Catching up

This past month has flown by! We've had some busy weekends so I thought I'd try to catch up in one post. Around Thanksgiving Dan went up North for a weekend, so my mom came to visit and we had a girls weekend of Christmas shopping. We had Rylie putting her hands up yelling "Girls Weekend!" So cute. We made our rounds to the area malls and stores and restaurants. I don't have any pictures from the weekend, but we had such a good time. My mom is one of my best friends and it's so nice to spend time that kind of time with her since we don't get to do it that often. I feel so blessed to have the relationship we have.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we went to the Christmas party my company hosts for employee's kids. They rent a room at Stonefire pizza...where we eat a lot, get a gift from Santa and spend the remainder of the night playing games and trying to earn as many tickets as possible so Rylie could take home a little souvenire. Rylie had a great time and loved her present from Santa- a doctor set. She also told Santa that she wants a dolly house for Christmas. She gave him a strange look at first, but warmed up to him a little.

A couple of weekends later, Rylie and I came to La Crosse for a long weekend and my bestie Elaine and I went to see Lady A in concert, which was awesome! A little more low key than some of our nights out in the past, but a great time. I also got to see some old co-workers - Julie, Debbie and Kim- who we met for dinner at Sloopy's. We spent time with both Grandma's that weekend too.

Throw in a couple birthday celebrations in the month of December too and the remainder of our free time has been spent preparing for Christmas. Amidst all of our house projects, we somehow got up both our Christmas tree AND exterior lights up for the first year ever (thanks to my hubby). Unfortunately this is a crazy busy time of year at work for me, so the time of year when you'd really like to be spending more time at home with family, I've been working late. Dan has been a savior doing the dropping off and picking up of Rylie and getting dinner started on my late nights too. Don't know what I would do without him.

My house is forever a mess. I wipe everything down and the dust makes its way back up from the basement within 24 hours. So I've given up. Dan is spending a lot of his "free" time in his new man cave, which is our guest room- the temporary location of our basement tv- a 10x10 room and 50" tv = Dan's in heaven. And I can't wait to send that thing back down stairs. On the topic of the basement...we are getting the insulation sprayed this week and drywall delivered. I'm really hoping to have my lovely white box of a basement by early January so I can take my dining room (and possibly my garage) back!

Here are a couple of the very few pictures that we do have from the past month...

And just for fun...this is Rylie's pirate face.  She says "aye aye matey!"