Well...

the Mayans said the world would end today.

It didn't.

We're still here.  And after fighting the traffic to pick up my last few Christmas gifts this morning, I'm SO glad I didn't wait to see if the world ended before I started my shopping.

I'll tell you what did end today, the fall semester of 2012.  Can I get an amen?!

We have been LIVING for Christmas break.  I can physically feel it when we check each responsibility off of our to-do list.  The parties are had, the gifts are wrapped, and the alarm clocks are turned off.  The kids are home from school and Honey just walked in from work.  Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

For the next two weeks there will be deep sleeping, game playing, movie watching, window shopping, coffee drinking, family loving, friend visiting, book reading, puzzle working, food cooking, and treat baking going on at our house.

In case I don't see you before then, Merry Christmas, Y'all.

Just for fun...

Because I need a little light-hearted and fun at the end of this long week.

What do you want for Christmas?  A couple of my favorite bloggers have posted their real and not so real Christmas wishes this week.  It sounded like such a fun idea, I thought I would, too.

Here's my totally shallow, mostly dreamy, a touch of reality Christmas wish list.  (in no particular order...)

1.  This purse from Coach

2.  And this wallet

Because it matches Coach (that's what I would call it if I got it), but sometimes you just need your phone, ID, and a bit of cash...like if you are going to the gym, or to pick the kids up at the movies, or to Sonic.





3.  A personal chef...because I should SO be cooking supper right now.

4.  A vacation to this place.  Plan it for about mid-January, about the time all the crowds die down.

7.  Speaking of vacations.  I would also like to take a trip with Honey.

6.  I need a copy of Downton Season 2 on DVD.  And while we're at it, just go ahead and send Season 3, so I can invite my friend Valerie over and we can WATCH IT ALREADY!

7. I'm also a fan of gift cards.  Call it impersonal if you want.  I call it really fun.  Shopping with money that you didn't budget?  Fun!  I'm partial to Eddie Bauer, DSW Shoes, and Victoria's Secret.  And Sonic. And Starbucks.  And NOOK!  It's the time of year when I like to curl up with a good book or two, or six.

So.  Spill it.  What's on your real and/or dreamy Christmas wish list?

For the Grandmas

Mary TuTu - Gymnast; Bubba - M & M; Brooke - Josh Hamilton

This was the first year that no one cried while we were getting ready.  The itchy gold medal didn't say "Gymnastics" and the request to "draw tatoos on my arm with a sharpie" got a big fat no, but no tears.  

The holiday stressed me out a little less than normal.  

It was an All Hallows Eve miracle.

Happy Valentines Day!

Honey,

I'm so glad I get to do life with you. I miss you when you're gone, and I'm never more excited than when you come home.

Thank you for giving me love, support, encouragement, hugs, time, and coffee in bed.

Every day with you is a good day.

Love, Jenni

Lately, our days have been merry and bright

Some of the moments that made my holiday...

Merry:
Listening to new Christmas albums...James Taylor At Christmas; Glee:The Christmas Album,Vol. 2; The Sing Off:Songs of the Season, and yes, Justin Bieber's Under the Mistletoe.

The one that made my days most merry was Travis Cottrell's Ring the Bells. I especially love Jesus Saves.

"The redeemed will sing forever, Jesus saves."

I love (and most of the time, prefer) my accapella, congregational singing, Church of Christ background, but listening to Travis Cottrell makes me wish we had a full choir and orchestra every once in a while.

Bright:
Making coffee, tea, and hot chocolate in the Keurig my parents gave us.

Decked:
Wearing my new Lisa Leonard necklace from Honey. I. love. it. I have one charm for each of the kids and one with our anniversary.

Warm:
Watching, not actually getting out in, the snow. We spent Christmas with Honey's family, and, it snowed a little bit. The snow on the cars and most of what is on the driveway is what fell during one day and night. Crazy, huh?



Jolly:
Adding this year's Santa picture to my book.


Festive:
Reading Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan.

Twinkled:
Tubing with Honey and the kids.


