Merry Christmas!

Hope you have a wonderful holiday season! :) (2 days until my birthday... but who's counting?)

Just a Couple of Pics

Heidi's Dog, Weller, all snuggled in his blanket

Here Weller helps with the dishes

Weller and Echo posing in front of the Christmas tree (Echo blinked in both pictures!)

The finished Christmas tree. Notice the branches go all the way to the ground and it's about 6' wide. It's a fat tree!

Woohoo! The home stretch!

The year is almost done! Amazing year it's been too!

Quickly, Happy Birthday to my December birthdays:

Nickel, 12/25
ME! 12/26.

I think that's it. I also think it's the last time I'm doing this. I simply have too much to do and can't deal with the guilt if I forget someone! HAHAHAHAHAHA

I need to update the links here. I have friends with Blogs I haven't added, and some have changed. Goodness, this blog is going to the dogs!

Our tree is up and decorated. Pictures coming soon (we're not done with it all yet).

Until next time... take care!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since you know I'm not going to have my act together to post anytime soon (since my last post was 3 weeks ago), I figured I'd jump online really quick right now to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

I have many things to be thankful for and I hope you do too!

Be impressed

Look, I have been WAY behind the 8-ball for months now and here I am posting twice in less than a week. Just barely less than a week, but I made it nonetheless.

PJ posted a bunch of pictures recently. I wish I could remember what they are of... wine festival at least. I know there was something else too. I don't remember what (and I'm not motivated to go check out our site. You can do that yourself). doh! :P

In other news, I've started Christmas shopping. This year, since the kids are older, we told them that we are getting them one big gift and then everything else will be stocking stuffers. Now, we've never done stockings in this family (maybe they have at other homes, but not mine), so, we had to get stockings. Pottery Barn was having a FAB sale and we ordered stockings on Friday night (or was it Saturday night?). Anyway, there was free shipping and free personalization and most of the stockings were on sale. I was able to find six different stockings and they arrived YESTERDAY! Holy smokes that was fast! I'm impressed. The quality is good too. It's perfect...not too expensive, but not too cheap. I am so ready to start filling them.

I can't wait to open presents now. HAHAHAHHAHAHA

I was checking out video games last night. We have an Xbox 360, courtesy of my previous boss who had decided he was done with it. Anyway, I was looking for a good game that would appeal to me, and possibly the kids, but PJ too. I don't much care for games that are all shooting/killing, etc.; I'm not into sports games or driving games. I'm pretty lame like that. Anyway, does anyone remember Castlevania ? That's what I want to play. lol. They don't have one for Xbox 360. There's one for the regular Xbox, but the 360 is not backwards compatible for that game. CURSES!

Well, that's enough random rambling for this week.

Happy (early) Halloween!!!

Just Discovered - Wild Cherry M-n-M's

I just discovered the limited edition Wild Cherry M-n-m's and I LOVE THEM!!!

Sorta like a cherry cordial, but not. Very yummy. :D

Go buy some and enjoy!

And the Chimney's Clean...

We had some chimney sweeps come out today and check over the chimney and clean it and do whatever it is that they do (not tap dancing on roofs, for one). It's good to have that done. It's recommended that they come yearly, but we're on the every other year plan. ha! We don't burn sticky wood or miscellaneous things, so I'm comfortable with that schedule. So, now we have a nice toasty fire burning. It's helping keep the house a pretty decent temperature, which is good (since you know I hate to be cold).

In other news, Ethan's dad was married this past weekend. Congrats to Corky and Courtney! I believe it was a good time. Ethan had fun.

PJ and I attended a hot air balloon festival with Mike and Judi and their twins. There was a wine tasting too. Mike and PJ got quite toasty there too. **shrug** It was nice to catch up with Judi and we had a fun time taking a hay ride, petting some animals and just walking around at the festival. No hot air balloons while we were there (they had launched early in the morning and it was too windy in the afternoon for a launch).

Later that day (it was Saturday), we went to see my mom, Bo, and my sister was in town also. We had dinner at Panera (take out) and watched some of The Pirates of the Caribbean. I left there with my sister's dog as we're dog sitting him for about a month. Weller is adjusting nicely, but is still learning the routine and the pecking order. He's a real sweetie (usually) though!

PJ and I went to a wedding on Oct 11. Here are the pictures. Congrats to Maria and Phil! Kerry was their photographer and here are her pictures.

I guess that's enough updating for now. Better save something for the next one. :)

PJ's 20 year Reunion

So, PJ's 20 year HS reunion was last weekend. Check out the pics here:

Reunion Pictures

Hello there...

I'm finding things are getting stabilizing at work...I'm still busy, but I feel like I'm catching up. I've had to let a few things go around the house. The laundry for instance, it's done but not put away. I don't seem to have enough time to do it all. Oh well.

This weekend we have Maria and Phil's wedding, PJ's Mom's Family Reunion, Tina's Birthday Party and fortunately, I don't have any plans for Monday (thank goodness for long weekends).

Wishing you a happy, long weekend!

Happy Birthday!

To our October Birthdays!

Courtney, Oct 5
Tina, Oct 16
Trisha, Oct 23
Corky, Oct 24

Hope your day is great!

Just Checking In

I'm not dead...just really busy. And I don't feel like I have a lot to update about. I work, I do chores around the house. That's really it. HAHAHAHAHHA

PJ's 20 year high school reunion is this coming Saturday. I don't know what I'm going to wear. *sigh* I found a dress, but didn't like it and will return it. I'm back to square one.

