Merry Christmas, my gift to you

here it is - my very.first.giveaway!!!!!

i've wanted to have a giveaway since i started this blog nearly 2 years ago but just sorta never got around to it..... plus i really suck at mailing things! lazy i know!

so here it is...

2 lucky readers will win a subscription to Woman'sDay magazine!

i ♥ this magazine

truly i do!

there are some amazing recipes in there, for that alone it's worth receiving this!

here are the rules:

each item will give you one entry

#1: become a follower (I've always wanted at least 50 followers! ☺)

#2: leave a comment, and a comment with your favorite holiday recipe will earn you a double entry!

#3: post about the giveaway on your blog

alright people, you know you want this!!!!!

entries need to be in by Friday the 3rd @ 6 p.m.

winner will be drawn by my hubs, with no peeking allowed!

check this out

Kim over at Newlywoodwards is hosting a great giveaway! Check out her page and this awesome gift, and then while you're at it check out Michael, the creative genius who is the sponsor of the giveaway!!!!

this is what happens...

when your 2 year old takes your phone!

Riley kept saying, "I see baby?"  meaning he wanted to look at the camera on my phone and see himself....

this little man is getting so smart!  It makes me sad how quickly these little guys grow up!

He has officially mastered the use of the word "NO"

it was cute for about 2 weeks, but now that he uses it at the appropriate times, not so cute.

he can pull his pants up... I know that seems silly and like a "duh" thing but seriously, it's a milestone!

now if only we could get this kiddo to eat like a normal person.

he doesn't like much, there are times I swear he only eats breakfast.  

no matter what you make him, he'll shoot it down

any of you mom's got ideas?  

Luckily he's gaining weight and growing like he's supposed to, our pediatrician says not to worry about it but still... it's my job to worry!  :-)

my weekend project

since the hubs worked nights this weekend I found myself with lots of extra time on my hands.

Logan was with his dad for the weekend, and Riley goes to bed by 7:45pm. 

Sage would leave for work at 5pm... meant lonely nights for me!

So......

this is what I started!

it took 2 hours to get this far!

after 7 hours of work

after 11 hours of work

13 hours later!

 My mom has made everyone in my family one of these stockings, so I decided to continue the tradition into my own home. 

Poor Riley doesn't have his own stocking yet (he borrows a spare one of Logan's)

so I hope to finish his before Christmas.

According to my mom, these things take about 100 hours... holy crow!

I've got a L.O.N.G. way to go!

my turkey day

let me set the scene:  me - glass of wine, cheese & crackers, flannel pants, dog, couch, blanket, fire, t.v.

kids: in bed sleeping

husband: working the night shift

what this means?  Well.  The husband worked Mon - Wed this week, and now he's working tonight, then tomorrow night and probably Saturday night, 12hr shifts.  Me experiencing my first night alone without him in nearly 6 years.  A little scary.  On the positive.... I had my dose of Nyquil & my glass of wine.

Random: I'm watching Sally Field in a Boniva commerical... she looks amazing!  How many of you just love her?  I absolutely do.  That woman can act wonderfully & she is beautiful.  

Back to my post. 

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  Mine was just okay, which was a little sad for me since it's my favorite holiday.  I opted to let Logan (my 6yr old) eat with his dad this year, even though technically it was my holiday, so that was tough for me.  It's always sad celebrating things and not having your whole family there.  

Then my hubs didn't get to stay with us all day, he ate and then came back home to sleep most of the day away.  And now he's off at work.......poor guy

Tomorrow is an exciting day, we'll be putting up our Christmas tree!!!!  I.can't.wait!!!!

Guess we're gonna let the hubs sleep until noon-ish or so and then we'll start decorating.  

Also I put an offer in on the "ugly" horse that I mentioned before... the offer was accepted and now I think maybe he's actually cute, not ugly.  I'm supposed to go pick him up tomorrow, but after my offer was accepted there was no excitement from me.  :(  

So, I had one other horse in mind and we're gonna go check him out on Sunday and if he isn't "the one" then I'll go get the cutie from last week.  

Here is the one we're checking out on Sunday.

it's not a great picture, but I LOVE his face.... and I've got a soft spot for blacks.

So we'll see how things pan out on Sunday.

I will be going back to school on Monday and will only have 2 weeks left, oh how I cannot wait!  In 20 days I will have graduated and will be able to work making REAL money!!!! WOOT WOOT!

on a side note: to my "anonymous commenter" 

No need to be anonymous, just state what you want.  

Negative comments will of course be deleted by me. 

Incase any of you are wondering about me buying a horse, well it's tacky to go into financial business like that, but I'll just say this.

My last post stated that I SOLD a horse.  So we already had one.  A horse has been in our budget.

