Kids are crazy...

People tell you life will change once you have a child... they tell you thoughts and feelings about everything will change... what they forget to mention is that kids are so entertaining and hilarious that you just have to stop and laugh sometimes...

The girl's favorite question to pose "What is your favorite color today?" She'll ask you 4 times a day, too. Recently she has started to ask again and then stops to say "Oh yeah, you told me. What is your favorite animal today?" HA! I don't think I ever had a favorite color of the day or favorite animal until she started asking me. Now when she asks about an animal, I try to come up with something unordinary... like a mongoose or anteater or sloth. The same goes for colors... I tell her periwinkle or shocking pink... never just plain old red...

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but I'm telling you... I had NO idea how much my life would change (for the better!) once she entered my world. Just rediscovering the planet with her is amazing. Hearing her talk about school and the dinner conversations!!! Last night we are sitting there and she says "Are there like spares for people?" We said "What do you mean?" She said "Well... like the President. If he got killed, is there a spare to take his place?" HA! So we explained the VP (Which took us a few moments to remember his name... sorry Joe...) would become President. He isn't really a "spare", but there is a plan in case that happened. I asked, because I had to know, "what made you think about that?" She says "I was just thinking about George Washington and who is that guy on the penny?" HA! We said "Lincoln" She said "Yeah. He got shot and he died!! Someone killed him!" Just rediscovering all the things she is learning is amazing for me.

Cookie Days

I bought the tins for the cookies Friday night... I also bought stuff to stock up the advent calendar for Callie. I may be slightly more excited about it than she is... but who knows.

I need to finalize my cookie list. I think I'm going to cut down the number of kinds and just double batches or something. I have 11 tins to fill... yes, I said 11.. plus cookies for our house, C's aunts house, and my Mom/Dad's

Tins for:
5 neighbors
2 sanitation workers
1 mailman
1 mechanic
2 Fed Ex guys

Cookies:
Decorated Sugar Cookies (triple batch)
Thumbprints (triple batch)
Peanut Butter Blossoms (triple batch)
Russian Tea Cakes (triple batch)
Cake Balls (MAYBE double batch.. these are a pain in the butt!)
Sandwich cookies (double batch)

Stock up on stuff.... I think I'll need:
10 lb flour
5 lb sugar
1 lb brown sugar
2 lb powdered sugar
1 lb chopped pecans
2 red velvet cake mixes
3 cans vanilla or cream cheese frosting
4/5 bags chocolate chips (lots of chocolate needed for dipping cake balls!!)

All of this work means... I am taking off December 16-18 to do holiday baking. :) WOO HOO!!

Christmas Project #1 finished

I have wanted to do this for 3 years and this year, I decided I was just going to do it!

A wooden advent calendar that we can use over and over... but I wanted a semi "plain" one to decorate up myself... SO I chose this one from JoAnn's. You can find it here: http://www.joanns.com/joann/catalog/productdetail.jsp?pageName=search&flag=true&PRODID=xprd1133998

If you want one, hurry... because last year I was trying to decide and they sold out!

So... as I said... I wanted to decorate it up a bit... this is what it ended up looking like.

It was fun to do and I'm thinking of all kinds of fun things to stick behind those doors... the girl is really in to bouncy balls, earrings, and scrapping... so all those things will fit along with candy... of course!

do you know what tomorrow is?

Tomorrow is... Christmas Card making day!!!! WOO HOO!!! My MIL is coming over and we are going to be all crafty and make Christmas cards and tags and all that fun stuff. WOO HOO!!!!

I'm very excited. I just sketched out my cards and have an idea of what I'm going to do... I have about 40 cards to make... not too many... but good amount. :)

Hee hee.... I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!! You know what I love the most... surprising people with presents!! I love shopping and getting stuff I know they are going to love... I love being sneaky and saying "I'm not going to go to Girl Scouts with you all, I'm going to skip that" and running a little Christmas shopping errand. Hee hee!! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!

oh yeah... I bought a Christmas present tonight for someone I love bunches!!! Hee hee... and then I came home and bought the other Christmas presents for someone I love bunches, so this person's shopping is just about done. :) Hee hee... I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!

