Christmas / Holiday Break

New WordArt packs in the store today! Click HERE to give it a look see :)

Hey there :) Yeah, it's gonna be brief today :) Or should that be :( My poor head. When I woke up this morning, I actually felt pretty good, head wise. Tired, yes. But not in pain. I got kids to school, then went back to sleep, and woke up at 8:45am. Oops. Kari was coming to get me at 9am!

Luckily, she was running a bit behind. I hurried and got ready, and she and I went for our hike exercise. We started on one trail, lost it somewhere in the middle, and ended up on the trail we hiked that first hiking day with Laurie. hehe. Oh well, it was a GREAT workout :)

Since we were already on the West side (practically), we headed to the Disney store. Kari's relative had sent Money for her kids for Christmas, and she was gonna get Josephine a few things from the Disney store. So we swung by there to grab the stuff she wanted, briefly popped into the Jewelry Box, then headed home.

Captain America had just got home when I got home, and we had lunch together. We watched the tail end of a movie with Jimmy (he didn't go to school today), and Captain America went back to work. And I napped the rest of the afternoon. Yeah, I wasn't feeling so good. And I must have been more sick than I thought. Maybe I have what the kids do? I don't know. All I know was that I was exhausted.

And when I woke up, my headache was kinda back. Maybe it was lack of caffeine (oops)? I don't know. I had a soda, and took it easy the rest of the day. The kids came home, and I found these photos on Facebook. Laurie has a kid in Joe's class, and must have went to the Christmas Party. So I have a few pictures :)






The other kids all said that their parties were pretty good :) They came home with a TON of goodies. And yeah, since my head was hurting SO much, I admit that i ate more than I should. I'm gonna have to watch that. I don't wanna gain back the weight that I lost.....

Anyway, the kids and I watched a movie together, Captain America took a nap after PT (he was tired too), and here it is, 7pm. I'm gonna finish up this post, and lay back down. Captain America and I wanted to go to the outlets tonight (he needed new running shoes), but I really dont feel up to it, and he wanted to go with me :) Maybe tomorrow night.

One more thing. Check out these shelves/drawers/closet thingys that I found on a site on Facebook that my sister likes. Cool, huh? I wanna see if Captain America can make them for me.
Here's a cool layout by my Freebie Preview Maker, Sharon. Yeah, I know, she's AMAZING!


Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Orchestra / Band / Choir Concert

It seems like every time I turn around, I'm complaining about having a migraine.... Maybe I should just embrace the pain and stop complaining. hehe :) Just kidding :)

I was feeling SO sick last night, and didn't wanna get up in the morning. Joe was sick still, and not going to school, so I didn't need to get up and get him ready, and Eme and Tom are able to get themselves ready, so all I had to do was make sure they were good, and tell them when to leave, and I totally went back to bed.

Joe was dozing on the couch, watching a movie with Jim, and Jake was doing school when I finally woke up. It was a lazy morning, all in all. One that I needed. But it didn't last long - ha!

I decided that in the hour I had before yoga, that I'd make some cookies. I was gonna make 2 or 3 different kinds of cookies for Teacher Presents for Christmas, and needed to make cupcakes for Tom's class. So I figured that getting one kind of cookies out of the way was a good plan.

I wanted to make peanut butter cup mini cookies. I had the mini muffin liners. I had the stuff for the cookies. And I had the peanut butter cups. Or so I thought. When I pulled the bag out of the cupboard, there were 6. Yeah, that was SO not how many I needed. ha! Someone had been in my cupboards, raiding it, I think...

So I grabbed Jimmy, and he and I headed to the store. We had JUST enough time to pick up some more peanut butter cups, and get back home in time for his bus. We went to Big Lots, because it was close, but they didn't have peanut butter cups. They did have some cupcake caries that I wanted. But there were like 10 people in line for the 1 register that was open, and I really didn't have time to wait.

