Christmas.........finally :-)

The eggs are deviling, the dressing is in the oven, the turkey is turking and the presents are all wrapped and waiting to be opened. Ahhh.....I love Christmas. I super duper love Christmas!! There are several things I'm very excited to give this year! Mainly.....my family chipped in and bought my 92 year old grandmother a new large LCD flatscreen television. She has no idea whatsoever that she's getting it. I just can't wait to see her face. If I know her, there will be tears. She's always so very thankful for everything she gets! I love her!

There are some awesome surprises in store for the kiddos too but I can't discuss them...yet :-) This year instead of numbering the gifts for each kids, I numbered all the gifts from 1 to 150, I did put names on them again this year though.

Back in April we did a "big kid" Easter egg hunt. Jerry & I hid one camouflage colored egg for each of the kids in a 9 acre area and gave them clues to where they were. They had to hunt for them in the dark with flashlights. It was pretty awesome. Everone won from $30 to $50. They had so much fun we decided to try to figure out something to do for Christmas too. Dirty Santa was becoming old hat sooooooo.....we're going to play Who Wants to be a Fifty Dollar-aire! Britt, Keith, Davin, Carl, Amber, Kaylor and my neice Stacy and nephew, Seth will play and can win from $10 to $50. My brother and I came up with trivia questions for them. Some easy, some hard, some is family trivia. We'll give them 3 life lines. Each question they get right is worth $10 and they will randomly draw five questions. I'm excited to see how this plays out. It should be fun!

In all the hustle and bustle this year....and I hope everyone has lots.....let's please all remember the "Reason for the Season"....Jesus Christ.

"I bring you great news, for unto you is born, this day in the city of David, a Savior" (Luke 2:10)

Let these words be a comfort, bring great hope and usher in peace and love. When you're watching the faces of those kids opening the gifts, asking a blessing over a bounty of food, or just sitting back and relaxing in the afterglow of it all, remember Jesus and celebrate his birth, his life, and his love.

Merry Christmas everyone! XOXOXO

The time for giving thanks.......

It's hard to believe that it's that time of year again! Seriously the past year just flew by for me! Thanksgiving and Christmas though, they make the winter months bearable for me. :-)

There is so very much to be thankful for this year. Jerry & I have been blessed in so many ways this past year it's hard to even begin to mention them all.

I'm thankful for the love and compassion of God. He has seen me through so much and been so caring in times of trial and confusion. I know that He truly does love and care for me and assured me a place in Heaven.

I'm thankful for the most wonderful husband in the world. I'm sure you've heard the Brad Paisley song "Waitin' on a Woman"...that's my husband. He's the kindest, most patient, and caring man I know. I was so truly blessed to have met him.

I'm thankful for the love and laughter brought to us through our children and granddaughter. There is never a single day, rarely a couple of hours, in this house without laughter.

I'm thankful that life is going well for the kids. There are ups and downs in life, but so much of life for them is "ups" that I'm truly thankful for that.

I'm thankful that when there are some "downs" that Jerry and I can be there to help. (although the word help is often subjective LOL)

I'm thankful for my "virtual friends". The AB October Mommies........nowhere will you find a better group of women who share a common bond for so long and show each other so much support and friendship.

I'm thankful for the freedom we have in this country and obviously for the men and women who have fought to make it so. I hope bless them richly for giving us a country that's wonderful!

There's so much in our lives we take for granted. I hope next year to spend the entire year showing appreciation more and not trying to cram it all in at Thanksgiving :-)

I hope each of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

E'beth Tagged Me :-)

I was tagged by my friend Elisabeth on her blog, so here are my answers :)

8 Things I’m passionate about:-
Jesus Christ
My family
Organ Donation
Christmas
Shopping
Vacations
Friends
Crossword Puzzles

8 Things that happened yesterday
Went shopping in Birmingham with Dash
Ate at California Pizza Kitchen
Kissed Jerry a few times
Got a phone call from someone in Canada
At leftovers for dinner
Ran into a door
Got Maliyah's Thanksgiving shirt in the mail
Worked on my Christmas list

8 Things I do now
Love my husband
Try to take care of my family
Take care of maliyah while Britt goes to school
Dance to Wiggles songs every day with Maliyah
Watch Barney more than I care to
Do laundry every Mon, Wed and Fri
Take Mimi to Wee Kid Wednesday at Imagination Place
Take Mimi to Story Time at the library on Thurs

