A Very Merry Christmas

A little late I know, but I've just now got some time to sit down and write. We had a really great Christmas. Christmas Eve we always do at Grandma and Poppy's house. She has a holiday open house with lots of yummy food. The kids get to open their presents between my family.



The girls were really excited, Grandma got them all tickets to Hannah Montana in Austin on January 24th. They were so surprised! But guess who gets to drive them, ME! I'm actually really excited.



Matthew loved his Polar Express train set and his Imaginext jungle my mom and sister got him. He was packed up and ready to go home to open it 5 minutes later! LOL



Santa brought the kids lots of goodies. Bianca's favorite were her UGG boots, new purple cel phone and Nintendo DS. Matthew loved his Imaginext pirate ship, octopus, and his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bus :-)

Christmas day we always spend at my house. Everybody comes over about 2PM we eat, drink, eat some more, eat again, and then play games. This year it was Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture. We played guys against girls. The guys won, but only because we can't get passed the sports category! I really wanted to play our new game Are You Smarter Than 5th Grader but I was outnumbered!

Santa Claus is Coming

What a relief! I'm am almost completely done. All my shopping and wrapping are complete. I should not have to step foot in a store except for groceries between now and Christmas! It feels so good. Tomorrow the kids and I are baking cookies all day, they are so excited. My nieces and nephew will probably be here too, thank God because I will need the help. I am picking up my Christmas cards tonight from the printer and those will go out on Monday. For some reason I feel so much more relaxed and less stressed this year. Maybe it's because I didn't start shopping in October and I don't have near the amount of presents to wrap.

I've got 3 more Christmas parties for the year. One tonight at my brother's house, one on Wednesday for work, and one next Saturday for the McCaffrey Stevenson annual holiday wine party. That one usually kicks my butt and gets a bit wild and crazy! I'm up to it though. I have not had a good time in a while and could use a few glasses of wine :-)

We have decided though that next Christmas it is back to Disney World again. That was the most stress free relaxing Christmas we have ever had. It was so much fun. My whole family went, we did not exchange any presents, no Christmas Eve or Christmas dinners to cook and just a fun time for everybody. Not to mention I think it is the best time to be at Disney World. Disney World is magical every day of the year but when it is decorated for Christmas it is phenomenal. So after the first of year we are going to start booking for next year, I can't wait!

Annual Petruska Christmas Party

Last night we attended the Petruska annual Christmas party. We all look forward to this every year. It is so much fun especially for the kids because they get a special visit from Santa. Santa is wonderful, he reads stories to the kids, plays the saxaphone and we all sing Christmas songs with him. Then each kid and family gets to sit on his lap and take pictures. It so beats standing in line at the mall! Here is Grandma and Poppy and all the grandkids Matthew and his "girlfriend" Victoria aka Tuchi! Finally, here is some video we took of everybody singing with Santa Clause!

Edelweiss

Today was Jerry's birthday. I won't say how old he is but he definitely headed to 40in the next few years :-) We went to eat at Edelweiss in Fort Worth which is a really good German food restaurant. Jerry loves this place. We only go once a year and its usually around the holidays. OMG the food is so heavy but very good. We all left there stuffed as usual and brought home enough food for lunch and dinner tomorrow night. We then went back to our house and had his favorite cake "Linda's Fudge Cake" from Cheescake Factory, YUM!!!

Here is a picture of Jerry before he cut his cake. This thing is like 7 layers and weighs a lot! I took a picture of the nutritional info it has something crazy like 1400 calories a slice!






I then stopped at Garden Ridge to get more ribbon for wrapping presents. I am so addicted to ribbon and wrapping paper I think I need help! I cannot tell you how much ribbon I have gone through in the last month wrapping all my Arbonne products for the craft show and gifts from customer orders. I've got to get started wrapping all the presents I bought yesterday on our shopping spree.

I felt really bad because Jerry insisted on buying me a pair of Ugg boots. We were there to Christmas shop and buy him some birthday presents not me. Well we both ended up buying Ugg boots, LOL. He loves his and I love mine. They feel so good on your feet. If you have not tried on a pair you need to, you will be hooked the minute they go on your feet. Now I want the pink furry Ugg slippers for Christmas :-)

Christmas Shopping!

I'm on a roll tonight. I guess I'm making up for slacking off. I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow and Jerry and I going to get some shopping done. I have not done any shopping and everybody around me is completely surprised. Last year I started in October. BIG BIG BIG mistake. I bought way too much stuff. My kids were happy but OMG I swore I would never do that again. I bought stuff I had forgot about and just kept on buying and buying. I seriously have stuff in the playroom from last year that is not yet opened. So I'm taking another approach this year.