So we put our stuff back, and headed to Family Dollar. They had the candies I wanted AND the same cupcake carrier! Score it! We didn't have to wait in line at all, paid, and headed home.

I got Jim ready for the bus, made sure Joe and Jake were doing well, and headed to the bus. Kar picked me up at the bus stop, and she and I headed to Yoga. It was good today. Twists. I liked it :)

And we headed home right after yoga, and Captain America met me there. We had lunch at home real fast, and he and I drove over to the West side for our couples counseling session. It was a pretty good one. I did get my feelings a little hurt when we talked about activities we did together. He felt that he was trying hard to enjoy the things that I liked, and that I wasn't trying hard enough to try and enjoy the things that he liked. I just thought that he kinda liked the stuff that I liked too. I guess I need to make more of an effort with his stuff, right? Sports stores aren't terrible, and I could probably handle guitar center a bit more. The auto store is still hard to stomach, though. hehe :)

Anyway, I was a little upset, and didn't really feel like chatting on the way home. I wasn't mad at him, per se, but I was a little upset. We stopped for a soda, and headed home. He had to change and run to PT, and I started baking. And almost instantly felt better. I can clear my mind while I bake, and think. It really relaxing for me :)

I started by making the peanut butter cookie mix. And I had Jim help me put the muffin liners in the mini muffin pans. And then I put in the cookie dough, and Jim helped me unwrap the chocolates, and press them into the cookies. They really turned out GOOD! Maybe a new favorite cookie of mine - hehe :) Here's the recipe.

And after the cookies, I made the cupcakes for Tom's class. Butter pecan cupcakes. I only filled them about 1/2 full, since last time they were WAY too full when they cooked. And I got 36 cupcakes out of 1 box of cake mix. Not too shabby :)

They were all done cooking when Tom and Eme got home from school. I let them cool, and made some Banana bread. And put it in mini loaf pans (1/2 the batter) and cooked the first batch (I only have 4 mini loaf pans).

After the cup cakes were cooled, I cut the tops off of them to make them all even. Yeah, they STILL cooked up too big - hehe. Oh well. The kids had fun eating the tops :)

I started on the 2nd batch of banana bread, and made the frosting for the cupcakes. I had store bought frosting for the tops of the cupcakes, but I wanted homemade frosting for the decorative stuff.

I put 2 cans of apple pie filling into a bowl, and cut up all the apples into tiny chunks (with scissors, yeah, VERY messy). Then frosted the tops of the cupcakes with the store bought frosting. Then spooned the apple pie filling on top of the cupcakes. Then used the homemade frosting to decorate it, making it look like mini pies. SO cute :)

And I was able to fit 32 of them into the 2 cupcake holders that I bought. And I put them in the fridge for the night. There were enough extras for all the kids and Captain America to have one. Yummy!

And then I popped one of the homemade pizzas into the oven. I had 1 leftover pizza from Monday's party, and tonight was the PERFECT time to use it. I baked it up, and then made Chocolate Crinkle cookie dough while it was cooking.

At one point, I dropped the platter that was holding my powdered sugar, and made a HUGE mess on the floor. Luckily (I guess), Jimmy was there to help me clean it up - ha! Who needs a dog!

And then I cooked up 6 dozen crinkle cookies, and we were done! I put all the cookies into the holiday containers I'd bought, and put the banana bread in the decorative bags that I bought. There are 4 kids in public school, and they each have 2 teachers. So that's 8 teacher gifts. And they were gonna look SO cute when finished :)

BUT, it was time for Wednesday night activities. Captain America was home by then, and the kids changed clothes and got ready, and we all headed out. I took all 5 kids in my truck, and Captain America followed behind in his truck. It needed a few things fixed, so he was gonna drop it off at the mechanic. And I was gonna drive him back home.

Anyway, we went to the church, dropped off the kids (Jake and Eme - apparently there was no 11 yr old scouts, so not Tom), and we followed Captain America over to the mechanic place.

