Procrastination.

I have been putting this wonderful thing called blogging on the back burner lately, because I feel as if I have nothing worth while to talk about!  I'm finally breaking down now, because I think enough time has gone by that surely I can pull something together.  Now there is too much to say and I'm stressed! This is my love/hate relationship with procrastination.  We have been companions for some many years now.  Sometimes he makes me feel good for a bit, but he always lets me down in the end.  I should replace him with a new buddy? Maybe some day I'll meet, Motivation, Go Ahead or Do It....
I am slightly marvelled that I don't have so much more to say about the holidays, considering my love and fascination for this time of the year?

So we had a good Christmas at our house Saturday morning,  Kids were very happy. Aiden got a Nintendo DS finally(hes been asking for several years), Camille got a computer(that we are still trying to get in good working order). We did not consider that her room would not have a phone jack to be able to connect the Internet modem in to. And the the DVD writer stopped working. Consequently, we have to buy a wireless USB adapter and a new Drive just so she can get on Facebook and you tube and download her new PC game she also got for Christmas.  Ugh, ghrr, yikes and all of the other exasperation noises I can make to express my feelings toward electronics!!! It takes the patience of Job to deal with computer junk, and patience was not one of my God given gifts!  Lilli-Kate got a Barbie that produced a very animated "WOW" and big round eyes, I wish I had it on film! 

Later that day we went over the mountain to Meme and Papaws house, for a few more presents and a delightful Christmas dinner!

Daniel and I both worked the whole week, waiting with great expectations for New Years Eve!!  Our buddy Tab came down again with her kiddos this time.  Poor Camille had to stay home and Babysit While the Grown ups went out to have some fun.  I can't tell you how many times I heard "that's not fair"... One would think me telling her "I don't care" once would be enough, but man, those teenagers are persistent!! The kids had party favors and some bubbly (sparkling grape juice). They stayed up till midnight (except Keaton who was out by 1930, and Lilli shortly after), and slept a little late on Saturday.  This worked out great for us!!

Don't worry its just the cider bottle.

Us grown ups went out for a nice meal (Red Lobster-thanks to Christmas gift cards :-), despite the fact that Tabatha is deathly allergic to shellfish...One might ask "why would you choose to go to Red Lobster if you have a shell fish allergy?  Well, like I mentioned above, Gift certificates. As well as, Tabatha loves other seafood, and as it turns out Red Lobster is very considerate of people with allergies, they have a special menu and everything!! We had a great dinner and then decided to try out the dueling piano bar again.  It was of course standing room only, my feet and legs are still telling me how abusive I am.  I enjoyed the music and entertainment much more this time and the whole experience was actually quite fun.  Interestingly enough, all of the entertainment did not come from the pianist!  Ernie Biggs is a 2 story bar and both times we have been, we spent our time up stairs, with the best view of all the excitement.  The pianos are downstairs backed by floor to ceiling mirrors, as well as 2 full bars and the restrooms in the back. Up stairs, the balcony, 1 bar and the VIP room that has a bathroom.  It just so happens that a wedding party had reserved the room for a reception. They actually flagged a few bar stools on the balcony, the doors to the small VIP room AND the bathroom door!!!  Tabatha tried to use the restroom and the Mother of the groom actually stopped her and said the bathroom was for the VIP party only, and would not let her use it!! As if the common people, hanging out at the same bar as them, are not good enough to sit on their toilet? To me if you can't share a public restroom, you shouldn't be hanging out in a piano bar, on New Years Eve no less! Oh well, by this time Tab has had plenty to drink and it was an exciting adventure down the stairs and across the whole club to the common persons restroom in the back corner. 

The other nightly entertainment was the skank in the very short strapless mini-dress, who apparently forgot her undergarments.  The dress truly needed its straps back,  it was trained to strategically fall down every time she raised her arms, a bit of a preview of the nights events to come, or just easy access.  So, LittleMiss Shows Alot made an interesting dance move of squeezing the sides of her boobs, as if to create some cleavage, while discreetly hiking up her dress every 25 seconds.  And I must mention her greatest feature, the "get low" booty grind down to the floor, that ended as she was rising with a very liberal and obvious (supposed to be hidden, maybe nobody is watching, I have a huge itch) vaginal scratch session, that promises any watching  "I want a piece of that" party goer, a nasty, itchy, crawly, lasting reminder of their year end bash!  

