Happy Birthday to WAHHHHH!

Emma's Third Birthday

Eating lunch at a Mexican restaurant...they sang to her and gave her this sombrero to wear as she ate her birthday dessert.

In my immediate family, aside from Nathan's birthday in October, we like to jam pack everything into two months rather than spreading out the celebrations throughout the year. In December we have Taylor's birthday, our wedding anniversary and of course Christmas. Then in January, we have my birthday and Emma's birthday. Come the end of January, we're pretty much partied out!

This past Sunday was Emma's third birthday. As you can see from the picture above, she enjoyed her "bowf-day wunch" very much! When we left church, Nathan and I asked her where she'd like to go for lunch today. We made a big deal about it being her choice and we could go wherever she liked...so long as it wasn't Chuck-e-Cheese's or Cici's! ...or McDonald's or (the list could go on and on!) ...but we made it feel like it was her choice no less. She wanted to have "ships and saw-sah"! Yum, yum! Looks like Mexican today! My favorite, I thought! We went to this little family owned Mexican place close by where she enjoyed a taco, beans and rice. She announced promptly after our waitress had seated us that it was her birthday. I'm pretty sure the entire restaurant heard what a special day it was due to her excitement which gave way to ear splitting volume in her words. Our waitress was wonderful. She was every bit as dramatic about it as Emma was and she played along with her quite well. It was an entertaining lunch. I took the above picture of her with my cell phone as I had forgotten or rather never even thought about bringing my camera along when we left home that morning. It was, after all, Sunday morning...I'm glad to get out of the house with myself, my Bible and both children completely dressed. It's a bonus if I remember anything else, such as Emma's bag containing a change of clothes, juice, goldfish and no telling what else that has fallen into the bottom of it! I've considered putting a note in the top of the bag, the kind that pops out like a pop-up book, that says "Enter at your own risk...no guarantees that you'll come out with your extremities still in tact!" But I digress...Anyway, she enjoyed herself and her lunch. When we came out of the restaurant, there were a flock of pigeons flying over head as we walked to the car. Emma spotted them right off and so she stops in the middle of the parking lot and starts in with this high pitched, shrill, ear piercing "Caahhhh, Caahhhh, Caahhhh" sound. -she's using her "crow" call to call to these birds! (~learned how to do that from her Papaw Donny & Uncle Tommy while we were home for Christmas...thanks so much for that one guys!) So then Taylor joins in calling at them. Here we are standing in this parking lot, and my sweetly dressed baby girls have now morphed into some kind of rednecked bird whisperers, completely oblivious to anything else going on around them, totally focused on these pigeons! I did the only thing I could at that point and said "Yaw girls, git yo lil' tails in this here car 'fore these people ship yo lil' hineys back to Arkinsaw!" Never a dull moment! ;-)