After dropping off the truck, we headed to the store. I wanted to get some swim goggles and ear plugs, and knew that Captain America enjoyed sports stores, so I was making an effort to try and do things that he liked too. So we went to a little strip mall that had Big 5 (sports), Big 8 (food), and Family Dollar. We needed to buy store bought snacks for 3 of the kids' classes. Only Tom could have homemade snacks. Hmpf!

Anyway, Jim was hacking and coughing, and when we pulled into the parking lot, he said he needed to puke. He managed to hold it long enough to get out of the truck, and totally puked all over the ground. Nasty! At least it wasn't in my truck.

So we went to Family Dollar, got some snacks for the kids' classes, and some cough drops, and some cough medicine. And paid, and got Jim hooked up with some drugs - hehe :) And then went to Big 5 for the swim goggles. And the boys had fun looking around at all the sports stuff.

Check out this HUGE chair we found - hehe.







Jim started to feel icky again, so I took him to the truck while Captain America and Tom paid. I gave Joe some cough medicine too, and buckled everyone in the truck. And soon we were off to Howdys for a refill. Captain America ran inside, and I stayed in the truck and tried on my new goggles. I'm hot, huh?


Then back to the church to pick up Eme and Jake, then home. Jim was TOTALLY asleep by the time we got home. Poor little thing.

I packaged up all the teacher presents so it looked pretty, and attached the ornaments to the food. Pretty, huh?



Captain America put the little kids to bed, and the older kids cleaned up the VERY messy house. And here it is, almost 10pm, and I'm just no getting done blogging. My head is KILLING me, and I haven't yet decided whether it's a stress headache or if my neck is sore from swimming. Either way, I already took migraine meds once today, and it's back. Hmpf! I don't like that at all...

I'm gonna tie this up, because I seriously thing I'm gonna puke. I think I"ll go take some meds, and go to bed. Sounds like a good plan! I need to be well enough to go hiking tomorrow with my girls!

And yeah, I still don't have the concert pics from Captain America's phone. BUT, I made a wordart to go with it - hehe :) I hope you enjoy!

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the zip file with all 3 png's included, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Fabulous layout by my Daily Preview Maker, Sharon! Glad your feeling a tad bit better, hon!

Baby Shower

Oh, My, Busiest day ever! girls :) hehe :) Yeah, I don't think I could have possibly crammed one more thing into my day. Yeah, that's probably why I'm battling a migraine right about now - hehe. There's something to be said about "slowing down" the pace of life a bit, you know...

Anyway, my alarm went off at 6:40am, and I read my scriptures, and re-set my alarm for 7:15am. Bad, I know. Especially since I had things to do this morning, and the kids needed to be on the bus at 7:30am. I think I was sleepy because I took a benadryl last night. I was SO itchy on my back, for some reason. Anyway, I eventually crawled out of bed, got the kids ready enough, and on to the bus. That 6 hour energy drink I took may have helped out a bit.....

And then I started making cupcakes. I TOTALLY should have started at 7am, but they didn't go into the oven until about 7:40am. That was gonna throw off my time line a bit.

Anyway, I took a strawberry cake mix, and prepared it according to the directions on the box. Then, I took 1-8 oz package of Cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 egg, and 1 tsp vanilla, and blended it all together. And a bit of the extra batter, too. So it was slightly pink.

And yeah, I totally filled the cup cake papers WAY too full. Next time, I'm just gonna do it 1/2 way. Cause when you dollop in a scoop of the cream cheesey mixture, it overflows. Not to self, right?

I baked them, and yeah, the exploded. Luckily, it didn't look too bad. I was SURE that they'd taste good, reguardless of how they looked. I left them on a cooling rack to cool, changed into my swim suit, left Jake doing school and Jim watching a movie, and headed out to the pool.

Here's me on the way, thinking WHAT am I doing at 8:20am, driving to the pool, in the middle of winter. Sure, it's an El Paso winter (hehe), but it's still winter, and I was chilly.

