Christmas. Chpt1- Pajamas and Tricky Box

Christmas Eve in Vince's family has a nice tradition that they open pajamas from the Mom at night before bed. Its fun to go to bed in nice new PJs and it looks great for the morning photos. Katie and CarolAnne got cute satiny pajamas and the boys got flannel pants. Sarah also got flannel pants but along with them got tacky leopard print slippers. Sarah loves tacky! And little did anyone know it would match PERFECTLY with her leopard print Santa hat she insisted on wearing. We're a...special...family if nothing else.

All the siblings wanted Vince to open "trick" present Sarah had prepared because none of us like to wait. Its amazing it lasted until Christmas Eve. We usually open everything on our anniversary because the waiting is so hard- not for our own presents but to give them to others. Vince's Dad didn't really want us to do this on Christmas Eve... but since Sarah's family opens on Christmas Eve and we blend the traditions...it happened.
This present was in a LARGE box. Vince was pretty excited when it first appeared wrapped, who wouldn't- its a natural "from our childhood" instinct to want the big present. He ripped open the wrap, lifted the box flap and... "What?!" before him were gazillions of small individually wrapped presents. His excitement was shooting out his head- this was A LOT of presents people. He opened the first box and found nothing but a note "no present here, sorry try again". Oh it was ON! I had been saving every cereal, poptart, you-name-it-smaller-box for a few months (thank you mom-in-law-lady who let me rummage through recyclables) The notes were funny and either gave bad hints "there is nothing in this box, duh" from fake computer errors (Vince is a tech geek) and some boxes also included "pity candy" and small toys you'd find in a quarter machine. (sticky hands, bouncy balls, tacky rub on tattoo). It was a lot of fun. One box said "you'll know the grand prize when you reach it and heres a BIG hint- its hidden in the color RED" by this time the only boxes left were in one kind of red wrapping or another! Long story longer... he opened all the boxes and didn't find the "grand prize". Confused, he asked me if I forgot something. I re-read the clue to him "hidden by the color RED... it doesn't say its in a BOX" After insisting the gift was inside the big box, not in the house, Vince went through the wrapping scraps he had piled back into the original big box and was re-examining the shreds of paper front and back. He somehow lifted the bottom flap of the box (I think he was taking it apart at this point) and there under the flap was a small red envelope. He's a good sport and enjoyed it as much as I did. The siblings enjoyed egging him on and everyone had many good laughs as it went on. The ending "prize".. two tickets to see comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham live when he comes in March.

-video coming soon- as in when Sarah figures out how to do it-

Happy UltraFeast!

Happy (Thanksgiving) UltraFEAST !

If you're thinking that because we are MEGA holiday people that we go nuts over Thanksgiving, well, you're very very wrong. Not that we aren't extremely thankful for all that we are blessed with, but neither of us are really big on Thanksgiving. Our first Thanksgiving together Sarah whipped up all the traditional items and then we just sat and looked at them, then scarfed down the mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. (Carb-aholics Anonymous is calling!) We tried the traditional route because "thats what you're supposed to do". Then we remembered we're adults now and can do ANYTHING we want together, and often we do just that. So Thanksgiving got a new name: UltraFEAST to separate it from "tradition" and on this day of Ultra Feasting we feast upon the greatest goodies known to man and although this changes a bit from year to year it is always full of carbs and calories. Yum! It also includes a new game each year to play throughout the day. The game tradition was a bit harder this year since we've purchased many (MANY) board games throughout the year (Thanx, Petries!) so we went the videogame route and played the new DonkeyKong for the Wii.

Now, you may be asking yourself: "What about your families"? Well, yeah- what about them? Haha. UltraFEAST tradition has always held that we spend Thanksgiving alone together, without either family. Although we're in Colorado we don't attend the dinner at Grandpa Berrymans. They know we love them, and they still love us- goofy traditions at all.

