HAPPY NEW YEAR('s Eve!)

Are you all ready to go out and party? Got your sparkly dress?

This year we are just going to eat dinner at home and then go over to my friend Traci's house for some drinks (within walking distance). We may stop into the bar and have a drink there too since we need to go in and pay our $10 tab from last weekend.

The original plan was to go to the prime rib dinner at the clubhouse but I didn't get tickets in time. This will be cheaper anyways! Plus I'll eat less. Yep yep, all works out.

I have today and tomorrow for my #rwrunstreak. I'm waiting for Trevor to finish his homework paper (he's still working on his make up work from when he was sick) to take him out to shoot his bow and arrow. I'm planning on running up and down the road while he's doing that to get my mile in. IF he gets done before it's dark. He's almost done and it's going to start getting dark soon!

Tomorrow I am going to start a #31dayshred challenge I made up. I'm doing the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred every day in January and probably 2 days into February since there is also a #jmdvdchallenge that has $150 up for grab. I'm sure I'll want to shoot myself by Feb 2nd but hey, it will be worth it!

I plan on taking a pic a day like I've been doing with the runstreak and posting them on Instagram to keep me motivated. Plus it's kind of fun in my geeky little way!

Bows and Arrows

I've declared today "Lazy Day". I just finished a book I've been trying to read all month and now I'm taking a break while I decide what to do next.

I'm thinking that's going to involve a shower and a change from nightgown to sweats.

Scott just took Trevor out to shoot his bow and arrow he got for Christmas. I took him out into the boonies yesterday and he had a great time.

It didn't come with a target so I found one online and printed it out.

 (that rubble in the background is from an old building they tore down out there. They are in serious need of some clean up parties!)

(we found that tire while we were looking for an arrow, he was going to try and shoot through it but that didn't work out)

Not sure if this little video will work but it cracked me up! We never did find that arrow. Scott thinks he's going to be able to find it today. Good luck!

While he was shooting at the target I got distracted by some quail running around. Can you see them? I had my camera zoomed in all the way.

 I finally convinced him to leave because it was getting cold. I came home and got the dog and went out for our mile run to get it done with. The sun was setting at the end of the street.

and on fire around the corner.

It had been foggy and gloomy all day so it was nice to get a bit of color to the sky. I'm so done with winter already and it just started.

Christmas Day!

After our morning at home we went over to my mom's house.

When we first got there Jessica was holding Ava on her lap and Ava peed on her. Poor kid but it was pretty funny! Jess had to wear a pair of my mom's Christmas pants while she washed her jeans.

The girls were actually fighting over Melissa. It's so funny how the kids (and animals) all love her so much. I don't call her the baby whisperer for nothing!



We had a breakfast of bagels, muffins, coffee, and hot chocolate for the kids.

Then the boys passed out the presents

and we started opening from youngest to oldest. We were reminded real quick why we do it this way. The little ones have an attention span of like 2 seconds and then they can play with their stuff while everyone else opens up their gifts. It's nice to see what everyone got, and it makes it last longer than if everyone tears in all at once.

Ava

Adrian

 Trevor

Tony

Melissa

Jessica

Maegen

Joe

Louie (and Tony)

Michele goes here but didn't want her picture taken. Then me!

Scott

Mom

Dad

 and Charly (sister in law Maegen's Dad)

My Uncle Bobby came later but I didn't get a picture of him.

The room my dad is standing in they just built on this year. It was so nice having that extra space. The guys played pool and threw darts at the dart board for most of the day.

This is the norm when my mom sits down. A kid and a dog lol. 

We played this game all day. I finally won the LAST game we played. (or I quit once I won?? lol)

 Ava loves her Uncle Scott. I admit that I'm jealous she likes him more than me!

I didn't help with the cooking (but I did bring a lasagna I made in advance and stuck in the oven, cookies and peanut butter pie). So I washed almost all the dishes after dinner. I didn't take any pictures at the table but we all sat in one long row. It's so fun sitting like that!