As I mentioned earlier, I also celebrated, uk hum, excuse me, mourned my birthday this month as well. I turned thirty...eeww!...this past Friday. It was not pleasant and I didn't enjoy it near as much as Emma did hers. I know...those of you thirty somethings, forty somethings and fifty somethings out there are going "Oh, please, make me puke!" But just indulge me this for a few minutes or the time it takes for you to read the rest of this...My actual birthday was not as bad as the day before. The day before all I could think about all day long was..."This is your last day in your twenties!" Waaahhhh "You're going to be OLD tomorrow!" Waaahhhh "You're gonna wake up gray, aching and falling apart tomorrow!" Waahhh Waaahhh Waaahhh! I teared up and started to cry on and off all day long. I just felt physically SICK! I was anxious and full of dread and just plain ticked off too. It wadn't pritty! Then the actual day came and I was surprisingly feeling -not better- but not as bad either. It was like, okay, it's here now, nothing you can do about it. ~like I could have in the first place! I did get to look forward to going out to dinner that night, just Nathan and I. We got a babysitter for the girls...they were ecstatic. We went to this cozy little Japanese restaurant, not the kind with the hibachi grill where they cook in front of you, this was a sit-at-your-own-table kind of place. We'd been once before and it was really good. We had sushi and teriyaki steak and chicken. Mmmmm it was so good. I'm salivating now just thinking about it! No, maybe that's just drool. Uh oh, is this the first episode of losing control of the bodily functions??...this is NOT a good sign! (ha!) Nathan has finally converted me into a sushi lover. Well, lover may be stretching it a bit, liker or enjoyer may be better terms. It's easier for me to enjoy it now since I saw Dr. Oz on Oprah say that it won't kill you...eating the raw fish and all. When they serve your meal at this place, they don't offer you utensils. Or at least not American utensils. Rather, they give you chop sticks. And no rubber band to bind the top ends together with either. You got two wooden sticks and you're on your own! All of you that know me very well know how just far my coordination and gracefulness extend. Not past the end of my nose. So it was quite a challenge for me to eat with those God forsaken shards of tree. After about a half hour of balancing one grain of fried rice to my mouth at a time and piercing the meat with the end of the stick while awkwardly lifting it to my mouth, I chunked the sticks and started digging in with my bare hands! ...just kidding. It wasn't quite THAT bad. After a few lessons from my cultured, whiz of a husband, I began to get it down well enough that I didn't shoot food onto other patrons. I didn't say I that I didn't shoot food across our own table though. I'm sure the sushi chefs (try saying that three times! I'm sure there is another name by which they go by, surely!) who were just beyond a small glass divider to my right enjoyed watching me juggle my rice. At any rate, we had a nice dinner and enjoyed ourselves. Afterward we went shopping for a little while till it was time to head back home. I found this jacket that was on sale that is too cute! ~don't know when I'll be able to wear it, since I live on the equator and it stays hot as you know the place. But it was on sale, and did I say it is so cute?! That trumps any rational reason not to buy it.

This birthday has brought about many troubling feelings and emotions. I've suddenly realized that I feel stuck in some weird, in-between rut and I'm not sure where I go from here. Behind me are the days that I was working, teaching, starting our family and getting my life going and now here I am at home, raising my girls and taking care of our household. Taylor has gone to school, Emma is in preschool and will be starting school in a couple of years and I'm not sure where that leaves me. I don't really want to go back to teaching and if I do decide to I'm going to have to take some classes and get re-certified to do so. I don't feel like that's what God is calling me to do. But at the same time, I don't know what it is I'm supposed to do next. I'm getting the itch to start working again, not that I'm not enjoying staying home and taking care of my family, I so am and feel truly blessed that I'm able to do it. I'm not ready to go back into a full time job right now, for sure! I want to still be able to be home when my kids are and take care of Emma here at home. But I'm ready to start pursuing something or getting something in the works for my future. I want to believe that it's God giving me this desire since never before would I have ever said I want to return to the work force. All my life, all I've ever wanted to do was stay at home and care for my family and my home; not the least bit interested in a career. So these sudden career-oriented feelings have caught me off guard. I love writing on this blog and I think I would love to write something more than just this but that is about as far as I can take it, as I have no knowledge whatsoever of how to write anything else or where to even start. I just know that when I sit down to blog, I don't have one single thought in my head as to what I'm going to say beforehand. It all just sort of flows out and turns into this 2 hour long discussion with myself, and of course you. So I don't know. I'm praying that God will reveal to me whatever it is that he wants me to do and that he'll give me a passion for it and dissolve any other interests that I have that are not his will. I know that I'm not going to be truly happy and find joy in my work unless it's what He has called me to do. I really want to look back later at this point in my life and see that this was not a desert I was standing in looking around trying to figure out which way to go but rather the on-ramp to a freeway with God holding my hand and taking me into the next exciting chapter of my life. Whew, that was deep. Lemme crawl back up here and wrap this up. Anyway, pray for me that I'll find what it is that I'm supposed to do and I'll be praying for you that you're where God would have you to be and you're reaping the blessings and the joy that comes from being in His will.

Smorgasbord of thoughts (for lack of a better title for this one...)

