Awesome

I told you I was super good at Kinect bowling, right? 

 Here are the pictures to prove it...

(Along with lots of other Abel Christmas photos.) 
(I photobombed everyone...  So I'm pretty much in every picture.  Ha.  
That was my Christmas legacy this year....)

Awesome

In case you were wondering, I am AWESOME at Kinect Bowling.  

Seriously awesome.

Hours

My parents are coming into town tomorrow evening.  Spending the night.  Going to 2:30 church with us, and hitting the road from there.  By the time we get back to our house Steve's parents will likely be minutes away.  Steve feverishly cleaned the house today (it looks amazing!) and I've been cooking the evening away.  I've got all our meals and food worked out until Tuesday.  I have two and a half lasagnas in the oven (cross your fingers - I used cheap Aldi brand noodles, and it doesn't look promising....).  I've cooked sausage and chicken for various other meals.  Chopped ham and cubed bread for a Christmas Eve Strata.  And  Steve is cooking won ton wrappers.  I've mixed a bunch of herbs together and have them all in lovely containers just waiting to be added to other ingredients.  I'm tired.  And it's no where near time to turn in.  But at least I'll be prepared and can spend time with family instead of trying to shop and cook. 

In Love

I am officially in love with our new Washer and Dryer!  

It's amazing!

I had tons of fun doing laundry tonight.

And I don't think I've ever said that before. 

Found

Fortunately, the rats did not eat our ornaments.  Although, if they had been in our basement I certainly wouldn't have put it past them.  Our ornaments have been found!  Unfortunately, they're at my parents house.  And I won't be seeing them until after Christmas.  So we're making due without any of our meaningful, favorite, and sentimental ornaments this year.  I did seem to find at least a bit of my Christmas cheer - thanks to my new favorite Etsy vendor.  I'll try to hold onto it this time.  And maybe I'll find some more lurking somewhere else.  

In other news.  Our W&D are FINALLY on their way.  Twelve debacles later.  They'll be delivered and installed on Wednesday.  I'm pretty pumped to do some laundry.  Let me know if you have and you need done.  I have actually thought about how having a fancy new washer will be super helpful when we eventually have babies, all those cloth diapers gotta get clean somehow.  Right, Mere?  I don't know if it's actually true, but I envision my W&D having all sorts of fancy settings.   I'll be able to wash anything!

In more news, Steve is still meticulously filling in holes in the basement in an effort to keep the rats out.  We haven't seen anything new that's been eaten or chewed.  So who knows, maybe it's working.  Just an FYI though - people with rats in their basements (AKA Me) don't appreciate it when other people regale them with stories of how rats can eat through lead, and steel, and chicken wire, and hard foamy stuff you fill holes in with in an effort to keep out the rats.  That sort of information is counter-productive, and it keeps me awake at night.

That's all for now.  Except that one of my favorite (old) kids at work told his mom I was his favorite.  His favorite what, I don't know.  But I'm going with it. 

Lost

Christmas is just around the corner.  And I couldn't be farther from having Christmas cheer.  I'm not to hepped up about the impending Holiday.  We haven't even decorated yet.  And I'm not really bothered by that.  We did finally get a Christmas Tree last night.  Steve picked it out, I kind of stood around.  Steve did a fantastic job getting it all up and straight and he even strung the lights.  I conceded to decorate the tree.  But our ornaments are lost.  They're not here.  They're not at my parents.  They weren't left at the apartment.  They vanished.  So any desire I had to get in the Christmas Spirit went out the window with our decorations.  All my favorite ornaments, all the ornaments Steve and I have gotten each other - gone.  So if you happen to see a box of carefully packed ornaments lying around your house, or in the street, or in your trunk, or anywhere really, they're probably mine.  And hopefully when they're found my Christmas Spirit will be tucked inside the box with all my favorite ornaments. Until then, our tree's a little bare.

Ugg(h)

So they Sears people might have tried and pawn off the crappy, dented, dinged, scratched, floor model Washer and Dryer on us.  Apparently a sales person "oversold" the Black Friday sale.  Whoops.  So now we're waiting on a new shipment to come in.  Ugh.

In other news, I might have purchased a pair of "skinny" pants to wear with my Uggs.  I've been spazzing because I felt as though all my pants are not quite wide enough for Uggs to go under them, and are a bit too wide to look good inside them.  Enter skinny pants.  I bought them without trying them on, brought them home to try on where no one could possibly see me in them, and now have to go back and get a different size.  I can't fathom me and skinny pants.  Watch out, the four horsemen are surely close behind.

Memories

Last week we ended up braving Black Friday and stood in line to get a new front loading Washer and Dryer.  Woo Woo!  I even conned my niece, Kameron, and my Dad into coming with us.  I'm super good at getting them to do things that don't necessarily sound fun.  I'm spoiled that way.

If you know me at all, you know that I'm super good at freaking out.  I spaz, worry, and get amazingly anxious for ninety-five percent of the events that take place in my life. Ninety-five percent of the general population wouldn't bat an eyelash for most of the things about which I panic.  (Did that make sense?)  I'll get to the me freaking out part in a minute.  

On Thanksgiving we laid out our plan about going to Sears.  Word on the Sears floor was that people were going to start showing up around two.  The Smiths and Abels had already decided to party all night long and just not bother with the whole pesky going to bed thing.  I had already laid out a massive story about how Kammers and my Dad needed to come with us because, honestly, they'd never be able to distinguish this night from every other night of their lives unless they got out there and made some memories with us.  I mean come on!  Staying up all night, waiting around in the rain, being trampled, imagine all the endless possibilities. 

Back to me freaking out.  I was like a giant cat in a small cage.  Pacing around, worrying that people were going to start showing up at Sears at ten.  Dumb, I know.  I convinced everyone that we should do a drive by at midnight.  We decided that if there were people in line we'd start our standing in line slash sleeping in the car rotation.  (That was part of the memories bargin.  Taking waiting and sleeping in shifts until four am came around.)  12:15 - Someone was already in line!  Ack!  We grabbed some chairs, laughed hysterically about who knows what, and sat down.  I took Kammers into the mall to walk around a few stores that were already open and when we came back Steve went into the mall and my Dad went to the Jeep to take a nap.  After a bit we switched.  Apparently My Dad and Steve made some friends in the line while it was the girls turn to sleep.  Finally it was almost time.  The waiting was the longest part.  We were in and out of Sears in twenty minutes.  We had gotten our ticket for the W&D outside before they opened, we took it inside and paid.  My Dad walked around and ended up impulse buying a chainsaw.  Yeah, that's my Dad.

And now Steve is outside in the garage building an awesome stand for our W&D.  Amazing!  It's all fancy, with cubbies for bins underneath.  I love storage.  I love places to put bins.  I'm super excited!  I'm excited to have a new front loading W&D, and I'm even more, so incredibly excited to have a husband who built a stand for our Washer and Dryer just so his broken wife doesn't have to bend over to do laundry ever again.  Fantastic!