Kari and I swam for about 45-50 minutes, and yeah, I was still off schedule. BUT, I did get my 20 1/2 laps in! And it felt SO good. But I know that i'm gonna be SUPER sore and tight tomorrow. I really need to stretch some...

Here's me, all finished with my laps, and ready to head home and hop in the shower real fast. This was at 9:25 ish.

I got home as quick as I could, and showered and got ready. I had 15 minutes, but took about 25. AND I didn't even really fix my hair, hence the hat. I love my huge hat. hehe :) It fits my ginormous head :)

I finished up getting ready, grabbed my purse, made sure the boys were still good (and gave them strict instructions about getting dressed for the baby shower and shoes and backpacks ready and such), and headed out the door. It was 10am.

And I went to the commissary, and picked up some diapers and wipes for a shower gift, and some strawberries and some strawberry frosting, and headed to the check out. And I was done and back home by 10:25am. Yeah, not as speedy as I'd hoped, but not too bad...

I blended a package of cream cheese with about 3/4 cup of powdered sugar, and a little bit of milk until smooth, then added a container of strawberry frosting. Looked pretty yummy.

I frosted the cup cakes, and sliced up a strawberry and topped it (Jake helped), then we were ready to go. Jake and Jim got in the truck, I grabbed the food, and off we went.

We got to Terra's house, dropped off the food, and realized that I'd forgotten the drink thingy. Crap! I grabbed the kids, dropped Jake and Jim off at the bus stop (since it was not 10:50am), and headed back home. I grabbed our drink thingy, picked up Jake from the bus stop, and he and I headed back to the baby shower.

Here's the cupcakes that I made. Yeah, Captain America said that they were the BEST cupcakes that he'd ever eaten. I'm just saying....
There were quite a few people at Heather's shower. I know her from the old ward we were in. She's a fun girl, from South Carolina (i think - somewhere down south...). She has 2 little girls, and is prego with baby girl #3. Her's Heather :)

Becky and I

Here's me showing Terra how fun it is to pose for pictures - hehe :)

Laurie and I BOTH had hats on today! ha! It was hat day, I guess!

Terra and I

Opening presents

These slipper shoes were FREAKIN' adorable!!!

This is one of Terra's twins. Yeah, I don't know which one. But apparently she's the shy one. And she LOVED me :) hehe. I held her for about the last 45 minutes of the party, and she snuggled with me, and it was SO cute! And no, I don't want another baby.... ha!

Here's a game we played. Yeah, I totally just drew lines to connect the names to the meanings randomly. And I got 1 out of both sets right - hehe :)

Karin and I. She's 22 weeks prego with a little girl. Awe...

At 2pm, I got a text from Maggie saying that the school had called her as an emergency contact for me, saying that Joe had a fever and a cough and needed to come home. Whaaat? Why didn't they call me?

So I headed home from the party, and went to pick up Joe from school. I checked my voicemails, and yup, there was the message. Strange thing, though, because there was NO record on my call log that they'd called. Isn't that strange???

Anyway, I picked up Joe (fever of 100.2) and we headed home. I gave him some more cough syrup and some tylenol, and set him up on the couch. Jake picked up Jim from the bus stop, and I laid down for about 30 minutes. I was feeling pretty sleepy. I think the energy drink was wearing off...

At 3:30pm, it was time to pick up kids from the bus, and head to the library. I left Jake and Joe at home (they were working on Joe's bike in the garage (yeah, the meds must have kicked in...)), took Jim, picked up Tom and Eme from the bus, and Kari's son Leo (Kari had a doctors appointment for Josephine, and I figured it would be MUCH more enjoyable for Leo to come to the library with us than go to the dr with his mom and sister) and asked Laurie if her 1st grader and 3rd grader wanted to come with us to the library too. So, I had left 2 of my kids at home, and still ended up with 6 kids at the library - ROFL!

