Shane Christmas Party

It's finally Christmas Eve! The Shane's Christmas Party was this afternoon. It was so great to get together with family during the day, but still have all evening to be at home prepping for Santa. Jan made us a delicious lunch and once the tables were cleared away it was time to open presents.

This is always Brayden's favorite part. We'll have a lot of fun with his new toys, especially the Optimus Prime Lego set.

I loved watching Bailey play with the new Disney Princess dresses that I gave her.

Erika found a ball that she pushed up her shirt so she could look like me. If only I could get mine out as easy as she got her's out. Anyway, we had a blast and I can't wait for tomorrow morning!

Capizzi Christmas Party

The annual Capizzi Family Christmas Party took place today. I love getting together with the family to visit and open gifts. Everyone is so happy at Christmas. I love it!

Grandma and Grandpa Capizzi had fun gifts for all of the kids to open.

There was even something special for Ella. I can't wait to dress her up in this!

Brayden was so excited to get "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" from his grandparents that he wanted to open it right away. Erika, Emma, and Dominik were more than willing to play with him.

Thanks, Phil and Sharon! Merry Christmas! (And I need their Disney Santa hats for next year...)

My Birthday Weekend

Wow! I am turning 25-years-old today. That's a quarter of a century. I'm getting old. And the best part is, our car insurance goes down this December because of it. I love saving money!

Well, I've never been very good at celebrating birthdays in only one day. It tends to turn into a weekend affair. So, Friday we threw a party at our place. I originally wanted to have just a few friends over for cake ad ice cream and games, but it kept growing. By the time Friday evening rolled around, I had 14 people (Tori, Tyler, Deana, Charles, Jen, Andi, Calli, Dean, Chelsea, Robin, Blake, Joe, Craig, and I) crowded around two card tables in our front room laughing, eating and playing. I felt so loved. It was so much fun that I completely forgot to take pictures.

Yesterday, Craig took me to see one of my favorite plays at Hale Theatre, "My Fair Lady". Last Christmas Craig bought us season tickets and this was our last show. As always, the play was incredible. Craig had never seen it before and I loved that we have shared that now. After, Craig took me out for a romantic dinner at 7-Eleven. No really! This came from one of our favorite dates from back before we were married. Believe me, it really was great.

Today is my actual birthday. This morning, Craig and I cooked a wonderful breakfast together. Then we headed up to his dad's place for a Happy Birthday, Kelsi and Krystal/Halloween/Thanksgiving/Good-bye, McFadden Family Party.

The party started with the family meeting at a park to play some baseball. They (Craig included) were all on a baseball team together and their league just ended a week ago. Jill doesn't seem quite ready to let go yet. Craig and I are looking forward to joining her team again next April. (By the way, in the picture above, Craig is the one closest to the camera wearing a blue shirt and silver gym shorts.)

After, we headed back to Phil's house for a delicious turkey dinner and lots of socializing with family.

Before the night ended, Sharon took all the kids on a Halloween Scavenger Hunt around the house. It was so cute, but then it was time to say our good-byes. It was hard to give Megan a final hug. They are driving to Texas tomorrow morning and we probably won't see them again until the end of April. At least Megan got to feel Baby Ella kicking before she left.

Happy Birthday to me!

Shooting with Grandpa Capizzi

Craig's dad is working toward becoming a NRA Training Counselor. In order to do so, he needed to teach two NRA Basic Pistol Courses. Craig and I would each like to purchase pistols in the near future, so we signed up for one of his classes. Once the class was over, Phil took us over to the WSA Range in order to get some hands on experience with a few different types of pistols. Jill's family also came up for the class, so we had a good time shooting with them, too.

Phil was awesome to get one-on-one time with everyone answering questions and helping us out when needed.

I quickly found my favorite pistol. It only shoots .22's so there is almost no kick to it. Mix that with the scope and the nifty little stand and you have the perfect gun. It's easy to be accurate with this one, but it's bulk makes it too impractical to be my next purchase. It sure was fun though.

