WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER

I have been so busy with Christmas and putting it away I almost forgot about winning a giveaway from Ms. Rhoda. I won her giveaway to Listplanit.

Oh my if you are a lover of lists then you will love love love this site. She has like a gazillion lists, for anything you can imagine.

I have just spent the last hour looking through them and choosing some that i can use in a our family organizer.

Ms. Rhoda thank you so much for the giveaway!

Today was the first day of my 5 day vacation!!! I got all of my Christmas taken down and put back in tubs. I have 12 tubs of Christmas and that is not counting the couple with lights and greenery in them! I am glad the house looks put back together but the magic is gone too...

New Years Eve tomorrow. Do you all have big plans?? Scott wants to go to go hang out with some friends but it is an hour away and he wants to spend the night but I want to come home so I don't know what we will do. We usually spend it at home and everyone is asleep before midnight (well except me, I never make it before midnight). I like to be home in my own bed come morning! He asked if I wanted to stay there from Thursday til Sunday so we could watch the Razorbacks play in the Liberty Bowl. I asked him if he was crazy! I like home way to much.

Whatever you do please be safe!
Happy New Year

I am off to work on my new year resolutions using my list from LIST PLAN IT!
Blessings,
Pam

CHRISTMAS AT HOME

Christmas Eve is always spent with Mamie, Scott's grandmother.

Doesn't she look beautiful in the photo below!

She turned 95 on the 20th of December

We had each family take pictures with her this year.

Ours below

This is Coco before going to the party with Mamie.

After we got home she talked us into opening one present.
She got WII Resort and she & Scott haven't' done anything but play this for the past 3 days

CHRISTMAS MORNING WITH HER STOCKING

It is a tradition that I cook breakfast on Christmas morning. Scott asked for french toast this year. It was very good and we used our Christmas dishes.

Northwest Arkansas had the first white Christmas in years.

Since the roads were nasty we voted to stay home and go to my Mothers on Saturday.

This enabled Coco to play in the snow. One of her gifts from us was snow bibs and I am so glad it snowed so she could use them.

I ventured out to take photos of her but she kept pelting me with snowballs.

Ornery little devil!

We had a wonderful Christmas and are so very blessed!

Blessings to you all

Pam

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I COULDN'T WAIT TO SHOW YOU THESE

I made these Santa's tonight.

They are laying down drying so the picture is awful.

My recipe:

styrofoam cones

red velvet (i bought 1/2 yard and will have leftovers after the 3rd cone)

Hair stuff from doll aisle at hob lob

black vinyl (i bought 1/2 yard but 1/8 would be enough for 3)

38 piece pack of jewels from jewelry aisle (will need more for #3)

Aileens tacky glue

1.I rolled the cone on the fabric and cut (sloppy) & glued it down

2.I pinned and glued the white stuff on

3.for the top i rolled it around my finger a couple of times to make it fuller

used glue and pins

4. i cut the vinyl for belt free hand and glued it around the velvet

5. glue the jems on in the shape of a belt buckle.

These were $20+ each at one store in town, estimate $22 -24 dollars for all 3 of mine. Not to shabby if I say so myself!

I will post a picture of all 3 when I get another cone, so you can see how beautiful the red velvet is.

We are supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow night. This will be the first white Christmas in years. I just hope we aren't stuck at home eating ham sandwiches.

Coco just ran in and asked where our Santa plate is.

I told her oh we don't have any cookies.

She said "we have cookie dough"

I said "you want to leave him cookie dough?"

She said "yes"

Santa says "I don't like cookie dough"

We might have to buy some cookies already made tomorrow.

Maybe I will ask Santa to do that while I am work

Blessings,

Pam

FORECLOSURE

Today I went into Coco's room and she said

Look Mom they had a foreclosure

And now they live in a block house.

Guessing she hears to many mortgage stories from her banker Mom!

Merry Christmas from my home to yours

WELCOME TO OUR HOME

THIS IS OUR TREE IN THE LIVING ROOM

THIS TREE HAS ALL OUR COLLECTED ORNAMENTS AND ORNAMENTS COCO HAS MADE FOR US

THIS IS OUR RED, WHITE AND BLACK SANTA TREE

ALONG WITH SANTA'S I HAVE ADDED PHOTOS OF FAMILY

A LITTLE WREATH ON THE LAMPS

OUR FAMILY PHOTOS FROM PAST YEARS

THE DECOR IN OUR BEDROOM. I DECIDED AGAINST PUTTING UP A TREE. TIME GOT AWAY FROM ME

I HUNG THESE CANDLE WREATHS ON THE CABINETS IN THE KITCHEN

MY CHRISTMAS VILLAGE ON TOP OF THE FRIDGE THIS YEAR

THE KITCHEN WINDOWSILL

MY DINING ROOM TABLE WITH MY FRIENDLY VILLAGE DISHES


MY NUTCRACKERS ON THE TABLE IN THE HALL

I LOVE DECORATING AND COLLECTING FOR CHRISTMAS

HOPE YOU ENJOY THE TOUR

HAVE A VERY MERRY AND BLESSED CHRISTMAS

PAM

OH HELLO

Have you missed me???