Blessed:
Visiting Mema and Popa. I love that my children are able to know and will remember three of their great grandparents.

Quick and Easy Scrapbook Idea

There is one redeeming quality about Halloween: my Halloween scrapbook.

It's small, simple, and took only a couple of hours. I shopped Hobby Lobby and got all of my embellishments and paper on clearance. A 6x6 book is perfect for just one 4x6 picture and a couple of cutsie things.

Now I have a picture of the kids dressed up every year since Bubba was born. For a while I was missing a picture, Bubba's 2nd Halloween. I just left a space for where it should be and went on with life. Eventually I found a picture of the missing night and added it in. Don't let one missing year keep you from such a quick, easy keepsake.

I set my book out some time in September when I decorate for fall and leave it out until I put Christmas up. It's fun to go back and look at how much the kids have grown and what costumes they loved which year.

Here are a few pages out of my book:

While I had all the stuff out and the mess made, I went ahead and scraped pages to fill the book. Now I have pages already done just waiting for a picture. Here are some pages in waiting:

I love my Halloween book. For this wanna-be scrapper, it's the perfect project. I feel a sense of accomplishment, I have a finished product, and I have no excuses for keeping it up-to-date.

I also have a Christmas book with pictures of the kids with Santa. My sister-in-law makes all of my nephew's birthday cakes. I think a birthday cake book would be fun.

Jennifer and her family carve pumpkins every year...

Or what about a first day of school book?

What family traditions do you have that could be a sweet keepsake for your family?

Obligatory Halloween Post

Honey asked me what the term was for a Scrooge at Halloween. I don't know, but I need to find out. Because whatever it is, I am one.

Wicked Witch? I don't know.

I don't dislike Halloween. It just makes me tired. I feel drained and ready for a long winters nap when it's all over.

One thing that makes me tired is shopping with the girls for an age appropriate, modest costume.

My friend Shelly says that I have a gift of talking my kids in to loving any idea. And most of the time, I can. But, it turns out, Halloween is my Achilles heal. When Halloween is the topic, the girls have AN OPINION, and IDEAS, and VISION. And all of those ideas usually involve some combination of short, strapless, form-fitting, and midriff showing.

My mom would say that is the reason she always made my costumes.

Since I don't generally make costumes, my only defense is, "I told you when you bought it you would have to wear a shirt underneath."


Here's what we came up with for this year: a football player, a movie star, and some sort of a school girl witch. There were no tears during the getting dressed part, which is a first for us.

Mary Tutu is the movie star. In the picture on the front of the costume package the girl dressed up is holding an award. For Mary TuTu, no award = no costume. My mom found an award that looks like an Oscar and she carried that thing around all. night. long. I didn't have to hold it or stick it in my purse once.

The day she got it, I heard her practicing her acceptance speech in the bathroom. "Thank you, thank you. Yes, I deserve it...thank you so much!"

The other reason Halloween makes me tired is that it just keeps going and going and going. Since when did it take a week to celebrate Halloween?

Our school's Fall Festival was the week before Halloween. The kids love going to the festival and seeing all of their teachers and friends. And it's an OK way to spend 2 hours and $40...it's just not my thing.

One of the fundraisers at the festival is the class pumpkin auction. The teachers get to keep whatever money their class pumpkin brings in. PTA donates the pumpkins, but I volunteered to decorate the pumpkins for the kids' teachers.

Brooke's class pumpkin


Mary TuTu's class pumpkin

Bubba's class pumpkin

Bubba's was actually the easiest to make, it just took a while for the Mod Podge to dry. Gran's Cricket and large supply of cute paper came to the rescue when we were cutting the spiders. I love that thing. I get first dibs on the Cricket when Gran dies.

Brooke's was finished first. I don't recommend rub-ons for real pumpkins. They were hard to keep stuck to the pumpkin. We finally put a couple of coats of Mod Podge on that one, too.

Mary TuTu's was a disaster. It started out as a bat, but another class had already made one just like it, so we adapted it to a vampire. She wanted it blue, and the only blue paint I had was tempera paint.

