All Wrapped Up

For those of you wondering if I have fallen off the earth....I have not. I have just been spending my nights wrapping Christmas gifts. I wrap a couple a night (or try to) because I am bound and determined to finish by the end of the week-Friday preferrably. I DO NOT want to be wrapping the week of Christmas. I seem to always freak out by about this time because I have to wrap and wrapping just isn't one of my favorite things. I am usually like the picture shown above. I think that has only happened twice as of right now. I have never been able to cut the paper in a straight line which just drives me nuts and I am just not a pretty wrapper-I can't do all those fancy pretty bows and do dads that my sister always does. Her packages always put mine to shame but I am not letting that bother me this year. This year really hasn't been that bad and I think I might be enjoying myself. I told my sister that I decided I would wrap every present and not use 1 gift bag this year especially for the kids presents because I think they have more fun unwrapping the presents. I shouldn't have said that because I now have used 2 gift bags and 1 was for Rylee and 1 for Andrew (it was only the boring clothes though!)

I haven't even had the chance to tell about my 1st (kind of) fake tree experience. We have always had real trees and I vowed to never have a fake tree! I ate those words too but I am loving my fake tree. The lights look great and it looks real and I have my Christmas Tree Scentsey going so it smells real! We also have a fake tree downstairs that Justin's parents gave us a couple of years ago-it is our cheesy tree. Not my favorite tree but I like having one downstairs too. Now I have a new Scentsey down there too so it smells more real and that helps.


Well enough about that. Guess I need to get back to work. Actually, I just had a small procedure done on the bottom of my foot earlier today and I am on hydrocodone for pain. As I am feeling rather dizzy and yucky I think I will have to forego the wrapping tonight. At least I got my blogging done. This next picture will be me by tomorrow night as I will have finished all my wrapping!

Thank Goodness for Tags

Nicole tagged me and I am actually glad about that because I really have nothing else to blog about at this time. The tag (which has been modified down the road) is the 6 things tag. So here goes.

Six TV Shows I Watch:

1-Paranormal State on A&E
2-CSI Las Vegas
3-Iron Chef America (when I am up late enough)
4-Lilo and Stitch (next 3 courtesy of Rylee)
5-JoJo's Circus
6-Doodlebops (pure torture)

Six Favorite Restaurants:
1-Johnny Carinos
2-Red Robin (we are finally getting 1 here-yea!)
3-Garcias
4-Great Hunan
5-Chizs'
6-Texas Roadhouse

Six Things that Happened Yesterday: (O what an exciting life I lead!)
1-Got up-thought about excercising but didn't
2-Went to work
3-Came home
4-Made dinner
5-Took a bath
6-Went to bed

Six Things I Look Forward To:
1-Wrapping Christmas Presents
2-The weekend
3-Snow
4-Christmas with my family
5-The new Harry Potter movie (which isn't coming out in Dec. like it usually does-grr!)
6-Seeing Wicked in April w/ my sister and mom

Six Things on My Wishlist:
1-Another baby
2-Disneyland with my family
3-Resisting chocolate, cheese and bread (this will help with #4)
4-Get rid of that pesky 7 lbs
5-More time to read
6-More time with Rylee

Thanksgiving Fun

So Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone and believe it or not it was disaster free. On Thanksgiving day Justin and I cleaned the house in preparation for Rylee's Princess Birthday Party on Saturday and I knew there would be no time later. For Thanskgiving dinner we went to the Chipp house which was fun. I had to add this picture of Rylee because I just thought her expression was too funny.

Thank goodness I wasn't cooking that dinner-I just made dessert which was yummy. I made my (actually it's Paula Deen's) Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake. This cake so good but so fattening. It has 2 sticks of butter, 4 eggs and a whole box of powerdered sugar. Paula Deen knows how to make something good! I also did Rylee's hair in a new style that I saw on one of the hair blogs. I think it turned out rather well except for I didn't distribute the hair good enough because I have really skinny braids on top and then a big fat braid in the back.

But what I was looking forward to was Black Friday. Every year my sister, my mom and I get up at 4 to go shopping. My sister even made it a special trip because they spent the day with her DH's family and drove that night just so she could shop with us. It wouldn't have been the same without her! But I have to say that we aren't too crazy because we don't even get to the stores til about 5. We don't stand in lines before the stores actually open. I don't know why it is so fun but I just have a blast and I got quite a bit done. There is always a little left over to do but I mostly go just to get Rylee's stuff done. Toys R Us is always our 1st stop and in previous years it seems like we have had plenty of time to shop while my Mom (gotta love her for doing this) stands in line to hold us a place in line. But this year they really must have had their stuff together because I had my mom and sister calling me that they were in the front of a line. Crap! I had what I wanted but I just wanted to make sure I hadn't overlooked any good deals. Kohl's has always been the worst stop for us because the line is horrendous. We stood there for over an hour and Nicole's back is killing her, my arms are about ready to fall off because my bag was so full and poor Mom powersurged the whole way through!

