its the most wonderful time of the year!!!

I absolutely love Christmas!! I love everything about it, the music, the decorations, the candy, and most of all, the celebration of Jesus' birth. I look foraward to wrapping presents (I put gift cards in boxes so I can wrap them!), houses decorated with lights and Christmas trees!! As a child, I was always so excited to help decorate the tree and I loved visiting my grandparents house because their tree was dripping with ornaments, all of which had sentimental value. Each year they would give the grandkids an ornament, my favorite is a mouse ballerina, which is hanging on my tree right now because Tyler and I finally had a day off together and we put up our tree!!!

And yes, the topper is a cabbage patch doll. She even has a star on top of her head!

Tyler decided he would have the Grinch stocking (he's not really a Grinch, just a cool stocking, the heart lights up!) and I chose the Peanuts because I have watched the Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon every year since I was born and it is just fantastic.

We found this hip little graphic tee for max at Target for $2.50 and he loves it! They don't make them in Hercules' size (he wouldn't wear one even if they did).

He was a little sleepy and not in the mood to have his picture taken!

We finished most of our shopping today, which is pretty good considering we started today, and I was even able to wrap all of the presents!

We also visited Tyler's family today. I love them and am so blessed to be a part of their family. Overall it was a pretty fantastic day!

the ties the limit!!

So Tyler recieved a promotion last week (I'm so proud of him!!) and now he has to wear a tie to work! I think thats pretty exciting because I love it when he wears ties and there are sooo many options when it comes to ties. They come in every color and design you could ever dream of. I'm a bit jealous.

This is by far my favorite

I fell in love with this tie the moment I saw it. I really didn't think Tyler would go for it, but he did and he looks good!!

He has a blue version as well, but it is definitely not as fantastic as this fuschia one.

Halloween!!

So Tyler and I talked about halloween costumes for a while before we made the final decision 3 days before the halloween party.

This is what we came up with:

Probably some of the best costumes ever! I remember watching Gumby as a child, and I had a poseable Gumby toy. Brings back memories.

The party was Saturday night and we were looking forward to spending Sunday together as we were both off. Tyler got called into work for a bit and I didn't feel well so I slept for quite a bit. Sorry that I missed church and seeing Misty today. I was looking forward to that all week. Tyler did suprise me with a late lunch from Panera!! We watched a little football and slept more, then visited family this evening. I am still exhausted and ready for bed.

So not ready to go back to work tomorrow.

halftime means bath time...

I love my puppy, max

and apparently, so do the neighbor girls. They rang our doorbell at least 3 times and asked to play with max this afternoon.

One of the girls said he is "good at agility" and was "adored by others" while she was playing with him!! I'm pretty sure she is only 8 or 9 years old so listening to her talk about his development was super cute. She also informed me that she was working with him on his chewing!

Because of his multiple play dates, his bath was postponed. Now its halftime in the Sunday night game (go Green Bay!!), its bath time!

after a bath, he is completely nuts, running around the house for about 15 minutes! Its quite entertaining! Hercules lucked out and didn't get his bath today, although I think he enjoys them. Tyler promised me he would give him a bath tomorrow.

Have I mentioned I love watching football with Tyler? He knows so much about football, its crazy really. He knew that Reggie Wayne was one of two players to have 1000 yards each season since they started in the NFL. Ask him anything, he knows the answer. Today I told him I hoped the Browns would win against the Saints and he said "that will never happen" and guess what? It did!! I thought that was pretty funny.

Well, now its time to get back to the game.

glee!!

I love glee!! This is a clip from last weeks episode, such a great song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tt2u-S7NTs

Wish I could sing. Sometimes when I'm driving alone I pretend like I can sing and sing (very loudly) along with my glee cds.

daytime dates aren't half bad

Tyler and I had a day off together, which doesn't happen often.

We decided to go to the Indian State Museum to see the Titanic exhibit. We planned on eating lunch somewhere before going to the museum and we hadn't been to P F Changs for a while so that was our pick.

We had Crispy Green Beans, which are amazing! Tyler didn't realize how hot the dipping sauce was and downed half of his drink after the first bite!


Tyler had Orange Peel chicken (which was my favorite when I ate meat)


I had Vegetarian Fried Rice. It looked better than it tasted.



The Titanic exhibit was fantastic. There were a lot of neat artifacts and it is amazing what they have been able to find and salvage. That was one beautiful boat!

When you enter the exhibit, you are given a boarding pass with the name of a person who was a passenger on the ship. At the end you find out if they survived. Tyler was John Rourke, a third class passenger from Ireland. I was Eleanor Widener, a first class passenger from Philadelphia. Tyler did not survive, I did.

