Christmas Gifts

I was totally spoiled this year. Most of what I got was for the house.....

- Steam mop - LOVE IT!
- Toaster - 4 slices at once AND a bagel option
- Set of knives
- New bathroom towels - chocolate brown
- Cheese grater
- Blender - although not a gift, mom exploded mine and bought me a new one to replace
- Cutting boards, Pyrex dish, new cutlery, sift, and more all purchased with Walmart Gift Cards



I got 5 of the Stephanie Plum books from Ryan and another book from Mom. Very excited about those. I think my best gift from him was my ENTIRE SERIES OF FRIENDS. The steam mop comes very close though. I may bust into the friends tonight. I figure I can play it on the computer while I scrapbook. That sounds quite enjoyable. I got so much stuff, I think I forgot like half of it. What did you guys all get?

For Hailey

Sweet little Hailey bought Steve a ball for Christmas. We took it home and I let him peek his head into the bag. He could see it in there and he wanted it out, but he didn't have quite enough room to grab it out. He just had his face stuffed in there and tail wagging. It's a heavy ball and a little big for his mouth so he drops it sometimes. I think it will be a roll on the floor toy until the snow melts. Steve LOVES it. Here are some photos for you Hailey so you can see how happy he his. He says thank you very much.What's this? A ball? For me? Yay yay yay yay yay!Can I take it outside pleeeeeeassse!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a great day yesterday. We certainly did! Mom and Dad made it here safely on Tuesday morning. We've been having a good time catching up. Christmas Eve we went over to Crystal and Jason's place. Santa Claus made an appearance. The kids LOVED him. Very cute. Crystal please send me the photo of me sitting on Santa's lap. I can't wait to see it. We exchanged gifts and Crystal got me an awesome Sassafrass paper pack. It's a pink snowy line I had never seen before. I think it might be last years stuff. Very cool designs.

Christmas Eve we opened our stockings. We usually don't but I felt like I couldn't wait any longer to open up gifts. I was acting like a child. I could not find our stockings this year. I guess they got lost in the move though I don't see how. I kind of feel like when I take down the tree they may appear, but oh well. Ryan and I decided that as part of our gifts we would give each other new stockings. They were a surprise. He bought mine at Needful Things. Very pretty. I made his for him at Crystal's house. I got his name pressed on at work. Very fitting to his personality. I'm very proud of it. They were stocked full of lots of good things.


One of my other gifts was a steam mop. I wanted one really badly. Today I got the perfect chance to use it. Yesterday we cooked bacon for breakfast and poured the grease into a tin can. When I was making the gravy for dinner I topped the can up with turkey fat. Thinking nothing of it, we left it sitting on the counter today and all went out. About 4 hours later we returned home to find an empty tin can laying on the floor and a huge pile of vomit. Steve had stolen the can and licked it clean. Disgusting right? I could not believe the dirt that came off of my floor. I swear I wash it once a week. It was unbelievable. Steve later puked again in the kitchen and one more time on my living room rug. I'm pretty upset with him. We keep kicking him outside and then as soon as we bring him in, he pukes. I don't know what to do with him tonight while we sleep. Anyhow, I think that's enough for one day. I'll list all my gifts tomorrow :)

Fun Christmas light displays

Yet another time waster on youtube..... think I can convince Ryan to do this to our house?





(Carol of the Bells is my ABSOLUTE favorite Christmas song. LOVE IT)



The Santa jumping down the chimney is totally cool. I wonder how long it took to set all these up?

I've been busy lately getting the house ready for Christmas. I spent about an hour trying to take the perfect photo of my tree for you but I just can't get it. Stupid digital camera. It makes everything really yellowy or very dark and just the lights show. I don't know why my indoor shots are so yellowed and grainy but I HATE it. I'm extremely disappointed especially at this time of year when all the pictures I want to take are indoor. My next camera will have to be an Olympus again I suppose to make use of all my lenses, but I refuse to buy without spending some serious time reading up on it first. I think that's the mistake we made on this one, we just listened to whatever the guy had to say. I also want to make some time this year to take a camera course.

I share with you a photo of my sugar cookie recipe I made. Very yummy. They are frozen in the freezer downstairs awaiting Mom and Dad's arrival so that they can be eaten. They are very tempting though. So far I have been good and only eaten 2. We'll save the rest for the boys. (Okay, maybe I'll eat one more.)

Dad asked me last night if we can rent a hot tub for the yard when they are up. So today I need to see if that is possible. They have those propane fired ones I just don't know if it will be able to get in the yard. The tub would have to be turned to fit through the gate... Does anyone in town even rent hot tubs? I'll have to find this out today. Dad thinks it will be cool to be in a hot tub when it's nearly -40 outside. I think he's ridiculous and he's going to have to wear a toque while in there, but whatever.

Last night I did some scrapbooking and finished off several pages. I had four layouts nearly complete. I'd work on them at June's, get tired and come home. They were all sitting in individual ziploc bags. I'm quite proud I completed them. One of them was my Canada Day layout for goodness sake! About time I finished that. (Speaking of which, Crystal I am short one photo and wondering if you can print me a vertical 4x6 of that group shot you have). The other layout I didn't post here is my last Christmas page from last year. I figure you need to finish a holiday before the next year's rolls around. So I'm all ready to go now.

