Family Fun On Thanksgiving

I'm sitting here at 1:00 am (slightly cold, should get up and turn the heater on!) listening to someone burn rubber out on the main road. Why am I wide awake at 1:00 am? I layed around all day reading my book for blook club on Sunday, and just like the whole time I've been trying to read this book, I'll would read a bit and then fall sleep. Times like 10. With one big long nap towards the end there.

So yeah, I seem to have had plenty of sleep for today! I didn't even get dressed or showered until about 8:00. My friend wanted to get together and go have a drink and although I thought for a minute about not going I decided I needed to just go (those invitations don't come every day!). I had a nice time hanging out and having a couple drinks.

As everyone in the US knows Thursday was Thanksgiving. We were spending the day at my brother's house. It was so nice not having to do all the work this year. All I had to do was put the peanut butter and cheese spread on the celery and make some bacon wrapped little smokies (new name? heart attack snacks!). We weren't having dinner until 4 so we were all pretty lazy all day.

We got to my brother's around 2 and went up to the door. Knocked. No answer. Tried the knob. Locked. WTH? Called the house. No answer. Tried to use my key. Confused about which one was for his house (must mark that next time I go over there!). My mom pulled up not too long after us and so they unlocked the door and we all went inside. I called my brother to find out where they were (of course I'm thinking they are at the ER, something happened, someone's dying!) They were just visiting SIL's cousins that live down the street. Odd though, to leave your house right before all your company comes over and not leave a note. Or like, text someone to tell them where you are going.

My plan was for the kids to make these cute Oreo Turkeys which didn't go all that great from the start because they had a hard time getting the cookies apart with all the cream on one side.

They decided they were done before they had their little red heads since they couldn't get them to stay together. Guess it's more of a "mom" recipe!

I had bought the game Jenga to play. I had never played it before, and picked it up for $7 or so at Target. I was thinking it would be a good game for everyone to play. The kids saw it on the table the day before Thanksgiving and wanted to play it but I told them they had to wait. So of course that was the first thing Trevor wanted to do when my nephew finally got back. They set it up and we all took turns playing it for HOURS. So much fun! Trevor was still playing it on and off all day today, begging one of us to play it with him. Best $7 I've spent in quite awhile!

Jess took some mirror pics like she does everytime she sees Adrian. I don't think it will be much longer before she's totally posing!

After dinner my other SIL had wanted to play spoons. We all sat down and played over and over until it was about 11. It was so much fun! We've decided that we need to make a "Spoon Trophy" and the winner gets to take it home until the next event. I need to get working on that since Christmas will be here before we know it!

At one point when we took a break my brother went and layed down on the floor and fell asleep. Someone was saying we should take a marker and draw on him for falling asleep at his own party. I couldn't find a marker but they had a dry erase one on the fridge. It worked good enough! SIL was all upset when she found out what we had done though and rubbed it off I think. I haven't heard anything from him about it lol. It was pretty funny at the time!

Judging from Zoe, it was a successful day!

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Infarrantly Creative: Silhouette Giveaway Craft Projects and DIY Inspiration

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4 Years And Going Strong!

The 21st was my 4 year blog birthday! Hard to believe it's been that long that I've been blogging on here! It's amazing no one in my family has found me and disowned me yet! I should have made a plan to give something away but I just have been too busy and it kind of snuck up on me!
Here's some 4's for you

My first 4 blog commenters (amazingly all still blogging!):

Organized Doodles I should get him to make me a new header!

Penguin Stands Alone She has some really cute drawings!

Barb at So How Was Your Day? still a favorite of mine!
African Kelli she's awesome!


My last 4 blog commenters:

Diet Coke Rocks  she cracks me up and is SO crafty!!
Pampers and Pinot new commenter!
Jenn at Juggling Life another very busy part time working mom of teenagers
DustieBottoms another new commenter

My 4 most looked at posts:

My Baby Comes Home Tomorrow I think this was from when I was laid off and had a lot of time to surf and comment on other people's blogs (and people looking for a picture of a fish in a fishbowl)
Cooking In The Tupperware Stack Cooker apparently a lot of people have these and have no idea what to do with them.
Shopping With The Shopper shopping with mom
Enough Already! Hot and Jess at Camp

My 4 favorite blogs right now (hard to pick!):

Welcome To Sara's Organized Chaos not for the easily offended
Diet Coke Rocks of course it does!

