Happy 2009

Happy New Year!!
everyone!!

Be safe! And have a rockin' time!!

Such a Suprise!!

I had the biggest suprise this evening!!
To start off, Chad wasn't able to get my Christmas present for me before Christmas.  He had hurt himself at work and severally sprang his ankle.  He wasn't able to go shopping.  I was suppose to be getting a new computer desk...lol...not that the one I have is all that old.  But I need to revamp my scraproom.  It's been bothering him really bad that he hasn't been able to get me anything yet.....  and therefore he suprised me BIG time today.

He came home from work, I met him at the door when he walked in.  And he gave me a big ol' hug as he put his Nomax on the floor.  He ran off to the bathroom and told me to go grab his Nomax and check out the "hole" that needed to be sewn up...."before I got mad about it."  LOL  Cause he knows I don't like to sew up his holes...LOL  So I actually went to check it out.  Grabbed the Nomax and it seemed a little akaward, like heavier.  So I moved the Nomax out of the way and there was a gift bag underneath....A pretty pink T-Mobile gift bag.  OMG, he toally suprised me!  I grabbed the bag, pulled out the tissue and OMG OMG, there was a Behold box in there.  He upgraded me....  2 or 3 months early too.  My mouth flew open and I was in total shock.  I think he was picking around the corner at me as I was opening it all.  He was proud of himself. 

I'm in total love with my new phone!!!!!!!!!

And how was yours?

So how was everyone's Christmas?

Mine was wonderful! My family came over to my house for the first time. Normally, we'd always go over to my Great Aunts house. But this year my aunt has a kitten and we were afraid the kitten would tear down the tree...LOL

My husband had the suprise of his life. He got exactly what he asked for. All he wanted was new rims for his 4-Wheeler. So my mom bought one, my great aunt bought one and I bought two. I went to the bike shop earlier this week and bought them and had them print out some tickets for me to put in 3 boxes. I weighed them down with bags of candy and he was totally suprised! It was priceless!! I think that made my Christmas for sure.

So the next day, Friday, he goes back to the bike shop to have them mounted. ;) He gets home and I take a picture of him on his bike. He's the happiest guy in the world right now!!

Finally, Finally... pics of the Tree

Last night I finally took pics of the tree. I asked Ryan if they turned out good enough to share and he approved. It took me all of the Thanksgiving weekend to do the tree because I had a REALLY REALLY bad burn on my right index finger from cooking the turkey. So here you go. :)

Ahhh, Christmas!

I'm so excited!  It's Christmas season time again.  Every Thanksgiving night I pull out the tree and decorations and have at it.  Chad thinks I'm crazy because he says it's not December yet.  But to me, Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas Season begins. 

I'll have pics for you soon.  :)

BTW, it's Black Friday and you WON'T catch me out there doing any shopping.  NOOOOO WAY!!!  That day scares me...LOL

Happy Thanksgiving

Hopefully you all ate well and are stuffed like turkeys after your meal.  ;)

This Thanksgiving, it was my first time ever to cook the whole meal for my family, and Chad's family too.  Usually it's my aunt, or me and my aunt.  But this time...I did the WHOLE thing.  And I have war wounds to go with it.  LOL  I was putting the turkey in the oven roaster and then I was buttering him up and seasoning him all up and noticed his little wing needed to be tucked in better...  WOOPS, I got severly burned.  It was bad, and this was at 3:30am.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

It's Official

The teachers have now dubbed me as one of them!!  LOL  I keep forgetting to grab the attendace sheet first thing in the mornings.  So I went back after grabbing my coffee to get the sheet and some teachers were in the media room where the teachers boxes are at, plus the coffee...LOL  And I told them I was losing my mind and slipping now.  They asked why.  And I told them because I keep forgetting to grab the attendance sheet.  They all said, "ohhhh no no no, you aren't slipping, you are becoming one of us now.  You are normal. LOL"

Shewwww, so glad I'm not slipping on the job...LOL

Pumpkin Carving

This year Ryan wasn't feelin' it. He said, NOPE, don't wanna. LOL He's not really fond of the pumpkin carving. It pretty much grosses him out. ;)

So it was just me and Saira and this is what we made.....

