Guess who I saw Monday night?

Jason and I took "the kids" to a movie on Monday and on our way from getting a thousand snacks to the actual theater, I saw a couple ahead of us. They were getting candy from the candy machines. I wasn't positive of who the gentleman was, but I was pretty sure, but I turned around to ask Jason. He took a look and then confirmed that yes, it was in fact Mr. Ali and his wife!
The camera in my purse was burning a hole, but we just let him be and walked right by him with that feeling of awe and respect!
It was so cool! Just to have seen him!
I knew he lived in the area, but have never seen him before...
I didn't realize how many people have seen him before, until I started telling everyone about it!
When Jason was little, Mr. Ali came over and started chatting with him and his brother one morning at McDonald's. While it may be just a small part of a memory and Mr. Ali may not even remember that moment. But to two young boys, it was a highlight of their childhood!
Missy, a close friend of mine, told me she used to see him a lot when she was in high school. And yet another friend/co-worker told me that she was friends with one of his nephews once, and went over to his house and watched movies and that Mr. Ali would come downstairs and tell them jokes!
How exciting is that?
Well... I just had to share with you all!

Happy New Year to everyone!

A few Christmas pictures

I had a great Christmas this year! Jason and I opened our presents on Christmas Eve and then headed to our friends house and watched Notre Dame win (and win BIG!) their first bowl game in Hawaii (the first in about 14 years!).
Christmas morning I got up early and made an awesome spicy egg casserole dish and took it over to Rachael's house for brunch, also starring home-made cinnamon rolls, muffins, cheesy grits, and potatoes (yum-yummy!).As usual, Tony was his smiling self and looks more like Lori everyday! Tony has such cute jammies!Katya loved her new neck warmer!What a little sweetheart Jack is!!!

Ben, Jack, and Jason all scored Chicago Bears shirts this year!

Ben's tough man look!

Thanks everyone for my awesome presents!

And Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All!

Me and Jay on Christmas Day!

The day was almost gone and me and Jason hadn't gotten one picture of us on Christmas, so I pulled my camera out and snapped a few photos!

Hodge-Podge!

I've been meaning to blog about a few things, but for some reason have been so busy lately, so I'm taking my lunch break to post and write about what's been going on lately!Last week at work, we had these "Reindeer Games" and contests throughout the entire week. One of the days, we had a food eating contest/relay. I started with a cup of marshmallows... it was terrible! They kept sticking to the inside of my mouth! I ended up stuffing my mouth three times and then drinking water and they squished down my throat. Gross. I know. But it was worse actually doing it! The next guy had to drink a huge cup of egg-nog. Then came the lady above, Tammy. She had to eat an entire half of a fruit cake! GROSS! She ended up drinking almost 3 bottles of water during that time, trying to get it all down! The next guy had to eat an entire frozen pint of ice cream and it ended with 5 saltine crackers and a half a cup of peanut butter. We lost. But it was pretty fun!On Friday, we had the snowman decorating contest. This is our teams snow-woman. AND WE FINALLY WON! I think it was mostly the fact that it was in 3-D... But also for the fact that we had a box of white stuffing and this sign!

Oh, the other day I was looking for Christmas presents for Jason and was at Kohl's. They had a rack of NFL Team Apparel for the Lions and the Bears right next to each other with this sign. At first, I was really excited about the 50% off sale! But upon closer inspection, noticed that it was for the Lion's stuff only! Ha-ha! Way too funny to not take a picture... I hope my brother-in-law sees this picture! (That would be Adam!)

Last weekend, Rachael, Katya, and I headed to Chicago and ate some awesome food, (and I mean, this was the best food! Thanks, Rach!) then we headed to the American Girl store. Man, was it cold out! While we were walking, we came across a few signs like this! "Falling Ice"! I took a quick peak above me and noticed that we were walking below some mighty giant and tall buildings! Wow, would that hurt!We then headed to one of Rachael's friends house for a get-together for kids to make ginger bread houses! With Katya's creative mind and my assistance, she came up with a really cool house with a snow-woman with a pink skirt, a yellow neck warmer and two pink wrist warmers, as well as the forest of trees surrounding the place! Great job!!!

I'm almost done... don't worry! This morning I came to work and found this cute little set of boxes on my desk! I was about to open it, but took a quick picture first. It had all kinds of yummy goodness inside like chocolate covered stuff and pretzels and some other delicious candy's! I opened the card and saw that it was from three of my cube-friends that work just a little ways away, but are not on our team. I went over there to say thanks, and they told me that they gave it to me because I'm always including them with our gatherings and events and saying hi and stuff! Isn't that just so sweet! It just made my day! Thanks Lisa, Candy, and Gina!!!

