It's Beginning to Look like Christmas...

This morning, L and I got up to put up the Christmas tree. L thought it would be fun to fall into the dirty old tree box. That kept her occupied while I got started. L was a huge help. She handed me the leaves and the lights. She decorated the bottom half of the tree. It only took me 80 minutes to get the tree decorated.

I tried to listen to holiday music on the TV, but L was not happy. She wanted to watch a holiday movie and decided on ' A Nightmare Before Christmas'.

After we got everything up on the tree, she nicely posed for a picture. Then we started decorating the house. She took several christmas animals for her room. I think the house looks nice.

I have mentioned this before, but today is Reggie favorite day of the entire year. She loves having the tree up. This year, I bought a tree rotator so Reggie was pretty freaked out today. I finally shut it off after supper and as I type, she's diving under the tree.

Pre lit, pre decorated tree. I love a fake tree. Less mess. Available any time.

Productive day

Yesterday, we were a productive family. First we put new sheets and a comforter on our bed. Haley decided to mark her scent over Ditto's by peeing twice on the bed and once on the dog bed they shared (why do I feel like we have such a pee problem at our house?)
L was a big help. She laid the sheets out and then jumped on the bed singing, "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed".

Our nicely made up bed. Luckily, Haley didn't pee on it last night. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

While we were doing that, Jeff rearranged the furniture. We took out one of the couches and moved it to the den area (formerly the sports room). This is a big start for Project: Get out of the Hamptons.

We spent the evening sharing pizza and lots of laughs with Joe and Melissa. Next: the Christmas decorations.

Black Friday

This is the time when I started out this morning. It was dark, cold and misty. But I was ready and armed with the credit card. I joined Kurt, Kasey and Twila for a morning of fun. We stopped at Walmart first and bought toys and movies. I was fortunate to get to Michael's when they opened and took advantage of the cricut cartridge sale. Then we were off to Lowe's and Kohl's. More shopping and a little bit of line waiting (not as long as last year).

Kasey and I took a quick break while Kurt buys new shoes. We feasted on McMuffin's from Mickey D's and headed off to Office Depot, Target, World Market, Ultimate Electronics, Big Lots, Scrapfunattic and Barnes & Noble. We were done by 11 am. I had so much fun hanging out with these three friends. That's the fun part for me...the adventure.

Farewell to an Old Friend

Dear Ditto,

Thank you for sharing 13 years with us. You were a faithful friend to us. You made us smile, laugh and appreciate all the great things about a dog. You shared our joys, our sorrows and everything in between. We loved your spunk and the desire to be the "perfect" dog. You were a great buddy for Haley. She wouldn't have made it without you.

We're so sorry that your body gave out. We know how tired you were. And we know that you are finally at peace and breathing without difficulty. That's the great thing about being a dog...you can die with dignity.

We love you and will miss you terribly. We will continue to tell your stories and remember all of your greatness.

Love, your mom and dad

(photo from 01/2008)

Isn't She Adorable?

Sunday morning we took L's picture for the Christmas card (and this is not the picture, but it is cute).

Haltime at the WSU game

Last week at the game, we had the best half time show ever. These guys were hilarious!

The Gingerbread Village

We spent this afternoon at the Catholic Church making gingerbread houses. We met Maria and Casey for lunch at Red Robin and then headed over. We didn't have to wait in line. We looked over all of the houses up for donation. They were beautiful.

We saw Denise, Lexi and her grandma when we got there and sat at a table with them. We had a great time. L and Lexi are old enough to work on their houses by themselves. L had a great time eating the "glue". Casey and Maria made their own houses and had decorating.

L helped me work on my house. We brought extra Halloween candy and used some of that.

Wendy (Lexi's grandma), Denise and Lexi.

L with her completed house. She had so much fun, but she was tired when we drove home.

The Turkey Trot Rocks!

This morning it was 34 degrees at the start of the race. It was chilly but we quickly warmed up when we started running. I ran the 10 mile race in 1 hour, 39 minutes. That was 6 minutes less than my goal. I am thrilled!! I did well until mile 8 and then fatigue set it. But Judy was great. She kept pushing me the rest of the way and I finished strong. I had a turkey brat and a banana and then went home (it gets very cold when sweat freezes). I'm very pleased that I ran the whole way.

I've Been Tagged

Okay, I've put this post off long enough. I think I've done every thing else and I don't have a legit reason not to write my tag. Thanks, Denise for the tag.

Here's the rules.

