Monday, December 31, 2007

Target conspiracy

What is it about Target that makes it impossible to just buy the Shampoo you went to get? You know what I am talking about. On your list: Shampoo and Toothpaste, and check out those cubical things for Kaitlyn's room. Then you come out an hour and a half and $145 later. I mean they have everything and then the purse that you have been eying for quite some time is half price ($4.98) and then it would probably be a good idea to have a couple more of those pens for Kaitlyn's Nintendo, and of course the Christmas stuff was 75% off and on and on. I really need to use the buddy system when going there.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

And for the 4th time now

For someone who had never been to Starbucks I have now been 4 times in a week. I have many more suggestions of things to try so I am sure I will make many more visits. I have had the Hot Chocolate (twice), it is real good and I had a double chocolate chip frappuccino, it was good too but now is not the time for cold drinks. Keep the suggestions coming.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Guess who wants a Nintendo DS now



Not to mention John wants one too.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Christmas Morning

So I am sure many of you are wanting to know how the Nintendo went over at our house. Well here is what Santa brought to both my children:

Kaitlyn basically had a Hannah Montana everything Christmas. Santa brought a Pink Nintendo DS, Hannah Montana game for it, and a Hannah Montana pillow with a microphone along with several dollar spot items.


Kaitlyn was busy checking out her little stuff and then she sees the HM game. I said "What is that?" She said "I guess it is a game for a DS, (then long pause) but I don't have a DS". I said "well what is in that box?" She said Ooooohhhh. She has not put the thing down. She even went to the bathroom yesterday and I saw her playing it. My brother got her Super Mario game and she likes it much better than the HM game, who knew.



Kyle's Christmas was all about Transformers and Power Rangers. Santa brought Hot Wheels spin city, power rangers and some dollar spot stuff.


Kyle's favorite thing seems to be this Transformers helmet that my mom got him. It even has a voice thing on it and when he talks in it he sounds like Optimus Prime.


We ran from house to house unwrapping lots of great things for two days. The kids are loved every minute of it though.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

12 days of Christmas

Okay so I am a little late but this was too funny not to share, watch all the way to the end.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Confession

Okay so I might shock some of you or you might think this is a crime but I had never been to Starbucks. I do not like coffee (I realize there are other things there) and I did not need something else to have an addiction to. So the other day one of my classes and I were having a conversation about me having never been to Starbucks and they of course were shocked. One of my students got me a gift card for there and yesterday when John wanted to go to Target I used my gift card while waiting on him. My students recommended I try the White Chocolate mocha. Since it is Christmas time I decided to go with the Peppermint White Chocolate mocha. So not impressed. I wasn't real thrilled with it. I don't know if it was the peppermint or the mocha but I did not care too much for it. I still have a little bit on my card so I am sure I will try again. Any other suggestions on what to try?

Friday, December 21, 2007

Friday Feast

I joined this thing called Friday Feast because it looked neat. So I was all excited to do this on my blog today and when I get there today it says "no feast today, join us next week". So I thought I would do the feast from last Friday.

Appetizer
Make up a word and give us its definition.

Fractophobia -- the fear of fractions, 98% of all teen-agers have this

Soup
What is currently your favorite song?

Tattoo -- Jordin Sparks

Salad
What’s at the top of your Christmas wish list this year?

Peace and Quiet (and scrapbook/stamp stuff)

Main Course
Name a scent that reminds you of someone special in your life.

Anything homecooked reminds me of my Grandma

Dessert
Who is someone on television that you feel probably shouldn’t be, and why?

Donald Trump -- he is so not attractive, just b/c you have money does not mean you can be on tv

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Diaper Free

We are finally diaper free at our house. Kyle has been potty trained for a while but still slept in a pull-up at night. Well last Friday night he did not have anymore. This was purely by accident, he usually ends up in our bed which is the main reason he was still sleeping in a pull-up. Hey you can pee in your own bed but not in mine. Anyway I told him he would just have to sleep in his underwear and not potty in the bed. Then I meant to get some on Sat. and we just got busy and I forgot again. But he woke up dry again Sunday morning. So he has now gone almost a week without peeing in the bed. Of course now that I write this I am probably jinxing it.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

My brother and I and our presents

I thought I would entertain some of you who read this (all 4 of you) with some stories about my brother and I and our Christmas presents in years past.

First of all I must preface this with letting you know that my brother and I are 5 years apart, I am older. We usually did not get along growing up until Christmas when it came time to scheme and search for our gifts (and when making fun of our mother, we do that well together).

One year Justin and I searched and searched and finally found our gifts hidden in a suitcase in my mom's closet. She was so mad at us that the next year she did not even bother to hide the gifts, she just sat them in a corner. It was so not fun. So we did not search for our gifts anymore.

