Happy New Year!!!!!

Go Elf Yourself....

or someone else. You'll get a good laugh out of it--I promise!


Here's our Disco version:

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Have fun and get to dancing--it's almost Christmas!!!

UPDATED:
Thank you Kirsten for letting me know that it was the same video over and over. What a bummer! For some reason, the site gave me the Disco version code for each dance instead of the code for the others. When you go there, you can also have your "elves" do the Charleston, the Classic Dance, and a Country Dance. If I can get new codes to copy, then I'll re-add the other dances.

Happy Birthday...

Hayley!

May you have a wonderful day as you learn something new in school. You are becoming a wonderful young lady and I am very proud of you! I love you cutie pie!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Look Out! She's Got a Gun!

And I'm not afraid to use it! (At least on the target range at the farm.)


Yesterday was our bi-annual family reunion up at the farm. It was overcast and cloudy for most of the day, but God held the rain off until after everyone left and we were headed home.

As we said the blessing for the food we had about 32 people there, but about 15 more people showed up later in the day.

You see, our family is all about the food. If there's food around, we're there! My mom made her famous Calico Beans and her yummy Pasta Salad! (Who says she can't cook?!) My uncle Charlie drove over from Texas and made his spicy chili--which a lot of people stayed away from because he made it "too spicy." (Is that even possible?) There were some people that even made a couple batches of deviled eggs--YUM! The best part for me however, were the desserts! Brownies, cake, cookies, doughnuts...the list goes on and on. Yep--I ate way too much (as usual), but it was nice to see everyone again.

Even the people that aren't related, but decided to stop by and enjoy the food. Does anyone know who these people are? (Just kidding--they're friends of my parents!--I think. )

There was a zip line for the kids (think James Bond, only close to the ground), water balloons (supposedly a toss, but it was really a time to chase the little ones with water balloons), rides in the golf cart and the mule (of which I almost fell out of), volleyball games, finding money in the haystack, and of course, when everyone left--the gun range.

(My 7 y.o. niece also learned how to drive the golf cart--pretty scary if you're trying to hang on the back and not drop your camera, or fall off.)

Hayley decided that she wanted to shoot a gun at the targets, so after a brief safety training with Grandpa, she was able to shoot a couple of rounds. While she doesn't quite understand the concept of looking through the scope to line up your shot, she was still happy to have pinged the metal targets a couple times--with Grandpa's help.

Happy Birthday Hayley!

Today is officially Hayley's 7th birthday!





We celebrated yesterday at one of the local bowling alleys--the only one that still allows smoking inside. (Gag! CoUgH! GAsPing for AIR!) Despite the toxic air, however, Hayley had a wonderful time with her new best friend Claudia and her cousin Sierra. They bowled (Which was hilarious to watch because none of them have ever bowled before.), danced around, played arcade games, ate cake, opened presents, and did it all over again. I know she had a lot of fun.

While the kiddos were playing their games, I found my favorite--Ms. Pac-Man--and decided to play. My dad decided that he wanted to play too, not knowing that I am the champ of Ms. Pac-Man, so I skunked him. My score really wasn't that great, but I am a bit rusty and the knob on the machine was VERY loose and hard to maneuver. Overall, we had fun. My dad wants a re-match. I told him he needed to practice some more before we played again.

(This is reminiscent of our Pin-Ball matches on the computer when I still lived at home. We would play until we cleared each others' scores off the screen. He would be at work all day, and i would spend the day racking up the high-score. Then, on a day he would have off, he'd beat my high score. It was pretty funny because we never knew when the other one was playing, so you'd never know whose score was the highest until you started to play.)

After we left the bowling alley, we headed back to my parents' house and vegged in front of the TV for a couple of hours. It was about 8:30 pm before I left and drove home--thankfully the rain stopped while I was driving and started as I rounded the bend into my apartment complex. (Gotta love tropical storms stalled in the ocean.)

Meanwhile, Madison decided to take a nap on the couch while I was out.

She's been pretty clingy lately, but you can still see her annoyance at the camera. Or, maybe it's at the camera holder? Hmmmm.....

My "Relaxing" Weekend

I was supposed to use this weekend to relax so that I would have enough energy to deal with the children tomorrow. (Yes, I'm going back for more...call me a glutton for punishment...) Unfortunately, relaxing wasn't exactly what I managed to accomplish.

Since my dryer decided to try and catch fire several weeks ago, I FINALLY left a message at the repair shop on Friday afternoon. Brian Johnson returned my call that same evening and said that he could be here early Saturday morning! (At first I was a little bummed because I had planned on sleeping until noon, but hey...I could always take a nap--especially if it meant my dryer was fixed!)

