finally. get that incessant jingling out of my head!

the family CHRISTMAS CAKE - special surprise inside!

my mom got these as a present last christmas and uses them alongside our stocking holder thingeys. they make me smile.

me and cousin maggie amidst holiday feast #4,462.

i was not a good picture taker this christmas... which is unfortunate b/c we had a great time with family and friends and everyone looked great and i FAILED to capture any of it on camera. sometimes i guess you forget because you are too caught up with visiting and laughing and being LOUD. i almost - not quite - forgot how loud and large and laughey my family is - both sides. i also almost - not quite - forgot how much everyone loves the F & the GD & the S word(s) in my family - both sides - grandparents included, nay, grandparents worse than us "kids" in some instances...in case you were wondering where my potty mouth was trained. i keep it pretty PG on the blog since you never know who is reading, but those of you who know me, well.. then you know what i am talking about... it's that irish in us - we love potatoes and cursing. just be glad you never had to play next to me or my cousin bridget on the soccer field! this was the first year i felt like THE OUT OF TOWNER for real - even though i have lived in AR for three christmases now and tulsa the four christmases before that (school never counts though). i wouldn't change all the bits that led up to meeting my husband and all my wonderful friends but i hate being so far away from my family... especially being at the starting our own little family juncture in life. it was so nice to grow up with my sister and so many first cousins all in my same age range (10 or so - from both the cronin and the horan side - all within about six years). it is kind of depresso that my kiddos won't have the same experience and makes me want to have AND adopt a gazillion babies to start my own "big" family. now please. ::wink:: the holidays give me the FEVAH (more commonly known as baby fever) hmmm... maybe i should work on taking care of myself and karl a little more first! what do you guys think? ::more winks::

Merry Christmas!

Hope you all had a great holiday! Nothing says CHRISTMAS like christmas tree and plaid pj pants, eh?

we three kings of oreint are, bearing gifts we traverse afar

Arlo is freaking out man. Nobody better touch his Christmas present.

Nobody is at work. BUT ME! (and maybe YOU are if YOU are reading this in the early AM of this lovely Friday before Christmas – if that is the case I apologize for being a poor, poor pitiful me-er. Karl was all snuggled up and sleeping under the warm blankies and I had to leave while he got to sleep. It was quite difficult to extract myself from my warm, uncomfortable guest bed (floors STILL wet!) BUT here I am writing this blog and making my list of mini-goals to accomplish today in my red Harriet the Spy notebook that I use for my lists – I still make lists on paper. Isn’t that awful? Seems like with all the time I spend on the computer/internet I should be able to find some program or use Outlook for my lists. Unfortunately, it is just not as satisfying to cross things off and/or highlight things on the computer.

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration last night with Mary Kay and Rea and Mimi and Christy and Carter at Casa de Graves. Casa de Graves always smells fantastic. Dinner was great, presents were thoughtful…. A very nice evening with family. We got home and gave our doggies their presents. Mmmm… peanut butter and rawhide popsicles. Delish.

he'll say are you married, we'll say nah MAN

Well it is a good thing we didn’t put up a TREE as our bedroom floors are being finished (stinks something awful throughout the whole house – I think I am high from the fumes RIGHT now MAN – shnozberries – I think I might need to go home from WORK). This morning I got dressed from a laundry basket of shoes in my living room, a dresser drawer that is now stored on the floor our office, the guest bedroom where we are sleeping all crammed in, and the coat closet (not just for coats anymore!) that is stuffed with clothing. And I was only five minutes late for work – I was impressed. The above pics show the scary zipper door covering to our bedroom and our pretty floors and the mass destruction of christmas!

I am having trouble concentrating at work but busy so I have to try harder (taste like shnozberries) as I have lots to do.

Elizabeth got a pup-pup-pupalicious. Check out Ms. Parker Posey Poo Poo (sorry e beth – the fumes) – making her grand entrance to the blogosphere on e’s bloggity blog.

Through the years we all will be together, If the Fates allow

Hello my lovely friends and family. Closer and closer to Christmas...

We had a great time at Leah and Blue's Xmas Xtravaganza. For pictures please go HERE and HERE (I forgot my Canon). I hope we do it again next year - and, if we do, I have the perfect theme (i stole this from my sister and her friends) - next year we are having a tacky Christmas sweater requirement in addition to our gift exchange! What do you guys think?

Let's see - what else? hmmm - here is my hubby 2.0.

In other funny picture news, karl gave me my christmas present early (a mac book! it only weighs 5 pounds and the pictures are awesome and i am still trying to figure out how to use it...never owned an apple before.) but it does have a photo booth option. we had dinner at mary kay and rea's last night and carter and christy (family) are in town from CA and we played around with it - carter laughed the whole way through! we particularly liked the mirror option as you can see - i can't wait to show joe and bel and wendy and all the other family!

oh and if you didn't get a fabulous christmas card from us you can see the extremely ridiculous vomitey cuteness HERE. (just imagine it cut in half) Pretty much just wanted to poke fun at the "perfect" picture people try to get every year. I am thinking of making it a tradition.

you're a mean one, mr. grinch, you're a nasty wasty skunk

this is the face i gave the scary man.

this week is the week for exciting work stories.