DO NOT USE TEMPERA PAINT ON A REAL PUMPKIN. IT WON'T STICK.

After waiting all day for the tempera paint to dry, we scrubbed it off and used spray paint. It worked better, but it was still easy to chip. Glitter and curly ribbon cover a multitude of sins.

I'm so glad another Halloween is in the books!

And...Bah-humbug!

12 years...

Today is our anniversary. We've been married 12 years.

And yes, my bouquet was huge. And heavy. No, I wasn't hiding our love child under there.

See how Honey's hand is in his pocket in this picture? That's the last picture he took that way. The rest of them, the photographer had him slide his hand under the bouquet and help me hold it. My fingers were cramping.

I know, it was a little bit out of control. But back in the 90's everything was big and poof-y and just a bit out of control.

Here's the kiss. It was a good kiss. We practiced...

Honey has done several weddings over the years and my best advice to the bride and groom is to practice your kiss. That's really all I'm qualified to advise on, because remember the flowers? Out. of. control.

And see the minister? That's Honey's brother. You know why he has such a big, cheesy grin? Because instead of saying, "You may kiss the bride.", he'd just said, "You can get all the action you want."

I'm not even kidding.

Imagine trying to explain that to your Mema.

Oh well, we're just as married as we would have been if he'd said, "You may kiss the bride."

I've heard stories of the minister forgetting the kiss altogether, at least he didn't do that. It would have been a shame, what with all the practicing.

I love you, Honey, happy anniversary. I plan on at least 60 more years together, so just brace yourself.

Some thoughts on mothering...

We celebrated Mother's Day much like we always do. We went to early service at church and after Bible class we high-tailed it over to Abuelo's for lunch . . . or brunch, since it was 10:30 am. Technically, that's 11:30 on the East coast, so we were perfectly within the realm of lunch eating times.

It's what you do in our town on Mother's Day. Abuelo's thinks it's because they give out t-shirts to all the moms, but really it's just because it's the most bestest place to eat in town.

The reason I know it's the bestest place to eat is because the doors open at 10 am and if you're not there by 10:20 you have to wait an hour for a table. Thankfully, after being parents for 35 years, my mom and dad know how to sacrifice for the family. They skipped Bible class and got there in time to secure one of the coveted large party tables. Don't judge, that's how we roll.

Which is why I was on the treadmill this morning burning off some calories left over from yesterday. My mind was wandering to summer and the year of mothering ahead of me, and I discovered something about myself.

I LOVE MY CHILDREN. There isn't one thing I wouldn't do for them. Well, I probably wouldn't carry the gaudy, bright yellow Ed Hardy bag that came as the free gift with the perfume they bought me for Mother's Day, but other than that, I'd do anything for them.

It's just so easy to love them. I know it's cliche, but in most ways they really are the best of me and the best of Honey all rolled in to 3 little-ish bodies. Most days I can't think of one thing I don't like about them. It is so fun to see their little personalities bloom and realize, "That's just like something their Daddy would do."

Two of them are more like their Daddy and one is SO much like me. Because I love their Daddy so much, it's really easy to love the two that are like him. They are good to the core. They are relaxed, silly, loving, thoughtful, and giving . . . just like their Daddy. I'm just as in love with them as I am with Honey.

And the other one? The one that's just like me? She's pretty great, too. She's affectionate, observant, smart, giving, patient, and loves to help. She's dependable and caring and will do whatever it takes to please you. And I love her just as much as the other two.

But . . . it's harder for me to express that love. She's the one I loose my patience with first. She's the one that frustrates me to no end. She's the one that drives me crazy.

Oh, they all have their moments, but for some reason, her moments come more frequently.

And I think I know why. At least for today.

She is so much like me. I see her strengths and love them. I see her weaknesses and know that they are my weaknesses. And I HATE those weaknesses. And I didn't understand why she couldn't overcome them until I realized I haven't overcome them either.

I think I expect more out of her because I expect more out of myself.

Is this making any sense?

I'm the first one to love and accept and overlook the strengths and weaknesses of the other two, the two that are little clones of my beloved Honey. It's what I've done with Honey for 15 years and it's only natural that I would do that for them.

