Christmas Christmas!

I stole this from Vandy who stole it from someone else who so on and so forth.  But it's fun so here we go...

Egg nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows!

Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? He fits what he can in the stocking (undies, candy, gum) and then the big(ish) present is sitting next to it.  Since we are in Dodge every year for Christmas and his parents don't do Santa we do it in our room where we sleep.  So it's kind of a hodge podge of where we put it.

Colored lights or tree/house or white?  White lights look so pretty!

Do you hang mistletoe? No

When do you put your decorations up?  I try to get them up the weekend of Thanksgiving but that doesn't always happen.  So whenever I have time!

What is your favorite holiday dish?  Green bean casserole.  Yum!  But only made by my mom.  She makes it amazingly!

Favorite holiday memory as a child? No one in my family remembers this but I remember going to a tree farm and getting a tree and drinking hot chocolate.  So much fun.  Also, we sometimes got to open 1 present on Christmas Eve. 

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I still believe because he still brings me stuff at my parent's house!

Do you open a gift on Christmas eve?  We always do now because we go to my hubby's family Christmas and they open all presents on Christmas Eve.  So we do all their stuff on Christmas Eve night and then open presents with my family (and our little family) Christmas day.  If we have a movie or something that we are giving to Leo we sometimes let him open a present in the car on the way to Dodge so he can watch it.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree?  I string lights as best as I can and then hang our ornaments on it.  Nothing too fancy.

Snow! Love it or dread it? Love it.  But it sometimes ruins our travel plans.  Like it might this year with this crazy storm coming from the southwest.

Can you ice skate? No.  I tried when I was younger but my ankles are too weak so it hurt them really bad and I always fell.

Do you remember your favorite gift?  My favorite gift was from a babysitter when I was 3 or 4.  It was a Popples sleeping bag.  It was AMAZING!

(image from Google)

What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Spending time with my family.

What is your favorite Holiday dessert?  Pumpkin pie

What is your favorite holiday tradition?  I read Twas the Night Before Chrismtas to Leo every year on Christmas Eve before bed.

What tops your tree? A star that is a little cheesy but I like it!

Do you prefer giving or receiving? I like giving.  I love picking out things that I know the person I am giving it to will really like!

Candy canes: Yuck or yum?  I like the strawberry flavored candy canes, not the peppermint ones.

Favorite Christmas show?  My favorite is Love Actually.  I've decided that is a Christmas movie!

Saddest Christmas song?  Christmas Shoes

What is your favorite Christmas song?  Any Christmas song by Straight No Chaser!

Tulsa Aquarium

A few weeks ago my mom and I took the boys on an overnight adventure to Tulsa to visit the aquarium.  We had such an amazing time and Leo behaved about 95% of the time.  That's pretty good for a 4 year old right?!  So here is picture overload for you about our trip!

Ok so I think this picture of Jacoby is hilarious so I had to include it!

Leo and Jacoby welcoming us to Oklahoma

The biggest catfish I have ever seen!

Leo feeding the turtles.  They ate carrots!

Petting the sting rays

Jacoby taking his turn! (Why yes I do exploit my children for funny pictures!)

Feeding the shrimp.  Yes...shrimp

Leo's favorite fish because it was yellow

Nemo



Dori

Cool jellyfish

A family picture!

We had so much fun.  We went down on a Monday night and stayed in a hotel so Leo thought he was pretty hot stuff.  Then we woke up Tuesday morning and headed to the aquarium.  We stayed there for almost 3 hours and by that time it was definitely time to go.  We hit up Braums on the way out of town for lunch and then got home around 4:30.  It was a pretty whirlwind trip but so much fun.  I'm so thankful to have a mom who will do fun stuff with me and take the boys on adventures!  And she said that she is looking forward to taking my niece on a trip like that soon too.  She recently took my brother and his family to see his other son that lives in Missouri to watch him play football and they hung out for the weekend and had a great time.  I think it's really awesome that she does that for us kids!  Love you mom! :)

Job Update

So if you've been following me for the past few months you know that I had a pretty crappy encounter at work.  You can read all about it here.  And while I haven't had much interaction with work since I've been on maternity leave I have had a little.  I applied for an internal job at the same level I am currently at and was denied the position due to the same stupid test that prevented me from being promoted.  So because of that I had another face to face with my upper supervisor who told me that she was not against promoting me but that I wasn't going to get anywhere with the current upper-upper management because she was all about sales and was sold that the test was GOD within the sales world and only what was on the test was taken into account.  So after the 20 minute meeting I told her that I was going to start looking outside of the company because it didn't seem like I would be going anywhere and a job at my current location was really not in my future.  The hours (until 8pm Monday-Friday and until 6p on Saturdays) just did not fit into my family life.  She said that she would keep her eye out for internal jobs and said that she would be looking to promote me.  (But apparently she's not the one that can do that...)

So I have applied for an internal reconcilement job that is in my pay range but still leaves me room to grow in the future.  But of course I haven't heard back from them.  Granted I applied for it on Monday but still.  I also applied for 2 jobs at other banks.  One a management job where I would be over my own branch and the other is an assistant branch manager but I know someone that works at that bank and he told me they start out much higher on the pay scale and they have really awesome benefits.  Soooo...I guess we shall see what happens.  I've already been contacted by the one for the manager job and I had to take a test.  It was very strange.  All computerized and I had 8 minutes to answer as many questions as I could out of 30.  They ranged from math questions to word questions.  I answered 27 of them.  So I have no idea about that one.  And my friend that worked at the other bank said he already has put in a good word for me with the manager that would be hiring me and the manager said he would be looking for my application. 

Really though...I am so nervous.  I haven't looked for a new job outside of the bank I work at now since 2004.  So this is a whole new ballgame for me!  I have been the one interviewing the people!  I also kind of want the job at the bank I'm at now only because it is away from "retail" and I would be working Monday-Friday 8-5 with no Saturdays.  How amazing would that be?!  I wouldn't know what to do with myself!  Plus the hubby works at the same bank (what you didn't know that?!) and works downtown currently so we would be able to carpool.  And no we wouldn't be in the same department so it wouldn't be crazy weird.  But still we would be able to eat lunch together if we wanted AND save money on gas.  So I'll keep you guys posted on what I hear.  I did tell both the outside banks I would be able to start January 9th or later.  That would let me give my current manager 2 weeks notice plus I would be in the new year so I would be entitled to my 3 weeks of vacation!  Woot woot!  That would be nice to use that money to...oh wait...pay off all of my doctor's bills from giving birth.  Damn...I thought a tropical vacation might have been in my future.  Haha!