I was so full from snacking all day I wasn't even all that hungry for dinner. That night I laid in bed in pain! WHY why do we do that to ourselves? Maybe some day I'll learn not to do that!

Merry Christmas!

I feel like I'm in a lame duck period of time right now. A couple more days of crap food and then we can have that fresh clean break that I am so desperately ready for.

But oh, there's a cookie I'll just have one more....

Christmas Eve we went over to my in-laws house and I :gasp: didn't take any pictures. I hate when I do that (or don't do that). It's kind of weird over there though, it feels like the same exact thing every year. Everyone sits in the same seats and it's like one more mark on the calendar.

We did have a nice visit though. We brought over Papa Murphy's pizza (mother in law's request) along with peanut butter pie and cookies. When we got there I realized we forgot to get some drinks so Jess ran to the store and picked us up some.

We stayed for a few hours and then came home and I wrapped all the kids presents. Have you ever had to wrap a skateboard?

How about a bow and arrow. Hmmm probably should have looked for some boxes for those. I usually put fake names on the kids presents so they don't know which ones are theirs. That usually keeps the messing with the presents down to a minimum. I didn't really need to do that this year since it was Christmas Eve when I was wrapping them but Trevor kept asking me what I was going to make their names be this year. So I made every present have a different elf name. Yes, I do keep a sheet of notes on who is who. He was all tickled that I did that. Nice that one is at least young enough to still have fun with silly things like that!

I managed to sleep in a little bit on Christmas morning. Scott was up first as usual and then Trevor woke up and I yelled from my room to the girls "wake up!" and that did it, everyone was up. No more 3 am Christmas mornings here!

We always open presents youngest to oldest. This year we got Rusty a present because Scott said he "always looks like he feels left out". So cute!

So we picked him up a present and I had wrapped it up. I called him in from my room and showed him the present. He got so excited! He picked up and carried it away a bit and then came back and ripped it open. Silly dog! It was hilarious! I wish I would have done a video! Maybe next year!

After Rusty we all took our turns opening up our presents. Everyone seemed to be happy with what they got so that was good!

After we all played with our presents a bit we got dressed and went to my mom's house. I'll post about that tomorrow!

Cookies Cookies Everywhere

Who's got the Christmas spirit??? Me Me Me!! Only took until Friday to creep in.

Money sure helps that a lot haha. Thank you disability for your wonderful payment. Thank you work for my Christmas bonus and paycheck, and thank you Scott's boss for paying him every week.

I spent all weekend Christmas shopping. ALL. WEEKEND.  But I got it all done in 3 days and 4 trips to Target (and one trip to the mall and a few other stores).

Friday night I was going to go the Tracy mall but luckily I was waiting for Scott to get home first because some idiot shot a gun into the mall. I'm guessing he did not have the Christmas spirit.

Monday I had to go to work (wish I had just put in for the whole week off, but no one got vacation time for that) but lucky for me I have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off.

The girls have been making cookies the last few days.

We have

Mrs. Fields cookies (I think I ate half of these already)
Peanut Butter
Snickerdoodles
Oatmeal Raisin for Scott (hork)
Spritz
Swirl cookies
and I just made these mini biscotti cookies. I still need to dip about half of them, I had to take a break to make breakfast before Trevor keeled over.
--------------------

This afternoon I walked around the neighborhood and delivered the cookies to a few neighbors and my book club gals that live out here. I was gone for a few hours (got busy talking hehe) and the kids ended up hunting me down. Jess ended up picking me up in the car so I'd get home faster.















Those couple hours were fantastic! Walking around in silence, crisp air outside. The lake was like glass and so beautiful.

 It was actually dark by the time Jessica picked me up. I can't wait for the days to start getting longer again!

Gingerbread House Party!

So right now I'm NOT running the Double Race. I realized I'm just not at that point right now in my running. Doing one mile a day right now is more than enough for me. Starting the second week in January I will start training for my next half and I'm ok with being a bit of a slacker until then.

