December 5-31

Remember that weird picture of me laying on the floor from August 27? This is what we made out of that. The tiny version of me is doing a handstand on Owen's "tightrope."

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Nikki Shea has been staying with us for her finals week. We don't see her a lot since she has to study so much, but it is nice getting to see her sometimes!

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Tonight was the "Sweet Celebration" at Stonebriar Community Church, so my mom and Susan and I went and enjoyed hearing Patsy Clairmont speak, and then we got to eat lots of chocolate together! We had so much fun.

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I love it when Jack comes and has lunch with me at work! Today we went to Potbelly again, which is pretty much our favorite lunch place near my work.

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Today was our work "Christmas party," so we went to the new Chronicals of Narnia movie. It was actually better than I expected. This picture is of Erin's legs vs. Donna's. The height difference is pretty funny.

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Today I had the privilage of taking some maternity photos for my friend Jill. I had so much fun doing it! She's gorgeous, and really fun to be around too. She definitely made it easy to photograph her!

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Maggie has gotten in the habit of jumping up onto the bed as soon as one of us gets up - on weekdays when I get up, she jumps up and cuddles with Jack, and on weekends when Jack gets up she cuddles with me. As much as I fought this because she stinks and it's a terrible habit to let the dog up on the bed, it really is very endearing to have her up there cuddling.

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My husband is so strange sometimes. This is the pose he struck for me after he got our bottles of water out of the garage fridge before we went to bed. He makes me laugh, at least.

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This morning we had to get up and go sign some papers at the SBA packaging place, and the paperwork finally got sent off for our small business loan today! I'm so proud of Jack - he has worked so hard for this. Now it's time to wait to hear back from them about our BIG loan!

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This morning when I was saying goodbye to Jack, I sat down on the bed next to him and we heard a "CRACK." One of the little beams slipped off the frame (this happened once before). I broke the bed. Whoops.

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Jack signed a lease for his new taekwondo school location today!! We are so excited about this new place, and can't wait to start building out!!

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Today Joel wore a sweater and I couldn't stop looking at his buttons and thinking "man those would make really great digital scrapbooking elements." I finally told him what I was thinking and he was nice enough to take it off and let me take a picture of his buttons to extract and use for my next kit.

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Today we headed to Nacogdoches for Jack's family's Christmas, and after it got dark all the guys lit off a bunch of fireworks. It was so strange to me - it's illegal in the city so I've never done anything like that before. It made me really nervous that we would set something on fire or blow somebody's face off. But everything went well and we did have a lot of fun. I've never felt like such a redneck in my life.

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Day two in Nacogdoches! We spent the day visiting with family and eating! At sunset, Jack and I wandered around a little while today and took some pictures. We have a good time together.

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We came home today, and on our way into town we stopped by Jack's future school, which now has an official "Coming Soon" sign up! We're so excited!

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I worked a 12-hour day at work today, and then when I got home, I had to put my co-worker gifts together since tomorrow is my last day of work before Christmas. I was so tired, and so when Jack got home, he helped me finish them up. When we were done, he rolled onto his back and started clapping with his feet. He is certainly happy, that's for sure.

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Yet another 12-hour workday for me, but afterward Jack took me out to Grimaldi's for dinner. He's good to me.

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Every Christmas and Halloween, I get Maggie's hats out. As you can tell, she really enjoys that.

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It's Christmas Eve, and our tree is ready to go! Jack's parents are in town and we all went to church and the Chinese restauraunt, as is the Crawford Christmas Eve tradition.

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Merry Christmas!! We spent the day at our house with my parents and Jack's parents, and for a while we even had Shane and Cassandra on the Kinect webcam on our TV. My mom loved the photo we took of the four of us in Vail that we had framed for her. It was a very nice, low-key day.



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Yesterday, I got not one, but two panini presses! Jack got me one, and my in-laws also got me one! I have a feeling that they will communicate better next year. Today, we had lots of paninis with our leftover Christmas ham! Yumm!

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Jack got this funny little headband light in his stocking, and he wore it the majority of this evening. He's kind of a dork, but he makes me laugh.

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I spent a few hours cleaning out my bathroom cabinets in my master bathroom, and now I actually have enough space to put all the stuff I had on my countertops inside the cabinet. Imagine that! An organized bathroom! It makes me so happy.

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No good vacation goes unpunished, especially when the other editor has jury duty for three weeks. We're back to 12-hour work days this week. Sigh.

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My mother-in-law gave me this cool little fabric coffee sleeve for Christmas, and I am really enjoying it! During our Starbucks break at work, I got my coffee and the sleeve kept it warm for longer than it used to stay. Love it.

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Tonight we had a few good friends and neighbors over for New Year's Eve, and we finally got to open the champaigne that seems to have been in our fridge forever! It was actually pretty good, for champaigne at least. It has been a good year full of many blessings. I'm really, really glad I get to spend my years with this guy.