Out with the old....

...in with the new!!!

Last weekend, on Nov. 1st I took my first paycheck over to BestBuy. :) I purchased a brand new camera. I've had my old one for a few years now, since Feb. 17, 2006. It's a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S600.

And my new one is a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS.

I am really loving my new camera, and Chad is enjoying his new camera...LOL...my old one. ;) I'll post some pics later on from my new camera.

Craziness

This update goes out to a special request from a dear friend.....  ;)  ...you know who you are!!  ;)

LOL

From previous posts, I'm sure ya'll know I've been up at the Elementary subbing.  Last week was busy busy.  I subbed 1/2 a day for Pre-K.  Those little kiddos are the best, I love them dearly!!  Then I was called in to sub for the Music teacher.  That was interesting...LOL  We didn't do any singing and such.  I'm the cool sub...LOL  We colored and watched a movie...HEHE!!!  Then....  ohhhh then....LOL  I was asked that afternoon to sub for one of the 2nd grade teachers.  Infact, she was Ryan's 2nd grade teacher last year.  ....OH MY!!!  I had 2 boys that were something.  I sub for them again tomorrow.  And they will be seperated for sure... ;)  Mean Mrs. Downs is gonna have to show her face tomorrow.  This teacher has TWO ADHD boys sitting together.  I mean, I'm no smart cookie or anything, but ummm, is that a good thing to do???  LOL  These boys took ALLLLLLL day to get their work done because they were goofing off all day long.  But to add to that wild and crazy day with them, the Elementary went to the High School for the homecoming "Pepper-Rally".  I can't get Saira to say Pep-Rally to save my life...LOL  It's too cute though.  Thank God though, I got to drive myself over to the High School instead of riding on the bus with the kids.  It wasn't that bad though, really.  We actually had a fun day together.  I know they will be all excited to see me tomorrow.  All the kids are getting to where they are wondering if Mrs. Downs is going to sub for them now.  Awww, they are sooo cute!

So a few weeks ago, I had a SU! card making party here at the house.  We made 2 Halloween cards and a thank you card.  :)  But first I want to show you a Halloween card I made on the 5th along with a few other cards.

They were all made for challenges for National Card Making Day.  :)

And now here are the cards I made from my SU! card party.

More to come in a little bit....from Croptoberfest last weekend.

New Job

Yep, I now have a job.  LOL  Never thought those words would EVER come out of my mouth...LOL  I'm still in shock.  But yep....I'm working now.  Thursday I started.  I don't know if I mentioned back in August when I was going to the local college to get my Substitute Teaching Certificate.  But I got it.  And I finally started working on Thursday.  Was called back for the same teacher on Friday.  And then on Monday I subbed for a different teacher. 

My first Subbing job was for Pre-K.  I was scared to death...LOL  But we had a most wonderful day.  They loved me and I love them.  So like I said I subbed again for them on Friday.  But Monday I did the Kindergarten Computer lab.  oh my, that was the most boringest day ever...LOL  Tuesday I had a break.  And today is a local holiday.  :)

You won't believe this.....

I won one of Layle's giveaways...AGAIN.  I won the 'Garland' kit.  I'm excited...  Last year I won the 'Loveland' kit and earlier this year I won the 'Liberty' kit.  I can't wait to get it and scrap alot of christmas pictures.

A little more of this and that

So this is my house....

...after Hurricane Ike.  You can't see the right side of the house due to all the tree branches hanging down.  Normally you could've seen it.  The left side of the house on the side where the tree is broke in half, is my bathroom and bedroom.  The front left side is the den where all my scrappy stuff lives.  The window to the left of the door is the diningroom and to the left of that where the little window is, is the kitchen.

Close call, you think??  We haven't messed with that tree yet.  We're going to get our yard men to take care of it for us.  Oh, if you look at the first photo you'll see our chimney is knocked around by the winds.

