Every Girl's Crazy 'Bout a Sharp Dressed Man!!!

If there is anything my husband likes to do, it's buy something. So, naturally, the chance to buy two of something is just too good to pass up. This summer when we had Bailey and Maverick at the beach with us, Jen was dressing them alike every day and we thought it was adorable. Now, when we get anywhere near an Old Navy, we just can't resist finding them a new outfit. This week, we ended up spending one of our 12 hour layovers in Commerce, GA, near the outlet mall. (How did that happen, I wonder??) Needless to say, my Old Navy credit card is smoking hot. But look at what cute outfits we got!!

I can't wait until April when the boys will be in SC so we can try all these on them. My favorite is the yelllow shirt with the "gnarly" surfer dude flowered shorts. Grammy and Pop love you guys and can't wait to see you!!! (You too Jen and Jake)

Attention K-Mart Shoppers

I found these fabulous candles at K-Mart on clearance. They were Martha Stewart, and they have little diamonds and snwoflakes carved into them. I'd love to have more of them and thought some of you who live near K-Mart might like an excuse to go shopping. I'd be more than happy to pay shipping if anyone comes across some of these.

I'm supposed to be doing other things right now, so I'd better get off here and back to laundry. How can just two people have so many dirty clothes and towels?? I guess the same way we seem to have so much garbage. I bring five WalMart bags home and carry out five big trash bags!! Everything must be vacuum packed and when I open it, the packages expand. Just like mail. I bring home a stack about two inches high and then I throw away a stack that's six inches high. How does that not defy some law of mass?? I guess it's like potato chips, packed by weight, not volume!! Yeah, it's not my weight that makes these pants tight, it's my volume. I just know somebody is saying, why don't you turn down the volume. Very funny!!

Too late for my grandkids, it snows!!!

We were hoping for snow Christmas when all the grandkids were here, but it was actually very warm the week of Christmas. But this morning, my front porch thermometer was below 20 degrees!!!

And this is my car!!








Fortunately, we have great road workers who had the road all clear and dry and ready for us to go to WalMart for whatever items you can't live without in a snow storm.



So I'm wearing these, which are my bargain snow boots that I got for $3 a few years ago long after winter was over. Tnat's Muffin checking them out from under the table. She had been outside, but didn't stay long when she realized she didn't have any cool snow boots to wear.

Mustang Sally??

This is Kirby's 1994 Mustang convertible that he has been begging for since one of his friends decided to sell it. I have been saying "NO" for a few months, but this weekend he dropped the price and we decided it was too good to pass up. Inside and outside the car looks like it just rolled off the show room floor. That black and red interior is amazing. So, I'm sure I will soon be singing the immortal words of Wilson Pickett, "Mustang Sally, I think you better slow your Mustang down!!"

The Party's Over

I've spent two days just sitting around being a little sad. My son and all the kids left on Saturday. It took us about 2 hours to take down the Christmas tree and other decorations and to vacuum up all the glitter and stuff from the floor. After that my house was just too quiet and too clean. Today I'm going to get into the closet and re-pack and re-stack all the Christmas stuff where it will stay until next year (or the year after if we decide putting up a tree is too much trouble).

When we started this process, we were so excited about getting out all the decorations and making the house look festive. When everything was done, my nativity set was placed under the tree in honor of the birth of our Lord. Then a few days later, when I had some packages to put under there, the nativity was moved to a spot beside the entertainment center. Later, as the packages grew, it was placed on an end table. Then, when the kids needed that table for their morning juice while watching cartoons, it went to the dining room table. But of course, the table was needed for playing games, so the nativity ended up on my desk. That didn't last long, because the desk was being used by everyone to check their email and my space pages. Finally, baby Jesus ended up in the kitchen, beside the microwave. My sister looked at it sitting there and commented that there was still no room in the inn.

So, today, as this year comes to a close, and as you ponder my little nativity sitting between the kitchen sink and a bottle of Twistup, resolve to make room in your heart for the baby in the manger, who grew up to be our Saviour and Lord, and who deserves a place of honor in our lives and our hearts and our homes.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone is having a Christmas as wonderful as we are. I have four of my grandkids from Texas here and we've had so much fun. Yesterday they played Apples to Apples all day and if you've never played it, you should try it. We laughed all day over some of the answers.

We watched Pirates of the Caribbean, which normally would be about 2 1/2 hours, but took us about 4 hours to watch with all the rewinding to see the funny scenes and any close-up view of Johnny Depp. Which explains the picture of my three grand-daughters swooning over a picture of him on a throw. I don't know why they think he's so Hot. Anyone with any taste would know Orlando Bloom is the one who's Hot!!

This morning we opened gifts, then gathered up paper and boxes and styrofoam and twist ties and thousands of pieces of packing peanuts, and dug through trash for directions, and cut two software CD's in half before realizing they were inside the package, and generally had a wild and crazy time. We still have a mess, but at least we can walk through the living room.

Here are all four of the kids with their stockings. From left to right are Josi & Joy, the twin girls who are obviously not identical. Then Brandon with his fake "bling." On the right is Kayla, our oldest granddaughter. And in the background, with us in spirit, are pictures of Bailey and Maverick.

We're going to Grandma's (my mother) for spaghetti at 2pm so I'll try to add more pictures later. Merry Christmas.

Shop til you Drop!!!

I don't think anyone in the world loves to shop as much as I do. I can go all day and look at thousands of things and not spend a penny. I just love the thrill of the hunt for some bargain that's too good to pass up. I love the last minute rush before Christmas to get one more thing for someone's stocking or to just be part of the hustle and bustle. When Jen was young, we always went someplace on Christmas Eve and we would be there until they kicked everyone out and locked the doors. We shocked Jake one year by making a 30 minute trip over a crazy mountain road just to go to Big Lots!! He was sure after that roller coaster ride there was going to be some kind of store that was worth going to.

If you ask my husband if he likes to shop, he would absolutely answer "NO". But don't believe it. He really doesn't like to shop with me because, as I said, I can look and look and not buy anything. He only likes to go if he has a goal in mind to buy. Fortunately for me, in the process of reaching his goal, we look at lots of other things. He OOOs and AAAHs the Christmas decorations and gets excited by every new nutcracker he sees. Anything Rudolph or Wizard of Oz gets him to act like a kid in a candy shop.

Which brings me to our trip to K-Mart. We were walking through Craftsman tools (thank goodness for K-Mart & Sears because he never turns down a chance to look at Craftsman tools) when we heard an annoucement that they had Martha Stewart towels at the front of the store for $2 each. If you have never seen a grown man running through K-Mart to beat a bunch of old ladies to a towel clearance sale, let me tell you, it was a beautiful thing. By the time I got to the front of the store with the buggy, he had snagged six beautiful matching towels by reaching over the heads of the shorter women. Maybe if more husbands could see it as a competition to get a good deal before anyone else, men would like shopping. Stores need to start some sort of tag team shopping or something. Mud wrestling for microwaves. Darts for dishes. Tug-a-War for tools. If Target would just let them shoot at the big bullseye!! Maybe someday.