And the final Act of the night was the redneck super model that provided us a little strip tease on stage, by unbuttoning her much too tight plaid shirt to reveal her matching red Victoria secret miracle wonder Bra.  While doing so, snagging cash off the piano and out of the pianist tip jar!  As her date notices he tries to distract her (or the pianist) with a grinding gyrating slobber-fest.  Needless to say the entertainment came after this, when the pianist made her give the money back, the bouncers show up and her date has to physically carry her off the stage as she is groping the piano bench, because her time has been cut short :)

 Daniel and I talked about it and I think we will go up there again and try to get there early enough to get a table next time :-).

All right, I follow Daniels cousin, Danielle's, blog and Her latest post about recapping the last decade really gave me some ideas of what I'd like to do with my Blog. I hope she doesn't mind me copying her idea :) In order to avoid the inactivity of my blog due to insufficient writing material of our current happenings in life,  I will start at the beginning and recap my life through shared pictures and memories. (I got a really cool Scanner/ Copier/Printer to help with this) Well, maybe not quite so structured as Chronological order, but maybe certain events and highlights!

It will be a bit of my own scrapbook. Of course, I will input and report all the current developments to do with the family and kids and all that sweet here and now stuff, as well!

I can't wait!

Ahhh Silent night.

The kids are in bed, Christmas music playing, I'm in front our beautiful Tree, ready to wind down!  Daniel is at the gym?!?!?!?

Daniel and I had a great friend come down and visit for the weekend.  Our wonderful Tabatha!  We had a blast.  Had a great dinner at Neighbors Mill Friday (love the Beef and Cheese sandwich) bought great cookies for dessert and fresh muffins for breakfast.  Tab and I got away on Saturday and spent the day walking the square. Did the flea market and thrift store thing. Found some great buys!  Saturday night we went to Branson for Daniels work Christmas party.  A place called Rockys down by the landing has some Great Prime Rrib.  Then the fun begins :) Earnie Biggs piano bar!  So there was alot of alcohol, loud music, cigarette smoke :-(  I would have preferred the Karaoke bar down the landing , but the large party had already decided the dueling pianos won out!  It was my first time at a place like that and I'm sorry to admit I wasn't too impressed,. I'm so Thankful for Daniels wonderful employer who reserved hotel rooms at a group rate so many couples were able to have a great time safely, as far as I  know there were no legal issues during or after the great fun!.

My Eldest daughter is trying her hardest to turn me into a gray haired mom.  Here we are less than a week away from Christmas, I want to give her all the things she wants and she wont stop the shenanigans long enough to recover from the last. She has strategically changed her top request on her Christmas wish list to include #1. "I want to be ungrounded" and #2. "I want my phone back". But she continues to make stupid decisions and those 2 things are only leverage we have as the parents in the house! (well at least the most successful) Whats a mother to do?

Aiden brought home an F on his last spelling test.....He has had nothing lower than a A, on any assignment in any subject, all year long! 
What is happening to my children?  The Momma Grinch is fixing to steal Christmas in my house! 

Could these Halloween pictures from this year be any Indication?  The Gypsy and the Monster!

Lord Help me is my nightly prayer!

Ohhhh Lilli-Kate, my sweet little Love Dove.  Shes not too rotten yet, however I did learn tonight that her Grudge actually can last about 10 minutes. Does this seem like an exceptionally long attention span for a 16 month old, to any one else? She was Trying to cut some teeth on a battery and I told her "no mam", not even in my angry voice! Heaven Forbid!  She looked at daddy, then sissy, then me and stuck out that bottom lip and the water works began. She IS the drama Princess!  We all laughed at her and she stopped eventually, 10 minutes later she looked at me and , I kid you not gave me "the look and rolled her eyes at me!!!!  Oh Man !

