SHOOT!!!!!!!!!!!

I gave DH a MP3 player for Christmas. So he's been online trying to find good music to download for free. Unfortunately some of those "free" websites have little critters hiding in them... like the one that ATE my Google Reader Next button and won't allow me to reinstall it!

Help me! I'm lost without my Google Reader Next button. :(

Not much of anything to report

I was typing my title up there and it was going to be about that but you know how when you're typing in a box and your computer starts showing you everything else you've every typed that is similar...well that title was the only thing that came up...and it fits.

Since Christmas we haven't done a whole lot around here. Just taking it easy and shoveling snow and more snow...this stuff just won't stop it seems...although the weather folks say that this should be the end for a while...10 days they say. Not holding my breath.

So today DH went back to work. He drove his car, I don't get that at all...I guess he likes risking it...or he worries that I'll try to go somewhere. I won't.

I went out for the sunniest part of the day and shoveled the snow from our driveway and sidewalks. But that knocked all the energy out of me. I came in feeling all woosy and cold. So I had some lunch and then laid down. I've been pretty much on the couch or on the computer ever since. I did go and shovel a bit more before DH was due home though...but just two stripes up the driveway for his tires.

After sending some left-overs to my brother's house last night we are almost done with our Christmas dinner. There is still enough ham for a sandwich tomorrow and some Mac & Cheese (both Kraft & homemade) left and that's it. YAY! I'm so ready to be done with it. Unfortunately that means we'll have to now eat the Rib Roast that I bought to have with my Mom & Stepdad and they're still at my brother's until Sunday...oh darn! more for me. hee hee

I hope that all of you are enjoying your holiday and if you've already had to return to work I hope that things are still slow enough for you. Off for some more zzzzs

The Loot report...

Here's what everyone got...

Darly:
American Girl Nicki doll with accessories.
Groovy Girl Kiri - the Girl Scout doll
Webkinz shirt & pants for the webkinz
Webkinz Brown Arabian
Webkinz German Shepherd
Webkinz lil Hippo
Webkinz Black Cat - the seasonal Halloween one
Webkinz Reindeer - the seasonal Christmas one
Manicure set
Only Hearts Club Melody
Only Hearts Club Chocolate
Roctober t-shirt (for the Rockies!)

DH:
Trip to Las Vegas - to escape the MIL!
512mb MP3 player - he's been wanting one for a while but not really sure that he needed it. So I found this one on clearance and figured it would give him enough of a taste to see if we really need to get a real one. BTW this is the first MP3 player to grace our home.
2007 Mint Proof Set - it's a set of coins from the Denver Mint of each of the coins they Mint there for this year. These coins are polished and never touched by human hands and then sealed in a plastic case.
Rockies National Champion t-shirt
Battery for our VHS camcorder - now that everyone else has gone digital it's hard to find the batteries for the old stuff!
Battery for his watch - I bought him this watch for our first anniversary. DH "lost" the watch when he went out of town once and it was missing for 6 months to a year...so long that I bought him another watch that unfortunately he didn't like. Then he found his old watch, but the battery had long since gone dead and since he had the new watch we didn't bother to go replace the battery. I got the battery and wrapped the old watch in a new watch box...he was shocked when he opened it.
socks & t-shirts for him to wear at work.

and finally ME!:
bunny ornament from Heather!
bunny ornament (a Radko) from SIL. (Heather's bunny was cuter!)
2 bunny statues from DH & Darly.
Oxo Food Mill - yay! Now I can make mashed potatoes smooth enough for miss picky!
Globe paperweight - DH got this while he was in Vegas. Each of the continents is formed from a semi-precious stone that is from that area. Like I said before...no bunny...not cute! He needs to really STOP buying me stuff I can't return.

WE all had a very nice Christmas...although it was very hard to get into Webkinz world yesterday to claim our Christmas present and register all of Darly's new pets. Webkinz needs to get some new servers!

Oh and we have TONS of left-overs from our Christmas Eve dinner...anyone wanna come help eat this stuff?

Fantasy VS REALITY!

A few days ago I posted my Holiday plans. And I got this comment:
TC said...
For some reason I have the phrase "If you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans" going through my head... intermixed with "The best laid plans of mice and men"...

You can go from there ;-)

Have a Merry Christmas!

So Just to show how incredibly smart TC is, I'll repost my plans with WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Here's the plan...
...we'll see if it actually goes down this way.

Tomorrow Darly & I have Girl Scouts. But the weather could make the roads a mess and cancel that. We'll see how it looks tomorrow. We did go to Girl Scouts and ended up wrecking the car on the way home!

Tomorrow my brother is supposed to come and get my mom for her to spend some time there (finally!) Course the weather might mess that up too. My brother did show up to get her, but it was 7pm before he got here and he ended up staying for dinner before he took her to his house.