This past week (since my last blog) has pretty much gone by in a blur. It seems like the older I get, the faster each day, week, year, decade...(Ahhhh)... goes by. Is it that way for you too? Sometimes I feel like I'm still in the past week trying to catch up and catch my breath and get myself to where I physically am in the next week. Like I'm a hamster running on a wheel, only my wheel is spinning faster and I'm not running at a matched pace...which means I'm tumbling over...and over...and over frantically kicking and flailing trying to get back up again. (Did you get that mental picture?) Since we've gotten back home from being away for Christmas, I've still not been able to get myself reorganized and back into my groove. For whatever reason, it sure is taking me a long time this time. I always have a hard time coming back to my home after being at my real home...did all those "homes" make sense?? Anyway...it usually takes me only a day or so and then I'm fine again, wrapped back up into my life here not having much time to be homesick for AR. However this time, I wasn't ready to come back down here, and to ice that cake, the temp. here has been 80 degrees every stinkin' day! There's something terribly not right about 80 degrees in January! Do you agree? Most people here, though, think its just great. That's the reason many of them are here (snowbirds as we call them-here for the winter, back up north for the summer). Having only two weeks to wear my cute sweaters and my cute jacket were not near enough. I think that has been part of my problem; a clothing issue. (Totally ridiculous, I know...only another "clothes lover" would understand.) Today though, my sun has shown a little brighter. The high here was 60! Whoo-pee!!! I got to wear one of those new sweatsuits I was telling you about that I bought in Branson. Made me so happy. ;-) Ahhh, the little things...

Last week I started two new Bible studies at church. Yes, I said two! And yes, I do need that many! :) I go to one on Tuesday morning...we're studying "Bad Girls of the Bible and What You Can Learn From Them" and then the other one is on Wednesday night. It's a Beth Moore called "A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place". I normally wouldn't have chosen to take two at one time but I had already committed to going to the Tuesday morning class when I found out that the Beth Moore class was starting on Wednesday night. I can't pass up a Beth Moore study; they're always so awesome and I learn so much from her. At the class Wednesday night, I saw another lady there who is also from Arkansas. Warren actually...only 30 minutes from my home town. I met her and her husband last year. They hadn't lived here long then and they were just getting involved with our church. We were both floored and excited that we'd found each other and we were from the same area. It made me feel not quite so isolated down here, and it did for her as well. She and I were talking after class and she was wanting to know about our Christmas and if we'd gone back to AR. She and her family didn't get to go back this year but her parents came down here for week. I felt really sorry for her because she's having a hard time with being here and misses AR and her old house terribly. When she asked me how I was handling being here and if I felt that way, it actually made me feel better talking to her. I had been really homesick and just sort of down the past week, just as she has felt the entire time they've been here. Once I started talking with her about it and identifying with her feelings and hurts, I started telling her the good things that have come out of us being here and in encouraging her, I made myself feel better. Would you call that reverse psychology or maybe upside down psychology??? I don't know. But I told her how much being here has strengthened my marriage and how much we love our church and how immediately we'd plugged ourselves in to several ministries within the church and that we'd made many Christian friends who've become our extended family and it doesn't make it quite as hard anymore. In talking to her I started realizing how blessed we've been since moving here and how many opportunities we've had to do things and see things that we'd never have gotten to see or do otherwise. If I get nothing else out of being here, just the realization of all the things I used to take for granted alone will be enough. So I guess having a little pep talk with yourself (or through someone else) every once in a while is helpful to bring you out of your slums! Or it was for me anyway.