8 Things I can not do
Run
Sit Ups
Sew
Drive a semi
Dig a hole with a shovel
Draw/paint
Keep my mouth shut sometimes
Be in high places

8 Things I often say
I love you
I'm just sayin'
Freakin'
Rockin'
'sup
So......
Genius
idiot wrapped in a moron

8 Favorite TV shows
King of Queens
Friends
House
Hell's Kitchen
American Idol
Yes Dear
Spongebob Squarepants
Angry Beavers

8 Favorite foods
6" Subway club on wheat with lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, cucumbers, oregano, salt & pepper, oil
Chocolate
Pizza (with no sauce)
Fried Green Beans with garlic
Red Lobster Biscuits
Steamed Broccoli & Carrots
Grapes
Strawberries

8 Things you may not have known about me
I love to read
I count EVERYTHING
I once won a talent show (with 2 friends singing a song we made up to the tune of Rollin' on the River called Strollin' Through the ER)
I'm a pretty decent dancer
I've been to South Africa on a safari
I hate hot dogs
I can NOT STAND lizards (no, it would NOT be funny to try to scare me with one)
I like to color

Life is Good Again!!!

Well, things didn't work out according to my plan but they did work out. Britt & Keith signed divorce papers last week. It was amicable and everyone is getting along fine. No custody disputes and Maliyah is weathering the changes wonderfully! It was a surprise and there are no concrete answers as to "why", just something that happened that we're all dealing with.

We tried for the longest to get Maliyah to call Amber "Auntie" and Davin "Aunt Dav" but instead, she has come up with her own monikers for them both. Amber is now "Aunnie" (pronounced aww-nee) and Davin is now "Dash". She's been calling them those names for quite a while now so I'm guessing that's their new names :-)

Dash and I went to Birmingham to shop today and on the way home we got to wondering what her kids and Amber's kids will call Britt. We're guessing Bibbit, like Davin did when she was little. We'll see.....that day is a long time coming, I think.

While we were in B'ham today Dash and I were talking about how Britt & I had met our virtual friend Rayne from Montgomery last year at the same shopping area we were in today. I was just looking back over my blog and it was exactly one year ago today that we met. Funny that exactly 1 year ago I was in the same town doing the same thing. I also read in last year's blog that Keith was in Canada hunting and was due back on the 20th. He's there again this year and is due back the 19th. Weird.....or not really i guess. Anway...just sayin'.

I've tried to wait until Black Friday to officially start Christmas shopping but I did start a wee bit early this year. For reasons I can't print here, lest the kids read it....I've HAD to start early!

I've been teaching a manners class at church for 3rd-6th grade. We wound that up yesterday. Now choir practice for the Christmas Cantata is in full swing, as well as getting ready for Thanksgiving then Christmas. This is SUCH a busy time of year but I dooo love it!

Hopefully I will get around to writing my Thanksgiving blog to help myself remember what all I have to be thankful for this year.

Lessons learned in the last 10 days

Patience is having faith in God's time table....learned this from my Baby Girl

No matter now much you want to protect your kids from anything hurtful, you can't always do it.

Crying will do nothing but give you a headache.

Satan works the hardest to do damage when things are going smoothly.

Grandchildren are the best thing in the whole entire world (especially Maliyah)!!

No one could possibly have a better husband than me.

Life goes on in spite of heart ache and you have to go with it.

Friends are the greatest.

No amount of shopping, talking, eating, not eating, playing with Maliyah can take away the pain of watching your child's heart ache.

There is nothing in this world I wouldn't do for my kids or Maliyah (yeah, I learned this one a long long time ago but thought I'd throw it in anyway.)

Vacations Rock!!

We had a few really great vacations this year! We try to do a few short vacations every summer instead of just one big one. This year we combined and did both.

In May, Jerry, my mom and I went back to Vegas. It was awesome, as Vegas always is. This time we hired a car & driver to take us to the hotel from the airport. Way worth the extra money! We didn't do any shows this time around either. Just kinda' hung out in the casinos. No big wins this trip which was a bummer but, when we ran out of money for the day, we went to the room and watched National Treasure 2 one night and Alvin & the Chipmunks the next. We still ended up with enough comps to get our room and all of meals free plus we had a limo to take us back to the airport. We flew on Southwest for the first time on this trip and it was a great flight both ways.

