Christmas for New Years

So we got up around 7:30/8 and opened presents. This sit takes forever to upload pics so for those that have a facebook account feel free to pop into my page and few more Christmas pics. It was a great day for everyone. Santa was good to us all. Even the puppies. Happy New year!!!

COOKIES.. Calling all my cookie monsters!

Well it's that time again. I have been busy in the kitchen making cookies. It seems like I have so much more to do this year, or maybe it's because Christmas seems to be coming so soon! I have cookies for work, cookies to mail, cookies for Christmas day, not to mention the pies for Christmas day. I love that everyone loves my cookies/baking. But every year I feel the pressure to get them all done. I always seem to be behind no matter how early I start. I wouldn't normally feel this frantic but my brother graduates from College this weekend. We have the graduation on Saturday and the party on Sunday so no real time for baking this weekend. I miss two whole days of baking.

So for all those who get them in the mail... soon , very soon, you will have goodies in the mail. Merry Christmas!!!!

Only for the Dog lover!

Pancakes, Pizza, and Cake

Logan turned 17 today. We started the day with pancakes, eggs, and clementines. Ryan and I cleaned house while Logan hung out with his friends. We met Casey and company for dinner with Logan's special lady friend. We went to a Pizza buffet, Logan's choice of course. My stomach still isn't right! Then we had cake. ENJOY!

Fenced In

Ryan has been hard at work in the yard. From the previous posting you saw pictures of what our backyard looked like before... Well look at it now. We have a nice new fence that my Dad and Brother put up and that amazing flower bed is Ryan's wonderful vision! If you look closely at the picture of the grass/dirt... you will see our rain barrel. Trying to go green, the plan is to hook that up to our drain and collect the rain water to water the yard come spring. Just a few more things to do come spring. 

Vote for Caesar and Ruby

So Progressive started a pet of the week contest. I entered Caesar and Ruby. Can you vote for them please. If you type in the web address below you will get to the page of all the pets. You can either look page by page until you find them (they are together in one photo) or you can increase the number of pets per page to 48 and they will be on page one. 

Please vote! 

www.progressive.com/petphotos/pet-gallery.aspx

Zombies, Witches, and Boobs

Well I was the witch, Logan was a girl, check out the lipstick and boobs. Tyler was a dead catholic school girl. Ryan was out of town so my sister took the pictures. She isn't very good at letting you know when she is taking the picture. 

PUMPKINS

We had a spider and a web, your standard jack-o-lantern, a skull, and a dinosaur with a bone.

We had some really good pumpkin seeds :

Salt n Pepper

Season Salt

Garlic Parmesan 

52.4 miles OF RUNNING.

So Ryan ran his first ultra marathon yesterday. He did great! He ran it in just over 10 hours. The photos are in order. You will see him getting ready, the start of the race but it was 5 in the morning so all you saw was a bunch of head lamps and shoes and then the final push to the finish. We are all so proud of him! He is doing well and already talking about his next ultra. 

Homecoming

So I have been trying to post homecoming pics and Ryan's race in one blog but I can't get it right... so here is homecoming. ENJOY!!! Look how grown up they are. 

When did they grow up?

Sorry no photo's in this one. I am sitting here watching a really cheesy high-school love story, it doesn't hurt that it has Chad Michael Murray in it but it's making me think of the kids. A week from today is homecoming. Logan and Tyler are both going. Even though Logan is a Junior this is his 1st formal. He is taking his girlfriend Anna. She's a nice girl and we like her. Logan is actually going to wear a tie for her... this must be serious. : ) But he's excited and looking forward to it. He asked for my help in getting her a corsage, that made me feel wanted/needed in his life so of course I was excited to assist. Now Tyler, where do I start? It's her 1st formal as well. She picked a pretty royal blue knee length dress and we went shoe shopping last weekend. She got HEALS. She has had some drama with her girlfriends. A bunch of them made plans to go to the dance together, stag. Well a few bailed or got dates so it's just Tyler and her one girlfriend going but meeting up with the others at the dance. Now with just two people you would think planning the evening would be simple. NOOOOOO. I have no idea what time the girls are going to dinner, or where. I have a friend that agreed to do Tyler's hair and have no idea what time to tell her that we will be over. Also, Tyler keeps talking about getting her makeup done for free at the mall... I don't think she realizes that every other girl has the same idea. I want her to have a good time but I also want to make sure we get to see Logan off too so it would be nice to coordinate pictures and such so we can see both kids. I am really hoping Tyler will be able to pull her plans together by Wednesday. Ryan and I have been trying to teach both kids about responsibility and planning. Last minute plans or requests are difficult if not impossible for us to accommodate most times. Logan has shown such a change this year. He has his plans finalized and told us about them last week. He has all B's and just moved into an AP English class. The English teacher suggested it and he was excited to accept the offer. Last year we had a hard enough time making sure he did his homework and staying awake in class. We are so proud of him. We aren't going to question it but we think Anna is a good influence on him. But to my original point, when did they grow up. When did we start shopping for heals, studying for ACT's and talking about college. It scares me a lot to think about them growing up being on their own. 

Therapy

Things have been stressful lately so I requested some therapy... My newest tattoo... if it look familiar and you can't place it buy a box of Nerds candy... this is the little guy that represents the Wonka candy Nerds. My favorite candy EVER!!! He makes me giggle! 

Not much left to do...

In the front yard that is. The mulch is down, the beds are done, the walk way is done and all the walls are done. Just have to cap off the top rows, level off the rest of the dirt, and plant the grass! Next up the back yard!!! 

UGH the presidential debates hurt my head!!!

So these pictures have nothing to do with the presidential debate but boy if these pics aren't better than what's on TV now. They are talking to Joe the plumber and that's not me so I thought I would post more yard pics.

As you can see we have started laying the bricks for the walls. Mom n Dad Seed: We cooked on the grill again and made beer can chicken.. So much better than the pizzas! The grill has really inspired us to make the outside livable... so have our obnoxious  neighbor' s. For those that have been to our house you know what I am talking about... hopefully one of these mucks running for office will do something for the market and we can sell this house!!! 

Would you rather...

Shovel dirt or stones? We agreed that shoveling stone really SUCKS... as you see our dirt pile has grown considerably.... The large stone has been laid and pounded down for the parking pad, the base for the walk way, retaining wall and side flower bed... Oh and our front stoop was built... or as we call it the smallest deck in the world!!! (p.s. never mind the dates on the pics, I never re-set the date on my camera.)