Merry Christmas

Because I couldn't pick a favorite, enjoy these holiday photos of Jillian, by CRWstudio.

Mamarazzi Monday: A Tree in the House

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago, but so cute I couldn't resist sharing!

Picking out our Christmas tree - Jillian is wondering why we took her out in such cold weather

Jillian wondering why there is a tree in the house.

First Halloween

Just a quick blog post to share some halloween photos of my little sweetie! We had a fun weekend - carved pumpkins on Friday night, went to Boo at the Zoo on Saturday and Trick-or-Treating on Sunday.

Checking out the pumpkin guts

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

All dressed up in my Dorothy costume that Mommy made, and ready to trick-or-treat.

Double fisting the candy - she was content to chew on the candy in the wrappers - it's a good thing she doesn't know what is inside the wrappers!

2000-2009: The Decade in Pictures

2000: Senior year of highschool, homecoming dance
2001: High School graduation
2002: Chicago trip with roommate
2003: Got my first chinchilla (the Fipster)
2004: San Diego Trip with Tom
2005: College Graduation
2006: Wedding
2007: Yellowstone Trip
2008: Camp Pin Oak Reunion
2009: Pregnancy

Happy Holidays

Hope everyone had a great holiday! As we were taking the pictures for this year's card (and yes, the santa hats are on the chinchillas heads, no photoshopping here!) we were talking about how next year we'll have baby girl pictured on the card too (don't think the chins are going to be pushed aside).

Happy Birthday Andy!

It starts with 4 separate cakes...


Cut and assembled...


iced to become one cake...

and decorated to be a monkey-pirate

Happy Birthday Andy!

Tom's Birthday

I just wanted to share a pic of the cupcakes I made for Tom's birthday. We went to the newly opened International Tap House in Chesterfield, MO. It's a neat little place, and they even had a beer that I liked!

New year's resolutions

I have several New Year's resolutions that I've been tossing around in my head the last couple weeks and decided I should write down...

1. Lose weight - I'm participating in the "Biggest Loser" contest at work to help motivate myself - I created a separate blog to monitor my progress - http://jk-weight2008.blogspot.com/
2. Finish the master bathroom - and all the other house projects that are "in progress"
3. Make it to church on a regular basis
4. Do more community service things - currently I'm working on teddy bears for the Victory Junction Gang Camp
   

Merry Christmas!!!

My Birthday (week)

My birthday is my favorite holiday - and everyone made my 25th a good one!

Tuesday:
Tom let me open one of my presents early - We Love Katamari game for PlayStation 2.

Wednesday:
Technically it was Thursday (12:15 am), but it was before I went to bed on Wednesday...Tom gave me another present - Desperate Housewives Season 3 on DVD.

Thursday:
Tom had a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered to me at work. After work we we to Build A Bear where I made the Playful Polar Bear - which just so happened to arrive in stores on my birthday, November 1. I also got a red sweater for the polar bear to wear.

Friday:
Some friends joined me at Chevy's for a birthday dinner, and one friend told them it was my birthday so they sang and brought one of the huge sombrero out. I got lots of cool gifts from friends - a littlest pet shop monkey and a 10 pack of lots of pets (including a chinchilla), a frog photo album, and Cherry Pie scented lotion from B&BW.

Saturday:
We had dinner with Tom's parents and Grandmother. I got Big Brain Academy - Wii Degree and Crash of the Titans game for the DS. Plus some cash from his Grandma.

I also got birthday cards from my aunt and uncle Joanie and Terry, and my Grandma Heinz, and a friend from college - Joe. My parents also sent a card but are apparently "too poor" to give me any present....either that or my mother figures that I'm "rich" enough to buy my self a birthday present. It's the principle of it really, I wasn't expecting anything extravagant from them...

THANKS EVERYONE!!! I appreciate your thoughtfulness!

Halloween

Tom and my pumpkins


Haunted Forest that I built at my work for the Halloween decorating contest.
(Mine won by a landslide!)

First Anniversary

Today is our first wedding anniversary! We didn't do anything especially exciting today, but we also didn't do any household chores or any of that kind of stuff. We started out attending Sunday mass at St. Ann in Normendy where we got married a year ago today. They had their parish bbq this afternoon so we stuck around long enough to see Fr. Bill rollerbladeing with the kids and had some delicious food courtesy of the men's club. Then we headed down to forest park and had our photo taken at the same bridge where our wedding pictures were taken. After that we headed home, played some Wii games and relaxed. I can't believe it's been a year since our wedding!

Christmas

Christmas was quite enjoyable this year. But to understand you have to know that every year my entire life my family would travel to Chicago and Peoria to see my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins for Christmas. This normally meant driving 8 hours from Columbia, MO to Chicago, in the cold December weather, while squished into the back seat of a small compact car and 2 other siblings. Only once in my life did I not travel for Christmas - when I was 7, my little brother was born 9 days before Christmas so we did not travel.

Anyway, this year Tom and I opted for a relaxing Christmas. We had dinner and opened presents with Tom's parents and grandma on Christmas Eve (and opened lots of cool presents including warm, fuzzy pajamas, vertical horizon cd, gift certificate for target, and a new alarm clock (the lovely chinchillas chewed up the cord of my old one). The chinchillas got some chew treats/toys. After a quiet and relaxing evening Tom and I attended midnight mass at St. Joeseph in Manchester church, and then decided to go ahead and open our presents to each other at 1:30 am on Christmas morning when we got home. From Tom and the chinchillas I got the Rob Thomas cd, 101.1 the river cd, and the Trans-siberian Orchestra cd, Mario Party 7 for gamecube, the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, the Simpsons season 6, and an adopted polar bear from the St. Louis Zoo (well the Polar Bear has to stay at the zoo...but I'm his adopted mother).

And there's still more to come...this weekend we are visiting my family in Columbia to exchange gifts with them!