New Year's Resolutions

Well my resolutions are a mix this year of things to do for myself, my family, my man and my children.

First of all I will get to the most imporant.

I want to work on continueing to be a more patient mom and in not yelling at all. My new's year's resolution in this area is to find time each night to do one small special thing with each of my kiddos. Also to spend time with Andrew doing a daily devotion and to read at least one story per night to the two kids. I want a strong family and I want to work on teaching my children strong values. I also want to be able to make it to church when Andrew is home at least every time that we are here in IL and not out of town or on vacation. I also want to make it a point to take a family vacation and to take a day away with Andrew alone to have some special time with us, we are thinking that this will probably be to St Louis to Six Flags so that we can ride the rides with him and such.

I want to work on my relationship with Shane to continue to improve my trust in him as I was in a place where I could not trust anyone fully when we met and now I feel myself moving on so I want to work on being able to trust him more. I want to work on being able to give him back something more as I feel like sometimes it is as though he just gives and gives and gives and because of where I have been I feel like there are times when I continue to take rather than putting things into perspective and giving back. I want to work on us trying a little experiment prompted by a book I saw where a woman wrote about what she learned by having sex every day for a year. So we are going to attempt this one but there will be days that we miss when we are apart and not together mostly. I also want to work on planning a wedding for the two of us and being able to have a wedding where we can fully express our feelings and beliefs and for it not to be overrun by traditions or values that are not imporant to us.

I want to work on being a better sister to my wondeful little brother. I want to work on being more supportive and kind towards him as he is so wonderful at being an uncle and a brother and he is always thinking of others. I also want to work on appreciating my parents more and becoming closer to both of them.

Now onto things that I would like to do for myself. I would like to reach a healthy BMI and be in good physical shape. I am vowing to work out on a regular basis and to keep a food/exercise journal as this seems to really help me. I am enjoying working out with the new Jillian Michael's Ultimatum that is available for the Wii and Wii Fit. I also am going to be getting the My Fitness Coach which will be nice so that I can switch things up a bit between them and the Wii Fit disc and hopefully not become too bored during any of this. I am not looking to reach a specific weight but rather an overall level of health and fitness and nurtrition. I am wanting to further explore becoming a vegetarian. I know that it is hard, I did it for a few months in the past and there were times when it really sucked but I also know that my body felt so much better and that I was so much stronger in how my body was working with things that this really seems like something that is going to better myself physically. I also want to learn how to sew. I am planning on grabbing my mom's sewing machine one day soon and going to Wal-Mart to buy a pattern for an easy sundress for Althea and to attempt to do something on my own. I am hoping that I can learn to sew now and eventually learn to sew well enough to be able to make myself skirts, patchwork pants, apron tops, and all other kinds of things that I think are fun and cute and look at and think, wow I could make that and it would cost so much less. I am going to also make a conscious effort to go to my grandma's more and to finish up the sundress that we started together last summer prior to Althea being born. I also want to work on journaling on a daily basis, blogging on a daily basis, keeping an exercise and food journal to help keep me accountable to those issues and I would like to start and finish a book over the next year. Not sure what type of book I am going to start to write about first but I would like to eventually write for a living which would be so awesome!!

Christmas Happenings!

Well our Christmases were all wonderful but it is nice to have things slow down a bit!

We started off our holiday on the 23rd, the night that Santa visited our house. We made him fresh baked cookies and then got Andrew to bed and then Santa came. Then on Thursday morning we woke up and had fun opening all of the presents and playing with our new things. Then we went to my mom and dad's and celebrated with them and my brother before the rest of the fam came over and we celebrated with them. Then it was off to bring Andrew to his dad's and head out to Kansas.

I drove to Kansas and we got there at a bright and early 4:30 am. Then we got to do the whole family picture thing and spend the day celebrating at Shane's grandma's house. Then we went back to his mom's and just relaxed for the rest of the night. Then we celebrated Christmas with his mom and siblings and their families. After which we had lunch and celebrated with Shane's grandfather. I can say all in all that I have two spoiled children and that I had a great time celebrating all of the holiday festivities. It was nice to finally be home yesturday and today we are getting the house organized so I am going to be going and getting on that one!!

Santa Claus Comes Tonight

Well, tonight is our celebrated Christmas Eve as Andrew is at his dad's on Christmas this year. So Santa is going to make a special trip and visit us a day early. I am so excited to see the kids when they get their presents. It sucks that poor little Allie is sick and not feeling well, she has a virus and she is just very lethargic and puney whereas I think that she would actually be more into looking at the toys and such if she were feeling better. They got their Christmas Eve gifts a while ago and Andrew is already chilling in his new jammies and Allie will be soon. Their Christmas pictures will be so cute this year.