With the horse I sold, we are able to replace the horse and still have money in our pockets.

The cost to buy a horse is the cheap part, normally it's the cost to keep the horse that can break the pocket book.  However, in my case I am very blessed to have wonderful friends.  The monthly cost for me to keep a horse is the same as for my husband and I to go out to dinner one time.

Yes I post about being unemployed... please note if you have been reading my blog that my husband is considered "unemployed" however he gets called in enough times during the month to earn enough to pay our bills.  He may only work 2 days a month, but they are Saturdays, and being Union it means over time even though these will be the only hours he works. 

Anyway, I've already dove in way more than I like to on personal stuff like that.... so just saying, no need to be shy!  The hubs and I are responsible people, our bills are all paid, there is still money in savings.... we had planned for this lay off well.

so, back to the happy part of the blog, HAPPY THANKSGIVING my friends!  I hope that there was plenty of turkey, plenty of stuffing, and maybe wine? :-)

I went ahead and attempted the Rhodes rolls again tonight.... ugh, failure again!

This time it took them about 7 hours to rise!  JEEZ!  I just can't get it right with these things!

There was a quick run to the grocery store to get rolls, and then about an hour or so after dinner my rolls had finally rose enough that we could bake them.

Maybe 3rd time will be a charm on these? 

They were still so tasty that no matter the pain I will be willing to try again!!!!

horse dilemas

this weekend I sold my beautiful horse, Lady.

it was bittersweet to let her go but I just know it's what is best for me.

So I've looked at 2 horses since then... the first one was ok.  Honestly he did everything he was supposed to do.  The lady hadn't rode him in about 8 months.  I hopped on him, took him out over their property, walked trotted loped backed spun... he did wonderfully.  

So what's the problem?  Well he wasn't really all that good looking.  Is that bad of me?

Here he is, what do you guys think?

he pretty much meets all of my requirements but I think a part of me was hoping to find some dashingly beautiful horse with just as wonderful brains.

So this evening the hubs and I drove out and checked out gelding.  I thought this might be fate. He is a bay, looks identical to my high school rodeo horse, and even had the same name... crazy right?

well... the girl got on him and was riding him first so that I could watch... 

he bucked her straight off.

sorry, no thanks.

actually I did still make an offer on him but it was $400 less than she wanted and she wouldn't budge on price.  Sorry my friend, after your horse bucked your little butt off you were lucky that I even gave you an offer!

Oh well.  I'm waiting to hear back from one other owner but we'll see how that goes.  After only 2 horses I'm already tired of driving.  

So what do you think of the top horse?

15 years old, registered (not that I really care), and meets all of my requirements (except being drop dead gorgeous)

Mock Thanksgiving

This past Saturday was our 2nd annual Mock Thanksgiving...

mmm...mmm...GOOD!

My closest friends came with their men, we all baked, 

and we all drank a little 

it's possible that I maybe drank a lot of wine... only possible though

Tom was a huge success....

this year I tried a new type of rolls.  

normally I'll stick to the typical crescent rolls

this year I tried Rhodes frozen rolls... ever done this?

you take them out frozen, let them sit in a pan or dish or whatever and it'll take 3-5hrs for them to rise... 

and then you bake - easy right?

the person who told me about these rolls said it took hers 7 hours to rise.

well I wanted to make sure they had plenty of time to rise so I gave them a good 7 hours...

about 4 hours TOO long!

here they are looking freakishly alive!

I finally had to take it to my sister's and use her oven just to put an end to the madness!

 and here's the final outcome.... I had to trim a lot off of the edges! lol

here's the loot of what I baked.... it was all so good.

I normally don't like pumpkin pie but I decided to make one anyway, I googled away and decided on a Paula Dean recipe.... holy mother it was soooo good!  Let me know if you want the recipe!

oh, and that sweet potato casserole was delicious as well!

the things we do

what do you think about this couch?

not bad for a man cave, right?

here's what it took to get this thing down in our basement...

the stairway down to our basement

at the end of my hallway to my laundry room

some may say, WOW, are you c.r.a.z.y.!!!

nope, the couch was FREE!

let me remind you all that my husband and I are both currently unemployed so when the couch was made available to us we jumped at the opportunity.

never did I imagine that we would end up with FIVE holes in my walls!

luckily they are all patched, just waiting for the mud to go on the walls & repaint, no biggie right?

LOL

Random Acts of Kindness

As I was going through the mail today I was confused by this envelope...

you see it's addressed to me, but also from me....

hmmm...

and here's what I found inside of it....

so today I am thankful for the truly generous people out there, 

whoever sent this, I hope they know what a blessing it is to my family right now in these tough times.