My Lottery Mission isn't working out so great. Haven't won anything else!  Beginners luck is over.  Hey a woman can dream.
Well good night for now, I'm apparently addicted to a new PC game Ive found, Bejeweled 3. Its calling my name?

GOOOO LAPTOP!

Okay, so we are about a week away from Christmas, but we now have our Wal-mart special laptop, and I love it!  I'm sitting in the living room, with Daniel, in comfort, on my couch!  I had to make up a fabulous excuse about needing it early, and it worked to my favor.  It went something like, "I have to take it to the computer guy at work to transfer all my stuff over from my desktop, so it will be ready to use and so on and so on..." and then I had to leave the desktop with him to be cleaned out and refurbished, and its still being worked on (it had some issues). So we have been destitute without an Internet access source in the house.  Now don't get me wrong, Daniel didn't for a minute believe or give into my excuses.  He was lost without Internet too!

I wanted to get on here and tell you all about Aidens latest issue that totally tickled us.  If you know Aiden he sometimes doesn't think things through all the way before he says what he wants,  sometimes it comes out a bit backwards, or very literal context, or wrong words, etc.  He has in his short time alive, given us so many laughs, due to his interpretation of what he has heard or seen or thinks he understands.  He definitely is good for a million laughs.  Anyways, he started complaining Saturday night of his stomach hurting (a cramping, slightly nauseating, sharp pain) not necessarily a stomach virus, just inconsistent pain?  He wasn't going to go to school on Monday because it seemed to hurt most when he was up and about.  However, later in the morning he called me and asked me to take him to school because he felt the house was making him sick, thought he just needed to get out and occupy his mind.  After school he still feels OK, so he goes to his buddies down the street, but comes in crying after he has asked the parents to bring him home, as the pain has returned.  he proceeds to tell me that "Jordan's mom said they had this Bug but it only lasted about 12 hours" a minute later, between sobs, he says "man I must have just got bit too many times by that bug".
I wish I had archived all the great things that have come out of his mouth! 

We are actually ready for Christmas early this year.  We usually do all shopping the last payday before Christmas. This has made for many of cram shopping trips on Christmas eve in the past!  It feels nice to be done, considering the fiasco we barely skimmed through last year. 
It was Christmas eve and Daniel and I still had stocking stuff to buy.  Time slipped away from us and after wrapping all of the presents (way too many) we realized it was almost 1 am.  We rush out to the local Wal-mart super center (that is always open), just to find that it closes on Christmas eve?!?!?! Who knew? We panicked!! We drove all the way to Branson Mo, (about 35 miles away) to the Kmart that was barely still open. We didn't even consider the Walgreen's right down the street.  Oh well, we vowed not to do that again. We thought we had ruined Christmas.  Despite all the gifts, it always seems the stockings are our families favorite part. I think it must be because so much thought and personalization goes into the little things.  Wouldn't it be nice if the Christmas celebration went back to that simpleness.  Aside from the true reason for the season, I mean!

I truly love everything about this time of the year. The weather, the lights, the feelings, and especially the music.  I have acquired a few more Christmas albums this year. This is not new to me I always get at least 1 new album. However, this year I had to have more, as it seems the local radio stations have been very sparse on playing the seasonal stuff, and I'm finding that it really gets on my nerves to have to listen to regular music during this season.  I'm forced to listen to regular music the entire rest of the year, would it be too much to mix it up a bit, for a few months out of the year?  Although it is also not out of the ordinary for me, to pop in some Christmas music at any random time in the year, just for a little jingle jangle happy time.  So now I have a great stock, that is now a little better, to put on shuffle and get me through all my wearisome travels during the day. 

By the way, Aidens stomach issue has since resolved, with out any true diagnosis. As far as I can tell, Aiden may have accidentally eaten some foam from a Nerf dart he was innocently chewing it up, while Daniel and I were Christmas shopping.  He's not quite sure how much he may have eaten, but all the plumbing is working well and the pain is gone, so maybe a lesson was learned?

My sweet, loving funny little guy! Summer 2010