No Resolution In Sight

Have you made your New Year's Resolution yet? I haven't either. I have been pondering it for a couple of days now. I can come up with the usual.........EAT BETTER, EXERCISE MORE AND LOSE WEIGHT. But that is an every day endeavor. I am trying to think of something that I can really sink my teeth into. Something that I need to change in my life and actually accomplish. And my mind is blank. There are so many things that I would like to change or improve. The above mentioned getting into better shape, being more organized, being a better mom, being a better wife, keeping my house cleaner, spending more time with friends and family, finishing all the unfinished projects around my house, budgeting my money better, etc., etc. Maybe I should just make a list and check them off as I go. I don't know. One of my goals is definitely to get into better shape. I got my girls seasons passes to Roaring Springs Water Park. Therefore, I need to get rid of as much of my jello as I can. But that's not a good resolution. I'll keep thinking and when I come up with something good, I'll post it. Tomorrow's New Year's Eve, so I better get to thinking.

Gratitude

Do you like my new blog header? I asked my sister, Michelle, to make me a new header that had light blue in it. That is my favorite color. She made my other one and did such a great job on it. But, apparantly I am very picky about what I want. I think she made 3 or 4 of them that just didn't appeal to me. And then she posted a card that she made on her blog that I LOVED and asked her if she could make something like that. And she did. I absolutely LOVE my new blog header. And I am very grateful that I have a sister who is so patient and willing to do this for me. It's takes a long time to make them. Thanks Michelle! It's perfect!!

What's your Real Age?

Do you ever watch Oprah? If so, then you know who Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen are. If you don't have it already, you should get their "You, On A Diet" book. It is full of useful information on how our bodies function. And it's written so you can actually understand what their talking about. They have a web site, http://www.realage.com, where you can take a health quiz to find out what you actual age is based on health, fitness, stress, etc. After your Real Age is calculated, it will give you a health plan on how to improve your Real Age and make it better. My actual age is 37, but my Real Age is 34.6. Not too bad. Go take the test now. It's free and it's pretty interesting.

Merry Christmas

Punky Poo managed to wake me up at 5:30 this morning. 5:30 people!!!!!! I was so tired and groggy that I felt drunk. Not that I know what being drunk feels like. I've just heard stories. She was so alive with excitement, it was hard to tell her that we needed 8 more hours of sleep. And since it is almost 3 in the morning now, and I have been posting and posting and posting (trying to catch up on a very busy week), and am starting to get that drunken feeling again, I am only going to post the pictures without explanation. The jist? It was a wonderful day. The girls got what they wanted and were very happy and thankful and all was good. Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful day too!

Christmas with Flyboy's Family

Every year we spend Christmas Eve with Flyboy's family. It's nice that everyone can get together. We don't get the chance very often. Here are some pictures of the fun and festivities.

Christmas with My Family

We had Christmas at my sister's house this year. It was sort of a last minute effort. It's hard to gather everyone together. We all have different schedules and families to try to spend time with. But we managed to all get together one night. All of us except for my mom who wasn't able to join us. Here are some pictures of the blessed event.

I love my family and appreciate the time that we have to get together. It doesn't happen often enough. Merry Christmas everyone!

No More Puppy Kisses

Remember him? This is Fat Boy. My baby. My favorite who liked to give me puppy kisses and nibble on my ears and lay in my lap and fall asleep. He was the last one left. And now he is gone. He was sold on Christmas day. So long Fat Boy! May you have a wonderful life in your new home. And never forget me.

Happy Birthday to Me

I just celebrated my 37th birthday. Holy crap I'm old! Spiritually I don't feel that old. But my bodily aches and pains tell me differently. I worked on my b-day and came home to this.

Sarabeth baked me a cake. She went through all of my cookbooks to find a recipe for white cake (I don't like chocolate cake) and finally found one. Yes, she made this from scratch. My 12 year old. Silly girl. I told her we have some cake mixes in the pantry that would have saved her some time and effort. Then she used my Wilton cake decorating kit and decorated it. I think she said it took her 4 or 5 hours for the entire process. Didn't she do a fabulous job? Her first time too! Thanks Sarabeth!!

Emily got me the fluffy teddy bear so I can cuddle and snuggle with it. Jessica got me the flannel p.j.'s. They were very comfy and cozy. Sarabeth got me some really pretty earrings. I don't have a picture of them but they are awesome!

