It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I love decorating for Christmas, and my favorite part is looking at all of it glow at night. It would've been even better if we had a fire in the fireplace (which we need since it's only 16 degrees outside!)

Christmas on Main Street

So Brian will probably remind me every chance he gets that it very well may have been the coldest day possible to take the boys down to Main Street in St. Charles, but it was well worth it! We had wanted to go last year, but the icy weekends prevented that so I wanted to make sure we got it in early this year.

Every year St. Charles puts on "Christmas Traditions" where Christmas characters stroll up and down Main Street in costume. What was so neat was that they were really in character, too. Each character that we saw had a perfect accent and was so entertaining with stories and activities to help the kids learn about who they were. And, for my collecting-crazy Elliott, they each gave out cards that had the character's picture on the front and background information on the back along with what number out of 29 they were. Elliott was a little disappointed that we didn't get all 29!

Ethan started getting into it, too, after we stopped at Little Hills and sat in the heat drinking hot chocolate for a while - he was not a happy icy camper before that! I think their favorites were the Master of Revels (he played jokes on them), Jack Frost (he teased Ethan about having a wretched hot beverage), and the Sugar Plum Fairy (who we searched for all over). I think they also liked the Nutcracker Prince and remembered a little of what he told them, because the next day we were in Walmart and they saw some Nutcrackers and started talking about them and looking for the Mouse King!

Oh, and I was so excited to find out that Frontier Santa is inspired by Mr. Edwards' visit in Little House on the Prairie - I know Erin will remember that with me!

This was so much fun and definitely one of my most favorite Christmas outings. I highly recommend making the trip down there - especially if you have kids!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

So we're driving home a few minutes ago from a whirlwind trip to Walmart and Target (never a good idea after both boys have been at school but it was a must today), and we are "discussing" why the boys couldn't buy toys today and how incredibly hard it is to wait until Christmas to open any presents. And the conversation ends up like this:

Elliott: (in a most annoying whining voice) "But it's soooo hard to wait!"
Me: "I know" (for like the 15th time in the past 10 minutes)
Ethan: "Besides, today is Christmas"
Me: "No, if today was Christmas we would all be at home with Daddy and just hanging out having fun"
Elliott: "Yeah, we would open presents and not do anything else"
Ethan: "Oh. Then it must be Easter"

What?!

No more treadmill?

Most of you know that I lost about 20 pounds last year and I will always say that I couldn't have done that if it weren't for a few things:

black bean quesadillas
Weight Watchers Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Sundaes
Water
McDonald's Snack Wraps
Chick-Fil-A Charbroiled Chicken Sandwiches (only 2 points without the bun!!)
McDonald's Southwest Salads (does it seem that we ate at McDonald's a lot?)
Applebee's Weight Watchers entrees
Weight Watchers online tracking program

and

the treadmill

I learned to run on the treadmill at least 3 times a week at a speed of 5 mph for 30 minutes or more and honestly loved it! When we moved out of our apartment and I didn't have such convenient access to my beloved treadmill I didn't workout for probably 6 months. Then when I did get to the gym I started back up on the treadmill - harder to get back to what I was doing this time. But then my knees started hurting a little bit. I thought maybe I should try the elliptical for a while. So I got used to it and always brought my iPod to listen to the latest Andy Stanley podcast. But one day I just really wanted to run on the treadmill. So me and my iPod just hopped right up there. However, the multitasking of running on the treadmill while changing programs on the iPod is much more tedious on the treadmill than the elliptical, and let's just say that I now know that there is some kind of safety mechanism that triggers that big machine to stop when your feet are no longer on the belt but flailing on the side instead.

So as much as I love the treadmill, and as much as it has helped me in the past, might it be time to give it up? I'm sticking to the elliptical for now until Brian convinces me to run a 5K in the spring - then maybe I can brave it again!

Quote of the Day

After a long debate about whether I was going to cook dinner or we were going out to dinner or we were going to grab some pizza or we were going to pick up some pizza and eat at home (whew...hard to relive that again!) - and I know most of you who have had to make this decision with us before are rolling their eyes painfully (we're not good decision makers because we usually just don't care), we finally settled on Brian picking up pizza and bringing it home with some much missed Vanilla Coke for me.

So we're sitting at the table and I realize that the boys have Vanilla Coke in their cups too. And they can't sit still in their chairs and they can't talk in any other voice than loud or annoying. I mention something like "Whose idea was the Coke?" to Brian and Ethan says in his grovelly voice,

"I need my caffeine!!!"

We blame each other for how his little 4 year old self even knows anything about caffeine and definitely for who he heard that phrase from (seriously, it has to be from Brian's morning coffee routine, right?). When asked where he heard that, though, he replied that one of his little friends at school said it - whew!

Homemade Goodies

How good does this look? Home made bread and home made grape jelly....yummmm!! I cannot wait to slice this and enjoy a piece tonight! My friend, Nyla, gave this to me as a thank-you for watching her daughter this afternoon - so so sweet of her and so unnecessary. That's the great thing about good friends, though. They don't "need" to do nice things for you - they just want to. It has made me stop and think about the last time I did something so thoughtful for someone, so I'm challenging myself to do something just as thoughtful for an unexpecting friend this week!

I have to share this though. At first I wondered how she knew that I loved home made bread so much. I would expect Vicki or my sisters to know this, but Nyla and I haven't known each other very long. But in the last month or so we have come to realize that we have A LOT in common. Imagine my surprise when I found out that she was as big of a Becky Higgins fan as I was - ha! And her husband follows Fox News as much as mine does. Anyway, my curiosity lasted only a few seconds cause it hit me that we are alike in so many other ways that of course she would know that I love home made bread (and any other home made goodies!) cause she probably loves it too! I love when God just places someone in your life unexpectedly and opens new doors of friendship and fellowship - life is so good when you let Him be in charge. I'm so grateful for all of the wonderful friendships that He has blessed me with - both old and new!

Now off to that slice of bread......

Layouts

For my scrapbooking friends..........a couple of layouts (I was inspired by the snowfall over the weekend!)