Holiday Projects

My oh, so exciting, list!

1. Finish the t-shirt quilt I started for C last holiday season...I just need to put the back on and then "quilt" it. I think I will try to do this in the mornings when I am up and he is still sleeping so it will be a surprise.
2. Finish the blanket that I am making for Craig's mom for xmas...it is about 1/4 of the way so I have some time. Might work on that this weekend.
3. Clean out my clothes and for goodness sake, get rid of all those sweaters that have 1,000 picks on them that I will not wear because of it or the ones that have shrunk or the pants my big butt will no longer fit into.
4. Go through all the pictures from my last 2 (maybe 3) years' worth of vacations. I need to sort through them all and do something with them..that will probably lead to a project I have wanted to do for a while which is to make a book for each year. Hmmm.
5. Make a CD for poor Morgan of the pictures from Chicago from 2009 that I thought I already made her but obviously didn't. Sad.
6. Clean out my pantries. While looking to make sure I had all the ingredients that I needed for this Thanksgiving I noticed that I had brown sugar, only it was in brick form...not the kind where you can break it back out but it was actually almost melted together.
7. Just a general cleaning of my two rooms...they are a mess!

Now off to make some pumpkin pancakes and wake up C...yes, he is still sleeping at 11am...I have been up for 3.5hrs...I don't know how he does it!

Update and New Blog

Well, no secret that I am horrible at keeping up this blog lately. I am not sure why...not like I was writing super exciting stuff before but somehow I just don't see to have much time for it. Here are a few tidbits.

--training for another half marathon. It is in Phoenix in January and I am going to visit my friend Rachel (some of you might remember her, ,she interned with me at Deloitte and was from New Orleans). She lives in Phoenix now and though we have had a couple dinners when I was in New Orleans for work, it will be nice to spend a few days with her.

--Work has finally settled down. I think that I have told most of you about it but long story short, they were re-organizing and I wasn't sure what they were doing with my job. They announced last Friday that they were done with Home Office (YAY). No raises this year but at least I have a job. There was also a possible opening in the Ohio market but it looks like that might be filled with the other home office employee who lives in this market. I like my job so I am fine with it, but it would have been a good step up.

--we are staying here for Thanksgiving and I am thankful that I get to just relax that day and cook all day.

--We are going to Atlanta for xmas but due to the fact that we are sleeping on a bed on the floor, only have four channels on the TV and a lot of projects here, we are probably not going to be there that long.

Other than that, I am going to make a list of all the projects that I have not completed this year and try to get them all done over the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas). I will have to make a list of those but I will save that for another post.

Finally, I have started a new blog. I have really enjoyed making hats this year. I am super sad that the photography business hasn't taken off here and I feel like I have tried just about everything I can think of. I guess I will just be patient. In the meantime, I have been able to crochet and knit more and I really like it so I am going to try to make a hat a day (or at least post one per day even if I make 2 one day and none the other days). You can find my new blog HERE and I would love for you to add it to your google reader :-) I am still trying to find a format that works. It is sort of hard until you get a few posts in there.

That is about it...not too much going on but I have a feeling that with all the free time over the holidays I will have more time to post :-)

Our Weekend with Ariyana

I am sure you guys got your fill on fb, but just in case, here is a recap and some pics.

I started to get really nervous about the visit because my sister said that Ariyana was going through a really whiney phase. I wasn't really sure what to expect. She was definitely more whiney than in the past but she was good overall. The toughest part about the weekend was that she is going through this phase where half the time she wants to be the baby (I think because Maddox gets a lot of attention at home) and the other half of the time she literally pitches a fit if you try to do something for her. It can be the same thing though both times so it is hard to know when it will strike. I think that this was hardest on Craig because he liked to show her things and sometimes he would do too much and she would get mad. The other tough part was the sheer number of kid videos we watched...Cars - 5 times, Princess and the Frog - 3 times, Monsters, Inc -3 times, Bug's Life - 1 time. I normally would not allow a child to watch that much TV but we had 0 toys for her here. We had played on taking her to the toy store to get her a bday present but then it never happened.

At the end of the weekend and after I got home last night, I asked Craig if we could still have kids after spending a weekend with her and he said yes so I count that as a win :-) She also told her parents that she had a lot of fun :-) It was hard to tell at times because I felt like I had to stop her from doing a lot of things just so she wouldn't go home with a gash in her head.

Anyway, here is the weekend in pics (when I could get the camera out).Getting ready to leave her house :-) We had to make one stop on the way to the airport for her to potty but other than that it was smooth sailing with no traffic (in the HOV lane).

On the "train" from the rental car return place. I think she was more excited about this train and the train the airport than she was about the plane.
Watching the planes come in...she was very excited by them backing out and taking off and woulc announce which ones were "big" ones and which ones looked like ours.
On the plane.
She looks so tiny in the seat!
Silly girl!
She insisted that I hold her hand once the plane started moving....so sweet.
Eating her gummies after we took off because she was such a good girl in the airport.
I had promised her cookies on the plane but they didn't give them out on our flight...uh oh. The flight attendant for first class heard me explain that we would get some when we landed and she said she had some in first class. She came back with one of those airsick bags with water, an apple, a banana, cookies, and a twix in it. She even put the napkin like tissue paper. It was super sweet of her and what did Ariyana eat? The apple and banana :-)
Playing with the seatbelt, which I told her not to do...and sure enough, yesterday on the way home she smashed her finger in it...poor thing. When she did it I couldn't resist saying "didn't I tell you that would happen" and she said "yes, but it hurts".
At the children's discovery museum...SO MUCH BETTER than Atlanta. Unfortunately she wasn't intested in everything because she hadn't had a nap but then she asked to go back the next day so I guess she had fun...I will never figure kids out.
After being inside on Saturday because it was so cold, I really wanted to go outside on Sunday...we decided to do some yardwork...I figured that she would play in the leaves (which she did) but then she wanted to help...I promise we were not putting her to work. It was funny because all she did was spread them around. Luckily after a little while she wanted to go with Craig to dump them in the woods and I could rake.
After nap time we went to a playground nearby. She had been asking to swing since we got in the car in GA so I figured it was another good activity for outside. This is a weird contraption that picks up sand and dumps it. I should have taken video as she bossed C around. It was hilarious!
Again, little miss independent wanted to "do it herself" and she wanted to pull the suitcase. There wasn't that much in there so it wasn't that heavy but I think that this picture is hilarious...she just looks beat down.
And finally, stickers are stickers, no matter what they say and these helped to entertain her for a while as we waited on Grandma to come get her at the airport.