Grandchild Blessing

This past Sunday Shane's grandparents had a little Christmas party for all the grandkids. It was so special getting to be a part of this. I loved the idea of having this grandchild blessing that I had to share..

After Christmas last year Shane's grandmother Paulette told each grandchild that she was going to crochet an afghan blanket for each of us. She asked us to pick which color of yarn and design we wanted. All year long she has worked on them for us. All 11 of us grandkids! Then on Sunday we all headed to their house for the blessing. We had Christmas food and treats, sang Christmas carols, and then they gave each of us our blankets as well as a blessing. 

We are truly blessed!

Distorted

Not sure if you all have seen this or not, but it bothered me so much I felt that I had to post it! I came across this article this morning that talks about the popular clothing line H&M and how it uses a fake computerized body and then crops a head on top for modeling their clothes. I guess this bothers me so much because 1 in 200 American women suffers from anorexia and 2 to 3 in 100 American women suffers from bulimia. We wonder why there are so many people suffering from eating disorders? Maybe it is because people look at these FAKE models and wish they could look like this. But in reality, it is not even a real person. This makes me so sad..

You can find the articles here and here that talk about this.

Thanksgiving Post

Oh my gracious, this Thanksgiving I have SO much to be thankful for. At first this post was going to be a list of all the different things I am Thankful for this year, but I think that list might have gone on for days... let's just say I am one blessed lady! It has been a wonderful year for me and I couldn't feel more lucky. This was me and Shane's first Thanksgiving together. We headed down to San Antonio to spend it with my family since we will be spending Christmas with his family. It was so nice to get to be with ALL my family. It is hard to get us all in one place, but somehow we made it happen and it was an awesome time filled with lots of great food, a little bit of shopping, pedicures, some great catch phrase playing and lots of pictures. Just love family time. I hope everyone else's Thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas..

Okay so I must confess....I use to be one of those people that got so irritated when people put out Christmas stuff way early. Mostly for that fact that I hate that often times Thanksgiving gets looked over because people are already getting so ancy about Christmas. But guess what I did this past weekend? I put up my Christmas decor. Yes, two weeks before Thanksgiving.Yikes....I know I know! BUT I have a whole new outlook on this situation and I promise I will not judge others that put their decorations out early ever again! Here is my reasoning for my extra earliness this year:

1. Shane & I are spending Thanksgiving with my family in San Antonio this year, and I really really want to come home from the Thanksgiving break to a house ALREADY decorated.

2. We are also going on a two week vacation during the second half of December with Shane's family, which means I only get two weeks in December to enjoy the decorations at my house. This made me sad.

3. This is the first year that we have our OWN tree to decorate. I personally felt like this was a big deal!

So there it is, my three reasons. I also made sure that I am not overlooking Thanksgiving. Not at all. We actually have SOOO much we are Thankful for this year. It has been one special year for us. But I realized that it is completely okay to love Christmas decorations and as long as you don't forget about how special Thanksgiving is as well, you can put up you Christmas stuff whenever you like! No judgement here!

Poor Shane was sick with a stomach bug, but he still managed to help with getting the tree up. He is THAT great of a husband.

All lit up. I just love it.

 Of course my Nutcracker collection came out as well. This isn't even all of them. They are scattered everywhere. I try to get a new nutcracker each year.

And here is our Santa Cookie Jar. Found this little goodie at Target this weekend. Felt it was a must have! Shane made sure to let me know that there HAS to be homemade cookies in there at all times. Need to get on the baking pronto so he will be a happy camper.

Happy Halloweenie! (just a little late)

Our Halloween weekend through Pictures:

Okay, not a Halloween pic, but it came from the weekend of Halloween, and I like it. And I LOVE him. Lots.

Lucy wanted a picture also.

Trunk 'n' Treat at Highland. Our trunk was a campsite theme. So naturally we pulled out our flannel and were campers. I guess Greg and Shane thought they were too cool for flannel! ha

Shane came up with the brillant idea to do the go fishin for your candy at one of our trunks. It was lots of work for us, but the kids loved it!

