Here we go again

Another Friday night and I am sitting here writing a blog post. It’s 9:15 and we have already watched a movie because someone (ugh hum Derek) had to have it over with my 9 so he could watch the stupid bowl game. What is it with men and their sports?! I’m all about football when K-State and occasionally the Chiefs play but other then that, I don’t care one bit about sports.

Anyways…Still waiting on my sister to email me some pics of Christmas and then I will finish the Christmas posts. I know your all dying of anticipation. So for now you get to listen to me ramble about other things. It’s my blog so I can ramble if I want to ramble :-)

I am feeling very caught up on my sleep this week. I worked a whole 8 hours this week so I got to sleep in every.single.day. Be jealous Amy and Amber. Derek was also off with the exception of Tuesday so although I hoped to paint some rooms in the house, we just never got around to it. Soon enough.

Tuesday was spent running around town like a crazy lady getting everything I needed before my 1st home inspection for my daycare license. Derek might have gotten the bad end of this because he had to install locks on our kitchen cabinets (which were impossible to screw through), buy and set up our entertainment center for our TV in the basement (daycare area) and he still needs to finish the gate on the stairs I gave up on trying to put together. But our work paid off and the house passed with flying colors. Now I just need to fill up my last 2 spots so I can open it up. I am looking for 9moths and older if anyone knows of anyone in the KC area.

I DREAD taking the Christmas decorations down. Love putting them up but taking them down is a pain in the butt!

Zoe is all healed from surgery and back to her normal self. Except for the fact that she starved herself for 4 days because she refused to eat the food the vet prescribed for her bladder stones. I was starting to worry she might keel over and die so we called the vet and he gave us a different food. Luckily he let us exchange the one she wouldn’t eat since it was $30 for a little bag! She hasn’t stopped eating the new food.

Our neighbors are having a party and we are seriously considering showing up. Hey they said to come over anytime so I think that’s a fair enough invite.

As much as we wanted to go cheer on the Cats at the Cotton Bowl, we decided to not go. It’s been an expensive month with Christmas, Zoe’s surgery and some other things so we are going to wait and do a trip in the next couple months. We’ll be cheering loud for our Cats from KC.

Were going to Argosy Casino for New Years tomorrow. Just the two of us. Nothing like partying it up with the 50+ age group.

I will stop boring you now. Hope your all having a wonderful weekend!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Part 1

I was so mad when I realized an hour into our trip that I forgot my camera! Phone pics till have to due this year.

We headed to Galva on the 23rd after Derek got off work. We arrived in town just in time to go to dinner with his parents and then just watched a Christmas movie that was on TV and headed to bed.

The girls talked me into letting them have their presents early

Our yummy drink for Christmas Eve

We realized on Christmas Eve we hadn’t gotten our nephew Peyton a birthday present since his birthday is the 28th and we won’t make it back for his party. So we braved Wal-Mart and got him a birthday present. That afternoon we went to Derek’s grandparents where a bunch of his family got together for appetizers and presents! I mostly held Paizley and stuffed my face. My 2 favorite things! We got some shirts and gift certificates from his grandparents. So sweet of them!

snuggles with Paizley

We woke up bright and early Christmas day and waited for Derek’s sister and her family to come over. Let’s  just say grandma Lorson REALLY likes to buy for Christmas. We were all spoiled with lots of gifts. Derek and I raked in more clothes and gift cards. Just what we wanted! We were sad to have to leave after opening presents but we still had to go to Manhattan for Christmas with my side! Stay tuned for Christmas at the Long’s.

The Smith Family: Jaime, Hazel, Peyton, Halle, Bryon and Paizley

Our favorite present this year…Paizley!!

Attempted a picture with our nieces and nephews before we left but Halle was NOT happy we took her away from her new Barbie camper. I don’t blame her. It was awesome.

Enjoy these outtakes that crack me up.  Getting 4 kids to look at the camera is impossible!

