The Anticipation Grows

5 New WordArt packs, 3 of which are Christmas themed!!! woohoo! Click HERE to go to my store :)

Layout by Sharon

Hey there! Did I tell you about my itchy chin/throat last night? I can't remember? Anyway, I took benadryl to get the itching under control, and yeah, I was OUT. LOL! It's been here since about the 10th of December. And I don't know why. Somedays it's not too bad. Somedays it drives me crazy.

My mom told me today that she thinks it's eczema. That she has it on her face too, and that cortizone cream helps. Hmmm. I wonder if the pool water is irritating it.... I don't know. I looked up pictures of ringworm, and it doesn't look like what I have. More like heat rash, but it's not going away so fast. I don't know. My mom's explanation of eczema sounds plausible...

Anyway, I slept in. WAY slept in. hehe. It was the drugs. I think I finally crawled out of bed around 10:30am. I KNOW! I just couldn't get myself going. I contemplated an energy shot to counteract the effects of the benadryl, but settled on a Diet Dr Pepper. I got some food, and Captain America stayed with the kids, and Eme and I went grocery shopping. Because we were OUT of food.

I like to go grocery shopping 4 times a month, once a week. Like clockwork. And get the same things each time. And it's about $200 each time I go. But I haven't been regular grocery shopping in AGES. So I knew that the bill would be a bit higher today...

I was a bit worried about going to the commissary on the day before Christmas Eve, but Captain Americaassured me that it would be fine. "Half of post is gone for the holiday", he assured me. Well, guess what, sweetheart? The other half of post was at the Commissary - ROFL! It was SO crowded! I was glad that I didn't have anything pressing to do.

Eme and I got all of the stuff for the week, and all of the stuff for Christmas (Tacos), and all of the stuff for Christmas Eve food. And headed to the check out. And yeah, we didn't make it too far, because the line was backed up to the dairy section!!! Holy cow! There were probably 20 people in front of us! But it was moving super fast. The commissary has everyone in one line, and when you get to the front, THEN you go to the individual register. It controls the line much better.

Anyway, it only took about 5 minutes in line. Because they had SO many cashiers open. Smart. Very smart. Here's our mountain of groceries :)
I let Eme pick out a treat at the check out, and she picked bubble gum. She seemed real pleased with the choice, and showed me how she could blow bubbles all the way home :) We got home, and I told her that because we shopped for it, that someone else had to carry it inside. She liked that idea a lot - ROFL!

So she went to the backyard to play with Boxer, and the boys carried in the groceries, and I put them away. It was a great system :)

And it was a pretty lazy day from there. I know that both Eme and Tom spent some time at the park playing, and there was a lot of Wii and computer time spent. And I baked. And the dog napped. ROFL!

I made rolled out sugar cookies, and they really turned out pretty good! I used to not have much luck with them, but this batch turned out SO yummy :)

1 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups white sugar

Mix with beater until creamy.

Add 4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

and mix until very smooth.

Add 5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Mix until a soft dough is formed. Split into 5 chunks.

Place one chunk in between two layers of waxed paper, and roll out. Repeat with remaining chunks. Place in the refrigerator to chill.

Cut out with cookie cutter, and bake in a HOT oven at 400 for 6 minutes. I made my cookies kinda thick, and they turned out PERFECTLY.

For frosting, I used:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk

Blend together, and color as needed. I made some red and some yellow, and left the rest white. My cookies were starts and snow men and candy canes and bells. It made close to 5 dozen cookies. A little less.


I also made fudge today. It wasn't a milk chocolatey one, because I can't resist that, and was afraid that I'd eat it all. Plus, I can't keep milk chocolate chips in my house. The temptation is WAY too high. Semi-sweet? Yeah, not so much - hehe.

Anyway, here's the recipe for this one:

1-1/2 bags of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Place in a medium sized sauce pan, and heat until smooth. Add:

A dash of salt
1 and a 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix well, and pour into a waxed paper lined 8x8 baking pan. Chill for a few hours, then cut into small chunks. It was actually pretty good. But you didn't wanna eat more than a square - hehe. Mom, you'd LOVE it :)
I also made a Pecan pie today. Because I LOVE them. I used a frozen pie shell, and the following recipe:

1 cup of broken pecans, placed in the bottom of a pie crust

Combine:
3 eggs
1 cup caro syrup
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup melted butter (or margarine)
1 tsp vanilla

Mix with beater until smooth, then pour into the pie shell over the pecans. Bake at 350 for about an hour. Mmmmm!

And I ate WAY too much of what I baked. I'll tell you this much, come December 26th, I'm BACK ON MY DIET. Because I'm up a few pounds, and I can tell. My pants are a bit snug. And I don't like it - hehe. But I"m eating my yummy food Christmas Eve and Christmas day, that's for sure :) hehe.