But it doesn't happen as easily with the one that is more like me. Because I can't do that for myself. I can excuse and forgive and look the other way with others, but not with myself.

It's not playing favorites. It's that I project the feelings I have toward myself onto her.

So I need to work extra hard to make sure she knows how much I love her. I need to put extra effort into making her secure in that love. I give her the same grace I need from my heavenly father.

And I have to love and accept myself . . . just the way I am, just the way God made me.

I have to realize that God is the creator and changer and shaper. It's his power that makes us in to his image. I don't have to do that for her or myself.

Happy Vday!

We've spent our day close to home. Brooke's tummy has been upset all weekend, so we stayed away from church and kept our germs to ourselves.

You're welcome.

Actually...you may want to hold off on that good citizenship award. We did participate in some germ spreading yesterday. The family was here to celebrate Bubba's birthday. You can't really cancel a birthday party for a teensy-tiny tummy bug that is actually 12 hours old and on it's last leg at party time.

Except...in the wee hours of this morning, that teensy-tiny bug found its second wind.

So...we stayed home, and spent the day together. Just the 5 of us. Because Uncle Bubba isn't here this weekend. Just between you and me, I think he has a little Valentine of his own...

It's been a quiet, peaceful, and relaxing day. The exact opposite of yesterday when we were doing all things basketball, cheerleading, birthday, and family. I'm a fan of quiet, peaceful, and relaxing, but they tell me that I will miss the basketball, cheerleading, and birthday stuff some day.

Hmm...we'll see.

New Year's Eve Scavenger Hunt

Well, when you put off posting for 2 months, you find out who your friends are. I'm surprised anyone is still reading, but a couple of you have asked about the scavenger hunt on New Year's Eve. So, I'll share with you what we did, and it won't take long for you to realize that it really wasn't that big of a deal.

The idea wasn't even mine. I stole the whole thing from my bloggy friend Cindy. (Here's where I would normally link to her blog, but she went all private and stuff, so you'll just have to trust me.)

This is the second year we've done a New Year's Eve scavenger hunt. Last year we did one for just our little family, and this year we invited some friends to join us. Both years we made it to midnight without someone falling asleep or killing one of the kids. That's success in my book.

When the kids wake up the morning of New Year's Eve, they find the fire place hearth looking like this...


...and they think it's Christmas all over again. Basically, each package contains some sort of family activity for the evening and has a note attached specifying what time the gift can be opened. They spend all day looking at the packages, arranging and rearranging them in the order they are to be opened and anticipating what fun is being hidden inside the paper.

I keep this night in mind as I'm shopping the Christmas sales looking for a cheap movie, game, or other activity. For us, the idea is to keep the night full of anticipation and exciting activities so that letting the kids stay up til midnight sounds like a wonderful idea instead of a torturous one.
Some of the activities we've used are:

• a family movie matinee (because it's cheaper)
• a kid friendly dinner (last year it was McDonald's and we killed some time by letting the kids play on the toys)
• a new Wii game (this year I found Deal or No Deal for $10 before Christmas)
• a new board game
• ingredients to make dessert and a late night snack (decorate cookies, make brownies, banana splits, Chex mix, etc.)
• this year since we invited another family to join us, we had dinner at their house and then later in the evening we moved to our house for dessert (kinda' like a progressive dinner)
• last year to provide a break for the adults, we got a new DVD the kids hadn't seen (you can usually find older movies at Walmart for $5 - $7) and we tucked them into our bed to watch it while we watched a more grown up movie Honey had gotten for Christmas
• sparkling cider, cups, hats, and horns to celebrate when it's finally midnight

Some ideas I've thought of but never done are:

• getting really crazy and buying the kids all new pjs to go with the new DVD
• doing some sort of craft (maybe make a frame to display a picture of the family ringing in the new year)
• playing a tournament using a Wii game we already own (ie: bowling, golf, Wii fit, etc)

I think it would fun to do this one night during the summer. The kids are always begging to stay up late during the summer. You could throw a party to kick off summer, or to provide entertainment for the evening while you wait for the fireworks to start on the 4th of July, or maybe it could be an end-of-summer bash. You could include all sorts of outside activities before you had to move indoors.

