Prayers

This is what I get to listen to before bed:

I love that he starts the video with 2 fingers up one nostril. Classic.

Here's our girl.
She always says, "May me, lay me" instead of "Now I lay me".
It cracks me up.


I'm blessed.

P.S. This is my 100th post!

The Candy Man Can

I love him because after a long day of work, he still has time to play Candyland.

And he doesn't LET her win!

Jesus Gets A New Crib

This is Jesus' new sweet crib.

We were shopping at Walmart last weekend and looking at all the Christmas stuff. Emily came across the nativity scenes. She HAD to have one.

She didn't like the cheap looking wisemen in one set. Baby Jesus was rather odd looking in another set. She liked this set in particular that resembled the figurines from Precious Moments. Fine. But, it didn't come with a manager. We decided to make one.

We got a box at Sams Club (we have one now) and we covered it with with paper shopping bags. The kids went to town painting it. I doubt the original manger where Jesus was born had glitter glue all over the roof, but it certainly adds some flare! Then we got a separate piece of cardboard from the lid of a shoebox. We put glue all over it and went outside to find grass, leaves and sticks.





Emily loves it and sets the people up 100 different ways. She'll even put Jesus on the roof. Somehow, I don't think Jesus would mind.

He's Not A Stray

This is Max. Some of my friends were trick or treating on Halloween and they went to one of my neighbors. She on the street north of us, but her house is just diagonal to ours. My friends saw a large bowl of cat food and they asked about it. The lady told them that it's for the stray cat. My friends asked what color and she said orange. They didn't know what color Max was. My friends have never seen him.



We rarely see him. In the summer, it's not unusual for him to disappear for days on end. The only sign of him is a disappearing food bowl that goes down every night. I was wondering why it seemed he was eating less. I thought he was snacking on various critters around the neighborhood. We've all seen the poor bunny he skinned. Apparently, our neighbors think he is a stray and he's getting his fill at several houses everyday. In the winter when the nighttime temperatures fall below freezing, Max decides he'll grace us with his presence.


This is the only time of year that he even wants in the house. When we first got Max almost 6 years ago, we kept him as an indoor cat. He drove us nuts. Meowing at all hours of the night and attacking my feet under the covers. He needed to hunt. He clearly was not meant to be cagged. We've freed him and we are all much happier.


But, he's not a stray!

It Pays To Watch TV

So, I'm watching Oprah yesterday as I do almost everyday. She has on this guy that is going around the country helping unsuspecting people get organized. It's rather entertaining. I guess I feel somewhat better about the state of my house when I see how some people are living.

The organizer guy had a brilliant idea. He took pictures of the kids art work and uploaded the pics to a photo site. Then, he had a photo book made of all their masterpieces. I completely plan on doing this when Emily finishes preschool. She makes about 2 new works of art daily. I don't have the room to store all that, so I can pick and choose my favorites and put them in a book. I can even include captions, like when she drew Granny (my Mom) the other day and put a cigarette in her mouth. She said, "That's Granny smoking a nasty cigarette." Things like that need to be captured and remebered for a lifetime.

Anyway, my point is that Oprah and Snapfish are teaming up for the next 24 hours and you can get a free photo book. They cost $29.99. You just have to pay the shipping and tax. I didn't want to do an art work book yet as I want Emily to finish the school year, so I can group all of that together. Instead, I made a book of our recent trip to California. It's a 20 page photo book and I included 91 pictures. I got it for only $7.54! It would've cost me $37.54. Now, that's awesome. I couldn't even print out that many pictures for that price, let alone put them in a wonderful book with cute captions and backgrounds.

The catch is that you have to go to the link within the next 24 hours. Once you sign up for snapfish or if you already have an account, you will have the credit in your shopping cart that will expire Sunday night. So, get the credit now and you have all weekend to put together an art book or photo book or whatever your little heart desires. This would also make a nice gift for the grandparents. Not, that I'm giving mine away to the grandparents (sorry Gwynne), but you know they love all those cheesy pictures of your kids.

Go here! http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081029_tows_messyhouse/7

Snapfish was running a little slower than normal as I imagine all 50 gazillion Oprah watchers are getting a free book. It takes a little longer than usual, but it's worth it.

5 Years

Today is our 5th anniversary.


We got married on the beach in St. Lucia in the Caribbean.
Just us.

Look at us...tan, skinny, well rested, ready to take on the world. As it turns out, our 2 kids are about as much as we can handle.


David and I actually met 6 years ago today. We were both on match.com. You know that Internet dating site. I had done Internet dating for over a year. It was like window shopping only way more fun than a new shirt! I hadn't met anybody interesting in a while. I decided to look for my "ideal" man. I put in my preferences. 5'9"-6'2", non smoker, social drinker, dark hair, dark eyes...etc. I figured I would shoot for the moon. Thank God I didn't stop my search at 6'1".

David was one of 10 guys that popped up. He was handsome, always a plus. When I read his profile, I thought we shared some common interests AND he could form a complete sentence without any grammatical errors. This is a very important thing. I hated when someone would just write in all lower caps. If you're too lazy to hit the shift key with your pinky, what else are you lazy about. I digress... I sent him an e-mail. It took him 2 days to write me back. I thought he wasn't interested. He claims he was busy at work. Whatever. I wrote him back. He wrote me back quicker this time. We talked on the phone. Then, we talked on the phone for hours. About 2 weeks later, we met for the first time.

It was a dinner date to Macaroni Grill. I let him pick me up. I know, I know, first rule in Internet dating, don't let them come to your house. We had spent hours on the phone for weeks and I felt I knew him pretty well. It wasn't a typical first date. "So, tell me what you do for a living?" We had already discussed all that on the phone. It felt like we were already friends. When I opened my front door, I think we were both pleasantly surprised. Sure, we had seen pictures, but nothing prepared me for the chemistry that I felt right away. We barely ate dinner that night as we were both so nervous. I laugh at that now.

We fell in love almost instantly. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. David asked me to marry him on his birthday, 7 months after that first e-mail. We were married just 5 months after that.

When you know, you know.

Happy Anniversary Sweetheart.
Here's to 50 more!

Pirates

The kids decided to dress up like pirates today. Emily hit the dress up trunk first and got first dibs.

Okay, so she's a pirate on a plane not a ship.
Anything goes in this house.

With these eyes, she can have my ship, treasure, booty, whatever she wants.

Ben got the leftovers. Some mardi gras beads, vampire shirt and we didn't have another pirate hat, so I tied pants around his head.

I plan to use the black pants around the head the next time Emily wants to play Maria from The Sound of Music.

He's giving me a "yah!".

Here's another picture of Em before the pirate dress up. She just looks so sweet. This is her beloved Porky. She HAS to sleep with him every night.

That's Ben in the background running, like always.