It was a very nice birthday. Except for the turning 37 part.

YUMMMM-O

So the girls and I spent all day Sunday baking Christmas goodies. I decided to take the day off work and have my girls make everything, with my supervision of course. It was sort of hectic, and a bit disorganized, but in the end we had a ton of fun.

Cast of characters. Too many to list, but you get the idea.

Sarabeth making snickerdoodles. All by herself. I didn't even have to supervise. She's so smart and capable.

Emily made rocky road.

Jessica making 7 layer cookies. Yum-O!

Here are some of our creations. All in all we made snickerdoodles, fudge, 7 layer cookies, no bake cookies, coconut macaroons, pumpkin choc. chip, and rocky road. Now I get to divvy them up and hand them out to friends and neighbors.

While we were busy measuring, mixing and baking, we were also busy trying to sell puppies. This is blue girl (she had blue beads). She was the last silver to go. Isn't she cute? But she's gone now. So is yellow girl, white girl & orange girl. Now all we have are the 4 white ones. Actually, the female is sold to someone who hasn't even seen her. They live in Colorado but will be here for Christmas and bought her for their daughter. So I guess we have the 3 white boys.

Here's Fat Boy. I've talked about him before. He's my favorite. We just may keep him and give him to Flyboy's dad for Christmas. Then we can see him grow up. He's such a sweetheart. I would keep him if I could. He likes to give me puppy kisses and he likes to nibble on my ears. He's my baby. Isn't he cute!

Stone Soup

Have you ever heard the story of the Stone Soup? Some friends ouf ours, Jeff & Heidi, invited us to their annual Stone Soup Christmas party. It was tonight. I didn't want to go. I worked all day, I was tired, and I just wanted to go home, sit down and relax. Jeff is one of Flyboy's co-workers at the flight school. And it just so happens that Flyboy's company party is tomorrow night. And all the same people were invited to both parties. Two nights in a row. So my thinking was this.....why not just have one party? Why two? It's Christmas time. Everyone has hectic schedules as it is. Why do we have to go to two parties with the same people? Well, Jeff's party wasn't a company party. It involved his friends, neighbors and his co-workers. And Jeff is a friend. We've been to several parties at his place. But I still didn't want to go. But it was important to Flyboy, so I knuckled down, buckled down and we went. And I'm glad I did.

Now back to the stone soup. They had three soup pots with boiling water and, yes, they really put stones in them. We were each to bring something to throw into the soup. Any ingredient we wanted. Meat, veggies, rice, seasoning. Anything our little hearts desired. I tried to think of something no one else would bring and decided on long grain wild rice. It was neat to see all the different things that were in the soups.

The blue pot was a beef soup. The black pot was pheasant. And the silver pot was turkey. All three had various veggies, noodles, rice, barley, sausage, etc., etc., etc. And they all tasted different. The beef was the best. It was a bit thicker and more flavorful. And the person who brought the beef, Katherine (Flyboy's boss), doesn't eat beef. And her parents are cattle ranchers. She gets all the beef she wants, but she doesn't eat it. She's really missing out. Her party is tomorrow night. I wonder what kind of food she's going to be serving? Hmmm.

Flyboy and I had a good time. As much as I didn't want to go, it was nice to get out and interact with other adults. It seems like all we do is work and sleep. Plus, it was nice to get to know his co-workers and their spouses a little better. I've met most of them in passing, but never really had any conversations with them. So tomorrow night's party should be fun. We're doing a white elephant gift exchange. That should be fun. I'll try to remember to take my camera so I can post some pictures.

Check out the Size of This One

My mother in law and her mother in law (aka Flyboy's mom and grandma) came over bearing gifts the other night. The pointsettia is from grandma. Isn't it beautiful!! I've never seen one so big.

Here it is next to our Christmas tree.

Makes my tree look tiny. And pitiful. Maybe I should move it away from my tree. Except that this is the only room in my house that isn't torn apart or in an utter state of clutter (due to the redoing of the floors). It sure is pertiful though.

I was laying on the floor next to the tree when PunkyPoo asked if she could take a picture of me. Sure, why not!

So then I told her to lay down next to me and I'd take one of us together. And this is what I ended up with.