Saturday my step-dad will be flying in. Brother should go get him...I think. Step-dad had wanted to come on Sunday so he could finish up some paperwork (grading finals for his class) but whatever. Stepdad did get in on Saturday with almost no problems except he took someone else's bag at the baggage claim. I cleaned up the house a bit to get ready for my Mom & Stepdad's arrival.

Sunday we are going to Brother's house for Christmas dinner with 8 members of SIL's family too. After dinner and visiting we will be taking Mom & Step-dad back to our house so Brother's family can leave for their trip on Monday. Only 7 of SIL's family showed up, dinner was good, but after dinner they got a call from SIL's mom. She was now too sick for Brother, SIL & nephew to come over for Christmas...so they were now staying home. Mom & Stepdad were now invited to spend the Christmas Holiday with Brother's family...which TOTALLY messed up everything else that was planned.

Monday Brother's family will be driving to SIL's mom's house. Monday we will be having our Christmas Eve dinner at around 5pm, DH will have to be at church at 6:15 to usher, don't know if we'll take two cars or not. Church service begins at 7pm and I may or may not be required to help DH usher. After Church service we will drive around to look at Christmas lights. Then we will come home and have hot chocolate and open one or two gifts. Since I had already planned to make Christmas Eve dinner and DH had to be at Church to usher on Christmas Eve, I was now cooking dinner for Brother's family too. That all turned out mostly okay...the only problems I had were finding room in the frig, burning my hand in the oven and my pie didn't turn out right. Mom was supposed to make the baked beans but since Brother & SIL are NEVER on time she didn't get here soon enough and the beans never thickened the way they are supposed to. But they still tasted good. Oh and a beef I have here, Mom says the beans take an entire onion...so I chopped an entire onion...mom only put in 1/4 of an onion in the beans. I now have 3/4 of an onion STINKING UP MY FRIG & HOUSE...and it's driving DH (who HATES onions) bonkers!

Christmas day we will open all the rest of the gifts, have left-over Christmas Eve dinner and just rest. Since Mom is at Brother's we will be heading over there for Christmas dinner and more gift opening.UPDATE: Since it is a White Christmas and there's no end in sight to when the snow will stop...and I'm a bit freaked out by last Friday still we have decided to stay home for now.

Oh and even though Darly had previously renounced all belief in Santa, she is no recanting fully and I think that since Santa was able to bring her an item on her list that was totally sold out, her belief is restored. Only Santa must have thought that I was a terrible girl this year cuz he didn't bring me anything. *pout* And DH got me a paperweight for Christms??? He got me some other good stuff from my list, but I'm confused about the paperweight. It doesn't even have a bunny on it!

Damage report

to the car. The passengers are both fine. Here's the details for those of you who missed it the first time.

Well the car is completely driveable. YAY (or maybe that's bad)

But it seems I did manage to mess it up a bit.




Okay this isn't my car (mine is grey), but I wanted to show you one so you would have a better idea of what I'm talking about.

See that last bit of the car between the front and rear tires? It's a bit of fiberglass panel that's just there for looks. The car's frame is right under the doors...level with the bumpers. Well I managed to get that part shoved up under the doors on the driver's side of the car...that was the part that was hitting the dirt when we stopped.

That panel is causing the the doors on the driver's side to not line up right and be more difficult to close...but they do close. So that's good.

We should probably have that fixed, but I doubt that we will since we can still drive it like that and who wants to bug the insurance anyway?

So now my car has even more damage to it making it look even worse.

In case you're keeping track... in 1998 I ran over a boulder and scraped that fiberglass panel on the passenger side and also dented the frame. two years ago, DH hit a deer and the pushed in bumper caused the driver's side fender to dent inward along with other small dents in the front of the car. And now this.

My car is looking more and more like an "old beater." I really do not like driving around town in an old beater. *pout*

Crashing through the snow...

literally!

Yes Jen, we did go to Girl Scouts today but we probably should have stayed home.

When I got up this morning I looked outside and figured that the weather men people were wrong again and the dreaded snow that they predicted wouldn't be coming at all. It was bright sunny and over 40 degrees when I got up...I even put on a long sleeved t-shirt.

But as we headed out to Girl Scouts the clouds began to roll in. I was thinking "ut oh, I guess they were right." When we got to Girl Scouts we started seeing very tiny snow flakes.

As the meeting went on the flakes got bigger and began to stick to the roads. (for those of you in the southern area, unfamiliar with snow...sticking is when the snow actually stays white on top of stuff.)

When we got out of the meeting the roads were very busy and I took a different path home to try to avoid some traffic which worked out really well. But the going was still very slow...stop & go almost the entire way.

When we made it to Parker, I got to this one intersection where we get a lot of crashes and was annoyed because someone had crashed there again. Oh and the police officer was directing traffic and since our 2 lanes were completely blocked he would only let one go through the intersection at a time.