Laurie headed to pick up her middle schooler and said that she'd meet us there at the library in about 30 minutes, and we headed on over. We watched a Discovery channel show on Mega Planes. It was pretty cool, actually. Those planes were HUGE!

The kids had goldfish crackers and pretzels and capri suns for snack, and I designed my daily freebies from today up to Sunday! Yes, I'm ahead - hehe :)

Laurie got there a few minutes before the show was over, and we chatted for a bit, then took kids home. Leo came back to our house. Tom started on his Britian project, and I cooked up some leftovers for the kids for dinner. With some garlic bread and carrots. And I had a cheese sandwich and cucumber. Since I'd eaten baby shower food for lunch. Not so good for the ole diet, you know....

BUT, I must say, that I am SO proud of myself for leaving my chocolate in my baking cupboard alone. About 3 times today, I had an almost overwhelming urge to go and eat it all. And that wouldn't have been good. I don't wanna start getting obsessive about eating again. I need to get back on my menu, and stick with it. There's safety in the rules of my diet, you know...

Anyway, Captain America came home at 5pm, and Kari came to pick up Leo shortly after that. Captain America showered and got ready (yeah, he's gotta do that twice a day now, since they moved PT to 3:30pm), and at 5:25pm, Eme and Tom and Captain America and I headed out to the Choir/Orchestra concert. First one of the year for Tom.

We dropped the kids off early at 5:30pm, and Captain America and I proceeded to Howdys to get a refill, then rushed back to the concert at 6pm. And got there JUST in time.

Here's me with my Howdys refill :) DDP, I love you...

I left my phone in the car charging, so I don't have any pics of the concert. Captain America has those. I'll grab them from his phone tomorrow, and put them on tomorrows blog. He even took some movies of the songs. It was pretty nice.

And the Orchestra and Choir was done in 15 minutes. Dang, that's fast! We took Eme and Tom, and left right before the US kids performance. Tom had his project to complete, and Captain America and I needed to do a little bit of Christmas shopping.

We dropped the kids off at home at 6:30pm, Captain America went in and got kids situated for bed and the evening, then he and I headed out to shop.

First stop, Walmart.
Check out these AWESOME Christmasy bandanas that I found. I love me some bandanas, you know...

Zebra AND Army snuggies? hehe

Is it really that hard to crack an egg?

We finished off our boy Christmas shopping list, and picked up a few things for Captain America's packing plans to deploy (those vacuum seal bags) and some more soda and a few food type items, and yeah, it was a lot of stuff for only having 4 things on our shopping list.... Geeze!

And then we headed to the Dollar Tree, but needed to stop for ANOTHER Howdy's refill. Yeah, this is #2 for the day. hehe. Really, Captain America is drinking most of my soda and his - hehe :)

I'm making those Pie Cupcakes for Tom's class on Thursday, and I knew that Apple Pie Filling was only a dollar at the dollar tree, AND I wanted some more bread. They had bagels AND english muffins there. sa-weet!

And, of course, since Fallas is RIGHT next door, we had to stop there. And then we headed over to Hobby Lobby. Eme has really taken an interest in Art, so we decided that Art supplies would be a PERFECT gift for her. AND, since my dear husband has his degree in Art, what better person to pick out an Art gift!

We were there until the sales associates had to round us up and kick us out of the store - ROFL! And I think, had they not, we'd STILL be there. Captain America is dangerous in an artsy store - ROFL!

We paid and headed home, trunk full of Holiday purchases. It's now 11:40pm, and I'm ready for bed. My head started hurting on the way home, and after a neck rub, and some pain meds, and icing it, it's feeling a tad bit better.

I'm thinking that I need to slow down a bit. Life is getting pretty hectic, and will only continue to do so, I think. Especially during this next month, before Captain America deploys. He heard a rumor that the date for deployment was moved up by about a week. Nice :( Well, I guess it's gotta come some time, I guess.

