Happy New Year!

yes....i am sitting here on the computer right before the ball drops. just had to update a few things, so i thought i would say hello and have a blast....drink an amaretto! i had 2 earlier this eve at chilis and that was good enough for me. i enjoyed them. they're my fave. and i did some silly photos. cause i'm cool like that.

Daily Photo {Sun Rays}

This is down behind the club house looking over the golf course.

boots

about a month ago, i was digging through kohl's shoe department to find a pair of boots and since i like to hide things for another day,....{not because i haven't got enough money or anything but because i shop with my two very lovely wild and crazy children and sometimes we need to scoot before i go berserk} i hid this black pair that were low with zippers on the side somewhere in the mens shoes. went back days later to find that they DO clean their store up at the end of the day and browsed the women's section to find them staring right back at me. i said to myself i wasn't letting them get away this time. here's the thing. my kids are great kids. but i'm constantly shopping for them and i end up buying myself nothing. i always put it back or say i would just rather make them happy and let them buy things. but then they take it to a whole nother level. they can't wait patiently for me to finish what i'm looking for so i end up getting really peeved because the store is crammed in that department. mind you, i have to make sure no one steals my six year old because she is that cute and she could go for millions in another country,..but they fail to realize this and think they can head to their department, so guess what...i have to get up and go be by their side because nobody is making a couple dollars off this gorgeous face. and where is dad. dad is off yonder because men think they don't have to have the kids in stores. they get to wonder and if i tell him to take the kid,...he doesn't pay much attention so i worry and that doesn't make for a good shopping eve. he'd probably notice she was missing ten minutes later.

After I bought the black ones at kohls, m was doing her photo shoot and slipped down some stairs. she scuffed the top of my new boots. i didn't care much. i was just concerned if she was okay and she was. this is why you don't let almost 12 year old girls wear grown up ladies boots that slip. so much for doing a photo shoot myself in those boots. now i'm on the hunt for more. we went to the mall last weekend when we ran into the same problem. dad gets impatient waiting for me and the girls are trying on every pair of display shoes possible. dillards is packed. we stumble across uggs that m wants. i had not like them at all but was monkeying around with them and dillards had some pretty ones. i then wanted a pair.

but now spending 180 on a pair of boots seems ridiculous but they are comfy and since we both want some that would be 360 just on boots. oh and i bought some for sugar mama. so now we are at 540 plus tax over six hundred bucks on boots. that's just crazy. so i'm going to vs this weekend and going to see if they have cheaper boots i like. i could spend that much on a pair of boots or anything i wanted but it just seems so odd to me. does anyone else feel that way. i don't know...maybe it's a mom thing.

xoxo happy boot shopping

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What I Love

Morning fabness. I went out this morning to start the car for the babe and the air was so cold but so refreshing. I keep having conversations with him about moving back up north somewhere and I have doubts because I am so used to the warmth but in all reality it is a breath of fresh air and much needed. I have to grasp it because before I know it...it's going to be ninety once again. I could dance butt naked in the freezing cold, all day. Because that is how much I LOVE LIFE.

I read on a bumper sticker yesterday: "Your Hate Becomes You" and throughout my life I have never hated anyone. I've always been forgiving. Maybe I'm hurt but never hated someone because of it. I come from a huge family of ignorance and stubbornness but at the same time, we learn to get over those petty things and love. I am speaking for myself because in all of my life, I have been the one to make the first move when someone has acted silly, whether it's a text, a card or a phone call. I've always let things go and been the "bigger person". To me,...life is way too short to miss the opportunity to say, "I Love You." and those people that are being stubborn will some day regret the fact that they had the chance to say it and never did.

As many times as I have been through a cashiers line, only a handful of them smile, say hello and wish you a good day. I always thought it was just rude. How dare they not greet me or say have a good day. But. They have the shittiest jobs and only get paid a pancake. So many times, I am the first to say hello and I always tell someone to have a great day because that is me. I do it here on le blog. Ever since I was seventeen working in a clothing store, I had said, "Have a great day", and in return sometimes they say nothing. Honestly, I was very bothered by that. When I say something nice to you, please return the love. But that is never the case. Rarely does anyone understand why you are saying it and they maybe never had this before and how sad it is that someone doesn't know how to say, have a great day. They could be hurting in ways we can never imagine. Kate had expressed this on her site some weeks ago as well. It's just really important to smile and say nice things to people. Give compliments and hugs.

I love little puppies and this one has all the right wrinkles.

{pics}

I hope you all have a great day. Be peachy and fab.

