repetitive postings

I know I've said this before,
but I'm going to say it again...
I am absolutely loving my new computer Dan got me for Christmas!!!!!!!!
(yes, our internet is still too slow-evidently we are smack dab in the middle of two stations, so we are at the absolute end of the line in either case, so that means slow service and can't even upgrade to faster service with this provider. Yes, thinking of looking for a new route to go).
But.... computer-wise, this thing is the bomb!
First off, it has a 10-key pad on the side like a regular desktop, which I love, because I can type numbers on that with my eyes closed, whereas, using the numbers across the top of the keyboard is more like peek and peck with me.
Secondly, it has a wireless mouse which I've been using ALOT. I just put a hard book next to me on the couch here for my mousepad surface and I'm good to go. (the built in finger mouse on laptops has always been annoying for me, too hard to use) so I love being able to use the wireless mouse when I'm going to be on the computer for awhile.
Third, the external storage should be really cool for my picture projects.
Fourth, the screen is huge which I like.
Fifth, it has a fingerprint password feature which just feels like a 007 James Bond movie to me lol. Pretty nifty, way more than my low-tech abilities need, but pretty cool none-the-less.
Sixth, I finally have Microsoft Word and Excel instead of WordPerfect. Big yippeeee!
Seventh, I have speakers now, so if I'm watching a video I can actually HEAR it (my desktop doesn't have speakers hooked up).
I guess you can tell I'm still really excited about this gift. A big thankyou to my honey for getting it for me and getting me all the extras to go with it  :)  xoxoxo

Christmas chilling

Dan and I relaxing on Christmas while watching the kids open gifts: )

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Christmas pictures

Some cute pictures of the girls and some of their gifts on Christmas.

The infamous 'plaid' top/dress T has been repeatedly asking for. She is into plaid this year.



T is very excited, and I think this picture is so cute because it shows W's extreme interest as well :)




Our family on Christmas, 2010

 Here are this pictures to go along with my previous post :)

Christmas, a time to celebrate

It is the day after Christmas and I'd just like to say this was a wonderful Christmas for our family. We had a beautiful day spent with family enjoying watching the kids play and munching on tasty snacks. The girls both got lots of cute things that they seem to be completely enjoying. Dan got some cool stuff that he seems to be enjoying (in case you didn't know, my husband is the hardest person in the world to either surprise or buy a gift for since most of the things he wants pertain to cars and engines and those just aren't items you can typically wrap or find in the mall). I also had a wonderful Christmas with an awesome pillow that T made for me (perfect color, perfect size, and so incredibly sweet!), some Reese's trees W got for me (my fave treat), as well as a cool popcorn maker and this laptop that I am typing on right now :) He also got me a wireless mouse and an external harddrive to go with it so hopefully I can keep my thousands and thousands of pictures on there and thus have less problems with my computer being slow. I've been fiddling with it all weekend (still have lots to learn)but am completely enjoying it.
We made popcorn and watched a movie last night and when everyone wakes up from their Sunday naps we will probably do that again tonight. The kids are on Christmas break next week and our office is closed so Dan and I will both be off for the whole week as well. Planning on going ice skating and having lots of laid back fun.
I have lots of pictures I want to post but I guess I will do that later in another post. Hope all those who are reading this had a wonderful time celebrating Jesus' birth, just as we did. Merry Christmas!

posting from my new laptop-woohoo!

Here is an adorable picture of W riding her bike down our road. I uploaded this picture from my new removeable hard drive, and am writing this from my new laptop that my hubby got me for Christmas. This is so cool! I am so happy to have more storage for all my pictures. I just uploaded this year's pictures and used up 5 gigabytes and still have 926 gigs AVAILABLE! isn't that amazing!?!?!?! I have so much room now. hopefully that means my computer won't be slow now since I have so much room to store stuff!  Thanks honey for all my hightech stuff, and thanks Chris for showing me how to use it. Still tons I don't know about it, but I'm starting to at least learn the stuff I use most frequently. Yippee!

My heart is to help

I really get a huge sense of joy from helping others. It touches me so much and makes me so happy that it almost always brings tears to my eyes when I think about it, or when I am face to face with a 'helping' situation. My daughter, T, is constantly saying to me "Mom, are you crying AGAIN?"  And I'm like "yes, honey, it just really touches my heart and I'm so happy to be able to be a part of bringing some joy or comfort to someone in need". She thinks its weird that I cry. But it really gets me. I think about how it must feel to be in whatever situation I am encountering, and how I am so happy to be able to help, and it just makes me cry. 

