Fun with Boys

Today has been a wonderfully productive Saturday!  I have purged two more areas off my 40 Day Purge List!  That makes 28 areas complete and a mere 12 to go!  Three more bags heading to Goodwill! 

After I cleaned out my desk this morning, I finally got around to taking pictures off of my camera.  I found some treasures that I wanted to share. 

Chip had a big time Nerf Christmas and there have been some epic battles around this house.  These are the two main participants, but me and Harry also get into the mix occasionally.  I seem to be the common target when I play. Not sure what that is about.  Don't these guys look hard core?  Look at the size of that gun Chip is carrying!  I think it could easily blast the front door right off its hinges!   Remember when your kids were small and you would find Cheerios all over the place?  Well, now I have Nerf bullets all over the place.  The keep turning up in the weirdest places!  I will be finding stray bullets for years. 

There has also been an enormous amount of Lego building going on.  Chip is a pretty good instruction follower and can put together most kits on his own.  For this giant kit, Chip and Hubby broke it down into two sections and built it together. 

Love pictures of little hands.

Here is the finished product.  It is a Police Station and has some really cool features.  One of which is the toilet wall in the prison cell swings backward for a secret escape hatch.  Very cool! 

Here are the fellas before they went to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.  This is Chip's first bowl trip with the big boys.  This is Hubby and Harry's seventh consecutive year to catch a bowl game somewhere!

The Cotton Bowl was at Cowboy Stadium this year.

Fun activities for the fans outside the stadium.

Goody bags full of free stuff!

Cute picture.  What is Chip looking at?

More games.

Everyone takes a turn.

Texas A&M band filing into the stadium.

Chip on the phone with his mother...."Hey Mom.  You are going to love this.  We already got four big cups to bring home."  His mother hates those big giant cups.

Texas A&M taking on Oklahoma.

Giant flag being unfurled on the field.   Boys are in the nosebleed section.

Coin toss.

Heisman Trophy winner, Mr. Football takes the field.

He is a pretty good ball player!

Texas A&M won the game easily and scored a bunch!

The confetti rained down and the celebrating commenced.

Fun time.  Good football.  Great Memories. 

Top Ten Tidbits

Let's rip off a quick Top Ten Tidbits.  I don't have much to say about anything, but I do have a little to say about ten things.  Here we go....

1.  My visit to Lakeside was today.  It was rainy and dreary and hard to get in the mood for a drive downtown in that yucky weather.  Thank goodness Martha was with me to keep me company.  As usual, turns out it was a fun day.  We walked into the community room and I am dripping wet, saying something like "Whew what a mess it is out there!"  and a short little lady who is there every time says "It might be dreary out there, but you guys always blow in here like some real sunshine!"  Now, that will just make your day!

2.  Chip has a mystery rash on his legs and one arm pit.  WTH?  We get the weirdest stuff.

3.  The closet under the stairs is so clean and organized it could possibly be used as another bedroom.  I go in there several times a day just to look around.  Why can't it stay this way forever?  I love it!  The 40 Day Purge is on track to be done way early!  I have just a couple of hard major clean-up areas left and the house will be in pretty good shape. I have had WAAYYYY more than 40 bags of trash and donations carried out of this house!  Cleansing.

4.  Biggest Loser is back on.  Love that show.  Jillian has been super mean to kick off the season.  Yikes.  She scares me.

5.  I am trying to start planning five meals a week.  I never do that.  I usually fly by the seat of my pants on the dinner front.  So five meal ideas. No particular days.  Just five things I will cook during the week.  Week one is going pretty well.  I have made three of the five dinners and have had every ingredient that I needed for each meal.  Novel idea, right?  I will keep you posted on how it goes through the year.

6.  We are planning to go to Arizona for Spring Break.  Counting down the days.  Not really counting the days, cause that would take a while, but definitely looking forward to it!

7.  This eating business is way harder once you have gotten the taste for carbs and sugar again.  I am struggling to get back to my strict diet.  I am trying to take one meal at a time and make it clean.  It is a choice and I am ready to make much better choices.  Need to also ramp up the exercise cause that will help me get back my focus.  Life long learning process.

8.  Bible Study starts back on Monday morning!  Looking very forward to that!

9.  I had nine old cell phones, plus a few from Beth that I boxed up to send to a Cellular Recycling Center.  The old phones are recycled and used to provide minutes for service men and women in the military.  Free shipping label to send them in.  I like that.

10.  We got Bob hooked up with a smart phone over the Christmas break so that he could join the world of texting.  He is rocking the texting.  One of his first texts to me:  "I miss talking".  He is so good now he can take pictures with his phone and send them in a message!  WHAT!  That is unheard of.  We also requested he turn on Lana's texting capability.  She hasn't quite embraced it as enthusiastically, but she will come around.

That is all I have for this evening!  I hope your Hump Day has been full of love, joy and happiness!

Roll Tide!

It is a great day to be a Bama fan! 

Congratulations to The Crimson Tide on an awesome season! 

