End of the month,end of the year

Wishing everyone a Very Happy New Year's Eve! Please be safe and don't drink and drive. I know some places are offering driving services. I think AAA is one of them. Before you head out tonight be sure to designate someone to drive you home.

Enjoy your night! Can't wait to hear about every ones fabulous NYE plans! See ya next year.

Aloha Friday

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:

Do you do anything special for New Years Eve?
I think we have done it all. We have had parties some years. We have gone to friends parties. We have just stayed home with the kids and tried to make it special for them. We have slept through NYE and we have been on a river cruise for NYE. I think one of my favorite things was the cruise. I highly recommend doing that if you ever get the chance. We are thinking of going to Times Square next year. I have always wanted to do that.

Head on over to Island Life and answer her question.....

Wordless(ful) Wednesday

After 25 days I miss doing the Advent calendar. We bought this a few years ago and Bubby always asks for it when we bring the Christmas decorations down from the attic. I love watching Christmas through the eyes of a 4yr. Bubby couldn't wait until after dinner every night to do the calendar. He loved guessing what treat was going to be in there. The one thing I don't miss is having to remember to put something in it every day. HA!

Monday after Christmas

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We spent the day shopping with two of our kids today. We have this tradition of shopping the day after sales. Even Hubby takes the day off from work. I have all of my kids home for Christmas vacation and my two nieces are visiting from Minnesota. I'm not sure how much blogging I will be doing this week. Hope to catch up with everyone soon......

Deck the Halls.....

I hope you are spending the day with your family or loved ones no matter what or how you celebrate today. I will be spending the day with Hubby,Kids, and my MIL,FIL, Sister in law, her son and daughter,plus her daughter's husband and their two kids. Cheerleader and her boyfriend are coming over after dinner. Looks like we will have a full house. I love having Christmas dinner at my house.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Aloha Friday

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:

Do you serve Ham or Turkey for Christmas dinner? We serve Turkey but I am sure there are several members of my family that wished I made ham instead. There is just something about turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy. We do serve ham for Easter. :)

Please visit An Island Life and answer her question of the day.

Wordless/Wordful Wednesday~Advent Calendar Day 19

If you follow me on Twitter you know I woke up to a sick boy on Tuesday. You can tell he's not 100 percent but he begged to do his Advent calendar. 5 days until Christmas and the little guy is coming down with something. Ugh. I really hope it runs its course by Christmas. Honestly,I'm not surprised he is getting sick. We have very few Christmases that one of us isn't sick. It just hit me...we only have 5 days until Christmas! Yikes. Now I'm panicked.

P.S. Sorry about the quality of the picture I took it with my phone.

Cookie exchange and Bargain hunting....

I didn't think I would ever get a chance to blog today. We had another trying to get everything done before Christmas kind of weekend. Friday Hubby had the day off (he worked Thursday night) and we decided to go bargain hunting. I am always looking for Santa's and snowmen to add to my collection. I'm also going nuts trying to find plate stands for some of my collectible plates. I can't seem to find any. Any who we decided to check out the Mennonite thrift store for some. It just happened to be half price day. Score! I bought what I thought was a plate stand but was way too small for a plate.

It worked for our Christmas countdown chalkboard. I think it looks so cute! I managed to find not only one but three snowmen. One of them was a cookie jar. Score! The angel matches one we received as a housewarming gift when we moved into this house. I couldn't resist buying her to match.

Not too shabby,Huh? I love them. Foo came home from school sick so we just spent Friday at home with takeout. Saturday Bubby and I finished the cookies for our cookie exchange that night. I love making cookies but I have to tell you,I'm getting tired of looking at them.

All the families had to make 5 1/2 dozen of each kind of cookies. This year we only made two different kinds. Our party keeps growing so I think next year we will be up to 3 or 4 different kinds of cookies. The cookies we came home with were awesome. Can you believe I forgot to take pictures at the party? The kids got to open their exchange gifts. Foo got a gift card and Bubby got an Imaginex Woody with a trash truck and Buzz with a rocket ship. He refused to put it down. I honestly thought he was going to sleep with the darn thing. HA! Sunday we finally put the final tree up in the Rec Room. The little guy could barely contain himself.

Sunday night we took Bubby and Tornado to a house that has their lights set to music. If you have ever seen Deck The Halls then you know what I'm talking about. The guy who lives in the house is an electrician. He has it set up that the only way to hear the music is through your car radio. Genius. My kids love visiting the house every year.

Sorry about the photo quality. I took it with my phone. I also took a little video of the house. I can't seem to figure out how to upload it.

One more week until Christmas. Are you ready?????

Show us your holiday

Kelly over at Kelly's Korner is hosting a "show us your holiday". We are big Christmas fans here. We try to put a Christmas tree in almost every room of the house. Even our bathrooms get a small tabletop tree. Come on in and enjoy the tour....

This one is my son's tree in his room. We decided not to put a large tree in his room due to his new bed. He has a race car bed that takes up all most the whole room.

This is the other reason we don't put a large tree in his room. He hasn't stopped touching it and playing with the ornaments since it went up.

