Sunday, December 28, 2008

Hannah & Horse Envy

As mentioned before Hannah needs, wants, must have a horse. The first horse she was on wasn't even a horse, it was a mule. A few years ago I took her to the riding stables. They wouldn't let her ride by herself so she had to ride with me. The saddles for 2 were on the mules. She never knew the difference, thank you very much.

Friday morning Lloyd got a call from his neighbor asking him if he could go let the colts out. Hannah & I went with him.









As we drove away she tells me, yet again, that she wants a horse. Yes honey, I know :)

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Back To Normal

And it's over like that! We had a wild and fun holiday with lots of hustling and bustling. We spent Christmas Eve with my family. The kids got the things they asked for. The one good thing of having babies so close to Christmas is that they get almost everything what they ask for; especially when you throw aunts, uncles and grandparents into the mix.



Colton's list of wants consist mostly of video games. Easy enough with online shopping.



Hannah's list was pretty easy this year too! Well, with the exception of a horse. She has been wanting one of those ever since we moved out to the country. Maybe one of these days baby girl.

Christmas morning we swung by my parent's house again for the kids to get stockings. I have tried and tried to get my mom to not get them stockings anymore but she doesn't listen. After a quick stop, we headed up North to see Brent's parents. We had a great time. Everyone, at some point of the day, was there.



The Henrys ~ Christmas 2008



All of the grandchildren. I think this is the first time in 3 years that we had them all together. So starting in the back from left to right: Colton, Zack, Martha, Brandice, Abby, Shae, Ally and last but not least, Hannah.



This is our niece Martha. I was so happy to see her; it has been a long time. She was our flower girl when we got married. She remembered that she had to stand on a quarter and that she got a baby doll that peed because she did such a good job. I forgot about that; so funny!



Uncle Larry and Colton. They trash talk each other constantly when playing Wii tennis.



Becky and Darlene. We are planning a "girls only" trip this summer. Can't wait.

So that is our holiday in a nutshell. Only 369 shopping days until Christmas :)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Happy Holidays

Have a wonderful holiday season from our family to yours!





Tuesday, December 23, 2008

My Favorite PSA

This makes me laugh every single time I see it. Enjoy!!!




Monday, December 22, 2008

Banana Nut Bread



When baking, I have crap spread out everywhere but it's usually pretty well organized. I have my different little "stations" for the various stages of the baking. Today I made banana nut bread to give out to a few families. This is by far the best banana nut bread recipe I have ever came across and I will share it with you.

Special Banana Nut Bread

3/4 C butter, softened (and now that I'm typing this out I realize I didn't put in enough butter, oy vey!)
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 C mashed ripe bananas
1/2 t vanilla extract
3 C all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 C chopped pecans, divided

Orange Glaze:

1 C powder sugar
3 T orange juice
1 t grated orange peel

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add bananas and vanilla; mix well. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture and blend. Fold in one cup pecans. Divide batter into two greased loaf pans. Sprinkle with remaining pecans. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. (It usually takes mine 1 hour.) In a small bowl, whisk glaze ingredients; drizzle over loaves. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.



The pecans on top get really crunchy and makes it soooooooooo good.




This is how I packaged them up. I wrapped the loaf in plastic wrap then used a piece of card stock to make a sleeve. Tie it up with ribbon, add a tag and voila! a great gift to give.


Sunday, December 21, 2008

Birthday Pictures & A Project

Colton had a great birthday. He got a new phone. He has been using his dad's old old old phone. He is also out of the "themed" birthday stage. He just wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. My mom made it for him so this was probably the easiest party I've done :)



Ben started off slowly but he finally got into the swing of things.
With any new toys he opened up, he had to stop and play with them. Next time we will have to let him open toys at the end.



I can't believe he will be 2 tomorrow.

Here is the project I did at my LSS........



It is a cookie sheet. It's going to Hannah's teacher for Christmas. I turned stickers into magnets so she can put pictures on it. There is so many possibilities. My crop-a-dial made the holes in the tin. I can't believe that it punched thru it.

