Christmas Vacay

Christmas 2011 Rocked... We spent our time in UT snuggling the puppy, eating sugar, mauling baby Dane with kisses, skyping little Patrick in Brazil, and hanging with the fam.  We ate well, laughed a lot and enjoyed one anothers company...enjoy.  

It's too bad Rocco doesn't get very much attention

Dicing the shallots became too much for my eyes, so out came the snowboarding goggles. 

My brothers and cousins kids came together for a jingle bell medley at the Christmas party.  Needless to say it was adorable and chaotic. 

Meggie didn't put that bear down for a few days

Good lookin' couple

Christmas Eve Dinner - scallops, crab legs, asparagus, salad, creme brulee, beurre blanc sauce = fat + happy

Impromptu prom pose at Jon and Kaylenes

Sweet new board, and even sweeter fake smile

Lauren, Laila, and Megan engrossed in Totoro

We couldn't get enough of cute little baby Dane

Grandma Farrington looking beautiful

Patrick smiling on screen - we sure loved skyping him!  Get that little boy home!

Pretty sure Dane gets 5000 kisses a day

Hello my darlin', hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal

Seussian Taxidermy - the goo-goo eyed Tasmanian Wolghast... my dad made this on a whim.  Awesome!

Brighton night boarding...pretty sure some bums were sore the next day

The annual cookie exchange was held earlier in December, but deserves to be on the blog.  Cookies galore, and many a calorie.  This is an annual tradition not to be missed. 

The ladies of the exchange

Mickey and Doris getting some Rocco love before we left for UT

We know we've been slacking in the blogging arena as of late... I blame Matt. No really, this time of year just gets hectic and we've let blogging go by the wayside.  We did want to post a few pictures of some of the highlights (at least the ones we photographed).  But to sum it all up - December is always fantastic and the 2011 version has not disappointed.  Christmas is always special - a time to reflect, think of others, and buy your spouse a lot of stuff.  

 Rocco by the glow of the Christmas tree

 Matt getting Jones love at the Denver Botanic Gardens Blossoms of Light

 Our magical tree

 On our way to the Broadmoor in CO Springs we stopped at the Garden of the Gods 

 This was our view out of the Broadmoor hotel room window - a gigantic tree overlooking a lake... seriously?

 Dog Friendliness rules - Rocco was treated to a bed, bowls, doggie snacks, and 10% off at the pet boutique

 The display of fairy tale Gingerbread houses

 Sorry these are out of order.  Thanksgiving was spent at Doris and Mickey's- the hat/turkey leg headband inspiration comes from Ali and family (thanks guys, it was a hit).  Of course the food was unbelievable

Happy Times!

Happy Halloweeni

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays - second only to Christmas, and we love celebrating the whole month through.  2011's Halloween has been a little less involved, but celebrated nonetheless.  We've watched some new movies (hard to believe there are any horror movies we haven't seen) - some of the new ones being Let The Right One In (we're fans of both the Swedish and English versions), Dog Soldiers, The Descent and Triangle, which was so-so.  We have read many Steven King and Edgar Allen Poe short stories, carved jack o'lanterns, and dressed up a few times.  All in all, it's been a killer month.  

 Matt's dia de los muertos face paint

Doris held the annual Jones family Halloween party - even the adults get goodies for winning Halloween bingo.  Yay! The party is such a wonderful, looked forward to tradition every year!

Madison looking especially creepy in her ghost costume

His and hers... all of the little boys loved Matt's bullets, and Matt loved his guy liner that lasted a few days

Greg & Joni's family - Greg recycles the beloved graduation gown every year, it has paid for itself time and time again 

Christine made her jester hat with a boy scout hat as the base, naturally

Cute little Matty - who doesn't want to tickle those blue legs 

Jeff looking rather sexy... er something like that 

Nun and crazy cat lady

We made Matt's mariachi pants with medallions and chains intended for jewelery making - I'm pretty sure he's going to wear them regularly - he thinks he's irresistible in them.  

We've also scored several sets of great tickets this month.  Pictured above is us at Portishead - so
unbelievably awesome.   We also saw So You Think You Can Dance which was fabulous, Blind Date an improv theatre performance which was hilarious, Swan Lake (second row) at the Colorado Ballet, a catering event full of all you can eat food, and we had club seats to a Broncos game.  Lucky ducks that's for sure.

Our sweet baby Rocco celebrated his second birthday.  He consumed a giant steak, and a doggie cake - made out of peanut butter and wheat flour

Devotchka at the Ogden was also quite stellar.  Half of the band were zombies and the other half vampires - they consumed a girl at the beginning of the show, and had fabric and ring aerialists perform during the show.  To boot - they sounded amazing.  

Taken with my iphone

We dressed up for the ward trunk or treat (only made one baby cry), and we won the scariest costume award (though our intention was to be happy).  I didn't want to mess with dying my hair black again, so they got the northern european dia de los muertos version.  We had dinner at Zengo that night which was fabulous and all of the servers were dressed up, super fun!

busy being adorable 

Delicious cupcakes made for Matt's class at church.  We made the bats and jack o lanterns out of chocolate