Barefoot Foodie also not for the easily offended (seeing a pattern here..)

Domestic Fashionista someday maybe I'll be together and on top of everything again like her!

Thanks to everyone for coming and being a part of my little world. You all make my days brighter (even those I didn't link up to!) Here's to another 4 years!!

I Have A Princess

Well those of you that I talk to other places already know how beautiful my daughter was last night for Girl's Treat! She started off the morning by getting picked up by my niece/sil to get her nails done. My niece paid for it even, which was really nice of her.  Then later Jessica's friend came over and helped her do her hair.

She got all dressed and we went to pick up the boutineer. I had asked her earlier what time the flower shop closed and to call and make sure. Well when we drove up the store was DARK, parking lot abandoned and they were obviously CLOSED. OMG!! Talk about a little panic and tears! I had got out and went up to the door hoping I could maybe see someone inside but no luck. When I was walking back to the car there was a man standing outside the tuxedo shop and he waved to me and said "I have it!". The lady at the flower shop apparently gave the boutineer to him. What luck!! I thanked him like crazy and will definitely have to call and thank the lady from the flower shop for doing that for us!

Then it was off to the house where the group was meeting up. We got there and took a lot of pictures. Sadly a bunch of mine turned out blurry.

I think she looks a little like Snow White with her hair all dark like that!

They took a limo to another city and went to dinner and then drove around (there was 4 couples). Then came back and went to the dance.

After the dance they went to another girl's house and her mom made waffles! I picked her at 1:30 am. She said she had a lot fun!

Little side note, Jess was originally supposed to go with another group. Her "friend" went all mean girl on her and said that some people in the group didn't want her to go. She asked around and of course everyone denied it, which pretty much made it seem that the "friend" was actually the one that didn't want her to go in the group.  I wasn't too fond of the idea of what their group was planning to do anyways. They were going to get a party bus (way more expensive than the limo) and go to Santa Cruz before the dance. (Which is a couple of hours away). She decided to just not go with that group, because really who wants to be with people that are mean? So anyhow, last night, that groups party bus broke down on the way to Santa Cruz and they missed the dance. Karma much?

Priceless?

Jessica is going to Girl's Treat on Saturday night. This is her first formal dance and I'm totally blown away by how much money everything is costing. Things sure have changed since I was in high school when most of the money you spent went towards your dress and if it was over $100 you were really spending a lot!

Bid: $70 (could be slightly off on this since she paid for it herself)
Group Limo: $125 (for their portion)
Dress: borrowed (Thank God!)
Shoes: borrowed (see above)
Strapless bra: gave up trying to buy a new one, cheapest one we saw was $30, she has one that will work good enough
Necklace and Earrings: $40 but will be more since she lost one earring before we even got home
Dinner: not sure how much but it's somewhere kind of swanky so I'm guessing at least $50-$60
Flowers: $60 (his mom paid for them, super nice of her)
Nails: My niece/sil is taking her to get them done tomorrow morning
Eyebrows: $15
Hair: friend is supposed to help her with it and she feels "ghetto" because other people are going to the salon
Headband: $8 (cute little bow thing)
Pictures at the dance: $20

I'm sure I'm leaving something out but OMG! And the stickler is that this isn't even a boyfriend she's going with. I hope she has a hell of a good time.

I'm blind and need comment love

Wow I'm really rocking the comments lately!! 0 comments on my last 2 posts. AWESOME! I'm sure that has something to do with me not having much time to read blogs lately and leave comments myself. Between being sick for the whole month of November (and counting, although I feel about 95% today which is freaking AWESOME!) , being busy at work, working on bookmarks and just being dead tired I haven't had much time to give comment love.

Wow I wrote AWESOME 2 times already.

Anyhow, my day started off a little oddly this morning. Scott told me when he kissed me goodbye this morning at the butt crack of dawn that he had packed the kids lunches and they were in the fridge.

Yeah.
Crazy!

