AFC Christmas Party

Last week, Heather's work had their Christmas Party at Des Moines Golf and Country Club. What a great reason to get all dressed up! Unfortunately, I had a nasty cold...puffy eyes and head congestion.
Derek was super jazzed to put on a tie!

Joni and Derek were all smiles as we sat down for a fantastic dinner.

Dawn and Aaron are also excited to celebrate Christmas. Aaron, as usual, is counting his money.

Jon and Kim enjoyed the dinner as well!

The "fun" table!

The staff gave Gary and Barb some Christmas presents.

The America's Family Coaches staff.

Heather and I in front of the pretty Christmas decorations.

Heather and Joni.

Aaron, still counting his money while enjoying the decorations.

The girls of AFC

Heather and Joni both got new Christmas coats that they wore to the party!

Heather and Kim pose for a picture with the fresh snow and Christmas lights.

We had a great time at the Christmas party. We are very thankfully for Gary and Barb and the work that they do and that Heather can be apart of it. Merry Christmas!

Ugly/Awesome Christmas Sweater Party

It wouldn't be a Christmas season if there wasn't a chance to break out an ugly Christmas sweater and a few weekends ago, the Lubach's provided us with that opportunity! They hosted their 1st Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. My mom, a retired elementary art teacher, graciously let us borrow a few of her "best" Christmas sweaters and some fine jewelery.
We completely forgot to snap pictures of the other sweaters but hopefully Sarah will update their blog with some of her pictures. There was a vote for the "best" sweater...and wouldn't you know it I won the prize! The trophy...a cowboy boot coffee cup!

"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." -Elf

The second best way to spread Christmas cheer...a good Christmas sweater!

Office Christmas Decor

My office is great. I enjoy working there, we do a lot of work but we also have a lot of fun. I am actually on the Rating & Analysis Fun Committee and our job is to plan fun activities through the year. With the Christmas in full swing, we thought we could bring some cheer to the office with a row decorating competition. Each of the 5 rows had until Wednesday, December 16th to decorate anyway they wanted too. Then anyone can come by and vote on a post-it note for their favorite row, and then Monday at 2:00pm the votes will be tallied and a winner will be declared! As of Wednesday only 3 of the 5 rows had decorated, but I have a feeling there will be some late entries.
Mike and his row went for a snowflake theme.
Kyle shows off his hand crafted snowflakes.

Garrett models his wall of snow.

The real competition was another row down, they went with the theme of Santa's sleigh. At the front of their row, they had some reindeer...

...and the names of the "traditional" reindeer.

And then, each desk had a reindeer with a not so common reindeer name. Natalie's reindeer is Natster.

Cheryl's is Stasher

April's is Blitzenia

Rhonda's is Rhonder

...and Elizabeth's is Lizglow, her desk is the first one, so like Rudolph, Lizglow has a shinny nose.

And at the back of their row they had Santa's sleigh, complete with sleigh bells and presents!

My row went with the theme "O Christmas Tree", here is Todd standing next to his tree.

Stephanie hand crafted some trees and then wrapped her file cabinet like a giant present, we even put out candy in hopes of winning some votes!

I made this tree, it stands between Alissa and my desk. Behind us is a string of paper clips with silver bells.

Denise and her tree.

Zach and his tree

At the end of our row, we put up the song "O Christmas Tree" Alissa and Michelle show off all our trees!
At the front of our row, I installed a fireplace!

...complete with a wood mantel
...and a moving fire. The fire is made from tissue paper and I cut slots and installed a fan to make the fire dance!
Here is my row, sitting by the fire!

If you have time and want to stop by my office before the judging is over (Monday, Dec 21st at 2) feel free to come and vote for your favorite!

Better Together...4 years!

4 years ago today, I married my best friend. That sounds cheesy I know, but all the same it is true. December 17th, 2005, the day was a lot of fun and flew by. It was a day filled with family and friends, smiles and tears of joy, love and laughter!

My bride and my sister on our wedding day
After the ceremony, we both have big smiles as we head to the limo!

...the next morning we flew out to Hawaii for our honeymoon!

Happy Anniversary Heather,

I love that you are my wife!

Christmas Decor

With the Christmas season in full swing we see Christmas decorations every where. I just love Christmas decorations, they seem to brighten everything up! With that said, I thought I would show you the Christmas decorations we have around our home, a virtual tour of our home.
Here is the kitchen, Christmas is on the calendar...literally! Hanging above the calendar is our do-it-yourself project.

In the front living room we find the Christmas tree full of lights, red berries and some fun sticks at the top!
This year we went light on the tree decorations but Heather out did herself with wrapping the presents! Complete with homemade tags.

We have a small poinsettia next to a hurricane filled with white and red ornaments.

On the coffee table we have a 5-tier candles with some fun garland.

I read on a blog to try and put a wreath in an unexpected place, so this year, we have a red berry wreath at the foot of our bed.

The Willow Tree Nativity set fits perfectly in our telephone nook...it's like a built in manger.

We added some silver ornaments and some lights to give a little Christmas cheer to our lantern.

Heading downstairs we have our square wreath made with real pine hanging above our fireplace. The stockings are hung from the mantel.

We also have another poinsettia and we couldn't forget about Riley's stocking.

We also have another tree downstairs with ornaments that Heather and I had growing up.

In one window sill you will find the three wise men.

In the big window sill you will find our two silver reindeer...

...along with our snow globe collection and some more red berries. Riley loves watching the snow globes!

That pretty much does it...Christmas decorations at the Comfort's. Merry Christmas!

SNOW DAY!

Last night, we got 15 inches of snow...15 inches! Today, due to high winds and drifting it seems like the whole city is shut down. Travel is not advised, all the schools are closed, even the city buses aren't running. Add all of that together and you get a snow day. Both Heather and I stayed home from work today. Heather is able to work from home, I took the day off!
Here is our deck covered in snow!
15 inches of snow covers everything.

Looking out the front window into the snowy wonderland.

Our neighbor digging out of the snow.

So much snow, I feel like it is trying to get inside.

The snow isn't bothering Riley's schedule today, she is still napping!

Christmas Party

This past Friday our small group had our annual progressive dinner/ugly Christmas sweater party! It was a ton of fun once again. We started at our house with a few appetizers and then headed west to Matt and Meredith's, then Josh and Kelly's new place in Adel and finished at Mike and Sarah's in Waukee. We forgot to snap pics at our house, but on our way to West Des Moines, we saw some great Christmas lights.
This house is on 62nd St, just north of Hickman...amazing!
Heather is sporting Christmas present earrings...very festive!

The whole group at Matt and Meredith's.

Each place that we stopped, we also played a game. At Josh and Kelly's they set up a racing bracket and we each picked a Hot Wheels car from a hat and raced them down the track!

I drew a 1971 purple Dodge Challenger...

...he took me all the way to the finals!

Only to lose in the championship race to Mike.

The fastest car and the slowest car each got a prize, the Petersen's took home both prizes!

We posed for a classic "senior picture" pose in front of the fireplace.

We finished the evening with the classic white elephant gift exchange.

Heather opened up a painting from Kelly's high school days...we have the perfect place for it.

The gifts were great and random!

We had a great time with our small group, good food and lots of laughs...Merry Christmas!