Now the fun part...

We get to the end of the road I am on and I have to turn right...normally this isn't a problem, but I had slowed down to a stop because the roads were snowy. Once my way was clear I began to go and my car decided to FISHTAIL! First I went a bit one way, then a bit the other and finally it spun around and headed for the ditch! However, (and this totally had to be an act of GOD) my car went into the only hole there was on that stretch of shoulder and it stopped my car from continuing down the hill, through a fence and into a field. Instead my car was stopped, tire in hole and back end sticking out about 3 feet into traffic. Oh and I was turned about 70 degrees from the direction that I wanted to be going. (I didn't notice how far out into traffic I was sticking until later...thank goodness!)

So after making sure that Darly was fine, I get out of the car and try to assess what my options were. My car is tilted pretty badly making it so I couldn't get my door open all the way...but I could get out of the car. I had heard a loud noise when we hit so I was worried that I might have broken something on the car like a friend of mine did...but I couldn't see anything that looked as if it were out of place.

Lots of people stopped to help and one called the sheriff's office (I had left my cell phone at home...go figure!) so the sheriff was soon there to keep folks from hitting the back of my car...It totally didn't occur to me that was a possibility until later...I left Darly in there.

Some of the men who stopped thought that perhaps I could drive the car out of the hole myself if I put it into 4x4...so I locked the hubs, but then I noticed how busy the traffic was getting and knew I would never get the amount of room I needed to make this maneuver. The Sheriff took one look and said that "Nope, you're gonna need a wench!" so he called for a tow truck.

Then Darly & I waited for about an hour for one to show up. I sooooo had to go pee by the time he arrived! But the tow truck guy hooked up my car to the wench and had me out of there in no time flat. I paid the nice man and the sheriff stopped traffic so I could get my car that was now facing North on the South bound lane facing the right direction again.

I made the best 3 point turn of my life and was able to drive all the way home...no problems. In fact the car doesn't look as if it was hurt at all. I'm still a bit concerned about the rear tire that hit the curb...I'll check to make sure it doesn't go flat on me.

And DH will probably insist that we have it inspected by someone who knows what they are doing. LOL!

In the end we are all fine and very thankful that God was looking out for us and put that hole there where we needed it. And I kinda think this was God's way of telling me to lighten up on the other drivers out there who were in accidents today slowing me up. I'm sure they weren't expecting whatever caused their accident either.

Here's the plan...

...we'll see if it actually goes down this way.

Tomorrow Darly & I have Girl Scouts. But the weather could make the roads a mess and cancel that. We'll see how it looks tomorrow.

Tomorrow my brother is supposed to come and get my mom for her to spend some time there (finally!) Course the weather might mess that up too.

Saturday my step-dad will be flying in. Brother should go get him...I think. Step-dad had wanted to come on Sunday so he could finish up some paperwork (grading finals for his class) but whatever.

Sunday we are going to Brother's house for Christmas dinner with 8 members of SIL's family too. After dinner and visiting we will be taking Mom & Step-dad back to our house so Brother's family can leave for their trip on Monday.

Monday Brother's family will be driving to SIL's mom's house. Monday we will be having our Christmas Eve dinner at around 5pm, DH will have to be at church at 6:15 to usher, don't know if we'll take two cars or not. Church service begins at 7pm and I may or may not be required to help DH usher. After Church service we will drive around to look at Christmas lights. Then we will come home and have hot chocolate and open one or two gifts.

Christmas day we will open all the rest of the gifts, have left-over Christmas Eve dinner and just rest.

I was filling DH in on all of this as he just got back from Vegas tonight (nope, he didn't bring home any money *pout*) And he was about to say something about the Christmas dinner on Sunday, but had to about stomp on his tongue to keep from saying it in front of Darly. What a good man.

I'm "IT" again!

I got tagged by Heather

Rules: Each tagged person must post 8 random facts or habits about themselves on their blog. At the end of the post, choose 8 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment telling them that they are tagged and to read your blog.

Hummm I wonder if it HAS to be 8 new things you don't already know about me.

1. Okay you know this already. I collect rabbits (only two are real). Hey Heather posted about her sheep tree, so I'm posting about my rabbits! I don't have that many (enough for an entire tree) rabbit Christmas ornaments. Why? you might ask? Well because it is darned near impossible to find Christmas ornaments with rabbits on them!!! Oh and you should see the looks you get when you go into a Christmas shop and ask for rabbit ornaments. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "You should come back here at Easter!" I don't want rabbits with eggs (I will have to seriously smack the person who matched up rabbits & eggs when I get to heaven...if I get to heaven with that kind of attitude.) Oh and while some rabbits in clothes are okay, I really perfer rabbits all natural.

2. Darly says for me to post... "your daughter loves cats and she HATES cats in clothes." hummm don't go look at her online Webkinz then. LOL!

