new year. new mantra.

{source}

okay, i think i'm still gonna have a word. i just don't know what it is yet. i've been tossing a few around for the past week or so. decisions, decisions.

wip 12.10.11

friday:
my errand filled day. per usual.
also had ben's christmas program for school. the kids are always so cute. ben did great. he was a little dancing machine up on the stage and he rocked out to all the other classes performances. yay!

group photo before it started. we were there super early. had lots of time and got a few family shots.

didn't get to take it with the others that came because ben was back stage when they arrived. and would NOT cooperate afterwards.

saturday:
went and had breakfast with santa. was put on by the town. not bad for less than $20 for all three of us. and ben got a stocking!

he did it! finally sat on his lap!

checking out all the loot in the stocking.

i think ben might have taken this one. i love a little jacob peeking out from behind the chocolate milk!

um, i think ben took a picture of mommy napping on the couch... {his finger gives it away!}

mr. cheesy face.

then we headed to raquel and ernesto's for their annual christmas party.

a shot of the girls. well, i don't know where alyson is...

hmm. maybe she only is around when there is liquor involved!

so glad i napped earlier. jamie and i are so very sleepy and trying to stay awake. maybe we shouldn't have hogged the couch!

i have no clue what is going on here. but val's face kills me!

 
headed home around 230am. oy. long day. but totally worth it. i haven't laughed that hard in ages.

sunday:
i have no clue what ben was up to. he was insistent on hiding in the bathroom and then behind the tree. strange boy.

 i decided to clean out my sock drawer while nick was giving ben a bath. random, i know. but whatever. i've been really into doing mini projects as of late. {my bathroom closet is next!}

ben wouldn't let me get rid of the socks. and by get rid of, i mean, put in the basement in our goodwill pile. he wanted to play with them. {and zomg, did i have a lot of socks!}

wip 12.3.11

friday:
i was a busy bee. i tackled the spare bedroom closet, {see post here} cleaned, went grocery shopping. also received a lot of our christmas shopping. i love the internet.

saturday:
we were supposed to run the santa hustle. but when our alarm went off it was raining and cold. i can handle snow and cold. but rain and cold, not so much. so since it was just us we decided to not go. gave my mom an early morning phone call to cancel her babysitting but then we decided she would just come later in the day so nick and i could go christmas shopping. it was so nice! we knocked the majority of our list out in about three hours.

since we didn't go for the run, we were able to meet up with john and bill and the girls at the mall. got our super cute santa picture.

and a lazy evening of movies and string cheese. ;)

sunday:
elfred made an appearance. brought ben a new book since he was such a good boy and took a picture with santa the day before.

then it was time to play in the laundry basket...

he even wanted to be changed on the basket. silly.

and he tried to tell us that was where he was going to take his nap. not his crib. 

a pretty low key weekend. ;-)

i suck at titles.

i think that's why i'm a fan of the 'wip' and 'ten on tuesdays' posts. then i have a generic title and my brain hurts a little less. ;)

not sure i can come up with ten and there's no number that starts with 'w' so i'm just gonna start listing em off.

- yesterday i saw someone who was balding rock a mullet. how is that even possible?! why hasn't a friend or family member told him this is not okay?! totally reminded me of this power point presentation that went around in college.

- had to ask a patient for a urine specimen at work yesterday. {apparently it was crazy people tuesday} he was sitting in one of our exam rooms when i asked. when i handed him the cup, he asked if it was okay to go right where he was sitting. um, NO! wtf? he was kind of upset with me when i directed him to the bathroom. ew. ew. ew.

- my husband is bad ass. seriously. so damn handy. my iphone hasn't worked since friday. i could only use it if it was on speaker phone. i'm pretty sure that mike and my mom heard quite a few profanities before i figured it out. actually, i know my mom did because one time she called and when i put it on speaker phone right away she was miffed. said she was looking forward to hearing me cuss! anywho. nick read up on it and was able to take my phone apart and put it back together and voila... i can hear again!

- i'm itching to take down all the christmas decorations. my bad ass husband thinks that is very grinch-y of me. so i'm being super nice {and grateful for his rock star phone fixing skills} and leaving it up for now. but monday, maybe sunday, it's gone.

- finally got to watch friends with benefits. totally awesome movie. sooo much better than friends with benefits and not just because i love justin. and mila kunis was so cute. had to go out and buy it with some of my christmas gift cards!

- um, what is up with cars 2? why on earth did they go in such a different direction? so violent for a kids movie. ugh. i had a lot of friends tell me it wasn't so great. unfortunately, they were right. pretty sure that it will continue to be watched in this household though.

