the christmas story

this video was made by my friend wendy's husband and includes her two sweet sons-they are the brothers who are together in the video-you can't miss them... they are the two adorably handsome guys and quite funny too! you can meet the whole family here .

enjoy!

great oprah magazine deal!

are you a fan of oprah? you can get a whole year of her "O" magazine for only $5! the offer is good through 12/19.

check it out at amazon- "O" magazine deal

enjoy!

i have got to stop slacking...(and whoa do i foresee trouble)

seriously. i mean i am a total slacker about lots of things-and i'm ok with that. one thing i've been pretty good at though is capturing moments with the camera. yep, i usually take pictures aplenty. i don't make those cute scrapbooks, that would be way too much work. thanks to mammie, kelley and bethany do have their own photo albums. though with the digital age i'm lucky to get prints made. in fact the summer i was sick i actually caught up with five years of pictures into each album. lately though i just plain suck. even when i manage to take pictures i haven't blogged them, uploaded to facebook, nothing. if i don't change my ways, the next current pictures you all see may be when the girls are teenagers. (oh holey crow, one day we're going to have two teenage daughters...at the same time!)

so really i need to get busy. for example i mentioned my complete lack of recording kelley's concert last night. and there was no excuse! i even have one of those flip video camera thingies. well i haven't opened it and figured it out yet. see? slacker.

what has me thinking of this now though is bethany. i can't tell you how many times i gaze at that child and try to figure out how i helped create her! forgive me for this, but you all will understand...cause aren't all of our children just gorgeous? yes they are. bethany. wow. long naturally curly hair, big blue eyes and teeny tiny. not a freckle on her face. really i'm thinking mr. heather gets A LOT of credit here. and she has this style about her. when i was her age, picture chubby, freckles, ugly dresses from kmart (sorry mammie and papa), and likely a kinky poodle curl perm. not to leave kelley out, because she is way too pretty for me to not be wowed when i get to claim helping create her as well. each day they are growing more and more into these cute little sassy girls. and i'm so *proud* to be their mommy.

so bethany today... gosh i wished i had snapped a picture of her before she left today with her papa. a cute little skort outfit which she was all legs in. a snow cap (yes in florida) perched perfectly on her head of curls. pink clogs. i'm just giggling now thinking about how darn cute she looked! and kicking myself for being such a slacker. fortunately she puts together these cute little outfits all the time so i will take some pictures someday soon. and of kelley, too. kelley's style is a bit more sophisticated and she's got a cute new haircut.

and back to that teenager thing? mr. heather and i are going to be in so much trouble!

if i could save time in a bottle...

gosh time is moving so fast! is it just me or do you all feel that life is whizzing by way too quickly? it seems worse during the holiday season. every year there are so many things i want to do for christmas and every year the day comes and goes before i'm ready for it. this year is proving to be no exception.

y'all we haven't even decorated! that is terrible. usually we decorate the weekend after thanksgiving. we had decided this year to have a smaller tree and mr. heather was going to have a new "theme". just haven't gotten around to it yet. he also needs to replace our outside decorations as our old ones sort of croaked after last christmas. hopefully we can get it done this weekend. that's the plan anyway.

every year i intend to watch "it's a wonderful life". i've never seen it, i have it, but again time rushes by before i have a chance to sit and watch it. maybe i will actually accomplish that goal this year. we'll see.

obviously i survived the week of chaos. there were so many things scheduled that it made my head spin. i did reschedule a doctor's appointment because school snuck in another early release day. (which i have to complain is getting ridiculous!) despite that we added in another school function with kelley's chorus and chimes concert last night.

i wish we'd recorded the concert as it was really good! it was so nice-they had real christmas carols instead of made up "holiday" songs. is christmas coming back en vogue? i hope so. it was getting out of hand if you ask me, especially when the christmas tree box was labeled "holiday tree". but i digress...

kelley did really great! but seeing her up there with all of the other kids made me realize how tiny she is. it seemed like she's atleast half a foot, if not more, shorter than everyone else. between that and her quiet nature i'm always afraid she's going to get pushed around. she does hold her own pretty well though. thinking that she's going to middle school next year just blows my mind!

seriously, time is going by way too quickly!

i've got to brag...just a little!

if you know me then you know that i've never been considered domesticated in any way. for example, cooking. i rarely do it. i'm not sure why, i actually do enjoy it and my family has convinced me i'm not half bad at it. and now all of us have the advantage of the pioneer woman's new cookbook, she totally makes cooking fun and easy.

the brag, my success? well i can say that the pioneer woman doesn't get any credit. nope. none. it's all me!

last night was the big dinner for kelley's class. you know the one that we were supposed to make a dish that represented our heritage. i'm a mutt. i have no heritage. so i stressed a bit on what i should make. and decided to make the dish that i make best, my stuffed shells. i learned how to make them when i was 12 or 13. my recipe is long gone and i just make them without any recipe or rules. i tweak them here or there. and really it's not a hard thing to make at all. but when it comes to my heritage, i am pretty sure i don't have much italian in me at all. which is a shame because it's my favorite food and italy is number one on my countries i'd like to visit.

but still, i was nervous. i've never cooked for a group before. let alone a group of people i hardly know. as we sat the dish down on the serving table my heart kind of sunk as there was a big pot of spaghetti and tray of lasagna. how on earth were my little shells going to stand out and compete?

we were towards the end of the serving line. and the italian dishes were at the far end of the table. i about fell over from shock! when we made our way to the shells, they were ALL GONE! there was still spaghetti and lasagna...but no shells. wow!

however, maybe they just looked good. what if the people who scooped them up didn't like them? this made me even more nervous. that is until they started raving about the stuffed shells. i blushed. and i beamed. me...undomesticated me. had the most popular dish there. and let me tell you...there was some good food, real down home cooking type of food.

so i'm totally stoked! and this actually makes me want to cook more. funny if i cooked at all, it would be cooking more. as for my stuffed shells recipe? well it's hidden away in my mind and i've decided i better just keep it that way. ha-ha i have a secret recipe! now that's funny!