Merry Christmas...

I didn't think I was asking too much. We were all gathered last night at my husbands parents house to exchange gifts, and it seemed appropriate. I simply clapped my hands together, and very sweetly announced that if you were apart of the " " family, then gather up front for a family photo. HA HA!!! After ten takes, I didn't have one picture where someone didn't have their eyes closed or mouth open. So, imagine that in the picture below, Greg is smiling in a normal way and Noah has his eyes open. The rest of the pictures looked like this! I.GIVE.UP!!!!! (Merry Christmas to all my friends) :)

Weekend Wrap:

We had a great weekend!  It was quite busy though.  Saturday morning, we were up early so the girls could ride our churches float in the Christmas Parade.  The twins are part of the 'Kidstuf' crew and once a month they help lead the program with singing and dance.  They love it.  Anyway, they were thrilled to ride in the float this year.  After that, we had a quick lunch at church, ran an errand, and then went to the 'Nutcracker' at the school I teach for.  Meredith sang with her school honor choir before the program.  We finished our day by going to dinner with our neighbors.  Fun day, but Mom was tired.  Here are some pics:

Noah and I shivering together....

Here is Noah's response to waiting for the parade to start:
Girls on the float:
Aren't they cute?
Their float won the overall prize for 'Best Float'.  It was such a cute one.  

Meredith singing:

Me and My girls at the Nutcracker!
Girls with one of the dancers that I teach who also is a friend of theirs from school.  Meredith's best friend from school is also in the picture along with one of our neighbor friends!    Sweet Girls!!!

Wonderful Weekend!

I have had such a nice weekend! Greg took the kids on Friday morning and left for a family reunion on his mother's side. They drove all the way to Florida. I was only too happy to stay home and enjoy the peace and quiet. Friday I took my time getting ready and straightened up the house. Around 5, CC and I went and had dinner at Macaroni Grill. We had a great time catching up. We haven't seen each other since our big weekend getaway! After dinner, we came back to my house, changed into our PJ's, made hot chocolate, and watched 2 movies. FABULOUS!!! Saturday, we got up and sat around talking and being lazy. Then we got ready and headed out for lunch at our favorite place and then did some Christmas shopping. I hadn't planned to get out in the crowds this weekend, but it wasn't too bad. Mercifully, we didn't go to the mall and I am sure that was a wise choice! Saturday night I just relaxed and did nothing! Today I have been able to get the tree up and ready for the kids to hang ornaments on. I feel refreshed and ready for the week! YAY! ;) Do I have a nice husband or what?

Thanksgiving 2008

Happy Thanksgiving! November has flown by! Noah had a Thanksgiving program at school. He was an Indian and it was precious! He did have a moment of panic when he couldn't see me. I guess I was hidden behind my video camera. ;)
The kids have been out of school this week. It has been wonderful to have no homework and no place to rush off to. I spent Tuesday and Wed. cleaning and getting ready. We hosted the big meal at our home this yr. It went well and everyone seemed to have a good time. Around 4, the women and the kids went to the movies. The kids saw 'Madagascar 2' and the gals saw 'Four Christmases' ( don't waste your $). Still, it was a good day and I ate way too much yummy food. This morning Greg left with the kids to attend his moms family reunion. He offered to go and give me the weekend off. Who am I to say no? I am waiting for my friend C to come pick me up! I am looking forward to a nice relaxing few days. I will even try to get the tree set up so the kids can decorate when they return!!! Here are some pics of the program and our Thanksgiving:
Sad face...couldn't see mommy!

Fall/Halloween Pics 2008

I am so late posting these but I wanted to put them up before I completely forgot. We had a great Fall/Halloween. We had another fun neighborhood party where I may or may not have eaten my weight in chips and dips and homemade caramel corn!!! ;) There were 2 space jumps and the kids got so much candy trick or treating, that I had to give a ton away to teachers!!!! Here are some pics from the day and also Noah's field trip to the pumpkin patch!