ROLL TIDE ROLL

Puffs Plus

If you have a cold (which I do), are congested (which I am), sneezing (yes) and are wiping your nose continuously (yes, on that front, too!) then you will love these Puffs tissues.

They have Vicks in them.  Took me right back to childhood when my Mom would rub my chest with Vicks and put a warm towel on me when I was sick.  I slept with one of these tissues under my nose last night. 

Ahhh, don't go through a cold without these babies. 

Holiday Pictures

I have lots of pictures from the holidays and I thought I would post a few to remember the festivities.

First up...The Thanksgiving Goat.  I give you "Soda Pop" who lives on The Bad Farm.

Traditional Flag Football game on the farm in Tennessee.  I wish I would have had a picture of David falling down and his pants around his ankles.  I crack up now just thinking about it. 

The Queen leading the cheer leading squad. She did not have much to work with.  She actually looks disgusted in this picture and I think this is one of our most coordinated cheers! 

Group shot!  Bob was the referee.  He got lots of backtalk from the teams.

Cousins. 

Minute to Win It Games.  My sweet Harry was texting his Dad...."Why does Mom make us play these stupid games?"  I am kicking him out of the family.  

Boot Camp on the Bad Farm.  It was cold, but we were hard core!

Callie drove Chip around in the back of her truck and he shot Nerf guns at us while we exercised.  He loved his participation in Boot Camp.

Do your push-ups Dad.  Do it now.  

This is the Tortilla Tree I made for Beth's party.  Remember, last year I made the fruit tree that was awesome but gave me blisters on my fingers after sticking in all those toothpicks. This one was not as pretty, but also not nearly as time consuming and blister causing!

Beth's beautiful table of food!  It is always so dang good!  Her pecan stuffed dates are legendary!

Mer and Grandpa came for a quick visit to see Harry in the Tuna Christmas Production.  Here they come into the cul-de-sac and yes that is Chip chasing down their van from the end of the street.

While Mer and Gpa were here we had our annual Brown Santa Stuffed Animal drive with the V Family.  We had an awesome response from our friends and neighbors and collected hundreds of stuffed animals and books.  It felt great to make such a big contribution to a great organization. 

The super talented cast of Tuna Christmas!  Great Job! 

Gorgeous sunrise as we head for Alabama!  Road Trip!  

Megan celebrating her college graduation from The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Also graduating the same day was Malarie's fellow Brett from The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa!   Big time celebration for the both of them!  

Scout...the biggest dog in the world.  This pictures just does not do him justice.  He is a big one.

Family meeting.

Decorating Sugar Cookies.

Of course, Grandpa is smack talking about how his sugar cookie is the best and is going to win the contest.  Of course there was not a contest it was just for fun but you just can't tell him that. 

A shot of Christmas tree and presents.  There are lots of people in this family and lots of presents! 

Can you even imagine how jazzed this gets a little kid?

Chip opened one present on Christmas Eve as is our family tradition.  It was a cool Lego set.

We all helped build it!

This is one for the memory books.  Joey brought over his dog because it was storming and his dog eats through walls and tears down steel beams when he hears thunder.  Well, Rocky didn't eat any walls but he did step on Harry's Xbox drawer when it was opened and broke it.  After all regular means were attempted to get it back on track, Brett took his new college degree in Business and put it to work.  He disassembled Harry's XBox down to the wires.  There were pieces everywhere.  And he fixed it. He fixed it as good as new!  Way to go Brett!  You saved the day!  There were whoops and hollers coming from all the children and adults in the house when he plugged it in and it worked!  A Christmas XBox miracle.

I hope your Christmas was awesome and you can look back with fond memories!  I know I can!  

Pantry Confessions

Last night my boys were at the Cotton Bowl and I was home alone.  (Great game by the Aggies, but that is not what I am blogging about today)  You see, I thought I would be spending my solo time getting organized for my Lakeside crafts next week. Luckily for me I stumbled on an awesome wooden heart picture frame for the residents to paint that was dirt cheap and requires zero prep time for me!  Score!

So, without the crafts to work on I decided to tackle one of the major areas on my 40 Bags in 40 Days Purging list.  I have done just about every area in the kitchen with the exception of the dreaded P A N T R Y.

Cue the scary music from the scariest movie you have ever seen.....

It was a daunting task.

I started pulling everything out, shelf by shelf, so I could clean the shelves really good before reorganizing and reloading.

I pulled out tons of stuff that was easy just to chuck right in the garbage....empty boxes (why, why, why does someone put an empty box back in the pantry????), one cracker left in the box, chip dust in the bottom of a bag, a handful of Cheerios, two inches of wax paper left on the roll, snack size microwave popcorn that burns every single time you try to make it (TIP:  never buy snack size microwave popcorn), crushed fruit bars, a bottle of White Zinfandel with a 2003 Beach Prize Certificate for "Drinking the Most" attached to it (apparently my award winning drinking is only for the beach since I didn't crack this bottle open for nine years.  It was hard to toss my award though....I don't win much these days and I am awfully proud of what I do win.)

