Year in review

The best copycat wins, right? Lots of the blogs I read have done this so I'm stealing it. Favorite moments/photos of 2008!


January

February

March


April

May

July

August





September

October


November

December

Happy New Year!!

It's true!

For those of you who have asked me about Melissa, if she's okay, etc for the last year, I have good news! She FINALLY updated her blog! Head over and take a look! Click here to head directly there!

By the way, I'm not trying to hide our Christmas details, we're moving this week and spent time out of town with the fam, so unless blogging can fit in a box, it's not going to be very in-depth this week! I'll try to post pics of Eliot though, just to keep ya around...

Daisy getting her annual check-up.

For the road...

R and I filled up the tank tonight for $1.19/gallon!!!!! How crazy is that???

It's a hit!

Christmas favor? (second try)

Jodie, our amazing photographer, is doing a contest. She picked her top 10 photos from her shoots over 2008 and is having people vote on their favorite. The winning photo gets a free 11x14 print which would look amazing in our new condo!!!

Click here and leave a comment letting her know that our Batman is the greatest pic ever taken!!! Also, just take a look at her other shots, they're amazing! She's so gifted!

***Oops, apparently, you need to vote on the sidebar on her blog. My bad! Eliot's pic is #4. You guys are great!

New Years Resolution

Too soon? How about a sneak peak:

#3: Meet my almost-silver crush (Click here to read what comes after these words: George Clooney is coming to St. Louis to film his next movie...)

I'll fill you in on 1 and 2 later. Merry Christmas.

Merry.

Christmas.

Not quite what I'd pictured

Pink and blue are the new Christmas colors, if you didn't hear. Confused? Let me explain...

Saturday we were helping friends move to their new condo when Russ asked me what was wrong w/ my eye. Just a little chunky goober, no big deal, right? As the day progressed, the goobers were more frequent and then it happened. It turned pink. Or bright red, actually. As an almost-32-year-old, I got my first case of pink eye. 3 people in our church circles have had it recently but I've always managed to steer clear of it, even as a teacher!

Mid-evening I went to put in my eye-drops when I noticed my other eye had a lovely matching goober. At this point, my first pinked eye was so swollen I could hardly open it. (no pics for this post, sorry peeps, we're not that close)

When I woke up on Sunday morning, the world was gone. Both eyes welded shut. I had to feel my way to the shower. By Sunday afternoon, the drops were working well enough to reduce the swelling but I still look like some sort of freak. Today they aren't any better.

This is not the time of year for me to be shut into the house. My to-do list is ridiculous and I can't get any of it accomplished. I'm so frustrated, not to mention, how hard it is to stay away from Eliot. So, I decided to wrap the presents we do have. In effort to be "green" and to save some "green" and to stay out of public, I'm using the only wrapping paper we had left. That didn't last too long and I had to move on to the only other options we had at our disposal. Gift bags. Blue, baby shower gift bags. It looks like more like Christmakuh around here now (a little shout out to you OC fans still out there). And to be honest, I really can't see that well, so I'm not super sure how well anything is wrapped. But, it's off the list!

I'm so desperate to get out of here and get stuff done, I may attempt the movie star look and wear big sunglasses everywhere I go.

And the Grammy goes to...

While packing boxes yesterday, Eliot discovered a guitar he got from CJ and Keri from Peru last year. He started playing it and then tipped his head like he just thought of something great. Then he started the snowman song from Nana last year. And it became a band. Eliot, the puppy, penguin and snowman. Ignore the "guitar strap", we're still working on it. Please note the audience he set up...

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesdays with Mohrey

Sometimes I think I'm clever. I actually laughed out loud when I thought of this blog title. I'm not proud of the fact that I find myself so amusing but it does come in handy at times. Like when I'm by myself and need to be entertained.

Tuesdays. I cherish them. They're my day off. Or my days on, whichever you prefer. On Tuesday mornings I hang out in some coffee shop with my laptop and my memories.

Do you remember this post? I had three things to do by the end of the 2008: earn the Cancun trip, sell our house, and finish writing my book. Well, if you keep up w/ my blog at all you know that we accomplished the first two but I haven't kept you up to date on that last one.

It's not done. I have a couple weeks left of the year but the world would have to stop spinning on it's axis in order for the book to be finished. It wasn't until a few months ago that Russ and I agreed to kick me outta the house on Tuesdays to get to work on it. Without an assigned time, it just kept getting pushed back on the priority list. However, progress is being made! I still have no idea what I'm going to do with it once it's done, but that's not really the point. It is always a jolt of warm fuzz when someone compliments my writing but since very few have the chance to read my chapters, I have to stay focused without oodles of encouragement.

