Darryl's Weekend Project

Since Amy made a promise to post everyday that she was off and failed miserably, I decided to help her out. My project for this weekend was to be able to get my truck back in the garage. That does not sound like a huge project but it took several hours to accomplish. I should have taken a picture before I started but I did not. So you just get to see the finished project. Next weekend's project will be to do a final mowing for the year to pick up the leaves since they are finally gone.

Thanksgiving for Three

So I dropped the ball on posting every day this week. Last night I decided to put up our Christmas tree, and by the time I finished, I was too tired to post...

We decided this year just to stay here for Thanksgiving. Darryl and I were both exhausted and in need of some family time just the three of us. I'm pretty sure I would have hit "burnout mode" pretty soon if we didn't get some R & R.

For the first time EVER, we had Thanksgiving at a restaurant. While it wasn't quite the same as eating some home-prepared goodies, I have to confess that it was nice to nap right after dinner instead of cleaning up the kitchen. :)

We had lunch at Copeland's, mainly because they boasted a buffet complete with "Cajun fried turkey." We love us some fried turkey. Anyway, the food was very, very good. The fried turkey was okay, but definitely not as good as Darryl's. (Or maybe I just missed the luxury of picking off the crispy fried pieces from the carcass, haha.)

Here's a pic of me and my girl:


We finished up with cheesecake for dessert. I know it isn't very Thanksgiving-y, but Amelia didn't seem to mind:

We came home, took a good nap, perused the Black Friday ads, and then went to dinner at Cracker Barrel. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I wanted more Thanksgiving food...I considered it my "leftovers" since we didn't really have any...leftovers.

Cracker Barrel was PACKED. They were out of turkey (!), but I was still able to get all the fixings, which is what I wanted anyway. It took a sweet forever to get our food (but our waitress was so nice and apologetic and hooked us up with free pie), and somehow Amelia stayed in very good spirits through the long wait. Thank goodness for "colors":


We finished up the evening by putting up and decorating the Christmas tree. Out with Thanksgiving, in with Christmas!

Seriously

I just checked my work email (it's a habit), and I have an email from a parent that was sent at 9:40 tonight. Tonight, the night before Thanksgiving. Are you kidding me?

A little about today

I just realized that if my mother checks my blog this evening and all she finds is an embarrassing tribute to Donny Osmond, she's not going to be happy.

Today was busy, busy, busy. We had lunch with Darryl. Then we went to Toys R' Us because I wanted to get a Little People Nativity Set I had seen there the other day (and later wished I had bought), but lo and behold, when I went to get it today, it was gone. Shucks.

Then we went to Chick-fil-a for some ice cream, and Amelia played in the play area with some mean girls while I silently prayed Amelia will never end up acting the way they were acting. (At one point, they actually "mocked" Amelia's baby talk. Seriously??) We left there after about 10 minutes of that nonsense and headed to the inflatable indoor playground and played hard for an hour and a half. We had a blast, though. (And there were no mean girls there!)

And now I'm doing laundry. And I'm about to work on homework for the (ridiculous) online gifted endorsement class I'm taking.

I laugh at the word "vacation."

Anyway, I have enjoyed spending time with Amelia this week. I haven't gotten much grading done yet, but I've had some fun.

And I thought my mom might like this pic of Amelia from a little over a week ago in the outfit my parents gave her for her birthday. Too cute!

I "heart" Donny. Yeah, that's right.

I'm A-OK with Donny Osmond winning Dancing with the Stars. You know why? Because I've always had a little thing for him.

It all started when I was very young, maybe 4 or 5, and watched The Donny and Marie Show. I loved that show. I also had a Donnie and Marie 8-track tape, with my favorite songs being "A, My Name is Alice and my Boyfriend's Name is Andy" and "I'm a Little Bit Country, and I'm a Little Bit Rock and Roll." (My friend Heather and I sang that last one in a talent show when I was in first grade.) If I'm not mistaken, I also had a Donny and Marie vanity set.