I am looking forward to it though. It just does not feel like Christmas until I buy that first present and wrap it :-)

Digital Scrapbooking

First of all let me start out by saying I'm total blog slacker, but in my defense I have been super busy. It's the end of semester and I'm getting ready for finals and wrapping up papers and assignments. In addition I have been super busy with Arbonne the last couple of weeks. Jen and I did Keller Craft Show Saturday and Sunday. Didn't sell a lot but we had a lot of fun! Bianca came with me on Sunday and she did all her holiday shopping (with my money of course, LOL). She got her face painted and it looked so cute. Her whole face was painted like a snowman.



So on to my topic of digital scrapbooking. I love to scrapbook but I hate to say I am so far behind. I have hundreds maybe thousands of dollars invested in paper scrapbooking the problem is I hate the mess. It is so darn complicated to get everything out, get organized, scrap for a few hours and then put it all away. Anyone who knows me knows I'm anal about messes and could not stand to keep it out for any extended period of time. So I have not done it in a while. So I've been talking to my scrapbook buddies and we have been researching digital. Now again if anybody knows me this is so "me". I am so into everything paperless. People at work are amazed how much stuff I do not have on my desk. I hate clutter and I hate paper. So I've decided after Christmas I'm going to get started but now I have to decide how. Do I go the easy way and just get some easy programs like creative memories, scrapbook factor, lifeTimez or do I invest in Photoshop and really learn it? I'm not sure yet but I have to decide fast since I'm asking for this stuff for Christmas.

The funny part is now I have everybody else on the digital bandwagon and we are all going to do it. So I can just picture our scrapbook parties with wine and laptops. How cool is that? No huge boxes and bins to lug around! :-)

Thanksgiving!

What a weekend! Thanksgiving was wonderful. We even got snow which was so much fun for the kids. Dinner went great. I ended up with only 26 people but that still was more than enough :-) Jerry's whole family came and it was really great. It was the first Thanksgiving they have spent all together in 15 years.



Friday we went to downtown Fort Worth and watched Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium, ate at Billy Miners and then went to the parade. We didnt stay for the tree lighting. It was soooo COLD and the kids were very tired from the eventful day.






Saturday I spent all day Christmas decorating. We got the tree up and the entire inside done. Now Jerry just needs to do the outside. It feels great getting it done. Here is a photo just as we finished it. The kids did a great job with the ornaments. I've trained them well on how to decorate a tree, LOL:



Today I spent getting my house back together and gettting all the Christmas boxes back into the attic. Jerry's dad, sister and the kids left today. His mom will be here until Tuesday.

Back to work and school tomorrow. I really slacked off last week so I have alot of catching up to do this week with work and school!

I just love this time of year!

Tis the Season

For Stress! I guess it's my fault though. I tend to bite off more than I can chew; although some of it is not my fault and I totally blame my mother :-)

I have 32 people coming to my house for Thanksgiving. Last year is was only 20 which was hard enough. Last year was my first year to do Thanksgiving. My mother always does Thanksgiving but last year she had sold her house and was in temporary living until the new house was complete. And since Thanksgiving last year was such a success she has determined that it should be all mine now? I was just informed yesterday that the count has expanded to 32 with an addition of 8 people? Now I have to buy more table settings and flatware. Luckily mom is pitching in to help with that expense.

In addition Jerry's whole family is coming in for Thanksgiving so 5 people will be staying with us. Jerry's sister is coming tomorrow and staying for a week? So trying to keep house clean with 4 kids and 2 dogs running around for the next week while trying to get ready is going to be a challenge. Luckily Jerry is a big help and has his honey-do list :-)

Tomorrow Jennifer and I are doing the Richland Craft Show to sell Arbonne. I have been making gift baskets non stop for the past 2 days. Plus I have a Arbonne party in Dallas Sunday. If I can just make it through this weekend I think I will be ok :-)

My First Post

Wow! My first post to my blog. Not too much exciting happening today. Jerry is still trying to get his business off the ground and was in meetings all day. I'm working from home all week which is nice. Most everybody is a conference in Newport Beach which makes this week very quiet. I't's a nice break. Then we have 1 more week and then Thanksgiving week. Where did this year go? I'm going to try and deep clean my kitchen to get ready for the holidays. I have abouut 25 people coming for Thanksgiving this year!


I'm just praying he can get this business running soon, especially for the holidays. This will be his busiest time of the year so if he can pull it off, it will be great! I know he can do it. He is super motivated and is so excited to be running his own business and not having to answer anybody but himself. This is his dream. We are lucky I have a great job so he could do this. Hopefully soon I will be able to quit and be home and help him with business!