today i was walking out of my office around 5-ish... and i look over to the parking lot next to ours and there is a window of shattered glass and a scary man inside bent over in the backseat (clearly burglarizing the car which i did not realize at first). At first I just thought, oh that sucks, that guys window got smashed out and then i saw the guy in the truck taking out two big shotguns out of the car and realized it probably wasn't his car and those probably weren't his guns. i looked at him, he looked at me, i pretended to not notice what he was doing and got in my car and locked the doors - the guy bolted immediately. i called my office, they came outside, i called 911 and gave a description and the direction the guy was going. then it got a bit was surreal. The cop comes like FLYING up in his car and he is like "what did he take" and i am like "TWO SHOTGUNS wrapped in camo" (only in Arkansas, i swear. the guns were hunting guns) and he flies off in the direction the guy went - tires squealing, the whole bit. anyway, they apprehended the guy and the guns and i got to go to the police station and give a statement (verbal and written) about the whole incident. the cop who caught the guy said it was the fastest he had ever caught a suspect - i like to think i had a little something to do with that! I told him i thought i deserved some sort of medal or star or at least a gift certicate or something. ;) kidding, kidding but i am glad the owner of the truck now only has to deal with a broken window!

Strike the harp and join the chorus....

After 571 days of successful blogging and 467 posts by his talented and beautiful wife, karl has decided to join the sphere. His blog will be less family-oriented and more about technology information. It is quite fun. He finds really good sites and applications that we wish we had thought of and were making millions from. Check him out here! Welcome to the sphere.

The weekend was good – sorry no pics lately. You know how the holiday season gets. Very Jessie Spano - no time, never any time. But for those of you getting xmas cards look for a supercute pic coming to a mailbox near you sometime this week (hopefully!)

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum

Funny work story #2,867

So. It’s Friday children. Time to go out and play!


I have a good, fun story. Right so - the company I work for – we manage the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police (chiefs across the state, we plan their events, keep track of their membership database, keep up their website, etc. etc.) The Chiefs are a fun bunch b/c they come to our office for their board meetings and drink lots of coffee (for real) and say ‘darlin’ and ‘little lady’ (and somehow it doesn’t sound derogatory – go figure) and speak Ar-kan-san in the best possible way. Also they give away glocks and other large, scary guns as door prizes at their annual convention. Anyway, the Chiefs have a website. They might not use this site so often as they are busy with their aforementioned coffee and guns and keeping the state of Arkansas safe and sound. But they have one. Well (lean in close for good gossip) their site (I won’t say HOW) got taken over by a PORN site. So their site (and everywhere it is linked) is coming up either blocked or dirty, dirty porn! GAA! If you are that curious or don’t believe me: their new site: www.arkchiefs.org and their old site is the same addy but has the state of Arkansas spelled out (I promise you really don’t want to look). So I spent some time figuring out where we were linked (www.arkansas.gov... HELLO) and calling people and explaining the situation. And that, my friends, should be a situation on ‘The Office’or some other such show. Pure Entertainment.

Hmm… but not really that funny if you think about it from a mgmt/client perspective.

Hmm…I am probably going to get fired for writing this blog.

BUT IT is TOO FUNNY not to share. I mean of all our clients – the CHIEFS OF POLICE. Heheh.

Cause Baby it’s Cold Outside

First of all, Happy Belated Birthdays (yesterday) to both Audra Trotter Wallace and new baby (!!) William A. Koss. Congrats to Matt and Lindsay on their safe delivery and healthy little bit. Maybe your baby and Paris Hilton's baby can now hang out in the kiddie clubs!

Happy Lunch Time. I need it – even if it is VERY brief.

Don’t you just hate it when you make a silly mistake at work? Long story short: There was a board meeting at one of our conventions, the board members needed to be reimbursed for mileage, I calculated mileage and checks were printed (not by me but with the amount I decreed), and then realized (um…it was pointed out to me…yucko) that it was only one way reimbursement and not full trip. Sigh. Stupid. Silly. AnnoYing. And now you get to here alllllllll about it – aren’t you a lucky ducky? Maybe later I will enthrall you with an ever-exciting story of what I cleaned and how long it took me last night. If. You. Are. Lucky.

p.s. I am giving all my blog posts Christmas Song Titles from here until Christmas to get myself IN THE MOOD. (still no tree, still not a single present… just to keep you aBREAST of all the details!) the mall frightens me. As do most retail stores.

comfortable - like my GAP overalls!

that is what this weekend was - comfy like my gap overalls that brooke and i bought a loooooooong time ago and are horribly out of style but that I still love deeply. Look at those big infectious smiles - it is because of the overalls!!! (or the fact that we were 19, in our first college summer apartments, had part time jobs, and spent a lot of quality time at the apartment swimming pool with beer in hand!) i know i need to JUST LET THEM GO!! but i just can not. i refuse. sigh. OVERALLS. hmm. why are they called overalls since they aren't really over all. ANYWAY, i can still wear them around the house. everyone has comfort clothing right??!?!?

we just stayed comfy all weekend - matt dill came in town from tulsa to hang for the weekend, we watched THE GAME (arkansas vs. florida of which we will speak no more!), made food, and watched about a million movies - we got a new television and it came with a trial movie pack - karl and i don't watch many movies so my eyes were glued in my pursuit to catch up on about five years of movies. no christmas tasks were accomplished at the horan/hills household this weekend. oops. no tree, no decor, no cards, no presents, no songs, no cider, nothing! yikes. someone help. i am drowning in non-christmas. and it's freaking cold.