Merry Christmas!

I’m super late with our Christmas post. But in my defense, our gym is about 3 days shy of opening so we have been SUPER busy at work.

A week or two ago, April and I took our kids (and husbands!) to see Santa at the mall. And this is the best we got.

We paid money for that. For real. Santa isn’t even looking! Oh well.

We passed a stomach bug around my house during the Christmas weekend so we didn’t get to do everything we wanted to (Christmas Eve church service, our tradition of opening a present Christmas Eve, etc.). But we still had a wonderful holiday!

As everyone knows, I am AWFUL at taking pictures. Half the reason is because I hate lugging around my ginormous good camera, so my hubby got me a little point-and-shoot camera for Christmas!

Since I wasn’t feeling well, I was a bad Mom and didn’t take any pictures of us opening our gifts, but Brad videotaped Noah opening his and I took some pictures later on in the day with my point-and-shoot.

  He’s looking at me like I’m nuts! (HA. I just read his shirt.)

 Cheese!

And please excuse the chocolate pudding stain. I promise I do actually wash that thing!

The aftermath. I left my living room like that allllllll weekend long. But Monday night I started to feel like a pig, so we moved everything into Noah’s playroom and took down all the Christmas decorations. I love Christmas, but I LOVE getting back to normal too!

As soon as the gym is finished, I am going to show yall some pictures! It is flippin’ awesome if I do say so myself! :) So stay tuned for that!

Our Christmas card!

For those of you that I don’t know in real life, here is our Christmas card for your viewing pleasure!

Renovations

A few months ago, Brad and I decided we wanted to start looking for a bigger house. Ideally, I wanted to be moved and settled in a new house before we got pregnant again so we wouldn’t have to worry about finding something and moving when the time came.

After looking for a while and getting my heart set on a couple of houses, we started praying and actively seeking God’s advice and will for our next move. Not so long after that, He answered and –as much as I didn’t like it at the time- told me that I didn’t need to have stuff or a big house just to have something to spend money on. We (Brad and I) needed enough freedom with the money that we have to be able to help others in need around us instead of strapping ourselves down just so we could have a big, fancy, new house.

I never wanted to do much to our house we currently live in besides painting because I figured we wouldn’t be there long enough to get to enjoy it. And once we decided to stay, I realized that it was our home and I let myself have free reign to do whatever my heart desired to it! After all, we plan on being there a while. :)

Project #1? Get a backsplash in the kitchen! I searched around for a while on the internet of ways to cut costs and DIY it, but who am I kidding? We McMichael’s are not the handiest people on the planet, and since I knew I would get a discount from the installers anyway because they work for my company, we let the professionals do it!

Before…

And after…

Being 100% honest, I wasn’t too crazy about it at first. It’s kind of busy against the countertops, but it grows on me more and more each day.

Next on my lists of projects: FINISH my laundry room makeover, dedicate a wall in our house for our Honduras feathers (more on that later), and since I’ve looked at these pictures….I’m thinking about painting the cabinets an off white color. I hope my sweet husband is not reading this, because that last sentence probably just gave him a heart attack. :)

Breakfast with Santa

Saturday, we went to the local kid’s museum (CHOM) with Noah, Brad’s mom and one of our nephews. Noah had SO MUCH FUN! The whole morning completely worn him out because he had so many things to do!

At first, he wasn’t too sure about everything going on though. Especially with all the character people walking around.

Nervous smile…

Noah’s Gammy tried to help him warm up to the reindeer, but it kind of freaked him out.

Noah and Daddy waiting for the bid guy in red to appear!

And eating some breakfast. I know this picture is blurry, but I wanted to share it because those two look and act so much alike!

But I’m his favorite for sure! (Notice the busted lip…he’s fearless!)

After breakfast, Santa and Mrs. Claus came in to join the party. Since Noah was afraid of the reindeer and since THIS happened last year…

I just knew he was going to freak his freak once we sat him on Santa’s lap. Instead, he was a total cheeseball. He loved Santa!

After meeting Santa, we were free to roam the rest of the museum. We’ve been there before with Noah but he was barely toddling then. This time, he was able to go wherever he pleased and that is his favorite thing to do! :)

I think we are still going to go see Santa at the mall and hopefully he will still like him! I may be pressing my luck on that though!            