The men took the kids to see Bolt while we were shopping and then we met for lunch. I have to say I was very nervous to see how Rylee looked because horrible mother that I am forgot to lay out an outfit for her and her dad was doing her hair. She was quite the mis-matched sight with bangs in her face. Poor girl but bless Justin's heart for doing that and she had a good time with her Dad. Then my sister and I went to go see the movie Twilight. I am admitting that I had already seen the movie before and so had she but it was fun to see it together.

Saturday was the Princess Party. I pretty much had everything all ready to go. I just had to pick up the balloons and cake. We had already decorated the house Thursday night with the tulle so it was done. I tried to incorporate as much pink as possible. I really don't think Rylee cared all that much but I kept having to have more pink!

The party started at 1:00. We ended up having 5 princesses and 1 knight (Andrew) at the party. He made sure all the princesses were safe. To start we had the kids decorate their own crowns and then make candy bracelets. Then they got to play kiss the frog which was really a cute game and Rylee won that game so that was fun. Then the kids got to hit the Princess pinata which was a lot of fun-especially when it broke and all the kids dove for the candy. Then we got to have cake and then she got to open her presents. She had a lot of fun and I hope all the other little kids did too. I worried that they would go home sick with all the candy and sweets that we had. I think I had a little too much food but you live and you learn. It's not like I have ever done this before so I over planned. I guess I tend to do that with everything though. I should know better. Oh well, I would rather have too much than too little. As long as Rylee had fun. My cat Pumpkin had to get in on some of the fun. Then later we took her to Garcias for her Birthday dinner because she wanted to wear the sombero and get sung to. It was hilarious-all these workers come out and Rylee is frozen with fear-but she got to wear the hat! I can't believe my little girl is 4-I didn't cry too much just a little bit.

3 days packed with fun and excitement. I always feel so empty when I plan for things for weeks and then in such a short amount of time everything is over. Bring on to Christmas!

Job Well Done...Now for Fun

So as a reward for Rylee doing her best at Festival of Trees I told her that she could have her friends over to play. So we had Katie and Kierstin over last night to play. Oh what fun they had. Those girls have so much energy-I need to borrow some of it.

They had a blast playing outside, running around my house and watching a movie (not really-you all know how that is). I love all those girls but I know why I only do this on rare occasions. Kudos to all those parents with multiple kids-I really don't know how you do it!

Festival of Trees

So Rylee had her very first dance performance last night at Festival of Trees at the Red Lion. She was so excited about it-I think I was more nervous than she was. I ended up taking off a little bit early from work just in case we had any snags. I had to curl her hair in ringlets. I did 3 different layers just so there would be tons of curls and she just sat there so good watching cartoons (I didn't even burn her once thank goodnes!) and she never even moved. Then it was makeup time and she was so excited about getting to wear mascara. I could barely even get it on because she wouldn't open up her eyes but she still looked very pretty. After getting on her costume we rushed to the Red Lion as we were supposed to be there early. We had plenty of time to look around but Rylee was so anxious to go in the back with all the other dancers so I just took her back and waited. It was so cute to see all the little girls in all the different costumes.
After waiting for what seems like an eternity (a noisy one at that since all the girls were back there) it was finally her turn. She gets out there with a big smile on that never left her face throughout the dance and she watched her teacher just like we told her in case she forgot the dance. What a natural-no stage fright what-so-ever and she did her dance just great. I just couldn't stop smiling I was so proud! All the girls in her group did great. They did 2 dances one right after the other-the 2nd was just doing jingle bells w/ bells on their wrists and ankles with another group. It was too cute.

She has another one in a couple of weeks which hopefully won't be so crazy because it is just the dancers' family-not all the public. Maybe next time I will be as calm as Rylee (ya right!)

Busy Bee

Sorry-I haven't been very good at blogging lately but it has been a little busy around our house. I am sure everyone knows what that is like. Rylee is turning 4 on the 30th of this month and I have been very busy planning her party. For those that know me I tend to get a little crazy when I am planning something. Not only am I planning her party for the 29th right after Thanksgiving but she has her 1st dance performance for the Festival of the Trees Wednesday night. I will defintley blog about that. So I always feel a little pressure when life gets busy. It doesn't seem busy to some but I am used to work, dinner, bath and bed. Throw in a little extra and all heck breaks loose. Talk to Justin if you don't believe me. He would like to move out of the house when I get like this. He is already worried about me going crazy at Christmas because I am planning to have his parents, brother and girlfriend plus my parents and sister's family at my house for Christmas dinner. I have never even cooked a turkey-but I am not freaking out about that....yet!

D Day

So the dreaded D-Day oops I mean B-Day has come and gone. I did not melt, turn into an old lady w/ gray hair or drop dead. I am still me and I feel the same. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. That doesn't mean I still don't want to be in my 20's but I am ok with it. I think.