Betty Crocker

Once a year I put my apron on and try to be Betty Crocker. And every year I say, NEVER AGAIN!! I don’t get how people like to bake. You make numerous trips to the grocery store just to get the ingredients. God forbid you remember every ingredient the first trip! Then you spend hours melting, mixing, baking yadda yadda yadda. Then you have to decorate the cookies because nobody likes a cookie without frosting and sprinkles. Don’t think I get all creative and do Santa’s and snowmen and all that. I attempted that the other weekend at my aunt’s and lets just say my snowman looked like clump of white frosting. Then your done decorating and your like phew, finally done! Not so much. You gotta spend another hour cleaning up your kitchen that looks like a tornado just went through it. So yes, the stuff tastes and looks good but is it really worth spending 5 hours making it all when you can just buy it? I don’t think so.

But enough of my complaining. Here are the wonderful goodies I made this year.

• Chex mix is still in the oven as I type this. Man that stuff makes your house smell good.

Recipe found here. I switch the ingredients up a bit though

• Holly Candy. Thanks mom for making a late night trip to Walgreens for me to get red hots.

Recipe found here

• Sugar cookies. Store bought dough of course. Thanks mom and Aiden for decorating them.

Recipe found here

• Puppy chow. So easy yet so messy.

Recipe found here

So Betty Crocker and Amy, move on over. Sarah is the new baking queen (only in December though).

Officially Old

You know your old when your Friday night consists of cleaning carpet and writing a blog post. We have been so busy the past 3 weekends that I am so excited to have a weekend where we have no plans. Besides some Christmas shopping and Derek’s parents coming tomorrow, we have zelcho plans.

We didn’t have time to clean the carpets in our new home between the previous owners moving out and when we moved in so we borrowed Derek’s parent’s carpet cleaner and finally got around to cleaning them tonight. We wanted to do it right when we moved in but with Zoe having bladder stones, she was having accidents about 1-2 a week in the house so I thought we should just hold off till she was better. Speaking of her, she is doing MUCH better. She can finally go all night without needing to go outside. Praise the lord! It was like having a newborn having to let her out 1-2 times a night. She still isn’t moving around too much and I am pretty sure she is going to milk us carrying her down the steps and wherever she wants to go until we cut the cord. She is a little swollen which is normal but taking her to vet tomorrow just to double check. Plus, she has hardly ate since Monday night!

No wonder she was having a hard time going to the bathroom and constantly wanting to go out! Vet said this wasn’t even all the stones! She will be on a very strict diet now since this is her 2nd time with stones!

Day after surgery. All wrapped up in her baby blanket, on the couch, with her favorite toy next to her. Not spoiled at all

I uploaded all my pics from my phone so here are some from 2 weekends ago when my Amy and her family came for Aiden and Harper’s birthday parties.

Joe’s Crab Shack. Don’t worry, Aiden is drinking Root Beer, not beer.

The birthday girl and boy!!! They each got their own cake and we sang 2 times so they didn’t totally get screwed :)

Have a good weekend!!

Free Entertainment

The twins and I ventured to Bass Pro Shop on Tuesday. I wanted to try and get a good pic of them with Santa to give to their mom and dad. Plus, I heard they had free Christmas activities for the kids.

I’m pretty sure they would have been fine NOT seeing Santa or doing the activities. They had a blast just walking around the store and seeing the different animals and boats. Free indoor zoo during the winter

Staring at the BIG fish in the tank

They enjoyed watching the elevator going up and down more then the fish pond

Keeping a close eye on that scary bear

I know what they want for Christmas

This is what Gage wanted to do the whole time

And as far as the good pic with Santa to give to their parents…

Ian so calm and collective…

Gage finding out he is on the naughty list. Ian was not happy about it either!

…Maybe next year!

Ugly Christmas sweater party

This weekend we went to my aunt and uncle’s in Springfield Missouri. They hosted their annual Christmas party.  My aunt went above and beyond herself and had everything from cookies, soup, hot chocolate, eggnog, party favors, hand warmers, head gear, etc.  Once everyone arrived (around 30 ppl), we ate some appetizers before heading out to go caroling. There were 2 rules: a) you must wear some kind of head gear. I didn’t follow this rule. The stupid thing wouldn’t stay on my big head b) you have to walk with the group but you don’t have to sing. My uncle and Derek did a good job of standing behind the group and drinking instead of singing!

mandatory head gear, caroling songs, gifts for neighbors and hand warmers

The 3 stooges NOT singing

mom, aunt elly and my cousin Kayla.