My mom usually spends a good amount on us at Christmas. She is one of those people that spends the exact same amount of each of us down to the penny. If she has $20 to spend for each of us and the thing I want happened to be on sale for $10 then she would get me another $10 gift so that things were even. Because of this I always end up with more presents than my brother. He likes expensive things (as most males do) whereas I seem to prefer little things and the things I want can always be found on sale. So I usually end up with about 12-15 presents and he has about 8-10. It has become somewhat of joke now and Justin always says "so how many presents do you have this year" (read that very sarcasticly). Even Kaitlyn said the other day "Gran buys you too many gifts mommy". I quickly corrected her and said um, no she doesn't.

We open gifts with my mom on Christmas Eve. After opening she always has several stories about her good buys. She says "well the only reason you got that sweater is because it was on sale and then I had another 20% coupon so I only paid $6.50 for it". She is so proud of her good buys. I must admit though that I am so becoming her in this way.

My dad and stepmom always tried to think of clever ways to disguise our gifts. We would go over there and figure out what our gifts were before we opened them a lot of the time so they devised a plan. Our gifts were never labeled To Jennifer or To Justin. One year mine all said To Mom and Justin's all said To Dad. The next year mine all said To Pat (my stepmom's name) and Justin's all said To Fred (my dad's name). We should have caught on to that one because they didn't typically buy each other gifts and certainly not that many. Then the next year they said To Jennifer and To Justin and we thought oh good they have finally given up on this trying to disguise the present thing. So we get them all passed out and we are ready to open. Nope we had to trade. Mine all said To Justin and his all said To Jennifer. The next year they were labeled correctly but we were so used to different labels by then that we were looking for a pattern of who's were who's so we didn't get it.

Maybe this will give some of you some funny things to try with your kids when hiding or wrapping presents.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

you little stinker

Yesterday when Pat came over to go get a tree she brought over all the presents for Kaitlyn and Kyle. They asked at least 50 times yesterday if they could open the presents and we kept telling them it was not Christmas yet. So today I left to take Kaitlyn to the Christmas party at church and then to try and find some more gifts. John was half asleep watching tv. Kyle proceeds to unwrap two of the presents. Here is what I came home to find:



John said he found Kyle with the presents in his room trying to hide them in his closet. At least the ones he opened were in boxes and he still doesn't know what they are. One of them was actually Kaitlyn's. I guess I will be re-wrapping those later.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Artificial Tree or No Tree

That was the question that had to be answered earlier today. We had planned to go get a Christmas tree today. We have not put a tree up in 3 years (the reason for that is another blog post entirely) and it irritates me every year. So my stepmom decided no more of not having a tree. However it poured down rain this morning and drizzled all day long. Rain and real trees that you are going to bring in your house don't mix so we decided an artificial tree would be better than no tree at all. I don't like fake trees at all but I have to admit the one we bought looks really good.

Putting the tree together was not an easy task especially for someone who has never had an artificial tree.
Here it is in stages:






And finally it was time for the star and ornaments. Kaitlyn wanted to put the star on but she could not reach high enough so I had to do it. Then Kaitlyn and Kyle put the ornaments on it.






And here is the finished tree. It is a very full, tall, and pretty tree even if it is fake.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Addicted to blogging?

77%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Looking for payday loans?




This quiz was fun. I have to admit I actually thought my percentage would be higher. I love blogs. I love reading them, I love thinking about what I am going to write on mine. I think everyone should have one and those that have them should update them often. It makes me feel better about falling behind on my scrapbooks (which I think everyone should do also, that is more fun than blogging). It is just fun. I have my friend Carrie to thank for this new love of mine. She got me hooked on a couple of things over the summer but I am glad.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Classic Cartoon Christmas

My father loved Christmas, I guess you would say he was a bit of a fanatic. When he died I 'inherited' all his Christmas stuff. Not that my stepmom doesn't like to decorate and stuff, she just doesn't go all out and crazy like he did. So I have boxes and boxes of Christmas lights. I also got about 30+ Christmas cd's in this collection. Some of them have never been opened. I already had my own Christmas cd collection at this time so I have a ton. In this collection are 3 A Classic Cartoon Christmas cd's plus one empty case. Here is the story behind why there are 4 of these. My Dad bought this cd in about 1996. He loved and I loved it, I was at college so I had to go and buy my own copy. Then my Dad took mine because he lost his. So I had to go buy another one. In the meantime my dad bought another one. Somewhere along the way we must have lost the cd because I have one empty case. This cd has the songs from the classic Christmas cartoons, Rudolph (even the misfit song), Frosty, Santa Claus is coming to Town (including Put One Foot in Front of the Other), The grinch, etc. I listen to it daily now and I have it downloaded in my itunes so there is no chance of me losing it again.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Notes for Santa

My kids acted awful all weekend. During the month of December we parents have a tendency to use the "if you don't act nice, Santa won't come see you" tactic. I don't know why we tell our children this, Santa will come. There is a man at church that tells the kids don't worry, even if you don't act nice Santa will still come. Anyway Kaitlyn writes Santa a letter that says this:
"Dear Santa, Im sorry I ben bad. I think I need a nother chance"