The girls were creative this year. Meredith was a hippie and Madeline just asked for black and orange tights and a black hat. I think she was a hip pumpkin girl or something!


Noah at his school party. He is Anakin Skywalker and his buddy is Darth Vader!


Lovely lightsaber that we bribed him with ( soccer goals...remember?)



Noah's field trip...where I may or may not have glanced at my watch 10 times wondering when it would be over. I am so not a "farm" type girl!

Coming Soon...

It has been a very busy week with my teaching schedule and normal *life* stuff! I have some Halloween pics to share, so I will get those up soon. I hope all my friends and family are having a great weekend! ;)

I voted today...

Did you?

If you haven't, please do and when you are before the ballot box, think long and hard before you cast! We can't complain if we don't do our part!

My most fabulous weekend!

I have been itching to post about last weekend (the 18-19th). After somehow surviving the twins party, I got to leave all of that behind and head off on a girls trip with my fab friend Cecilia. You have to know a few things about Cecilia and me. Whenever we are together, it usually involves several mandatory activities:

1. Eating ( we are huge fans)
2. Shopping ( again...HUGE fans)
3. Lots and lots of girl talk!
4. Finding the most ridiculous things to laugh about :)

We started off about noon. We made a Pit stop at Arby's for a delicious roast beef sandwich and some curly fries!!! I also enjoyed a HUGE diet Pepsi to try and pump myself with enough caffiene to stay awake for the upcoming concert!!




We arrived at our hotel that my wonderful hubby picked out for us. It was brand new and very nice!
After getting all of 4 hours of sleep after that blasted ( I mean wonderful) slumber party, this is all I wanted to do!!!






Cecilia however wanted to read me all of the inaccuracies in the Mormon Bible!!!





Following my lesson in Mormon doctrine, we decided to get dressed and go partake in one of our favorite activities...eating! We ate dinner at Mary Mahoneys! It was so good. We asked our waiter to take our picture. He told us he would take one with a clean table and one of us fighting over our dessert! Huh? We thought he was pretty funny!





Fighting over the raspberry cheesecake! YUM YUM!






Friends Forever!!!





THE MAIN EVENT!!! MICHEAL BUBLE' in concert!!
Check out the Micheal Buble' backdrop! The lady taking our picture suggested we get that in the picture! Good idea!




MICHEAL BUBLE'...well he did not disappoint. That man can SING!!! He even sang the last few notes of his encore without a mike. He WAS incredible!!!! ***Click this picture to see a good upclose view of his face!!!!







Adoring fans...most of which were female..hmm..wonder why???






You can see his awesome band behind him. He had this slanted stage that he would walk up and slide down. It was FABULOUS!!!



The concert was over around 11ish. We made it back to our hotel. We were tired but in great spirits. For some reason, we found a sign in the elevator particularly amusing. Something about "if you would like to read a copy of the elevator inspection notice, check at the front desk". We laughed and laughed about this. I promise we were not intoxicated...well maybe a little on Buble'!!! Ha!

The next morning we tried to sleep in but 8am was about all we could manage. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast and stuffed ourselves silly with Belgian waffles and omelets!!! Told ya we like to eat! After that we loaded the car and headed off to another one of our favorites...SHOPPING. We shopped for four hours and managed to get several great deals. I even found jeans that fit me and was so happy the saleslady had to tell me to calm down!!! ;) After that we decided to eat...AGAIN...

Here we are at Chili's. We shared the best quesadillas and a divine chocolate chip cake thing. We really know how to pack it in!!!





We drove home listening to Micheal Buble' cd's and talking non-stop. Of course, that was after I discovered that the perfect jeans I had bought were the wrong size and we had to turn around and go exchange them. You see, that is the type of friend that CC is....she didn't get mad at me, laugh, or anything. She just immediately turned the car around and headed back toward the shopping area. :) God blessed me the day that our mutual friend canceled her plans to have dinner with us. We discovered that night 10 years ago that we had alot in common and have been best buds ever since!!! She is the only friend that has visited me in every town that we have moved to! What a girl! Love ya C!!! Can't wait till our next trip!

