Whirlwind Weekend

What a weekend we have had! Full of lots of holiday merriment! Let me give you the run down.

We kicked off the holiday parties on Thursday night with my Book Club party. We had a lovely evening with great food and lots of laughs. Let's talk about the food for a second. Our hostess, Tracy made these delicious Bacon Grit Fritters which were awesome. She also made some Cranberry Jalapeno Salsa that was so beautiful and delicious. No calories there, right?

This is the first year we have done a book exchange and it was so fun. Everyone brought a book that they would recommend to a friend. We did the dirty santa game where you draw numbers and you can either open a present or steal one that is already open. I am a terrible picker of books for book club. I love reading every and anything, but the books I pick just always manage to be duds. So in picking out my book I was a bit worried and decided to look for help on the 100 Books You Should Read Before You Die list. I am big on Lists Before You Die. I ended up picking a book called Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. I was worried about how it would go over, so I put a cute little ornament on the book to help sell it! Isn't it cute?

Let's hope the content is as worthwhile as the cover!

Next up, on Friday afternoon it was time for Mr. Bradley's third grade class party. Complete chaos! The kid made this craft that was very cute - although a bit difficult and time consuming for some eight year olds who are tingling in their seats about the upcoming holidays and vacation days from school.

My little Chip crafting like a champ.

Seems a little perplexed about how his Pringle Can Nutcracker turned out - but I think it is sweet. Definitely a keeper.

Next up, we leave the kiddie crafts behind and head over to Beth and Tony's house for an adults only party. It was so fun!

Our lovely hosts. The food was awesome! Beth made her traditional stuffed dates and I ate entirely too many of those. They are my favorite!

Got to visit with so many of my favorite people! Definitely a night that I look forward to every year and imagine I have more fun than anyone else!

Some of my best girls!

Harold spent the night at his buddy's house on Saturday night and they pulled their first all nighter! Didn't go to bed until 7:30 in the morning. They were like a bunch of staggering drunks on Saturday morning.

Next up on Saturday night we had dinner with some of our good friends in the neighborhood.

Some of the "all-nighter" culprits. They seem to all have smiles on their faces even on very little sleep.

More of my sweet mom friends. Just love these girls.

Dad's chatting it up, telling lies, spinning tales. Actually, I have no idea what they talk about and it doesn't even matter.

We played this really fun game where you have a securely wrapped present and the object of the game is to be the person who finally unwraps the gift. You have to roll a dice and get a six to be able to take a turn at unwrapping. The catch is that you have to wear a Santa hat and big thick oven mitts while unwrapping. It is a fast paced game with lots of screaming, yelling, laughing and spirited competition. I may or may not have lost a big chunk of hair when one of the aforementioned sweet mom friend's jerked the Santa hat off my head. All in good fun - but thankful that I have hair to spare!

No one loved it more than this little girl. Morgan LOVED it. All that chaos for a measly $5! I was a sweaty mess, with a raging headache after laughing so hard.

Then we tied up their grandmother. Don't ask. I couldn't explain it in 500 words or less and if I did tell you, I would have to kill you.

What an amazing sport she was!

That wasn't all folks! We spent Sunday evening at the Alamo Drafthouse Movie Theatre for an Elf Quote-a-Long! It was so fun! What can get you in the Christmas spirit better than a viewing of Elf? When you went in they gave you a bottle of bubbles, a white balloon and a jingle bell. During the movie, the most famous lines like "I like smiling, smiling is my favorite" would appear on the screen and the audience would all say them aloud. During the shower scene we all sang along and blew the bubbles. Filled the theatre with bubbles. The snowball part was my favorite. Everyone blew up their balloons and pelted people with them like snowballs. The kids loved it. There were balloons flying everywhere. In the end, we all rang our jingle bells and sang loudly for all to hear to get some Christmas spirit and make Santa's sleigh fly! Very festive entertainment!

Now it is Monday afternoon and we are still loafing around in our jammies! I love Christmas break!

Tonight is Monday Night RAW and Chip has been counting down the hours since Friday! He is excited out of his mind!

I hope you found a little magic in your weekend and made some wonderful memories! Now let's get those men in their tight undies fake fighting in a ring! That is some kinda Christmas magic!

