Merry Christmas!

I just have to share some pictures from today.....This was the first present that Hunter was opening this morning, it's the box from my hair dryer, because I've been saving boxes for months. (And I actually used each and every one of them and could have used more, but that's beside the point!) He ripped off the paper, and this is his reaction to the box, which he thought contained a hair dryer! We did get each kid a Nintendo DS with 2 games each, and already I'm thinking that this was a GREAT investment. They took them with us over to my brother and sis-in-law's house and they've played them non-stop.

I didn't take a picture of my fun, fun Clay Cafe plate before giving it away, but you can see most of it here. She really liked it, and now wants to go "Clay-Cafe"ing soon! I need to go back and make something for ME! I absolutely had a blast. And on another note, I think Janae is going to have her birthday party there, but not until April.

Hunter got stocked up on pirate toys, we just had to get a picture with Uncle Herb, who gets asked on a regular basis by little kids if he's a pirate! tee, hee Too bad we didn't have another hat

It's been a wonderful day, we enjoyed family and of course the traditional part, the gifts!! Merry Christmas!

Facebook

Well, I have now officially joined Facebook, and have absolutely no idea what I'm doing on it. I opened it up to look at some of my friend's profiles, and ended up opening up a profile. Kinda like I just ended up starting a blog, due to those same friend's insistence. Hmmm, am I caving in to peer pressure at the ripe old age of 31? If anyone has any suggestions for the facebook deal, let me know, I'm muddling my way through it. Not quite sure if I'm supposed to post, or just let people comment....

Check, check, check

After a fun filled day of running all over town, it feels like, I am now down to only needing a present for Hubs. I just wasn't up to dragging the kids around anymore tonight! Target and Wal-Mart both on a school night, during the holiday season, when we'd all had a long day was about it for me! I'm sooo ready to be finished. I'll be sure and let you all know when I am, so you can all be extremely jealous....

It's Been a Week!

Well, once again, it has been a whole week since I sat down and blogged! This time of year passes so quickly, and we have been busy, busy this week. John took his finals, made an A and a B, he was quite happy with that, both kids had programs at school, Christmas lunch, and just the day to day things to help with. On Thursday, I had 2 houses to clean, lunch with Janae, Hunter had a doctor appointment at 3, and then back up to the school for Janae's program. On top of all that, I'm the room mother for Janae, so now I'm in the midst of trying to plan her party on Friday. I'm ready for the holiday business to be over, I'm still going to try to work during the Christmas break, and will have to take them with me some, and leave them at home some, trying to keep them quiet while Dad sleeps. Friday night I went to Clay Cafe with the girl-friends, it was so much fun! I had never been there before, but I had so much fun, and was ready to go back the next day and do something else. We are just almost finished with Christmas shopping, that is another thorn in my side. How come the money runs out before the gifts are all bought? We've done really well, though, I only need a couple of small things for Hunter, John, and my brother. I think that's it, and Christmas is still 10 days away. Oh, and I need to figure out something for teachers. That's hard, I think a gift card is on the way! I just have to mention that most of my "buddies" are running a bit behind on blogging as well. (Except for Kristen, she's staying on top of things!) Start blogging again friends, especially you, Cimmaron saga, it's been awhile.....

Fun Morning

It's been a great morning! I love Monday's, I usually don't work on Monday, so it's my day off, and today I went and had breakfast with some friends. We were there about 2 hours, then forced ourselves to leave. The waitress was really sweet, but she was probably wishing that we'd get out of there. (But we tipped her really well!) Then I went to see some of the ladies that I used to work with, that's always fun to go see them, and realize what I don't miss anymore! Hunter is going to play basketball with one of their sons, so I had to go get his form filled out. Then onto Target after that, Janae needed some new pants, she only has 3 pair, and one has a hole in the knee. And they were on sale! She is so easy, I don't have to go buy her expensive jeans, she is happy with the Target brand, and I paid $7.99 a pair. I had intended to buy 2, but since they were on sale, I got 3. That should be taken care of for awhile. Then.....I went out to the college bookstore to get John's books for next semester. Whew! They were NOT on sale! I spent $213. For 2 books! My goodness! Neither one of this semester's books were allowed to be bought back by the bookstore, and the 2 he needed for next semester had to be bought new since he goes to classes on-line. He has to have the access codes, which come with new books. How do you like the stockings? We got new stockings this year, (Hobby Lobby) and Hunt and Janae picked out the same one, so I called a friend of mine who does embrodiery (know that's spelled wrong, but don't really care right now!) and she put their names on them. Aren't they just adorable! She does a marvelous job!

The stockings are just pretty darn cute too, I think. The bells jingle when the stocking is moved. I love getting stuff personalized, it just makes it so much cuter! Bye for now, it's time to start thinking about picking up kids from school, my day went by much too fast, back to the salt mines tomorrow!