We decided to celebrate 4th of July differently this year too. We spent it in a huge cabiin in Gatlinburg TN. Britt & Keith drove up the day before the rest of us, did the grocery shopping and had the cabin all set up. Jerry & I, Kaylor, Davin & Carl went up on the 3rd. They had a Midnight Parade. It's the first Independence Day parade held in the country every year. We had a great spot and the parade was awesome! Maliyah seemed to love it even though it way waayyyy past her bedtime. We, of course went shopping and to the dinner show at the Dixie Stampede. Those are 2 can't miss activites anytime we go to Gatlinburg. On the 4th at 9 PM they have a ginormous fireworks display downtown. It was the most impressive I'd ever seen!

Later in July Britt called and said "We're out of school on Friday, let's go to the beach!". Jerry & Keith were going fishing on Friday, Keith had a tournament on Sat, Jerry was working Sat night. Davin and Amber couldn't go so Britt, Maliyah and I loaded up on Thurs afternoon and headed for Gulf Shores. I used the laptop on the way down to find us a cute little condo right on the beach. It was Maliyah's first trip to the beach. Up to this point she had been to Vegas & the mountains so we were excited to see if she liked the beach too. She love love loved the sand! She played in it, tried to eat it, dug it up, mixed it with water, whatever she could do with it. She HATED being inthe ocean though. Not even standing at the edge so it washed over her feet! She wanted it in a bucket, safely away from the water's edge so she could put her shovel in it, dip her fingers in it and lick it off (ICK!!) and mix it with sand, though. We ate dinner out both nights, had great naps in the afternoon and hung out on the beach and by the pool the rest of the trip. It was one of the best beach vacations ever!!

In August we had a big family vacation to Puerto Rico. Amber was working so she didn't get to go but Jerry & I, Britt, Keith & Maliyah, Kaylor, Davin & Carl all caught a flight out of ATL and headed out. Let me just say FIRST CLASS IS THE SHIZZZ!! The flights were great and the trip itself was a blast! We rented a condo on the beach. It was 3 bedrooms with a living room, kitchen and an upstairs penthouse/terrace with a sleeper sofa. Kaylor preferred to think of that as his own little condo LOL We went shopping, sightseeing, visited an old fort on the oceanside in Old San Juan, ate at a small local restaurant with wonderful food. Our last night there we went to a little out of the way restaurant on the beach called Pamela's. That place had the most amazing food ever! The atmosphere was nice, the people were great. It was $$$ but totally worth the cost! Afterwards, Jerry & I took Kaylor, Davin & Carl to a casino at the Ritz Carlton. It was their first trip to a casino. Davin & I played Roulette and 3 card poker. She hit up a couple of slot machines. Kaylor played mostly slots with a few hands of 3 Card Poker. None of us won :-( Except Carl......the boy sat down to play 3 Card Poker for the first time ever and walked away with over $400. Then he went to a $1 slot machine and walked away with over $150. We stared to leave and he ended up cashing in all his chips for a total of $660!! Lucky!!!

We came back on a Sat. night, had Sunday to rest up then everyone went back to work and school. Maliyah and I started hanging out every day and things are still all good :-)

I love vacations. Time away from the norm with my family, making wonderful memories......AND means we're getting closer to Thanksgiving/Christmas again!!!!!!!!

The New Journey Begins.......

So Britt & Amber finished up their academics at Gadsden State this summer. Britt ended with an overall 3.96 GPA, Amber had a 3.34. We were sooo proud of both of them. They filled out about 6 dozen forms, sent in the proper admission work to ask for acceptance to the registered nursing program then they waited.....and waited.....and waited....and waited. FINALLY after about 100 weeks, the girls were at Britt's house and I went out to the mailbox. There it was, the long awaited letter addressed to Amber with a return address of Jacksonville State University School of Nursing and Health Sciences. It was a white letter sized envelope. The writing was black. I held it for a nanosecond then called the girls "THE MAIL CARRIER IS ON HER WAY TO YOUR HOUSE AND THE LETTERS ARE HERE!!!". I jumped in the car and took off up the street to Britt's. We waited anxiously by the mailbox for the carrier to come back up her side of the street. We told her why we were waiting and she said "Yes, I've got your letter" and handed Britt a big 8x11 brown envelope addressed to Britt with the same return address as Ambers. At the same time we all got a sinking feeling. The envelopes were different so obviously they didn't contain the same information. We were right.......Britt's letter started with "Congratulations!"....Amber's started with "Unfortunately". We were all crying. Crying with happiness for Britt, sadness for Amber but mostly for the fact that their journey together would end here. They started taking college classes together in the Fall of '06 right before Britt gave birth to Maliyah. They had done it all together. They were encouragers for each other. They pushed each other to do better. Now it was stopping. They were on their own.