Then we went to the gift shop and purchased rock candy!

We thought about going to a movie that evening, but we have been on a Glee kick so we decided to rent a few DVD's. Probably one of my favorite TV's shows...of all time. I'm glad Tyler likes it almost as much as I do! It was the perfect ending to the perfect day!

cupcakes!

I have been baking like crazy on my days off and yesterday was no exception! I made banana muffins for breakfast and had two cupcake recipes I wanted to make. The first cupcake was the hi hat which is a chocolate cupcake with marshmallow creme-like frosting dipped in chocolate. I have made these a few times but since Tyler doesn't really like chocolate I wanted to try an orange flavor. The cake was a yellow cupcake with a hint of orange flavor, with the marshmallow frosting dipped in orange flavored white chocolate. The verdict is still out as he got home from work late last night and went straight to bed. The white chocolate was much harder to work with so I resorted to bittersweet chocolate to speed up the process. The majority were dipped in the white chocolate so I think he will be happy!
This is what they look like before the chocolate bath!


and after!




The second recipe was for homemade hostess cupcakes. These are a big pain to make and my oven is so super hot the some of the bottoms were burned. The cake part is really good and easy to make. Its the filling and frosting that is time consuming and uses about 6 bowls so my dishwasher was full when I was finished.


The two have white icing because as I was cleaning off the table I discovered them off to the side on top on the lid of the container. I was over decorating at that point. I think next time I will stick to one recipe per day.

its the simple things

work has not been fun the past few weeks...

I am exhausted...

but the good news is...

I have the next 4 days off!!!!

I get to sleep in tomorrow!!!

I discovered hot chocolate with colored marshmallows!!! and the marshmallows are in their own packet so I can eat them!!!

The IGA in Frankfort sells bags of the marshmallows ( which are like the marshmallows in lucky charms, which I love)!!!

Maxx has finally calmed down and is sleeping (and not running around the house like a mad dog)!!!

and...

I have the best husband ever!!!

maxx!!

yesterday we got a puppy!

his name is maxx

he is the cutest thing ever!!

this is his favorite place to be,





with the exception of being outside

he protested when i tried to get him to come inside today

it was adorable!



oh, and he loves his big brother!

freezer jammin'

So I decided to make freezer jam a few days ago. I read the directions on the package and it seemed easy enough. I had also read a posting about freezer jam, so I was pretty confident that I could make it. I will revisit this posting in a minute. The recipe calls for 4 cups of crushed fruit, which was strawberries for the first round. The package also has a little chart off to the side that says you will need 4lbs of strawberries to make 4 cups. As I am starting on my 4th container of strawberries I'm thinking I have quite a bit of crushed strawberries in my bowl. I decided to measure what I had and got out my 4 cup measuring bowl and poured in the strawberries...and had to stop because I had way more than 4 cups! At this moment I recall the post I had read that said follow the directions exactly and you won't have any problems. Did I do that? Did I use only the 4 cups and find another use for the rest of the strawberries? No I did not. I poured the strawberries back in the bowl and proceeded to add the sugar and pectin. And guess what? I now have 7 jars of strawberry sauce. I guess that is not so terrible, but I was really looking forward to the jam. I did make a second batch with peaches, used ONLY 4 cups of fruit and it worked!

Pain

My heart hurts...

My uncle has cancer, which has progressed quickly in the past few weeks. I knew he was not doing well but I guess death never crossed my mind. They think he has about a day left...I know he is in much pain, my heart hurts for him...and his family, I know this is hard for them because they know they are going to lose him.

I'm so thankful he was able to visit in March. He was in great spirits, although it was obvious the cancer had taken a toll on him. I wish I would have hugged him one more time...

I pray for comfort and peace for him, and also for his family

life...

All the times I've fallin' victim to my pride

Patiently, you have waited by my side

My guiding light through my darkest night

You're the one thing I do right


No, I wasn't meant to live my life alone

The load is just too heavy

And the road is just too long


When I try to do it all myself

It always turns out wrong

No, I wasn't meant to live my life alone


But I've tried a million times to take control

But I find, I always dig myself a hole

And there I stand with a broken plan

Reachin' for your hand


'Cause I wasn't meant to live my life alone

The load is just too heavy

And the road is just too long

When I try to do it all myself

I find I'm not that strong

No, I wasn't meant to live my life



I wasn't meant to live my life

I wasn't meant to live my life alone

-Tammy Wynette