CANDY! CANDY! CANDY!

We literally made hundreds of Christmas treats. Want proof?

Chocolate and caramel covered pretzels...

Snowflake shaped Ritz sandwiches with peanut butter in the middle dipped in chocolate...

Oreo's dipped in white chocolate...

And everyone's favorite: Peanut Butter Balls!

(I got more than one text from Jay saying "I'm dipping my balls in chocolate")

We ended up making 30 little boxes and 6 tubs full of candy. There were much cuter boxes, but I didn't get a picture of them. :(

And now this is what my kitchen looks like

Christmas at the Dillons

I love our big old fashioned lights. 

I didn't have enough garland to wrap around the posts, but I think it frames the porch nicely this way!

I put a poinsetta in our big milk jug. Love that thing!

The tree! 

An ornament we picked up at Disney to remind us of our wonderful vacation!

Just a little Christmas everywhere...

LOVE LOVE our advent calendar

I have a lot of Ho's on my table. 

And a little Christmas here, too. 

 Am I the only one who doesn't put Jesus out until Christmas morning? 

Three little stockings all in a row. 

I love our stocking hangers, but they are hard to get a picture of!

Winston

big news in the Dillon family... we've grown! we fell in love with a pound puppy named Winston and brought him home yesterday.

we have been thinking of adding another dog for quite a while, so when a local furniture store had a free adoption event we couldn't resist.

now, i knew adding another dog would be hard. it meant lots of training, habit correcting, more food, more vet bills, more time, more space, etc. i also knew it would be an adjustment for the whole family, but i had no idea how hard it would be for me to watch daphne during this transition.

now, daphne has been with us for almost three years and we raised her from a very small puppy. needless to say, she is our furry baby. i knew that it would be hard for me to share my heart with another dog. the biggest surprise has been how emotional i have gotten. when winston took daphne's normal spot by the couch i got all teary eyed. watching him take a toy away from her got me all choked up. having her turn away from my affection was the worst. i've already had a crying emotional breakdown and we are on day 2.

daphne has never been an agressive dog and has always been shy/timid, but when we're at home alone with her the personality comes out. she is fun loving and playful and sweet. with winston here, she's been much more reserved and i miss my sweet girl. they say you're supposed to let the dogs work out their relationship and not choose the "dominant" dog, but i so badly want to jump to daphne's defense. i want to give the toy's back to her, kick winston out of "her" spot, and make him respect her. mostly because she's had the place of honor in our house for so long.

i'm hoping that this is just transitional, but am fearful that i will lose some of my favorite daphne-isms.

only time will tell...

taxes.

recently a friend of mine told me that her dad used to tax her allowance when she was little. she called it his "propaganda". i call it genius. every time that she would get allowance her dad would take part of it and tell her what he was going to go spend it on. i think i will be doing that to our children. that way, when they grow up and the goverment takes lots of their money to spend it on whatever they feel like, including giving lots of it to people who don't appreciate it, our children will be fully prepared.

unlike me. who cringes at every paycheck. who watches her hard earned dollars getting picked at all year only to get to the end of the year and desperately hope that they decide that she deserves to get some of it back. harrumph.

For dog lovers only

For anyone who has met our dog, you will remember that she is kind of a scaredy cat. So, imagine our surprise when we took her to the dog park and she did the obstacles!!! They have a little fence and a hoop and I thought it would be fun to get her to try to jump over/through them, but I did NOT think she would do it. Since she did it, we decided to take some videos so that everyone would actually believe that it happened!

Enjoy!

The other doggie in the video is Daphne's good friend Molly. Molly's owner Shannon and I are currently working on our synchronized dog walking routine. The dogs are really great at making complicated zig-zag patterns for us to untangle. :)

Mustache Bash

What better way to celebrate turning 26 than making all of your adult friends wear mustaches to your party?

I LOVE theme parties. In fact, I really can't remember a time that I've thrown a party and there hasn't been some sort of theme. So, when it came time to plan my birthday party I knew it had to have a theme. Many people have asked me where I got the idea for a mustache theme, and the honest truth is that some of my cool friends had one once and I thought it seemed rad. So I went for it! Little did I know that our friends would be so into it. One guy friend actually grew a 'stache just for the occasion! My husband surprised me by shaving my initial into his face (M is for Manda)

I even had a mustache cake! One of my old co-workers (and good friends) made this beauty for me! 

My awesome friend Lisa showed up with the same 'stache and the same color of eye shadow on. We're meant to be besties. :)

My current co-worker Tessa, and her hubby Drew showed up to celebrate with us. Fun fact: Tessa and Drew have the EXACT same wedding anniversary and dating anniversary as Jay and I. Small world.

Also making an appearance was my book club! I adore these girls and am so glad that they are my friends. I look forward to book club every month!

My friend Kat shares my love of goofy poses, and completely ridiculous movies. If there is a "bad" movie out there, chances are not only have Kat and I both seen it, but we both LOVE it.

One final note about the night... I treated myself to a haircut and style and went to the mall to get my make-up done. The only other time I've done that in the same day was for my wedding. I have to say that I felt so beautiful! It was so nice to have something completely different! I LOVED my new look!!!

There are LOTS more pictures and a LOT more friends came to have fun. Check out the rest of the party pics by clicking on the link below!

MUSTACHE BASH PARTY PICS

Only in America

The other day at work, a girl said "I had some chocolate thunder from down under last night"

...

...

...

My thoughts EXACTLY. I thought she was being a bit of an over-sharer!

Until she mentioned that this is the name of a dessert at a certain Australian themed steakhouse.

WHOA.

Only in the good ol' U S of A would someone eat something named "chocolate thunder from down under".