I Can Drive Big Red Car?

As inspired by http://icanhascheezburger.com/.

New Year, New Goals??

So, it's the new year. The holidays are behind us, finally, and the kids have gone back to school. This is my last semester to have Emyley all to myself. I am pretty excited about that now, but ask me in about 7 months, and I may tell a different story.

I have not really been big on resolutions in the past, but after reading my friend Kathleen's blog about resolutions, I started thinking. There are definitely some things in my life I would like to change. Okay, okay resolutions for the new year:

• Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle - Okay, if you read between the lines there, you know I mean lose weight. But it is so easy to get caught up in the numbers, that the fact that your body is getting healthier falls away. So, I want to eat better and get active, and let the scales do whatever they may....but they better go down! ;o)



• Be Money Smart - Again, reading between the lines, I am tired of being broke! Everytime we seem to breakthrough the money barrier, we get lost again. So, I want to be smarter with the way we budget and spend our money. Oh, and build up some savings, yeesh!



• Be Patient with my children & my husband - This would of course be stop yelling at the children and getting frustrated with my husband. I have not quite figured this one out, yet, so any ideas send them my way. ;o)



• Don't be so serious, have fun everyday, more quality time with family, get rid of guilt, blah, blah, blah!

I am sure there are many others, but off the top of my head those are what stick in my mind the most. I went to the library today and since I couldn't find any good fiction books (SHOCK) to read, I picked up a couple of recipe books and a finance book. I'll be sure to pass on any tips and recipes I find.

Christmas Eve at Nana & Joel's

It has been our tradition for a couple of years now to spend Christmas Eve with Bill's mom. She got married this past year to Joel, so it was the 7 of us for Christmas Dinner. The girls opened birthday presents, even Hayley gets one so she won't feel left out. Then we ate a scrumptious dinner of turkey, homemade noodles, dressing, broccoli casserole and mashed potatoes & gravy! Yummy! The girls couldn't wait to open their Christmas presents, and they were so excited to get new outfits from Nana! Of course a fashion show was in order! After presents, we had yummy chocolate cake and apple pie for dessert. It was a great time and this is one of our favorite traditions! And, of course, now that I am a movie maker, this blog wouldn't be complete without a movie of our afternoon at Nana & Joel's! Enjoy!!

Disney Scrapbook

I promised to show you all pictures of our Disney Scrapbook that we ordered from Disney's Photopass, and I got sidetracked. And now that I am learning to make videos, I decided that a video was definitely in order here! ;o) Overall, we were very pleased with the quality of the scrapbook, and my only complaint would be that I wish there were more background choices. It is an awesome keepsake, and well worth all the effort it took to create it! Enjoy the movie!

The Much Anticipated Bike Video

I finally sat down and sorted through our bike videos and compiled, edited, & pared them down into this one video. We got the bikes for Christmas and it was Sydney's first time without training wheels, and Hayley's and Em's first bikes period! Enjoy!!

Christmas in Chandler....or Stroud....where ever!

This past weekend we made the trip to Chandler for Christmas with my family. But because my parents are re-doing their kitchen, my oldest sister, Cara, volunteered to have dinner at her house. We usually do sandwiches for our Christmas dinner, but her stepdaughter, Tiff, wanted the whole she-bang. So, we did it up with Ham, Chicken and all the fixin's you could imagine! I made Ms. Shimek's Texas Truffles, my sister made Grandma Gilliam's No-Bake Oatmeal Cookies and there were many, many pies for dessert. It was a great time with family, conversation, lots of food and many, many presents! I did manage to get a few pics, so enjoy the show!! The picture here is my parents van loaded down with food (under all the presents) and lots of gifts!

Merry Christmas, Papa!

Today we went and celebrated Christmas with Bill's dad by meeting him for breakfast. Since we are on our trip to Okla to visit my parents, he agreed to drive up and meet us at a restaurant here in Chandler.

The restaurant we ate at is called B's and is located in the Econo Lodge Motel.

We enjoyed omelettes, french toast, eggs and conversation. However, since watching Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay, I must point out that he would have a field day in this restaurant, especially with the daily specials that are written in shoe polish on the glass wall inside the restaurant! Sorry, didn't get a picture of that one. You may just have to visit it to believe it!