christmas in kansas city.

FYI...this post is mostly going to involve pictures (probably of my darling nephews). christmas was a lot of fun...working the actual day wasn't bad at all and was actually kind of fun getting to spend it with 5 different patients and their families and then getting home at 1am on the 26th to spend it with my family. it snowed an unbelievable amount for kansas city, so we definitely had a white christmas...and a lot of staying inside. besides celebrating christmas, i did do a little shopping, went to the plaza to see the lights, played with my nephews and sophie, saw invictus and sherlock holmes (both of which i would recommend), baked and cooked...a lot (by choice), celebrated my birthday, and saw some old friends.

eli and taters christmas eve (sorry mard, i stole some pictures)

eli christmas morning...a little confused by the 2nd christmas morning since we celebrated twice so this picture is from the first.

tate in the stocking i made for cj a few years back. i had a picture of eli like this so i had to have one of taters, too.

sophie in her cupcake sweater from shelly. you can tell she loves it.

this is too precious. eli sat the little cookie monster and big bird in their chairs and then pulled up his little chair to sit next to them and watch 'toons as he calls them.

tate in his christmas pj's...i'm not sure why i can't get it to turn.

the soccer set i got eli for christmas....good thing it is warm in dallas almost all year.

tate trying to sit up.

eli loves to help...i mean help do ANYTHING. including chores and building fires. i love this child.

"it hurts to be this handsome"cj and eli building a snowman (or noman as eli says) the face was added a few minutes later.

a little cabin fever.

this post is also well overdue. the night before shel and i left for vegas, my roommates and i had another party....our cabin fever party. we love decorating for Christmas so this made it even more fun. we had a fifth roommate that joined us for the party named gordon,and sadly went into retirement today, may he rest in peace from all the wild nights he had at uac 215. pictures of gordon are in a previous post....oh and let me say he kept me company over christmas break while my roommates were home and i was here working. anyway, the party was a lot of fun and we had a great turn out.

and yet another trip...

after thanksgiving shelly and i decided to take one last trip for the year 2009 (total trips of 2009: 11... 4 trips to kansas city, 3 to vegas, 1 to dallas, 1 to st. louis, 1 to sun valley, and 1 trip to cali). we went december 5-7(ish) and stayed at the Platinum hotel and spa. we loved it there and both would recommend it to anyone who wanted to go to vegas and not stay directly on the strip or to not stay in a casino. we were supposed to come back to utah on the 7th but due to all the snow that happened to start in the canyon just south of st. george, we ended up staying an extra night at the hard rock hotel and left early the next morning. we also really like the hard rock hotel...another recommendation to stay off the strip if you are interested. we finally went to madame tussaud's wax museum (pictures to follow...no....not of the pool, it was way to cold [sadly]). we also went shopping, went to america's got talent, ate panera, and stayed up way too late enjoying our hotel room that was bigger than shel's apartment (if not both of ours).

shopping...sorry it was an early morning

the kitchen

the bedroom...sorry about the mess

the view at night from the balcony.

tim mcgraw and me...of course it is real.

mr. president :)

the loves of my life

just two more days til i get to see taters and eli. i changed my ticket so i will actually get to KC on christmas night about 1140pm.

tate isn't going to leave my side. seriously, he is the best date ever.

i just adore those boys.

my list for santa.

this year it is my turn to work christmas. since my roommates and majority of my friends are gone for the week, and in order to have people have time with their families that live here, i'm working 7 of 8 days from the 18-25. i'm going home the 26-1st and i can't wait. a few things i'm looking forward to...

1. a REAL christmas tree (sorry paige, andrea, and jen...i love ours but we're lacking the smell. here are a few pictures of our current apartment set up...including gordon).

2. "christmas eve" dinner...this year it will be on the 27th but we will pretend.

3. mom's cinnamon rolls...which i might or might not end up making.

4. my babies and soph...and of course the rest of my family.

this is an outfit i bought for eli, and he is so gladly sharing it with taters.

5. the plaza lights...(and of course shopping).

6. not wearing scrubs for a whole week after wearing them for the previous week straight.

7. baking and cooking.

8. really...it will be nice to take a trip home.

so to everyone...Merry Christmas

thanks.

this year i had thanksgiving off from work so i went home for almost a week. i was the first one to arrive home and so my mom and i did plenty of shopping, cooking, and of course, as previously stated in the post below, went and saw new moon. jamie, robert, and their little bun in the oven* came in wednesday night from St. Louis and christopher, mard, eli, and taters came in thanksgiving morning. oh i love my boys (and everyone else, too..but being auntie is the best). we had our classic thanksgiving of cooking and playing games. i decided taters was my date because he would never leave my side. i swear he was the cutest date i ever had. we also went to the arboretum and botanical gardens and walked around the Christmas light display that they put on. saturday, as tradition always goes, we went and picked out our Christmas tree. the trip home was great but short.

*a little NEWS FLASH. as previously promised....I'M GOING TO HAVE A NIECE! (and a healthy one which is the most important thing). i couldn't be happier or more excited.

Sophie was the first one to greet me...no, her fur is not pink in real life but for some reason the picture looks that way.

happy tate.

i only have a few pictures of eli because he doesn't really hold still long enough to take one. here are two from hunting for candy at the Christmas Tree farm.

this is by far one of my new favorite pictures of my boys. they are just too cute.happy thanksgiving!

so eager...

i wrote this post over a week ago at work and for some reason it would not post so it is a little late.

alright, so i have to admit, and in a shameless manner, that my plans for this past friday night were made for me weeks slash possibly months ago. new moon (the twlight saga for those who have been living under a rock) opened november 20th. my roommates and i bought tickets weeks ago. we also made fantastic shirts...and yes, there is photographic evidence of this. to make this twilight weekend even more unforgetable, i now own the cheesy Twilight because we couldn't find a copy to rent anywhere on thursday night to have a new moon kick-off and to refresh our memories of what happened (unless you were paige an re-read the book. thanks paige, it was a blessing to know what was accurate in the movie).

and to make this even better...i've already seen it a second time with my mom. only this time i wasn't as ridiculous as the teenage girls sitting in front of us taking pictures of jacob during the movie on their camera phones. no joke.