The Funny Thing About Me Is...

#2 I like to watch People's Court.

Especially while I'm eating lunch since it comes on right at 12. I've never been one for Soap Operas (except for Days of Our Lives for a couple months when I was 16) or dumb talk shows. But I love Judge Marilyn. She rocks.

The Funny Thing About Me Is...

#1: I iron all my kids' clothes before I put them on them.

Even Steele's little white undershirts. And his jeans.

Just like my mother did. And her mother before that. My grandma ironed my grandpa's "undershorts."

I Ordered My Camera!!

And I got such a sweet deal on it!

I had searched around on the internet a bit and found the best deal (by about $50) on Dell's small business site. I wanted to be sure and buy it from a reputable company - not just on ebay or something - in case something should go wrong with it. Late last night I was looking over it, seeing what accessories I needed to buy, and decided to call Dell and make sure it came with a battery charger. So I call them up and tell them I'm about to order it and she says, "Well, since you called - I can give you a better deal. We like to drop the price if people call..." Go figure!

I wasn't about to argue with her so I graciously accepted her price of $236. This baby retails for $299 - even at Walmart it's like $271. On the Dell site they had it for $254 or something. With free shipping and handling they basically comped my tax. Isn't that cool!? And it does come with a battery charger - check that off the list.

I'm so excited for it to get here. And I feel like I will be more inspired to blog if I have some decent pictures to go with it. At least I hope so. I think of a million things a day that I want to write about but always talk myself out of it. And after reading this poor lady's blog - I sometimes hesitate to write about anything the least bit controversial. Although, have you noticed that nobody usually comments on the serious posts? It's just the shallow fun ones that get like 15 comments. (fifteen comments is a good day for me - not like this blog that I read religiously and love but am too nervous to put on my blogroll. Kind of like when you were a freshman trying to talk to a senior at the pop machine in the cafeteria) She gets a bazillion comments. My friend Martha's not doin' so bad either these days. ;-)

In a strange coincidence (especially since we never watch it) - they're currently talking about cameras on Sesame Street today.....Elmo's singing, "Camera, camera, camera, camera, camera, camera, camera, camera"..... (yes, you do hear Twilight Zone music playing in your head).

The Randomness of My Days..

• 7:00 am - Woke up with Steele, put on Veggietales and started work on this breakfast casserole for our brunch at church. (the first breakfast casserole I've ever made - not much for casseroles - but it actually turned out really well)
  

• 9:40 am - Arrived at church 10 minutes late as Justin was getting off work this morning and I was flying sola.

• Sometime during church Justin arrived and boy, was I glad. Steele was extra squirmy today and Adia was continuing on with Screamfest '08. She and I have been butting heads lately. She's only 1 you ask? Trust me.
  

• 1:00 pm - Kids went down for naps. I wrote paychecks for my employees. I'm sure they'll appreciate that. They better.... Oh yah... I also did a couple days of Bible study since BSF starts back up again this week.
  

• 3:00 pm - Justin took the kids over to my mom's house to drop off her leftover breakfast casserole. My poor mom threw her back out again so Justin had picked it up and brought it to church for her. (since she already made it and everything). And what a hub - he also went to Home Depot and picked up a fluorescent light for the studio which has been out since early Christmas week but I was off and nobody told me - we were rockin' it out Club Style at Jazzercise. (well, at least in the front left corner) He also dropped off pay checks.

• While he was gone I practiced my Jazzercise routines for tomorrow and prepared flyers, posters and postcards for all our current and upcoming promotions that I should have finished before January. E-mailed them off to the printer. I called Justin when I was done and asked him to pick up Haggen-ese for dinner. So bad for me. I guess I'll start the "You" diet tomorrow....

• 6:00 pm - Justin got home and we fed the kids and put them to bed. Adia continuing with Screamfest...
  

• Sometime between 6 and 7 Amy called and we talked for a bit. Then she informed me that while we were at her daughter's 1st birthday party last night the kids and I were exposed (unknowingly, of course) to both roseola and a probable stomach virus. Woo Hoo. Here's praying with everything in me that we contract neither of them. She also gave me the recipe for this yummy soup that we had at her house on New Year's Eve. I've made it a personal goal to have more soup in my life. In fact, I have designated Sundays as "Sunday Soup" days. It's easy, yummy and I can usually put it in the crock pot so I can rest as much as possible on Sundays. Pay no attention to the highly rest-less activities I spoke of earlier. I'm thinking forward to putting a stop to that.... I digress.....
  