- i love that i'm still getting christmas cards. and if you read this and sent me a card and i didn't send you one, i apologize. i'll post it here someday.

- am completely in love with my new camera. {and holy heck do amazon prices flip. we got a heck of a deal as of today's listed price.} yes, i have a problem. yes, i just got one in may. but we just weren't sure about it. finally we had enough and went back to a canon. so i now will be selling two cameras. i think that's why i never got rid of my original camera. i just wasn't sold with the sony and now i only have one cord for all three cameras. woot!

- quite possibly ben's favorite christmas gift. if you need to shop for young boys, i would 100% suggest it. i think my 'big boy' might enjoy it just as much as ben!

happy christmas!

had a much better santa experience this year. {we saw him a total of four times!}

this was our second time seeing santa. our first try didn't go so well. ben wanted mama and dada in the picture. but that wasn't the greatest picture. and we hung around a bit after because our friends were having a hard time with one of their children cooperating. we convinced ben to try again. and nick convinced the staff to retake the picture even though we had already paid and received the first ones. ben said he would do it by himself as long as he didn't have to sit on santa's lap. we were fine with that. and this is what we got!

no tears! unlike last year's...

hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and that santa is very good to you and yours! ;)

what the... friday

just some random 'wtf' thoughts from the past week.

- why can't the newspaper report that this lawsuit has been dropped? finally had a chance to chat with someone that teaches at lake central and got to hear what really happened. makes me sad that the newspaper so quickly reported this and then didn't follow up when it was dismissed.  how awful for those individuals to have their reputations tarnished, not to mention the bad publicity for the school. there is always two sides to every story. i wish more people would have waited to hear all of the facts rather than jump to conclusions and bad mouth those involved. {and if my information is wrong, sorry. i'm gonna kick my informant's ass! :P}

- what the heck is up with me going to the grocery store with my list and then not being able to understand my abbreviations. seriously?! i know that i regularly leave items off my list, or forget to get something on the list. but this is the first time that i couldn't understand my list!

- effing spam. i hate it. i have two email accounts, and one is overloaded with spam. it's horrendous. i finally decided to unsubscribe to all the emails individually. holy pain in the ass. and still i had over 75 unwanted emails in my inbox. today, finally, it's a manageable 25. ;)

- and why did i think i lost a toe nail the other day??

{sorry for the crappy picture. i was laughing hysterically and then chewy wanted in on the action.} apparently, my nail polish just peeled off. the whole freaking thing. strange. so i painted it again. and the next morning i wake up, and i'm missing it from two other nails. seriously?! what is that about? and no, i didn't accidentally buy the peel off kind. however, i did enjoy that when i was younger. and that was how i removed the nail polish from the eight remaining toes that were painted.

wip 11.26.11

thursday:
thanksgiving.
first stop was glenwood oaks with my side of the family.
managed to get a group photo. how my dad, the tallest of the bunch, ended up in the front row i have no idea!

then we headed to nick's mom's house.
tried to get a family photo. we waited to long into the evening. ben wasn't feeling it.

friday:
just hung around the house. was not going out on black friday. those days are long gone!
met up with an old high school friend and her husband in the evening. she now lives in denver and was in for a few days. always good to catch up. it was now our second annual get together. maybe next year we can go to colorado! after dinner at asparagus we met up with another friend from high school and hung out at her house until an ungodly hour. time flies when you are having fun i guess. poor mary and jon, they didn't even go to bed that night. they left julie's house and went back to her mom's to pack and then headed to the airport!

julie shared with me her tosh memorabilia. they briefly dated!

saturday:

thought it would be safe to venture out. costco wasn't too awful. 

did a few other things when we were out, can't for the life of me remember what they were though.

went out for a late dinner with friends to lighthouse. {i swear i gained five pounds in three days.}

when we got home, we decided to put out elfred.

{note the little reindeer donuts}

apparently, ben wasn't too impressed. but he's been nice to have.  {he's popped in on occasion when ben hasn't been behaving very well. i'll have a while before i have to get really creative with him!}

sunday:

ben enjoying {maybe} his reindeer donuts. nick said he asked for cereal shortly after!

decided to clean out our front closet. ben decided to try on all of mama's shoes.

i have no clue when this was taken. but it made me smile to see his little head pop up in the second one.

then we put up all the christmas decorations. ben got to put on the first ornament. ;)

he loves the tree. has been really good with not touching what he shouldn't be touching and is so excited to turn the lights on and off!