Oh, I almost forgot! I tried out for this musical "Ragtime" and got the call last night from the director that he wants me to be in the play! I'm not an actor, but I can sing, and he mentioned that he absolutely loves my voice! I'm not sure what role I'll be playing (not one of the major ones) but I'm sure excited! The play is in April sometime... I'll keep y'all posted!

Shhh! Don't tell anyone, but aren't these so cute?

I don't think you can really tell, but these are two cranberry red neck warmers. The larger one is for Katya's Christmas present and the smaller one is for one of her American Girl Dolls!

Now, I just have to make one more for her second American Girl Doll and it will be complete! Hopefully, I'll get a good picture of all the "girls" wearing their neck warmers!

What does it look like when it's in single digits?

This is a picture outside my window looking at the cute houses below. I've never seen it like this before, where the snow blows through the screen and there's no in between the screen and the window! Here you can tell there's about 10 inches or so of snow from the bottom of the window (the roof on the front porch is just outside this window). It's kinda cool, actually! And I've been keeping my house mighty toasty!!!
Here's a picture of a stop sign while I was on my way to work... so, does this mean that I wouldn't get a ticket if I didn't stop at this sign, since technically it cannot be viewed???
Okay, so I did slow down, but didn't quite stop (on purpose) because for some reason, if I actually stop and then had to go, I'd slide all over, but since no one was coming, I just kinda did that "California" stop that I learned so well when I lived there! Ha-ha!!! Yesterday it was -2 degrees outside, but with the windchill it was about -19 degrees... no wonder it felt so cold outside! I had to run to Michael's to get some yarn for some neck-warmer presents, and when I made it home, I stayed there!

This is a picture of a tree in the courtyard in the middle of my work building. There's so much snow!

Looks kinda cool! As long as I don't have to drive in the stuff!

The how-to on Santa Cookies!

By popular demand, here is the link to the awesome Santa cookies!

As suggested by my mother (who was told by another person) I used coconut for the beard and miniature M&M's for the eyes and nose. Also, remember to leave out a few of the white chocolate chips for the pom-pom on the hat!

Super Cute Santa Cookies! Thanks, Mom!

I found out tonight that my great Aunt's Christmas Party is tomorrow night! Prepared to make these really cute Santa cookies for work, I decided to make them for the party! My mom had just sent me the recipe and how to make them last night and they are so cute!

I spent about two hours making these Santa cookies (okay, so I was making chocolate chip cookies at the same time, too...) but it did take me quite some time! But they were so worth it! I just sat down to watch TV after putting all these cookies away and cleaning up the mess when Rachael called to tell me the party was called off!

I was so bummed about making these cute things and not being able to make them for the party! I must have sounded really, really bummed because Rachael had a great idea for these cookies! Save her some time tonight and give them to her for Kristen to take to school tomorrow for food day!

Well, they are really super cute... and unfortunately for me, Rachael is a really cool sister and is very persuasive, so I said okay.

Of course I had to take some quick pictures and blog about it before she could, or she might accidentally forget to mention that I was the one that made them!

Ha-ha!

Parson Brown?

I'm sure all of you have heard of the famous Christmas song "Winter Wonderland". I've heard that song so many times in my lifetime. I really like that song, too!

"Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We're happy tonight.
Walking in a winter wonderland.
Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland.
In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say: Are you married?
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town.
Later on, we'll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that we've made,
Walking in a winter wonderland."

Well, just the other day, I had it stuck in my head at work... and when I got to this part: "In the meadow we can build a snowman, then pretend that he is Parson Brown." I was then thinking about it and I always figured the singer wanted to pretend the snowman is this "parson brown" because I always figured it was a "skin" color and then they could get married... or something like that. So, I asked my local cube-mates at work what color "Parson Brown" really was, because I'd never seen it on a crayon or to describe any other brown color. It was then that I found out the truth.

"Parson" is a noun. A name for a minister or pastor. Used back when the lyricist, Richard B. Smith wrote it and published it in 1934. And "Brown" just happens to be the last name of this pastor guy/snowman!

So, here I am, 28 years old, finally finding out that the song I've been singing for practically 28 years, has to do with this snowman that they want to pretend is a pastor!

Please, somebody, tell me that I'm not the only person that did not know this!!!