Growing up my little brother had a thing for anything Snoopy. I think he got that Macy's Snoopy every year. We carry on the tradition here.

More ornaments on his tree. Notice how they are non breakable? HA!

We try to put this train under our Living room tree every year. It actually belonged to my husband's grandfather. Makes it even more special.

Our Living room tree. I like this room but we never use it.

My "wall art" we bought for our first Christmas in this house.

Our family room tree. We usually have a bigger tree in this room. I broke the tree stand for the other tree and refused to buy one until after the holidays. I apologize if you are an animal lover and see the bear rug hanging on our wall. I also have a couple of deer heads too.

My dinning room bakers rack. It's one of the few pieces of furniture from the old house.

Dinning room tree. We do a smaller tree here because I switch the living room and Dinning room for Christmas dinner. Our living room is much larger for the table. This tree gets my Longaberger baskets and anything red. I started collecting Longaberger tree trimming baskets years ago.

 This Santa ball hung on my Great Grand Parents tree when I was growing up.

 I like to collect Santa's and Snowmen. I thought this was the perfect way to display them.

This one is a bowling pin someone painted.

 Santa has been eating his cookies off this plate for 10 years.

 I love how my kitchen wall always looks like Christmas.

I can't show pictures of the holidays without these two things.

 The Pesky Elf and of course our Advent calendar. We also put up my son's Nativity set.

We haven't put our Rec room tree up yet and I have decided not to put the tree up in our bedroom this year. My 3 girls also have trees in their rooms. I haven't had time to take picture's of their trees yet. Here is a link of our trees 2 years ago. It's been a crazy Christmas season and I haven't had time to do a lot of things yet. Thank you for touring my house. Please come again................

Aloha Friday

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:

Do you have all of your Christmas shopping done? I think I hear some groans. I do not have mine finished. Ugh. Between a 4 year old who tells everyone what you bought and a sinus/cold/allergey thing we can't seem to shake, I can't seem to finish. I think next year I am giving gift cards or money.

Please visit An Island Life and answer her question of the day.

Wordless Wednesday~Elf on a......Kitchen light

Vera sale

I got an email this morning that Vera Bradley was having a sale on two of their purses. Little Betsy is 19.99 and Betsy is 29.99. They are discontinuing the bags so you can get them in some of the newer fabrics. If you have never tried a Vera before the little Betsy would be an affordable bag to try. I actually own both of these bags and would recommend either one. The little Betsy is the perfect size for quick trips to the mall. The sale ends on Tuesday.

Crazy weekend

After a busy weekend I do believe I am so ready for bed. Thursday at the last minute Hubby had to work Thursday Night into Friday morning. Keep in mind this was after he already put 8 hours of work in on Thursday. It was solo parenting for me because he never got home until 3 am. Friday he was lucky to have the day off or so I thought. He was called back to a job in the morning and had a meeting in the afternoon. Solo parenting again. I made sure everyone got to where they needed to be. Foo had a guy friend over. We pretty much just had takeout, watched a movie and crashed for the night. We are so exciting. HA!

Saturday Hubby had to work most of the day. Tornado had to work until 1 and Foo had work until 3:30. I couldn't stand the thought of just sitting around with the little guy and decided to do the one thing I hate to do. Yep. I went to the mall. On a weekend. Ugh. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I had a 20.00 coupon for Vera Bradley that expired on Sunday that I wanted to use. I also wanted to check a balance on a gift card for Victoria's secret. *Have you heard about the Victoria's secret promotion they are doing on facebook? You log on to Victoria's page and at 9am clink on a link. You can win 20,50,100,or 500 dollar gift card. They don't tell you the amount but you can check it on line or the stores. These cards are really hard to get. I spent 30 minutes trying to win one.* Bubby didn't have any melt downs at the mall. Well except for yelling Santa's name over and over. My boy is a Santa stalker. HA! I came home hid some of the presents we bought and Hubby came home. Picked up Foo from work. Cheerleader came home and mentioned her car was acting funny. Hubby takes her car for a test drive and discovers her tires are bad. The threads were starting to show on them. Parent fail. Cheerleader takes my car and Hubby takes her tire to the store that sells everything. They were the only place open this time of night. The plan was he and tornado take the tire to be fixed and then drop Tornado off at her friends house to sleep over. Apparently everyone needed work done to their car. He was talking to guys at the shop and they told him how they were waiting for over three hours to get new tires put on. The shop people told Hubby it would be 1 and 1/2 hours until they got to her car. Yikes! I decided to pick Hubby and Tornado up and then drop her off at her friends house. After we dropped her off, Hubby and Foo went Christmas shopping. She didn't want me to go along so I think she was buying gifts for me. :)