2. okay that one wasn't about me so I'll give you #2 again. I'm a REALLY good cook, well most of the time. Tonight for dinner I made this recipe I found online and well it TANKED big time. BLECH! But I seriously thing that the problem was with the recipe, not the cook, cuz I did just what they said to do. Most of the time people love my food. (oh and by the way ms. picky Darly ate way more of the "tanked food" than I was expecting..so it couldn't have been all that terrible...right?" But for Thanksgiving my guests were all raving about how good everything was...including my mom who wasn't sure any of it would come out right since I wasn't following her recipes. I knew it would all be fine.

3. I like for people to like my cooking. So I'm happy to cook. But I do still get all majorly stressed out about it. Luckily I have a wonderful husband who can tell I'm stressed and he tries really hard to help out when he can. He'll clean the rooms he knows I wanted to get clean (they aren't as clean as I would do them but since I'm already stressed, I'll take the help!) and he'll set the table and he always helps do the dishes...and sometimes he'll even rub my shoulders while I'm slavin away.

4. I like most mammals. I'm not a huge fan of snakes or birds but I will tollerate them pretty well. I love my dog and rabbits...even though my rabbits would rather that we just send down food and water and leave them entirely alone, I still love them. My dog would love to live in my lap...but unfortunately she is way too big and stinky to be a lap dog.

5. I do not like to go fast. so I'm not a skiier. In fact the last time I went skiing (I think it might have been in 1994) the place we went to was getting very crowded and the slope was getting icy (the sun had been out and now the wind was picking up.) So on my last run I get off the ski lift and start down the hill only to notice that there's no place for me to zig zag to help slow me down. there's only a path straight down the hill! I'm trying to slow down but there's always someone in the way. So I'm almost at the bottom of the hill and people are watching me come down the hill way too fast and are even saying "she should slow down" but they aren't moving out of the way. Finally I find a spot that isn't full of people...it's the pile of snow from the parking lot that they pushed behind the gift shop. I was able to slide into it (it was very hard snow by the way) but I managed to stop before creating a new door for the gift shop. After I stopped, I got out of my skis (if they weren't already disconnected from my feet...I don't remember!) and carried my skis to the rental return and quit forever! Now unless someone is willing to get me lessons, I won't ever go skiing again.

6. I'm cookie director for Darly's Girl Scout troop again. I just went to training tonight...not that I really needed the training, but it was nice to get our packets and meet the lady I've been emailing for a while. Cookie sales for our area do not begin until Jan 11th, so I can't take your orders until then and orders over the internet are not allowed. K?

7. I'm glad to be almost done with this as I'm running out of good stuff to tell you. I like to read...a lot. That's why blogging is so much fun cuz I get to read all your wonderful thoughts. I try to think wonderful thoughts, witty thoughts, thoughts...whatever. Reading is fun! Did anyone besides me cringe when the kids on Kid Nation all were yelling how much they hated reading?

8. I am lazy. nuf said

I'm a baaaad kid...

the past two nights I haven't been a very good girl

Yesterday we went to see Enchanted with some friends. I invited my Mom to come with us but she declined. Well the movie got out at 5:40pm and I knew that she would have already had dinner so I was going to take Darly to get dinner and since we were most of the way there, we were also going to go to St. Nick's Christmas Store.

Well my friend that we went to the movies with wanted to go to St. Nick's too and after thinking out how to work it all out she invited Darly & me to dinner at her house, offered her DH to watch Darly while we went to St Nick's. That sounded like an awesome plan...how could I refuse?

So we did it! And I didn't call mom to let her know because a)she wouldn't pick up the phone and b)she's a big girl and can take care of herself.

Well tonight I did it again!
Oh I forgot to mention that we brought home Darly's friend last night to spend the night. But they were both just fine and didn't bother mom at all.

okay back to tonight. I had to get friend home and Darly was going to spend the night at another friend's house...and she also had gymnastic's class. So the plan was I would take friend 1 with me to gymnastics class and after gym drive to friend
2's house...on the way friend 1's mom would meet me and pick her up. That went perfect!

I get to friend 2's house and her mom invites me to stay for pizza. Ummm okay! Well they were showing me the house (it's a house they bought to fix up and resell and it's very beautiful!) and the pizza burned. Ooops! So we decide to run to McD's. then we get back and just start talking like crazy LOL! and next thing you know it's almost 10pm and were still there talking.

I finally left to come home sometime after 10pm. Mom was already in bed...I should check on the kitchen. I'm sure she'll have something to say about this. Oh and while I was out my MIL called twice to let me know that tomorrow she's heading to see her daughter. She won't be back until January. She didn't seem too happy that I wasn't home. Hummm

Dashing through the snow...

in my old beat up Explorer...