I loaded my store while sitting on the couch with the family watching "The Tale of Desperaux" or however you spell that... It was a pretty good movie. I'd never seen it before.

After the movie, it was about 8pm, and we put the little kids to bed, and let the bigger kids stay up and watch another movie. And Captain America and I took stock on what Christmas presents we had for what kids, and which were lacking. And made a mental list of who and what we needed.

And we headed out to the store. I'd forgetten the BBQ sauce for the meatmalls, and the taco shells for the tacos. Yeah, that's kinda important for tacos, right? hehe.

First stop, Bassett center for the Jewelry Box. Eme had drawn my name, and she told her dad that she wanted to buy me something from there, or something for cooking. And Captain America thought that we had a $5 cap, so the Jewelry Box would have been perfect. But I told him that it was a $10 cap, and that changed things. I could get something baking related for that much. So we went to Target.

And found the COOLEST frosting gun. For only $4.48. And headed to the front of the store. HOLY LINES, Batman! Yeah, I wasn't gonna wait in that long of a line. So we ditched the frosting gun, and headed out.

We drove to the Pirate Walmart (because it's on Yaarrrrborogh) for the last few things on our list. And it was busy. Very busy. Sigh. Oh well, I guess everyone else procrastinated till the last minute, too!

You'd better watch it, or I'll get you with my light saber!

And Captain America bumped into a guy from Basic Training in the toy isle! How cool is that - hehe. We chatted with him for a few minutes then went about our business. We found a few toys for a few kids, and I got a set of 3 spring form pans (cause I didn't have any yet) for only $9, and we got the last few food items we needed, and headed to the front of the store. O.....M.....Gosh.......


This is the check out. It was SO crazy! I counted and there were 11 families in line with us. Families. Not people with one or two things. People with carts full like ours. BUT, the dude from basic just happened to be in line behind us, so we spent the time visiting with him. We had about 30 minutes to catch up - hehe.

And then we headed back to the car. And yeah, we'd parked in the garden section, so it was a VERY long walk back to the car - hehe. Because all of those entrances were closed. Oh well. We walked fast. Because the temperature had dipped into the 50's, and the wind had picked up, and my flip flopped feet were FREEZING - hehe.

We got home around 11:30pm, and Boxer was excited to see up :) He'd been sleeping on the couch. What a good boy! The kids were all sound asleep, and we started wrapping things. And I grabbed my computer, and here we sit. Me blogging, Captain America wrapping presents, listening to Christopher Parkening, a classical guitar player, on Captain Americas phone. Such a nice, relaxing time :) We needed it, after the super madhouse that was Walmart on Christmas Eve's Eve.....

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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Layout by Sharon :) Thanks, hon!

Strolling Along

Why hello there! Hope this post finds you all happy and healthy and ready for Christmas! I can't believe that it's almost Christmas! 70 degree weather isn't helping that cause any, though- ROFL!

Anyway, I woke up around 8am, and chatted with my mom for a little bit. She was on her way to work. I hadn't chatted with her in a few days, so it was nice to catch up. My sister and her two little girls had flown out for Christmas at my parents house in Oregon, so I heard how busy everyone was :) Sounded like they were having a great holiday season :)

Kids were doing fine, most of the chores were done, and they were playing games and watching movies. I have such great kids :)

Captain America and I got ready for our exercise, and soon headed out for our hike in the mountains. I was SO excited to take him on a hike. The one that Laurie and Kari and did on this side of Transmountain. It's one of my favoritests.

We stopped by housing first, to see what the procedure was for registering a dog on Ft Bliss. We have 10 days to get him signed up with the Vet on post. We'll go over tomorrow and show them the paperwork.

And then we headed to the hiking trail. We paid the fee, and decided that we needed the year pass. It would be cheaper tha paying the fee each time we went. And I really enjoyed my hike with Captain America. I was very pleased with my exercise level, and that I was able to keep up a good pase on the hike. Because he's such a PT stud, you know :)

Here's us in the truck before we got out to hike.
W started WAY down below, and climbed up pretty high. It amazing how looking at it from the bottom, it's SO far away, and seems like an impossible task. But you just take it one step at a time, following the trail, and before you know it, you're way up in the sky. It was pretty darn cool!

You know, what is it with the male species and wanting to pee off of things???

We hiked for about an hour, and got a pretty good workout. And I didn't even have to carry the backpack. hehe. I should bring him as my "mule" all the time :) ROFL!.

We headed back down the mountain, and decided to grab some lunch. So we went to Chili's. Because they have the unlimited soup and salad and chips and salaa for $6.50. Not a bad price :)

We had chips, and I had a salad, and I got the chili, and a cup of potato soup, and a few waters, and I was STUFFED! I couldn't eat another bite!

