Last Weekend

Last weekend, Hannah, Shauna and I went up to Northern VA for Mike's work Christmas party. We had a great time! The party was so much fun and the food was delicious. I've never had upscale catering before and it was wonderful. I'm used to pulled pork, fried chicken and beef sandwiches! Not that those aren't all delicious, this was just a bit different for a change.

We spent the weekend there, doing a little shopping and a fun tacky Christmas light tour. We saw some really pretty houses. The girls and I left on Sunday afternoon and Mike just stayed, since driving home that night and driving right back Monday morning would have been silly!

Reece's Rainbow Angel Tree

There are still SEVEN children with no sponsors! Please, if you can, sponsor one of them. It would be great to see all of the children have at least one sponsor. I believe that THIRTY kids have found new homes, since this year's Angel Tree started! Yay!

http://www.reecesrainbow.com/angeltree2009sponsorpage.html

Please put this on your blog

You might have noticed the new button on my blog. We are helping to raise money to save four year old Tonya from going to a mental institution in her country. Please put this button on your blog and help pass the word!

Thank you!

Socks

I just had to search through our 'sock crate'. This is actually one side of a huge coffee table/trunk that opens for storage. It is full to the brim with unmatched socks. I was looking for Hannah's choir stockings. Luckily for me, they are black. I searched through a sea of mostly white socks. Still could not find both of them. I found a fork.

*Update: Found the other one on attempt two! I was hoping for a spoon, as well.

Birthday Central

Six out of nine of us have birthdays between September 29th and December 1st. Today is the last one. Yay! It gets expensive and time consuming, with a lot of baking going on. CUP's is September 29th, Shauna's is October 13th. Then we have three in November, Hannah on the 11th, me on the 25th and Drew on the 30th. Alex was thoughtful enough to be born 5 hours into December, so I wouldn't have three November birthstones on my Mother's necklace!

So, happy birthday, Alex! I can't believe he is 15 already. Drew was hanging out with friends for most of the day on his birthday, so his birthday dinner & dessert is scheduled for Wednesday. I will have to try to find some baby pictures to post!

Now that the birthdays are almost over, I can start concentrating on Christmas. Alex already decorated for me, with some help from Shauna. We have two small trees, instead of one large, because our cats climb the large ones and wreck them. The small ones can be put in the sun room at night, so they can't get at them. Last year, I just put the small green tree with blue lights in the sunroom, fully decorated. Now we just have to remember to bring it out every day! This year we put the white tree on top of my computer desk. For some reason, the cats never go up there and so far they haven't bothered it. Last year we folded it up and put it away in the box, but left the ornaments on. It still needs to be fluffed and I would like to get some garland for it, but it is almost ready to go. We are having some issues with the electricity where my computer is, so I now have a lovely orange extension cord running across the floor between the family room and kitchen. Mike fixed it a few days ago, but apparently putting in a new outlet wasn't enough because it went out again yesterday. We now have no light or ceiling fan above the kitchen table. Our outside outlets in the front and back stopped working several years ago. Our house really seems to be a lemon!

Quote of the day

"Alex, you have man-legs."--Hannah

"That's because I'm a man."--Alex

"You're a boy. You're not a man until you get your period."--Shauna

Quote of the day

"They should make a candle called Italian Dinner."--Alex