Christmas shopping is done; only have stocking stuffers to buy, yay!!!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Happy Birthday Colton

Our firstborn is 14 today. How is it that I have a 14 year old and he only has 2 more years until a driver's licence? Just shoot me now. I'll have party pictures to post later tonight or tomorrow. We are having his party at my sister's house because for some reason she planned her son's party (who was born on the 22nd) for today. Not sure why she did that and didn't even ask me first if it was okay. So I'm looking at the positive side of it by getting 2 parties over with at the same time. We are going out to Red Lobster tonight for a little "sorry you had to share your party with a 2 year old" dinner. Plus I can finish up shopping.

Got to go to a fun class out my local scrapbook store. We turned a cookie sheet into a bulletin board type thingy. It really is cute. Will post a picture later. Need to do some finishing touches.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Baby It's Foggy Outside

We have been covered in a blanket of fog. A couple of nights ago we were under a fog freeze. Have you ever heard of a fog freeze? I hadn't. Anywho, it was damp and foggy all day yesterday and finally cleared out last night by the time I left the basketball gym. This morning I looked out and this is how it looked from our back porch.......






Isn't that cool looking? It's a valley behind our house. The pond is down there too. The weather is suppose to be nice for the next couple of days then we are expecting cold again. At least it will be cold for Christmas. I hate warm Christmases. Is that the correct way to make Christmas plural? Forgive me if it isn't; I'm to lazy to go look it up and I think you get the point :)

A blogger friend is on the Wheel of Fortune tonight. I can't wait to see if she wins anything.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Christmas Party

Hannah's school Christmas party is today and she got all dolled up. My parents gave her the outfit for her birthday.



The shoes she picked out are so stinking cute.



Still not done with my shopping but I am close. I'm going to finish up Saturday night, hopefully.


Sunday, December 14, 2008

What Happened?

This happened. I have worked 33 hours at the concession stand for the past 3 days. Add 20 hours for the work I did in my dreams :). I've had dreams of working in the concession stand for the past 3 nights too and I have officially hit the concession stand wall. The only drinks we had left when we locked the gate at 10:10 last night was about 12 gatorades and we could have probably sold that if we stayed opened past halftime of the last game. They were still coming up to the counter when I was locking up asking if they could grab something. Are you f****** kidding me? Sorry for the salty language but for you who has ever worked in the concession stand will understand my salty language.

Also this past week Hannah turned 9.





This week we will have 2 games and then we will be done for about 2 weeks during the Christmas break. Hannah's class party is Thursday and her teacher called me during my concession stand hell because she remembered that I would organize the party for her, oy! It will be a simple milk and cookies party.

Oh and I need to finish shopping some time. Was planning on going the beginning of the week but we have a cold front coming with possible ice. In southern OK we rarely get snow but we can always count on a good old ice storm. Hopefully it won't be to bad. It is 77 degrees out right now and I think we are going to be in the 30s tomorrow.

Sorry for my ramblings. I've been up since 6 this morning and I'm in the process of getting the laundry caught up. Wish I could take a nap instead :)


Wednesday, December 3, 2008

A Girly Christmas




Oh how I would have loved a Christmas tree like this when I was a little girl. Got the pink tree at WM for $20 and the rest of the decorations were bought at Hobby Lobby on sale (1/2 off) or I used a 40% off coupon.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

And It Starts

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us it really starts getting crazy around here. Starting today our close family will have 7 birthdays to celebrate on top of everything else that goes on during the holiday season. I need to set a day this week to go Christmas shopping and just get it over with. In the past, I would have been stressing, a lot, but as I've grown older and wiser I know it will get done in time so why stress out.

Late afternoon Thursday, Brent, the kids, Darlene (Brent's mom) & I walked around the farm to take pictures of the kids for Christmas cards this year. I will have to make mini-albums for everyone because I'm going to have a hard time picking just one but I think I've got it narrowed down to 2, yay! Brent said he wanted to see some of them on the blog so here you go honey..........







This picture was taken in front of the old house on the farm and was one of my choices but Hannah's eyes are squinty. It's a really good picture of Colton.








