It's a crock pot ~~FIESTA~~ (or what is the chinese word for party??)

I got the GREATEST crock pot book for Christmas. I have a million crock pot books, but they are the same old heavy types of foods that are nice on a cold winter day now and then, but not for everyday stuff. THIS one is different! There are tons of great recipes in from it that I can't wait to cook! And I am starting today! Tonight everyone is coming over and Mom and I are making 2 dishes from the book, Thai Pork with Peanut Sauce and Orange Hoisin Chicken. They are both VERY different than stuff we have ever had, but that's part of the fun of it...if they are yucky... oh well. ..lol! We also are firing up the rice cooker to steam up lots of jasmine rice to accompany our dishes... so at least we'll eat rice ;)




And here are a couple from xmas dinner that I never blogged about because I left my camera at Liz and Jrs and didn't go and get it til last night when I went to borrow Liz's crock pot.

P.S. 庆祝活动 <--- there is the word for celebratory activities in chinese, and here is how to say it... qìngzhù huódòng

....and here it is in Thai เลี้ยง

Just tryin' to keep ya all educated n' stuff LOL!!

Christmas eve and morning

We have had a great Christmas so far and we haven't even had dinner or done presents with my side of the family yet!! The kids slept a little later than usual, we didn't get up til 530, so no naps needed! I LOVE not feeling all morning like I can't WAIT to get back to bed for a nap!

It was goooooood :-)

I didn't break out the camera til late in the night after Nicole reminded me that I hadn't taken any photos... so for more photos... and VIDEO... Ya may wanna hop on over to Jerry's Blog later on after he gets all artsy-fartsy and finishes his movie. :)

SO READY!!!!

I am SO ready for the Christmas Party tonight and SOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!!!!

The house isn't quite as ready as I am yet.... but I am almost to the point of not caring because I am sick of cleaning. Maybe I should break out the wine a little early, then I REALLY wouldn't care!! ;-)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This weekend....

Jessi was away at a friend's.... Sean was long gone to bed... so Rick and I got slightly inebriated and..... well.... ok AFTER that.... Rick suggested that we wrap some Christmas presents. the kids have been BEGGING for 2 weeks to have presents under the tree, so I agreed, even though I was not confident in my wrapping abilities at that point in time. I am not the best present wrapper anyway... and I think I dropped the tape and scissors 874 times, BUT Rick actually WRAPPED some presents.... which he has *always* insisted that he is completely unable to do... so next year at wrapping time... I know the trick! LOL

The next morning was like Christmas (hee hee) when Sean came downstairs. He promptly inspected each one and then made them all into a "house."

Today we grouted my REAL TILE FLOOR in my master bathroom!! No more fakey tiles in this house now that we know how easy it is to do the real thing! Next stop is the downstairs bathroom since bad, naughty Lucy ripped up so many tiles....and since we never finished them in there anyway. Next weekend Scott is coming to put in the fixtures and I will have MY OWN BATHROOM!!! Only 4 years later.... but who's counting? Note the lovely little 5 year old boy handprints in caulk on my freshly painted wall that I now have to sand and repaint.

I also decided that this is the year (by this I mean 2009) is the year I get my bedroom all fancied up instead of it being a gym and room for storing clean clothes. Elsie Flanigan's blog about her cute bedroom made me get all excited to do mine! I got the bed I have wanted for YEARS earlier this year and have still done nothing with the reast of the room (except put up my cool funky mirror). And for you naysayers out there appalled that the bed is not made.... get over it, it has a day job titles "Sean's fort." And the sheets don't match the room because my aunt gave them to me and they are the most silkiest, butteriest, most luxurious sheets that I have EVER SLEPT ON, so the color thing gets canceled out in my book! I think window treatments should be #1 on the list...lol. Number 2 is this, or something like it!

And here is Rick rolling his eyes when I talk to him about the things I want to do in the bedroom.... wait... that didn't come out right. LOL

HEY.... I never blogged Turkey Day photos!