The only other time he's made lunches is when I've taken a vacation that didn't include him and the kids. So I got up this morning and my whole routine was thrown off. Which is ok, I'm not complaining. And that time was filled with yelling at the kids to stop fighting because Trevor wants to take a dump in private and Jessica doesn't want to get out of the bathroom because she is doing her HAIR. Seriously cannot make this crap up. Great argument for getting a bigger house with TWO bathrooms. :sigh:

So work wasn't too exciting, took a walk after lunch with 2 coworkers. We work right by a prison. Might be a jail. Not sure, what's the difference? Anyhow these gals were walking in the prison/jail yard after the officer locked them in their oversized dog run area. It hit me that they are just like caged animals. And Women. And they look just like all the other mom's on the playground. Scary.

After work Jessica got picked up for her 2nd driver's training. We requested a different instructor and she looked way better than the big dork they sent last time. I asked Jess if she used the brake on her at all and she said no! Progress!! One more training and her test is on December 29th. Let's all pray she passes and someone gives us a bunch of money so we can afford to get my old car fixed up for her (WHY are tires so freaking expensive??)

While she was there the other kids and I went to Costco so I could get my eyes examined and FINALLY get some new contacts (been wearing the same ones for MONTHS, I'm sure my eyeballs are going to fall out of my head anytime now). After him examining me he wants me to come back Saturday to make sure my eyes are really as fucked up as they seem and it's not just because I have a cold. Fun. And no new contacts. DAMMIT!

Came home and worked on bookmarks up until about 15 minutes ago. Scott woke up from the couch and turned off the Harry Potter behind the scenes that I've been listening to for the last 3 hours. I think it actually repeated once or twice.

So the fine folks from Overstock sent me an email with some deals for you!!

The discount code is: 121728 , good for 10% off all Overstock.com products.


202234 ** - free shipping promo code for electronics (not sure if you include the ** or not, you'll have to try it out.

I think we should get a new bed, since my husband prefers to sleep on the couch most nights! Melissa has a digital camera on her Christmas list I think. They are much cheaper than they used to be. I could use some new sunglasses too, I just broke mine :(

There's some good deals there so go check them out! Their regular shipping is super cheap too!

All the ideas and opinions expressed are my own. No monetary compensation was received for doing this post, however, I was provided with a discount code.


PS all links have been removed because they keep wanting me to change them. How annoying!

Knights Ferry Salmon Festival

Sunday I took the younger kids with me to the Salmon Festival in Knights Ferry. The place where I worked helped to put it on. This was the second year for the festival. We went last year too and the kids were really excited to go again this year.  The first order of business was stopping on the bridge and looking into the river to see if we can see any Salmon. And do weird things with our legs when mom's taking a picture.
 Hey look we found one!AND a bald eagle in the tree across the street! I've never been this close to one before.
 The kids were so excited to go "make dirt". This is the booth my work does. They teach the kids about soil ala pudding cup. They think it's rather exciting. Next up was the paint a rubber fish and plop it on a free t shirt booth. Needs WAY more organization. I thought one lady was going to blow a gasket because people (mostly kids) kept cutting in front of her.
  Barn Owl from the wildlife center. They even had a king snake!
 Knights Ferry is home to an old covered bridge. It's pretty long!

 The festival is heavy on the education and very light on anything else. It would probably be great for homeschooling families. I saw a few boy scout troops there too. My favorite thing about the festival is where it's at. It's just so beautiful there!
 
How beautiful is this bush??
  The kids liked just hanging out by the river and of course throwing rocks in the river.
 Look VULTURES! They area all sitting on the fence posts there
I know it's bad to carve in trees but I think it's kind of awesome how many there are on this lover's tree.There's tons of picnic tables there. It would be a nice place to go for a day trip. You can't beat the price, it's FREE!

It's coming even if you don't want it to. Unless you live in Canada or New Zealand

I'm finally starting to warm up to the idea that Thanksgiving is approaching.

About a week ago I was like there is NO way it's November. It can't possibly be time for "fall". When I saw Christmas bells hanging from the ceiling in a drug store I wanted to throw darts at them.

But the weather is finally cooling off here. It's been in the 30's for the last few mornings. I've been pulling out all my long sleeve shirts from the back of the closet. (This is California, you never pack away your winter/summer things!)

So what am I looking forward to for Thanksgiving?

