Fazoli's.. Real Italian? Who cares??

Head on over to http://www.freespaghetti.com/ to register for Fazoli's coupons. Right now they are offering a coupon for a free Kid's meal with the purchase of an Adult entree. Guess what we're doing for New Year's Eve dinner!! So exciting!! :-)

Be safe. Be smart. And most of all - Be HAPPY! Happy New Year!!

HHmmm...

Found these really great blog post today...it hurts 'cause it's true. Nothing like a New Year's Eve kick in the pants!!

http://blog.aqufit.com/post/2009/12/29/I-Call-Bull.aspx

What a great day!

Today I:

- scored a free pre-lit Christmas tree (freecycle)

- purchased boots for Riley AND Brenna and snow pants for Riley - ALL three for under $10! (Kids consignment shop I found today!)

- found a small Little Tikes table and chairs for the kids for $15 (consigment shop!)

- I got this shirt for Christmas from my sis-in-law (it didn't arrive until today!)

If you aren't sure what this is all about, click here.

- didn't have to cook and ate a delicious meal at Outback Steakhouse with the fam thanks to second part of above sis-in-law's Christmas gift (An outback giftcard!)

All in all it's been a really awesome day!

Christmas 2009: the year of the Snuggie

Hi! How are you? How was your Christmas? We had an awesome Christmas! We spent Christmas Eve at Jeff's parents, Christmas Day we spent at home and I hosted our first official Christmas dinner at our house! And the day after Christmas my mom came up to spend time with us. It was a wonderful, exhausting three days of celebrating!

I was truly spoiled this year and got some amazing surprises. Before Christmas, anytime I would ask Riley what he was getting me for Christmas he always had the same answer, "a pink Snuggie". I had never expressed a desire to own a Snuggie so I'm not sure where he got that gift idea, but sure enough he delivered on his promise and I got a pink Snuggie. Jeff got a blue Snuggie from me and Riley got a Lightening McQueen Snuggie. Poor Brenna didn't get her own - they don't make baby Snuggies! As cheesey as they are, they are WARM! I dare you to wear one, lay down with a good book AND DON'T FALL ASLEEP! It's impossible!

I also got a really nice sewing machine

A Keuring Coffee maker!!!! (I love, love, love this thing. So shiny, so pretty, makes a perfect cup of coffee....ahhhhhh heaven in a cup! )And I also got Band Hero! (My guitar is the pretty red one!) Now I can pretend I'm Taylor Swift and 'play' my guitar while singing, "Love Story"!!

Now I'm off to search for snow boots. I made the mistake of not picking any up before Christmas and now everyone is sold out of boys snow boots! Even online! I REALLY don't want to pay $30 for a pair of boots he'll wear for a year, but he needs them for playing outside at school. Wish me luck!!

**bloggers note, I found some pretty sweet deals on ebay for boots and snow pants! The countdown begins!**

December Daily: 12/23

One of the best things about having Riley in preschool is all the little crafts he brings home. My absolute favorite is the angel ornament, made from his hand print. PRECIOUS!!

p.s. thanks for the comments/emails from yesterdays post. It's nice to know I'm not alone :-)

December Daily: 12/22

Snowing outside, wrapping presents and watching the thousands of Christmas movies from the DVR. The kids have been BRATTY lately (isn't that whole, "I'm telling Santa!" threat suppose to work on them this time of year??) and God literally answered my prayers when they both laid down for a nap at the same time. Do you ever have those days (or weeks!) when you just feel like everyone else has it together except for you? Every other mother has their children on a schedule - wake up at a certain time, eat nutritious meals and snacks, nap and go to bed at a certain time - while your life seems to just be continued chaos? Do you ever feel like you are drowning in dishes, laundry, and toys? Do you ever just stop and say, "Really God? Are you sure you wanted to trust ME with these children? Cause I don't have a clue what I'm doing!"?

Well, I have, and do, feel this way. Not wanting pity - just understanding. :-) Going to make some hot chocolate, take a breath and enjoy the silence.

Lord, Give me patience to handle my Blessings!

December Semi-Daily: Catching Up

So what have we been up to lately?

Taking pictures in our Christmas Jammies

Playing.

Getting our heads stuck in Combos bags.

Cuddling.

Baking.

More cuddling.

And Cuddling in Snuggies.

December Daily: 12/12

Riley and I went to Pottery Schmottery with my Goshen Mom's Group and painted some pottery! (Brenna did not go because taking her would have been the closest thing to taking a bull into a china shop. My girl is not dainty!) I painted a plate that we'll put our Christmas cookies on for Santa and Riley painted some ornaments to give as presents. They are firing our pieces now and we'll pick them up Saturday. I'll post pics of that when we get them!

December Daily: 12/11

Since Brenna is so little, she really doesn't get Christmas yet. So I didn't worry much about getting her a lot of presents. I did take advantage of an awesome sale at The Children's Place and got her two of the cutest shirts for $6 a piece! I love you my little super girl!

December Daily: 12/10

In the play-doh we can build a snowman...