I started reading the books that my friend Courtney recommended...See "Must Reads" at right...I bought the first one, Twilight, Thursday night and since that night, I've been totally engulfed in them! I've read every spare moment I've had...stopping only to feed a mouth, wipe a behind, go through the bath-time routine, and sleep a few hours. I took the book to bed with me on Thursday night and naturally I got to a really good part and couldn't stop reading even though I had to prop my eyes open with toothpicks. I was so close to the end that I had to keep reading. When I was done I thought to myself, man, it's probably close to midnight, I've got to get to sleep. I rolled over to set the alarm and the clock read 2:30 AM!!!!! "Oh, crap" I thought..."I've got to be up in 4 hours!!!" But it was worth it. I'm now about half-way through the third novel. It's funny, reading is a new thing for me. Not that I COULDN'T read or didn't read well (((Deana-I know you were about to make a joke out of that!!)))) I'm a good reader but I had absolutely no desire at all to. I hated reading and thought it was a colossal waste of my time. Now, I love it. I'd rather be reading...especially Nicholas Sparks books, however I think now these Stephenie Meyer books have passed him up in my author race...than doing anything else. I've been surprised how fast I've been able to get through these thick books. Deana still tells her class of her teacher friend (me) who took a whole year to get through to get through one elementary level chapter book! -actually I think she's stretched it to three years now. And you know, it might have actually taken me three years to finish it, now that I think about it. Anyway, if you've not read these books by Stephenie Meyer, go get the first one and start reading it!!!! One little caution to you...don't judge the book based on what the back cover says, or where it's located in the book store or library. (Easy there, it IS PG rated!! That's not what I'm getting at!) I wish I could tell you more about the story line but anything I say about it will not do it justice. Just know that based on reading the back of the book, I would have never had any desire what so ever to read it~so ignore it. With that being said...go get the book!!! Book(S) rather! ~you'll need all three! Trust me, once you finish the first you'll not be able to wait to get the next one. Same thing after the second book...you'll want to start the third immediately. Unfortunately the fourth book in the sequel doesn't come out until this fall. So we'll have to wait a little longer for that one. Movie producers will begin production of Twilight, the movie, in February. I wasn't able to find a date of its expected release. Hopefully by the end of next year.

One funny story before I go...This afternoon Emma and I went to wal-mart on our weekly grocery shopping trip. I didn't get to the store till late and we had to nearly run down every isle grabbing what was on my list and chunking it into the cart. Naturally they had like three checkout lanes open and each one had ten people waiting to check out. Ugghh! So frustrating as I stood there checking my watch knowing that if that cashier didn't move a little faster I was going to be late picking up Taylor from school. So I'm quite agitated at this point, to say the least. As we're standing there at the back of the line, an older couple gets in line behind us. They made their annoyance at the lines known immediately and the "wife" kept trying to flag down employees as they passed asking them to open up the lane she was standing next to. It was amusing. The man was certainly from up north by his fast talking yankee accent and the woman was Hispanic with a heavy Spanish accent. Can you picture them? But that's not it. It wasn't long until they'd caught sight of Emma's big eyes staring at their aggressive behavior. I was standing at the front of the cart anxiously waiting my turn to load down the conveyor belt. This gave them plenty of room to move in closer to her and strike up a conversation, complementing her on her "beautiful eyes and curls." Normally whenever a stranger speaks to her, she ducks her head and either smiles or looks down. I have to make her speak a "hello" to people. Well, by the time we left the store she was calling them her "new friends". ha! She did her usual, dropped head reaction at first but they just kept talking to her and all of a sudden she lifted that head and started talking. Ten minutes later, she is STILL talking their ears off jumping from one subject to the next. She told them that her birthday was coming up on Sunday and that she's having a party with "aw of huh fwinds comeen." She asked them to come as well. She showed them the party invitations we'd picked up in the store and told them all about Dora, who was on them. Apparently they don't have any children around because they didn't know who Dora was. Anyway, I just knew that they HAD to be beginning to get annoyed at her constant jabbering but I couldn't seem to find a good time to cut in and cut her off. I was getting embarrassed at all she was talking about...nothing that was to be embarrassed about but nearly each story she told I had to clear up their confusion in some way, explaining further what she was talking about. The poor man kept saying in his fast accent..."What, What...What was that sweet haht?" Anyway, I thought she was finally winding down as I was almost done checking out and then I hear something come out of her mouth that just mortified me...she's still talking about Dora and she happily says "And Boots has a tail coming out of his butt!" I gasped and said "Emma!...Emma..." but she wasn't listening to me. The man was looking puzzled and confused at his wife (wondering if he really heard her right) and his wife says "Wat deed she sey?!" and he says (with his head cocked to the side, with a slightly confused but amused look on his face) "Iee think she said Boots...has a...tail...coming out... of his.....BUTT! Huh!" Emma noticed that they didn't think they heard her right so, of course, she ignored my scolds and confirms it by saying it again. They just laughed with their eyebrows raised and shaking their heads. I just covered my eyes with my free hand, and shook my head. I was beet red, I know. Luckily, the cashier handed me my receipt just then and I took off. All the while I'm practically running out of the store she's yelling at the top of her lungs "BYE! BYE! BYE!" I looked back to see them still laughing and waving goodbye to her. Oh well, at least she put them in a better mood and maybe made their time in line a little less aggravating. ~I don't know, though.