On Halloween night, we decided to go to a Haunted house? Why? Good question. None of us were too crazy about haunted houses, but it was HALLOWEEN. It felt necessary to go to one.

Poor Shane had to put up with me going through the haunted house. I was not to keen on the idea of people jumping out a me. 

And of course I had to take a picture with my pugs and our cute scarecrow and pumpkins :)

Laundry

You know, I really don't mind cleaning and keeping up with the chores around my house. Sometimes I even find cleaning therapeutic. And it for sure makes me feel accomplished when I clean.  But there is one chore I can't stand.....folding the laundry. It is even hard to type it out because I dislike it that much. I don't mind the cleaning part of laundry. It is just the folding. Yuck. For the past two weeks I have been great about getting the laundry cleaned, but once it is done I throw it on the guest bed to be folded. But has it been folded? No, of course not. Two weeks of mine and Shane's clothes+towels+sheets is just piling up on the bed. Finally today I decided I have to put my dislike aside and....fold. 

Yes, it covered all of our queen size bed. Ridiculous.

An hour later, everything was folded and put away. Anyone have an advice on how to make folding easier/more fun/tolerable?

ACU Homecoming 2011

So I have been anticipating this weekend for a long time now. I love homecoming and all the festivities that are in store and I love seeing all my friends, so this weekend was bound to be a good one. 

Now first let me tell you a funny story, so Friday night Shane went out with some guy friends that were in town for homecoming. So this left me home by myself. Which was totally fine, until this loud banging noise started going off. My dogs started going crazy and I started to panic trying to figure out what it was. I promise you it sounded EXACTLY like someone was trying to get into the garage. I immediately called Shane, but he didn't answer. So I thought to call one of his family members. But I thought to myself, If someone is trying to break in, I don't have time for that, I need to call the police. So I dialed 911, something I have NEVER done before. I told them that there was banging and that I thought someone was trying to break in. They took my name, address and then preceded to ask me if there were any cars outside besides mine. So I headed over to the window to check outside for mysterious cars, something I hadn't thought to do. And that's when I saw it..... A glimpse of a firework going off in the distance. I about died. All the banging I was hearing was fireworks going off at ACU. I felt so silly and apologized to the 911 operator. He said it happens all the time :) So I am officially that girl. Ah, but it made for a good story right? 

Saturday morning I woke up at 5 am, yep you read that right, 5:00 stinkin early a.m. to go to Kojie Breakfast. Now, that is what I call dedication! 

Then following breakfast was the always enjoyable Parade...

 Of course I spilled my much needed coffee over Rachel and myself....awesome.

Then came the Football game vs. West Texas A&M. Which we won of course!

 Pretty Kojies on homecoming court...

It was a wonderful weekend but went by way too fast. Seems like every weekend is like that! And now I am one worn out lady. Today is definitely a day of rest for me!

Yall it's Fall!

Fall time means cooler weather, which means I can officially make some homemade soup since it's not 100 degrees out! Ah, I have been waiting for this for so long! So Monday I tried out a new recipe for Corn Chowder! It was very tasty and Shane liked it too. Which is always important :)


Here is what you need:


1 1/2 teaspoons canola oil
2 large onions, chopped (I ended up only using about 1 1/2 onions. 2 is alot!)
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 red bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
3 1/2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried
1 bay leaf
2 cups frozen corn kernels
1 potato, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 12-ounce can nonfat evaporated milk
Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
Pinch cayenne pepper

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a large heavy saucepan over low heat. Add onions and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add celery, bell pepper, garlic and cumin; cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes. Add broth, thyme and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
2. Add corn and potatoes, return to a simmer and cook until all the vegetables are tender, 5 to 10 minutes. Place cornstarch in a small bowl, slowly add evaporated milk, stirring until smooth. Stir into the soup and return to a simmer. Cook, stirring, until thickened, about 2 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne.

Makes 6 Servings

And for my favorite part, the Nutritional Info Per Serving: 
200 calories; 2 g fat; 5 mg cholesterol; 38 g carbs; 10 g protein; 4 g fiber; 208 mg sodium