Thanks, and God bless

for anyone interested

my biopsy results came back negative for cancer.... it for now is being called benign.  I have to have it measured again in May and if it's grown then we'll probably end up taking it out for fear that it may be turning cancerous... so it would be just a preventative measure.  But as for now it's staying in!  :-)

countdowns are happening!

exactly 1 month from today I will graduate from nursing school.

10 days from today is Thanksgiving.

11 more days until we put up our Christmas tree. (silent cheers happening here!)

40 days from today is Christmas.

So many exciting things happening!  Did I tell ya'll that I sold my saddle?  Yeppers, sure did!  I got a call about my horse yesterday so I'm hoping that will go somewhere.  I had a fantastic day at the hospital today.  Great patients.  Great nurses to work with.  Just an overall great day! (minus the hooch that stole my Dr Pepper!)  ((oops, did I say hooch? Twice now? sorry!))

Tomorrow is my big day, MRI on the knee in the morning and biopsy results in the afternoon.  I'm skipping school tomorrow to get all of this stuff done.  I think in between the two appointments I'll go saddle up and take the critter for a ride.... I've heard the weather is about to turn to crap so I better take advantage of a semi-nice November day.

This Saturday we're having a Turkey Dinner at our place, our closest friends will come join us for our "mock" Thanksgiving dinner.  I've done this a few times in the past but last year I went full force with it and had a blast.  I can't wait to do it again this year!  

I got my promo code from Shutterfly for my free Christmas cards so now I'm scheming up an awesome holiday photo to use for our cards, I can't wait!

Happy Monday to everyone.... I have some fun posts planned for the rest of the week... can't wait to share!  :-)

Veteran's Day

I mentioned before that my little town has the biggest Veteran's Day parade in the state of Kansas.  We're pretty proud of that!  The parade took a whopping 2 1/2 hours!

Now I'm not gonna say it's the most exciting parade, but it's definitely the biggest! :-)

At 11 o'clock the parade stops and the horns play TAPS and we're always impressed by the kick butt jets that do a fly-over.

This year the fly-over was about 2 minutes late so it really surprised us all and of course I wasn't able to get a picture... which makes me sad cause that's just about my favorite part of the parade! 

(besides the horses of course!)

poor Riley cried through pretty much the entire parade.  First he was afraid of all the sirens, and then he was just crying to cry I guess? 

notice the soldiers boots on the saddle.... the horse who returned without his soldier.  Always gives me goosebumps

this person standing right infront of me was a Vet.  It was pretty cool because all through out the parade soldiers were stepping out and coming over to shake his hand.  I sure do love this country.

this is my high school.... I used to be one of those band members! :)

my dad used to fly these when he was in the Army

we even got a fire engine straight from NY!

WWII Vets   If my grandpa were alive he'd be in that group, he retired from the Army as a General

my dad, Retired LTC, and the kids

and how fun is this guy?!  I just love it!

thankful for...

my home. 

last night my parent's neighbors lost their house.

this is what it used to look like.

and here is what is left.

I talked to one of the fireman this morning and he said the house was completely engulfed in flames before they got there.  It's a total loss.  The only thing left is a large airplane hanger in the back of the house.

Luckily the family was out of town.  They were blessed to have no injuries.

The wind was so bad last night that a fire truck had to be stationed at my parent's place to make sure that nothing blew over and caught their house on fire.  How scary!

Counting my blessings today.

ANOTHER xmas card give-away!

Check out my friend Shannon over at Its Not Always Black and White, she's an amazing lady with great talents!  Anyway she's designed some of her own Christmas cards for you to choose from and is even going to give away free cards to one lucky reader, so check out her page! 

Happy Holidays!

p.s. Shannon was also so kind to remind me that Thanksgiving us just 9 days away! YIKES!

Shutterfly Christmas Cards

Check it out!!!!  Shutterfly is giving away a chance to win 50 free Christmas cards!  Check out this site: http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/ and enter in for your chance to win some Christmas cards!  Here are some of the pictures that I've used for my cards the last couple of years....  Sometimes we will use sort of silly pictures for our cards, we feel that it best shows are personalities!  What can I say, we're a fun family!

and here are some of the card ideas that I really like from Shutterfly this year....

Here are a few of my favorite things from shutterfly:
their Christmas cards: cards
calendars: here
and I love the idea of invites: party invites

I have actually used Shutterfly before.  Did you know that you can load pictures onto your computer, upload everything up to shutterfly.com and then they'll print them out for you and mail them to you?  I was quite impressed with their services, they were super fast, and the photos turned out awesome.  Normally I run to CVS last minute and slap a photo card together, it's never quite as good as I'd like it to be since I'm so rushed.  I'm looking forward to working through Shutterfly this year for my Christmas cards!