UltraFeast is about 1) Feasting and 2) really being surrounded by what we are most thankful for: EACH OTHER and that we are TOGETHER. Forever.

HAPPY UltraFEAST to all!

One of my BlackFriday "must gets"

BlackFriday is a HUGE holiday for our small family. Do I really need to even mention that? We're the people who camp out in a tent early, win $1,000 gift cards in contests, have a collection of the yearly JCPenny blackfriday snowglobes, etc...

Well heres another BlackFriday must: The Bath and Body Works BlackFriday VIP bag. Usually I just buy somethings for me and then divide up the VIP bag for other gifts to send people. Well, thats the idea and I always end up keeping it all for myself. I lurv Bath and Body works!

They released a "sneak peak" at this years deal:

Thats spend $40 and for just $20 get the VIP bag. Yeah, yeah, do the math thats $60 to spend but think of all you can get. It bugs me that it states a "$115" value.. thats IF you spend full price which no one should ever do with constant sales/coupons. Also this years bag reminds me of a stuffed silver garbage bag. Nonetheless, I'm getting it. I never use the bags (who doesn't have a gazillion totes already?) butI use the products.

Heres what I can see from the tiny photo:

A silvery trash bag looking tote

Full sized Clementine hand sanatizer

Full size Twilight Woods (for men?)

A bright pink Spongy Thing

A Wallflower starter air freshener

A mysterious-to-me green tube (lip care perhaps?)

Full sized Secret Wonderland lotion

Full sized Secret Wonderland showergel

Full sized Secret Wonderland fragrance mist

I have heard if you don't enjoy a scent you can return for a different one, but don't quote me on that. And personally I love all their scents (especially Winter!)

A Turkey for Chocolate Lovers!

GOBBLE GOBBLE (we are experiencing camera difficulties)

I made these lil' guys for my first graders today since it would be my last day teaching them this semester *sniff* and because it's TURKEYWEEK! This reffers to thanksgiving of course, but also all week at school the lessons were turkey themed. So fun!

To make:

everything is "glued" with vanilla icing, but I realized after chocolate would blend in more!

The base is a two-toned store brand "oreo" cookie flipped to the vanilla side

The butt is a two-toned store brand "orero" cookie flipped to the chocolate side

The tummy in an unwrapped mini reeses peanut butter cup

The head is a single whopper ball

The red-dangly turkey neck thing (hows that for a name?) is a red-hot cinnamon candy

The feathers are M&Ms

Variations: I've seen candycorn for feathers or beak, my store didn't have them after Halloween

I didn't bother buying orange frosting gel to do feet or eyes

StarWars Day!

My friend Kara loves.. and I mean LOVES.. StarWars. I'm not a really big fan myself, but I guess its okay. We went to a local Star Wars day event and I gotta say that those 501 guys are kinda hawt. At least using my imagination that they each look like Harrison Ford under the helmet they are (yes yes, I know he wasn't a stormtrooper).

Here is me wearing Kara's helmet with one of the ...friendlier... 501 guys. You may refer to him as "the wannabe future Mr. Kara"

Things I learned today:

Its better that the helmets are kept on or the illusion is gone

Its called a TaunTaun, not "those kangaroo things they ride on"

There are different types of stormtroopers

Kara gets hit on wherever we go and it is *always* hilarious

HalloweenBlog1- Sarah's Costumes

Halloween Post 1 of 4(?)

The Many Halloween Costumes of Sarah

If everyday could be Halloween- Sarah would be the happiest person in the world. Here are a few quick shots of some (yes.."some" there were more!) of her costumes used this October!

This was thrown together quickly for Trick-or-Treating night to give out candy. We call it the "voodoo princess" look... but it was honestly "some of this, some of that" last minute!

This zombie getup (before the blood was added) was actually a joke at first because we picked up a package of Tshirts for a project and didn't realize until we opened them that they were for young boys. Sarah was just goofing around pretending to be the hulk ("hulk smash!") but it ended up being zombie-riffic!