Sunday we got up early to take Foo to work and Bubby on a train ride with Santa. He had no clue we were going. Two hours before we are suppose to leave Hubby notices Cheerleaders car has a flat tire. The one that we just had replaced last night. Ugh. I give her my car keys and Hubby takes the tire back to the store that sells everything. By the time Hubby gets back Bubby and I are ready to leave. 10 minutes before we get to the train Bubby guessed where we were going. Little stinker. He loved it! I will be blogging about that train ride. I have to get the pictures off my camera. Anyone have a great photo editing program they would recommend? We stopped and ate lunch on a caboose. So much fun. On the way home we stopped and picked up Tornado. As she is getting into the car,hubby notices she has a nose ring. I thought it was her fake magnetic one. Nope. I look closer to realize it's real. It turns out the girls pierced their noses themselves. Double ugh. I have nothing against people who have them but I really don't like them. I was more upset she did it herself and knew I didn't like them. In the course of our discussion she says "I was going to get one when I was 18 anyway." Oh we are in for battles when she turns 18. I keep telling the girls you don't like the rules you know where the door is. I hate being this way but you can't let them walk all over you either. 4 year old are so much easier. HA! Our friends came over to draw names for Pollyanna. An hour later Hubby took Foo and her friend to church youth group. Bubby and I stayed home. It's an earlier night for me tonight.

How was your weekend?

Dec 10

59 years ago today one of the greatest woman in the world was born. Ok maybe just in my world. Without her I wouldn't be here. The pain and hardships she has endured makes her one of my heroes.

Happy Birthday Mom! Here's to many more years.

Aloha Friday

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:

Do you participate in a cookie exchange? We always gave cookies to our friends and family in the past. Three years ago our neighborhood started doing a cookie exchange. I think it was just an excuse to have another party. HA! We have 9 families who exchange cookies and this is our second year of doing Pollyanna for the kids.

Please visit An Island Life and answer her question of the day.

Wordless Wednesday~General Lee

A little big boy's dream come true seeing the Dukes of Hazzard car in person.

Shopping sales.....

I thought I would pass along some sale info for the purse lovers on your shopping lists. I received these emails today.

Tomorrow Vera Bradley is selling the Sophie for 29.00. I'm not sure if they are only selling it for that price on the retired fabrics or all fabrics. It's a cute little bag for a tween or someone who doesn't like to carry a big bag. I was thinking of getting one for those times when I don't want a big bag. It could make an awesome evening bag as well.

Also I received an email that Coach outlets were offering an extra 30% off until Sunday. If you live near an outlet I would call them and see if they are participating in the sale too. The last time I was there,I found a really cute red handbag. I thought it would be perfect for Christmas time.

If anyone else has sale info feel free to leave it in the comments.

Away in a Manger.....

I know I have said this before but this is my favorite Nativity set for kids. Ok. It's my favorite for big people too.(Yes,that is Thomas the train going around the Manger. What you don't remember Thomas and boxcar from the Island of Sodor bringing the Wisemen to see baby Jesus? Yea, me neither. Bubby's love of baby Jesus is just as strong as his love of Thomas.) I bought this for my son's first Christmas and I have loved it ever since. I actually thought Bubby might be too old for it this year but he couldn't wait for Hubby to bring it down from the attic. It's the Fisher price special edition Nativity set. I believe what made it different from the rest was some of the animals have yarn hair. I think most of the sets have plastic hair.

Seriously how cute is that donkey's hair? It cracks me up every time I see it. He has some wild Bon Jovi Jersey hair happening. HA!

How precious is this Manger? Baby Jesus doesn't come out of the cradle but that's ok. It's never bothered Bubby.

Some more animals. Check out the sheep's head. Too cute.

Three wise men are we. Or wise people. I think the one might be a girl.

The removable Angel sits on top of the manager and plays"Away in a manager". When you push her down it also lights up the star. We totally wear out the batteries on this. I have a feeling this is going in his keepsake box. I just don't have the heart to part with it. Did I mention this set is plastic? My set that my grandmother gave me is not. My Wise man is currently headless. It looks like I will be replacing my set next year. If anyone has a Nativity set that would like to recommend I would love to hear about it.

P.S. If you are looking for the Fisher Price set I did find this one on line.

Vera Bradley~5.95 shipping

I thought I would just pass this shopping bargain along. Today and tomorrow Vera Bradley is having 5.95 shipping on All on line orders. Think how it would save you from having to drive to the mall. 5.95 sounds good,right? Be sure to check their holiday shipping schedule first.

Aloha Friday....

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:

What type of Christmas tree do you put up? Real or Artificial? We put up an artificial one due to my allergies. This isn't a good time of year for me between my pine and Cinnamon allergies. HA! Makes it tough to shop and visit people.

Please visit An Island Life and answer her question of the day.

NaBloPoMo~30 days 30 posts

I did it! I participated in NaBloPoMo for the month of November. Blogging everyday for a month doesn't sound like much until you are at the end of the 1st week and realize you have nothing else to blog about. HA! Sorry for those of you who had to read posts about...well nothing interesting. Thank you for not running to the hills. It wasn't easy but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be either. I freak myself out. A lot. Having said that I could never have done this challenge in December. Christmas shopping,cookies, decorating,and wrapping I never would have found the time without stressing myself out. Will I write everyday again? I really don't know. I would love to try. Once I got into the rhythm and schedule of blogging,I remembered how much I liked it in the first place. After reading a lot of blog giveaways I would love to have one. Who knows? Maybe I'll do one in the future.

Thank you for reading me this month and please come back and visit again.