Spaghetti Sub

I was in a little restaurant sitting at a booth with my mother and an old friend from my pharmacy days. Along with some other people but I couldn't really see their faces. We were eating and I had a bunch of noodles in my bun. It was very, oh so carbalicious. I can remember the way the stringy noodles laid smack dab in the bun and it was enormous. Something I could not finish, so my mother went up to the drink fountain to get a refill but she also carried my left over spaghetti sub as it lay on the wrapper foil it came in. I have no idea why she was bringing my food to the fountain to refill my coke but I glanced up and the sub was falling apart. It made me really mad. She was being very sloppy with herself and destroyed my sub. I get very peeved when something happens to my food. I'm like a starving scrounge when it comes to food.

{pic}

This is obviously not what my sub looked like but can you believe there is no spaghetti sub photos on the web. Just imagine a ton of long noodles with very light sauce smashed in a big fat sub roll. You get it. Anyways, we left the nook and I ended up in a run down house where someone had broken into. The doors were off the hinges and I was trying to grab all of my Christmas ornaments off the floor to try to salvage what we had left in the place. My brother {who passed away 8yrs ago} was with me and we were running from someone, something...I have no idea. We ended up in a grocery store where we had two carts full and Bryan had already paid for everything except the second cart. We realized that we needed the paper towels and paper goods when he refused to wait to be rung out again. As he headed out, I tried shoving the paper towels underneath the paid cart but felt guilty and left everything in that cart for another day, another store.

And then I woke up. Very Well. Now I'm in dire need of eating a spaghetti sub.

To The Movies We Go

We had a marvelous holiday weekend. Hope you all did as well. We did nothing but relax and went to the movies on Christmas. Yogi 3D was hilarious. Not because the movie itself was but because when you put this mother with her six year old daughter in a public setting, all funny gets loose. Before we had even thought about leaving the house, I stated to Bry, "Are you sure...because you know she won't sit still." She's six. With a mild case of ADHD, okay a serious case of it....not really but you'd think she had it. Yep. He decides that's where we are headed. To the movies we go.

The kids are getting excited and when we get in the theater, there are like maybe two people with kids and a crying baby. It's empty. We try several different seating areas to get the best seats. The kids are flopping around like hyenas and when it gets about five minutes until show time, Bryan runs out to get popcorn and drinks. I snuck my own candy in. We have our 3D glasses on and it's ready to start. Only two more groups came in. Mind you, the group of four, four rows ahead of us are flashing pictures of themselves with their phone and the pics ain't even coming out because it's dark.

Bryan gets back and about five minutes into the movie, Hannah and I are laughing....she's starting to get antsy after a scoop of popcorn and she's talking to me. Bryan tells her she can't talk while the movie is playing. It goes in one ear and out the other. Continues. She obviously can't understand that. So she's speaking very loud. I act as if we are at home watching a movie or show because really nobody was in there and the other people are disturbing as well. Who cares. I tend to ignore Hannah and watch the movie or speak to her because really I don't mind. I can watch and talk to my kids at the same time. Bryan on the other hand, gets very pissed. He's ready to remove her and I start cracking up. There is no need to get so mad. It's a kids movie first of all, secondly.....I WARNED YOU before we even left the house. So I just could not stop laughing. The way Hannah is...is funny. She says whatever and does whatever when she wants....Her facial expressions get me going. At the same time, I am telling her to Shhhh....and it doesn't work. We proceed to take a bathroom break halfway through the movie and I figure it's a good thing to let her get up and stretch. When we go back, I tell her she can sit in the empty row in front of us. She puts her funky peace hat on and her 3D glasses and watches the movie.....she's just funny to look at, so I start laughing again. The movie was good though....and since there was crying babies and picture snapping (the usher had to tell them to stop) we got an extra 4 tickets to go back. Hahaha......what an adventure.

How was your weekend...did you do anything exciting.?!

Spritz Holiday Cookies

It felt oh so good to sleep in this morning. Thank you job for giving him these days off because I really needed that. Shortly after 10, I hear sirens. Loud sirens. And an annoying "WAKE UP....IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP." Mmmhmmm. It was a ring tone that Bryan was playing with on his phone. It's so very annoying too because women-we know how bad men can be at acting like a kid. He jumps on everyone too. Very well. This is what I get for loving this man.

A HUGE thank you to Ash. She posted her spritz cookies just recently and I remembered that I hadn't tried ours. Because I didn't have a cookie press thingy majig but we wanted to taste them instead of drooling over them, so we gave it a shot and they turned out so good.

The cutest baker ever.....

This drizzle frosting is so simple. Add 1 cup of powdered sugar, 2 tbsp. of milk and 2 tbsp. light corn syrup. Just mix the sugar and milk and then the corn syrup. Add more to make more...I ended up running out when we got to our trees.