I Guess I'm It!

Well, I guess I've put this off long enough....Staci has actually already done it, so here I go:

7 Random Things:
1. Never had a cavity, a fact I'm quite proud of
2. My birthday is 9/11
3. I drive fast!!
4. Love to bake chocolate chip cookies, have done it since I was a kid, and if I
do say so myself, I'm very good at it! (not bragging!)
5. Was home-schooled from 1st grade on, wouldn't do it again
6. Have been in 8 different countries, we were missionaries
7. Had picture taken for a Korean magazine while we were out shopping,
somebody that we knew saw it, and gave us the magazine. The whole thing
is in Korean.


8 TV Shows:

I really don't watch 8 different things,
1. George Lopez
2. Hannah Montana
3. Cory in the House
4. Zach and Cody
5. House Hunters
6. That's is, most of those are shows I watch by default, because they are on alot at my house!

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Abuelos
2. Chili's
3. Subway
4. Chick-Fil-A
5. Taco Villa
6. Papa John's Pizza
7. Jason's Deli
8. Burger King
You can tell we don't go to restaurants too often....it's so expensive to take 5 people!

8 Fun things that happened this week

1. The financial blessing we got, see previous post!
2. School was back in session after T-giving break
3. Had 2 1/2 hours all to myself yesterday afternoon while John took the kids
shopping
4. Getting ready for Christmas
5. John bought me a portable heater while he was out yesterday.....yippee!
6. I'm stuck....can't think of anything else, I'm a bore


8 things to look forward to:

1. step-children turning 18 and leaving our house and day to day responsibility
2. Getting out of debt
3. Christmas day
4. John finishing school eventually
5. Bk-fast in am
6. Clay Cafe on Friday
7. echo #1
8. echo #1 a thousand times over

8 things on wish list:

See previous list!
1. Midland step-child will find something better to do then come here the weekend after Christmas
2. "home" step-child would join her sister
3. No more cleaning houses for me, that would equal the getting out of debt thing!
4. Going to pharmacy school, getting a doctorate--that's my dream right now
5. Having my children always be their agreeable self and not turn into moody teenagers
6. Peace and harmony with hubs, no more petty bickering, which we're good at
7. My buddy Brooke will stay here with us!
8. A Dyson

Thanks you Lord!

I'm going to once again, blog a post about how much we're blessed! I've been a bit worried that last few days about a bank draft we have coming up next week for my car payment. John and I neither one worked as much last week, due to Thanksgiving, and it's kind of hitting us now. The draft comes out on Wednesday, and he gets paid on Friday. Small problem. It's about $475, so I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to move money, when to deposit, blah, blah, blah. So, anyway, this morning, I go to my first house to clean, and see a note from the lady. She said she wants all of her weekly cleanings in December, gave me a Christmas bonus, and paid for the entire month!!! Guess how much?? $400.00. Then I cleaned another house that was $75, and for all of you math people, that adds up to $475. Now why in the world did I worry and fret over that??? God has promised to take care of us, He proves it time and time again, yet I still have a lack of faith and trust. In church on Sunday, we had a guest speaker, and he had an activity for us to do. On a piece of paper, we wrote down all the things that we were thankful for. Then on the other side, we wrote down what our worries were. (are). Well, finances were on my worry side, then he went on to ask how many of our thankful items were once on the worry side. Just goes to show that God will take care of it. All of them have been on the worry side at one time or another. I want to have the faith not to worry and wring my hands over things like this, God is showing me over and over that He's taking care of it, we've been blessed beyond belief, I need to just remember that and keep praying that I will become a woman of great faith!

Christmas List

I just have to share this with my girl-friends, you'll all understand....We got a Christmas list from step-daughter in Midland, among all the gift cards she wants us to buy her, she also included the fact that she wants a Burberry scarf. John didn't even know what it was, so I told him there was no chance we were buying that, he just said okay, and we went on with our lives. Fast forward to yesterday, I was looking at the paper and saw one ON SALE for only, (are you ready??) $295.00! It's a scarf, for crying out loud! Now, don't all of you out there in blog land think that we should buy that for a 16 year old who really wants nothing to do with us? (Now that Christmas is close, that seems to be changing. Hmmmm!!!!) It was amusing, she listed about 4 different places she wanted gift cards from, along with a few other pricey things, then went on to tell us what NOT to buy her. Ungrateful kid! I'm kind of looking forward to Christmas being over, just to see if she "dumps" John again until her birthday gets close. She started this right after she got her birthday presents, and now with Christmas on the way, she's decided that she wants something to do with dad after all. Seems mighty fishy to me, the skeptical stepmom. Only time will tell....