I really wanted to get over to the Christmas Ornament store to pick up a few ornaments for gifts. I checked online cuz the store I wanted to go to is pretty far away from me, but each year they have a temperary store at our mall...and this year was the same. So even though it was still snowing, the roads didn't look bad so we loaded up the truck and headed out.

First I shoveled my half of the driveway and put some sand down (insurance that I could get back up my drive!) and then we were off.

The roads on the way to the mall were really great. While I was online I checked out where the customer service desk is so I could pick up a wheelchair for Mom. When we got to the mall, I dropped off Mom and went to park. While waiting to get back to the eisle where we saw 3 good parking spots 3 other cars pulled in that eisle. BUMMER! So I skipped that eisle and picked one farther from the doors...it didn't help any, I still had to hike a long way into the mall.

We meet up with Mom who waited outside...I asked why she didn't go in where it was warm and have a seat. She didn't know. So then we get in the mall and there's no Customer Service desk! WHAT??? But then I find the sign that shows they moved it by the Macy's store. Great. "Thanks for updating your website! If I had known that I would have parked at the Macy's enterance so Mom wouldn't have had to walk so far to the wheelchairs!"

We get Mom a wheelchair, they take my driver's lisence...some trade huh? And we're off...to the bathrooms! Then we're off to the Ornament store. They put it in what used to be a sport's store. For the most part we did okay navigating the mall and the store wasn't so packed that we couldn't get around. However there were many times that I wanted an airhorn for people just chatting in the middle of an already crowded mall.

I found what I needed, but Mom didn't find what she wanted. BTW: You can get Webkinz at St Nicks, someplace called Dickens and at Hallmark...that we saw! And the Hallmark gives you extra stuff (trading cards or a purse) if you buy theirs. We didn't buy cuz someone is already getting plenty...although the new penguin is soooooo cute!!!

On our way out of the mall it is snowing quite a bit harder and I thought about putting the Explorer into 4x4 but I felt that the roads would be well traveled and fine...it was just getting out of the parking lot that would be a bit tricky and I didn't want to have the 4x4 going that long since it makes it hard for me to manuver that car.

We did okay in the parking lot except for one thing... You know how in the mall parking lots where they have you stop all over the place? Everywhere there is a major enterance there is a 3 way stop for the road that goes around all the parking. Well apparently those 3 way stops do not apply to women on their cell phones cuz there were at least 3 women who blew right through those stop signs while I waited (I could see that they were traveling way too fast to actually stop without sliding...so I stayed put since I didn't want to get clobbered!) One woman did stop for like a 1/2 a second and then she kept on going...I had the right of way and she kept on going. Whatever! Finally there was a break in the traffic and I was able to get out of the parking lot.

I did have my anti-lock breaks kick in at one point which scared me since I had room to make a normal stop and they kicked in and it looked as if they weren't going to let me stop in the amount of room I had left for myself...after that I gave myself plenty of extra room and except for two slides (the second one I totally expected!) we got home with no worries. And getting up the driveway took a bit of convincing my car that it could do it...but we made that too.

Now we are waiting for DH to make it home. His car does not have 4x4. I'll be shoveling the driveway for him in a bit and putting down fresh sand. Aren't I a sweet wife?

Not much of anything to report

I haven't been doing much of anything lately...kinda just slobbing out. I'm sure that I'm driving my mom totally nuts...she's brought up how busy she used to be when she was my age...actually she was much younger when she did all of this, she's going off DD's age. LOL Oh well.

Yesterday after much pestering by Mom we went grocery shopping (I still had plenty of food in the frig but we were out of her english muffins and low on milk. Oh yes, we were low on mayonaise too...she's gone through a quart sized jar in a week...my family doesn't use up a pint sized jar in 6 months!)

So since they had ham on sale I went to get that and Mom is requesting the entire Christmas dinner fixins. We have an ENTIRE week before I need to go and buy all of that...I was just getting the ham now because it was on sale now (the stores do this in hopes that you buy the entire meal now and then have to buy more next week cuz you ate it all and Mom is playing RIGHT into their hands!) Anyway she was like a kid in the candy store. "can we get this?" "can we make that?" She even requested that we get cabbage to have with the pork roast that I'm making this week...ummm I don't like cabbage that much! and I know the rest of my family won't eat it. So No I won't be buying cabbage.

Then I totally spaced out that we needed to stop at the pharmacy to pick up her medication and we were like 2 blocks from home before she reminded me...great! we swing back for her pills and then Darly wants to play with the toys at the pharmacy...ummm why does the pharmacy sell toys?

We're home and it's snowing...again. Luckily it's not coming down too hard. I would go shovel it, but then the new stuff would freeze and stick to the driveway...so for now I'm letting the snow blanket the drive and keep it "warm" so we don't get ice. The sun looks like it might be coming out though...might be time to shovel...great...my poor back!

The Christmas tour!