1. Not cooking, unlike last year. I was going to put a link here to last year's Thanksgiving. But apparently I didn't blog it! I must have been too tired. Little recap of the highlights. I cooked Thanksgiving dinner at my mother in law's house for that whole side of the family. I cooked the turkey in a bag. Everything was ready, went to cut the turkey and it WASN'T DONE! (In my defense the little thing had popped up saying it was finished.) That was so stinking embarrassing. So it had to go back in the oven for about another HOUR. When we were taking the turkey out of the pan we spilled the turkey grease on the floor which made the floor very slippery even though we cleaned it like a million times. This year, we're going to my side of the family.

2. Turkey

3. Sweet Potato Pie. Yesterday on the radio they had people calling in saying YAM or NO YAM. Sweet Potato Pie is the best part of the Thanksgiving dinner if you ask me. Our family tradition is that sweet potato pie is made with mini marshmellows on top. You put it in the oven just long enough for the mini marshmellows to brown. Or occassionally catch on fire. That was the highlight of Thanksgiving one year! I'm always just a TINY bit disappointed when we remember to take them out before that happens!

4. Being with family. I know some people HATE the holidays because they hate being with their families. "I" am not one of them. That's probably apparent by how much time I spent at my brother's house. Scott might not be quite as excited to go to my side of the family as I am haha.

5. Pumpkin Pie. We've already bought one, unfortunetly NOT from Costco, who hands down has THE BEST pumpkin pie. Buried under a huge helping of whipped cream of course! Hmmm might have to swing by and pick one of those up today..

6. Funny Turkey Comics

That last one reminds me of when I was a teenager and went along on a trip to the pumpkin patch with my mom and my brothers. This big ass ugly turkey was following me around. I think I looked a bit like that kid there by the time we left and my mom thought it was hysterical.

So what's your favorite part of Thanksgiving?

Needs lessons from the teenger, they make it look so easy...

So after I slept in until 11 today.. ELEVEN.. my God!!.. I got up and made the kids breakfast (bacon and waffles yum!) and took a shower and did my new hair cut up. Then I attempted to take a picture to put on Facebook to show my friend. First I tried in the bathroom with the camera. They were so horrible I just deleted them off the camera. Then I tried the webcam.


hmmm light behind me (why is this black and white?) oh didn't smile where do I look? k got the light to be covered up where do I look? smile? kids saw me lol, nephew spent the night last night and trevor haha cheese... ugh stupid squinty eyes when I smile (where do I look?) yep still squinty hey not too bad, ugh kid behind my chair, still not too bad (squinty eyes and all) yep, going to have to go with the last oneSo, how do you like my hair? haha

Lover, lover, lover

I was just reading blogs in my google reader (do you use google reader? I think it's awesome!) and came across this blog I read that is a photography blog. They take wedding and engagement pictures. The weddings are usually in some kind of "destination" type place. Always awesome! One of the engagement pictures they have on there has them leaning against a wall, leaning in for a kiss. For some reason it reminded me of when Scott and I were first together. We were at my Grandma's house, probably for some kind of holiday, I'm thinking Thanksgiving or Christmas since it was early on in our relationship. We were messing around like we did in those days. We were always wresting, tickling, hugging and kissing.  My Aunt told me that day, that that was what she missed. I was a little confused and asked her to clairfy. She said, "you know, the making out and having fun". I remember at that time I was totally confused by what she was saying. What do you mean you miss it? If you miss it just do it!

It's taken me about 18 years to totally understand what she meant. I don't know about in your family but here and with most couples I know, after you have been together for that much time you just kind of lose that spark. That "I want to be as close to you as possible feeling". I don't know where exactly we lost it. For me I think it might have been not too long after Jessica was born. He seemed to kind of drift away. I'm not sure what it was but I'm pretty sure he was going through some kind of depression. It was hard. Really hard. I don't think we ever got back to that way we were in the beginning. Sure there are times where we play around a little but NOTHING like it was back then. I doubt it will ever  be back to that place again either. Which makes me sad but I guess that's part of growing up.

What do you think? Do you think that "spark" just fades over time?