So, I spent Friday evening cleaning my apartment since it looked like a hurricane had come through--without the water damage! I put away my clothes that had finally air-dried, cleaned the bathroom (in case he needed to use it), swept and vacuumed the shoebox, and picked up what I could. I promptly fell asleep on Madison's new scratching post BEFORE 8pm. (So much for a wild Friday night!)

Saturday, I woke up early so that I would have time to make my bed, eat, take a shower, and do all of my morning things before he arrived between 8am and 9 am. I was SOOOO tired! (Thankfully my dryer is now fixed and I can have clean AND dry sheets, as well as underwear whenever I feel like it!!!!)

After he left, I decided to start getting things ready for the HUGE garage sale I'm having next week at my parents' house. I only made it through part of my scrapbooking things before my Mom called and wanted to know if I wanted to go out to eat for my birthday on Saturday or Sunday? (So much for my nap!) I decided that Saturday would be better, and I took some of the boxes down to my car to take to their house. We met at Olive Garden where we had dinner. My niece was there too....


Here are our "Monkey Faces"....


In any case, it was monsooning again as I drove home, so I finally made it up the stairs, changed into my PJs and was in bed again around 8:30 pm.

Today I decided to go to church "online." I stayed in my PJs until noon and I surfed the web where I decided to join another reading challenge. Yes, I know that I said I didn't like to join challenges because of the lists that I feel like I have to stick to, but this one's different...





There are no lists, I just read any book I feel like, whenever I get the urge. I LOVE this challenge because it lets me off of the hook. I have tons of books just sitting on the shelf that I want to read, but I haven't because I try to get everything else read that I have to read because of work. Here's my out! Yippee!!!! If you want to join, click here to sign up.

I've also been going through things today for the garage sale. I'm scared that I'm not going to have everything ready in time. The hardest part is that I have SO much stuff that I don't know if I'll be able to get it all over there in time. I also have some furniture that I have to figure out how to get there. I'm hoping that my Dad will bring his truck over so that we can move it that way. It's really only a table and a small cabinet that I'd been keeping my DVD's in, so it's not a lot, but I can't get them down the stairs on my own.

I also need to continue to rearrange the shoebox so that Madison's new scratching post will fit in better. After cleaning out one of the corner's from all of the craft stuff, I actually feel like I can breathe a little better. It's true about clutter--you have to get rid of it so that you can truly be free!

I need to get things ready to go back to work tomorrow, so I'll sign off now. Until next time...

As promised...

I mentioned that Hayley and I went to the pool the other day while we were having our Girl's Night/Day Out. She had spent the previous night with me and we managed to sleep in until 9am! This is a record because she is usually up with the daylight, which means so is everyone else.

After we rolled out of bed, we decided to fix breakfast--no cereal here--we actually made eggs and toast. She's into the sunny-side up eggs so she can dip her toast into them; I had a cheese omelet. Then we decided to "let our food settle" before we headed to the pool. Here are some of her serious poses in her stylin' new suit....

I know...I laughed at her dramatic focus too. Here are some others while we were at the pool... (This one is her swimsuit model pose. Where she comes up with these, I'm not sure, but it was pretty funny.)

She also had to show me how she can jump in the pool:










I think the best part is the video I took of her showing off her swimming skills. There were a couple of times I thought I was going to have to jump in after her because I thought she was going down, but she always grabbed the side of the pool or took a minute to tread water.



I made her take a break after this, and you can tell by her face exactly what she was thinking about that...

Overall we had a great time at the pool! This one has the water shooting off of the sides so it created a "bubble land" that she enjoyed playing in...with the "cheesy" noodle of course. (It's cheesy because it's orange like Cheetos.)

After our swimming adventure--we were both pretty tired, so we somehow managed to climb the three flights of stairs to my place, Hayley hit the showers, and I made lunch--chicken nuggets and buttered pasta. (I know, not the healthiest, but it was either that or stale crackers. I really hate grocery shopping!) By the time we finished lunch, it was time for me to hit the shower, while Hayley watched a movie. It was so late, that we had to hurry to get to our meeting place with her Mom on time. Oh well--maybe we'll have more time later this summer. Next time we might go to the movies. There's a few cute ones I think she'll like--we'll see.