And check out this SWEET Transformers Bumblebee car we saw in the parking lot! Cool, huh?

Lowes was in the same parking lot, so we hopped over there next. Captain America needed some wood for a garage project he's gonna start working on, and Lowe's offers at 10% military discount, so we always go there :)

I thought these boards were funny. Stud....

There's only so much wood one can take before getting tired, so I sat down on some cinder blocks for a rest. And I realized that I hadn't had any caffeine yet for the day, and that probably explained the lack of energy. Next stop was DEFINITELY gonna be Circle K.

At the check out, they had Christmas Plants on sale for 60% off! So I got 4 of these adorable poinsettas for $1.50 each. Loved the pot, too! And a Christmas cactus.




Captain America ran into Circle K to grab up some Diet Mt Dew. Actually, I wanted Diet Dr Pepper, but it was broken. At least they had Mt Dew! Most places only have Diet Coke as an alternative!

And then we headed to LIttle Casears for Pizza for the kids. But saw Pet Barn on the way and stopped in there. We'd gotten monthly coupons for free 20 lbs bags of Activa Dog Food from Pet Barn. One coupon per month, we just needed to pay the tax. So I ran in and picked up our December bag, and we headed on to Little Casears.

OK, side comment, but how much food do dogs eat each month? We were told by the humane society to give Boxer 5 cups of food a day. And we bought a 50 lb bag of food, and got a 20 lb bag of food today. Does that last a whole month at 5 cups a day? Anyone???

OK, back to my trip. We pulled into LIttle Casears, and they had a drive thru, so it was super easy to get the pizzas. And off to home we headed. The kids were SUPER excited to see us. And the pizza, of course. But the poor dog kept looking at the kids like, "where's my pizza". hehe. Jake gave him a milk bone as a consolation prize - hehe. We know nothing about pets, so when the humane society said to give him 5 cups a day, no people food, that's what we're doing. Hopefully that works for him. And up to 5 milk bones a day, as treats.

I laid down for a little while, trying to recover from my lack of caffeine. Laying down for a little while helped. And then I went out to play with the kids. Eme and I made some cookies. With the Nestle Dark Chocolate Chip and Mint Chips that we'd bought the other day. And used the recipe from the back. They were DELICIOUS!!! I'd definitely recommend this recipe! (we used 1 stick of butter and 1 stick of margarine)


I cleaned off my kitchen window sill, and put my little poinsettias up there. They're SO cute! I still need to find somewhere for my Christmas cactus. I wanna hang it, since it has that kind of pot...
This was the FUNNIEST thing. While making cookies, Jake found his pointer light, and played with it with Boxer. ROFL! It was the most excited I've ever seen him get. He chased it around, and tried to catch it. If it ever went on a person, he'd stop and wait for it to go back on the floor. That was sweet :) And Jake would let him "catch" it occasionally, and praise him for it. SOOO stinkin' cute!

Captain America came in and serenaded us with guitar songs, and I'm not sure what the dog thought about it. He just kinda watched Captain America real close. hehe.

Tom and Joe got to lick the beater on the mixer, and Eme got the wooden spoon, so Jimmy got the bowl.

They were SO good. Still warm and gooey and soft in the middle! We each had a few, and I hid the rest for Christmas eve. We've gonna have cookies and pie and cheese ball and veggies and such. And then Christmas Dinner the next day. Does anyone remember what my families traditional Christmas dinner consists of???

We watched the end of a movie together as a family, and I cooked dinner for everyone. It was this DIVINE casserole thingy that I whipped together. I took 2 packs of refridgerator biscuits, and cut them in forths. Then put them in a large bowl. And cut up mini bite sized pieces of turkey, and shredded about a cup of cheddar cheese, and 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup. And mixed it all together, and put it in a BIG casserole dish. As small one won't cook well.... And sprinkled more cheese on the top. And baked it at 400 for about 30 minutes. OMHeavens, it smeeled and tasted good. I just had a little bit, though ,and ate my cheese sandwich for dinner.

After dinner, we all got long sleeves on, and shoes, and headed out for a walk. Down Colonel Row, there's a GIANT tree decorated for Christmas, and a nativity scene under it. We wanted to walk as a family to see it. It was about a mile walk, not too hard. The kids and dog LOVED it, once they got going.

Here's everyone as we headed down the block. My phone's battery was almost dead, so the flash wasn't working. ...
It was a lot of fun on our walk. We were back home in about an hour, and put kids to bed. Captain America did some computer work real fast, and I blogged, and here it is, 9:30pm, and I think we're gonna watch a movie on the couch. That sounds like the PERFECT end to such a wonderful day!!!