The kids are standing on top of a levee looking for prairie dogs.



Does Hannah looked scared? She was worried about the cows that were behind her.



I love this picture of an old broomcorn shed. Back in the day, broomcorn was a hot commodity and I've heard many horror stories from Brent about getting up in the wee hours of the morning because he had to go work in the broomcorn fields.



You really can't tell from this picture but this is an old corn picker with a tree growing thru it.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

It's Done

My 3 dishes I'm taking up North are finished, yay! So now I guess I'll have time to go on and put up the Christmas tree. I know, I know but we have a shorter time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year so I'm doing it this year early. Not really early but not waiting until after Thanksgiving. Please forgive me. So since the tree is going up I'm getting the blog in fine Christmas form too!

P.S. The lights on Hannah's tree doesn't work, of course, so I'll have to get new lights before taking a picture and maybe I'll be able to find my cheap white boa while out and about with all of the other crazy people Friday.


Monday, November 24, 2008

Are You Getting Ready Yet?

I have been lazy for the past 2 days. Last week working all day then until 8:30 at night caught up with me on Sunday. I took a nap Sunday morning then fell asleep again in the afternoon sometime and when I woke up it was dark outside. I hate it when I do that but I guess I needed the rest.

Brent did well with his knee surgery. He is getting around pretty good right now. He goes back to the Dr. next Tuesday to get the stitches out.

So back to my title; are you getting ready for Thanksgiving yet? I'm making my cornbread tomorrow for my dressing. I'm making it to take up North to Brent's parents. I'm so ready to eat Thanksgiving food. I need to make sure my stretchy pants are clean :). Brent's mom and I will get up Friday morning and hit the stores. It's a tradition. The men stay home to watch the kids and the women go out shopping. Usually there is more women going but one SIL is working and my other SIL isn't coming up this year. We'll probably just end up at the casino :)

I really wanted to get my Christmas stuff up yesterday but having slept most of the day it just didn't get done. Hopefully tomorrow after the boys go home I can get started. I bought Hannah a pink tree for her room so we will definitely get that up tomorrow. Can't wait to see how it looks. Wish I could find a cheap white boa to use as garland. I need to check the dollar store.

I still have one album project to get done by Christmas and I'm also working on recipe cards I'm stamping for Hannah's teacher. It shouldn't take very long if I will just sit down and work on them.

OU kicked some Texas Tech ass on Saturday. Brent recorded the game & is watching it I think for the 4th time. Each time I walk in and tell him they won :). And what I hate about this time of year is we have football and basketball going on at the same time.

So did this post make any sense? I have brain fog so forgive me.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Thank You Honey

Just got a call from Brent saying he needed me to go get something out of his closet for him. I got in there and he told me where to look and it was a bag for me. Took a look see and it was this:




Sweeeeeeet! It's the camera lens I wanted. It is a very early birthday present. My birthday isn't until 12/26 so he knew I would want to use it throughout the holiday season plus birthdays plus for Colton's basketball games. Can't wait to use it. Thanks Brently!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

It's A Turkey



My nephew Luke looked at this and said "it's a turkey' so I guess we did good. Mom and I made hundreds of these little suckers, well not hundreds, but it seemed that way. Hannah is handing them out to her classmates on Friday before Thanksgiving break.

Monday I started working in the concession stand again at the HS gym. I've worked their 2 nights and I'm already tired of telling little snot-nosed kids what they can buy for a dollar. I can tell you if you want to know, LOL!

Colton played last night and they won. So they move onto the winner side of the bracket. Next game is Thursday. Not sure if he will suit up. There are some kids that didn't suit up last night and I'll figure they will Thursday. Colton doesn't start but he gets to go in. He got to play the entire 2nd half. His last year's coach wouldn't sub even if they had a good lead and by the end of the season I think Colton had a bad taste in his mouth for basketball. The coach is young and I think he thought he had something to prove. He will learn in time I guess.

Brent has surgery on Friday. I have a feeling it's going to be a long day. I already have my strawberry margarita mix chilling in the fridge :)