What do you think? Any other suggestions?

We were full of tricks this year

I know it's a little belated, but I'm procrastinating the cleaning of the bathroom, so I thought I'd post some Halloween pictures.

Here's the "chick magnet". We saw a printed t-shirt on TV several weeks ago, and Bubba adopted the idea for his costume this year. He was so funny walking around wearing his sunglasses acting all "I'm too sexy for my shirt". I know it's hard to see, but those are sticker lipstick smooches on his face. He insisted on stickers and would not let me or his sisters put any real ones on his cheeks!

And...Hannah Montana. Yes, she's rockin' some 6 in platform boots like a pro. I always knew she had some diva in her.

...and sweet Dorothy. When she left the house with Gran and Grampy to go costume shopping, she had no idea what she wanted to be. I think she made a precious choice.

Easter with the Hairdryer Family

Well, we had us some Easter. All I can say is, "Get this candy out of my house!"

I'm not even kidding.

We played some baseball.

We ate some lunch with some cousins, the real ones and the virtual ones.




We hunted some eggs.

We ate too much of this.

We ate lunch with some more family. There was a little of this.

And a lot of this.

Happy day after Easter from the Hairdryer Family.

It was a GOOD Friday

I'm here at home playing nurse to a girl who "throwed up two times this morning". The guys are at Bubba's baseball game. I can't decide who has it worse, me with the thrower-upper, or Honey at the cold, windy game. It's cold out there this morning. And windy. And Honey just called and said they are in a lightning delay. But we're winning. This could be our first win of the season. The first year of kid-pitch is rough.

But since I'm warm at home, I'm attempting to divert my attention away from the cookies we made yesterday by blogging and eating some grapes and yogurt. And you get to hear all about our day yesterday. Because the new, healthy me is not an emotional eater. I do not need a cookie just because I'm missing the first win of the season.

Moving on.

I can't remember a better Good Friday. I mean, it was good.

All week at The Preschool, we've been learning about the letter E, so of course, Thursday afternoon, we made green eggs and ham. The kids loved it even though it ended up looking like guacamole.








So yesterday morning when it was time for breakfast, Bubba and the girls wanted green eggs. I agreed to make them before I checked the pantry and discovered that the only food coloring colors I had was yellow and red. So we had scrambled eggs that were a nice coral color with bacon bits and cheese cooked in.






We had just enough time to clean up breakfast before my new BFF, the Maytag Man, came by. He brought the new washer and dryer. And it was love at first sight. See? They're kinda' winking at me. Or maybe that's the load of towels I already had going. Whatever.

The Maytag Man shared a wealth of information with me as he was setting up my new friends. He said that my old washer used 90 gallons of water every time I ran it, and that the new one will use about the same amount of electricity, but only about 16 gallons of water. Wow! Really? There's that big of a difference?

And the dryer? It will only take about half the electricity my old one did because it will only take about half as long to do the job.

And we made sure to get the set with a large capacity. Because when there are 6 people doing laundry, sometimes it's about quantity. So to test the large capacity-ness I found every bath towel, hand towel and wash cloth I could get my hands on and stuffed them all in the washer. And they fit! And they all came out clean and dry! And I could have probably put a couple more bath towels in if I'd wanted, but I didn't want to ruin a good thing.

Those statistics alone should have been enough to spark some love, but I'm shallow. I love them most because they are red.

Yes, I'm very environmentally conscious.

My secret pal at school gave me some cookie mix, icing, and some spring time cookie cutters. So after lunch, the kids and I made some really tasty Easter cookies. I did not let my lack of food coloring dampen our Good Friday spirits. We made pink, yellow, and orange icing.

And here's the picture that shows just how much will-power I am demonstrating right now. I may or may not have had one or two cookies yesterday, but today is a new day. And did I mention how yummy the grapes and yogurt taste?