I have missed you!

I haven't even turned on the computer this week, things have been hectic for us!

We have went looking at the lights on the Fayetteville square.

Had Christmas with the in-laws (his family)

Scott got layed off from his job (just until March) not indefinite Praise God

Girl Scout Party

Work office party

Lots of stuff going on!

Tonight i have been looking through the Nester's Christmas Home Tour. Wow, when I left her blog there were 997 links!! I haven't even taken photos of all mine yet. I could just browse all night but I have to go to work tomorrow and I told Coco we would go out for breakfast so I better get to bed!

I will be back, please don't give up on me!
Blessings
Pam

A LITTLE CHRISTMAS HERE AND THERE

Here a few peeks at my Christmas decor!

Santa on my red, black and white tree! New tree I bought at the after Christmas sales last year.

The top of our traditional tree. Not sure I am done with it yet!

At Christmas time my favorite word is always JOY! So when I saw

this box at HB I couldn't pass it up.

We have had a DAY! Coco woke up with a temp of 100.8 with aches and pains. Grandparents couldn't watch her so I had to stay home. We watched Merry Madagascar, Where the Red Fern Grows and Deck the Halls! She is much better now, I think it was just a reaction to the flu shot. When she was little, she would get a fever after every vaccine! I will have to remember that from now on!

Our Christmas book tonight was Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera. We both enjoyed this book very much.

Blessings,
Pam

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN

We started our new tradition of reading 25 books to Christmas tonight. I am surprised we remembered. Today was kind of hectic.

This is the book we read. It will not be my favorite but it does have a teachable theme about it.

Coco and I got our seasonal flu shots at the flu clinic at school today. I volunteered for a couple of hours and I was able to be there when she came through so I went first. Not bad at all. I know there are lots of opinions out there but we chose not to have the H1N1 vaccine. I just don't trust it. Call me crazy but that's the way it is.

We got a wonderful surprise on Saturday. We had some friends come into town from St.Louis. Unfortunately they were here for a funeral but we did get to spend some time with them on Saturday and then we all had lunch before they left on Sunday. Here is a photo of Coco and Stephanie chowing down on some Chinese food.

Stephanie's mom Darleen is battling a recurrence of cancer so please put her on your prayer list. She has such a positive outlook and is very confident that she is going to beat this. She told me this weekend she has been overwhelmed at the amount of people that tell her they are praying for her, she feels these prayers and is comforted by this. She has a strong faith in God, I am proud to call her friend.

I didn't get any comments on the blog about the Challenge. I left mine at work so I don't know what # I am at. Let me know if you find them all.

Blessings,
Pam

CHALLENGE

My mother showed this to me the other day and I made a note of it. I found the note in my purse today and looked it up in google. Give it a try and see how many you can find. I will give you one so that you see it is not easy.


Can you find thirty (30) books of the Bible in this paragraph? Actually, there are 31 if you can find the variant of one Old Testament prophet's name.


There are 30 books of the Bible in this paragraph. Can you find them? This is a most remarkable puzzle. It was found by a gentleman in an airplane seat pocket, on a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu, keeping him occupied for hours. He enjoyed it so much, he passed it on to some friends. One friend from Illinois worked on this while fishing from his john boat. Another friend studied it while playing his banjo. Elaine Taylor, a columnist friend, was so intrigued by it she mentioned it in her weekly newspaper column. Another friend judges the job of solving this puzzle so involving, she brews a cup of tea to help her nerves. There will be some names that are really easy to spot. That's a fact. Some people, however, will soon find themselves in a jam, especially since the book names are not necessarily capitalized. Truthfully, from answers we get, we are forced to admit it usually takes a minister or a scholar to see some of them at the worst. Research has shown that something in our genes is responsible for the difficulty we have in seeing the books in this paragraph. During a recent fund raising event, which featured this puzzle, the Alpha Delta Phi lemonade booth set a new record. The local paper, The Chronicle, surveyed over 200 patrons who reported that this puzzle was one of the most difficult they had ever seen. As Daniel Humana humbly puts it, "The books are all right here in plain view hidden from sight." Those able to find all of them will hear great lamentations from those who have to be shown. One revelation that may help is that books like Timothy and Samuel may occur without their numbers. Also, keep in mind, that punctuation and spaces in the middle are normal. A chipper attitude will help you compete really well against those who claim to know the answers. Remember, there is no need for a mad exodus; there really are 30 books of the Bible lurking somewhere in this paragraph waiting to be found. God Bless.

Have fun with it and let me know how many you find. I also saw in google when I looked this up that the answers are there, but I didn't look and don't you either!

Blessings,
Pam

PHOTOGRAPHY SESSION

I have spent most of the day shooting photos. I did some for our neighbors and they turned out so cute. Then we did ours in downtown Bentonville. The sun was pretty bright so we were squinting alot, but we got a few good ones I thought.

Coco pretending she is falling into the water fountain....