A friend of mine posted a Christmas tour of her house and I thought I would like to share my house as well. Then I got to posting all the pictures and thought that you might like a slideshow better...so hear ya go! Enjoy!

I have a few more bunnies but the slideshow was full.

Happy Holidaze!

Sorry about the family griping in my last post...I just think that SIL is totally unreasonable.
When my Mom came out here she wanted to spend the weekends with my brother so she could get to know my nephew better (she's a bit jealous that her grandkids know and love their other grandparents more since they live close enough to see them all the time.) But Mom hasn't been able to stay with my brother since she first got here because my brother's family has been sick. So she's been with us which is just fine by me...she's not really any trouble. I just feel bad for her since she wanted to see nephew more.

So here's my crazy post...he he

Friday the 7th Darly & I had planned to go to the Scholastic Book fair and then to Girl Scouts...but then the mom of Darly's friend E called and asked if she could bring E to my house so that she could be home for all the stuff that was going on there. I told E's Mom that we were planning to go to the book fair which isn't that far from her house so we could swing by and get E then. So Darly & I go shopping at the book fair...loads of fun and we got a lot of great stuff! Darly got a Steve Spangler Science kit for only $7.50! Yippee! There's a bunch of other cool stuff that we got too. I need to find the stuff we bought as gifts and pull it out of there. Then we got E and headed to Girl Scouts. The girls brought in their collections to share. Darly brought in her smushed penny collection and told her friends about that. I brought in pictures of a few of my bunnies (I just took some digitals of my family room shelves...that are packed.) But that's barely 1/4 of everything that I have. hee hee it was fun!

Saturday we had scheduled: Gymnastics makeup for missing on Thanksgiving at 8:30am; Christmas Pageant at 10:15am; and then our town's Christmas parade at 2pm. Oh, we got snow Friday night and into Saturday...so I put the car into 4x4. We drug our selves out of bed early for the gym. When it's time for the class to start, Darly is the only one there! I asked one of the coaches if we were there at the right time and he assured me that we were and would be out to get her in just a minute. So Darly starts the class all by herself...she's loving the one on one with her favorite coach (he hasn't been her coach since she moved up) but then another girl from her class showed up...so she had to share. They got to do tons of stuff and had lots of fun...yup! They were both tired after all of that!
We had some time before the Christmas pageant rehersal, so we zipped home first. warmed up and then headed to the Church. What a total mess! This pageant was "organized" by the different choir directors...and they really didn't have a clue. The idea was to present the Christmas story with song and scripture. Most of the kids who signed up were in the choir, but Darly is not. She loves to sing but doesn't like getting up early enough to be in the choir (sleep over rules choir every time!) So since the directors had no idea who Darly was they gave her a very short piece. (insert momma growl here!) Children who are in the choir got very long pieces...so long that they had no chance of memorizing them. There was no plan for what the kids were supposed to do, so the rehersal was really them just trying to figure out who was doing what when. (insert eyeroll here) They let the kids go after trying 3 different ways of having the kids line up...there was no real order to any of it. Everyone at Church was like "Oh rehersals are ALWAYS like this and it ALWAYS works out just fine for the real thing!" I was like "Yeah right!"
When we got home and decide to not go to the parade because while the snow had quit it was still very cold out (28 I think) and we would have had to walk about 2 blocks to get to the parade and then stand in the cold to see it...burr! I was a bit bummed because I wanted to see one of the vendors at the Craft fair...but I didn't want to freeze to do it!
So Darly & Dh went to MIL's house to help her get her decorations up...I stayed home and did laundry. MIL is going to Michigan for Christmas, so that clears up how we will handle Christmas Eve (don't have to schedule going to MIL's house.)

Sunday Darly & I get up very early because we have to be at Church at 7:30am! We get there with time to spare...I even run some of our stuff to our Sunday School classroom. The pageant is during the Church service. It was alright, but the choir kids who were supposed to sit quietly were anything but quiet and had to be shushed numerous times...they drowned out one of the songs because they were so loud. Luckily the kids had scripts because most of them did not have their lines memorized and most all of them couldn't pronounce the words correctly. Darly said she was thinking "Ju-Day-AH!" while the other kids were saying it wrong. Oh well.
Since we had to do a repeat performance for the second service, Darly & I ducked out early and went to get ready for our Sunday School class. For the second service two of the kids who were supposed to be singing were chasing each other in a circle during one of the songs. Their mother was fit to be tied and was trying to get her other two kids to stop them but was unable to get their attention...one of the other kids tried to get them to stop but they of course weren't listening to him.

I don't know what caused it, but I had a terrible headache so when we got home I took some pain killer and went to bed...I didn't wake up until it was time for dinner and even then I didn't feel all that well. but I feel fine now.

And now we have another week to look forward to. YAY.. Oh yeah, DH is out of town until Thursday.

