Update post...

I again havent posted lately, I dont know what is up! I have just been busy! We had an alright Thanksgiving, although next year I will have my own Thanksgiving hopefully at my house! We will see, but no more restaurants for me! I just dont feel like it was Thanksgiving!

We are in Dallas, we are going to the American Girl Store tomorrow for the girls to pick out a doll. I am very excited and will have LOADS of pics! We are staying at the Gaylord Texas! It is unbelievably gorgeous. I have stayed in a hotel in Las Vegas and walked through the other hotels and I have been to Disney and seen beautiful hotels but this is just above and beyond! Again i will have pics tomorrow!

Before I left we got our tree decorated! It makes me feel so happy! We have it in our school room and when we were up there doing school on Monday I just kept looking at the tree and smiling! Here are a few pic of my ornaments.

I have quite a variety! I love them and we buy a few each year plus we get one whenever we take a trip to remember the trip by! I love this because when we put the ornaments on the tree we can say...remember when! Me and dear hubby did some reminiscing the other night!

Please note the kids pic on my sidebar! I love them! It is at a Christmas tree lot, I let them run in and out of the trees and peek up at me. It was fun and I got some pretty good shots, here is one of them all together!
So my parents got a Golden Retriever a few weeks ago. I am not a lover of dogs! But my brother also got a dog a few days ago, it is a puggle! I cannot begin to tell you how cute that thing is! I told Dave four years ago that I wanted a puggle and low and behold I let that dog get all over me and lick me! Yes, to all those who know me! I let the dog lick me! So we will see what we see...

We got family pictures taken at Mercer Arboretum the other day I am pretty happy with a few of them, they are not the absolute greatest but for five people in a picture good luck in getting perfection! There are even a few of Dave and I together! Yes, to all those who know me! I am in a picture! I will post them in a later post plus family will be getting one!

I am signing off now, it is really 1:00 in the morning but I am going to change the time to make this post for Tuesday! I have to scoot to bed so I can wake up and go do lots of things!

Christmas Time is coming near...

That means I get to watch all the holiday movies I can make room in my schedule for!

I will start with these:

The Muppet Christmas Carol
The Santa Claus
White Christmas
Miracle on 34th Street
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon version)
Elf

Meet Me in St. Lois

The Holiday

and this is just regular movies this does not begin to touch Hallmark Specials or Lifetime Holiday Movies! I love the holidays!!!

All I want for Christmas...

All I ever wanted for Christmas as an adult anyway is a nice day. I want tradition. I want family. I want to have a wonderful, peaceful day with my family. Now I firmly believe that the meaning of Christmas is Jesus, His birth which was God's gift to us. I absolutely believe that. What I am talking about when I say what I want for Christmas I really just mean the holiday itself. I want to wake up and everything be ready and not have to rush around. I want to calmly get to open presents with my children and them to be happy and pleased with what they got! I want to have a nice breakfast, have a nice lunch with my family and all be together. I get most of that every year but for some reason I never get all of it. I never quite get things how I want them. I am not looking for perfection exactly just an exceptional day! Is that to much to ask for?

So in order to do what I can to make the best day possible, I am going to set somethings in motion.

• I will have everything wrapped and in place by December 18.
• I will have shopped grocery wise for whatever I need by December 22.
  
• I will choose items that I am bringing or contributing to meals wisely,
  meaning they can be made ahead of time or take little preparation!
  
• I will have the kids outfits for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ready on
  Sunday and hanging up in my closet!
  
• I will budget to be able to eat out on the 24 for lunch.
  
• I will remember simplicity in my planning of Christmas Eve! I tend to
  go overboard on things!
  
• I will also have a fun activity planned with the kids every day from the 15
  till the 24 that I will SIT down and do with them each day!

This is my plan. I will add to it as I think of ways to make my holiday season the best ever!

I did something new !!!!!

Tonight I tried sushi!

I actually didnt mind it to much! I ate cucumber rolls (no fish) which I LOVED. I tried Texas rolls (roe, rice, cream cheese, jalapena and cooked fish). I also tried spider rolls ( rice, seaweed wrap, soft shell crab --the whole thing ) and last but not least Rainbow roll (raw fish- white, salmon and tuna on the outside of a calafornia roll.) YEAH. I am proud of myself. I love when I try new things, it makes me feel like I accomplished something!

Fitness Friday...