Here's a FABULOUS layout by Sharon. She's been SO sick lately. Girl, you really should be resting, not slaving away for me, you know..... :)

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Party Definition

Hey there! How was your day??? Good, I hope! Mine was pretty awesome - hehe :)

Started off at 6:40am, read scriptures, said prayers, and went back to bed till 7am - hehe. I got up, got kids ready and out the door to the bus, and hung around straightening things up until 8am.

Then Jim and I headed out the door to the commissary. Really, I needed to go grocery shopping, but didn't have time today. It was the day of my christmas party, and I needed some supplies. So I just got some baking items and a few essentials. Cereal and eggs and apples and such. Enough to tide us over for a while.

And after the commissary, Jim and I headed to the Dollar Tree. We picked up some table clothes and some spoons and forks and some under $3 gifts. I got extras so if someone forgot a gift for the exchange :) Works for me :)

I also got some poster boards for Tom's project. He'd asked for it, so I picked some up :)

And then we headed back home, and set about cleaning and cooking. I swept real good, and did some dishes, and Jake cleaned the bathroom, and organized the dining room, and things looked pretty good.

Kari came over around 11am, right after I took Jim to the bus, and she helped me cook for a bit. I was making a chocolate cheesecake cake, and I had Kari make the Rice Crispy treats, Gingerbread flavored. I bought some gingerbread marshmallows a while back, and they made the treats taste SOO good :)

For the cake, I used a normal triple chocolate cake mix, and prepared it as directed on the box, and poured the batter into a baking pan. Then, I took 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 8 oz cream cheese, and 1 egg, and blended it VERY well. Then added 1/2 a bag of chocolate chips. And spread the mixture over the cake batter. And baked for about 45 minutes. Yea, it was SOOOO yummy :)

And I made some homemade pizza. 3 of them, 2 cheese, and 1 pepperoni. And then people started to show up. Kari brought a cheese lasagna. Mmmmm! Charlotte brought cheese and spinach stuffed shells (DIVINE). Becky brought broccoli salad (MY FAVORITE!!!). Laurie brought a pizza (whole wheat, and WONDERFUL!). Yeah, we had PLENTY of food :)

Yeah, I'm older than 9, but it was the only candle I could find - ROFL! I'll take 9....

We ate, and did our gift exchange , and had a lot of fun visiting and chatting. I ended up with Santa and Mrs Claus salt and pepper shakers. SOOOO stinkin' cute!

And Laurie got me Victoria secret lotion for my b-day, and Kari got me some NICE pillow spray and some Body Dew oil (MY FAVORITE!), in a flavor I didn't have. SOOO sweet, girls! Thanks!

Captain America got to come home for lunch, so I saw him for a few minutes. He ate some lunch, and back to work he went. At 2:30pm, I ran to the bus stop to pick up Jim, then headed back to the party. Jim was excited to play with Rowan (Laurie's son) for a bit! At around 3:15pm, everyone headed out to pick up kids from school.

I cleaned up the mess (Kari had helped quite a bit to organize and wash the dishes - thanks hon!) and then all the kids came home on the bus. I guess AQ was cancelled for the week. Sweet! Veronica, who shares AQ duties with me, went to Kentucky for Christmas, so now I don't have to pick my kids up at all this week. hehe.

Kids ate some party food, then changed clothes, and we headed on up to the pool. And yeah, once we got there, walked inside, the lady behind the desk told us that it was TOO full. Whaaaat? PT people were always there, but it DID look a little more crowded than usual. She said to come back after PT. Hmpf! Jim was crying that he wanted to stay, and the big kids were fighting about who got to sit in the front seat of the truck. I really just wanted them to swim so I didn't have to field complains for an hour - hehe.

We headed home, I texted Kari and told her that the pool was "closed" until around 4:30pm, and we hung at home until it was time to go back. And it was a nice break at the pool. Kari and I sat and chatted while the kids swam and tired themselves out - hehe. That's our master plan, you know!

