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

School update...

Well it has been quite a while since I last updated! Sadly in that time we havent gotten nearly the amount of school work I would have liked to have done! But here is some of the highlights!

Math- all the kids are doing really well with Rod and Staff. Matt is flying through his book and will likely move up before the year is up! He can do so much in his head we are just trying to concrete a little more "on paper" before we move him! Emily is doing great! She just goes through her book, rarely a comment to me or question! She is so smart! Kaitlin has reached DIVISION! For some reason she breezed through multiplication but has hit a standstill with division! We are working through it and waiting for the "aHA" moment!

Copywork: We just did one particular copywork that Matt really enjoyed. It is part of a Guy Fawkes Day poem or chant. He really liked it!

Science- We are not moving to quickly through science but the kids are enjoying what we are doing. They LOVE AOE and playing with their friends and are really remembering a lot of the elements! We went to Chemistry Week at A&M University a few weekends ago and the kids had a great time!

History: We are way behind but trying to not worry! The kids are learning better this year than last year and seem to be retaining more which is good and I am going slower to make this happen! We read or listen to each chapter at least 3 times! We are currently on chapter 5, we are leaving the New World and headed to Japan. History is so interesting this year! Last week each of the kids made a diorama thing for a colony, they had a lot of fun, but I didnt take pics of Matts and it has already been destroyed. But here is Kaitlin's...

Bible: We are working through the New Testament. We are at John the Baptist. The kids are learning their memory verses pretty well and are doing them for copy work on the first day. We are also working on Psalms 23 and some names of Jesus.

Presidents lap book: We are still only on the 2nd President but that is fine! We learned about John Adams! We still have some books to read but we took a short joint off the Prez to learn about the White House since he was the first President to live there! We did this cool ABC's of the White House that I found on WhiteHouse.gov. It was neat!

We are still working through Robinson Crusoe, the kids added to their journal this week and we are up to chapter 19 I think. The kids also watched the first episode of Crusoe on TV. It is not up to snuff as far as accuracy but it gives the kids a really good glimpse of how things were, the materials he dealt with and the time period in general. They really like it so far.

started our FALL bulletin today although all we got done was the actual bulletin board! We will do our LAPBOARD -which is my version of a lap book on a bulletin board! We are doing a bunch about corn, and of course Thanksgiving stuff! I have a little about crows and scarecrows that are all out of the September Book bag from Curr click. I need to order the November one too, I will do in next week!

Book club- We started the The Tale of Despereaux! Very exciting, we are working through it and will finish on December 19 in time for the movie coming out! Yeah. Kate loves the book! Emily has said she is joining book club!

Well that about sums it up, this is the stuff we have been working on the past few days!