Okay it is Fitness Friday again. I posted yesterday for the first time since last Friday! I really, really do have a desire to change. I really do have a desire to lose weight, but this week I have used up every single excuse I could possible come up with to not make good choices. Aunt Flo was visiting, I hurt my toe, I am having a bad week, I feel stressed, I feel tired, I dont feel good, I deserve to give myself a break, I have done so good I will just have one piece! All these excuses came into play this week. I made a few good choices but honestly most were not. So that is all I am going to say. I will not wallow in it, I will not berate myself, I will just start again tommorow. I will have a refreshed vision of what I want to accomplish and I will go about accomplishing it!

Until next Friday...

Okay, so more on my blah, blah day!

We went to our Thanksgiving Feast at our Home school support group. It was really good. Sometimes I dont like going to our gym days because I feel like the kids get to wild. Now if you attend our group and you are reading this, well to bad it's my blog! Anyway, today was really good! The kids played very constructively in my opinion, they got kindof wild playing tug of war but it was a good wild, if that makes sense. The moms actually got to chat and the kids put away almost all the tables and chairs by themselves! It was neat to watch them be responsible...I mean they are not demented or unsocialized....see

Joy's quotes from the View

which has put the home school community in an uproar! off soapbox--- the kids were kind, responsible, respectful and all the kids worked together no matter the age they were. That does not really happen in public school settings, there the kids interact with kids their own age.

Anyway... I feel less blah.

Blah Blah Blog...

To my million of readers I am sorry. I have had a blah week!

I've got nothin! I feel completely blah. I have been pretty busy though. I tried to work on my rock placement, read here for more on that! I have done school with the kids, yeah! I have done stuff at home- cleaning, laundry etc. I hurt my toe (badly). I have limped and tried to keep off it some. It is looking better but all is not right! I did a little Christmas shopping. I havent done much else though! I mean blah week. So I will make it a point to blog for Fitness Friday and I might post again today after our Thanksgiving Feast for the support group. We will see!

Sorry for the blah!

Fitness Friday...

I cant really believe that it is Fitness Friday again! I don't know where my week went. I did nothing toward my goals. Nothin! I ate pretty well for the most part and made a few really, really good choices but did not uphold my goals of going to the YMCA and drinking more water. I posted on Brenda's rock post about making lists of what is most imp0rtant to me and I evidently need to move that way up the list! So I will work on that this week and I will covet your prayers about it greatly. All your thoughts, comments and encouragment really helped me last week as I ended up having a very tough week!

Okay so topic of the day: Restaraunts

I have had much less trouble at restaraunts on my particular (less carb) diet than other times I have dieted. I remember before this diet it was was extremely hard to eat out and very stressful. I dont like stress to be = with eating out! I love to eat out, I love restaratunts, I love getting my tea refilled, I love not having to wash up, I love even the hustle and bustle! So of course I dont want my experience to be stressful.

I have used the carb option meals on many restaraunts! They are usually wonderful. Almost always I can find a smothered steak of some kind! I love vegetables so I can simply eat a plateful of veggies! I will easily eat a ceasar salad with chicken on it. I love fish. I generally have lots of options at restaruants.

One technique I use is to take off half of the food on my plate and put it in a to go bag right off the start! This accomplishes two thing (1)what I dont see- I dont eat (2) I have another awesome meal to eat tommorow! Yeah. Another technique is I try to only order what I can eat, meaning I dont get french fries on my plate and just say I wont eat them, I try to get a different side or just ask for them to not be on my plate! The last thing I do is special order food. I just simply ask them to prepare something that is perfect for me-- for example at Bennigans you can get a piece of grilled chicken for 2.00 and with a side of broccoli for 1.79 it is the perfect meal and very, very cheap to eat out on! Last Sunday I went to Napoli's with family- Italian is generally harder than other types of food but I did fine! I got two meatballs, they were huge for 4.95, my hubbie ordered a pizza so I ate one slice of his pizza- which I didnt finish because I left it for last.

This was my day...

I woke up and had coffee...

but it wasnt as pretty as this!

Than we took off to shop for Kaitlin's birthday party bag supplies and order her cupcakes!

Then we had lunch, chinese... I tried to eat as carb friendly as possible but it was hard!

Then we went to our home school support group and helped make boxes for Operation Christmas. They send boxes to children all over the world!

After that we picked up Hallie (Katie's friend) and we went home, I had a few minutes to check my mail then we left for the last part of my day and most definitely the best!

Amy Grant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Live in the Woodlands... she is doing a nostalgia tour for her music pre 1989! I loved it. I sang my heart out!!!!!!!!! It was incredible and I am so very glad that I went!

Wordless Wednesday...

At the Aquarium...last Thursday