After things calmed down, Amber called the advisor at JSU. He told her that they only accepted 50 applicants...Amber was #54 on the list. He told her that if anyone didn't accept their slot, it would be given to the next person on the list. Again a wait. This time worse than the last.

There were a couple of people in their microbiology class who had also not been accepted. They came home from class a few days later and said the guy who was number 1 on the list got his call. I was at a car dealer with Kaylor on about August 7th or so. My cell phone rang and it was Amber saying "So I need to get my schedule worked out and all because I GOT IN!!!". The advisor had called her at work (big no no to answer her cell phone at work but she knew who it was and was totally not going to NOT answer) She was so excited she talked about a 80 miles an hour!

We went to Fuji Japanese Steak House to celebrate (for the 2nd time, we had already celebrated for Britt). The second they saw each other there, they ran, screaming, jumping....you'd have thought they had won the lottery.

Classes started Aug 28th. This semester they're studying Pharmacology, Nursing Fundamentals and Health Assessment. They're going to classes Mon-Fri 8-3 or so. They leave home at 6:45 every day. They stay after class and have formed a study group with some classmates. They're working so very hard. I know they'll do well. It's going to be a long road...a hard road...but so very very worth it in the end!

Hopefully, if you're lucky, someday after Dec 2010 you'll look up from your hospital bed and see Britt or amber taking care of you. :-)

You want me to what?!?!?

So at our church they have an annual women's Festival of Praise which consists of getting dressed up, having some of the men folk serve up a yummy dinner, a humorous speaker and a fashion show sponsored by a local clothing boutique. Now I'm not ugly....I don't think but I'm far from "model" material. Imagine my surprise when I was approached about modeling in the fashion show. Man......my head swelled to about 4 times it's normal ginormousness! Of course, then, the other shoe dropped. I found out they just thought it would be cute if we had 4 generations in the fashion show...my mom, me, one of my daughters and my granddaughter. So, now that my ego is properly deflated, it's off to The Veranda to pick out a couple of model-worthy outfits. I take all 3 of my girls. Davin is modeling with us so she tries on a few outfits and finds a really cute casual shirt to wear with jeans and dress up with some strappy shoes and jewlery. For her "dressy' outfit, she's wearing a balloon hem taffeta party dress. Cute cute cute!! So, then it was my turn....yah. Did I look cute in all the adorable outfits I picked out?? Not so much! Did I have trouble finding something to wear? Yes, not because they were ALL so darn adorable but because most of them made me look frumpy, old or like a "singer" (yeah, that's my code word for hooker.....long story). Long story short, I ended up with a black faux-wrap dress and a pair of mocha brown pants with matching top. Some really tacky purses and the gaudiest jewelry ever. I realize I'm doing this to showcase the merchandise of the boutique but I do hope everyone realizes this is soooo not my style. :-)

Life Gets Busy.....

So it's been a while......

I knew this would happen...I'd start a blog then, inevitably, life would get in the way of keeping it up. There for a while I was at least reading the blogs of others but now, there's only a few that I keep up with on a regular basis. Not sure how things got so busy but whatev! So I wrote last in Jan.....

In Feb.....well in feb pretty much nothing happened.

In March I turned 47 and my baby girl turned 21!!! Moldy Cow!!! I only have 1 more teenager! She went out with her boy friend, Britt, Keith, kaylor and some other friends and had her "first" drink (yeah, everyone that believes that raise your hand). On Easter, Maliyah had a BLAST hunting Easter eggs. We hid them for her, like, 12 times. We even spent a good bit of time in the days after Easter hiding eggs. The Sat before Easter Jerry & I did a 'big kid' egg hunt. we took 6 plastic camouflage eggs with numbers 1-6 inside and hid them (and I mean REALLY hid them) in about a 9 acre area. We gave all 6 of the big kids a page with clues to where the eggs were, gave them flashlights and sent them out into the dark to find the eggs. Surprisingly it only took about an hour and a half for them to find them all. They brought them back and got an envelope that matched the number in their egg. The envelopes contained either $30, $40 or $50. We all thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm trying to come up with other opportunites to do the same thing. I may try to do it with something special around Christmas or Thanksgiving. We'll see.