There are several boxes of stuff that belongs to John in front of our fireplace blocking it. Kaitlyn says "how is Santa going to be able to come down the chimney if Daddy's stuff is in the way? I said I guess we will have to leave him a note telling him to come through the front door. She said "well will have to put the note on the roof because that is where he lands and he won't see it if we don't". Great, now I am going to have to be out on with the ladder climbing on the roof taping down a note to Santa Claus on Christmas Eve when I am sure it will be about 10 degrees.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Santa's Solution

Really I should say it was God's solution because He clearly had a hand in this. I seriously have the best friends in the world. Tonight was our bunco Christmas party. We played dirty santa. I ended up with this cute snowman sleigh thing that jingles and plays music, so cute (it is an Avon thing). Anyway when we were done playing the game Cheryl says she has one more game. She pulls out this redish colored bag and says the game is this: Does anyone want to trade her gift for what is inside this bag, you have to do it sight unseen. We all sat there quietly, no one really wanted to give up their gift (they were all of course so good). So even though I did like my sleigh thing I said I would trade just for the fun of the game. I had no idea that I had fallen for their little plan. So Leigh kicks my gift over to Cheryl quite quickly now that I think about it. We were asking all kinds of questions about it and Cheryl says it is pink and sized for anyone. Leigh says jokingly "is it underwear?". I thought 'Oh no, what have I done, is this a gag'. One reason I was willing to trade was I thought well if Cheryl got something it must be good, maybe it will be one of those lessons like if you give up something you like you will get something better in the end and everyone else will be jealous (not that I am into making people jealous but you know). Anyway, so I look in the bag and there was a brand new shiny pink Nintendo ds. Yes my bunco girls had all gone in together and conspired to get me this. Leigh says "Santa was not going to have a dilemma this year" I could not believe they would do this. I teared up immediately. Then I thought I cannot believe I fell for their plan so willingly. Had I known I would have made it much more difficult for them to get me to open that bag. It is funny that I wanted to trade when really it was for me all along.
And then now that I think about some things that happened all night there were so many clues that I should have picked up on. First of all Leigh called me yesterday and wanted to know what I had decided about the ds, if I had found one. I did not think anything about that. Then she called me tonight about an hour before the party (she was probably at Wal-mart or on the way there with others when she made that call), again I am completely oblivious. Jen W even spilled my drink and I was on the floor right next to the gift helping to clean it up and I had no idea it was there. Then no one else even volunteers to play the extra game. When I volunteered Leigh kicked my gift real fast over to Cheryl.
I do wish I had a hidden camera of Leigh and Wendy (and maybe Cheryl, did you go to?) at Wal-mart. They said they almost had to fight some woman for it. It was the last one.
Kaitlyn will be so excited and I am still crying about the generosity and wonderful friends God has blessed me with.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Santa's Dilemna

So we are low on money this year for Christmas presents. Normally it would not matter, my kids are still young enough not to know how much Santa spends on them for Christmas. I have bought each of them about $15 of stuff from the Target and Michael's dollar spot and a couple of movies so they already have what looks to be like many presents. Kyle would be happy with that and a couple of Hot Wheels, he is real easy. Typically Kaitlyn is too. However this year she really wants a Nintendo DS (the hand held one and of course she wants the pink one). These cost $130 plus you have to buy at least 1-2 games for it. Whether I have the money or not I usually do not spend more than $100 on each of my kids for Christmas, they get so much other stuff there is no need for me to add to the clutter. Kaitlyn is 8 and in the 2nd grade, this may be the last year for her to believe KWIM? The other day I was trying to talk her into wanting something else (and it was not going very well). I told her that she might not get the Nintendo thing. She says "Well I told Santa I wanted it and I know he will get it for me". How do you argue with that logic. She has seen all the magical movies, she knows Santa brings kids what they want if you just tell him. I don't know if I can stand the disappointment on her face on Christmas morning if she does not get this, it will not matter what else she gets. But then again I don't want to run up a bill that will have to be paid off later just to please my kid. I have not done any Christmas shopping (for anyone) because I don't know what I am going to do.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Rock Band

Luke got the rock band game for the Xbox 360. It has drums, two guitars, and a microphone. You play and sing along with the game. It is not an easy game but hilarious to watch. Here are some pictures of our Luttrell rock band.





Best of Both Worlds

The other night at the Hannah Montana concert I took this video. It was at the end of the concert and had I known it would have turned out so good I would have videoed more. If you listen real close you can hear Kaitlyn singing in the background.

Breakfast with Santa

Yesterday was our annual Breakfast with Santa at church. Here is a picture of my kids and Santa.


There are a lot of people who work on this breakfast to make it possible. Here is a picture of Phyllis, Laura, Leigh and me with Santa. This was our 4th year for the breakfast. We raised almost $6200 for Agape.


Our pictures with Santa all turned out great thanks to Penny and as always our "Santa" is top notch. He loves doing it and loves seeing all the kids. Everything went very smoothly this year.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

God put a rainbow in the sky



Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few last minute things for the Breakfast with Santa. As I was driving there I noticed this rainbow in the sky. I stopped and rolled my window down to take a picture. It just made me smile.