using here but I want to do more cooler colors in our next place so I've been trying to transition.

Hence the new blue chevron pillow. She looks beautiful in real life, you know, not on camera.

That's about it around here.

I honestly can't wait for snow now. Sadly, it just doesn't feel like the holidays without it.

What fun projects have you been doing? Have you had the blues (or greys) lately?

Cathy