It's a good thing I don't live where it snows or I might not ever run in the winter at all!

We've spent the last two days Christmas shopping like crazy. I still need to go out and get a few more gifts. Some people are just so hard to buy for! Also we had bought a couple things for the kids and then found them way cheaper somewhere else so we took back the originals and now have more money to spend on them. I am trying to spend about the same amount for each of them to make it fair :) This is the year of a bunch of not so big things.

Last Sunday we went to my sister in law's annual Gingerbread house party. I think they are so much fun! She pre-assembles the houses now to make it easier for the kids. There are a couple of us moms though that have more fun than the kids I think haha. Next year I'm bringing a couple more bags of candy. I know that's got to be expensive to provide all that and you can never have enough candy!

I only took a few pictures.

Ava with her hair all pretty with a big flower

My house, those gum ball things are pretty tasty. I spent the next week picking them off a couple at a time haha.

 My sister in law, the host. (check out the gal on the left, she didn't even bother with the kids making one she just let them go play and got busy!

Our table after being  decorated at

One of my favorite things about annual parties that other people throw is that you get to see all the little kids grow up in quick flashes. Last year's newborn, this year's toddler. Last year's boy needing a lot of help, this year wearing half the frosting on his sweater but did it himself. Of course we also have the sad end of that being that Jess couldn't come because she had finals. Darn kids growing up!

Here's a picture I stole from someone that was there. Notice I am the only adult in the picture? Usually everyone that went gets in the picture but I didn't get the memo that they weren't all doing that this year haha.

Sick Little Boy

Trevor has been out of school all week. Monday morning he was whining that he "felt like death". I thought for sure he was faking it since he had had a busy weekend and maybe just needed one more day to relax. Well it's now Thursday and he has missed the whole week of school (they don't have school Friday). I took him to the doctor today to make sure that nasty sounding cough wasn't bronchitis.

I was totally shocked when they weighed him and he has lost about ten pounds from the last time we were there. I knew he was looking a lot thinner, especially in his face, but I thought he was just getting taller and thinning out. We haven't really been doing anything different I don't think. We don't eat out a lot and I don't buy a lot of unhealthy snacks but maybe we are doing those even less now than before.

We were waiting for the doctor for a little bit. Does he look dramatic here? He kept telling me to go find someone. For sure they must have forgot about us, and were the only ones here? Silly kid.

Seems like just yesterday he was an infant laying on that thing.

Anyhow, he was running a low fever so he's definitely not faking it (my oldest keeps saying he is faking it). I can tell just by looking at his eyes that he is sick too. The doctor said that his lungs sounded fine so probably just a virus.

Of course on the way home my throat was starting to feel scratchy and my nose was a little running. I downed an Emergen C when we got home. I think I'll do another one before I go to bed just in case. I don't know if it's all in my head or not lol. I tend to panic when I think I might be getting sick now. Especially for the holidays,. That would really suck.

Tony's 11th Birthday

Saturday I went for a run around the perimeter of the club. It was such a pretty day!

Then it was off to my nephew Tony's ice skating party. Trevor finished reading the first Harry Potter book on the way. I'm so happy he's finally reading books. BIG BOOKS. I'm now the only one in the house that has not read Harry Potter. I know!

We met my brother, my nephew and a couple other kids there and they skated for two hours (and got hot chocolate, pretzels, red vines, etc.) while we visited.

Then it was back to the house for pizza and cake. 

My niece Adrian came with my mom My brother Joe and sister in law were both working. How cute is she?

Ava was napping when we got there but after she woke up she got a bunch of snuggle time in with Melissa.

Then had fun playing with Adrian. I just love her little pig tails.

Before long it was time for cake. Make that CUPcakes. Have you ever seen eleven candles on a cupcake before? 

  Pics around the room

 Ava helped while Tony opened his presents.



He got a metal detector OH BOY!  We ended the night off with some coffee and before we knew it it was ten o'clock!