Back in the groove...

We're back home now and beginning to get back into our daily "routine", (I like to fool myself into believing that our madness has some type of order to it so that it deserves to be called a routine.) We got back home on Saturday night. Our trip back down here was uneventful, thanks to Benadryl! ;-) Emma did much better coming back home than she did going up to AR. On the way up there she cried probably 13 of the 16 hours we were in the car. It was pure misery! That is, until I remembered that I had packed a survival kit of all types of goodies...cough medicine, benadryl, tylenol, motrin, benadryl itch stick-cause LORD help us if one of them has an itch! ha! ~Donna, you and Laura know exactly what I'm talking about! Anyway, once I remembered that I had benadryl, I yelled to Nathan over the whining and crying to "Pull over!" When I told him that I had benadryl in her bag that I could give her to help her calm down and get to sleep, he almost stared a hole through me. He was a little perturbed that we'd had to endure hours of endless crying before I remembered. In my defense though, I'd had a REALLY LONG day that day (Taylor's Christmas program and party that morning, packing, packing, packing, loading the car, etc...)and I've developed a "sanity saving mechanism" since becoming a stay at home mom that allows me to tune out pretty much anything! It's quite nice! I knew she was not sick or in pain and there was nothing I could do to make her happy (she wanted OUT of her seat!) so I just tuned her out and stared out the window in deep thought and relaxation. After we pulled to a stop on the side of the road, we both quickly agreed that she seemed to have the sniffles and her "allergies" must be bothering her. (I have to do that to justify to myself giving her medicine.) So for the next 3 hours, we had some peace finally.
We all had a good time while we were there. The time always seems to fly by way too soon and we never get to see everyone that we wanted to see or do all of the things that we want to do while there. You really start to miss and appreciate things that you've had all your life once they're taken away. Things you didn't really know to appreciate in the first place. (...like hills and trees and cold weather, in my case.) We started off with our Christmas celebrations the day we arrived. We got to Mom and Dad's that morning around 4:30 am. (Praise God for Nanas that will get up and occupy the grandgirls at that hour and let the parents go to bed.) That night we had Christmas with my Dad's side of the family. They do "Dirty Santa" instead of drawing names. It was fun, for some of us-(I got a Lampe Berget and Nathan got a tool set!!) However, I don't think my Mamaw "gets" the game and every year she gets a gift that she "can't use" or "doesn't want". We've tried to explain that that happens when you play dirty santa...you don't always get something you necessarily want. It was quite an ordeal. Several of us suggested that next year she should not play the game with us, we'll all just bring her a separate gift. Maybe that'll work out better. She usually tells us, though, that she'll put our name on the gifts we give her so that we'll get it back when she dies. Ha! In fact each one of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have things in her house that have our names on them. I have an early 1990's model stereo system that is a combination record player/tape player. It stands about 4 ft. tall and has a pair of 4 ft. speakers that go with it. 15 years ago, I was excited when she told me that it would be mine when she died. ~however it felt a little morbid and weird. God love her! Taylor gets a little weirded out some times when she starts telling her things that she can have when she dies. She doesn't know whether to be happy or sad about it so she just kinda looks at her confused like and says "okay." One time a couple of years ago, when we were pulling out of her driveway, Taylor asked me when Mamaw Ford was going to go see Jesus. I said "I don't know. Why are you asking me that?" She said "because she told me that she's ready to go see him." That started a whole discussion that I was not prepared for! Okay, off this rabbit trail and back to the subject...