 Every time.

I can often do something and 'just do it' without putting too much thought into it (not meaning it doesn't mean anything to me, but meaning that I often try to do it without 'thinking' about it too much, so that I WON'T cry). But then that person may thank me or I'll start thinking about it later, and there ya go, my eyes start welling up.

Dan teases me that the only reason I want us to 'make more money' is so that I can give it away. And it's actually true. I think you are being selfish if you only want to make enough "to get by, and take care of yourself". I don't want to do that. I want to make MORE than enough to take care of myself, so that I can help take care of others as well. This feeling has been with me since I was a little kid. I remember making a conscious choice when I was in junior high or maybe 9th grade...

I wanted to help people and my choice was...

Do I get a job with a non-profit company and work my tail off trying to make a difference, probably spending a lot of my time begging corporations and successful people for donations.

OR

Do I go get one of those successful jobs with a corporation MYSELF, and then use my own resources to help others.

I chose the latter.

I will tell you one of the main reasons I chose the latter is because I don't like feeling indebted to anyone or anything and I don't like begging for anything either. Even if someone offered me a piece of gum in school, I felt like I owed them and I needed to repay them a piece of gum in the future. (Silly I'm sure. I should be able to receive a gift, but that's how I felt.) I'm better now about accepting things like that, but at the time it definately had a factor in my decision. So since my decision was made early on, I worked towards achieving it. We have been very blessed over the years and I am so thankful to God for those blessings because it allows me resources to share His love with others. Because I like giving so much, I probably give too much to my kids. No they don't get every expensive gadget on the market, in fact, I won't and haven't, bought them any cell phones, wii, video games, ipods, computers, or even Nintendo DS's, even though lots of kids their age have them. But they have a million toys and clothes. And have gone on more vacations and fancy restaurants than Dan and I (combined) ever did when we were 20. And they are only 5 and 9! Sooo, I am always trying to teach them to value the dollar, and to appreciate what they have. That they have toys to play with, shoes to wear, and a warm bed to sleep in at night. Not everybody does, and they need to be THANKFUL instead of pouting when I tell them 'no' about something. This is an ONGOING discussion because unfortunately it hasn't quite sunk in yet (at least not with our older one, because she is still the queen of pout). I share all this to say that this past weekend we had an opportunity to join with the Blue Star Mothers (http://www.bluestarmothers.org/) and pack boxes that were being sent to the troops overseas. When I reminded them what we were to be doing that weekend and what it was for, T immediately began complaining "why do we have to do that, we went and helped those boys last weekend" (actually it was TWO weekends ago that we went and helped with the Christmas gift distribution at the Indian School,and if I need to remind you it was worthwhile and wonderful to help, right?!) Well, she wasn't bought into it. She was just complaining that we were spending our Saturday doing this. I kept talking to her about how the men and women are fighting for our freedom and they are away from their families and how much they will probably enjoy receiving a package from 'home', and if her daddy was over there doesn't she think it would be nice if people did this for him?  She eventually stopped complaining but I could tell wasn't really excited about it until I said her friend B could come with us. Well, that changed everything.  So we headed over there and spent about 3 hours helping pack boxes while T and the younger kids wrote letters and drew pictures to send to the soldiers as well. Afterwards I asked her what she thought and how she liked it. What a joy to hear a completely 180 out of her! She was so happy and overjoyed about what we had partaken in that day, it was so nice to see. I personally was very touched (again those tears welling up-I can't help it!) and am really glad we found out about this new way to help. I 've attached a few pictures from that day- you know I always have a camera!

Our group with some of the Blue Star Mothers volunteers. Delores (in the red, standing) was a doll! Those are some of the boxes ready to ship.



P, T, and B writing letters and drawing pictures to include in the boxes.

