Thursday, December 22, 2011

Crossing My Fingers

Seven, Wake Up.


 Hey, booger - I need you to listen to me.

 
 There will be NO more peeing in Grandma Sherry's house!!  Understand??



Uh-uh-uh! Don't give me any excuses.  I mean it! 12 days - NO PEEING IN THE HOUSE!


Jeep - Don't you cover for him either. Enough with the cute puppy eyes.  I mean it.


Jeep - you keep Seven in line until we get back. 

Love you boys, mom.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Christmas Questionnaire

I just got some fairly sad news about some friends of ours who will be moving away come Spring.  Ugh.  It gets so frustrating building relationships from scratch only to have them leave and start all over.  This will be my 4th set of friends in 4 years. Unfortunately, Nashville is notorious for this since most folks aren't locals anyway, so it doesn't take much for folks to move on to the next place.

In trying to cheer myself up before attending our Home Group Christmas Party tonight, I thought I'd do this little Christmas Questionnaire I found floating around the blog-world.


1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Both! I can't possibly decide between the two, especially after making some homemade marshmallows and white chocolate dipped peppermint sticks! 

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrapped! Are you kidding me?! Who just sits them out? When I was a kid, they were wrapped, numbered and opened one at a time in order around the room! haa!  I might subject my own children to this torture myself someday :-)

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Growing up, our house & tree usually always had multi colors, but I do remember a time when I was very little and we had a pink-themed tree and then one year a blue-themed tree. Or did I just dream that one up? Jason and I use white lights on our tree and red & white lights on the house.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Sorta.  I have a fake mistletoe ball thingy that we hang between the dinging and living room.  

5. When do you put your decorations up? Tradition is to go out the day after Thanksgiving & pick out our tree.  Then the following day we decorate it, while watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation & sipping Jason's homemade mint hot cocoa. That movie just never gets old.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Hmm....do I have to choose? I love my mom's turkey, it's so moist.  I also love the sugar cookies I make every year. 

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? It would have to be spending Christmas in Montana with my cousin Tina & her family.  The snow was so deep and we rode snow mobiles, horses, and sat by the fire.  It was incredible. And that year I got a Nintendo, which I had been dying to have!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? No idea. It's blocked.  Along with half my childhood. Sucks.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Of course!!  My family's tradition is to open stockings and one gift on Christmas Eve after the Christmas Eve service with sparkling apple cider. 

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Since I've lived on my own, I've collected red, white & silver ornaments and have used white lights.  I guess until we have kids, that's probably how we'll keep it.  I just think it's so classic and pretty looking. 

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Love it!  As long as there's lots of it to prevent me from going into the office.  When there's just a little, then it just gets really muddy and gets my hopes up.

12. Can you ice skate? I'm thinking so?  It's been a while. Ooohhh, that's a fun idea we could do as a family when I'm home!!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? It was either the cabbage patch kid, the keyboard or the Nintendo.  I was equally excited for all three growing up.

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? It's celebrating the birth of Christ and the time I get with my family and friends.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? I kinda covered this with the frosted sugar cookies!  Yum!! 

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? There are so many, there's no possible way I could choose.

17. What tops your tree? A pretty silver star.

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Giving for sure.  I just get so darned stressed out about what to give people, cause I want it to be perfect.  This year we drew names for the first time and its taking everything in me not to run out to the mall and go buck wild breaking the rules

19. Candy canes: yuck or yum? I like them with other things, like crushed up in peppermint bark,  sprinkled on a dessert, or soaked in a cup of hot chocolate!

20. Favorite Christmas movie? National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and While You Were Sleeping (though I only watch that one with my family).

21. Saddest Christmas song? I'm not exactly a Christmas song lover, so I can't really answer this one  (I know, I know).

22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Oh geez, again with the Christmas music.  I've recently discovered Pandora's Indie's Holiday Music station and I'm starting to appreciate some Christmas songs.  I wouldn't say I have a favorite one yet, but they're growing on me!  So that's something right? 


Ahhh, that worked.  I feel a little better now.

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

In honor of Christmas and Katrina ;-)

If she can do it, so can I.


 


 














 





Monday, November 28, 2011

Spider Nightmares

At 7:15am Jeep started moaning at the bedroom door because he was out of water.  Thankfully, he woke me up because I had my alarm on silent and would have completely overslept through work this morning.  Exhausted is an understatement, as Jason and I worked all day yesterday on setting up the tree, decorating, cleaning, laundry ect. But then you add the fact that I was up frequently throughout the night with nightmares of these nasty little devils....


Anyone care to tell me what this might be? 

A freakin Brown Recluse Spider!!!  And Jason found 4 of them inside our tree stand in the shed! 

IN OUR SHED! 

BEHIND OUR HOUSE!! 

I begged Jason to please go buy a spider bomb from Lowes or Home Depot and set it off in the Shed ASAP.  Thankfully he spotted the spiders while still outside & killed them out there.  But I'm terrified of these things getting in the house now.  You know they're poisonous right?

I'll be spraying all our window frames & door frames with Raid this evening.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Let's Pretend It's Still Summer Shall We?

I can't believe summer has already come & gone :-( 
I've actually come to love the summers here in the South,
despite the humid days and high temperatures. 
In late September & early October we were still having gorgeous 80 degree weather and both my sisters came out for visits separately. 
At first I thought I would be bummed not having all 3 of us together at the same time,
but then I later really appreciated that I had them all to myself with some one-on-one time.

Kati came out for a quick 4 days and we jam packed as much as we could do of both relaxation and fun.  

We squeezed in breakfast at The Hermitage Cafe,

 coffee at Crema,

 a trip to the Nashville Flea Market,

BBQ at Pucketts in Leipers Fork,

snuggled up at an evening Brentwood softball game with hot coffee,

and later that evening, a homemade Peanut Butter/Butterfinger Cheesecake.
You'll notice that Seven is next to the oven by my feet, Jeep next to him and Jason halfway between the dining and living room.  Just a regular evening chillaxin at the Keith home.
Jeep & Seven wishing Kati would just drop something for them to nibble on.

We also enjoyed some delicious Jenni's Ice Cream at Hot & Cold in Hillsboro Village,

and played fetch with the boys in the backyard,  
It was all so wonderful & went by way too quickly!


A week later, Kris came out for 10 days and we spent a few days in Nashville & then headed down to Destin, Florida for 5 days on a white sandy beach with blue/green water.  It was ah-maz-ing!
Really, what more can I say?  Who knew this gem of paradise was a 7 hour drive away? 


To help pass the time and distract Kris from getting car sick, we listened to The Confession by John Grisham which we rented from Cracker Barrel. I wasn't a huge fan, but it did the trick.  

I mean seriously, how cute is the huge 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo that we stayed at?




We cooked, we slept, we laid in the sun, we read and I tapped, tapped, tapped on my iPad. 

It was heaven.

And now they're gone and in just a short time I'll see them again at Christmas - can't wait!