1.Link to the person who tagged you.
2.Post the rules on your blog.
3.Write 6 random things about yourself.
4.Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post.
5.Let each person know he/she has been tagged.
6.Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

My 6 Random things:

*I'm an only child. I'm married to an only child. And we only have one child. And I like it that way. I don't think I've missed out not having brothers and sisters.

*I was an all state bassoonist for three years in high school. I even played in symphony band at KU for a year.

*Since the bassoon has no place in marching band, I played sousaphone (tuba for the layperson) in KU Marching Band. Before my freshman year, I'd never picked up a tuba. But I had a great time in band and made tons of friends.

*I have worked as a PA for 10 years in the same place. And I still love going to work every day. I should like my job. I get to work with kids all day and I have banker's hours (8:30 to 6 M-F, no weekends, holidays or call).

*Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it's all about spending time with family and friends. It's the most underrated holiday (in my opinion).

*I have two guilty pleasures: Grey's Anatomy and a peppermint mocha from Starbucks.

I think everyone I know has been tagged, so it ends here for me. Thanks Denise!!

W.O.M.L.-Saturday

This is the last installment of a Week of my Life. It's been interesting. A little time consuming, but fun. This morning I slept in until after 10 am. I had Jeff get up with L so I could catch some zzz's. It was wonderful!! We had a pretty lazy day. L and Ditto hung out on my bed snuggling.
Then I went to tackle my scrapbook room. This morning it was a complete disaster. There is no creativity in such a mess. I ironed all the clothes and sorted all the mail. I had two trash cans full of stuff. Before we left for the evening activity, it looked really nice.

While I cleaned, L painted. On her paper at first, but then decided to use the paint for her hands. She says, "look at my spiderman hands!" Then she used the dry erase part to draw. She made Sally, the boogie man and Jack (from Nightmare Before Christmas).

In the evening we headed out to the Special Olympics charity auction. We had a great time. It went quickly. Jeff got a few things at good prices.

W.O.M.L.-Friday

So my day started out very early and ended very late, hence I'm blogging the next day. Woke up at 5:20 to exercise. We ran a 400 meter this morning. I beat my last timed race by 2 seconds (ran it in 100 seconds). We did circuit training this morning. It was a nice little break from our general stair climbing.
After I dropped L off at daycare, I went to the doctor's for a quick check up. I was happy to hear that my blood pressure had dropped 20 points in each number. So even though I haven't lost weight, there are many other benefits to Shocker Fitness. I had a busy day at the office. But I did get some things off my desk which was nice. At least my to do list will be a little shorter Monday.
We met Kurt and Kam for dinner at Cinnamon's Deli. It was so good. I love their bread bowl soups. The kids had a great time. They spent part of the night "fighting" with the silverware and then stealing each other's food. We visited for an hour. We haven't seen the Konda's for a few weeks.
Jeff had a great idea when I came home last night. The 'Nightmare Before Christmas' was playing in 3D at the Warren, so we went to the 10pm showing. But we had time to kill before the movie, so we stopped at Border's. I found some books I was looking for. They have a nice quiet kids section, so Jeff, T and I sat and read books while L checked it all out.
L had a great time at the movie. She kept her glasses on almost the whole movie (I think she was just tired at the end). She freaked out in the beginning because the pumpkin "jumped" out, but she was okay with the rest. Please note: she has already seen the original version of this and the 'Corpse Bride' by Tim Burton and she thinks they are both very cool.
We had a great day!! A nice way to end the week.

W.O.M.L-Thursday

Oddly, there will be no pictures today. I blew it and forgot to take my memory card out of the computer. Doh!

So here's my brief summary for me to stick "fake" pictures with later.

Got up at 6:45....too late for a preschool morning. Jeff got L up (thank goodness). i scarfed my breakfast done, got L dressed and we were out the door to preschool.

I went to bed with a headache and woke up with it. And it progressed to a migraine. And it took me ALL flippin' day to get rid of. I got several things done (hope to take the clean desk picture tomorrow). Don't remember much...just wanted to go home and sleep.

We had a drug rep. lunch which was okay with lunch consisting of fattoush salad, hummus and honey rolls. My perfect lunch and it was delicious.

Got home late (6:30) to find L sleeping in the car. She didn't get a nap today so Jeff was hanging out with her. Had to wake her up a half hour later and listened to her cry and whine for 20 minutes. Ick.

We went to dinner at Olive Garden and it was delicious. I had tilapia, salad, breadsticks and a yummy chocolate dessert. Shopped a little at Target. Came home, put L to bed, took a shower and sat down to blog.

