My computer is broken

Yes..the worst has happened, my computer here at work is dead! Really dead this time...can't blog or work :) So this will be short. 2008 was a rough year here for the Dirnberger household. We are sending it off with no regrets! WE are looking forward to 2009 and good things to happen. Here is a short list of positives!!!!
1. My new nephew was born! Cooper Hollis is great!
2. My BFF nephew was such a blessing to us.
3. My husband and I have been enjoying each others company and loving every minute of our first year of marriage!
4. My family is my rock and happy to have them through everything
5. My friends are great....they all know it, I have leaned on them a lot this year!
6. I still have a job...its a great thing during this year
7. Our country made history....not sure if thats a good thing or bad yet?
8. I love blogging and meeting all your wonderful people!
I know there is more but I am borring another work employees computer so I need to cut this fast!

Happy New Year to you all!!! I can't wait for 2009 and I wont be blogging again till next week! Thats right, I am off till Monday! I hope to be slobery drunk by 10 over wine!

Its a time for traditions and awards!!!

Jennifer over at This Girl loves Pink, is such a sweetheart as well as The NewlyWoodards both tagged me in a couple awards and I will gladly except! First:

Jennifer gave me this to hang on my wall

I know....you are thinking what? Kreativ Blogger? Well I got it anyways so I will tag everyone later. Thanks for always commenting Jennifer and I always enjoy a good post from you!

Now moving on, This wonderful blog chain is so much fun! Christmas Traditions are really important to me and I am excited to start more with my husband.

So the rules are pretty simple, list all or your favorite Christmas traditions or ones you want to start!

1. Christmas morning we still all got to my parents very early in the morning and open gifts from "Santa" like we always have. This means me and my hubby, the little bro, my big bro, SIL and all the grandkids are at my parents house around 7:00 to open presents. It still sooo much fun! Mom makes a big breakfast and everyone is still in their p.j.s! Now this means me and hubby either open Christmas eve or early early Christmas morning

2. My siblings and I still unwrap one present only on Christmas eve....this is alway a board game for the family

3. I start baking Christmas Candy the week before Christmas so I can get it all made

4. My mom has made the same Christmas breakfast for as long as I can remember, only now it is doubled and trippled to feed our growing family. Breakfast Quiche

5. We watch "The Christmas Story" starting Christmas eve and all day on Christmas

6. Christmas eve is always celebrated with 40 people or so from my Grandma's family. It always has been and always will be!

7. Often times mom gives our pets presents

8. This year I am starting something new, on Christmas eve morning since Husband and I are usually working till 12 I am making him and myself Christmas eve breakfast!!!! I am starting it this year and this can be "our time" to spend all alone!

9. Our Christmas church time is 4:00 p.m on Christmas eve

10. We always get a new ornament every year with our names and year on it....usually our dog Macey has one too.

Ok I need to stop because it is getting way too long! Here we go with the tags:

My SIL...Single life of a married mother

Glam life of a (soontobe) housewife: You will fall in love with this girl once you read her blog

Natalie! You have got to see photo's of her sweet baby boy

Hannah My BFF..She has a great big ol huge family and I know she has tons of traditions

Learning to be a wife! She is fun, cute and always leaves great comments!

Good Friends, family and well everything else! She is become a fellow reader I very much enjoy her updates

Lindsey!!!! what a great girl, I know you have traditions!

Teisha, Ashley, Michelle, April and I know Alaina is already tagged but come on..let me in on your great traditions!

I can't wait

It is always a family tradition the minute the movie " Christmas Story" comes on Christmas Eve our t.v. immediatly goes to TBS for the 24 hour marathon. Yes it is on for 24 hours and we watch it off and on for that long. It is always in the background while opening presents on Christmas morning and it is always in all the pictures and videos we take on Christmas day. I get a warm tickeling feeling inside just thinking about that movie...I wont buy it though, it is better to catch it on T.V. that day! I fall asleep to it each night and laugh at parts I have seen a million times. Nothing is better than tradition on Christmas and this is just one of ours.

Does anyone else watch this movie non stop or have a favorite Christmas movie you can't get enough of?? I encourage you to try "The Christmas Story" this holiday....surely you can catch it within 24 hours of non stop play :)

1st Annual Party

The 1st annual Ornament Exchange party went off with a bang. I didn't get time to take pictures because I was busy being the hostess with the mostess. My food was almost all eaten and only a couple of drops were left in the last wine bottle. This means it was a good party right?
The pomegrante punch bowl drink that my sister in law made was a huge success. I hope she posts the recipe so you all can enjoy it as we all did!!!! We had 28 ornaments to pick from so the tree was covered. We played the bad santa game to exchange them with!!!
I so wish I had pictures because we had gift bags hand made for everyone to take the oranments home in.