Goofy Girl! And she has my nose. I never realized that before.

Remember the puppies? They are officially for sale. I'm ready to get rid of the 8 little twerps. They are absolutely adorable, but oh my goodness! 8 of them running rampant is just too many. They're hard to keep up with. I'm going to miss them, but it's time for them to go. They are 7 weeks old today.

They LOVE to give puppy kisses!

You know you want one.

Funny Face

This is my funny face. I have been pulling this face since I was born. Now I am using it to try to win a $40 gift certificate at Carole Axium Designs. Heather, at OMSH wants readers to post their funny faces. She will pick one and the winner will receive the GC. Fun, huh! Even if I don't win, it was fun taking the picture. I even took one of my daughter. We had fun laughing about them.

Here is my teenage drama queen pulling her funny face. Isn't she adorable?

It''s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

I can't believe it's December already. Where did the last year go? Geesh! On Sunday, we went to see the movie Enchanted. We belong to the Forresters and got to go for free. I went to work early that day and was up at 3:00 am. The movie didn't start until 3:00 pm. Needless to say, as soon as the movie started, I fell asleep. I probably slept through the first half hour. Flyboy said he couldn't hear me snoring, but I'm sure he was just being polite. I struggled through the rest of the movie. I'm sorry. But it just wasn't a good movie. Punky Poo liked it, but Sugar Booger and SB Louie didn't. I'm glad it was free. Except for the $21 popcorn and 2 drinks.

Anyhoo, after the movie, we set up the Christmas tree. The one that SBLouie and I went to get at 4:00 am on Black Friday. What a fiasco that was. I hate Black Friday. But I couldn't pass up a $100 prelit tree. It was worth it. And we did have fun. In hindsight.

Here are some photos of us decorating the tree. I need a new camera. Don and I went to Roatan, Honduras last year and my camera got soaked. I thought it was ruined. But after about a week of drying out, it worked again. Except that the pictures are sort of milky and you can sometimes see water spots. So please bear with the bad quality of the pictures.

Here I am starting to sort through the boxes

Sugar Booger hanging an ornament

Sugar Booger, Punky Poo and SB Louie

Flyboy putting the angel on the top

Doesn't it look pretty on our new floor? I love my new floor! And my Christmas tree. I fell asleep on the couch that night looking at the lights. It's so relaxing. And comforting. I love Christmas!

Sarcastic Mom

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Sarcastic Mom

We Have Flooring!!!!

Wow! Thanksgiving came and went fast. I would post pictures, but I can't figure out how to get my sisters pictures into my file to put onto here without them being thumbnail size. In other words, they are itty bitty. So.........I'll post pictures of my flooring progress. BTW, we had a very nice Turkey Day.

O.K. In my last post about my flooring saga, we were in the process of removing the old underlayment bit by bit because of the millions of staples. Well, we thought we'd be done with it by Thanksgiving. By done I mean completely done. Tile complete. But we're not even close because the underlayment is so hard to get up. It's really very time consuming. And a royal pain in the YooHoo, if you catch my drift. So I told Flyboy that we should put a hold on the tile and at least get the laminate done in the living room so that we can put up our Christmas tree. Then we can go back to working on the tile. So thats what we have been working on. Here is our progress over the last 5 days.

Here, we have removed the old carpet and now have a bare floor.

Another view of the living room with the new bare floor.

Here is our dining room piled high with our living room furniture. We had to put it somewhere. And yes, 5 days later, it is still there.

Using my mothers advice, I painted Kilz over the floor to hopefully cover the pet odor. Remember, the whole reason we are putting down laminate, is because we have German Shepherds. One of which likes to vomit on the carpet almost every other day. It will be much easier to clean off the laminate. When you have dogs, you have to make certain sacrifices. And we refuse to make our dogs stay outside all the time so out goes the carpet, in comes the laminate.

Here we go! Here is the first roll of foam underlayment.

And the first row of laminate. Flyboy is doing such a great job!

He's making pretty good progress here. Notice the red wall?

The red wall is now sage green. Isn't it pretty? I loved the red, but the green is a softer, more neutral color. And it really brings out the green in my Thomas Kinkade picture!

The room is almost complete. This is what's left to do. Isn't it pretty! I love progress!