Let us fast-forward to high school, when I recorded "Soldier of Love" and "Sacred Emotion" from Rick Dees Top 40 and then included both of those on several mix tapes.

And maybe I've watched him as Joseph from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on You Tube once or twice.

I know he can be a bit of a cheeseball. I know he's prolonging his career as long as he can by doing appearances on ET and DWTS. But the dude has undeniable charm and charisma, and he actually danced pretty well.

But here's what I like best about him: I love the fact that he's been married to the same woman since he was in his early 20s. And I love that he has lots of kids who seem crazy about him. I love the fact that when he was hot stuff in his teens and women were throwing themselves at him, he turned them down because he wasn't raised to "be that way." (I'm loosely paraphrasing from an interview he did with Oprah about a year ago.) And I love the fact that after he won last night, he immediately grabbed his wife from the audience and pulled her on stage with him.

The truth is...I like good guys. My favorite "rocker" is Bon Jovi, who, like Donny (have these two ever in life been mentioned in the same sentence before?), has been married to the same woman and admits to driving carpool. I married a good guy.

So...even though this season of DWTS was kind of bleh (aside from Kelly Osborne--how awesome was she?), I'm glad to see that sometimes the good guy finishes first.


(Edited to add...I started out writing this post kind of jokingly, and now that I read it over, I think I sound kind of swoony about Donny Osmond. I'm not. I just think he's a decent guy. But all the stuff about the 8-track and mix tape...yeah, that's all true.)

Amelia's Birthday Party

Yes, this is over two weeks late, but I thought I'd FINALLY post about Amelia's birthday party.

Last year, we had a very simple party with only a few family members, but I decided to be brave (or insane?) and do a full-fledged party this year, complete with about 14 kids aged 5 and under. However, I did make the very, very wise decision (if I do say so myself) to have the party at the indoor playground place that Amelia loves so much, so I didn't have to worry about cleaning up before or after and coming up with activities for the kids to do. That was great!

Here are a few pics:

Amelia loved this slide and pretty much stayed on this during most of the play time.

Okay, I'm including both of these (bad) pics so you can get an idea of how difficult it is to get a group shot of young children. This just makes me laugh...



One of my co-workers made the awesome Elmo cake!
One of my co-workers made the awesome Elmo cake!

The only downside to this party is that it was really hard to get the kids fed in the 40 minutes that we were allotted in the party room, so we ended up taking all the gifts home to open. I felt kind of bad about that, but I let it go. It was one of those "beyond my control" things. Amelia did have a big time opening her gifts, though.
It was definitely a fun time, and most importantly, Amelia enjoyed it. That's kind of the point, right?

One Little Indian

I'm going to make a real effort to post every day this week. I have all kinds of things to cover...Amelia's birthday, school stuff, my birthday, and more. My blog is definitely in need of my attention. My mother also wants more Amelia photos, so you might get one or two gratuitous Amelia photos each day. :)

Today I'm just going to post about, well, today. I'm so happy to be off from school this week. I have all kinds of things I want to get accomplished, but I'm mainly looking forward to spending time with this girl:


She insisted on wearing her little Indian headdress (does this qualify as a headdress?) most of the time we were at the house today. Funny girl!

Today I attempted to do a little Christmas shopping today with Amelia in tow. She wasn't bad, but my goodness, I had to chase her everywhere. When we got home this afternoon, we both just zonked out.

It was a good first day of vacation!

2 Years Old!!

It's hard to believe Amelia is two years old today. In some ways, it is hard to believe she has been with us only two years because she has filled our lives that much, but at the same time, she is growing so fast.

We took on a "real" birthday party this weekend, and I will definitely post some pics from that in the next few days.

Tonight, though, we went to eat at a local Italian restaurant, primarily so Amelia could have some cheesecake, her favorite dessert!



Happy Birthday, Amelia!! We love you very much!!