Good Times with Grandma

Well here is slide show of the good times we had with Grandma tonight before she left.

And now here are a couple of cute videos to add to the mix. The first one is of of Atlee...er I mean Laci, singing...the motions you see Atlee making are partial sign language to the song.

Now for the next star of the evening...it is Jules as she sings her version of the ABC's

Day of Dog Frustration

Well he did it again...yep Spencer Ray ran from me. I chased him for approximately 25 minutes in our back yard. Giving up coming inside to which he would come and wait by the back door, then I would open the door only to have him run like a rocket again around the pool. I wasn't even chasing him so I don't know why he finds this to be so entertaining. He did the whole fake-out coming in the back door thing about ten times. I tried Chris' method of bringing a treat out and trying to get him to come to me. This did not work. Bribery does not work. Changing the tone of my voice to let him know I am angry does not work. Throwing his grooming brush at him does not work. Giving him a swat on the bo-hiney does not work. This dog will be the end of my patience. Well finally when he wore himself out from running he came close enough for me to grab him and give him a piece of my mind. Then I sprayed him with febreeze so he wouldn't stink up my perfectly clean house that I spent all afternoon cleaning for our guest, Michael, to come stay with us, and brushed it through his hair all the while giving him a good stern lecture as to how I don't play those games and the next time he will be staying outside all night, piece of junk! Anyways, then I FINALLY leave for my parents home to spend time with my Grandma H for the last time before she heads back home and I am so frustrated out of my mind that I run a red light and almost get hit by a truck! My heart was pounding only making me more frustrated at myself for letting some little hairy furball get me so ticked off. Thinking of how I could have been killed just because I was angry at my dog! I praise God that he had his angels watching over me that nothing happened. Then I eventually get to my parents home after driving extremely cautiously the rest of the way not going 1 mph over the speed limit. Then I have a meltdown in front of my whole family because I am an emotional wreck at this point. Call me crazy but that is what I become when emotions play a part in anything. I cry way too easily...those who know me know this to be a fact.

I ate lasagna, played nerts, listened to the crazy kiddos and enjoyed my final Christmas 07 visit with my Grandma...OH but then guess what...

Well meanwhile, Chris is at work and he gets off at 9 p.m. calls to see if we are wrapping it up or hanging out some more...so we are hanging out and he decides to head to mom's as well. So he for some unknown reason decides to reward our rotten puppy by letting him stay in the entry way in his comfy dog bed and gated off by a child's gate from the rest of the house. Well, I just think he should be in his crate FOREVER because of the fiasco that happened to me earlier but Chris has a soft spot for him so he allowed it. Well this is what we were greeted with when we got home

Oh yes that is right...he CHEWED A HOLE IN THE STINKIN' WALL. To which Chris replied you'd better get that dog out of my sight before I do something I will regret. Now I am the dogs protector...who whoulda thought? Spencer realizes because he is "smart" (according to the vet...which I think this must mean ornery or mischievous) and is cowering down in his wonderfully fluffy dog bed. I grab him, drop him over the gate, open the back door and say you'd better get out there right now! I then once again rehash how rotten the dog is and that he should never be allowed outside his crate when we are gone because these are the kinds of things that happen. GRRRR...

So needless to say...you need to pray for my dog, because I am afraid that if he keeps this behavior up we might not have him much longer and this would make our nieces and nephew very sad.

Christmas in Saginaw

Ok so well after visiting CVS to get the pedialyte for our pup-pup we headed to my mom and dad's for Christmas brunch. SO YUMMY! I love breakfast foods! We had bacon, gravy, chocolate gravy, biscuits and Grandma H's famous pancakes. I don't know how she makes them so good, but she does! Grandma H was the big surprise for the day, because no one knew she was coming down for Christmas. It was a good surprise too.

We opened presents shortly after gorging ourselves with brunch and then let the girly girls take naps and we started a movie but decided to go to Target to do some after Christmas shopping. Then we came back and made the typical Christmas dinner and finished the night off with some Wii bowling. The whole family got involved and we had a fantastic time. A GREAT Christmas all around...at all the places we went!

Christmas in Wichita Falls

Well our Family Christmas officially started Christmas Eve when we drove to Wichita Falls to stay with Chris' parents. They worked a deal out with their landlord so that we could bring Spencer so we were able to actually stay the night. Chris' mom, Teresa, loves Spencer and calls him her grand-puppy so she was excited. My mom is the complete opposite so it is good that he gets love from one side of the family...hehehe.