11.19.11

friday:
i'm sure the day was full of errands and cleaning. i've developed a nice little schedule.

that evening we headed to girl's night. well, nick crashed this month's outing. we were seeing breaking dawn. cindy needed to charge her phone. and nick broke his! {why we bought him a case i'll never know...}

movie was okay. the wolves talking to one another was a bit cheesy for my liking. but it wasn't terrible. i still prefer the books.

made a quick run into walmart. had heard one of the christmas gifts i was looking for might be there. so we thought it would be okay to brave it at nearly midnight on a friday night. um, no. that place is scary no matter what time of day. totally reminded me why i hate that store and why we never go there. oh how i wish i had my walmart bingo sheet when we were there. i wonder if random carts all in a row in the parking lot would have won the game for me.... there was no workers any where in site. seriously.

saturday:
nick had to work.
ben and i enjoyed music hour. he would play music and i would dance around like a fool. it was great because when nick did get home, ben asked him to dance and then told him he was doing it wrong because it wasn't silly enough!

that evening we headed downtown to howl at the moon. met up with some friends. the place was soooo crowded. it was a bit disappointing. had a blast with the company though! was an early night. some of our friends took a limo up there and were drinking the whole way there and were kinda drunk by the time we arrived! one individual even got kicked out for being a not nice person. silly boy.

jen, shan, and john chilling outside.

bill drove home in nick's car. i was hot. he wasn't a fan of my feet being up on the console!

sunday:
totally lazy day. i try so hard to make most of our sundays lazy. it's so nice to have some down time before starting the new week.
nick did work on the outside christmas lights, so he was a bit more productive than i was!

chewy is a fan of baths and showers. he likes to sit between the liners when we're in the shower. i'm pretty sure one day he's gonna end up in there with us. i hope it's nick and not me!

ten on tuesday 12.20.11

- my new favorite blog. seriously, she's hysterical.
- finished my cookies for the cookie exchange yesterday. no bake! {minus the nuts, you never know who can't have em}  also made some rollo pretzel combos, yum. now if only i craved sweets. i wish we did a potato chip exchange. ;P
- ben is consistently asking to go potty and hasn't had a false alarm yet. diaper isn't always dry in between potties and he doesn't ask to poop on the potty. baby steps.
- really dislike when people cannot take responsibility for their own actions. stop blaming others. you're a big boy/girl, man up! sheesh.
- i'm starting to get excited for christmas!
- pop up video is the best thing ever to watch while elliptical-ing. haven't exercised in ages. finally had a chance tonight and it was great!
- had someone from a company that i deal with regularly at work bring me a christmas present today. {not completely uncommon} and he made a big deal about how his wife picked it out, blah, blah, blah. so i'm super stoked. it's a bunch of bliss products.  bring it home, open up the little package and read the bottle... 'not for resale. packaged for w hotels' {or something. the bottles are upstairs and i'm lazy. but you get the point} he gave me hotel shampoos! wtf?! now i don't feel bad for not spending time with him since we were so busy.
- finally started reading a book. hoping i can finish it by the new year!
- i still have my decorated pumpkin. i just can't throw it out. i love how i painted it and it's still in great shape.
- am still on track for my daily photos. just need to find time to upload them all!

wip 11.12.11

friday:
during the day i ran some errands and cleaned. nothing too exciting.
that evening was family night with nick's dad's side of the family.

we bought ben a sled. he has a ton of fun when nick spins him on it. it's kind of nauseating. i have video... maybe someday i'll share.

gabby and ben having a dance off with the monkey.

nick making his dessert fancier! ;)

saturday:
woke up and went to breakfast with john and bill and gabby and drea. was much too long since we had a chance to hang out. good times!

then we came home and nick went to play frisbee golf with his dad and uncle.

uh oh!

ben and i headed outside to play since it was so nice. windy. but nice.
the boys ended up coming home a few minutes after we headed out. perfect timing!

he can't wait to go play with the big boys.

love.

have a similar picture from when ben was younger. ;)

 

ben's new favorite place to blow bubbles.

chewy enjoys bubbles.

and for some reason, ben require sunglasses to continue blowing bubbles in his jams.

sunday:
perfect way to watch toy story, right?

that evening i headed off to the operation christmas child packing party. aka occ.
here was some of the goodies that i had collected over the past year. was so easy to do with samples and some killer walgreens deals.

and for the actual party...
i have some very incriminating pictures of some people, so i'll behave and not share them! {well, sorry val. the group photo pic of you isn't the greatest... but majority rules!}

i think we packed over 330 boxes. yay us.