Blogiversary

I started this little blog one year ago in December of 2009. I took a little virtual stroll through my previous posts and realized that this is post number 269!! Jeez, that is a lot of random rambling that I have done in the last twelve months. I really appreciate you guys (Hey, Mom and Dad!) reading what I write and giving me a place to share my family's antics! It has been so much fun and something I will treasure as long as the old World Wide Web hangs around!

I thought I would do a Top Ten of 2010 list of my favorite posts from this year. It was so hard to narrow it down to only ten.

Bonus: I think I have figured out how to insert a link so you can just click on the title and it will take you to that post. Fancy, I know. I didn't know I had it in me either!!!

Of course in addition to the individual posts listed below I have also loved the Bob Chronicles Series, my Conversations with Chip and Harold and all of our vacation memories.

Here they are in no particular order, except maybe oldest to most recent.

10. Fruit Phobia

9. Litter Boxes

8. The Day After

7. Priceless Moment

6. My Morning Swim

5. 50 Things To Do Before I am 50

4. Hero on a Lily Pad

3. Brotherly Love

2. Underwear Wrestling Entertainment

1. Spa Day

Hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane with me! Let me know if there were any others that stick out as favorites of yours!

Here's to another year of blogging!!

It's a First...

I am done Christmas shopping. WHAT?? I know. I can hardly believe it myself.

Just look at the calendar. It is only December 16th! That has never happened before and will likely never happen again.

I am usually in a bit of a panic by this time in December. I do lots of my shopping on line because it is easy, the stores are always open, discount codes are the best, don't have to find a parking spot, I can comparison shop with just the few clicks of a button, most of my gifts have to get to Alabama one way or another so I figure I may as well ship them directly there instead of loading down the Suburban for the long drive. All that to tell you that I get lots of email traffic from on-line retailers. I am usually freaking out when I start getting emails like this:

Four days left to order on-line to with no shipping costs and still receive your purchase by December 24th

Today is your last day to order on-line with no shipping to still receive your purchase by December 24th.

Today is your last day to order with Express Shipping and still have your order arrive by December 24th.

AAACCCKKK, the heart starts racing, the lists are poured over, what else do I need to buy, who else needs a present?

This year I took a little bit different approach and I think it worked great. I started shopping early. Highly recommend that if you can. The real game changer though was this - if I saw something I thought would be a nice gift for someone I bought it right then and there. No coming back later. No shopping around for something a little better. No even a whole lot of comparison shopping either. See it. Like it. Buy it. Done. I think it might be the way to go!

I guess the jury is still out and the real test will be if people actually like what I got them!

Conversation with Chip

This morning Chip was having a bit of a rough start to his day. Here is how our conversation went down:

Mom: Good Morning Chip. Wake up sweetie. It is Wednesday. Only have a couple more days this week and school will be out for a long break.

Chip: I can't.

Mom: Can't what?

Chip: Can't go to school.

Mom: Why?

Chip: My side hurts, my thumb is still jammed and I think my head and eye hurt.

Mom: I'm sorry to hear that buddy. Let's go downstairs and lay on the couch and I will give you a Motrin with your breakfast.

Chip: No thanks. Is today the day that Harry gets out for a half a day?

Mom: Yes, I think it is.

Chip: This is so not fair. I have to go to school even though everything hurts and my thumb in jammed and Harry gets to only go for a half day.

Mom: Buddy, your turn will come when you are older and can exempt exams.

Chip: No it won't.

Mom: Should I just make Harry stay at school longer today so that it will be fair to you?

Chip: Can you do that?

Mom: No.

Chip: I hate this.

A little breakfast, some joking around with Dad and he turned his attitude around. Thank goodness.

Harry has an early release again tomorrow and is out all day on Friday. This is not going over well with Chip! It is hard to be eight!

Bob Chronicles - Ninth in a Series

Happy Tuesday all! I hope you are staying warm wherever you are! I thought it was time to dig through the archives for another Bob Chronicles post. This one is called Bob's Weight Loss Program. I am going to just cut and paste the actual email he sent to his family back in 2006 when he was trying to drop a few pounds. As the holidays approach I know we are all trying to keep our weight in check, so I thought this posting would be pretty timely.

Hope you enjoy!

Dear Family,

I would like to take this opportunity to share with you the results of the weight loss I have achieved in the past 3 weeks. I have lost a total of 7 pounds, mostly in the waist. Thank God.

This was not easy, as I had lots of support from family and friends. I would like to share with you how this was achieved. As most of you know it is no secret to losing weight so my plan might not be a surprise to any of you.