In April the big girls all took a trip for girl's week and to celebrate Davin's 21st b'day. Britt & Amber took Davin to Orlando for a week during Spring Break. They spent their days at Universal Studios, shopping and hanging by the pool. At night they were in the clubs, dancing, doing karaoke (of course, in my mind, they all back in the room in their jammies by 9). We got to keep maliyah for the week and had a blast! We were kinda' lonely though :-)

What's in store for the summer? Well, Kaylor graduates next month. That's pretty exciting for me because 1) he's my baby boy and 2) I wasn't sure we'd make it this far LOL Memorial Day weekend, Jerry & I are headed to Vegas to hit the jackpot (or leave them a wad of money, whichever). In August we're heading to MO with Britt, Keith and Maliyah to visit some "virtual" friends. There's a large group of women who all had babies the same times as Britt did and we've been friends for about 2 years now. Some of us are going to meet for a long weekend. In November we're heading with the fam to Gatlinburg. probably somewhere in between we'll hit the beach for along weekend. Who knows??

We've gotten pretty involved with the youth group at church. Well, Jerry more so than me. We chaperoned a trip for them to Six Flags last Saturday. In June Jerry is going with them to New Orleans for a week for a mission trip. He's looking forward to that.

May 9th is homeschool day at Six Flags and Jerry & I are taking all the kids and their respective significant others. It will be Maliyah's first trip so I'm pretty excited about that.

So, that pretty much catches anyone who cares up to speed :-)

Gratuity Added?!?!?!

So you can ask anyone who has known me for any length of time, all restaurants used to have a picture of me hung up in the back with a warning "BE NICE TO HER...SHE WILL CALL THE COMPANY AFTER SPEAKING TO THE MANAGER". I've never had a problem complaining when service or food was bad......EVER. However, in the last few years I've tried to be more forgiving of mistakes. I've asked for the manager frequently when we've had great service to compliment the server or meal. We normally tip at least 20% for good service.

NOW.....for the issue at hand. I was thinking the other day about those places that add a gratuity automatically for parties or 6 or more, 8 or more, whatever. One of my daughters brought up a good point. If they know the tip is going to be added anyway, do you think they just intentionally go slow or don't try as hard to do a good job for that party? Hmmm. Something to think about anyway.

There's been twice in my life that I've approached the manager and refused to pay the added gratuity because the service was THAT bad. Neither time did I have any problem having the tip removed from the bill.

What if it's great service though and they're just gypped the server out of the extra tip I would've given by just adding that 18%?? If service has been exceptional, we'll usually hand the server a little extra on the way out but.....I guess it's just a practice I disagree with in general.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!

Another year come and gone and what a wonderful one it was!!! My family made it through relatively unscathed :-) We're looking forward to an even better year in 2008 if that's even possible!

We managed to get a lot worked into this past year. We started it off in the usual fashion New Year's eve of '06 hubby and I were asleep before midnight :-) In Jan we had a super surprise party for my grandmother's 91st birthday. It was a raging success and I'm very happy to say, in 9 more days, God willing, we'll have a quiet celebration for her 92nd.

In April Jerry & joined the First Baptist Church of Hokes bluff on Easter then were both Baptized the following Sunday. We've really been blessed to be part of such a wonderful congregation. We were welcomed warmly and have been made to feel a part of everything there.

In May Britt, Keith, Maliyah, my mom, Jerry and I took a trip to Vegas for a week. It was my mom's first trip there and she loved it. We stayed at the Excalibur and managed to leave behind enough money that they ended up comping our room AND all our meals. We had a great time though and plan to go back for a weekend this summer.

In June, our nephew, Jeremiah, graduated high school and we (Britt, Keith, Maliyah, Amber, Jerry & I) took a trip to PA for his graduation party. Both Jerry's brothers were there and it was an awesome time. First time Grammy has had all her boys together in 17 years. All 3 of them have been in the military and it's been impossible for them to gather at the same place. There was soooo much food and so many people there! We're really hoping to have an annual reunion amongst the immediate family. I know that would make Grammy and Pap extremely happy! By the way, we flew back first class and have decided to NEVER fly coach again :-)

July saw our annual 4th of July bash at my mom's pool. We still have a good time but it's just not the same without my dad. July 4th and Christmas were definitely his fave holidays.