Guess who I got to see yesterday???

CHRISTY!!! We got to have a *quick* lunch together! I miss her so much! :(

Happy 11th Birthday Twins!!!

I should have known what I was getting myself into when I received lots of laughs and sarcastic chuckles upon telling folks that M and M were having a slumber party with 12 guests. Yes, you heard right. That is 14 GIRLS including the twins. What in the heck was I thinking? It started off fine. They all arrived at 5:30, we fed them pizza, let the twins open gifts, made ice cream sundaes, and then put a movie on complete with popcorn. For some reason, around 11pm things got crazy. I had one girl crying because she missed her parents, one girl rolling her eyes telling me she was bored, and a pack of girls in Meredith's bedroom calling boys. Yes, you read that right. The only reason I know this is because one of them called on MY cell phone and when I answered he asked me "why do yall keep calling me". I tried to be the cool mom and give all the girls a mature response to this. Let me tell you that talking to 10 and 11 year old girls when they outnumber you is POINTLESS!!! Anyway, around 1:25am I made my way up to the bonus room for the 5th time and told them it was time to go to bed. They were apparently having a singing contest and promised me they were almost done. At about this time my husband finally made it home. Yes, I agreed to let him go out thinking it would be easier that way and he wouldn't be underfoot. He saw how exhausted I was and told me to go to bed and he would take care of things. I got in bed and tried to close my eyes. The next thing you know I hear what sounded like a herd of cattle rushing for the back door along with screams and shrieks. Apparently he said something to them and they took it as an invitation to grab all sleeping bags and assorted blankets and truck it out to the trampoline. I was livid. I managed to get them all back inside and upstairs. I gave Greg a glare that I am sure he will never forget and went back to bed. Ten minutes later I hear another herd of cattle and my fridge being opened and closed, chip bags being opened, girls chattering, tv blaring! I LOST it....I went out and told everyone in a firm mean mommy voice that they had to go to bed. It was 3am people!!!! Never again will I do this. I got a grand total of four hours of sleep. Now I know why my mom always said slumber parties were not a good idea!! Next time I will listen to that advice and we will go to a location far away from my house and pay a small fortune to make a mess somewhere else! :( Enjoy the pictures of the party before it got wild and crazy.....


Thankfully it was not raining, so most of the eating was done outside on the patio!!!




Who knew that pizza and non-caffienated beverages makes 10 and 11 year old girls this hyper?? I certainly didn't!




Let the gift opening begin.....




Madeline with one of the many cute gifts she received!




Meredith and Lindsey ( doorbells for your room anyone?)




Thank God for my neighbor and good friend Stacy. She not only videoed for me, but also went and picked up the SEVEN pizzas, AND stayed at my house until after 11pm keeping me sane!!!!




Sweet girls with non-stop energy!!!




I can't believe they are 11!!! We had ice cream sundaes instead of cake!!





Completely full on sugar!!!



**** The best part of the party was when it was OVER! I was then able to leave for one of the most fabulous weekends ever! More on that in my next post, complete with pictures!!! ****

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH!!!

NOAH TURNS FIVE!!! We had so much fun last week! I have had pictures to post for awhile now, but life has been CRAZY BUSY!!! I am ready for it to slow down!

Opening Presents first thing in the morning ( check out the hair)


Cupcakes for the class!


Thank you SueSue and Pawpaw for the Star Wars ship and new legos!


Thanks Aunt Kiki for Yoda and his horse.



Thanks Ga Ga and pawpaw for the Optimus Prime and Megatron Transformers!!!



Thank you sisters for the C3-P-O Star Wars Figure!!!



Me and the Birthday Boy!


Birthday Party at the park complete with 'Transformers' cake!!!


IT'S FABULOUS TO BE FIVE!!!