The 2012 President of HBAT

Last night my sister, our other office companion Beverly, and I went to watch my Dad be inducted as the 2012 President of the Homebuilder’s Association of Tuscaloosa!

For dinner:

I really want to like vegetables, but I just can’t handle them. I think they are disgusting. But I tried to keep my plate healthy and I didn’t even get any of the yummo dessert they had.

Moving on :)

My fancy pants sister was elected to serve on the HBAT board of directors as well! Doesn’t she look professional? :)

And here is my good-lookin’ Dad getting his gavel and pin while being inducted!

We are so proud of him! He gave a fabulous speech and I know he is going to do such a good job!  

Holiday Treats

It’s hard to be dieting during the holidays. So much yummy food going around and you can’t touch any of it! BUT I have found two treats that I’m currently loving and I want to share them!

First…..

via

McDonald’s Fruit and Maple Oatmeal! It is very filling and it warms you up when it’s cold outside. And even though it comes from McDonald’s, it’s actually pretty tasty! But the best part is it’s only 100 calories! Woot Woot!

via

And secondly….

Now I have to admit, after hearing so much hype about these things, I wasn’t sold at first. But after about my third one (pre-diet obviously!) I was hooked. I LOVE them. They are 200 calories per tree, but some days it’s so worth every calorie!

I am on the look out for other treats to soothe my aching sweet tooth that are low-calorie and tasty. Do you know of any? 

Thanksgiving!

Grab a cup of coffee. This post is going to be SUPER long!

We had such a fun Thanksgiving holiday and four day weekend! I was in charge of more than just rolls and sweet tea this year! Along with my grandmother’s famous Cranberry Salad and my mom’s famous mac and cheese, I was assigned a potato dish. After much pinteresting I finally decided on the Twice Baked Potato Bake.

That’s a pan full of potato and sour cream deliciousness, people. 

We had Thanksgiving lunch with my family at my sister’s house. I even brought my big girl camera!

Noah and my favorite niece, Reece!

How cute are they? And since we were on a picture taking roll with my good camera, we tried to get a cousin picture. But the big cousins thought that was a super lame idea.

We all stuffed our faces and I forgot to take any more pictures. Oops!

After lunch, Noah and I went home to take a nap while Daddy took some more food over to his family’s house.

After Noah woke up, we joined Daddy for some more food over at his parent’s house. THEN Daddy left us at 5pm to go Black Friday shopping and didn’t get home until 3am on Friday! That man is crazy about getting a good deal! More power to him if it saves us money and I don’t have to do it!

I decided last Wednesday that I was going on a diet again. I know, I know. I let loose on Thanksgiving, though, believe me! Anyway, I needed to go to the grocery store to get some fruits and vegetables.

 

And some pretzels for Noah!

And some chapstick for me. That’s priority #1!

I’ve already lost almost 2 pounds and it hasn’t even been a week AND Thanksgiving was thrown into the mix. I’m pretty proud of myself! Hopefully I’ll be able to stick with it this time.     

So we pulled out our Elf on the Shelf over the weekend and read the book to Noah and asked him what he wanted the elf’s name to be. He said, “Ummm…….Joey!” Excuse me? Joey? We don’t even know a Joey. Where did he come up with that?!?! I wanted a fun Christmasy name like Sprinkles or Dazzle or something other than Joey! But Noah LOVES Joey so much and loves looking for him every day and then repeatedly saying, “I see Joey!! I see Joey!!” all.day.long. :)

And finally, I wasn’t going to post anything on the blog about this, but then I decided that I might want the documentation later on. Sometime around the beginning of October I started having random joint pain in my wrists and in my shoulder blades. At first, I thought that I was just sleeping funny. When the pain persisted and started to hurt my feet, I thought that I might have had some kind of vitamin deficiency so I started taking a daily multivitamin. The pain persisted and got worse. All of my joints were hurting and it even hurt to walk. So I decided to go to a doc-in-the-box to get some blood work drawn. I have every kind of health problem in my family so I wanted to get it checked out. They took ELEVEN vials of blood. I cannot believe I didn’t pass out! Those results came back and I had an elevated sed. rate of 50 (it shouldn’t have been more than 20) and my ANA (anti-nuclear antibodies; the cells that attack good cells) was positive. So the doctor referred me to a rheumatologist. I went to see the rheumy last week. After a three hour visit with him, he pretty much decided that I have lupus. My grandmother had it and it was eventually what killed her. Luckily though, the doctor said that since my grandmother had such a severe case of lupus, mine will not be as bad. He ordered some more blood work and I go back to see him tomorrow to find out the results and officially get my diagnosis of lupus, if the blood work comes back like he thinks it will. He will then put me on some medication that has some rough side effects…not looking forward to that. And hopefully it will help with my joint paint, lack of energy, dizziness and nausea that I’ve been having to deal with.