And we're not even done yet.

Earlier in the week, Cindy's words really pricked my heart. For whatever reason, it might even be an old-school Church of Christ thing, I've never really thought much about the real reasons we celebrate Easter and Christmas. I know each holiday marks a pivotal point in the life of Jesus and therefore my own personal salvation, and I do love and appreciate those things. But they have never been strongly connected to the holidays for me.

And when I read about the kids Cindy has been working with, and the fact that so many of them didn't know that Easter was more than just bunnies and candy. . . Honestly, I was afraid that my own children could have possibly been in that group. How much of an emphasis do I place on Jesus and the sacrifice he made, and the love God has for me when I plan our Easter celebrations?

So Friday morning, I had the kids help me assemble a set of Resurrection Eggs. At the time, they didn't really know what we were doing, but they were eager to help me think of things around the house to add to the eggs. When Honey got home from work, the kids and I showed him the Resurrection Eggs we'd made earlier in the day. We sat down as a family and went through some of the events of Jesus' last week on earth.

We took all of our scriptures from the book of Mark, and I showed Bubba the verses in his own Bible so he could go back and look at them on his own later. I even gave him his own heart sticker to put in the margin of his Bible to remind him that there were verses there that tell about how much God loves him. Then the girls got their story book Bibles out and we marked the crucifixion story with a heart sticker.

Next week, I'm planning on showing them John 3:16 and letting Bubba mark that verse with a heart sticker. And then the next week I'll show him another verse for a heart sticker. And pretty soon he'll have several heart stickers in his Bible. Because right now, the most important thing I want him to know, deep down in the depths of his heart, is how much God loves him. And when he has any doubt, I want him to know where to look to be reminded of God's wonderful love.

Happy Easter, y'all!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry, it just made me giggle ;).

The Headlines

So, there are some big stories developing here at the Hairdryer household. The headline, of course, is Halloween. Remember what I said about how I was celebrating Halloween yesterday? Remember the short PTA meeting? Well, it turned out to be not so short. Anyway, that gave me 30 minutes to get home, get the kids dressed, clean out the back of our van for "Trunk and Treat", and get to the restaurant where we were meeting friends for dinner before the Halloween festivities.

Not included in that list of things to do was take pictures. It just slipped my mind. So the kids and I just got back inside from taking the Halloween: Morning After photos. Brooke was a good witch, Bubba was a football player (in this picture), and Mary TuTu was Sharpay.

I think Bubba is in a weird place when it comes to Halloween. He is making the change from buying the same costume 200 other boys will be wearing off the rack at Walmart, to coming up with an original idea and piecing together a costume with random stuff. This year he wanted to be the Jonas Brothers and dress up with his cousins. The problem with that is that out of the 3 Halloween events he was attending, only one of them included his cousins. So we spent his Halloween costume allotment on the Jonas brothers outfit.

At the other two events, he chose to dress up as a basketball player at one, and a football player at the other. So, it was anyone's guess as to which person he was going to be this morning when I announced the morning after pictures.

In other news, as of this morning, I've officially lost 40.2 lbs! It's taken me a little over 6 months, but the pounds are gone forever! I'm about 6 lbs away from what I weighed when we found out I was pregnant with Bubba. That weight is another huge goal of mine, but I'm still about 20 lbs away from my ultimate goal.

And lastly, in sports, in case you haven't heard, the biggest college football game in the nation is happening this week in Lubbock. Number 7 Texas Tech is playing #1 Texas tonight. Thanks to a wedding that my parents are attending this weekend, and some good friends that are willing to spend the evening with our kids, Honey and I are going to be there to see this HUGE game. Oh, I'll be writing more about it Monday.

Have a great Saturday!

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween, friends! I hope y'all have a fun, spook-filled day! I, myself, am celebrating by limiting myself to one, hopefully very short, PTA meeting this afternoon. After that, we plan on meeting some new friends for dinner before we head to our church's Trunk or Treat. I'll post some pics of the kids tomorrow.