More Zombie fun! This ratted hair and makeup just made Sarah look like she was hungover or something. But only a zombie would eat brains. Mmm.. braaaaiiinnnnssss!

This one was done especially for the Murder Mystery. Sarah was Little Red Riding Hood. Later a mask of a be-headed wolf was added for the terror-factor, and if you could have seen the shoes you would have known this was RED-HOT Riding Hood! :-)

Obsession...

I rarely blog about products because who wants to read my personal commercials? But honestly... I have an obsession with this scent from Bath andBody works. I got the candle LAST winter and light it sparingly because after winter they took the scent away. Well its back so I stocked up and can enjoy it to my hearts delight. And I do. Thats right, I'm obsessed with a candle...

Halloween Hauntings

Halloween is a mega deal for us, its more than a holiday- its a... well...very cool holiday that we overly celebrate. (maybe because we ignore so many other holidays?)

Last year we went to see Wicked the musical in Denver and ate at the melting pot which had a special where your server tells ghost stories and your menu is all spooky (like giant fake spiders on your salad and eyeballs in the cheese fondue). It was great fun, bu

t when we heard they had an over-night haunting tour we were a little sad we weren't a part of it.

SO THIS YEAR:

Hubby just informed me he made the reservations for TOUR OF TERROR at the Melting Pot. We, together with other Halloween and Ghost enthusiasts, enjoy a grand dinner at the Denver Melting Pot (our resteraunt of choice for our fancier dates) and enjoy a tour with real paranormal investigator Kevin Sampron who is President of Spirit Paranormal Investigations. You see, Denver has some great haunting "hot spots" and one of those happens to be the very building that Melting Pot now occupies. It used to be an old city jail way back in the days... you can tell where some of the individual jail cells were and where the new additions to the building start and the old building remains. We took a quick peak into their meeting last year and they all kinds of fun gizmos and gadgets being set up to take paranormal

readings. I don't know what I do and don't believe about it but I've always wanted to be in one of those "exploring the paranormal" shoes they do on TV. And as long as there are gizmos and gadgets (and lots of fondu cheese!) Vince will also be a very happy person.

To further our Halloween fun we will be participating in Petrie's Halloween Lockdown... where we are all locked in overnight for some fun. I don't have many details on that yet but 1) It's Petries and 2) ...wait, do I even need a #2? Hahaha. There's also a mid-October Murder Mystery Party that we're eager to get all costumed up for. We will also be going to Elitch's FrightFest at least once since we still have season tickets. LOVE this time of year!!!

And another off-topic thought for the day. I often wonder how people can stand to NOT be us. Not to be all self-loving anf vain here but really... we're just so much fun.

We Are The Champions....!

This photo pretty much says it all. We AWESOME!

On Saturday Benjamin, Vince, James, and I went to our (second home and) favorite local game store/hang out to play in their first annual game show. When we had to originally chose a team name we maybe should have said "Team Berryman". But no. When asked Vince, Ben, and I all said "team...AWESOME" automatically and frighteningly in sync. Perhaps we spend too much time together..? Maybe great minds DO think alike... except Ben was there, so out the window goes THAT theory. Haha.

Knowing that the best way to beat out any competition is to intimidate them off the bat, I decided we needed matching game-day outfits. We found some cheap shirts at Walmart that said "I'm sorry... I can't hear you over the sound of how AWESOME I am". Perfect-o! Also it just so happened that the shirts were bright yellow- which everyone knows in nature is the WATCH OUT color (like a school crossing sign) ... and WATCH OUT other teams cause we're gonna wipe the floor with you.