• After dinner Justin and I sat down to watch the last part of Amazing Race (which I used to love but haven't watched for last 2 or so seasons) while he tried to massage a huge knot out of my back. SUCH a good hub.

• And now? Well, now we get to pretty much the whole point of this entire post. Now? We are watching American Gladiators!! And in some strange, entertaining, unexplainable, wish-I-was-buff-like-that way... I am thoroughly enjoying it! Isn't that so weird? Go figure. Amy will think I'm a crazy loon. (who uses words like "loon", anyway?)
  

(of course, I checked a few blogs in between all of this but that's a given right?)

And, I would like to apologize for the lack of pictures in this odd post. I would have ordered our new Sony camera today but I'm waiting for my friend O.Shane to give his experienced opinion on that one. (hint hint)

After Watching This...

I think I shall move to the countryside and buy myself a farm.

Presents!

Ok - since I went on and on about how much I love presents I figured I'd better post some of my favorite presents. Received... and given!

First of all, though, I have to say that I didn't get a lot of great pictures from Christmas since our camera is kind of on the fritz. It's a hand-me-down from Justin's sister that replaced the one Steele dropped on the floor and broke by accident. Neither were very good BUT, we got a nice money gift from Justin's parents so we'll be buying a new camera very soon (which I will then add to my list of favorite gifts received). You can't very well have two cute kids and a crummy camera now can you? We're considering these two cameras. I'd love any opinions you can offer. I'm leaning toward the Sony mainly because the reviews I've read on the Canon say that the flash takes a long time which, as those of you with children know, you cannot be sitting there forever with your children smiling away waiting for the flash to prepare. It just doesn't work.

Anyway, back to the presents. I gave some really good gifts this year, including a tank from Downeast for my mom and gift certificates to a cool book store and cafe that I'm sure she'll use quickly as she is a very avid reader. I also got my grandma this book


I got her the North American one last year. She likes them (I think) - she loves birds and they're really cool books. They include hundreds of pictures of birds and you can hear each of their individual songs. If you haven't seen them you should definitely take a look. Steele also loves them when we go over to her house to visit.

I got my little brother and sister these books. My sister, especially, is eating hers up.

Sorry - you can't actually "search inside."

But the best gift I/We gave was this gift for Steele.


I took him to Pottery Barn Kids before Christmas to see if he would actually play with it. He loves any kind of machine and we were constantly stepping over our vacuum at home since he had it out of the closet all day long playing with it. He LOVED it! And after we left the store I was pushing him along in the stroller and every time somebody would pass us in the mall he would say, "I was vacuumin'"..... "I was vacuumin" It was pretty funny. Here's a picture that he very graciously let me take of him this morning as he was watching VeggieTales. Notice the fake smile.

This one cracked me up too because he's still smiling
but couldn't resist turning his head to watch his show.

I received some very nice gifts as well. Honorable mention will go to these two.


I'm a big Dr. Oz fan and this completed my set. I've been enjoying reading it. His books are easy to read and are chock full of good information. You should definitely go on Amazon right now and buy them.

I also got some Lucky jeans from Justin which I picked out myself a couple months ago. I was good and didn't wear them until Christmas. But I have been enjoying them since Christmas morning when I opened them up.


But the prize for BEST GIFT RECEIVED 2007 goes to these babies....



Aren't they cute?! My mom got them for me and she was so nervous I wouldn't like them. But I LOVED them! Who wouldn't? Ok, well, my little 19 year old Russian gal that teaches for me gave me a raised eyebrow... but she wears spiked heeled boots that put holes in my fir floors so her opinion doesn't count.... But don't you LOVE them!? I've worn them a ton already - even with a cute brown skirt. Have I mentioned that I LOVE them?

So there they are, my favorite gifts of 2007. Oh wait, these ones are pretty special too...

Especially the nose-picking version


This one stands up all by herself!
With cute new jeans that her aunt picked out for her.

Happy New Year.

I know I haven't been around much (thank you, Christine, for noticing ;-)

As my good friend Jodi says - I've been a little "blogstipated."

But I promise, I'll be back soon. With blogging so good it'll knock your socks off.

Maybe even tomorrow. Nothing much important to do tomorrow except blog.

Stay tuned...