I'm exhausted. It's hard being a girl. :)

W.O.M.L-Wednesday

Started this morning at 5:30am exercising. Ran 2 miles this morning. Had no desire to get up and go but felt great after I got started. Then I came home and enjoyed my standard breakfast and the newspaper. I eat the same thing every morning...egg beaters sandwich and a glass of orange juice.
Then L got up with a couple prompts, got dressed and watched Franklin. She ate vanilla wafers and apple juice for breakfast.

She was so sweet and snugly this morning. She and froggy are best friends.

Off to work I went and found out there was no power in the office for a couple hours. Made for an interesting morning. I got lots done on my to do list. Jenny got a new headset and we joked that we wanted a Big Mac and some fries. She takes it all in good stride.

After work, I headed home to find L crying. Her mouth has been bothering her today. A little Tylenol and she was better. We are off to Target where we filled the cart full. Our refrigerator is packed. L barely fit in the cart.

We came home, had a nice dinner and created L's turkey for preschool. We had a great time. I'll post that tomorrow. A relatively quiet day for me.

W.O.M.L.-Tuesday

Slept in until 6:20am...felt good. Dropped L off at preschool and saw a few patients at the hospital. Then went off to work. I have a lot of catching up to do. Luckily, my day was fairly light and I got 10 things knocked off my to-do list (about half). I felt good.

I'll take some more pictures on Friday and we'll see if it looks better. I wanted to go to L's dance class, but I needed to pick up the battery from Sears. At last, my car works!! I cleaned the house up, put away clothes, fixed dinner and started L's bath. Then plopped on the couch.

Ahhh!!! I am going to take a nice hot shower and settle down with my new book, Anna Karenina. It's the book club book for December. I'm 1/4 of the way through and it is great! Old slutty women...what a great story.

Week of My Life-Monday

So I started this glorious day after 5 hours of sleep (jet lag, I think). I went to Shocker Fitness. Too tired to take a picture. I walked 540 stairs today. Geez. It hurts to think that. Then I came home and found this...
oh, yeah. I didn't want to do the dishes last night. Got all of them in the dishwasher, fixed breakfast and got ready for work. Forgot my darn camera so no work pictures today. Pretty busy day. First day back from time off is always a zoo. Didn't eat lunch until 1:30 pm so had a nice migraine in the afternoon. By the time I got home, I felt better.

Which is good since we were going to the Shocker game. L practices a cheer in the mirror.

I bribed her this morning as a reward for brushing her teeth and getting dressed without fussing, she could have nachos and a soda (little does she know, that would have happened anyway). She enjoyed her snack and then went off to play with Jaden.

After the game, we stopped at Wendy's for a hamburger and salad (oh--fries for Jeff). Then I spent a few minutes reading my FAVORITE magazine. And it's time for me to hit the bed and gear up for another busy day.

Week of My Life-Sunday

Okay, so I'm doing this scrapbook thing this week. Part of this project is to let you see my day to day and the other is to do the journaling for when I actually scrapbook this project. And of course, blogger picture is backwards again (please help Jill or Betsy!) so we'll start from tonight to this morning.
Finished all the laundry, folded it, went to get L and Haley took a great opportunity.

L enjoying her bath. She played pretend mommy to Dora and another swim dolly.

While I was getting L's bath ready, the dogs are sacked out on our bed. They are getting old and sleep so much.

I fixed bbq ribs tonight (along with mac and cheese) and they were delicious! L enjoyed them too as you can tell she's wearing all the sauce. That blue mark on her arm...blue marker!! Ahh!! She got put in time out. I guess the last experience didn't teach her enough.

This is me before I ran my 10K this afternoon. Yes, I did it for fun and to train for the turkey trot. Ran it in 66 minutes. Which was only 2 minutes longer than my River Run in May and I was pushing L in the stroller and I walked part of it. Weather was good. I love my Nike plus!

As I read the paper, L looked through the Target toy ad and told me all the toys she wants (which is many).

Jeff enjoying his morning cup of joe while we dined on eggs, bacon and blueberry pancakes.

L did a great job helping me fix lunch. She even did a good job of cracking the eggs.

Laundry...that is my main Sunday task. Didn't do any other house cleaning since I just got home from Santa Clara last night.

While enjoying morning cartoons, she decided to play tea with Reggie. They enjoyed each other's company while I snuggled in bed with Jeff.

We started this morning off at 9 am. L woke me up, snuggled in bed for 15 minutes, then declared it was time to get up and get juice. Got the paper, turned on Lazytown and watched L dance.