First and most important is be cautious as to WHAT you eat. By this I mean if it taste real good don't eat it.

Second is be cautious as to HOW MUCH you eat. This was my hardest task as I love food and I like to eat until I am full. (How strange is that) Well, after I learned that a Weight Watchers dinner was the correct amount to eat, I was shocked. For those who have never tried them they are delicious but the entire meal couldn't cover an area the size of the palm of you hand. This was hard to get used to so I ate apples to get some of the bulk my stomach required.

Exercise is next. You really have to devote a portion of your time each day to do some exercise, that as a minimum, brings out some sweat beads on your face.

Finally, and this is not documented in any other weight loss program, is to drink two Miller Lites at 10 PM each evening. These Barley Pop's help in reducing any pain you may experience from exercising. Will give you a full feeling, something that has haunted you all day long. Like Lenesta (sleep aid), it helps you get a good nights sleep. The 2 AM bathroom trip is one exception. I also believe, and this is not medically documented, that the Barley, Oats and Hops used in brewing Miller Lite work feverishly during your sleep in reducing calories.

I truly hope that those of you who want to lose a pound or two in the upcoming weeks use these proven ideas to bring you satisfactory results.

Good Luck

PS Sometimes it takes 3 Miller Lites to reduce pain and inflammation.

Weekend Highlights

Weekend was great, as most weekends tend to be! Came and went way too fast!

Here are a couple of the highlights:

I did a craft project! I can't tell you what it is because it is a gift for someone who might check in here, but it was fun and took care of that crafting itch I had.

Finished up all the Christmas cards. Always a big job that I enjoy, but nice to have it done.

Harold is prepping for his final semester exams this week. By prepping I mean that he is trying to figure out which classes to exempt so he can go in late, come home early and if all the stars align correctly he can have Friday off. Add to that trying to coordinate that schedule with his friends and it is a full time job. I did reel him in a little yesterday and told him perhaps he should actually complete the class reviews and study some notes. He did. Grudgingly. Very, very grudgingly!

Chip finished up his Kid's Marathon challenge. Over the last couple months he has logged 26 miles on his chart. He was super proud to take in his paper with all his miles logged this morning!

We let the boys open a Christmas present yesterday afternoon. We got Chip tickets to see the World Wrestling Entertainment Monday Night Raw show that is coming to town before Christmas. He is OVER the moon. Talking about what posters he can make and who might be fighting who that night. I hope it is all he wants it to be and more.

Harold also got to open a present early, even though his event isn't until after Christmas. He is going to go to a Monday Night Football game with his Dad in Atlanta. He was totally psyched about it. They will both enjoy that little adventure together!

We also did some shopping, washed a mountain of laundry and mostly just hung out at the house. It was nice.

Christmas shopping is just about done. Only one or two more things to pick up and we are FINISHED! So excited!

Must make a run to the grocery store to restock the fridge and pantry today. I put it off long enough and we now have no food. Trying to think of a nice, warm, yummy dinner for a cold winter night. What about Chicken Pot Pie? That sounds so good to me!

Let's finish this post up with a quick chat about how CHILLY it is in our neck of the woods. It was 29 degrees this morning on our run. BRRRRRRRR....... How was my run you ask? First of all, thank you for asking. Secondly, it was not bad! It wasn't as good as Friday, but wasn't nearly as bad as last Monday. We are going to call that progress and hope that Wednesday is a bit warmer and a bit easier to run!

I hope you have a productive week and find a little time everyday to enjoy the fun and festivities of the season! Our week is looking pretty busy, but lots of fun events to look forward to! Can't wait to share them with you!

Have a great day!

Perfect Third Grade Friday

Campus Wide Sing-A-Long of Christmas carols

Lunch Bunch - All the kids in the class got to celebrate mastering their multiplication facts by eating lunch in the classroom with Mr. Bradley.

Ice Cream Party - Super awesome treat Mr. Bradley gave them for all their hard work on multiplication facts. Chip's creation - Chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup, multi-colored sprinkles, gummy bears covered with root beer. Iiiicccckkkk! He loved it.

Music - Awesome music baseball game played with Christmas carols

PE - Fun game of crab soccer

Classroom Spelling Bee - Chip placed fifth out of his class. Last boy standing. He was so proud.

Pootie is over playing right now and WWE Friday Night Smackdown comes on at 7:00.

Could just be the best day ever!!