Zooming in the Mom Taxi

Today was a pretty nice day at work. We have our big application deadline on Friday so today we had a steady stream of applications. I am the lucky one that gets to put them in the computer so I stayed really busy. I LOVE this time of year. It makes the day go by so fast. Not to mention I've been sitting up front and we are shorted handed. Which means I have been helping the customers to fill out the applications. Which is a little scary but I love talking to people.

After work I went straight to the little kid's school to go to their conferences and get their report cards. Trevor's wasn't the greatest, which I'm blaming mostly on football. Who has time to read and study when you  only have an hour of downtime after school and go to bed right after football? TG we are done with that. Now we will have more time for reading and practicing spelling words. His teacher seemed really concerned that he has a hard time getting along with the other kids for group work. I told her I think it's in his DNA. Really not sure what we could do to like other kids better, his dad is so anti-social for the most part. Don't think anything is going to fix that!

Straight from there I went to pick up Jessica at school. She had stayed after for a club meeting. I told her I wanted to go get my hair cut but she wanted to go to the mall and check out swim suits so we went out to the mall. Right after we got there she read an email from a water polo coach that said she could come meet with her at 5:30 to find out about the team she was kind of wanting to join.

I don't really want her to do water polo right now. I'd have to drive her to the practice and pick her up, which would basically put us right back on the football schedule of never being home. Of course, I don't come right out and tell her no, because I hate saying no. AND it's something with exercise, which is good. But it's on the far side of town so she can't even walk there from the school (and it's hours after school is out). Not to mention where are they going to compete? Driving all over I'm sure.

So we go over to the high school where it's at. I've never been on the campus, have no idea where the pool is, she doesn't either. We both got a bit snappy. Found the pool, it's about 5:10. She's all "it doesn't start until 6". I thought she said 5:30?? Can't wait around for a few minutes? She's all "just forget it, let's go, I just won't do it". So I said ok and drove off. Then I got the silent treatment for about 4 hours and am the meanest mom in the world. Whatever!

Went and got my hair all chopped off after that.

Finally went over to my mom's to pick up the kids or whatever. She was having a little halloween party for the other kids. Her friend's 5 grand kids, a neighbor boy, my nephew, niece, my cousin  and my 2. Crazy lady!! It was pretty much mass chaos since the average age was 7.  The kids had fun and I had a nice visit with my aunt and my mom's friend.

My mom's friend just went through a divorce and has lost 60 pounds. She made up cute little business cards for her class reunion that she went to that has on one side "what have I been up to?" and on the other side has a picture of her big and a picture of her little and goes into losing weight, "now available" and her new hobbies, which are the gym, texting, twittering and zumba. It's great!!

Well I didn't get anything done around the house or any bookmarks made but it was definitely a busy day. I'm glad we have tomorrow off.

Thank God for all the Veterans out there!! If it wasn't for them we wouldn't have our freedom, let alone a day off!!

That's a lot of bookmarks

I just finished making 22 bookmarks. YAWNNNN That's what I did for the last 3 days.

Saturday we went to a family reunion for Scott's side of the family. This was the 2nd "official" reunion. The same people that did last years did it this year, so nice of them! It was potluck style. I had (have) been so sick that I didn't make anything. I was going to go to the store but that didn't happen either. So we brought beer. Leftover beer from Scott's party. Woohooo we're awesome!

So here's a few pics.

My niece sil and my brother

bad picture of really fun people. The gal on the right is from Scotland (she's my niece by marriage). She can talk with a Scottish, Brittish or English accent at the drop of a hat. It's pretty cool!

All the girls there. Mother in law in the chair. My daughters on both ends and me 2nd from right. Someone took a guy photo too but I missed that.

Our favorite little cousin (belongs to the Scottish niece). He's freaking ADORABLE!!

My Jessica and the other favorite cousin also named Jessica (mine's older, name stealers!)

So it was a fun time. We were last to leave, mostly because the girls walked with their cousin to the store and apparently made a detour at Baskin Robbins on the way back!

Scott drove his parents in their car and I drove the kids and I. Jess actually drove us back. She said it was the scariest driving she has done so far (2 lane highway in the dark with curves). I think she's going to be an awesome driver :)

On to the bookmarks!! Here's my finished products.

And now? I'm going to attempt to go to bed and NOT cough my head off. Doubt it will happen though...