Murder, Mayhem & the Mob

Saturday we hosted a murder mystery dinner - roaring 20's, prohibition era, hardcore mobster, scandalous flapper style!

Welcome to Rosie's Joice Joint

A lavish 1920's speakeasy

We had a delicious (if I do say so myself) dinner of Chicken Saltimbocca, Creamy sun-dried tomato pasta & roasted asparagus. Followed by these beautiful {great job Krissy} and only marginally yummy {recipes fault} red-velvet cake balls.

[since you asked - click names for recipes]
Thanks also to Krissy for the hotsy-totsy name tags/place settings.

**The Dames**

**The Fellas**

**The Couples**

~ Notorious Nick & Rosie Marie ~
Northside mob boss and notorious ladies man and a fashionable, wealthy skirt mourning the loss of her husband.

~ Cindy Butt & Mayor Biggs ~

The cigarette girl with the cutest baby bump and the very powerful, hilarious story-telling Mayor! Together they extorted and bribed the most money out of other players, but overall Cindy was named Mrs. Money Bags much to the Mayors disapproval.


~ Southside Sally & Bernie Booze ~
One tough & sexy mob boss and the other a successful, handsome, yet suspicious, bootlegger. Do not mess with this power couple!

~ Kitty Cocktail & Cy Ramsey ~

Employees of the Juice Joint, this waitress and bouncer make one incredibly good looking couple! Not to mention Kitty wore the most amazing dress and Cy definitely brought the most impressive accent.

~ Dina Diva & Hal Hollywood ~
This gorgeous couple brought the glitz and glamor of Hollywood as the canary and movie director kept everyone on their toes with promise of fame and fortune.

~ Chief Cameron & Molly Moll ~
An unlikely couple {or maybe not} as the chief of police and the "most popular" gal in town. These two stole the night with their impeccable attire and acting abilities winning the Dressed to Kill award as a couple and the Drama Queen award for the Chief.

**The Entertainment**

After dinner some of us dames got our wiggle on and learned the Charleston. We had so much fun we forgot to take pictures, let alone the video that I know you all would die to see!

What's a speakeasy without a little "Gentlemans Entertainment"?

//Yes, I laughed so hard putting this together!
It was totally one of those last minute ideas.

**The Story**

So this fella Nick, he was too powerful for his own good.


These plugs made for a likely list of suspects...

In the end this cat got the bit.

**The Awards**

--> Dressed to Kill

--> Mrs. Money Bags -- See above

--> Drama Queen

--> Smoking Gun -- All four of these mugs guessed the killer.

The perfect evening...

I had the perfect evening planned Tuesday; Sams Club, spin class and a swim. Perfection, right?? Well Ryan threw that plan right out the window! He got home about 5pm and decided we should go see Dashboard Confessional in concert. What? Spontaneous and random and SO not typical Ryan so I was all over this rare opportunity!

Of course this isn't as easy as it used to be since we have Dylan logistics but thank goodness my mom is always willing to drop what she is doing to watch him - seriously we are so lucky!! And so is Dyl he already had a fun day in the snow with Grandma T. and now he was going to play with Anna and Grandma H. --> this plan was working out great for all!!

So we sped to Murray to drop off Dyl and sped back downtown for the concert. We got there at about 6:45 to see some lame guy with even lamer hair play solo. After him was Lady Danville who were pretty good, quite clever and very entertaining.

DEDICATED: ASHLII

Next was Chris Conley from Saves the Day. A little band Cole & Ashlii introduced us to at the Crazy Donkey in NYC a few years back and one of Ashlii's favorites so this is for her...

Remember when Andy rocked it with Ben? These guys attempted to rock it with Chris when the audience requested Shoulder To the Wheel and he couldn't play it with out "the band".

Not bad but not Andy...and truthfully pretty bad! :D

Gotta love the annoying guy next to us who kept raising his bottle in front of me and spilling on everyone!

And last Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional. I gotta say we were a bit disappointed in his attire but then again, he's old (older than us even)! My favorite thing he said when he was explaining a song "I was sitting in my bedroom, oh no wait, I was a grown up so I had a living room at this point."

Still he should have looked like this and not be shopping at Eddie Bauer for gigs!

We didn't take many pics - this is the best one we got!

We had tons-o-fun even though the concert itself was "underwhelming" (Ryan's word) and it defnitely beat the evenings original plans!

Christmas Numero Duo ~ And it's a pictoral doozy!

On the 21st we had a Christmas party with Ryan's extended family.

We had a fabulous time and covered all of the holiday essentials...

~ Food ~ ~ Presents ~

~ Games but we were too busy for pictures! ~

~ Laughter ~

~ And a festive Mama-Dilly shot! ~

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CHRISTMAS DAY
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We were supposed to go to Lovell for Christmas this year to visit Ryan's grandparents but it didn't work out! So instead we had a pretty chill holiday at home.

Christmas Eve we went to Ryan's parents for Toy Story 3.
Dylan loves it and held Woody the whole time.

~ Cute and Cuddly in his Christmas Jammies ~

Dylan still doesn't quite understand how the whole Santa visit works, which we are enjoying for now... He slept until 10AM!

We always do Santa at our house with just the three of us before going to Ryan's parents for presents and breakfast.

Ryan's dad is so good at keeping Christmas Day exciting with a bunch of adults! In the past he has created riddles, used music for clues, etc. and if you don't guess (supposedly!) you don't get your gift. This year we each had ten clues to reach our present...

**Cool shot Mike!

The clues led to places and things in the house. It was hard!!

~ Ryan was first! ~

Some clues required research on Jim's iPad {foreshadowing}

~ Then Michael ~


Then we had to break for a delicious breakfast
because it was already 1PM!

~ On to Kristi ~



This round required some old school research materials...
it's called an en-cy-clow-pee-dee-ah kids.

~ And last the best of all the game...ME! ~


Jim & Dylan anxiously awaited our return with each new clue!
Can't you just feel their radiating excitement??

And after four hours of brain racking suspense and non-stop thrills...iPads for all!
Yes, we know we're spoiled!
We also got a beautiful copy of Hans Christian Andersons Fairy Tales.

During the hunt there was no shortage of entertainment for Dylan!
~ An art easel from Aunt Kristi ~

~ GeoTrax from Grandma & Grandpa & lots of puppy love from Bella! ~

~ And never ending Toy Story on Grandpa's iPad ~

Kelly and Lisa joined for a bit via Skype.
Thanks for the adorable Latvian purses!

Florence got a bunch of new swim stuff.
Dylan loves goggles and I couldn't resist posting this adorable pic!

Given the difficult clues (or our slow brains) we weren't done with Christmas "morning" until about 3PM and it was nap time!
At least for Dyl and I.
Everyone else stuck to Thomas family tradition and went to a movie, True Grit.

Thanks to all for yet another fantastic holiday season and generous Christmas.