Christmas is coming, ready or not!

I can't believe Christmas is almost here...not sure why, but we definitely did not bring our A-game to the Christmas preparations for this year.  Maybe because we'll be in Atlanta visiting my family, or maybe because we're doing very limited gifts, or maybe just because we've been really busy between work, me trying to get in shape, and managing two terriers instead of one (which also puts some restrictions on the decorations because our house is a constant wrestling ring for the dogs).  

We got our tree within the first week of December, and after some debate and research, we ended up sticking with a real tree.  It's probably the best looking real tree we've had, but there's been a slight problem - it has not drunk hardly any water.  I mean, I've had to water it maybe once since we put it up.  Crazy.  But, the leaves aren't falling off too badly, and it only just started smelling kind of weird.  

And, we finally took our Christmas picture earlier this week, which means I'm super late getting Christmas cards out.  I thought about just doing Valentines Day cards or something, but it's fun to dress the dogs up for the Christmas card :)  This year, our card wasn't quite as creative as normal, but we don't have Brooks trained quite as well as Jefferson for the photo shoots - even though, in our family Christmas picture, Brooks looked at the camera every time, while the only picture Jefferson looked at the camera for turned out blurry.  I was hoping to do something funny with Santa and his new elf, so I found a elf-ish shirt for Brooks at Walmart.  The dogs HATE wearing clothes for the most part, so they usually do funny things like just stare at us spitefully and don't move until we take off their shirt.  Works ok for pictures though :)

Jefferson played dead when I put the elf shirt on him

This was Brooks' reaction to wearing the Santa outfit

Angry terriers

Family Christmas picture :)

Being good by the tree

 Coming down the chimney

PS - today, I am 30.  Doesn't feel any different, but I can definitely remember thinking 30 was old, and I've gotten some comments recently (when being carded) about wanting to look like me when they're 30.  That's nice but also makes me feel old.  It will be weird when I have to fill out something age-group related too.  I'm hoping this will be a great year and that God will have some good things in store for my 30s.

movember & a big anniversary

this year, billy decided to partake in the annual manly tradition of "movember" - basically a whole bunch of guys (celebrities included) take the month of november off from shaving and try to raise awareness about men's health issues and money to go toward various foundations involved with prostate cancer and other men-specific illnesses and health concerns.  billy didn't raise any money, but he definitely made a statement with his facial hair  :)  he actually stopped shaving a week late, after we got back from nyc, but he made up for that by waiting until december 2nd to shave some of the facial hair off (and finished up on the 4th).  lucky me, i got to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary with a sketchy-looking-mustached man.  haha!


here are a few pictures documenting the progression...

clean-shaven on our wedding day (had to throw this one in for the anniversary :))

five years, two dogs, and one beard later...this could be a cute christmas card picture if we could somehow photoshop the background!

start of the surfin santa 10 miler - team hoyt folks

i kept telling him he looked like he should be in the 70s...

...or just that he looked super shady (i actually thought he looked good in the earlier stages of his beard growth, but once it was down to the mustache, i was not a fan :))

christmas terriers

love this of brooks :)

costume contest after the race...

one word - awesome.  and even more impressive that he ran the race like this.  for those of you who don't get the costume, check this out.

pre-second race of the day...we headed to odu after the beach for a 5k benefiting the arthritis foundation, a cause very important to us!  billy won the race, which was exciting, and even more exciting was that nasty stache - not :)

and he still didn't shave it by our anniversary dinner.  we ate and drank at the yardhouse in va beach, which worked out very well, as it ended up being at the base of the westin where we were staying.  lots of beers on tap and very good food - think taco mac with a better atmosphere and much better food.

j terrier loungin at the westin (LOVED that it was pet friendly without a fee!)

 and it's going away...i think he kind of looks foreign here. or like he's trying to lure kids into his van with candy. jefferson doesn't seem to mind though. and after that, it was gone. probably until next year.

so we had a great anniversary weekend and feel very blessed to have spent a great 5 years of marriage together!  it has flown by so quickly!  and, i love that we're able to have so much fun being together and doing things we both enjoy, which can be rare for couples :)