Quite the little poser! What is she doing. I was using a remote control for the camera so I couldn't really see what I was shooting. I am happy with the way it works, makes it super easy to do self photos without running back and forth to the camera.

We roasted hotdogs and made smores with our neighbors this evening, fun and yummy!

I am looking forward to a very short week. I work Mon & Tues then off until next Monday. Hope to get the house all ready for decorating on Friday. Tradition that we always order pizza and put up our tree on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Blessings,

Pam

JUMPED ON THE WAGON

I have seen many posts about these ornament wreaths. I took myself to Walmart and bought a 50 pack of shatterproof ornaments and waaaa lah

i have a new wreath.

Now where am I going to hang it???? Maybe every door in the house will be decked out! Super easy just take a wire clothes hanger, bend it into a circle shape, unwind at the top ( i put on oven mits to bend and shape), thread your ornaments and wind it back together (might need hubby for this step), tie a pretty ribbon at the top and you have yourself a Merry little wreath!

Cost for this $15.00 for the box of 50 ornaments!

Blessings,

Pam

THE BLINDSIDE

I got out of work a little early so I could meet Scott and Coco to watch the movie The Blindside! It is a wonderful movie and I suggest you all go out and see it as soon as you can. Beautiful story and surprisingly humorous. I have to read the book!!!

Next will be NEW MOON!

Have a great weekend

Blessings

Pam

I WENT TO A CONCERT

While shopping at Walmart last weekend I picked up this CD by Sugarland. I absolutely love her voice. She sounds the same when she talks or sings. I didn't notice until I got home but it has a dvd of one of their shows. Sunday afternoon Scott and Coco went to his mom's and I put the cd in while I cleaned and then decided to see what the dvd had on it. It was a hours worth of their live concert. Very fun show. I felt like I was right there. Oh and times have changed they don't wave their lighters in the air anymore, they use glow sticks........ I didn't have any glow sticks..............

Blessings,
Pam

BEFORE AND AFTER

I want a new couch and I am leaning towards something neutral, unlike what I currently have. I have loved this couch and it took me over a year to find it. I am NOT a impulse furniture buyer. It is showing some wears and tears and Scott says we can't buy a new one until Coco learns to stop jumping on it.

Here is old faithful! It has been good for a many a nap.


And here she is with a new slipcover.

I like the chocolate brown cover but after having it on for a few days it is a pain to keep it all tucked in and the fabric shows every little speck of lint. It does hide the piping coming out and the little tear. I went today to buy some giraffe print pillows that I had seen at Kirklands but they didn't have them in the Rogers store so I will have to look elsewhere or I just thought I maybe can find them online.

Enough about the couch. Are you watching BIGGEST LOSER? I felt so bad for Rebecca tonight but she didn't let being sent home stop her. She looks AMAZING. I can relate to wanting to be the person she always wanted to be. Unlike her I want to be the person I used to be. I couldn't gain weight growing up and when I hit 28 years old the pounds slowly started piling on and now I want to lose 80lbs. I wish I had trainers like that here or could afford to pay one. I am going to print off her photos for inspiration. I also found a Biggest Loser book on clearance at Barnes the other day so I am going to delve into it to see what kind of tips I can use! She is going to be on Jay Leno so I am off to watch her.

Blessings,

Pam

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER

Okay all the names are in the bowl................



Coco doing the honors..............................

And the winner is 4 SHEPHERDS!

Congratulations, I know your girls are going to love this tradition! You might have to get 50 books so that they each have a set when they leave home......

Now a little sneak peak at my December Daily Christmas Album. These are all the rage in the scrapbooking world beginning with Ali Edwards, I think. Anyhoo, I have wanted to do one every year and just hadn't gotten around to it. I found a regular photo album the other day with a "C" monogrammed on the front and thought this could be my daily album. Here is what I have so far.

Front page of album or title page

Page 1, I can fill each page with journaling and/or photos, lists, thoughts, quotes, etc.

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Each day will be different. My plan is to print my photos each day and document our December. I will be doing 31 days instead of just the 25. That way I will have a record of the entire month of what we doing in 2009!!!!

Blessings,
Pam

WEEKEND RECAP

We had a wonderful and FULL weekend. Coco and I were alone all weekend due to this....

Sunday Scott decided to take his blind out because it was rainy. He had to set it up in the living room first. That thing was much bigger than I thought but he says he needs a bigger one. Good idea for Christmas.

Saturday morning started out at the gym for basketball practice.

After Coco and I both got haircuts we headed to Springdale for the NWA Boutique Sale at the Convention Center. Also to meet up with my sister Tammy Lou and niece Kaylee.

We went to Applebee's to eat before hitting the craft fair. Very good lunch

Thanks Tammy Lou

This is Kaylee and I riding the thingy mijig at the NWA Mall. I can't remember what it was called but it was like we were on this roller coaster. She was the only brave one to do it with me. Lots of fun, BUT I didn't know we were on a TV monitor outside where everyone could watch us. So embarrassing!

I did some work on a couple of crafts that I will show you later. I also did a big switch er roo on my couch too.