Happy New Year!

 

 

Santa is bringing it in in-style. Don't worry- you're not going to be finding a list of everything we were blessed with this past year. I've opted out of the list making this year, because there was just far too many blessings to count, and no possible way I'd remember them all at this moment. I always feel really crappy when I remember something important that I forgot to list, and I think someone involved in that is believing that I didn't appreciate an event that happened with them...I'm going to be insanely honest...I have a terrible, terrible, terrible memory. I can't recall a lot of things until something else triggers a memory. I will just say that we are very thankful for our family, and we did make a resolution this year...

 

To spend more time with family.

 

Happy New Year friends and family! We love you all, and can't wait to live intentionally in 2014!   

Yeah, buddy!

Sorry, but sometimes I just need a little lift me up to celebrate the small milestones. It worked so well on the last huge project, that I'm giving it another go. Here's a tiny snap shot of my newest work, "Glory". (tentatively titled, of course.)

******************

The backdoor to the restaurant closest to Gerald slipped open. They each watched hungrily, as the restaurant worker in a stained white apron heaved a black trash bag into the slightly rusted green dumpster, and then slowly pulled a cigarette from his pants pocket. They impatiently waited for the kitchen hand to finish the cigarette dangling between his fingers. As soon as the metal door closes behind him, it’s going to be war when the men brawl over who will get to eat now, and which two will have to continue waiting through the night.

After the six long minutes, the cigarette slowly spun into an old Folger’s coffee can at the base of the stairs. All three men sprint towards the dumpster in the night, with just the light from a single exposed bulb hanging over the restaurants backdoor to see. Theo and Ron prepared to fight with fists and feet, but Gerald hasn’t eaten in two days, and he wasn’t about to make it three. He reached the dumpster first. His frozen fingers wrapped around the bottle neck that he stashed there this morning, and he smashed it against the side of the dumpster.

Gerald held the jagged end out towards them. “Back off! Back off!” he yelled. Ron swatted at him, and the jagged bottle met his cheek. The squealing of pain echoed down the alley as his flesh ripped open. Warm blood oozed from the three gashes in the side of his face, a shard of glass stuck in the skin near his lip. He retreated down the alley and disappeared around the corner to lick his wounds.

“How about you, huh?” Gerald bantered to Theo in a crouching position, ready to fight. “You want some of this, too?” Slowly, Theo backed away with his hands up. He didn’t need a degree in psychology to diagnose the unstable state Gerald was in. He reclaimed his place next to the stairs, and watched Gerald climbed into the dumpster. Seconds later out popped the trash bag. Gerald gave one last warning glare to Theo, threw the bottle against the back of the restaurant building, and then held the bag tightly to his chest running the opposite way of bloodied Ron, and also disappeared into the night.
****
 

Ah, it's unbelievable!

I can't get over how fast she is growing up!

 

Measuring practice.

I can't even describe how excited and proud she was that she finally used the beater and didn't drop the beaters. I'm so excited that she is grasping these milestones. I didn't say anything, and she just started cheering, "I do it by myself, mommy. Look, look!"  Now she wants to make cookies everyday!

Growing up

K picks out her own clothes in the mornings, so I try to stack them in matching layers with the shirts on top of the pants to hopefully have her somewhat matched each day, but sometimes I think she gets on to my game, and she'll want to wear a pair of crazy leggings or something. Here she was (almost) ready to go out in the bitter cold, and she knows how incredibly cute she looked with the scarf on her head.

Ha, love my thug hubs!

K's favorite thing this week...

Jumping off the ottoman onto a mountain of pillows!

 

K's Frosty

K is so in love with Frosty. She loves snow and she was pretty sad that she couldn't play in it longer last night (the darkness crept in at like 4:20). There wasn't enough snow outside to do anything with, just a dusting, but we made snow angels in the dusting on the drive way...and when we came inside, we built our own frosty on her bedroom door. It almost looks upside down, but it's her masterpiece, and we think she did a wonderful job. =)

Writer's Bock, anyone?

Three new assignments- and I can't find a single bit of energy to start them...one of which is due in T-*gulp*7 days! All I seem to want to focus on is my home binder, which I finished my 2014 cleaning calendar around 5 this morning. (Big thanks to Katelyn for going to sleep at 7 last night and waking up at 3 ready to party.)

 

*New* Budget Sheet

I've been having a crazy good time putting together a new budget sheet for 2014...Crazy, right? (Like I said!)

 

A few years ago I had Chris finish a money tracker spread sheet I had started putting together, (Yes! I suck at Excel and ended up needing him to come save me because he rocks with it...blah, blah, blah.) Every year we tweak it just a bit, but I've finally stepped out of denial... 

 

The money tracker sheet worked very well to let us know WHERE all our money was going, but it didn't hold us accountable for anything. It simply tells me that we spent way too much $$ eating out, and we even included a little column that breaks each row into a monthly average (which I sometimes I like to pretend is our running total to make me feel better.)

 

Now things are different. We have Katelyn, and she has now hit the stage were we have to consciously cook a little more food (and buy a little more), her age requires her own ticket for just about everything, and then there is this little thing called tuition for both the present and the future. 

