Happy 2012, New Years Eve, & Pinteresting Monday!

Hi Yall!

Happy Monday... and...

Hope yall had a great time ringing in the New Year! I had such a blessed 2011, I am so excited to see what 2012 brings! I don't do New Year's Resolutions... period. I don't think I ever have. I don't like the pressure and also why do we need one specific day to start (or stop ha) doing something!?? Not my thing... but I understand people getting into it and trying I guess.

Anywho... MOST IMPORTANTLY before anything else... do you know what today is??

They're back!!!!! Wooohooooo!!

If you don't watch Pretty Little Liars... then you REALLY need to! It is my favorite show and even surpasses the Housewives and Tori & Dean, if that tells you anything. I can not wait to watch it tonight! (And thank goodness good shows are starting back up, over the holidays there has been nothing on TV at all!!)

Next on the agenda, New Year's Eve...

I would love to tell you that Chris and I did something glamorous and fab ... but this year we decided to let the kids do the entertaining and have a New Year's Eve Slumber Party w/ a couple of their friends from school... let me tell you what.. it was WILD... and by wild I mean devouring 5 bottles of sparkling grape juice, dancing to the surround sound and Just Dance 3 for hours, blowing confetti all over the Living Room (mild OCD attack, I had the vacuum out within 10 minutes of that little messy ditty haha!) and staying up until 3am (with one girl getting a stomach ache and having her dad pick her up at 2am, poor thing!) :(

I got this cute idea from Pinterest ...

We got balloons blown up and put little notes inside for them to pop "on the hour" and I'm pretty sure that was their favorite thing of the night... they literally counted down til each hour.

 Inside we did the following notes:

7pm - Have a dance party!

8pm - Make Brownies

9pm - Pop your Confetti Poppers

10pm - Do some Kareoke (which was to Taylor Swift I might add! Ha!)

11pm - Make a Toast (w/ Sparkling Grape Juice, don't worry, but in Champagne glasses ha!)

Midnight - Make Some Noice!! :)

We had some super cute feather party hats! :) It was a blast!

Before the end of the night, I wrote down some questions on cards and had each of them sit in a chair and answer the questions about their year, and recorded them :) This will be a great thing to keep for the future and do every New Year's Eve! They were hysterical and so sweet and the kids loved doing them... I think they thought they were on iCarly maybe hahaha

They are obviously too long to share but Jake's was absolutely the funniest thing ever... I had to read them to him since he can't read but his answers were so funny... Take a look :)

(mute the playlist at the bottom before you watch!)

I would like to note three parts... his favorite food is a lunchable ?? He has maybe had one lunchable ever at our house ha you would think he doesn't eat cooked meals?!?! ... and he wants to be Ben10 when he grows up! and he is thankful for Transformers! Hahahaha! Too Funny!! We were dying, as you can tell in the background the girls could not hold it together to be quiet for him, poor thing lol!

Ok now for a little Pinterest :)

OMG How cute are those pillows? They are THE perfect new parent gift! I am obsessed! I think they were $60 ...? Takes 2-3 weeks to ship. I LOVE them!! What a great keepsake!

LOVE that monogrammed chair!

I need this pillow, Chris will attest to that ha. I do not do good when I am hungry and shaking lol

I need this monogrammed felt clutch!! Highly Obsessed!

Love this dress, sequins and feathers, would have been a perfect New Year's Eve dress!

Love these steps!  May get old, but cute for now!

I may have pinned this kitchen before I can't remember but I love it!!

Push Pop Cupcakes! Great idea!

I have been obsessed with looking at wedding ideas lately and these are all so cute...

LOL Love the tweeting!

Cute sign! :)

Photo liner of envelopes, Martha Stewart idea. Love it.

Look that Tux for Frankie!!!! Omgsh... this will be a must in our wedding ha!

Love this cake, so pretty and classic!

Ok for Valentine's Day... how cute are these ??