I also found out while I was there that they had moved to this location about a year ago and this was the first location where they didn't have to pay for rent or utilities. The corporation that owned the building gave them the whole 5th floor free of charge (just phone bill). What a blessing! (Again, the tears came up when I heard this )   I love it when those with the ability to do so, actually DO something with it and help. What a great gift! Now they have more money to use on boxes and more soldiers can be reached because they aren't having to pay for rent or utilities. That's just wonderful! Anyway, I don't know why I wrote this post except to say that I am so happy to be able to help and it gives me such a sense of joy and happiness, so much so that it makes me cry ;)  It really is true that its better to give than to receive. At least for me anyway.
In fact, all day I have been trying to devise a plan of how I can bless a particular family anonymously and not have it tracked back to me. Ha ha, this probably sounds silly. But I just want to do it, but I don't really want to be known. I just want them to receive it and reap the benefits of that gift. So I guess I'm off to figure out how to take care of that because I'd really like to get it accomplished before Christmas if possible. My husband will probably give me some grief  and tease me about it when he finds out, but the truth is he's just like me. I'm so blessed to be married to someone who has the same philosopy I have about giving and helping others :)  Being on the same page about your household, child-rearing, and finances with your spouse is such a blessing. I love him!!!!

Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree...

My trees are up. All nine of them. Yes, I said nine. No, I am not crazy. I just really love Christmas trees. (And I'm a super bargain shopper so I buy them on clearance after the season, in fact the two I added this year I bought for like $8 and $12 last year at season end. They are both 7 and 7.5 feet trees so its a super deal :)

As usual each tree has its own theme. I've compiled a collection of photos to show u them. I don't have a picture of each of the girls' trees, but I already posted those on FB some time ago, so you may have seen them there. W's is purple and T's is pink. They are both about 3feet tall and decorated like 5 and 9 year olds would decorate them. Just beautifully!

Here are the rest of the trees, or parts of them because I took close up pictures this time to show some detail of the ornaments.



This is the 'picture' tree. It is covered with ornaments that have pictures in them, primarily of the girls. This shot shows one of my favorites, its a fat reindeer with W's adorable baby face in it. You can also see the equally cute fat snowman with T's sweet smile in it.




There are even pictures of our pets (no cats yet, but I'm sure those will come eventually). Lucy is cute in her red dog house, and my lovely Alexus is remembered always in several decorations throughout our house. (There's W's school pix from this year- pre K- in the middle of a gingerbread man).




Hard to see with the lighting, but this is T's school pix from this year in this adorable little pig-tailed girl.




The 'picture' tree in full form.




The stockings were hung by the mantle with care :)  The little lighted village is above. P.S. I love these stocking hangers I got from Eddie Bauer or Lands End (forget which) several years ago. They are simple wood, but based on their shape even when the stocking is full and heavy they don't fall off the mantle. They are an engineering masterpiece :) love em!




This is the tree in our bedroom, the last few years I've been doing a gold pinecone theme on it but this year I went back to my country theme. Here is a cute shot (love the lighting) of a country snowman.



This is the top of my 'country' tree. A beautiful metal star overlooking baby Jesus in a bed of straw (lower left corner).





Big fat maroon wooden beads are strung and here you can see some giant metal jingle bells that have snowmen painted on them, all of course with gingham ties to hang them by. Definately country :)




This is my favorite baby ornament for W. It was given to me by my friend, Marlenes and has one of my fave pix of W in it. This tree is the T & W ornament tree. Every year I try to get them a new ornament , preferrably with their names on it -but that is hard to do because W's name is not as common as T's name, so finding both names on matching ornaments is becoming increasingly difficult. Anyway, most of these ornaments are hung here unless the girls have snagged them to hang on their pink and purple trees (which are in their rooms).




These are my two favorite baby ornaments for T. They were given to me by my mom and Dan's mom. One is a beautiful glass binkie and the other is a pair of porcelein (spelling worng) booties.




Here is a family picture I added this year, that was taken last year. This is on our main, big tree, which this year is primarily red, green , and white to match the presents underneath it, which u will see later.




This is my little 'Colorado' tree. Its filled with ornaments I've picked up on our many trips to Colorado over the years to either go skiing or elk hunting, or as is the case this year, from Aspen to celebrate my 40th bday. Most of the ornaments are bears or moose and are really cute. I have lots of favorites here. Love the bear manger scene at the top, and this cute canoeing bear below.




More bears and moose, several 'family' ornaments with a character for each of us.