 

So, I'm excited to have finally finished a spread sheet that lists all our expenditures with a monthly budget. (Things like "Vacation-Travel" "Postage" "Lawn Care" are all included.)  As we enter in each months spending I can see our ups and our downs on a graph for each item. That is followed by our running total, which is then subtracted from our yearly budget, and then our overage/underage for each item is clearly black or red.

 

At the end of the each months column is the $ amount we should be spending, and that tells me where we are at as a whole for the month. (Although, I'm not going to be as concerned with this, because we may go to one concert/theater event the entire year. The budget we set breaks down to $16/month, so as long as we stay below $192/year we're good in the grand scheme of things.)

 

But I didn't stop there...No, sir. We have a savings section. This section has our money saving goals. This includes our general savings and the 52 week challenge (hopefully to be donated about this time next year.)

 

That's the run down...and now that it is finished I can't wait for January to get here so I can start filling it all in...that's not really crazy...it's more sad, I know. But, if you have any suggestions on changing something with it, let me know.

Colts Game!

Katelyn was so impressed by the big flag!

I made us all matching game day gear! Katelyn's skirt, my shirt, and you can't see it, but I stitched the same print over the horseshoe on Chris's sweatshirt.

We found Elmo, Batman, and (not pictured) Spiderman!

Thanksgiving Fun

K is lucky to have such great cousins all around.

Me and Casi

Gingerbread House

Eating the nerds from the gingerbread house kit with daddy.

Cookie time!

I've lost it.

Humph, I've lost my camera...and right before the Holidays, too. It has to be in this house somewhere, because I don't remember taking it anywhere after the swimming event on Saturday...and I uploaded this swim video. I'm just running out of time to find it before Turkey Day! Eeeeeeee.

Marshmallow Corn

Ah, we used this craft/art project to work on our counting...while eating yummy mallows in the morning. My girl loves to paint! It always makes her feel better. =)

Bowling with Rory and Miss J!

Here is K's bestie boy-friend! She absolutely loves Rory (and his momma says he loves her,too). They play together at school, and everyday K gets in the car and she says, "I play with Rory, mommy." One days just out of the blue she walks up to me in the kitchen says, "Rory nice to me, Mommy." I was told by R's mommy that the teachers said that they play together at school, and when they don't want to do anything they will sit together and just watch everyone else. Too cute!

 

First Snow, Play Dates, and Growing

K totally LOVED the snow. We had it for about three days, and we had to play outside in it EVERYDAY! It was wonderful.

It was a little weird having snow and then having leaves falling on top of it...

These are a some of the awesome prizes we got at D's Turkey Hunt play date. We had a lot of fun, and made a new friend.

Outside at Miss D' house.

K is an early riser, and I try to be prepared (although I'm not usually too successful!) This is one the activities we did before school. I had the crayons glued to the cardboard, and then she held the hair dryer to it and watched them melt. It looks way cooler in person. ;)

We've been working on drawing circles and making the letter K. Here we glued pumpkin seeds over the letter.

Haha! She's exhausted. Fell asleep just like this.

Here is where she is growing up. My baby only needs me to start peeling the Cuties for her, she can finish them b herself,

Some of Novembers work is up decorating the kitchen. =)

Playing, Cleaning, and Crafts

So, I couldn't find a smaller rake for K to use on the leaves. I used the big one, and she used....a broom! (Don't knock it, it worked.)

Yes...K has chores, but we don't force her to do them. Usually when we start a task, she wants to help and will often offer to do it. Sometimes she needs a little more prompting, so we might say, "Hey Katelyn, that window looks dirty. Would you mind washing it for me, please?"

She loves her turkey hat.

Have I read this?

Ok, wow! I guess this book is not being released until Nov. 19, but somehow I've already read it. At least, I feel like I have. I read the excerpt online tonight for the first time, and maybe I somehow managed to get a copy of it, but perhaps the reviews are hitting the nail on the head...and the writing is just getting that predictable. I don't know that it's totally a bad thing for fans to know the characters so well, and after nineteen books, the characters should be a little predictable, in a sense. But, I don't know about that fact that I (somehow) knew what was going to happen... Was there a four chapter preview at the end of the last book? Maybe, I borrowed it from the library, so I'm not sure and I can't check... We'll see once I get my hands on it after the 19th.

A lot...

So, I know this is random and unintentional, but look at the face Katelyn drew! It's better than any profile I've been able to draw. I'm dead serious, and you all know that I can't draw for squat anyway.

This is how we got the pumpkin seeds for our learning trays this month.

She said, "gross, squishy"...I ended up pulling almost all but one handful out.

She did think rinsing them was much more fun, though.

Afterwards, she needed a bath. (I forgot to turn the flash off in this one.)

It was such a gray rainy day out, that we turned the lights off, and tossed a few glow sticks into the tub to brighten things up.

The girl is obsessed with glue work! She wanted to do it at home, and her teachers said it is all she wanted to do in the classroom, too.

Her friend, Dagny, hosted a Parfait play date, and it was awesome...(the mommies got some pudding, too.)