 Drizzle right over your cookies. and sprinkle whatever toppings you like.

For the cookies, I just kind of whipped them out and placed them on the wax paper. I didn't care too much about shaping....until we tried the cookie cutters and it was hard to do except when you roll the dough back into flour, seemed a little easier and just be careful when picking up-otherwise they fall apart.

The trees turned out great....except there was barely enough drizzle to pour....ahhhh welll...still cute.!

I licked the plate...not really but it looked pretty!

You can grab the cookie recipe here and Ashley's recipe here.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Daily Photo: {Ornaments}

sent in by a sorta fairytale

Christmas Frame and A Pretty Ornament

Today I was cleaning and came across this picture frame. Allow me to explain how it came to us because it's rather funny. M had come home from school last week with a present. It was wrapped very pretty. I said, "Oh how nice of her to give you a present." She placed it under the tree and it had a tag on it, "To Mackenzie.....Do Not Open Until Christmas." Blah Blah Blah.....so she did. But for some reason or another she kept fiddle faddling with it. She was bugging that we had to rush out and get her friends gifts because they were giving to her. Okay. Let me think. Um. No. I said find something around the house because I have a CRAP load of Lip Gloss and Cosmetics that are brand new never opened still in my bedroom and bathroom. I just go on a splurge when clearance hits me and I never end up using them. So it's great when things like this come rolling around. She refused and insisted that I buy something from the store.

Bryan was sitting on the couch when I said, "Please hun. Tell her she doesn't have to give something extravagant, just give a lip gloss or something." He comes up with the idea that we open peek at this present and see what her friend gave her. That way we know if we need to get her a million dollar gift or not. I know. What a shame. We are. Anywho. I peeked. I didn't take all the pretty wrapping off because it was taped where I could peek and M is like, "Come on Mom. I already know what it is." Oh really.  If you know then why are just now telling me. Weird. So I continue to look. It's a nice frame but when I pull it out (because she already knows) there is a picture inside of Mackenzie's Fashion Art. Okay. I laugh. What is this shit. She begins to explain because at this point I can't stop laughing my ass off. Sorry. Way too funny.

M has this kit where she draws the designs and supposedly she gave one to her friend some time ago. Nice. Okay. Whatever. But the girl had given her the drawing back in this frame. Hahahaha.....Ok....kids these days. I said, "Very Well." I, being a very nice mother take her down to CVS and grab 3 boxes of candy canes for her to give to her friends and 2 bags of coal for her closer friends. They were bubblegum in a coal bag. Cute enough...get outta here.

But the real funny part. Okay. Wait. Get this.

M had come home from school that day, ripped it open (I had no idea) and placed a different fashion design in the frame and wrapped it back up pretending that she didn't know what it was. What a goober.

And so I take the frame and make this-

I go and check the mail and get my ornament from this pretty lady. Brit had a fun exchange on her site and I wish I had more time to do others. It was sooo nice....and this is so beautiful, sitting right by our new framed Christmas pics:) thank you so much gorgeous.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Peace. Love and Happiness.

Daily Photo: {Winter Cardinals}

Aunt Lucy had these on her facebook.

What I Love

It's time for what I love Wed. I am totally enjoying the girls home at the same time for 2 weeks. I know I may be switching the story come next week but for now, loving it and wishing we don't get ill because M is spreading her sore throat rather quickly. I love that I had barely any sleep and my ear is starting to ache but I sit here on the couch and drink my coffee and talk to you because as mothers, we know how impossible it is to fall back to sleep once your up.

{pic}

I love all of your sweet comments and I thank you for being a great friend. It means a lot, especially when we don't spend the holidays with extended family. It's much needed and I miss it dearly. My little sis and I need to be laughing in person together versus over a 12 hour phone call. It's hurting my heart but at the same time I do not wish to be in freezing cold. If some of them would just mosey on down south, we'd be great.

I love the many different birds around here. They were drying their wings and it was so pretty.

As always the view. It's a joy I get to experience each and every day. Each day, it has a totally different vibe, which makes it paradise.

have a lovely day.

xoxo

These Trees

We went for a really nice bike ride yesterday. The wind was breezy but the weather was warm. I needed the fresh air to brush up against my face and boy did it feel wonderful.

As the leaves change and the air smells fresh, I wish the entire year would be this gentle. It's just so much better than the hot blazing summer heat. I admire the scenery. It's so pretty and we have so much land that I can find something new each day to fall in love with.

This looked like a huge acorn of some sort with these beautiful reddish orange vegetables pouring out. The animals eat them.

I've been meaning to search the internet to find the names of everything but I get lost and have no patience or time for searching.

All I know is that they are prettyful and worth sharing;)