Happy New Year!

2011. I know I keep saying this, but where in the world does the time go? I try hard to relax and take in every moment during the holidays and such, but it seems as though time just goes faster and faster. Even the kids are noticing it...I don't remember noticing it as much when I was a kid.

We had a great holiday season...it started with a family party on Tuesday, December 21st for Drew and Josh's birthdays. 13 and 3. There's a whole decade between the two. And I really notice it more when I see it written (or typed). When you really think about a decade, that's a long time. Yet the two of them have a blast when they get together, despite the age difference. Maybe because they, being boys, like cars, guns, and just boy stuff.

We went to Christmas Eve Mass, where Andie surprised me by singing again this year. Brought tears of pride to my eyes. She has so much courage to do things like this - things I NEVER would've considered doing as a kid, OR an adult. She makes me so proud :). Then the family came over for dinner, which we love preparing. The kids each got to open a gift, then everybody went home rather early to get ready for "The Big Guy" to stop by and visit. It was funny - Andie was checking his progress on Norad, and about 7:30 she asked, to no one in particular, "Where is Allendale?" WHAT??? Allendale? She found out where it was, then proceeded to give hugs goodbye and goodnight and put herself to bed, because she knew that Santa can't stop by if she's not in bed and asleep! Too cute!

Christmas Day was spent at Mike's parents, where we all got spoiled rotten. Ate some food, talked, and really relaxed. It was splended! After that was the Anderson get-together at Shani's, where it wasn't quite as relaxing, but nice in a different way. Love to see the kids, especially the younger ones, opening their gifts and being excited beyond belief! So cute!

New Year's Eve was spent with great friends...the adults were very outnumbered by the kids, but thankfully, they're ALL great kids so it was a fabulous way to ring in the new year. The Bolles' didn't even attempt to make it to 5:00 a.m., but WOW! Kudos to those that did for sure! We turned into party poopers at 2:00 a.m. and headed home to bed where we slept until God woke us up in the middle of the morning sometime.

Then it hit. Poor Mike got sick on Monday afternoon. Stayed home from work on Tuesday AND Wednesday! Unheard of really. I took him to the Dr. Tuesday afternoon and got the official word of Strept Throat...the kind that causes Scarlett Fever! He's had kind of a rough week, but thankfully has been on meds since, so at least he's not contagious anymore! Boy oh boy have I been disinfecting!

So here we are to the end of the first week of the year...Andie starts a volleyball clinic tomorrow, the extended Anderson Family Christmas Party is tomorrow (always a lovely time!), school resumes for moi, Weight Watchers begins on Tuesday, and Drew's talking about Basketball this winter. Who knew? Thought he was all done with that, but we'll see! I always love watching my kiddies play sports :0).

All in all - we're pluggin' along, anxiously awaiting springs arrival.

Pictures just don't do it justice...but here is my first project I was talking about on Sunday. The after picture just didn't turn out like I had hoped it would.

Now that I see the actual pictures of the them, I can't wait to do the next phase!!

And especially now that I see the pictures of it, I am not as excited to show it off as I thought I was. It really looks so much better in person than in the pictures. What I am missing specifically for the mantel is candles to put behind the garland. I have two adorable crystal taper candle holders that are just crying out for red candles, but I think I also want to do some fatter piller style candles...you know, the different height ones. Maybe white and/or green to accent the red tapers. Just a thought.

And I can't believe how bare the back part of the mantel looks - that wreath is just too small...definitely have to do something else there. Think I'll first complete Phase Two before totally deciding what to do with the wreath. Hmmmm...the wheels are a turnin'!

Have I mentioned that I hate wrapping? Still haven't started that yet....dreading it all the way. Loathe wrapping. I'll bake for anyone who wants to do my wrapping....????? Any takers?

I'm thankful for:

10 more sleeps till Christmas Day {zzzzzzzz}

OCI coffee - haven't had any, but sure would like some!