August was the month we let Keith semi-plan our vacation. I was planning a trip to the beach but was having a hard time finding a large condo that would take pets that had a private pool. Keith suggested we go to Gatlinburg instead. What a great idea he had!! We rented a beautiful cabin (seriously, it was gorgeous!!). Britt, Keith, Maliyah, Jerry and I stayed the whole week. Amber got to come up for a few days. Davin and Kaylor were both working and didn't make it :-( We did something different every day and saw a different dinner show every night. It was great!! We're thinking of making the trip again this year for Thanksgiving.

September was boring LOL

Oct saw Maliyah's first birthday!!! I can NOT believe the child is over a year old already. It's just flown by. She is such a wonderful baby!! She's pleasant almost all the time and never ceases to put a smile on my face. Words could never begin to express how much I love that child.

Of course, you know about Thanksgiving already.

We couldn't find an Angel Tree for kids around so we sponsored a child through the Baptist Missions Center. We also did an Angel Tree for the elderly. We chose an elderly man at a nursing home and got him shirts, sweat pants, socks and houseshoes. I hope he enjoys them. :-)

Christmas Eve we (meaning all the kids this time plus a couple of their friends that are like family) gathered with my extended family on my dad's side at my grandmother's house. We had homemade vegetable soup, tons of desserts and exchanged gifts. Afterwards we gathered at Britt & Keith's house for Jerry & I to open gifts from the kids and each other. The kids outdid themselves this year. I got a ginormous set of super nice luggage, a Coach purse, Coach contact case, Coach medicine case, spice rack, mirror and A COACH WATCH with diamond markers. It is GORGEOUS!! Jerry got a beautiful personalized archaeological Bible, new tree stand, new camo and a Liberty Bow. We also gave each of the kids one gift from us. Instead of all the kids exchanging gifts this year, each one of them bought a $25 gift card, put them in card holders and we drew numbers. Whomever had #1 drew a card. Whomever had #2 could either take that one from person #1 or draw a new one. Everyone ended up with a great gift card and it was tons of fun.

Britt, Keith and Maliyah stayed home Christmas eve so Santa could visit. Kaylor stayed at Davin's house so they could go to their dad's early Christmas morning. This was the first Christmas ever since I've become a mom that I didn't have all my children sleeping under my roof on Christmas eve. I gotta' tell you it was sad.

Christmas morning we got up early and went to Britt & Keith's. We were there when Maliyah got up to see her reaction to the toys from Santa. Jerry & Keith made breakfast and my mom and grandmother joined us for that.

Later Christmas morning all my kids along with my brother, SIL, neice and nephew gathered at my mom's to open gifts from her. Then we came back to our house for Christmas Dinner that I made.

That afternoon, all the kids gathered here again and Jerry & I played Santa. It was pretty much a concensus that this was the best Christmas ever but then the kids say that every year :-) It was definitely the year of surprises. The kids had almost no idea of anything they were getting so it was pretty awesome!! Aside from clothes, games, household and miscellaneous items they had asked for, the big things for them were that Britt got a Coach purse, Coachwallet, Canon Rebel XT camera with extra lens. Davin got a Dooney & Bourke purse and wallet, Sony digital camera, Wii and a bunch of stuff for it. Kaylor got a really nice digital camera (can't remember what kind) that he was wanting , Wi-Fi hookup for his Xbox live, a new laptop & wireless internet. Amber got bunkbeds, a Wii with games, coach purse & wallet, a new laptop and wireless internet. Keith got a Liberty Bow and carl got a gas grill. Of course, Maliyah got everything imaginable between Santa and grandparents. She got a Peg Perego train to ride on that has real tracks. The thing covers Britt's living room. She also got a swing set, a battery powered car and a freakin' roller coaster LOL It's 10 ft long and has a car that takes her up and down little hills. She got a recliner for her house and a Pottery Barn chair for here. All in all...it was a great christmas, mainly because we were all together, healthy, happy, had a nice warm house, food to share and family and friends to share it with.

New Year's eve I made spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. My mom came to visit. Maliyah was at her other grandparent's house so Jerry and I carried on our tradition of sleeping through the changing of the year :-)

I wish each of you the most properous, healthiest, happiest New Year possible!!
XOXO