The board was set up in an almost jeapordy like fashion where you select catergories of play. First up was Taboo- the one game our team has the least amount of experience with. We selected Ben to be our clue-giver because none of us really wanted the pressure of doing it right off the bat. The blue team flew through there cards at an incredible speed, and they didn't loose steam for most of the whole game show! The pink team was also doing really well after a stumble on their first card. Then it was our turn... Ben looked at the first card got a confused look on his face and said "...wow". To which I replied "World of Warcraft" and therefor earned the highest badge in geek-scouts-of-america. After the first round we knew Blue was going to stomp the floor with us and Pink was was going to be one of those quiet but ends victorious teams.

Sadly, in the first round we were in last place. That blue team was serving out no mercy! But maybe, just maybe, it was our plan along to let them get a little comfortable and cocky before we slammed them in points. Um, yeah, that's our story and we're sticking to it. Suddenly- a challenge was announced. We weren't allowed to know what the challenge would be, only that one member of our team needed to be chosen and that teammate would be out for the next round. We sacraficed...I mean volunteered... James. We told him if he screwed up we were disowning him. Pressure was on! Once teammates from each team were chosen the challenge was revealed: they needed to complete a 3-D apple puzzle before the other team's chosen members did. Thank the BoardGame Gods that I wasn't chosen for this one- I can't even put together the simple puzzles in my preschool classroom sometimes. The game continued on without the three puzzle goers, and our team was still very much behind.

I made the mistake of over-bidding how far we could get on an OUTBURST card. The subject was "Nursery Rythme Characters"... how could someone whose life is dedicated to children aged 2-10 not be overly confident in this one? Our team pulled out 5/10 when I had predicted we would get all 10. I forgot "cat and the fiddle" and even "Mother Goose" herself. Does this mean they'll take my degree back from me?

_to be finished shortly vince needs me attention_

OCTOBER=HALLOWEEN!!!

We absolutely LOVE when Autumn finally comes and October 1st strikes. Finally we can be guilt-free about playing Halloween music- which we secretly listen to year round. This year will be a little less exciting seeing as how:

1) Halloween falls on a Sunday. Which we have no problem with, but many religious folk do. Vince grew up in a religious family and Sarah grew up in Utah, sadly.. we're used to this.

2) We're still in-between houses as we stay at the in-laws and have our house getting repaired for selling.

BUT... it doesn't mean we aren't still going to be our haunting selves...

Test- Stress!!!

Sarah is taking the PLACE test tomorrow. This is her big "im-going-to-be-a-licensed-teacher" test. Keep your fingers all crossed for her success! Scores will be released Oct 11th, so although we know she'll do fine- we'll still be on edge until then!

Happy Birthday, DaMom!

Vince's Mom celebrated her Birthday today.

Usually no one gets up before 11am in the house, except DaMom who gets up at about 6 or 7. Since she was going to make her own Birthday breakfast (a big No-no in our world) we decided to stay up all night and take her out for breakfast, just her and us. (We normally go to bed at 5am with our schedule)

So she chose Ihop and we had a nice (greasy!) breakfast and later the same day I made her a birthday cake. It was spice cake with chocolate frosting by her request, the M&Ms were my idea so I could spell out "M-o-m", or just "Mmmm".

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DaMom!

To Dye for!

Surprise, surprise! As soon at the cold weather started coming in Sarah decided to switch up her look for Fall.

Its a big switch to go from blonde to "dark chestnut"... but it does match her naturally dark eyebrows. Frank says he is unamused.

August in Photos...

Maybe you've been wondering what we've been up to. Well, heres some photos form the past month.

As we prepare our house for selling, we've been staying with Vince's family. Its been... interesting. This is Vince's Mom... see I warned you... "interesting"! Hahaha.

The pups seem to be doing well. Actually... they are having the time of their lives since there is always someone here to worship the ground they walk on. Ben's dog, Mushu, is now Penny's best friend for life and partner in a nightly "doggie tornado" that zooms through the house in ultimate hyperness. During the day Frank and Penny still cuddle up like a two headed dog:

In general we're doing just peachy... Sarah's been kickin' some serious boo-tay in school and Vince makes money to support all our crazy adventures. Life is good! And here is something rare in the Blog- a photo of Sarah. This is from an all-nighter of crazy school work. Frank is kinda in the photo.