Craftiness... part 1

Ok... so the "Plan" is to show a few crafty things I do to remind myself that I am kinda crafty... HA! I also want to explore the different craftiness venues of my life and remember all those things I have done "once upon a time".

This is a card I made today for C's cousin. "Man" cards are so hard for me... so I normally take a light, cheery, goofy approach... that works. So, I used my little $1 JoAnn's stamp and some Stampin' Up! retired stamps and created this one of a kind card. I think it turned out cute. It will be in the mail on it's way tomorrow. :)

You may have noticed I changed my blog title.. and freaked some of you out... you didn't lose me.. I just changed the title. HA!

This weekend has been good and Sunday hasn't even started. Friday night was okay. I had to stop and think for a moment... Friday... hmmm... yeah... I remember that... sort of.... oh yeah...I felt like crap and we had red sauce with penne and salad. Callie ate a salad!! She says she likes them from time to time. We are just rollin' with it. Whatever. I was on a lot of allergy meds to breathe... I worked on her stocking and she was intrigued. "What is that?" "Am I old enough to do that?" "Can you get me a beginning one to do?" She sat in the floor and did her lacing cards as I sat on the couch and did the counted cross stitch.

Saturday morning C made a great breakfast. It really did hit "the spot" for some reason. Bacon, eggs, and biscuits! We never have biscuits... those little pillows of Heaven... they were good. I seriously think he tossed 2 out while I showered and there really should be a law against that... I went to Michael's for some Christmas present making supplies and he took the girl to Lowe's for a Build And Grow workshop. Thank you, Liza, for turning us on to those. Callie has 5 patches on her work apron. Woo hoo!! I truly expected Michael's to be crowded because they had a 4 hour sale yesterday to take an additional 20% off your entire purchase INCLUDING sale items. I got $10 frames for $4 and $5 boxes for $1.50ish. Crazy happy about that! I asked the girl at Ms if they had counted cross stitch kits, since I had promised the girl I would get her something to start on. "No, we only have a little cloth in the first aisle" I knew what the first aisle was... it's where the store the ladder, boxes that are half emptied... yes... that's right... it's the dead craft zone. I'm officially doing something every evening for my family that is not an "in" craft. I remember 2 HUGE rows of books, cloths, and kits when I was... oh wow... really getting in to this stuff at... 12... ok... so that's been 20 years... but still... no one does embroidery and counted cross stitch anymore??!?! That makes me sad...

I drove over to Hobby Lobby and found a Kids Craft project of a butterfly. Now granted this project wasn't exactly what I had in mind, because she actually has to count and she is doing a few half stitches and outlining, but I think we can figure it out together and get it done. I also got her a Make It Bake It stained glass frame from the Christmas aisle.

I brought my treasures home. She was excited to see the kits. She wanted to immediately start them. I made her wait, because I needed to box the note cards and get a few things lined out. She survived the waiting and we opened her cross stitch kit. I got her started, explained what she was doing, showed her a few stitches and BOOM she was off and running. I love that my step daughter is a very smart cookie... oh yeah... her report card... they want the kids to be at a reading level 5... she's at 16... like a 3rd grade reading level in 1st grade!

We went to Chris' aunt house for  his cousin's baby girl's 1st birthday. That was fun... expect Callie decided playing on the treadmill with no one around was a good idea... fell and skinned both knees, elbow, arm, and finger... that girl... she was traumatized for a while, but bandaids and cream made it better... and a reminder that we don't play on things that aren't ours and that the treadmill is not a toy... oh well... we came home and made cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning (refrigerated over night), did her stained glass frame which turned out super cute, and she did more cross stitch. She finished the butterfly body and the flower... she is cruising! Oh... I have a panda almost done on her stocking... C says I'm cruising too... I just see the whole project and know it's a LOT to do...

I better go get the rolls in the oven... oh yeah... the girl "woke up early to work on her crossed count stitch". She can't remember what sequence to put the words, but she's working on the project quite diligently... we'll see if it's finished... OH... and that's what she wants me to get her Christmas too.

I'm so tired of the stupid weather we are experiencing this year... about the time I believe I'll be okay and over everything... here it goes changing and my nose starts twitching and my head starts pounding and well... I'm miserable... I know, I know... there are worse things in life... but you would think between the allergy meds and pain drugs and everything else... something would kick in and allow me to not care..