I'm Still Here...I Think

Looking at the calendar is pretty depressing for me at the moment....only 3 more weeks and I'm back at work. Yuck! I feel like I'm finally starting my vacation and now I have to go back. I know I shouldn't really complain--after all, not all jobs have the "summer off," but anyone who knows a teacher knows that this is the time we work the hardest. Whine...Whine...Whine....I'm out of cheese.



Since the last time I posted, I finished reading Meljean Brook's two novels Demon Angel (with yummy Hugh) and Demon Moon (with delectable Colin). While that doesn't seem like much, both novels were around or over the 400 page mark with tiny writing. DON'T let that hinder you--both books were great although I will warn you--neither are Christian books. With that having been said, I think I'm in lurve with Colin! Not only is he astonishingly handsome and wealthy, but he has excellent taste, BRAINS, and he just happens to be a vampire. (I'm not sure what my obsession with vampires is, but for a vampire, he's most excellent!) I'm thoroughly jealous of Savitri--his love interest--not only is her name cool, but she hangs out with rather er...interesting characters, has the coolest job hacking into files (if I had that talent I could be "Librarian of the World"....insert evil laugh here), and has a vampire (amongst other other-worldly creatures) protecting her from the nosferatu that are chasing her. A bloody good read! (Pun intended...)

I also read The 6th Target by James Patterson. I've been waiting for this book to come out forever because I wanted to find out if Lindsay (the main character) and Joe (her LDR guy) decided to stay together. Action is packed with a startling shooting from the first couple of pages, but I have to say I'm disappointed. Ever since I found out that they're turning The Women's Murder Club series into a TV series, I've found that Patterson's book read like dialogue from TV characters rather than novels. It's the same thing that happened with Stephen King and Dean R. Koontz when their books became movies on the big and little screens. (Thankfully Koontz pulled himself out of it.) I HATE THAT!!!

ATTENTION AUTHORS: WRITE FOR YOUR READERS, NOT THE SCREENS! If you forget about us "little people" we will turn on you and all of your work will be for nothing. Books can always be turned into movies later--but the thrill of reading a good writer lies within the characters and if they turn into stock characters that we see every day, then we'll lose interest in your work. Just in case you're interested. Of course that's just my opinion. What do I know? I'm just a librarian, so it's my job to find good books for my kids to read...that's all. :)


After that's all said and done, I've just started reading The Copper Scroll by Joel C. Rosenberg. It's SO good and I'm only on page 22! I wish I would have read the other books her wrote before this one: The Last Jihad, The Last Days, and The Ezekiel Option--mainly because this novel comes after those. On the front cover flap it mentions that a lot of what he's written has come true. The scary part is that he published these books BEFORE the events happened. Is it a God thing? I don't doubt it. (Although if this book comes true I'm glad I have my fire insurance...and I'm not that far in...) Thankfully you don't have to have read his other novels to understand what's going on, but I'm sure it would have helped to understand the world's situation in this novel. Rosenberg includes a list of the characters (much like the Left Behind series) and then you jump feet first into the action. I definitely recommend it--and of course I'll post a review when I'm done.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out Friday evening--yes, I'll be standing in line to pick up my copy and will spend the rest of Saturday and probably Sunday afternoon reading it, so it will be awhile for the reviews. I hear it's about 736 pages or so, but since some lucky people managed to get their copies in advance, I'm trying to stay away from anything Harry related so that the ending isn't revealed. To put in print--Snape is a good guy. I think Dumbledore told Snape to kill him to help Harry carry out the prophecy. I also think that Ron and Hermione will finally get together--she may have to smack him over the head with her wand since he is such a guy and doesn't "get it," but i think he'll finally come around. I'm still torn over who gets offed in the book. I think that Harry will defeat Voldemort (come on--the whole series has been leading to this...if the bad guy wins there's going to be loads of unhappy people out there), but I think he may die in the process--after all, his wand is from the same phoenix as Voldemort's, so I think they have to cancel each other out in order for things to be saved. I don't want that to happen, and I'm really hoping I'm completely wrong, but sometimes the hero has to sacrifice himself to make things right for the rest of us. (Yes, I could give lots of examples, but I'll save it for another post.) In any case, I can't wait to find out. If you're one of those people who ended up with an advanced copy--can you overnight it to me? :)



Hayley is really growing up...she lost her first tooth,


and she's learning how to swim!



I actually have some really funny pictures of her serious swimmer poses, but I have to edit them so that they don't appear sideways. Maybe I'll post them tomorrow.

Yuck--the sky is a scary yellow-green color. Isn't that the warning color for tornadoes? Yikes--I see lightning in the distance, so I should probably get off of the computer before it gets any closer.