 Adorable!! I'm going to find a mustache printable and let the kids do this for their cousins and family! So Cute!

 

Cute idea for February Countdown to Valentine's Day! Just a picture frame then dry erase marker!

My inspirational words for the week...

 LOVE love love Tim Tebow!

Love this article.

Just love it.

And considering it is the New Year...

Follow me on Pinterest HERE!!

Happy Monday!!

PS. Do I have to stop my Christmas music playlist and take down my cute Santa hat header now?

Gosh that was too quick! Maybe one more week then I will go back to normal ha ;)

XO,

Total CHRISTMAS Recap!!

Merry Christmas!!

This past week has been CrAzY for me! Work was nuts, trying to get ready for Christmas, get my house cleaned, presents wrapped, etc I know you know the feelin'... so I had to take a little break from my blog :( I had zero time.

Christmas was awesome! So great! Let's do a recap... lots of pics and it's kind of long so brace yourself or just skim through real quick if you're bored ha!

Friday night we went to church for Christmas service...it was awesome.  

Christmas Eve we went to my mom's house for dinner and presents with my mom, dad, & brother...

It was a haul loading all these presents from our house let me tell you!!

(How cute did all my paper match? :) I love wrapping presents!)

My brother and his dog, aka my nephew, Whiskey ha.

Me, Mom & Chris

Dinner was wonderful and then it was present time...

So fun! Everyone likes to make fun of me, but my tradition is, everyone takes a seat and then I pass out all the presents and then we go one by one and open haha but this way everyone can see what everyone gets! Works much better this way ;)

(Which by the way I hit the jackpot, a KitchenAid Mixer which was a total surprice, a LuLu Christmas extravaganza with lots of new work out clothes, a keyboard for my iPad, & more! So thanksful!

I had to give Chris one of his big presents at my mom's house because they got him some "accessories" and I knew it would give it away... so he got to open a goodie :)

Ta-Da! An iPad 2 :) Merry Christmas! lol

He loved it, duh.

Great night! Love my fam!

Christmas day the kids came over and turned our house into a hurricane zone ;)

But hey, that's what Christmas is for!

Santa had things lookin good :)

This is why Christmas is so fun! Look at these faces... that is sheer excitement LOL

They had a blast!

For literally about the last 6 months I have been working on a special surprise for Ella & Ava. Ella mentioned to me a couple different times that she doesn't have a scrapbook, and she really wanted one... so I decided to start saving stuff and pull some together! I got pics from Chris and his mom when they were babies, saved stuff from their school things, got a million pictures (which is nothing out of the norm) and worked really hard on them! I saved them until everything was opened and they were calmed down... then gave them to them and they LOVED them! I was so happy :)

 Ella couldn't believe it! She literally was so surprised!

 They looked over each page and took their time and laughed and couldn't believe and remember some of the things in there... I can't wait to add to them as they do more fun things!

** If you are thinking of scrapbooking, words from the wise, its is maja time consuming, and if you have OCD like me it is even more time consuiming, and it is a tad on the expensive side... you have no clue how paper and pictures and stickers can add up, let me tell you! But the reactions are worth it all! **

Chris and I exchanged a few more presents too...

So thoughtful he is :) ...

New UGGS! Love them, so comfy and cute! Thank you babe ;)

More LuLu workout clothes... I have no excuse now to not be working out more ha, (Dangit!)

I was a sneaky little elf and made a big production about the only jacket he asked for in his size was gone, and was there anything else he might like, etc etc and he TOTALLY fell for it and then opened it and was super surprised!!! :) Love Christmas tricks!

Chris really stepped it up with my stocking this year bless his heart... he did SUCH a good job!

An Apple TV box! I was so excited! I still can't figure out how to get it to work with my phone though :( So will be making a trip to the Apple store tomorrow I think! And the e-tip gloves that work with iPhones.. they are my new favorite thing! The North Face brand works so good! I love not having to take my gloves off! And word searches and Paula Dean mags, great. A nail gift card... will come in handy since I am there every Friday! ;)

Speaking of stockings... Frankie was so excited he just couldn't stand it...