December Daily: 12/9

One of my new favorite things about Christmas is seeing all the little touches in decorations that show we are a house with little ones. I have always LOVED the little Christmas villages and dream of having a big elaborate one someday. But with two little kids I know that would be very impractical - I can't imagine having something so tempting for them to play with and have to tell them "NO!" constantly. So this year, I found a little village set at the Dollar Tree. I have quite a cute set up complete with a grocery store, Town Hall, school, candy shop, and several other little buildings. With each piece costing just a buck, I can let Riley play with them without being worried about him breaking it. The other day he was sitting on a stool playing with the little people, rearranging my houses and telling his own little story. When he hopped down, I noticed that my fire station was being attacked by giant goldfish crackers. :-)

December Daily: 12/8

Santa's Little Helper! One of the things I was most excited about when we got Lilly was being able to dress her in little outfits. Our yellow lab Lucy is 70 lbs and just didn't cooperate with dressing up. ;-) So I picked up this little elf outfit from Target and viola! instant cute! Lilly hated it. It had little bells on it so I think it freaked her out. It was cute while it lasted!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

December Daily: 12/7

The Tiny B has been an absolute gem lately. ("...truly outrageous, truly truly truly outrageous...Whoa!" - name that 80's cartoon theme song!) She really doesn't do anything except cry and want me to hold her. Last night she went to bed at 6 - extremely early for her! - so I thought she'd sleep it off and be fine. But no. We've been up since 3 AM. One second she'll be her funny, smiley self - then BAM! insta-crab. It's like Dr. Jekyll and Baby Hyde. After some chocolate milk, oatmeal and cartoons I finally got her to go back to bed. But now I'm wide awake!! Here's our menu for this week - I'm not sure exactly what meal will be cooked on what days, but here's the gist of it.

• Chili (a weekly winter staple at our house)
• Tacos
• hot dogs, mac & cheese and baked beans (this is a special meal Jeff and I used to eat when we first got married. We were talking about it last week so I decided to fix this little throw back treat as a surprise. Mix your mac and cheese with the beans....it's SO GOOD!)
• Fettuccine Alfredo
• Beef Stew Ala Pioneer Woman
• BBQ Chicken
  

I've also been storing lots of cookie recipes that I want to try this week. The guys Jeff works with will LOVE me when they get to eat them all! (Because Lord knows I'm not keeping them all in my house!) What's for dinner at your house?

December Daily: 12/6

Have you seen the website Cake Wrecks? YOU SHOULD! I got sucked into this website last night and couldn't leave. Too much funny awesome-ness all in one site! My favorite was the cake turkeys - which end up looking like poo/penises.

I give you the turkey poo-wang:Visit this website. Belly laughs will follow!

December Daily: 12/5

At least once a month I get a chance to hang out with the best ladies known to mankind. What started out as a book club (because of our mutual love of Twilight) has become an awesome, awesome friendship. We laugh (a lot), cry, talk, whine, complain, and celebrate together. It's wonderful to know what true unconditional friendship feels like. Oh, and they are pretty good at picking out books too!

Joy - the newbie who also is an AMAZING hair stylist!

Michaele - my fellow curly girl and the incredibly photogenic one.

Robin - the mommy. Always, always thinking of others.


Amber - my complete opposite in just about every way (She doesn't like "Glee"!!) But is a dear, dear friend.
(missing from the photos is Sarah who couldn't be with us this month!)

*Cue Golden Girls Theme Song!*
Thank you for being a friend, travel down the road and back again...
Love you girls.

December Daily: 12/4

He's a dancing machine!! Riley loves to dance and has perfected the use of jazz hands.
Play that funky music white boy...

December Daily: 12/3

We are big dog lovers in our house. Riley and I can sit and watch America's Funniest Home Videos and laugh until we are in tears at the silly dog antics. So when I saw this gem at the library, I knew it was one we had to borrow.

We giggled all the way through and will read it over and over before it's returned. Definitely one for the Christmas stocking this year!

December Daily: 12/2

I love new calendars. They are fresh, blank and give me hope that this will be the year when I get it all together. (A mommy can dream - can't she?) Imagine my delight when I stumbled on this very pretty one designed by Brenda Arnall:It's free to download on her blog It's A New Day. Almost too pretty to write on!

December Daily: 12/1

I heard a few friends of mine are doing the daily blog thing in December. And since I'm never one to be left behind - I want to do it too! I really have nothing blog worthy to write about. Today was a pretty busy day for us - preschool, the library, Target (also known as our second home), and Aldi's, then home for pizza and a movie (Thomas and the Magic Railway. Possibly some of Alec Baldwin's best work pre-30 Rock!)

No pictures from today, but here are some from a little while ago. Brenna climbed into Riley's dump truck so he spent a good hour pushing her around. They both had a ball. That's one load you can drop off at my house any day!
And here are the four reasons why my house never seems to stay clean:
But I wouldn't trade any of them for the world! Off to bed - I'll come up with something that has more substance tomorrow! (maybe!)