Anyway, you get the idea....there was a lot of trash and junk in the pantry that was easy to pitch.

Then I started examining the expiration dates on the remaining items and before long I had to pull out a brand new garbage bag.

Here is just a sampling of the bottled items that had expired in my pantry.  How does vinegar expire?  That seems like it should last forever.  And why do I have two giant bottles of it?  The Fat Free Balsamic Dressing on the far right had never even been opened.  WASTEFUL!  

Hands down, the most alarming item of all was the Fish Sauce which expired on 12/10/05!  WHAT????  I had to get out my cheater readers to make sure I was reading that correctly.  OMG!  I am sure that is a health code violation to have seven year old fish sauce in your pantry.  It is the third bottle from the left.  You can see that it is damn near full.

If I recall correctly, I needed it for a recipe to make some knock-off PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps.  That is also what I needed the Hot Chili Oil for that is sitting next to the Fish Sauce.  Also expired by many, many years.  The other thing I recall about that recipe is that it was hard.  Required a ton of dicing and slicing, marinating, and lots of specialty ingredients I wouldn't normally have in my pantry.  It was good, but who wants to spend hours in the kitchen making lettuce wraps?  Not me.  I would rather just make reservations and enjoy them at PF Chang's!  Lesson learned.

Anyway, I filled up bag after bag of trash and put back just the items I would use and that were not expired.   My pantry is now a thing of beauty.

NOTE FOR MY NEIGHBOR KAREN:  Based on this cleaning and purging exercise you should be warned that when you borrow something from me, you should definitely check the expiration date!

To wrap up and give you the most current tally...25 of the 40 areas on my list are complete.  Hubby and the boys are going to be home momentarily and we are going to tackle the closet under the stairs.  It should be an all day affair!

Have a great weekend!

40 Bags in 40 Days Purge Challenge

I mentioned in my New Year's Post that I was on a mission to purge and reorganize the house.  In fact, I was so inspired that I sent out a 40 Day Challenge to my friends and neighbors and I am getting regular updates from lots of them.  It is the perfect time of year to do this kind of clean-out! 

I thought I would give you the latest and greatest on my progress.  It is January 3rd and I have already done 20 of the 40 items on my list + 4 areas that weren't even on my original list.  I have lots of hard areas left so I still have my work cut out for me to get it all done by the time my forty days are up.

Are you doing the 40 day challenge?  How's it going?  Let me know!  Send me before and after pictures!  My sister sent me some great ones.  I haven't been taking before pictures, but maybe I will take a tour of the house for after pictures when I am done.  I need someone to come over and borrow something so I can swing open my kitchen cabinets to show off their tidiness!  Usually, I take my chances opening up the Tupperware cabinet.  Something is always jumping and tumbling out of there! 

Kitchen

1. Medicine Cabinet in Kitchen - Done
2. Junk Drawers in Kitchen Island - Done
3. Chip’s Junk Drawer in Kitchen - Done
4. Utensil Drawer in Kitchen - Done
5. Silverware Drawer in Kitchen - Done
6. Spice Cabinet in Kitchen – Done
7. Candle Cabinet in Kitchen - Done
8. Recipes - Done
9. Cabinets under Island in Kitchen (MAJOR) - Done
10. Cabinet under Stove - Done
11. Tupperware Cabinet in Kitchen - Done
12. Shelves above Oven in Kitchen - Done
13. Pantry (MAJOR)
14. Water Bottle Cabinet in Kitchen
15. Cabinets under Kitchen sink
16. Refrigerator
17. Freezer

Laundry Room

18. Laundry Shelf - Done
19. Baskets in Laundry Room - Done

Downstairs Bathroom

20. Under Sink in Downstairs Bathroom
21. Linen Closet Downstairs Bathroom

Mom’s Office

22. Toy Bookshelf in my Office
23. Office Desk
24. Toy Closet in my Office (MAJOR)

Other Downstairs

25. Under Stairs Closet (MAJOR)
26. Hutch in Dining Room (MAJOR) - Done
27. TV Cabinet in Living Room - Done

Master Bedroom

28. Master Closet Hers (MAJOR)
29. Under Sink in Master Bath - Done
30. Mom’s Dresser
31. Under Bed - Done
32. Hallway Linen Closet - Done

Harry’s Bathroom

33. Linen Closet Harry’s Bathroom
34. Under Sink in Harry's Bathroom

Guest Bedroom

35. Craft Closet (MAJOR)
36. Guest Dresser - Done

Harry’s Bedroom

37. Harry’s Closet
38. Harry’s Bed Drawers
39. Harry’s Desk

Chip’s Bedroom

40. Chip’s Closet
41. Chip’s Bed Drawers

Other Areas I have done that weren't on my original list:

42.  Cabinet above toaster

43.  Cabinet under toaster

43.  Cabinet under sink in Laundry Room

44.  Makeup drawer in Master Bath

The house is still a bit chaotic as I go from one area to the other, but definitely making some good progress.  Hope your new year is off to a cleansing start.  I know I am feeling lighter already!

Have a great day!