Our Christmas Eve consisted of making our arms completely sore playing carnival games and bowling on the nintendo Wii. I was surprised because I am not normally a video game player, because I simply stink at them. But the Wii is different and was very fun. Teresa got a completely humiliating video of Chris, Michael, Ron and I playing one of the carnival games where we are flailing our arms about looking completely ridiculous, but it was fun nonetheless.

Christmas Day Chris' mom made a great breakfast and we hung out til Joe, Misti, Ben & Taylor came and then opened tons of presents. It was a great time for all. We were very spoiled this year by Chris' parents and family in general. That night while everyone play cards, I watched Holiday Inn and then played with Ben and built things with his tinkertoys. We had a good time and built a couple of cool things. Check them out in the slide show!

Now for the literally stinky news. Spencer had a nasty present for us Christmas morning. A nice large pile of poo in his crate. He was obviously sick because this does not happen regularly. And he wouldn't eat his breakfast, which is also abnormal because he usually inhales it within a minute. He was acting really sluggish and had another accident in the house later that day. Then on the day after Christmas he had even more nasty runny poo in his crate which was SO stinky and had blood in it so I got worried and called the vet. It would have cost us way too much money to take him in and we were supposed to be at my parents house by 10:30 that morning to start our family Christmas. So the vet told me I could feed him pedialyte and he should start to feel better. And he did...so our pup-pup is doing well and being all hyperactive again...like normal unfortunately. Sometimes he has way to much energy for me so it was kinda nice him being all lazy.

Our Christmas

So Chris, Spencer, and I celebrated our little Christmas on Sunday night. With stockings and the whole shebang! Well here is a slideshow of how the shindig went down. And yes for those of you who haven't seen me I chopped my hair and colored it all one color for the first time in a very long while. And yes it is dark! But I love it!

As you can probably tell, it was a good Christmas for me and my hubby and our doggie. I will post family Christmas pictures another time. I am exhausted and need some rest.

Bible Reading Requested

So I watched Atlee for a couple of hours on Sunday and after a cocoa powder disaster while making chocolate cookies...all over her pretty ivory and pink sweater and her saying "it's o-tay, it's o-tay...I fix it" she wandered off to the table and found my Bible. She then requested that I read it saying "Leh-key...Read!" so we read one chapter of Psalms, a verse here and a verse there...wherever she flipped the page really. She would flip then point and say "here" I would read that verse and then we would go on to the next. I thought this was too cute so here are some pictures, because you know I take way too many pictures.

And here is a video...she is too cute I tell you!

Back to work!

Well today is the Thursday after Christmas and it is time to go back to work! Fortunately I only have to work today and tomorrow and then I am off again on Monday and Tuesday, so its not too bad. Last night was awful though and I only slept 2 hours and tossed and turned the remainder of the night. I am SO very tired today, so I hope this 10-hour day goes by quickly!

Chris & I's Christmas was wonderful and we had a great time with our families! We got a surprise visit from a special guest at my family's Christmas celebration...you will have to wait and see who it is. I will post pictures soon. I hope you all had a great few days off with your families as well. This is all for now...I will post more with pictures, hopefully tonight.

Ironing...

This is what I have been doing all morning. And when I say all morning I mean since around 9:00 am until now and it is 2:00 pm. I have taken breaks, ate breakfast, done 4 loads of laundry, ate lunch and am now STILL ironing. You see, ironing is not at all my favorite thing, but I do it (when necessary). But this morning/afternoon I have a thankful attitude because of the ironing. How can something as boring and mundane as ironing make you thankful? This is how:

• By ironing my husbands 2 pairs of jeans, 3 khaki pants, 1 gray pinstripe pant, 7 short sleeved button ups and 17 long-sleeved button up shirts and my 2 long sleeved shirts...I see just how lucky he is to have me...hehe totally kidding!! Real thankful thought: we have PLENTY of clothes to wear.
• I obviously have a good, nice iron that I own.
• I have electricity.
• I have a loved one for whom I can iron...my wonderul husband!

How silly that something I hate makes me so thankful for other things. God is opening my eyes today! I hope he shows you what you can be thankful for too!