And we headed home. Captain America had just gotten home, and was eating dinner. I fed the kids pizza (go figure, huh? hehe) and had yogurt myself. Yeah, I'd eaten WAY too much food already, and had a tummy ache. I thought that the yogurt would help :)

And it's now 7:08pm. I'm not sure what we're doing for the rest of the evening. We need to look for our christmas ornaments in the garage. And I need to go on a walk for exercise. But I'm feeling VERY sleepy. I think it's from all of the carbs I consumed today. Yeah, NOT repeating that one tomorrow. They make me feel sick! The birthday celebration is OFFICIALLY at an end. hehe. Back to my normal eating plan...

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. thanks!

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Christmas Cards

Hey there all! How was the weekend? Was it grand? I sure hope so! Christmas is SO quickly approaching, you know...

Anyway, it was a good day for me. I woke up and spent a lazy morning getting ready for church. We left the house at noon-ish, and got there plenty early. Eme wasn't feeling well, so she and Captain America stayed home.

Church was good. I enjoyed Sacrament meeting, and ended up ditching Sunday school to make copies and discuss our upcoming Ward Christmas Party this Saturday with the Activities committee chairperson, Lynnette. She's pretty nice :)

For Relief Society, I hung with Charolette, but got called out 30 minutes into it for the Priesthood Preview meeting. All of the boys who will turn 12 in 2011 (Tom - 11/05/11) were supposed to come with their parents to this meeting. It was pretty nice.

After church, we all went home. I started dinner for the kids, and was gonna make a cake for us, but I was feeling tired, so I went and napped.

I got up at 5pm, fed the kids, made myself some dinner, and watched a bit of a movie with the fam. Then went and took a HOT bath with bubbles (Thanks, Kari, for the bubble bath stuff!), and read my book for a while.

At around 6:30 or 7pm, the kids and I cleaned the house and got chores done. I had a MOUNTAIN of laundry to fold. And I'm having people over tomorrow for a Christmas Party, so I didn't want it to be completely trashed. It's only partly trashed now - ha!

And here it is, 8:45pm. Everyone is asleep in bed, and I'm hanging on the couch. As soon as I finish this up, I'm gonna watch an episode of Glee, I think :)

I've only gotten a few Christmas cards this season, but I guess if you don't send any out, you can't expect to get any back, right? hehe :)

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Birthday Celebration

Hey all! We had a WONDERFUL time on our trip this weekend, and the temple was amazing! LOVED every minute of it :)

We were up and on the road by 10am (yeah, little bit of a late start), and got into the town where the temple was (the name slips my mind) around 11:30am. We went to lunch at Golden Corral, then headed to the temple.

We made it in time for the 12:30pm session, which was in spanish. Oops. hehe. Good thing they had head sets with translation! LOL!

And after words, we took a few pictures. Aren't we cute!




And then we headed back to El Paso. It was about a 4 hour drive, and we stopped a few times for potty breaks. We ate dinner at a gas station with an Arbys, and got BIG sodas. Yeah, I think I hit my caffeine limit for the weekend - hehe.

And we sang Christmas Songs ALL the way home. Here's us, belting out O Holy Night - ha!

We got back into town at 8pm, and traded cars at home. Not everyone fits in the saturn - hehe. We got the Surburban, and picked up Eme, then Jake and Tom, then Joe, and finally Jim, and headed back home. It was SO nice to have everyone back together again.

We helped the kids put their stuff away, said family prayers, and put the kids to bed. I was very sleepy, but we had a few things we needed to get before the Sabbath. We don't shop on Sunday, so we needed to go now. We got soda (yeah, essential, you know...) and splenda.

And Captain America got me a birthday card and some flowers, too. What a sweet man :) And we headed home. It's now 11:17pm, and I'm tired. I have WAY more pictures from our trip, and maybe I'll put more on tomorrow, but for right now, I'm going to sleep - hehe :) Good thing church doesn't start until 12:30pm tomorrow. I'm TOTALLY sleeping in :)

Oh yeah, and it's my birthday - hehe. I'm 35 today :)

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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