Not to end the post as a Debbie Downer, though! I am very optimistic and feel fine most days. I’m just ready to move forward and march on!

“Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise!” Jeremiah 17:14

Our weekend

We had a packed weekend at our house! Friday night, Brad and I got to have a much needed date night! All night! I don’t even remember the last time that has happened! We started off our date at my all time favorite restaurant in Birmingham, The Bright Star. Our waiter sat us down at a cozy little table in the corner and I sat down in THIS chair!

And yes, my husband made fun of me for taking a picture. And speaking of my husband, look how cute he was!

See?

The reason The Bright Star is my favorite restaurant is because of their greek tenderloin. It is seriously THE best thing I have ever eaten in my entire life. They marinate it for like 2 years (only slighty kidding!) and it doesn’t even need steak sauce or anything.

And I don’t know what’s better. Eating the steak in allllll that juicy goodness or waiting until the next morning and sticking your leftover steak in a big roll and eating that! I did both.

Ahhhh….

Anyway, after eating we headed to downtown Birmingham to the BJCC to see My Fair Lady!

We had never seen it before and I thought it was really good! It was a little hard to understand the actors at first, but we still enjoyed it.

We didn’t get home until about 12:30am! I don’t even stay up until midnight on New Year’s! We slept in until about 8:30am the next day!

Saturday, we picked up our little man and headed to Mississippi to see my friend get married! It was a cute little church on the MUW campus (that we almost didn’t find) and it was so pretty on the inside. It had a cinder blockish construction on the inside that echoed really bad…and guess who liked that feature?

He only lasted about two minutes into the wedding before I sent them outside!

And YES I forgot my good camera. Fail.

But it was a beautiful wedding and I’m so happy we got to go! I even made it back to town in time to join my girls at a bible study!

Sunday is always a busy day for us. I worked in the nursery, which is always fun! After church, all three of us took a FOUR hour nap! I say that ends a perfectly fun filled weekend!      

Project 52 (15)

Fall

My Autumn commute to work (that’s much prettier in person!) :)

Project 52 (13 and 14)

Spooky

This is a picture of one of our rental houses. This house used to always freak me out. I would hear weird sounds in it. One time, I even called the police out there because I was convinced someone was inside. There wasn’t anyone there... BUT this house is no longer there because it got blown away in the tornado. :/

Costume

My stinky skunk! :)

Picture catch-up

This time of year we always are so busy going here and going there. Sorry for the lack of blogging!

This past Thursday, I decided to take Noah to the doctor because he had been coughing along with a runny nose.

The doctor said that he had the same little cold that all the other (almost) 2 year olds have right now and that he would be fine.  So we spent the day hanging out at home and resting.

Friday, Noah went missing for a little while and after searching for him I came upon this.

He has a new hiding spot. :)

Saturday, we went to Noah’s girlfriend’s birthday party at Chick-fil-A! Lyla (his girlfriend) moved to a different school this year so they hadn’t seen each other since July! They were SO excited to see one another.

How cute are they?!?!? And it was a Minnie Mouse party so Noah was ALL about it.

Then Sunday (are you tired yet?), we had our annual fall festival at church and Noah got to debut his costume.

A skunk!! LOVE IT!!! And no, my husband doesn’t normally walk around in army pants, but he was dressed in character for a hayride drama shindig for later that night.

He wasn’t too thrilled about wearing the headpiece as you can tell, but after he learned that he got to eat suckers all night he was SUPER happy!

And today, Noah’s school had a Harvest Day party and the whole school dressed up like farmers.

He makes a pretty cute little farmer if I do say so myself! :)

So that about catches us up! I PROMISE I will make an effort to use my real big-girl camera from NOW ON, especially with the holidays coming up. No more iPhone pictures!