Since we went on a family walk tonight, I decided to make this WordArt for ya! Hope you can use it! 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!

4shared is stupid... i mean, isn't working for me at the moment...
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Layout by Sharon (awesome, as usual!)

Hurry Up, Already!

Good morning, peeps :) Wednesday already??? NOO, vacation, stop slipping away :) hehe. So Tuesday. Yeah, it didn't start out so well. Captain America and I had gotten into a little tiff over something stupid the night before, and it still wasn't resolved. And that's not fun when you have limited time...

Anyway, slept in, and when I finally woke up, I had breakfast, and decided that it was time to take Eme to the doctor. She was complaining of sore throat AND hurting ears. Sigh. So we got ready, and off we went, to Urgent Care. The Ft Bliss appointment desk is doing a new thing, where when you call in and they, of course, have no same day appointments, that they refer you off post to an Urgent Care facility. Before, you had to make another call to Telenure. This was MUCH more convienent.

We loaded up and headed over to Mesa street, near downtown. We got right in and seen, and thankfully, it was not strep, and her ears looked good. But her lymph nodes were SUPER big. She was fighting off some virus. So the doctor said to give it 2 more days, and if she still didn't improve, that she'd need antibiotics. He gave me a prescription to fill IF I needed it. Sweet :)

Here's Eme in the room.

And me

We were in and out in under an hour, then headed home. I got the kids all situated and organized (yeah, they were playing and having fun with the computers and the dog - hehe). And I had just enough time to go for a swim. I did 16 lengths, which I found out was a 1/2 mile. Yeah, that is SO not cool. hehe. With as hard as I was working, and as far as I THOUGHT I went, it should have been like 3 miles, or something. .... Swimming distances are different than running distances, right? hehe.

I came back home, got lunch, and hung with Captain America for a while. We talked a little bit, and he needed to take a nap. I brought my laptop to the couch, and watched some Fringe with Jake. The dog was taken on several more walks, and at around 4pm, the whole family loaded up in the suburban to go and pick up Captain America's truck.

We even took Boxer. Boy was he excited to go for a ride in the truck! Tom sat on one side, and Jake on the other, and Boxer sat in the middle. It was kinda funny to see how excited he got. We listened to Christmas carols all the way to the North East side, and had SO much fun :)











Eme went with Captain America in his truck, and we all drove over to Howdys. Mmmmm :) And then we headed back home. I made the kids dinner (turkey and rice and chicken gravy), and designed my WordArt for the next day, and Captain America played a game with the boys. And Boxer took a nap on the couch. Yeah, the TOTALLY thinks he's a person - hehe. And I think Jim thinks he's a baby- because he kept covering him up - LOL!

It was almost time for the kids to go to bed, and Captain America and I headed out on a date. Yesterday's date ended in a "tiff", so it was SO not enjoyable. Tonights, I was determined, was going to be better! We headed to Rudy's BBQ. We got turkey and cold slaw and potato salad, and some desserts. And waters, since we'd just got Howdys.

And we ate, and chatted, and talked about the previous days argument, and got it all worked out. It was SO nice to be back on the same page again, and having good feelings, and being happy with each other. Here's a few pictures that we took outside of the restaurant.



After Rudy's we drove back near post, and went to Bassett Center. First stop, Jewelry Box. I found a few things that were just PERFECT for me. I got some big fake flowers for my hair, and some leg warmers (ha!), and some earrings, and a bracelet. But we didn't buy these glasses - ROFL! Captain America said that they looked like BCG's from Basic. Anyone know what that stands for? hehehe if you do!

After Jewelry Box, we went to Target. I wanted to go to Bath and Body Works, but 1/2 of the time I got in there, I end up with a migraine. The smells really get to me. Victoria's Secret is the same way. So we skipped it.

We ended up with more than I was expecting at Target, but I was happy. I even got a new brown hat. One big enough for my head. ha! We got milk and Cereal for tomorrow, and a candle, and a few other things :)

Right before we left, I saw these tissue boxes, and thought to myself, "Yeah, not for MY house, I'd be hungry ALL the time". hehe.


And then headed to Eve's. And a brief stop at Game Stop. Yeah, even the used Wii games were outrageous. We didn't stay there long...

And it was almost 10pm when we headed home. I guess the mall was open late - hehe.

Here's me, in the car, finishing off my Howdy's drink :)

We got home, and all the kids were in bed, except Jake and Boxer. They were watching a movie. Captain America and I sent them both to bed, and spent the rest of the evening hanging out together. It turned out to be a WONDERFUL day :) I hope that the rest of vacation is like this :)


Everyday, my little kids ask me "Is it Christmas yet?" So this WordArt is for them - 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!

4shared
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I don't know what kit you used for this, Sharon, but it's FABULOUS! Love what you did with it!