Just imagine the most fun you have ever had during an oranment exchange and that explains everything :)

It is a slow week for once here in the Dirnberger's life. The inside and outside of the house are done and we are almost completly done Christmas shopping. All thats planned this week is hopefully get all my presents wrapped and the count down till Christmas is on its way. I love being ahead of the game that way I can really enjoy the True meaning of Christmas!

It's the best time of the year

So I snapped some pictures of my house decorated for Christmas this morning, I will have you know I was actually a little late to work because I couldnt' decide what decorations to take pictures of?? This is just the inside of the house and only a sneak peak. I got a little crazy this year and did some massive decorating....every room has Christmas cheer spread within. I mean you have to decorate every year if you are having a party right?? My colors have always been golds and browns, and this is mainly because the Hubby loves to hunt and we have wildlife throughout our house. So enough yacking here are some


Here are my place settings! These plates came from Target and you can't tell but have lots of gold in them





I got this idea from the best Martha Stewart!!! Little wreaths on every dinning room chair tied up with gold wribbon. My center piece was purchased this year also....it just happens to match all the gold already in the kitchen!

This wreath is a new addition this year. I love it....it has all my colors and matches my tree! This hangs in my living room to match all the wildlife haning too :)

I have been super nervous to show my tree...the hubby thinks its a little too much but I like that its different! AS you can see there is some great wildlife hanging there beside it so why not dress it up in feathers

Here are a couple more close ups and now that I look at pics I think I need a couple more oranments

One more close up...I love the little birdies

This Santa was my purchase at the craft fair. He hangs out with me in my living room and the garland lights up!
Off to the bedroom, The garland on our bed Nathan actually likes! Its maybe romantic!!! The candle and stars I put together to set in our master bathroom

I could load pictures all day but I don't want to bore you!!! Here are just a couple of sneak peaks to what I have been up to this week decorating! Like I said I have every room decorated for the party, so as I snap pictures on Sunday hopefully I will catch some more decor!

So how is the tree.....too much like Hubby said with the feather or not?

I lied!

I lied and I am so sorry for this, but I did not take pictures of my house decorated for christmas last night. I know, I know, everyone got up bright and early and headed over to my blog to only be disappointed...well maybe not, but I was disappointed in myself. It has been a long week already(family illnesses) and the weekend is not even here. So, I am making all of you a promise and here it goes: I promise to post pictures of my Christmas decorations tomorrow or you can all stop reading my blog for good !!!!(please don't really do this). I have decorated every room in the house so be cautious because tomorrow's blog will be long and full of Christmas cheer.
So since I don't have pictures of my house I have to let you in on a Christmas story....My sister will love this story because she remembers it well and retells it way too much! We were all at my mom's house one evening I would say 3 years ago. Everyone was in her living room (me, mom, my brothers, my sister and my sister's mother was here to visit) and we were all watching Fear Factor..remember that show, really bad! Since it was around Christmas time the contestants on the show were going to eat Reindeer testicals. Gross I know but this is important to my post I promise. Well, I didn't understand at all.

Me: "Reindeer testicals, they can't really be eating reindeer testicals"
Brother: "Well they are eating them....why couldn't they"
Me: "Because Reindeer aren't real?"
Brother: "What do you mean Reindeer aren't real"
Me: "Well I always thought Reindeer are fake just like Santa is not a real person, I thought they were made up and didn't really exist"
Everyone cracking up laughing
Brother: "Are you being serious?"
Me: "Yes, (wondering why this was such a big deal) I never knew they were real."
Brother: "OMG, you are dumber than what we thought of course Reindeer are real animals..."
Everyone still laughing at me
Me: "Well they don't really fly then"

This comment really topped the cake, if I would have just kept my mouth shut and not said "Well, I know they don't fly". This has been the joke of all jokes for years and years. I know I am blonde but seriously I had never seen a reindeer so I always thought that was a lie just like Santa was a lie for years and years. I am often laughed at for silly comments but this story is told to someone at least once a year at Christmas and I guess I will never let that down.

Silly Camera

I only got a couple pictures of the 30th Anniversary party......I had planned to get a nice family picture of us all dressed up, until the batteries went dead on my camera :( So here is all I have...a nice picture of the cake

The cake was ummm sooo good! It was the exact colors of their wedding ( they did get married in the 70s).

The toast of Champagne! I tried to catch the kiss but it was fast and my camera was slow!

It was a nice evening after all....tomorrow I will be posting pics of my inside christmas decor. I am pretty excited about it, it has taken me weeks to get it right! Stay tuned