Love is... FINALLY

So... Tyler is taking his last final on Tuesday and then he. is. DONE! Graduated. Outta there. Kaput. Home for the holidays and all the other days too. I cannot.. there are just no words. To say that I am excited is an understatement. This could be my only Christmas present and that would be just grand because it is the BEST CHRISTMAS EVERRRRR! (But you know... If you've already purchased things...).
I will admit, at first I was thinking big... big deal =big party. Tyler made it very clear in a very blatant way... NO PARTY! So, being the good wifey I am, I did not throw a party. I threw a dinner. We invited his family and it was just perfect. Everyone came with smiles on, favorite holiday treat in hand. We had delish food and good conversation and no one mentioned how cramped it was in our little townhome. I was so grateful they came to support him and I forgot to toast him so I will toast him now:

Tyler, I just want everyone to know how freaking proud I am of you.

You have worked so hard since day one, going to school and working

full time. You deserve a million oreos for all you do. Congrats!

*now everyone take a drink*

Sweet. Thanks for participating and making that toast possible. As far as photos go, I decided to combine my "show off Christmas" post with my dinner post. It just made sense.

Let us take a moment to talk about these two pictures. On the right, we have the stockings that my sweet, talented mom sewed for us. On the left we have my dads vintage, leather hockey skates. I mean, how awesome... right??

 Look at this goodness. We had rolls, an herb risotto, parmesean peas, roasted brussel sprouts w/a garlic aioli (get the recipe here, you NEED it) and Kris' pork chops. SOOOOOO good.

Love is... a Winter Wonderland

I love the holidays. SO So so much. 'Tis the season for love, snow, and parties. We got to go to the Qualtrics Christmas party and we loved it. We ate super good food and even better cheesecake. They had dueling pianos and a lot of other really fun things. They showed us some Qualtrics facts and did you know... they consumed 1.5 tons of cereal this past year and 60lbs of nacho cheese? Yikes.

It's pretty dreamy looking right? We were all supposed to wear white. Winter Wonderland theme... that was maybe the only thing I wasn't overly thrilled about. Which sounds really ungrateful. Here they are, throwing a party with nice things, and I am complaining. 

Can I just say that I am really grateful Ty is working for Qualtrics?! When he was working for Fastenal, he was so stressed and tired and grouchy all of the time. He was quite miserable. They did not appreciate their employees and a bunch of other really mean things I want to say about them. At Qualtrics they really do care about their employees and take care of them and I just love them so much.

Love is... Judescapades

Jude has been up to tons of mischief in the past little bit. What is it about turning two that makes a child feel like they have to start head butting the dog and draw with crayons on the furniture? It is a mystery to me. 

How sweet is this picture? Fern and him are best pals and they always play and laugh together. It is SO cute. 

Notice the lipstick on his cheek? What a lucky son of a gun

 My sister in law and brother in law babysat Jude for us while we were at Kalie DeManns 25th birthday celebration and when we went to pick him up, he was cuddled up in bed with Asher while Sarah was reading them a story. Sweetest thing ever. 

Love is... got me like lalalala

In this house, we love pretty much all things English. We especially love the BBC version of Sherlock. So when Tyler showed me this video of Benedict Cumberbatch reading the R.Kelly lyrics... it was a match made in heaven. His voice just makes me blush a little bit!!! The comment that best describes this was on youtube and the person said

"He makes my ovaries explode and I am a dude so I don't even have those." Seriously though... 

Love is... Friday night lights

My bestie Nat has a nephew named Sage and he plays football for Brighton. They made their way to the State Championship and I was lucky enough to tag along for some of the games. Jude came to some of the games as well and he LOVED them. I even had Mickey Mouse on the iPad and all he wanted to was to watch "foootball" and cheer for Sage and orange. 

Nat and her cute co-worker Linda made these pom poms so we could be legit when we cheered.