What is WRONG with me!!?? LOL

Outtakes that I JUST CAN'T bear to delete...LOL!!

Yesterday Nicole and I did a photo shoot with the kids. Always an interesting challenge.....

G..... O..... LET'S GO!!!

Don't make me go ALONE!!!!!!

This winter I have decided to learn to ski! If I'm going to do all this low-carb crap and loose weight... then I need to kick the sedentary lifestyle up a notch (or would that be down a notch?) and keep it off... so I have to find fun ways to do it cuz EXERCISE SUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKSSSSSS!!! My friend Karyn from work was going come with me, but she has been having back problems the past couple months and doesn't want to make it worse... so she totally bailed on me!!

Soooooo.... SOMEONE out there MUST join me! Don't make me make an ass of myself alone!! (and I WILL be making an ass of myself... I just hope I can STAND, because I tried water skiing once and standing was not even close to happening!)


Here is the info Come on.... JUST DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow... I called Rick this morning and told him it was way worse this year

....but this is beyond disgusting behavior and makes me embarrassed to be a part of it!! You'd think it would go without saying but NOTHING at Walmart is worth stepping over someone's dying body for!!

Wal-Mart worker dies after shoppers knock him down

"Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help the man were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said. Witnesses said that even as the worker lay on the ground, shoppers streamed into the store, stepping over him.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,"' she said. "They kept shopping."

The 34-year-old man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined, and the man's name was not released....."

Just woke up from my Black Friday nappie...

THAT my friends, is a really bad camera photo of me getting onto the Stillwater Ave off ramp at 3:37AM. I got to the light at the END of the off ramp at 4:02. Got parked and into Kohl's at 4:12. Turns out that was FAR too late to get to Kohl's as the lines for the sets of registers on each side of the store went all the way around to the back of the store and CROSSED EACH OTHER! There was nothing at Kohl's that I needed that badly, so I left and went to line up at Old Navy, opening at 5am. MUCH better idea since it got me one of the 50 free mp3 players that I have no idea what to do with since we all already have mp3 players...lol!! Old Navy had tons of great deals and the kids both wanted and needed lots of stuff there, so that was a great stop! Next stop... TARGET. Standing room only there... and since it was now 6am and everyone'morning beverages were kicking in... the line for the bathroom was crazy and then the women even decided to bumrush the men's bathroom!! MAYHEM I TELL YOU ..... MAYHEM!! There was a bunch of stuff I wanted there though, so not only did I stick it out... but later on I went home and got the kids and went back! I also hit Burlington Coat Factory for the fake UGGS for 9.99 for Jessi (ok... I got some too...lol), and it was dead there. How the hell does that place stay open!? People going to Walmart were parking by the road by Burlington and WALKING to Walmart because the lot was full!! Buncha WACKOS!!!

It's TURKEY DAY!!!!

The bird is all bagged up and ready to go into the oven. The house is ....not quite clean.... and I have not yet showered or anything, so of course I am blogging! I was making a chocolate cream pie, but Jessi came and took over. Someday I will probably not be allowed to cook anything in this house, which stinks because I love to cook...lol!!

Last night Jessi went all "pioneer woman" and made her recipe for...

Caramel Pumpkin Gingersnap Cheesecake

I think it was the most complicated thing she has made so far and she didn't even miss a beat. The only little glitch she ran into was when she filled her springform pan (that she bought in North Conway and has been DYING to use and FINALLY was able to) with the cheescake mixture and had A TON left over! I guess Ree's pan was much bigger! No harm done though, we had to gingersnaps left over, so we just made another little one :)

HEY... did you know you could make collages/storyboards in Picasa now!!?? LOVES IT!!! All you do it select all the photos you want in the collage and then up at the top hit "create" and "collage." SUPER EASY!!! If you click on it you can see it bigger. I am LOVING the collages!