So Spoiled! Love him!

My cousins came over Christmas night and we ate and opened more presents and celebrated Jesus's birthday with a cake :)

I wanted the kids to all know the real reason we were celebrating... so we baked a cake and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and had a little mini celebreation :) They loved it and I hope they all remember it. I am officially making that a tradition from this year forward :) Don't know why I didn't think of it before this year!!??

Remember the Fleece Tie Blankets I was working on??

They were very much enjoyed... :)

This was at midnight on Christmas night... still going crazy and playing with toys!

Then yesterday we continued this Christmas extravaganza and went to Chris's parents house... more yummy food and presents galore!

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year!

So blessed with all of our family, friends, and the good things we were able to share and receive.

I still have to do Christmas with sweet Godson, Connor, this week too! ;)

I hope everyone had a great time with your families, and got to experience the joy and peace only HIS love can offer! <3

Back to work for me tomorrow... lots to get done this week for a busy Friday!!

I will leave you with this... Just Dance 3 for Wii has been the 100% cause for my abs being sore from laughing so hard this week! It is seriously hard stuff!

**Please note Jake in this video... HYSTERICAL... poor thing, we need to teach him some moves! Lol**

(Don't forget to pause my playlist at the bottom before you watch!)

My Christmas Wishlist

Well with a week left until Christmas... I have finally pulled together my wishlist :)

If for no other reason than just to lust over all these fun/cute things... but also maybe so Chris can finally have ideas without telling me I haven't told him anything LOL

I have been going back to Barre Amped this week and am ready to get back in the swing of things... too much stress and being fat is one less thing to stress about ha! So I am getting my butt back in shape! BUT, I do need some new Lulu to help with that of course ;)

LOVING these Wunder Under Pants that Gather! So cute!

The tanks are my favorite, this one is so cute! I like that it's not super tight! And also this long sleeve shirt would be nice for the winter too!

I think I've wanted these for about two years now lol for some reason have never gotten them, but I looked at them again recently and realized I need them! They are so cozy and comfy!

Ok now don't judge.

But I want both of these books...

I was completely mildy obsessed with the Casey Anothony case. It still sickens me that she walked free. I know I probably shouldn't read it, but I just can't help it. I still want to. And of course I am reading Kris Jenner's book... who isn't obsessed with the Kardashians? That's a no brainer!

I am loving the Apple TV, I am dying to see if it's as cool as it seems! You can link your iPhone, iPad, etc to the Apple TV which will then stream through to your big TV! Really wanting to test this out!

Speaking of iPhone... I am loving this little printer for your phone! Print out your pictures right after you take them! Ahhhhh NEED THIS!! Want this so bad!!

Still haven't seen this movie! I know, I've been under a rock! Want this DVD so I can be a part of the rest of the world haha

LOVE Miranda! This new CD is awesome from what I have previewed! Chris thinks I am last person left in the world who buys CD's still. But I like to listen to them in the car without using my phone! Plus I kind of still like having CD's ... kind of like people who still like to physically write in a planner every day instead of only using their phone calendar ha!

And then of course just for fun...

I am loving this! It would look so cute in my office :)

Does anyone know if they really work??

I think that's all I can think of!

I truly really do love giving more than receiving... I like to watch other people open their presents and enjoy getting things... I like shopping for other people and really trying to think of things they would love or want! I get more out of giving to someone than I do opening something for me!

I am bad about just buying something that I like when I see it, and I honestly really don't NEED one single thing this Christmas... being with family and friends cooking and celebrating is enough for me! These other things are fun though ;) I must admit!

PS. Ladies, you know Lulu will make me work out harder.. I've tried explaining this to Chris... I don't think he understands ha,  a little help would be lovely! Thanks. LOL