Stories from my kids

The ability to help other people out during the holidays

Products made in the USA

A little birdie suggested I put more pictures of Miss Andie's new hairstyle on here to show how it looks when a commoner like myself has to style it. I like the idea, and plan to accommodate, but will need to wait until a different day - maybe tomorrow morning I will because she is going to put some curl collector in her hair, and have it go 'natural.' It's pretty cute that way!

Productive Day!

Despite not feeling well at all today, I have to say that it was a rather productive day!

I took the kids to Faith Formation this morning, and went to my Mom and Dad's to make a gift for a friend (despite them not having any power!). Didn't feel too well being in their cold house, with having a sore throat, but I had my wool sweater, a scarf and my down coat on.

Got home and did my first project that I've had in my head for a while, I'll post pics later tonight or tomorrow. I bought a 24-ft. piece of garland and decorated it with holly berries, poinsettias, mini ornament balls and regular sized ornament balls, as well as some pine cones. Went through quite a bit of hot glue - but goodness I love that stuff! Then put a string of lights with it and now all I need are some tall red taper candles, and that phase of my project will be done! Yay! I'm not sure I'll get to the second phase this Christmas, but I'm gonna try!!

I hadn't planned on adding the string of lights to it, but when we were at my parents today, Drew made more than one comment about the wide variety of lights that my mom has beautifully placed around with so many of her decorations. Well...I can certainly read between the lines and when we got home and found this extra string of lights, I just knew it would make him happy! Success :).

Did some laundry, put dinner on, re-arranged a bunch of stuff in a cabinet that just needed to be done, made some bows for the wreaths for outside...hmmm, I know there's more, but I just can't think of them right now.

Andie and I were invited by my cousin to go to church with her and her daughter tonight to listen to Christmas singing and I sooooooo wanted to go, but I'm just not feeling good enough to leave tonight. Bummer, too, because I am really loving the Christmas caroles this season! Not only that, but with not knowing what "bug" it is I've got, I don't really want to expose anybody else to it. Sad.

Let's hope the teachers are kind to the kids this week as I'm sure they'll all be a bit distracted in anticipation of finishing up school for the year this week!!!

Can you even believe the difference here??

It started out as a not so good start, as we couldn't agree on a style that she could get. She wanted ultra short (think Rihanna!), and I wanted to be a little more conservative. What you may not understand about Andie's hair, that I'm trying to help her understand, is that ALL of the styles she was picking were for straight hair. STRAIGHT. That word and Andie's hair have nothing in common. Zilch.

After about 15 minutes, and many threats from me to walk out the door and not waste anymore of Kerry's time, we finally agreed on a style. It still looks nothing like the photo, but as Kerry pointed out, Andie probably has about four times the amount of hair than the girl in the pic does...so now let me back up a sentence. When we left Kerry's, it DID look like the picture, but as the day went on her natural curl came back out a bit, and now it will never look like the picture again, because I will never have 45 extra minutes in my morning before school to get it there!

But the good news is that we have some product to put in her hair that if we decide to have it be natural for the day, of course, it'll look adorable. She could easily do, like fifteen different looks with this style, so I'm excited to see how the upcoming days play out!

Oh, and the best part? Kerry is sending her hair in for Locks for Love, or whatever it's called...feels good to donate to a worthy cause!

Drew is day two into his steroids now...and we're noticing that about an hour after he takes them, his cheeks get really red, almost like he's got a fever. I've not noticed this time that he's overly crabby, like he's been several times in the past. For that, I'm thankful. I'm also thankful it's not pneumonia, which we've had plenty of with this child as well. All in all, things are starting to improve, which I'm thrilled with!

Tonight, I'm lovin:

Saturday night Mass

A beautiful fire in our fireplace

Yummy home cooked meal

Shopping online

The treadmill that is calling my name, but I've ignored so far, but not for much longer

A fabulous hairdresser

Tomorrow holds a full day at the Bolleserosa front...making a gift for a friend, cookie bake, Faith Formation for the kids, homework, and maybe a concert at a local Church! Have a great night :)

Hangin' out with the kid-poos watching The Polar Express, all the while Drew is just coughing and coughing. To his array of medications that we had to bump up/add, he now started another anitbiotic today, AND a steroid. I know it's the best thing for him, but it still brings tears everytime. Soooooo...for the next few days, he'll get pretty crabby and extremely hungry! All in a day.