Every year I decorate our gifts in a theme as well. For several years I have been doing lavish wired ribbon and lots of golds mixed with other colors like silver or red. But this year I went fun and kid-like, with sparkly red and green candycane stripes and sparkly red with green circles, and green with red circles. (I like paper that matches or is opposites, so it still coordinates with the other wrappings). I usually only use 2 to 3 types of paper each year so it stays consistent and 'matchy'. There I said it. :)   I like it that way though and I think it makes it pretty. Instead of lavish wire ribbons, this paper needed simple fun shiny bows and twirly ribbon so that's what I used. It matches the tree its under because that tree is primarily decorated in red, green, and white balls.

Hope you enjoyed my tree tour. There is one more to come, but its my favorite this year so it deserves a post all its own :)

The golden Christmas Tree

I've dedicated a whole post to my  favorite Christmas tree this year. The Golden Christmas Tree.

It is in my workout room so I get to enjoy its beauty every morning while I'm working out. I try to turn it on and leave the lights off in the room for a while (as long as I don't trip on the treadmill) so that I can really enjoy those lights in all their splendor. It really is beautiful. The theme is obviously, golden. There are tons of bulbs on it (the way I like it) because its not that big of a tree (only 7 feet and fairly thin in circumference). {Did I spell that right? Its funny, once you stop studying those things ie. in school, you forget how to spell them. Oh well, you know what I mean.}

As you can see in the first picture I created a topper of sparkly golden pinecones and twig branches. Hope u enjoy the photos of my favorite tree...



I love this cross ornament.



These last two photos are my favorite. I think they look so good they could be used in Christmas advertising or on a Christmas card,  don't u think so too?  :)



#1, so pretty




#2 also card worthy :)



Christmas goodies

It is Christmas time and that means its time to give. Give your time, give your money, and give gifts to those who hold special meaning to you, or those whom you want to thank, or those whom you want to bless. Of course this is something that hopefully is happening all year long, not just at Christmas. But Christmas time is when I do lots of baking (or chocolate making), and Christmas is always a good time to remind the kids that its even more important to give than it is to receive. To help the kids grasp this concept, we did a pillow-making project during our Church Christmas party this year. We made tie-pillows like those tie-blankets you are probably familiar with. The ones made out of fleece. They turned out so cute and the kids did a really good job. Here is a picture of all the kids who helped and the 28 pillows we were able to make. The pillows had several patterns such as soccer, football, bugs, flowers, teddy bears, plaid, terrier puppies, and ABC's.

This picture shows the pillows we made at the children's church Christmas party to give to kids at a local orphanage. They are super soft and cuddly. Hopefully they will bring some comfort to the kids who receive them.


For the past 3 weeks I have been making chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. I've covered pretzels, peanuts, and almonds with white chocolate and milk chocolate. I am finally done with all this  and am ready to sit back and relax. (Except I have two class parties to host this week at school and as soon as those are finished I will be home free for Christmas Playtime with my kiddos! Just in time for Christmas Break too!) I am looking forward to it :)  I've taken pictures of some of the treats I've made because (if I might say so) I think they turned out pretty cute. So here goes... 

These are some of the pretzel rods I made. Red and Green of course. Stacks and stacks of them. I think I figured I made over 13 dozen rods.




Yummy pretzels and peanuts and almonds, all covered in chocolate. These little baggies were handed out to each student in the girls' classes for their Christmas parties.




I found these 'wine' boxes on sale at the end of last year and scooped them up with the intent of using them to package my chocolate-covered pretzel rods this Christmas. They worked perfect! And they are so pretty! :)




I put these really cute stickers on each container with a Christmas greeting and our name on it with a pretty snowflake. Too cute. Can u tell I am really excited about how nice these turned out? ha ha.




At the last minute I came up with this idea to put these stickers on the baggies to help keep them closed and fresher longer.   :)




All packed up and ready to distribute. They sure are festive and pretty. I really like these containers.

 So there you have it, my Christmas 'pretties'.

Purple Potatoes?!

Have you ever seen or heard of purple potatoes before? I hadn't.

