Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, full of happy time with your families!  I am ashamed to admit that I was not finished with my Christmas shopping until yesterday afternoon.  That is a first for me and I didn't like the feeling of having to rush to the store for a last minute present.  As DBF and I were poking around in Kohl's, I spotted this ornament holder on 70% clearance.  It was regularly $60+, down to $18.99 and then I had a 30% off coupon to boot.  The balls all came with it and are secured, so curious kitties can't knock them down.  


Have I shown you our fireplace yet?  The plan is to take out this woodburning stove and use the fireplace that's behind it.  We're waiting for DBF's friend to have a free weekend to come up and help haul it out of the living room.  Then da boyfriend is going to rip down the paneling and put up nice, red brick paneling instead.  I can't wait until its finished and my hunny builds us a nice little mantel.  Right now, we're displaying the flag he earned when he became an Eagle Scout and some candles.  It makes me nervous to burn much up there, its still sort of within kitty and puppy reach.

We had such a nice Christmas.  We spent Christmas Eve with da boyfriend's mom and extended family and then today with my family.  Our tradition is to open presents, have a late breakfast, hang out for a while and let our stomachs digest (we watched Santa Claus, The Movie today - have you seen that?  Totally brought me back to being a kid again!) and then munch on appetizers for the rest of the afternoon.  My mom always picks us up some lotto tickets and we had a lot of fun scratching them off and seeing if we won anything.  Without fail, my mom always wins.  This year, my crafty mom made my sisters and I aprons!  She found the material in Lancaster, PA and said it screamed my name.  Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen?  I love chocolate covered pretzels, so she put mine in a gift bag with some actual pretzels.   

One of my favorite gifts ever - my second quilt!  I love the first one she made me two years ago and this one is even bigger, so we can use it as a blanket in bed.   

Gigi and Shadow got new toys too.  Shadow couldn't wait for me to take the tags off her duck and Gigi was batting around her toy mice for hours.  

She's such a good momma dog.  She's always watching and sniffing Gigi to make sure she's ok.  If I pick Gigi up, Shadow runs right over to make sure I'm not hurting her.  Its so sweet!  And they're really starting to play comfortably with each other.  DBF took Shadow outside through the sliding glass doors yesterday.  While they were outside, Gigi watched them from behind the curtain.  Shadow ran back inside, not realizing Gigi was right there.  Gigi scampered out from the curtain, smacked Shadow in the butt with her paw and then took off!  Our kitchen, dining room and living room are all connected, so they chased each other from one room to the next to the next, two times!  Its so funny to watch.