In other news, I do have a new dress for the Oct 11 wedding we're attending. Success! I need to order some wedding presents too... Three weddings in 4 weeks. And one we missed in July that I *still* have yet to send something for. Oy! I'm way behind the times!

Ooo...we got the Nissan in tip top shape. It's had a little work done, but it's now passed inspection. PJ needs to install the new stereo. At some point we'll need to fix the A/C and it'd be nice to have it repainted (like that cheapo paint job from Maaco). I'm glad it's coming together. Much better gas mileage than PJ's truck.

Speaking of his truck, it's in the shop. Failed inspection. A buddy of PJ's is doing work on it. I think we'll have it back in the next day or two.

So, wasn't that exciting? lol. Hopefully there will be more exciting updates in my next post.

Solemn Day

It's a sad day as we remember 9/11. :( The Pentagon memorial was unveiled today. I'm sure it was a hard day for many people.

Happy Birthday to our September birthdays. Kurt, 9/7 and Ben, 9/27.

School has started... It's hard to believe we're already into September. So far, so good. The kids like their teachers and classes. That's good. :)

Block Party Cometh...

Only a few days away until our block party!!! I hope we'll be seeing you there!

September birthdays and first day of school coming soon! woohooo!

Fizzled Out...

I had grand plans of getting the house cleaned tonight, making some dog food (my dogs are on a homemade diet) and organizing some stuff for the block party. It's 10.52pm and the only thing I've managed to do is sort the laundry. Now I just want to hit the hay!

My mom settled on a new house yesterday. I have to look up where it is again, but it's a little house on a few acres...maybe 1.5 hours from my house. I'll get to see it next weekend. Very exciting news!

Today is my grandmother's 80th birthday - woohoo! :)

Still not all here...

We have pictures up on our website. I won't post the links yet since I need to clean them up some (PJ uploaded way too many). But if you're brave or killing time, they're all there...vacation, family, miscellaneous (like the weed that's taller than Megan that was in my flowerbed!).

At some point, remind me to tell you about "The Compound."

I've had a bunch of high school friends suddenly show up on Facebook (over the last few weeks). I'm not sure what happened, but it's pretty neat to see who's on there now and to reconnect. I need to update my life story for them...

It's PJ's dad's birthday today. Happy Birthday, Pat!

Happy August Birthdays

Happy Birthday to our August Birthdays!!

Ethan, 13 on the 3rd! Woohoo!!!
Donald, the 7th (I believe. We celebrate his 80th on Sat, 8/9)
Pat, the 12th
Gram, the 15th (milestone 80th!)
Kelly H., the 21st

I think that's all of you. Hope you have a happy day!!

It's Official...

We've started planning for the block party. Info to my fellow planners went out tonight!

Mark your calendars - Sunday, Aug 31.

PJ and I just got back from vacation...I'm so behind on everything, including blogging, as you can see. As soon as he uploads our pics, I'll post links. Ten days was a long time to be gone, but it was good to see family (PJ's in OH, Mine in IN) and then we did the touristy thing in Gettysburg...the kids will thank me when they're older. ha!

I hope we're going to see the new Batman movie tomorrow (The Dark Knight as if you hadn't heard). We'll see if it fits into our schedule!

Quiet Sunday

So we were supposed to have Samantha's birthday parties (notice it's PLURAL) this weekend. We had a small scheduling conflict arise and had to cancel them. It's made for a very quiet and relatively unproductive weekend. ahahahahahah.

On Thursday (Sam's birthday, but she was at her mom's), we had a few friends over since there was no work on July 4th and everyone could sleep in!

On July 4, we swung by a BBQ and then headed to a friend's house where we could watch fireworks off the back porch (and escape all the traffic). Good times. We left there a little later than I hoped. Saturday morning came to early.

We picked up all the kids on Saturday morning and headed home. I had a few errands to run and then I parked my backside on the couch to finish a book I had started a week or so before. I finally got up to shower (stinky!) about 5pm. We were taking Sam and the family out to dinner at Friendly's. Now THAT was a fancy meal. :P After dinner and ice cream, we ran a quick errand at Wal-Mart (which makes me want to poke my eyes out). When we got home, Ethan had a friend spend the night, Megan went to a friend's house and I finished the book!

Sunday has been a lazy day. PJ went to breakfast with Joe. I did manage to get almost all the laundry done (should probably go check on it now) and I also made Sam's dinner for lunch (we ate around 2pm) - chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, corn and watermelon. She was happy as a pig in mud and the other kids didn't complain either. With the help of some of the kids, I made all the labels for PJ's father's day gift (one of those small hardware sorting cabinets for hanging in the shed). All in all, I am glad the weekend was low key.

Have a great week!

July Birthdays

Happy Birthday to our July birthdays!

July 3 - Samantha (16!!!!)
July 15 - PJ's mom
July 25 - Lisa

Hope it's a happy day for you all!

End of an Era

PJ's last night as a bartender was this past Friday.

It was a fun night. Here are all the pictures....

In other news, we had a 4th-of-July-early-surprise-birthday-party (for PJ's mom) on Saturday. I don't have any pictures of it. *shrug* Sunday, we had lunch with some friends. Delicious pizza and good company!!

This coming week, we'll get ready for Samantha's birthday. She'll be 16 on Thursday! Woohoo!