Monday we had Christmas with Nathans parents and then later with his Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Nathan and I got a Nintendo Wii game system from his parents. It is so much fun! He and Taylor and I have had the best time with that thing! Taylor and Emma got lots of fun stuff too. "Lots" is quite the understatement there! At Nathan's Mamaw's house we draw names. My sister-in-law had my name and she gave me a monogrammed apron that is SO cute and a new cookbook (do you think she read my last blog before getting my gift? ha!) The cookbook is really interesting. It's by Jerry Seinfeld's wife, Jessica Seinfeld. It's called Deceptively Delicious and in it she shows you ways to fool your kids into eating vegetables by pureeing them and hiding them in different foods. I read the whole book before we left to come back home and in the car on our way home, I planned out our menu for this week using several of her recipes. Monday I went to the grocery store and then all afternoon long, I was roasting, steaming and pureeing all kinds of vegetables! ha! I pureed spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes and carrots. While I was in there pureeing the vegetables so that I could hide them in her recipes, my girls were coming in there grabbing the raw broccoli, cauliflower and carrots and eating them. Several times I asked myself "Why are you doing this when obviously you don't have a problem getting them to eat vegetables! They're eating them raw without even dipping them in ranch dip!" But, I figured it couldn't hurt to add in more veggies to our diets. That night, I made her meatball soup that had sweet potato puree in the soup and meatballs ~it was really good! We all really liked it. I also made her brownie recipe that, get this, has pureed spinach and carrots in it! You don't know how hard it was for me to stir that bright green stinky pureed spinach into my chocolate brownie mixture! I was sure I was completely ruining a great thing. I felt like I was committing a terrible sin doing that to perfectly good chocolate! They baked up nicely and smelled good, much to my surprise. In her recipe she says to let them cool completely before serving so that the spinach taste will disappear completely. Now tell me who can NOT eat a nice warm brownie right out of the oven?! I certainly don't possess that kind of willpower! I decided to try a hot one and OMG was it good!! I was so surprised and impressed that I had to try a few more just to make sure they really were that good! ;-) I took one to Nathan to let him try. He'd passed through the kitchen several times while I was in my pureeing frenzy. He would just look at me with wide eyes, thinking I'd lost my mind. He did ask me what in the world I was doing to those vegetables! ha! When I brought him the brownie, he looked it over, smelled it and then asked "What'd you put in this?!" I refused to tell him what was in it until he tried it. Cautiously he took a bite. Said "Mmmm" and took another bite. Once I was sure that he liked it, I told him what it had in it. Then of course he turned up his nose and just said "Why?" I told him that it made me feel better when I ate half the pan in one sitting to know that it was "healthy!" ha!
Okay, back to Christmas...That night we left Nathan's grandparents and went back to my parent's house. The next morning, we all got up to find that santa had come. The girls were opening and strowing toys from one side of the room to the other. It was so much fun! Tommy & Lesley were there too. My kids wake them up and they sit there on the couch wide eyed and drowsy watching my girls tear through their gifts. I think there are lots of times when my girls make them feel grateful that they don't have children yet! ha! After we opened all the gifts and enjoyed Dad's annual Christmas breakfast, we got the Wii out and we all played it all day long. We all stayed in our pajamas till late that afternoon. It was nice!
The day after Christmas, Nathan and I went to Branson for a couple of days for our anniversary which was on the 19th. We had fun. It snowed on us on the way up there! It was so pretty! We shopped the whole time. I'm blessed to have a husband who loves to shop at outlet malls! He was so good too...I was shopping in several different shoe stores and he was helping me by holding my purse and bringing me shoes to try on that he thought I'd like. He never once got impatient, even after I had tried on nearly 10 different pairs of tennis shoes and then decided not to buy any of them! ha! You can surely tell how I feel about my body right now based on what clothing I bought for myself. I bought two knit jogging suits and 4 pairs of pajamas! The pajamas were on sale and were a great price or I wouldn't have bought that many...maybe. I wanted to buy more of them, you know, one for each day of the week but I stopped at 4 after seeing Nathan's expression when he saw I was carrying that many. He couldn't believe I was using my Christmas money to buy pajamas. That just blew him away. I explained