lighting the way

i am really lacking in my posting abilities this week. i finally finished shopping tonight for tony...now to just find time when his nosey little behind isn't around to wrap the darn stuff!

sooo, to leave with you with something so i can say that i posted today, i will show you the outside lights we put up last saturday along with the window boxes i "stuffed". my mom used to do the window boxes back on orchard court just like this...i love that she handed the large gold christmas balls down to us when they moved and that we actually have the window boxes now to use them!

got that done...

for the first time since 2005 (when he was a mere 2 weeks old), tony sat on the big (red) guy's lap. top on his list of things he wants santa to bring...a soft pretzel and some d-b-do's (dvd's in non-tony-speak)! hmmmm, that's my kid!

christmas 2008 begins

sorry for being mia this week...it's a busy time of year for me at work we have a huge presentation on 1/5 that i am in the midst of preparations for so i don't have to work too much through the holiday...

well, christmas is under way for the d'angelo's...well if you're standing in our house anyway. outside of the house still looks like fall but i hope to change that today! i've been waiting for a dry day which was hard to come by this week!

last saturday, despite the entire d'angelo family being sick (john having it the worst - he had no voice...it was very quiet in this house), we loaded in the truck to go get the family christmas tree! this year we headed to plow farms (acquaintances of john own it - it's a really nice set-up they have)...as we were heading out of house, snow began to fall which made this annual trek even more exciting!!

before we could get the tree, we had to make room in the living room for it by relocating mass quantities of toys, books and puzzles belonging to tony d! it was a tough job, but we ended up cleaning up and rearranging his room in the process. he then decided to read books to mickey and the gang...it was really cute.

t fell asleep in the car on the way to the tree farm (again, we were all sick) but woke up once we got there and enjoyed the fun. here is tony and mama in front of the tree we chose and another of tony and daddy. his hands are out in both pictures trying to "catch" the snowflakes.

we brought the tree home that night and got it in the stand to let the branches hang (plus none of us felt well enough to decorate it). tony and i decorated it and the rest of the inside of the house on sunday (with home alone on in the background - it's tradition) while daddy rested (he did put the star and lights on it sunday before tony and i took over).

here is a slideshow of the rest of the pictures from the "beginning" to the finished product! or the link to our web album if you just want to view the pictures normally.

oh and here is tony d with his favorite (new for 2008) hallmark ornament!!

thanks alot bobbi (read with sarcasm)!

as if i, my husband, or child need to be reminded of my addiction to blogging, i came across this little gem of a quiz on bobbi's blog...here are my results:

82%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

i guarantee there will be several people i know that would think that score was not high enough...i on the other hand can only think why it wasn't this easy to score a percentage like that on any test i took in college! ha! perhaps if i'd have taken blogging 101 at iup, i'd have actually gotten a 100% on something!

thanks bobbi, old friend, old pal, for feeding my blogging addiction!!

**click on my score to take the quiz yourself**

he's making a list...

hey you mommies and daddies out there, a friend sent me this link to a free site (yes, free...i know, i know...in this economy, that's hard to come by) to get a download of a personalized letter to santa...

i did it for tony today - at the end of the "personalization process" it will give you the option to purchase one complete with an envelope and stamp from "the north pole"(even at the low price of $2.99 - i still opted for the "free download" option). i figured at tony's age, he won't notice my "santa writing" and "fake stamp" on the envelope when i pull it out of the mailbox with the day's mail.

here's a sample of his letter...have fun creating your own!

20 years

today, december 1st, marks the 20th anniversary of world aids day. while treatments, medicine and our knowledge of the disease has come along way since 1988, there is still much more work to be done. please take a few minutes of your day to remember those who live each day with the disease, those that have already lost their lives (regardless of how they contracted it) and pray that a cure can be found.

a night out

saturday night, john and i enjoyed an evening out. we attended a dinner honoring the owner of my company who was in for a visit from taiwan. i was in charge of organizing and planning the evening, from finding a location to hold it, sending out the invites, picking entrees, and making the placecards and centerpieces...don't think for a second, i'm complaining, because i absolutely love doing that sort of thing...it's kind of like planning a wedding reception (which i tease john all the time about "redoing" because i love party planning so much)...it's just i had 2 weeks to plan saturday's event...yep folks, two weeks. i was very nervous pulling it all together, but i think it ended up going quite well, and everyone seemed pleased.

i was very happy with the outcome of the centerpieces - it's so nice when you have a vision and it turns out exactly how you saw it. the dinner was held at the french creek golf club and the building and room looked beautiful. i snapped a few pictures of my centerpiece preparations...

votive candle and votive holder

copper wire - wrapped around the votive holder

branches (from front tree after a storm) placed in terra cotta pot with morter and moss

ta-da...finished product lit and on the table

here is a link to more pictures of the evening.