The hostess

Here’s a horrible video of us caroling. You can’t see everyone very well but there was about 25 of us. I like how my cousin bails half way through the song and goes and joins my uncle and Derek in the back. HA!

Once we got back home, it was time to warm up with soup! Everyone started leaving after that but that was just the beginning of the night for our family. We all played games and drank wwwaaayyyy too late/early (3am to be exact)!

Best part of Derek’s shirt is what it says: “Eggnog drinkin, candy cane eatin, holiday partying lovin GIRL!

He loved the hat…geek

Mom and cousin Eric

My cousins friend and her. I cropped myself out :)

My cousins and uncle couldn’t bend their limbs. It was a rule card they drew

I think it’s safe to say that both Derek and me had a great time. As much as he didn’t want to wear his ugly Christmas sweater, he did it and he looked so cute :0)

When we got back to KC yesterday we were locked out of our house! My sisters boyfriend had come to get a bed from us and when the garage code wouldn’t work (he did wrong code), he tried to manually open the garage and locked it so we couldn’t open it with our garage opener. Our house keys don’t work on our glass door so we had to call a locksmith. Derek wasn’t too happy but me and mom sure had a good laugh. 1st time for everything

sketchy looking locksmith

Getting in the spirit

I’m not sure if it’s the snow we got this week (can’t be that, we hardly got anything), that there is only 16 days left or what but I have really been in the Christmas spirit this week. The twins and I have been dancing to xmas music all week, I had Xmas music blaring last night while I was cleaning, I’ve gotten the itch to create a xmas card even though I said I wasn’t going to do it this year (might be after xmas when you get it) and have loved looking at xmas ideas on Pinterest. Here are some of the things I'm lovin

Wrapping paper with a sash. Love it and these colors match my tree

Chocolate covered marshmallows. Yummy!

Cute xmas card.

Hopefully next year

Just the right amount of lights

We’ll be feeding my xmas spirit this weekend at my aunt and uncles annual ugly x mas sweater/caroling party and then next week me and my friend Ashley are taking the kiddos to see Santa, making ornaments and to union station to see the holiday train that’s coming to town!

*On a different note, Happy 2nd birthday to my sassy yet sweet niece, Harper!! And happy 1 month to my new niece, Paizley! I love you both so much!

Midweek Randoms

• It’s December!!! By far the best month of the year. Our Christmas tree is up and I can’t wait to start putting presents underneath it.

The mantle needs some work. I through it together tonight

• The daycare is coming along. The twins and I have been spending more time at our house so I can get things put together. Jan 2 will be here before I know it

eating lunch at our house

• While watching the twins at my house, I forgot to pack bibs for lunch and Gage made a mess. I also forgot extra clothes (nanny fail) so I put him in one of my smallest shirts. He loved it!

• Thanksgiving recap is still in the works. We hosted our first holiday at our house and had such a great time.

• My sister and her family are coming again this weekend. YAY!! We are celebrating my nephews 3rd birthday and nieces 2nd (their cousins, not siblings). We will also be having breakfast with Santa and a Chiefs/Bears watch party because we are all Chiefs fans except for my sister and her family who are Bears fans. Amy texted me this yesterday…”I just heard Pax tell his friend, my uncle likes the Chiefs.” Darn right kid. And you should too!

• The twins fell asleep in the car this morning and after I brought Gage inside, stood him up and went out to get Ian, I walked inside to Gage laying on the floor back asleep. Ian was conked out in my arms so I laid him down for a pic. Must have been tired cause he didn’t flinch when I laid him on the hard floor.

• Our dog is battling bladder stoneS. Yes, many of them. Poor thing! We are hoping we can get them dissolved and not have to do $800 surgery. She had to have this surgery 4 years ago and I never thought we would have to go through it again!

Precious baby. Can you tell she likes toys?

• We are still loving the house. Haven’t done any updating but are going to paint a couple rooms after the first of the year.