What would you think?

Your husband's parents lives out of state and your family lives in state. You see your dad all the time because he lives in town so for the holidays you go to see your mom.

Except this year your MIL is in town. Your MIL would like to spend the night at your house on Christmas Eve so that she can see your children open their Christmas gifts. But that would mean NOT spending the holiday like you normally do with your mom. So what would you do?

Do you cancel with your Mom because you can see her any time (she's just an hour away) and she's spent every other Christmas with you so far and let MIL see your kids?

Or are you a B and decide to go see your Mom and plan a "fake Christmas" with the MIL?

Christmas meme

I picked this up over at Ladybug's

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? mostly wrapping paper. After being spoiled in Korea by very cheap gift bag prices (I could get 10 for a buck there!) I just can't buy them here.

2. Real tree or artificial? artificial, but I've had my oldest one for 15 years and the second tree is 8 years old...so while I may have contributed to pollution to make these, I haven't recontributed for a very long time.

3. When do you put up the tree? this is the main reason I NEED artificial trees, I put mine up the day after Thanksgiving...and don't take it down until...

4. When do you take the tree down? January 6th - Epiphany
5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, but I've NEVER bought it before. When I was a kid my mother & grandmother would get it and mix in even more whipping cream and then give me some with just a bit of rum in it. When I finally got to legal drinking age they gave me it with all the rum they normally have and WHOA!!! I prefer the kiddy style please.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? That's hard. I guess my favorite would have had to been my 3 speed bike...even though my brother got one just like it (but the boy's version...I bet they were a his & hers set!) The bike gave me the freedom to travel all over our small town. I rode that thing everywhere...and one year we got walkie talkies...so it was like having a cell phone. LOL

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yup, a few actually...but not as many as my friend Jen...she collects them.


8. Hardest person to buy for? DH! He won't tell me what he wants. Although, this year he did say that he wants: a battery for our VHS recorder, a battery for his watch, a battery for our dog's bark collar and some new black socks. Yippee!


9. Easiest person to buy for? Darly! She makes me out a list. But the poor child keeps adding to it after I've already bought everything I plan to get her.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? It was our first Christmas and I don't know where it was that we were, but I mentioned that I wanted to get a rail to put up in our laundry room to hang clothes out to dry on. So DH gets me an over the door pop-up clothes hanging rack. It wasn't even what I wanted...blech. And guess what I still have the darned thing...and use it too. But I do have a rail in my laundry room too.


11. Mail or email Christmas cards? I mail out carts to almost 50 people.


12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Charlie Brown Christmas

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? whenever I find something that would make a good gift. I like to have most of it done by Thanksgiving...I have never been done by Thanksgiving though.


14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? yep


15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? CHEESECAKE!

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? I like both...and this year there's a tree at my grocery store that has both that fade in and out...so for a bit it's colored and then it's clear. It's soooo pretty. But DH says I can't have it. But you know if they have any left on sale after Christmas this year...IT'S MINE!

17. Favorite Christmas song? "Did You Know" by Todd Agnew

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We tried that whole travel thing when we were first married and now that we have a child...we stay home. My mom used to get annoyed because she couldn't afford to come here, but this year my brother used his miles to bring her out...so she's a pretty happy gal. Although my SIL ruined mom's plans of getting to see my nephew open his Christmas gifts this year by doing their annual trek up to Snowmass. Which means I get mom for Christmas.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? yup! "you know Dasher, and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid (or is it Cupit?) and Donner and Blitzen, but do you recall?...the most famous Reindeer of all?... Rudolph the red nosed reindeer...

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angels. We got the first one as a wedding present and the second one was a present for when Darly was born...good thing we got a second tree! I tried that Halmark star that shines star patterns up at your ceiling, but it needed to be farther away from the ceiling to work right...so I returned it. I think a bunch of people returned it because they don't sell them anymore.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Dh's family has Santa arrive while they are at Church for Christmas Eve mass. In my family Santa comes when we are all asleep. So as a compromise I suggested that we could open some gifts from eachother on Christmas Eve, but Santa gifts don't come until we are asleep so they will be opened on Christmas day. Well since I do that and MIL is getting older and doesn't want to stay up all night she agrees to it and we can to to Christmas Eve mass at the early time. This year our services are at 4, 7 & 9pm.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? how everything is soooo crowded. I really hate to be amid all that. So I try to save my shopping for early morning mid week or get it all done before the season starts.

23. What I love most about Christmas? I love all the Christmas Cheer!

Santa business

Okay, a few weeks ago Darly announces at the dinner table that she doesn't think that there is really a Santa. Dh asks her "If there isn't a Santa, then who brings you all those gifts?" Darly says she thinks DH & I bring them.
Dh asks her why she thinks this...she replies that Santa's handwriting looks just like DH's and that no matter how late she stays up, she's never heard reindeer up on the roof and there are no footprints in the house.