I've had quite the week, stayed at my mom's the past few nights and was up a lot with Althea as she was ill. Shane has night time duty tonight though as I am driving to Kansas tomorrow when we leave so that he can drink some beers and relax this time round. I am going to get to relax on the ride home on Monday which is actually preferred for me as that is the day before I have to go back to work, so it will be nice to actually have some time to chill after the holiday. Then it is back to work for a simple two days and then off for the new year holiday.

I am just so excited to see everyone and to celebrate the day together. We will be up early, do the things here, play some here and then we will be headed to my mom's where we are going to order Davis Brothers Pizza and open presents with them and my brother and then we will be having my extended family over to celebrate, then heading out, dropping Andrew off at his dad's and going to Kansas. It will be a good time!

I am also excited for Shane to get his gift from me. I got him plane tickets to Austin TX to see his brother on his brother's birthday and then I will fly out two days later and we will fly home two days after I get there so he will have some guy time alone and then we will have a short trip together. I just didn't want to leave Andrew and Allie and I didn't want to leave them for more than two nights.

Well I am going to go and basque in my current state, I have a gorgeous baby sleeping on my chest and I have a wonderful partner who is downstairs playing Wii with my amazing son. It is so cute to think about how things are and to celebrate the holidays and what not as a family. It is our first Christmas at our new home and one that I am sure will bring many memories for us to have a magical time together as a family!

Well this weekend has been interesting. I was so bummed that Andrew didn't have his little party at school on Friday, I stayed up late Thursday night making rice krispie treat gingerbread men and putting together cute little Santa bags with them and a candy cane for the kids. I also had gotten Andrew's gift for the gift exchange, a Ben 10 toy and a gift for his teacher all that were supposed to go to school on Friday. I am sincerely hoping that they reschedule for a time when I can go to the party as I was so excited to get to be the room parent for this one. Who knows though, maybe his teacher will let me come to the Valentine's Party since I wasn't able to come to this one and she knows that I want to be as involved as possible in this one.

The storm was bad and it is again getting bad. We did get to go most of the day on Friday without the internet or netflix and all of the day without cable. We spent some time playing Wii together and Andrew was staying with Grandma and Grandpa so he had a good time as well. I am kind of nervous that we might lose our power tonight with the added new ice and the fact that our lights have flickered a few times. Losing power with Andrew and Althea would be realy bad. I would be so worried about not having heat for the two of them, not so much worried for myself but especially worried for the baby. Too bad we don't have a propane heater we only have electric space heaters. Well I am going to watch Elf and spend some time with Shane and the kiddos but just wanted to update that we are fareing well in the storm only I hope to continue to remain as lucky as we have yet to lose power and I would prefer to keep it that way.

The Weather Outside is Bad!!

So the weather outside here in IL is crappy. It took me almost two hours to get home after work. Peoria, Pekin and East Peoria were all disasters but funny thing is that the closer I got to Canton, well the better the weather got for once as usually it is worse around here.

So Allie is becoming my little chatty one as she is constantly cooing and trying to talk. It is so cute. She talked to me nearly my whole ride home today!! Andrew is getting excited about his Christmas party at school so that is cute as well.

12 hour day, oh I am so ready!

So from the title I am betting that you can all guess how long I was at work today, yep I worked over 12 hours today, started billing with clients at 6:18 am and didn't stop until 6:40 pm. I am so frustrated. It sucks having to look for a new job in the winter and then again it sucks having to be outside with clients all day when it is so cold. I got to go to two different Aldi stores, Save A Lot and a gas station today with clients...yay!

Not much else is going on, the kids are doing well and I finally got Christmas presents under our tree. I am so excited to see their little faces after Santa visits.

Only a few more days til Christmas...

I can't believe that we will be celebrating Christmas so soon. Of course at my house this year we will be celebrating Christmas eve and doing our Christmas eve traditions on the 23rd as Andrew is at his dad's on Christmas this year. Then we are celebrating Christmas on the 24th.

I am so excited about starting some new traditions this year. We did decorate our stockings and it was so much fun to paint them with the kids. They had a good time and they were so cute doing it!

So here are our traditions, the weekend before Christmas we are going to be making homemade candy. On Christmas Eve we are going to give the kids one gift, it is going to be pretty much the same thing from here on out, new pjs, new clothes/shirts to wear on Christmas day, a cuddley, and a new Christmas book. For Christmas the new tradition is that Santa is no longer wrapping his presents. I just thought that Andrew almost figured it out last year with my mom that there was no Santa as he didn't understand how grandma and Santa could have the same wrapping paper so form now on Santa is not wrapping his presents. The kids will have presents to open from each other and us under our tree and obviously from other family when we are other places.