Jill did really good with this one, especially with the amount of kick this one had. It seemed like this one wanted to hit you in the face every time you pulled the trigger.

Jill's girls even brought up their cute little rifle to practice with.

I think Erika spent more time posing for pictures than she did on shooting.

I liked this one, too. It had a red dot sight and almost no kick. I realize that means that it's not nearly as deadly, but at least I can keep both eyes open when I pull the trigger.

Toward the end of the day, the boys started up a game to see who was the best shot. We found a few small, metal targets that we spread out across the range and who ever knocked the most down won. It was fun to watch how competitive they were.

Gardener Village with Grandma Capizzi

Grandma Capizzi invited Brayden and me to join them on their annual trip to Gardener Village this year. It was cray busy, but we still had a good time. I don't see that side of the family very often, so it was nice to spend the day with them. We began the day by meeting at Archibald's Restaurant for lunch.

From there, we all wandered through the various shops looking for the witches. To finish off the day, Jill paid for all the kids to play at the petting zoo. Brayden was in heaven. He loved seeing the turtles, ducks, pigs and goats. I loved watching him. I look forward to doing this again next year.

Ozur Christmas Party

Jill invited us over to her house this year for a Christmas party. We has a great time socializing and exchanging gifts. I love having Christmas parties after Christmas. It helps the season linger a little longer.

Christmas with Capizzi's

Yup. It's that time of the year again. Time to head up to Clearfield for the Capizzi's Christmas Party.

After all of the traditional festivities (dinner, opening presents, etc.) the adults settled down to a game of Cranium.

Meanwhile, the little cousins played with Grandma and Grandpa's toys on the floor.

We had a great time and we look forward to celebrating another Christmas with this group next year!

Just Married!

I was lucky enough to get married to my best friend today. It was a perfect day. Based on the picture above, you never would have guessed that it had been raining all morning. Craig was frantic making sure nothing got ruined in the rain and hoping that I wasn't freaking out. I was inside getting ready when I noticed the rain and I couldn't have cared less. If it didn't stop raining in time for the ceremony then I was planning on having the preacher marry us in the kitchen. But we were saved. The rain stopped about thirty minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, so Craig had time to dry everything off and get things ready. It was perfect. For some reason the grass wasn't even to wet.

This is Emma, my beautiful niece and flower girl. When she was practicing during the rehearsal she had a much larger basket of petals. Sadly, the basket was misplaced so someone had to run to Walmart to get a new one for her to use. Since this one held so fewer petals, she ran out about halfway down the aisle. She stopped, looked around and then ran and sat on her mother's lap. It was adorable!

As much as I love traditions, we changed things up a bit when it came to me walking down the aisle. For the past year Craig has been my best friend, helping me through everything. It seemed appropriate that he be the one to hold my hand as I approached this incredible event.

We toyed with the idea of writing our own vows, but the traditional vows pretty much say it all. "For better, for worse 'til death do you part." It doesn't get much more perfect than that.

"You may now kiss your bride." I introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Craig Capizzi.

Here we are making everything official.

My best friend from high school, Andrea Myers, was sweet enough to be my witness and sign our marriage certificate. Craig's witness was his older brother and best man, Matthew Capizzi.

And there you have it. Now off to have pictures taken with family and friends.



Capizzi Christmas Party

Phil and Sharon were kind enough to invite me to their family Christmas party this year. Craig and I were at a party at my mom's parent's home the night before, so we slept over at Phil's and then spent the day helping prep for the party.

Every year, Phil and Sharon have every member of the family write down their gift to Jesus on a small piece of paper and then they read it the next year. When the asked me to join in, I foolishly said that I wouldn't be there next year so why bother. Oops...

Here are some of the pictures that Craig took of the family:

Phil Capizzi

Jill Ozur

Madison Johnson

Emma Ozur

Erika Ozur

Karrie & Kristie Noble

Megan Noble & Steve McFadden

Kelsi