Hello loves!  How are you? How are you liking 2016 so far?  I’m not sure yet… I think a week is not enough time to know how this year is going to go, but I’m hoping it’s going to go nowhere but up.  I realize that it’s been a little while since I had a personal life update here, and I also need to tell you a bit about how the holidays went and show off my swap goodies.  So how about today?  Today is a great day for that, and I have some fun memories and photos I didn’t get to share last month.  This post is long, but picture heavy so it’s mostly visual-I need to write these posts more often so I don’t have so much to update in one post! Wowza! Haha.

Life Updates

In the month of December we received quite a bit of snow, which was lovely for me because it also meant I was able to enjoy a white Christmas as well as work from home three days.  That was wonderful-it’s always nice to not have to commute in that kind of weather.  Also, I think my house looks so much more adorable in the snow.

 
 Speaking of snow, Handsome Bub is a fan!  He even loves it when I throw snowballs at him so he can try and catch them with his mouth.  If I go outside with him, he’ll romp around and roll in it.  If I stay in the house, he’ll do his business and come right back to the door and whine for me.  Baby.

I also managed to actually get Christmas decorations up, which I’m shocked by.  I bought a new tree this year, a nice bigger one and happily put it out and put some of my favorite ornaments on it.  I also decided that Skellie and Skellie dog (which I purchased around Halloween) had to get in on the action and celebrate Halloween too.  I know, I’m weird, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I also found some adorable lights to string up along the banister and around some windows… So cute.

 
Shawn, Blaire, Ron, and I also decorated for the charity Santa set up at my work’s other office again this year.  Each year my company does a food drive and offers free pictures with Santa if people bring in canned goods for the food bank.  This is our second year decorating, and I think it turned out really well!  I also got Blaire for my Secret Santa this year, and since she’s a big coffee addict like me I got her the biggest cup I could find.  She loved it-and even packed it around and drank out of it all day long.

I spent three days down to my parent’s house for Christmas.  In spite of a lot of incidents (car accident, emotional meltdowns, detoxing friends coming in from out of state with no where to go, dealing with doggy fights, etc.) it was a wonderful holiday.  Just so much love and so many cute pooches.  Bub had a pretty exhausting weekend there too… He’s not well socialized and he’s absolutely terrified of strangers, other dogs, and cats-all of which were plentiful at my parent’s house.  So he spent a good chunk of the weekend in a baby-gated section of the living room away from the other dogs, which included three Miniature Dachshunds, an Italian Greyhound/Chihuahua mix, a red heeler, and a four month old puggle that my brother just adopted.

He was actually pretty good with them, but my mom’s mini Doxie Winkie and my sister’s dog Odie (the Italian Greyhound/Chi mix) were very territorial and would go after him.  I was terrified that he’d react and that would be that since he’s easily ten times the size of them, and way more terrified of them than they were of him.  But as the weekend went on he got so much better.  We were able to incorporate them a lot more, and as long as he was right next to me on the couch (which he loves because only grandma and grandpa’s house allows puppies on the couch) and they were at least a few feet away, he did great.  He was even cornered at one point by Winkie going after him and instead of reacting he looked at me and waited for me to retrieve him from the mess.  I was SO proud, and we were both exhausted after being so vigilant all weekend.

Speaking of, look how cute little Neeko the baby puggle is.  ER EM GEE he kills me.  I just had to kiss all over that smooshie face.  The first photo is him with my pretty momma, the second two he makes himself cozy on my grandma’s lap, and the last one is him sleeping in between my brother and his girlfriend Syd, they’re his parents.

Josh was in town, and he spent a good amount of time visiting.  I was happy he did, I had gotten the spare room set up for him and I was really excited to have him around.  Bub pretty quickly fell in love with him too and made himself uninvitedly comfortable.  I think Josh loved him too though.

  
   At my house, Josh and I hosted both a Christmas party and a NYE party.  The Christmas party had a lot of people coming and going so Bub (much to his dislike) spent the evening locked in my bedroom.  I did bring people down one or two at a time to introduce them, which I think helped a lot because for the NYE party (which was smaller) I allowed him to remain out among people and he did really well.

I may have been sick and heartbroken for New Years, but how can you start the new year off anything but cheery when this big goofy sloppy grin is your New Years kiss? Granted, it’s kind of like he kisses your entire face in one go, the big goofball.

Swap Show Off

I participated in a couple of swaps in December.  Over at Chaotic Goddess Swaps we hosted the annual 12 Days of Christmas swap and I was paired with the wonderful Leah of Girl Getting Her Geek On.  She is wonderfully talented and not only sent me a fabulous package of goodies, but a couple of handmade things-which included a lovely handmade watercolor piece and a cute little handmade clay gnome house.  Thanks Leah, I loved it all so much!

I also participated in the Christmas Box Swap over at Classy, Sassy, and a Bit Smartassy and was paired up with Dana of Pellerini.  She sent me some wonderful goodies that I just loved also.  Thanks Dana!

How were your holidays?

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