what a bargain they were and showed him how cute they were (you know he was really won over by that one! ha) and that they'd last me 10 years, as that's about how old my others are. (Don't even go there with that mental picture! Trust me!) Before we left town coming home I wanted to ask him to take me back to old navy where I could pick up another couple of pair of them but I decided I may have to do that when we get home, by myself. (hee hee!) We didn't go to any shows or anything. We'd planned to go to a movie one night since doing that is a rare thing for us but Nathan got a phone call from a friend as we were arriving at the theater telling him that a guy he used to be good friends with had drowned while fishing at lake DeGray. After that neither of us felt like doing anything. We were so shocked and so saddened by the news. Aside from having Christmas with my Mom's family, the rest of our holiday vacation was pretty emotional. We had Christmas with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Hope at my aunt Donna's house. It was a lot of fun, as always! Then on new years eve we attended the funeral. It was really sad. He had a wife, 4 year old daughter and 5 month old daughter. Nathan and I still can't believe that he's gone. He was so much fun to be around and was always joking and laughing. He'll truly be missed. That night we went out to eat with some friends and to a movie. We saw I Am Legend. If you've not seen it, DON'T GO! I HATE scary movies, for obvious reasons if you've been reading my blogs very long, and in this one, I had my jacket over my face and my ears plugged almost the entire time! It was awful!!! New years day we ate lunch at Nathan's parent's house with all of his family. We had all of the traditional foods that you have at new years. It was really good. Again, I ate way too much! The next day I was playing with the Wii and I figured out that it has a slot for you to put your sd card from your digital camera and it has a program that you can use to play around with and create slide shows with your pictures. Well, I was messin' with my camera and thought I was editing one picture and I deleted EVERY picture on my camera. It made me sick. I wanted to puke! I lost every picture from Taylor's Christmas program at school, all my Christmas pictures, Christmas morning, pictures from Branson and of the snow. Gone, all gone! I still can't think about it much or I just want to cry. Luckily Nathan's mom took some pictures of the girls opening presents at her house and then we have video of the girls waking up to their Santa presents. I am hoping that since it's a digital video camera, I can get some still pictures from it too. I'm not sure how to do it but I'm going to check my manual and see if it's possible.
We had one last Christmas celebration to do. It was with the Hartsells. Deana and I let our kids exchange gifts every year and then she and I do too. Remember those extra pajamas I wanted? Leave it to my best friend to come through for me! She got me the cutest pair of pajamas that came with pants AND shorts! -thinking of her FL friend there. Every year we get each other pajamas and a Christmas platter. We've done that since our first Christmas together. So in addition to my 5th pair of new pajamas, I got an adorable sectioned Christmas tray! It actually matches the tray she gave me last year perfectly! I could cater one heck of a Christmas party now with all my trays...and could do it in my pajamas too!

The girls have both started back to school. They were ready and excited to go back. Although my Christmas trees and decorations are still up, we're beginning to get things back to normal. I'm hoping to get my decorations down tomorrow. Maybe. I dread it. As much as I like decorating everything and putting my trees up, I detest taking it all down and packing it away again. Emma is still singing Christmas carols. She asks every time we get into the car for me to turn it to Christmas music. I tell her every time that the radio stations aren't playing it anymore because Christmas is over. Boy that makes her so mad when I say that. She yells, "No it isn't!! It's still cwistmas!" Today she was singing Silent Night. She's a lot like her daddy when it comes to singing the right lyrics. She just makes up words that sound like the right ones. Her version of Silent Night goes like this..."Siiii went ment night. Hoe wee ment night. Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh...Ahhh, Ahhh bwight. Hoe wee Isabel tenduh an my..." ha! It's hilarious to hear her sing it. I am going to try to get her to sing them on video and then I'll post them on you tube and put the link on here.

Well, I hope things in your life and home are returning to normal and your getting back into your "routine" now that the holidays are over. Good luck with your new year's resolutions, if you made any. Nathan and I joined a gym today. So we're taking the first step. Now if we can just stay motivated through the end of the month. That's usually about as long as it lasts! :)