Until now.



purple parsley potatoes



I was in Reasor's today and in the produce section these cute little purple potatoes jumped out at me. I like to cook fun things that I think the girls will get a kick out of once in  a while (I have been known to make black and white spaghetti with alfredo sauce and black pasta before-and yes the girls think its neat). So when I saw those I just had to get them. Imagine. Purple potatoes at dinner! The girls thought they were cool and I was actually surprised that they were purple INSIDE too. In fact VERY purple (more than the skin). I made them into purple parsley potatoes tonight. They were very good and very tasty. In fact they were very pretty too (purple and green look surprisingly good together)   ;)

i love my new phone

I finally got a new phone a few weeks ago. Yes I was still using a razor that the back cover had broken off months ago Ha ha. Well my new phone has a touch screen, its a Samsung mesmerize or something and it allows me to have data. That means I can take photos and upload them to my blog or Facebook page immediately. It is so cool and so fun.(I know I'm behind the times and not very Techno and Even tho I don't know how to use half the stuff, its fun uploading pictures BC u know I'm a picture nut). Consequently, I've posted lots of "of the moment pictures ". I've had a lot of fun doing it. The keyboard is still too small,but its better than using the numberpad of the razor.
To sum it all up...I like my phone and I LOVE being able to upload snapshots quickly,much better than waiting for uploads from my computer.

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bff

This is a test to see if this upload will work from my phone. This picture is of t and her bff's at a Christmas party we had for them.

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Its been a long time

Well, its been a long time since I've posted, so I'll do a little catch up for you. Amazingly I only took about 47 pictures this month so there isn't that much to document ha ha. I do have a couple cute pictures to show you though. Here goes...

W got some new cowboy boots for her birthday in Oct. She has since proceeded to wear them almost EVERY day with every imaginable outfit (jeans, shorts, skirts, leggings, u name it, she's worn it).  I took a shot of this outfit because I picked up these cute argyle heart long socks on sale and it turns out they match perfectly with a red skirt and turquoise shirt creating a really cute little outfit-which would be alot cuter if u could actually SEE the socks (which tie it all together) but since W insists on wearing those boots u can't really get the full effect ha ha.

This past month my friend Marlenes and I met in TX for a weekend of shopping, movies, and pedicures. It was awesome. Here is a funny shot of the two of us trying on the same coat. I really liked this coat so I bought it. Funny thing is today I  saw someone wearing this coat in the parking lot at walmart!

Well, we couldn't have a post lately without a post about these silly cats and what our girls do to them! Here T has put a little doll bonnet and apron on Nubs (of course, the only cat who will put up with this abuse!)  Funny.

My little rock star!

Here's Nubs getting a ride in the 'trunk' of the tricycle. She was so content too, she didn't even try to jump out!

Thanksgiving creations and getting ready for Christmas

I am the homeroom mom for both the girls' classes this year. So for this year's Thanksgiving Feast in W's class I wanted to do a bunch of creative things. Such as jello jigglers shaped as oak and maple leaves in orange, red, and green for fall.

We also did leaves of cheese

And we topped it off with some mini corn and a croissant to resemble the 'cornucopia'.  Later one of the teachers said I should have cut the croissant in half to resemble it better, great idea for next time :)  Oh and don't forget the turkey shaped turkey slices!

 Now that Thanksgiving is over its time to pull out all the stuff for Christmas. If you'll recall I got 2 more new trees on sale last year after season for like $8 or something! So this year I have 9 trees up and decorated. I'll have to show u pictures because each one has a theme. I uploaded pix to fb with my new phone but I can't figure out how to download those to my computer yet so those pictures will come later :)  Here is what I was faced with when I began though...

My 'gift closet'  crammed packed with gifts for the girls (mainly) for Christmas (and other holidays). At this moment I can't even walk in there without stepping on something! In the next few days while the girls are at school I will need to pull that stuff out and get it wrapped.

This was one (of two) of my Christmas decoration storage closets. You can't tell but its crammed from floor to ceiling , front to back, with boxes. The joys of pulling all that out to get started-eek. I love decorating trees, but looking at these boxes can sometimes be intimidating, so last year to make it easier I organized all the ornaments/boxes based on themes. So now I just set each tree next to its corresponding box of ornaments and I'm good to go. That way I don't have to search for stuff or traipse from room to room gathering ornaments, they are all right there organized based on color or theme so when I change my themes or colors each year I can easily find the right box with those ornaments in it. Smart thinking, eh?  :)

And this is a cherry pie/cobbler thing I made for thanksgiving, it was so cute I just had to take a picture too :)