Naughty or Nice

It turns out Ava was a very nice girl this year. Santa came and brought her some great presents. Her favorite being her very own cell phone. She was a lot of fun and was great at unwrapping as long as we got it started and she could tell there was something interesting inside. We had a nice quiet day and enjoyed some rest and relaxation.

More pictures to come...

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas, we love you and are thankful to have so many wonderful people in our lives.

In Her Christmas Best

I may or may not have bought Ava a Christmas dress last year for this year and I may or may not have forgotten about it and purchased another one and kept both because I loved them both so much. She is just too dang much fun to dress.

A Love-Hate Relationship...

One second she would be laughing hysterically, the next...well...you get the picture.

A Visit to Santa

After taking this picture a few weeks ago, we thought a picture with Santa wasn't going to be much of a success this year (even though I don't think it could get much better than this).

I don't blame her either, that was one scary Santa. Instead of putting on a fake beard he just painted over his own and it wasn't working for him.

Much Better!
We decided to give it one more shot and headed down to the mall last week.
Guess she likes the Santa that charges $15 for one 5x7, and that was the cheapest option!
What can I say, she has expensive taste.

(no, i did not pay $15, I just took a quick pic myself)

When Holiday Parties get Ugly...

Last weekend Josh and I hosted our first holiday party...our first ugly holiday sweater holiday party. It was a blast! I was not disappointed, we had a few couples really go all out which made the night, but everyone joined in on the fun. We had invited nearly twenty couples in hopes that half would come. Were we ever surprised when all but 4 couples decided to join us.

We had to squeeze to all fit, but it felt cozy and friendly and really great! It was great to have a house full of people sharing in a little bit of crazy Christmas cheer. Some of the sweaters were horribly disgusting. My personal fav, John, the man wearing the sweater that appears to be woven out of a Navajo rug!

We ate, we determined the winner of the ugliest holiday sweater (I think he was paying people off) and he won the "creepiest holiday pin" (wish I had a pictures it said "official mistletoe tester), we played games...or at least tried, we had a white elephant gift exchange, I was the proud recipient of a holiday decor piece personalized with "The Stangers"...p.s. we are "The McDaniels". Josh and I gave away "his and her" ugly holiday sweater vests. My favorite gift, a pair of Scooby boxers that said "Naughty is Nicer" (they went perfect with Cromar's outfit). We had many a good laugh over the "interesting" gifts people came up with.

The yummy food, pictures taken half way through because I forgot to do it before. The food was so great!

We are looking forward to hosting our second Ugly Holiday Sweater Holiday Party next year. I have a few ideas up my sleeve to make next years party even better and even more of what I wanted it to be. I even think next year, Josh and I will be sporting homemade ugly sweaters. Just saying.

Everyone left with a commemorative keepsake ornament featuring a collectible ugly holiday sweater design.

Many thanks to Mindi for introducing me to such a perfect website.

Then it was time for the after party.

The Smarts stayed after to help clean up and we decided to get the camera out for a little fun.

Good Times! Good Times!

...and the winners are...

I just had Josh randomly draw three names to determine the winners of my "Pay it Forward" giveaway and recipients of this package of Christmas cheer...

Wanna know who, okay, I'll tell you...

Sam (Tell Audrey to consider this an early bridal shower gift).

Angie

Lindsay

I will get these sent out tomorrow. If you decide you don't want to pay it forward, let me know and I will regift to someone else.

Thanks for playing and sorry if you didn't win. It means you probably have really bad luck considering you had a 1 in 3.33333333333333 chance of winning.