So I ask DH if we should tell her or not. Dh doesn't care...personally I would like to not have to set the alarm clock for 5 am so I can get up and put out her presents (note the staying up so late bit above...she's been trying to catch Santa & the Easter bunny for the past few years!)

So the following day we have the talk. I tell her that she knows the story of St. Nicholas (they play it every year on the radio station that we listen to) and that part of the story is that St Nicholas passed away because he was just a normal person with a very big heart who did a lot of very good things. And I explained how the spirit of Santa lives in all of us...which is why we give gifts to the Angel Tree and Operation Christmas Child. I also tell her how she isn't allowed to tell her friends what she knows about Santa because it wouldn't be nice to spoil it for them. I also relate to her how when I was a kid and found out my mom told me that if I spilled the beans that I wouldn't get any gifts from Santa anymore.

Then I ask her if she still wants gifts from Santa and she says that she does.

Now she seems to flip-flop from still believing in Santa to not believing. We were at the library the other day and she saw a sign advertising that Santa was going to be at the library. (BTW: the Santa they have at our library is AWESOME! he's one of the librarians hubbies, he does a great story and has a stuffed rabbit who helps him keep track of all the kids' wishes named Allowishes.) Darly saw the sign and told me about it, I asked if she wanted to go see him. She says "Why? So I can tell him he's an imposter?" One of our friends has a child who says this about Santas because they don't "do Santa." I gave her the book (that I bought 2 years ago) "The Polar Express." She wasn't impressed with it and when the movie came on TV she didn't want to see it.

Poor kiddo... I'm thinking that perhaps she wasn't quite ready...but I sure was. Now I feel guilty about telling her. sigh!

So it looks as if I've still got to set my alarm clock for Christmas.

so tired...

well after Thanksgiving things have been a whirlwind here. You may have noticed my inactivity around here. Trust me, my other online pursuits have been suffering as well.

I went in to work at Church twice...once for myself and once as a fill-in for another gal. We've been trying to get our Christmas trees up (still working on that!) and get the house decorated. I managed to get my Advent Wreath out in just enough time for dinner tonight because I asked my Mom to help...darn those plastic wrappers on candles!

I also got my Christmas cards made...shopped around online for the best price for the printing and was then told that price was ONLY on orders over $70!!! I told her that I didn't see that on her website. She offered me a "regular" price but it was still too much. So then I figured out that "duh!" I could print them at home for less even if I have to replace all my ink pods (HP has cool ink pods) on the printer...and it didn't even empty them out. So that's all cool. I've finished my cards and DH has done a bunch of his. I was shocked at how many he chose to do...normally I get the ones for his Aunts & Uncles, but not this year. Whew! Now tomorrow, I'll go buy the stamps and we should get them in the mail by Tuesday.

Oh, this is good. We started putting up our Christmas lights on the house. I have a set of net lights that I put on my front porch railing...trust me, it gives a nice look. But when I plugged in our set, it wasn't working. So I went to the store and finally bought a light checker. I also got some extra bulbs (because we couldn't find the ones I already had) and another set of net lights...just in case. Get the bulb checker home...DH spends quite a bit more time trying to figure out why it's not working and then suddenly it's working! Wow! So I decide I want to keep the new set anyway and hang them on the front railing...then I hang the old set on the side railing. I plug them in and "TAH DAH!" The old set is dead!!!! It's still out there and still dead. Oh well. The rest of the house looks great.

And while I was out I found Garland Lights. I just tried to find you a good picture of them online but no one wants to share. See these lights have at each place where the bulbs come out from the wire strand two lights going in one direction and one light in the other. The cool thing is that you get more light per foot...the bad thing is that they give you a shorter strand. The reason this is so appealing to me is that currently I have my outdoor lights stored all folded up like they come from the manufacturer...so when I hang them they're in a zig zag pattern. Then I hang the lights in loops. The end effect is a very bright and gingerbread house look. I really like it and some of my neighbors have commented too. Maybe if you're good, I'll post a picture.

Mom was supposed to go and stay at my brother's house this weekend. Mom wanted to spend weekends with my brother so she could get better aquainted with my nephew and to give me & DH a break. Well Brother & his family all got sick. Mom can't get sick...she still has pneumonia and her lungs are only working at 40%. So if she catches a common cold it could send her to the hospital. (I've been fighting this nasal thing, but we've been really good and she hasn't been exposed...no one else has come down with it either.) So I got to keep Mom for the weekend.

The only problem really is that Darly keeps staying up all night and Mom keeps getting up early every morning. I'm not getting any sleep! Tomorrow I get to go work at Church again... sigh! My Church really needs to get the funding so they can afford to hire someone (NOT ME, I'm too tired!) to do this job. Please pray that I get to go to sleep...thanks!