This is my layout for this years Thanksgiving. The majority of the layout is made with a Studio Calico kit. I'm been receiving their kits for about 5 months now. I LOVE THEM! A box of scrapbooking supplies arrives on my doorstep once a month. It's all really neat stuff that I either wouldn't buy on my own or wouldn't be able to get unless I ordered online. Very fun stuff. They don't often give you too many embellishments though which is okay because I get to work in the stuff I already have.This layout is from forever ago. Ryan's birthday was in September and I made him a soccer cake. The night I started this page I was struggling and I think I started by scraplifting (just had to pause and wonder why blogger did not recognize scraplifting as a word. oh dear) from one of June's Close To My Heart books. I just couldn't finish it. I think it had been incomplete for nearly 2 months. Its now done. It's simple but I quite like it. My favorite part is the "Soccer Field this way" embellishment I had. Perfect fit

I don't work until 12 today and I'm debating between going and taking the recycling, going to the dump, washing the floors etc and scrapbooking. This is a really hard toss up people. I don't know what to do.

Year in Review

...to make up for my lack of blogging, here is an insanely long post

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Hmm, I don't know if I was too outgoing or daring. I bought a house, never done that before. Does that count?

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I actually didn't make any last year. I would like to make one this year though. I want to lose weight. And not a little, but a lot. Although, I would take a little over nothing. I want to try and dedicate more of my life to that and stop making excuses.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
She wasn't very close to me at the time, but 8 months later she is now! I love little Adalyn and her mommy.


4. Did anyone close to you die?
I'm very lucky to say no.


5. What countries did you visit?
Oh, I went to the very far and away land of.... haha I didn't even leave Canada. I went to Alberta a few times. GP is pretty exotic you know.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
More nights out with friends, less sitting around and watching tv. Watching tv with friends is okay though. So is watching "Friends" on tv.


7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory?
Um. none.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I went back to school. Yay me. I'd like to add that I got an A in both my classes this semester as well thank you very much.


9. What was your biggest failure?
Hmm, I'd probably say weight loss, although I don't think I dedicated myself enough to that to consider it a failure because I never really tried.


10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No more than my usual colds and flus.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Our house :)


12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
I don't know what this means.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Again, kind of odd. I can't really think of any one to name out as being a horrible person. Although, now that I write that, yes I can. She knows who she is.


14. Where did most of your money go?
House and house related things.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Mom and Dad are coming for Christmas :)That's what is currently exciting me.


16. What song/album will always remind you of 2008?
I used to make fun of my parents/older cousins for not knowing new songs.... I have turned into them and really don't pay attention to that stuff anymore.


17. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier/sadder,thinner/heavier,richer/poorer?
Happier, heavier, poorer (odd that i'm fat and poor but happy. oh well. happy is most important)


18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Traveling and corresponding with more distant family members


19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Waste time


20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With my mom, dad, Adam, Ryan and Steve! First Christmas in our first house :)


21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Definitely Ryan when he's away at camp. Number 2 would be Mom.

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Just more in love.

23. How many one night stands in this last year?
Oh yeah, that's a nice question. What do you think?

24. What was your favourite TV program?
Heroes

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Just one

26. What was the best book(s) you read?
Hmm, what I can remember
Water for Elephants
Stephanie Plum series
Stories from the Vinyl Cafe
The Glass Castle

I don't know, I read a lot.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
What does that mean? Like that Saxophone I found under the bed? Or the copy of Mozart's unheard symphony tucked in the back of my sock drawer. Yeah, I didn't really discover anything musical.

28. What did you want and get?
To get into AHCOTE

29. What did you want and not get?
New floors in my house

30. What were your favourite films of this year?
This is like the book question. I refuse to answer on the basis that I will have to think.


31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 24 and had all my friends over to our place for dinner.

32. What's one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I can't say.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Luckily FSJ isn't so concerned with fashion so my jeans, runners and hoodies fit right in.

34. What kept you sane?
Scrapbooking.


35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Pfft.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
US election

37. Who did you miss?
Ryan when he is away at camp. Jenny and Mary. My stepgrandpa Joe.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Um, I don't know if I have a best. I met many nice new people.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
If you want to do something then do it. It won't just happen for you. And you can't complain about it unless you are willing to take action.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year?
Oh like i even know. Stupid question to end the thing with.

Yet another video

I'm getting quite good at posting videos instead of actually writing something decent about my life. But this is pretty hilarious. I'll get around to writing something one day.

http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/video.aspx

Some thoughts to chew on.....

A video from my youtube time wasting:




Now back to trying to write my stupid paper due stupid tomorrow for my stupid teacher who didn't even put the stupid question up yet.

Horrible Blogger

Wow,

I'm really sucking at this blogging stuff lately. Seriously, I think "oh I should blog about this funny thing" and then I go to do it, and I can't think about anything cool or interesting in my life. Last night Steve and I went for a walk and he tripped me on the ice. We both fell in a huge tumble and I sat there and cried for 5 minutes. My whole body is in pain. Is that worth blogging? I dunno. Some puke face kid stole a toque today and I wanted to beat him up, but I'm not allowed. Adam and I washed the outside of the hot water tank clean because it was sick and disgusting. In 15 minutes heroes is on. That's all I can think of for now. I'll try to be more creative next time. Maybe I'll have to start writing things on napkins or something so I can remember.