True love means flowers for no reason...

I'm not a girly-girl, but honestly... what girl doesn't just secretly LOVE getting flowers? My sweet husband got these for me saying it was just because he loved me. Awww, mushyness! You can't tell but there are a dozen white roses and a bunch of... I don't know what they are... pretty flowers.

HUGE Pizza!

Do not adjust your computer monitor- the pizza is really THAT big. For a casual/fun Friday night a few of us met up for some serious board gaming. I forgot that when you are with four boys, a serious "food time" break is inevitable. We decided to try a sandwich shop Vince remembered passing by, but it turns out the shop was actually a pizza parlor (that also did have a few basic sandwiches). They advertise a MONSTER size pizza that is 26" across... needless to say the awesomeness that was the idea of a huge pizza won us over.

P.S. Ignore my oh-so-not-cuteness in the photo. I had suffered a long day of house repairs in a non-air conditioned space as we worked more on getting the house ready to sell.

This photo WILL make you smile!

It is almost impossible to get a photo of our two dogs together looking normal (no red eye, blinking, wandering away...) so Sarah was snap-happy when these two were curled up together. Kodak moment, right? Not so much. Although they mostly stood still, after about 100 shots this is the ONLY good one:

But it sure does capture them well and makes ya smile, right? Also, the quality is bad because its a webcam shot of the camera's digital display. Sarah can't find the cord to make the file really live on the computer. But you get the idea.

Once there was a snowman..snowman...

Once there was a snowman, snowman...

Once there was a snowman tall, tall, tall...

Then one day he melted, melted...

Then on day he melted small, small, small....

(I will never forget the time the missionaries had dinner at my In-laws house and they asked me to pick a church song for them to sing. I requested the snowman song. I told them it was my favorite.)

We've been doing pretty well with the packing so far. Sarah packs up during the day, then has Vince move the boxes to wherever they need to be when he gets home. Vince moved these boxes to the top of the 3rd level stairs, and Sarah, seeing the artistic opportunity, turned them into a snowman- scarf and all. Frank decided to pose adorably, as you can see. I think he has a new friend.

"Don't forget to pack me!"

Penny doesn't understand this whole moving process. She jumps in boxes as we pack them. Here she is sitting in a box of Vince's wires and electronic doodads. Don't worry, Penny, we won't forget to bring you along to the new house!

Summer is here!

We have season passes to the Elitch Gardens themepark in Denver- and already we'd like to say it was a wise purchase. Sarah can't get enough roller coasters, and Vince can't get enough funnel cakes! The season pass also includes unlimited access to the water park which we haven't been to yet, but you can bet we will soon!

Speaking of water, we've been spending a lot of time at the Berryman Private Pool up at Vince's parents house. We discovered that bananaboat spray-on SPF 50 will turn your skin and swimsuit yellow, and that pugs don't float in water like most dogs do.

Our summer reading goal is going really well, but the goal of posting more photos on this blog isn't. Vince is still doing well at work, and Sarah is wrapping up her summer 100% freedom because her classes start next week!

Photos to come (we hope!)

Our Summer starts...TODAY!

We just got "back" from our Summer Staycation, and boy was it fun! Doing the frugalist get-away while staying in that we could we just spent our 4 days off together enjoying...eachother.

We rented video games to play, did a shopping spree at the bookstore (we had a $50 giftcard), cuddled up in the luvsac for movies, deep cleaned our house's main level, washed the dogs so they were ready for snuggles, snuggled and read mystery books in bed, played board games, ate a huge brunch of Sarah's famous southern Biscuits and Gravy, and had a late Mother's day dinner at Olive Garden with Vince's family. It was great!

