I have plenty of those.
………………………………..
Thanks to their teen aunt who taught them the fine art of sticking their tongues out for pictures.
Thanks to Lucky the Dog for making smiles extra big and goofy.
Check out the other silly holiday shots at IHeartFaces.
Have we done enough end-of-the-year posts? No. One more.
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.
My Wish – Rascal Flatts
Uncategorized | 
Comments Off
A new year brings the reminder that its never too late to start over or start new projects. Here are a few of ours.
1) Eat Healthier/Exercise
Let’s just get that one out of the way because it seems to be the eternal New Year’s Resolution. In all truth, Joy has been doing this for a while now, so she has a head start. So much of a head start that our Mom believes she has anorexia.
We want to become more organized about shopping, meal planning, and making sure we are meeting our vitamin and mineral needs while not overdoing on anything else. My husband has become the primary cook and when in doubt, he fries something in bacon fat. I’m hoping that we see none of that in 2012.
2) Organize the house/storage/garage
Once again, Joy is ahead of us on this. They just moved into a new house and she isn’t one to move something she doesn’t need. Me, I am married to the man who has been buying storage units for 15 years before it was cool. My goal is to get rid of anything we don’t need by selling on either Craigslist, Swap&Shop, or the classifieds. I’ve sold a little before Christmas and I’ll be honest, the more times I meet a stranger the more creepy I feel about it. Each time I wonder if anyone would be able to track my killer through my texts and emails. Let’s hope so. (God forbid)
3) Spend Less
Lately I’ve been taking lots of heat about being thrifty, mostly from the kids who have no idea about not being able to spend more than you bring in per month. We did realize we are turning into my grandparents when we found ourselves handing out$2 bills for Christmas and saving tinfoil. While I don’t want to be the people on TV that recycle paper towels for toilet paper, I do want to be aware of my spending. I like a bargain and will sometimes buy something just because it is a great deal. I want to have nice things without going in debt to have them. Mainly, I want to have nice MEMORIES. So, we may just go to someone’s house who has nice things and take pictures.
4) Give More
Yes, old thrifty tightwad gives to those in need. The goal for our family is to continue to give time and money to the charities that we believe in. Boo is devoted to anything animal related and has a dream of building a no kill animal shelter. I hope she sees that dream someday become a reality.
One of my pet peeves is people who claim to be a charity and are in fact, not. Once this year I found someone in front of Wal-Mart in a neighboring town collecting money for children in foster care. I asked her what organization she was affiliated with and she mentioned the town in which I live. I knew then she and her husband were scamming. I kept asking questions and then left and called a friend, who called the Wal-mart manager, who said they had already packed and left. I wish I had called the cops. Never be hesitant to question someone asking for a donation. They should be willing to answer any questions, such as “Are you a 401-c3?”. I won’t go into my other pet peeve, people who get back thousands from the IRS in tax returns, yet always put their kids on the angel tree and end up with a much better Christmas than my kids. I don’t begrudge anyone getting a good Christmas, but kids at school tell all, and people who scam the angel tree business are taking away from a kid who might need it and it doesn’t seem right to be asking for a handout when you are just went to the car races the weekend before.
5) Explore Our Creative Side
I’m hoping to channel some of our mom’s creative abilities this year in all areas. I hope to branch out in photography. Write another song. Maybe write another story. Hopefully, we can finish the book that inspired this website.
I know that Joy has a great novel just waiting to be written. We need to get on that before we move from $2 bills and tin foil to knitting the cat a coat and recycling paper towels.
We made great strides in 2011. Joy and Gavin got married and bought a home. Rod is retired and able to be home on a normal schedule now. Dreams came true for both of us and it has been nerve wracking and exhilarating in the same breath. For Rod and myself, we will begin the new year with a one day old grandchild! This new phase of our life is something we are learning as we go. We know that this alone will make our year like no other.
I hope when we stand before 2012, we can say that we loved more, spent less, gave more, ate less, moved more, and created something beautiful and amazing. More or less, we will be just fine.
Of course, I have to add one more set of 2011 pictures. This video contains a few of my all time favorites, a few never seen goofs, and a few of special people who really touched us this year. (my creativity seems to be hampered by a character limit)
“I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”
Phillipians 4:13
Twenty Eleven has been an interesting year. It has brought new people into our family and our lives, and that is amazing. We’ve also seen illness, injury, and hospital stays for almost everyone except for Joy and myself. Even the cat had major surgery!In the end, we believe the good outweighs the bad by a long shot
One of our best days of the year was when Joy and Gavin got married.
Gavin and Joy took a trip to New Orleans for their honeymoon. We decided it was such a good idea that we took the kids there before school started. We had a blast, except for the ticket on the way home from the crappy little speed trap known as Porte Barre, Louisana. We weren’t even speeding, in fact we were making SURE by me holding the GPS. Still, Barney Phife had to stop us. Oh, enough about that.
The downside of 2011 has certainly been the illness/injury portion. Thankfully we are all still alive and moderately well. I am hoping that we can have much less medical drama in 2012.
We had great holidays.
I loved the snapshots I got through the year.
…………………………………………………
………………..
Again, we feel that the good outweighs the bad. My husband finally got the opportunity to be a stay at home dad. It is something we have dreamed about for years and I can’t tell you how amazing it is. As we look back on this year we also see room for improvements and are ready with vows to do better on January 1, 2012. We are ready to give more, complain less, be more organized, less judgmental, less mental all together, and enjoy what we love to do.
Hopefully we will be back with a New Year’s Resolution post. I’ll leave the picture of Mom on a shopping scooter as a placeholder. Just like the new year, she is fast moving and you never know where she will take you. Hold on, we think we are in for a ride in 2012!!
Blazing Hot off the Presses. | Comments Off
…and still are on this day after Christmas.
Christmas was fantastic. We had a Christmas Eve dinner of chicken and spaghetti, salad and green bean casserole, followed by New York Cheesecake.
Christmas morning was our usual breakfast of breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, fruit and non alcoholic mimosas.
We just add sparkling grape juice to orange juice.
Then we dive into the gifts. I’ll be honest, by the time Christmas gets here I can’t remember some of the things I have under the tree. It always works out though.
Then we laid around and watched Christmas movies while the chicken and dressing cooked in the crock pot and the ham baked in the oven in anticipation of the afternoon crowd.
Finally, everyone starting trickling in at about the time all the food was ready. We ate and then pulled out the desserts. We had too many. There was leftover cheesecake, sweet potato pie, raisin pie, sugar free lemon pie, buckeyes, and an Elvis cake that I got off Pinterest.
We also dressed the dogs like Santa.
……………………………………..
And put them in stockings.
All in all, a very good day and good weekend. Now to dismantle the house and get all of this back in the attic. The only negative to the whole weekend is that I seem to have a cracked tooth. That doesn’t pair well with my fear of the dentist but we shall see how it all plays out today.
Uncategorized | Comments Off
I have the Christmas dishes washed and set. The breakfast casserole is ready to be baked.
The animals are ready for Santa.
I bought a plate from one of my favorite years.
Another good year….
(not really a plate collector, I just like these!)
My mother-in-law just had a facetime chat with her niece. That was fun. Now we are shutting down and going to bed. We all watched It’s A Wonderful Life. Tonight, it really is.
Merry Christmas.