I've been doing Weight Watchers for a little over 6 months now. Tomorrow is my official weigh in day, so I won't tell you how much I've lost, but I will say that it starts with an "f" and rhymes with shorty. If you figure it out, keep it to yourself, we don't want to ruin the surprise for everyone!

Anyway . . . my point this morning is that since starting the weight loss journey, I've become very aware of how much my world revolves around food. Especially at the holidays. And Halloween? It's pretty much a holiday that you can't do without candy.

If you know me well, you know that I don't respond well to someone telling me I can't do something. So, I was on a mission this month. I tried really hard all month to give only gifts that didn't involve candy. My secret pal at work and the people that I Booed at work all received gifts that didn't have anything to do with candy. I know, I'm a rebel.

I thought I'd share with you one of my more creative gift ideas, in case you're as sick of the candy as I am.

These are the gifts I sent Bubba to school with this morning. He has two teachers this year and I love them both. Once again, God was faithful and matched Bubba with the perfect teachers. (His principal, Mrs. E, also had a hand in making such a perfect match.) Anyway, we were at Target this week and I picked up some cute plates, napkins, and cups. I wrapped them all together and attached a note that said,

"It's no trick, treat yourself

to a dishes-free night!

Happy Halloween!"

I know I would LOVE a night with no dishes, and I figured they would too. It's not something that I would normally buy for myself, but would love to have. I think those are the best kind of gifts. If you were really in to it, you could add in some plastic ware and a disposable casserole pan. But I was on a limited budget.

So now it's your turn. What are some of your non-candy Halloween gift ideas?

BOO!

How cute is this? Drama Mama booed me! I've been booed at work, but never on the blog. I like booing on the blog better because you don't have to run out and buy a cute, original, creative gift to pass along the BOO! You just leave 'em a comment. And comments are totally free. At least for now...

Anyway here are the rules, courtesy of Drama Mama. Because with the week I've got going on right now, some copy and pasting is what I need.

And I quote:

Now, this is how the Blogging Boo will work. Go to as many friends as you want and tell them they've been "Boo-ed". Have them link back to your blog to pick up their Halloween Treat (picture) and tell them to "Boo" their friends. Then, put the picture in your side bar so everyone knows that you've already been "Boo-ed" and to send the pic to someone else.

So, are you scared yet!!?? BOO!!

Okay? one more time......

1. Take picture, put on sidebar

2. Tell people they have been booed

3. Link back to who booed you

Okay- Get to BOOING!

So there you go. A fun, easy, fast, simple, festive game. Thanks Drama Mama!

Why I tolerated Easter this year. . .

Because some sweet, generous, Easter-loving soul donated these candies to the church-wide egg hunt. And my children brought home 6 of them. Well, really 8, but only 6 actually made it home. None of the cheap 1000 piece Tootsie Roll bags for this candy donor.

We'd already polished off our stash of these little pieces of heaven on earth. My addiction drove me to the Easter candy isle at Walmart on Good Friday, proving that an addict will do anything to feed his/her addiction. But my search was in vain. Only Snickers flavored eggs were to be found at such a late date. And my Easter dreams were dashed.

To the generous person/persons who made such an Easter sacrifice, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You made my week.

Easter Post

Just stick some bunny ears on me and call me the Grinch. That's how I felt about Easter celebrations this year. Blah. We didn't buy new Easter clothes because a wintry mix was in the forecast. We have plenty of winter clothes. I am SO OVER winter.

I seriously considered telling my kids that the Easter bunny was a game we sometimes play each year. I just couldn't get myself all worked up over a ton of candy that we don't need and a bunch more stuff to organize and put away every night. The kids already have so much. I had a hard time finding anything that they didn't already have, that they've been wanting for a while, that would have made their eyes light up Easter morning when they realized the Easter Bunny had visited.

It was truly enough to make me so incredibly thankful that the Easter Bunny isn't the star of Easter. Hunting eggs isn't the point. Chocolate bunnies aren't the main event. Because whether the Easter Bunny visited or not, the fact still remains that "We believe that Jesus died and rose again . . . For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him." (I Thess. 4:14; 5:9-10)