So glad the teachers enjoyed their brunch that so many parents went in on as a Merry Christmas gift!! Jodi, as always, did an outstanding job of thinking, planning, organizing, for this event. A HUGE thank you to you, Jodi! I love the photo on your blog [http://4menandamommy.blogspot.com] of the card that the kids made. They had soooo much fun and it looks great! The photo of the food spread looked great too! Again, thank you for what you did there.

Miss Andie gets her hair cut tomorrow morning. Poor girl had to have it rescheduled twice now - she told me the other night that she wasn't even excited anymore because she couldn't get it done when she wanted (I know, woe is her, right?). So I'm going to take my camera so I can post pictures when we're all done. I'm hoping we can get something that we both like, and can agree on, and that her hair will actually do. She wants nothing more than to have straight hair, or so she thinks, so she can "do all the fun things with it." Ummm...does she think those of us that have straight hair actually love having that??

Regardless, she would like to donate to Locks For Love, so expect to see some drastic pics! I'm kind of excited...nervous, but excited!

Oh, I almost forgot! Today I am thankful for:

4 wheel drive
Gluten free foods
wrapping paper with lines on the inside
Fridays!!!
Two amazing sisters
Ideas for projects (fun! fun!)

Have a fun Friday everyone!

So I'm a Little Late...

...but it's only nine days!

So much has been going on, it's hard to know where to start, so I'll just begin by updating about Drew.

He spent much of November dealing with his asthma flare up. Turned into a sinus infection and he's going on his fourth week of being on a higher dose of Advair. Tomorrow we get to start his second round of antibiotics, and a phone call to the doctor (again) will take place.

Wednesday they said that if he has to use his rescue inhaler more than three times in the week, then I need to call right away...well, it's Thursday and he is just finishing up his second round of his inhaler tonight. Darn asthma. I'm sure there's something I can be doing to raise awareness or something...think I'll make that a New Year's Resolution. One not to be broken. Breaks my heart.

As a token of beginning to raise awareness, I found this really cool website that makes jewelry for just about every cause there is. AND, being that I L.O.V.E. jewelry, this might just be a good place to start! It'll go great with one of my Christmas presents - what do you mean, what is it?? I can't tell you - it's not Christmas yet! But if you would like to check out the website, it's http://www.kiwijewels.com/. Kinda cool.

I'm totally getting into the Christmas spirit these days, though you may not recognize it by my blog. I've had a few technical difficulties with this gosh darn layout, and just gave up a few days ago, convincing myself that I didn't really need to do a damn blog anyhow. But, I'm over my pissy-pants tantrum and happily blogging again [smile].

This season I'm thankful for so much. To name a few:

My amazing husband

Two fantastic kids

The Christmas Program at Church next weekend

Being employed

A great place to live

Shopping trips with awesome friends

Not having to cook on Fridays

I could go on and on...maybe I'll continue to list stuff daily! Guess you'll have to stay tuned now...

Ummm....

Dear God what happened to my background?? I'm not quite sure I can answer that. I looked around a bit the other day when I was thinking about posting a new chapter, but I didn't remember choosing anything new. Guess I was wrong. Not sure I can explain that design, other than it looks kind of like the fabric I chose for the new wreath I made last week. [Thanks Jen!!] That's right....I tried my hand at a wreath. And guess what? I.LOVED.IT!!!!

I didn't even take a picture. But it was sooooooooo fun to create! Think you'll have to ask Kris for a photo. I made it for her birthday. It turned out great! I still don't think I'm all that creative, but this thing is cool. Anyhow, I plan to make more. Many more. You could say I'm hooked. So again - thanks JT for the cool idea!

Moving on...we had an awesome Thanksgiving. It is, by far, my favorite Holiday!!! It's close to Christmas, but it's not here yet, which I love, cause it means that it's not gone yet, but we can start thinking about and shopping for it.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!