Now Vince is back to work and Sarah... is figuring out what people who don't work do all day. Clean. Cook. Ride her Scooter. Organize. Coupon clip. Freebie hunt. Scrapbook. Read. She'll figure it out... in three weeks when its back to school time. :)

To continue the summer fun, but more spread out- we spent some money and got season passes to Elitch Gardens in Denver. ROLLERCOASTERS!!!

Mothers Day and NON-Mothers Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mother's out there. We hope your Mother's Day is great!

And now that I've gotten that part taken care of... for those of you who are easily offended, stop reading now. The rest of this post is for those like me, who hate this holiday...

Now..... for all of us who aren't mother's...........
I wish you all a happy day also! For those of us who don't have children, here are some of the things we can appreciate on this day focused solely on highlighting us that are childless (for whatever reason)

* Not waking up all night to crying
* Being able to do whatever we want whenever we want
* Having our husbands to ourselves
* Basically living less-expensive lives
* Not having stretch marks!
* Being able to leave the house with only our purse ... not 10 million other things
* Sleeping in
* Staying out late
* Not having to work around a child's nap schedule
* A heck of a lot less vaccuming
* Not changing dirty diapers
* Watching a movie as loud as we want without fear of waking up any children
* Let's face it, vacations are more fun without kids
* Not having to wonder if our kids are ugly :)
* Not having to wonder if we are good parents

* Never having to find a babysitter

Now I realize that those of you with children could make an equally impressive list of great reasons to have children. However, this post is intended to make some of us feel equal on this holiday. Oh, and thanks to Vince for making this day bearable by not making me go anywhere that the topic of the day could come up. I don't need to justify our childless life to anyone. :)

Roller Bladin' Madness...

If any of my blog post should have photos- it should be this one. But, sad for you there are none.

Vincent and I bought rollerblades last night since we have been talking about trying one new exercise every month to keep things fit and fun. I still had my old pair of rollerblades, but they needed to roll onto that skate park in the sky. I won't give you the amazing penny-pinching details of what an awesome shopper I am, but we pretty much walked away with my blades and both our pad sets being free after Vince's blades. NICE!

So even though it was about 10 o'clock at night we still got all set up to go bladin' around the neighborhood. Yeah, that was the *idea* but the *reality* was that we went a few times around our circle and called it a night. I used to be REALLY good at bladin'- my sister and I once signed up for a class and we were better at tricks and speed than the teacher, haha. Now... not so much. It didn't help that one set of neighbors decided watching us would be the highlight of their night and they couldn't stop laughing and making odd comments. They weren't trying to be mean, but with the help of some late-night alcohol they were way too amused in our actions.

I need to get some photos up of how ridiculous we looked, but it doesn't matter because it was FUN. And we'll be brave enough to leave our circle next weekend.

Spring Snip, Cut, N' Style..

I think every Spring we end up cutting our hair and every time I whine right after that I let them cut it too short. This year I think it is just right. My bangs are fuller than they look in the photo because I pushed them back, but its cute either way. Vince got rid of the "hairy beast" look and now has a cut faux hawk again. LOVE IT! He looks like a grown up Jack-Jack from the incredibles, doesn't he?

Notice the amazing colorful lamp and scrapbooking tower... the Mac is now in my scrapbook nook. :) Also, what is with the weird face I'm making? What is it about camera that makes me always pucker my lips like that? And where am I looking? This picture has 'special' written all over it.

Happy St. Patricks Day

How did we celebrate St. Pats? Well, Sarah went to work decked out in Green!!! The school she works at doesn't allow the celebration of holidays (I know.. that is SO un-Sarahish!) Green Eyeshadow ( so tacky, yet so wonderful), Green earrings, Green necklace, Green shirts, Green toe socks! There would have been more but shamrocks and "kiss me" items would cross the line of holidayish. Dressing in green was just some kind of "coincidence"!The two of us met up for lunch and some "kiss me I'm Irish" celebration! We LOVE holidays!!!