Are you ready for some turkey!?

I love turkey day. Mostly because it's the day before my REAL favorite day... BLACK FRIDAY!!!! But also because I love cooking and eating and having a house full of people! This year is easy peasy for me. All I have to cook is the turkey and stuffing and maybe a side dish or 2. I am also going to attempt to make HOMEMADE cinnamon butter ....hopefully just like the stuff at Texas Roadhouse. (unfortunately I am a little at a loss of what to get for rolls to go with it...) Where did I get such a crazy-ass idea like making my own butter, you ask? Well..... I recently came upon another 'foodie blog' that I am obsesssed with. The food she makes is different and fun and her photography is FREAKIN' AMAZING!!!!

Not sure what I'm going to make for sides yet. I kinda wanna make something in my crockpot and I am also pondering a thousand of the pioneer womans side dishes!!

No returns or exchanges please.

Well.... Lucy had her first vet appt today and it wasn't the best appt I have ever been to. Turns out our little lady is a bit on the defective side. I always thought her ribs stuck out too much and wondered sometimes if we were feeding her enough. Turns out we are feeding her plenty, and only one side of her ribs stick out too much... 3 inches more than the other side. The vet said the birth defect diesn't appear life threatening, but he is eager to see her anatomy on the x-rays and when he "opens her up" (ew) when she is spayed in a couple months. So... not terrible news, but not exactly the 'here's some shots, your dog looks great' typw appointment that I was used to... well... up until this year anyway... Now Rick calling us the King and Queen of deformed and dilapidated dogs.

On a much more fun note... I took Jessi an Mikayla to see 'Twilight' this evening and I did not expect to say this at all but WOW!!! that was the best movie I have seen in a LONG time. It has it all... action... romance...humor... violence... beautiful cinematography.... native american folklore... vampires.... LOVED it and just ordered the whole series from Amazon to read... for Jessi for Christmas... yeah... for JESSI!! LOL

Cast pics as promised!

 

 

There's a sucker born every minute....

So Rick let the cat out of the bag, so I guess I have to face the music. I got totally caved and got another dell. I am a dumb, stupid sucker. I got a dell mini cuz... well I don't really have a good reason except that it's really cute and I can take it places and it's really cute ;-)

Jury is still out on it. It is very tiny and the keyboard and touch pad definitely take some getting used to. And I initially thought it was really slow, but it turned out it was downloading and windows updating stuff in the background, so it's not really slow at all. I do love the small size and handy-dandyness of it.

So.... I'll give it a week and then make my judgement on whether it says or goes.

For those of you out there wondering...

Yup. It's broken.

Tomorrow we make the appointment for the REAL cast... Sean is hoping they have camoflauge. I'm pretty sure they don't.

If you weren't there.... Last night at Nicole's dip party, the kids had a little TOO much fun playing ball around the stairs. Aiden threw a big ball up the stairs to Sean who was at the top of the stairs and Sean dove for it.... and dove himself straight to the 1st floor. Good times, folks. Good times. ;-)

Actually... the party really WAS a great time with great food and great company!! And Sean was even fine a few minutes after the fall so we were hoping all was well, but when this morning he yelped whenever he tried to open something or lift something, I decided we'd need to take a trip to Walk-In Care, I knew it was broken. Because of Sean's SUPER TOUGH demeanor, the doc didn't even think it was broken but did an x-ray just in case, and when it came back showing Sean's 'green stick fracture' he made Sean chant with him, "Mom's are ALWAYS RIGHT" over and over....lol.

What your house turns into when you have a cheerleader living in it....

(note the wardrobe change mid-session... to look better for the myspace photos.... ugh)

Of COURSE Sean had to get in on the action....

and Sampson had to come in to see what all the commotion was about....

"OK... OK,.. No more photos PLEASE!"

I actually dug out my external flash that I NEVER USE for these and bounced it from the ceiling... I should really use my flash more!