I'm really enjoying writing this account of our journey. Every once in awhile I'll go back and read previous chapters and it's like experiencing it all over again. For that reason, I will persist. I will finish. I will capture this time in written word if only for Eliot to read when he's older. And maybe someday, I'll get it published and you can read it for yourself.

And just because he's cute:

Arbonne on the Today Show!

Tuesday, Dec 16th, Arbonne's president, Rita, is scheduled to be on the Today show during the 9:00 hour at some point! Woo-woo! Anyone else pumped about that?? They asked me if I wanted to do it, but I went ahead and had them ask her instead since I've got so much packing to do. If I said yes to everything, I'd never get anything done.

Home Sweet Condo

Within the last week we sold the house, visited 10-15 places for rent and signed a contract for a great condo in the city. The couple who owns it is allowing us to move boxes in before we actually start living there next month! Here's a few quick pics of our place sans stuff.





In some ways, we've upgraded while down-sizing. While it's a tad stressful to pack and move in such a short window of time, it's also a good thing because we're pretty excited to get in there and start living!

Sorry FE

Russ has a new band. I think he was drawn by a latin flare missing from your current style. Sorry.

For other FE news, click here!

Deck the Halls...

and the tv stand and Daisy and the chair...That's what you get when a 2 1/2 year old is helping decorate the Christmas tree! This kid provides nonstop entertainment for us! Seriously, I wish other people could see "The Show!" I don't think I've blogged yet about Eliot's new thing. When he's feeling a little more silly, he stands somewhere to draw attention and yells dramatically, "THE SHOWWWWWW!" It kills us. If he's feeling quite feisty a little dance or song will follow.

Anyway, here's some highlights from our night:

Eliot and Daisy lending a helping hand as Russ sets up our very large tree. (We wanted to get a tree but keep things simple since we're moving so soon, so it's the smallest one we've gotten since we got married!)


The scary elf? It matches this blog from today (It's a link, peeps!)

A perfect shot of "THE SHOWWWWW!"

He was definitely saying "cheese!" while staring at the tree here.


Russ is taller than the tree...love it.

Eliot's decking the halls activity all night!

Wordless Wednesday

Not sure what to say.

There's a family that was adopting from Guatemala that received the worst news. Here's their story (click here.)

There's a way you can help, other than offering a note/comment of sympathy. This blog was emailed to me this morning: The Shrum Family Adventures. Her entry gives details on how to help. I don't know this family but my heart hurts. It is the unthinkable.

Spontaneous Dinner party cancelled.

Yeah, you read that right, we. homeless.

Remember this post? (click on it, it's a link, yo.)

Well, we got a call Thursday that someone was gonna make us an offer. And they did. Being that it wasn't quite the 'offer we couldn't refuse', we countered. Then they countered. So we countered their counter of our counter. Not really, I just wanted to keep using the same word for verb and noun. It's a weird delight of mine. They did counter our counter but we didn't follow it w/ a counter to their counter of our counter. (I can't help it! Somebody stop me!)

We've had constant traffic through our house so this is a relief! Now my efforts can go from a spotless house ready for the spontaneous dinner party to boxes, boxes and more beautiful boxes. That means more purging and organizing. Another weird delight of mine. (and by spotless, I mean "quick, hide those dirty dishes in the fridge!)

So, off to the city we go! Confused? Stop and read this post from a year ago. No, really, go read it. The only difference in our plans a year later is residence related. We're kickin' it old school. Apartment living. No appliances to call our own. We've heard that age 31 is the new 21 but this is a bit much...

We're pumped. This has many layers that I can't post about yet, so just be super excited for us. I'll leave you with take 1, take 2, take 3 and take 4.




Many of you ask how we get Eliot to smile for pics all the time? I drop stuff off my head while taking the pic. Works every time. Good comedy, people.

Turkey day w/ the rents!

My parents came in from Michigan for Thanksgiving! We've had a lot going on this week (remember learning about foreshadowing in high school? Well, consider yourself foreshadowed...) so it's taken me until now to post! It's always a blessing to spend time with my parents since it doesn't happen nearly as often as we'd like. Eliot is now officially obsessed with them, which I love. He kept asking where they were several days after they left. Thankfully we'll see them in a few weeks again! Hurray! Here's some pics from their time here!






Hopefully there's another post coming today....it's done, just need the officially go-ahead to pull the trigger...