This is the back of the house.  That tree tried real hard to go through my livingroom windows.  But I have tough windows I guess.  Nothing went through our house, Thank God!!!  Our electric pole was knocked over a bit, Chad and his friend just had to stand it back up and all was well for that.  Thank goodness, cause my daddy isn't around for this hurricane.  He's living in Alaska now.  With Rita, I had to have him do a repair job on my pole.

The other angle of the back of the house.  Either the skirting was ripped off, or it was popping off at the seams.  While in Weatherford, Chad bought a window unit a/c.  It came in handy that's for sure.  I hate seeing this picture with it hanging out of my window though.  UGH!!

Back to the front again.  We decided to leave Chad's brand new car here when we left.  Thankfully, it wasn't damaged badly.  It just has a cracked windshield and a few little scratches.  The tree branch hanging at the house is what did the damage I believe and it came from the tree right by the generator.

Another view of that branch on the house.

Another of his car and the skirting.  Remember, Chad had not touched anything before we took these pictures.  This is what we saw when we arrived back home.

This is the road that goes around our house.  This tree in the road is from his aunts house next door. 

So that's that.  I only posted a couple of pictures out of 160.  ;)

A little this and that...

This location pictured above was my most favorite place to go while we were in Weatherford for the hurricane. :) It always put a great big smile on my face. :) ...and my mother told me to choke on it...LMAO! I think she was a little jealous that I was able to have Starbucks and she was stuck in Houston with no lights or opened facilities.

The pictures above are at Braums!!!! They are evil I tell ya!! We ate dinner there twice...LOL I hadn't eaten at a Braums since I was a little girl.

Ms. Kari and Ms. Saira were playing 'I Spy With My Little Eye'. They were so cute. They did that while I was registering for Fema at Kari's house. I love her house. It's so darn pretty!!!

I'll post some pics of my yard in a few..... :)

Now he's 9

I'm rather sad about Ryan being 9 now. That means next year he'll be 10. ...in the double digits. :(

His birthday was Sept. 30th. And on his birthday the kids finally started back to school since the hurricane. Since his birthday was during the week, we celebrated and had his party on Saturday. Which was the same day as his Yellow Belt test for TaeKwonDo. After his testing, we headed over to Houston with two of his friends and went to Incredible Pizza. We all had so much fun. My mom, brother and Great Aunt came, as well as the mom and sister of one of his friends. My mom gave Ryan and Chad a Wii for their birthday(his was the 23rd) as well as 2 games. I got them a game and another set of controlers. All Chad knew was that I bought Ryan a DS game...LOL I suprised them with the rest. He gathered $60 from everyone and on our way home we went to BestBuy and he got another game. So he ended up with 1 DS game and 4 Wii games.

Yesterday while they were at school I went to the mall with Nina. I got him a cookie cake at Great American Cookies. And I got another game for the Wii at BestBuy. I finally found the Mario Kart and steering wheel. OMG, he had a blast yesterday when he got home. So now they have 5 games for the Wii. :)

9 years old and lost another tooth today. How many teeth does that kid have???? Like I've said before, if he's not losing teeth then she is....LOL

I'll try to post pics from his birthday soon.

And HE said, let there be Light!!

Tuesday, September 23rd at 5:30pm the wonderful men from all over the United States restored our power. I'm thankful for the strangers who have been helping Southeast Texas. Without them, we'd still be sitting in the dark and who knows for how long. I wanted to cry when the lights turned back on. The kids wooted and hallered with excitment! It was GREAT!! I had just taken my ice cold bath, had gotten out and was getting dressed. And the lights came on. It was Chad's 30th birthday and I was getting ready to go find something to eat for his birthday, instead of eating MRE's. Don't get me wrong, MRE's have been great. But it was his special day. You don't turn 30 every day you know. ;) I wish I was able to get a cake for him in town. But Brookshire's isn't open yet and Walmart closed at 5pm. We didn't get to town until 7pm. I did buy him a birthday card though. The most special card ever made too. :)

....So here we are today, Thursday the 25th. I got up this morning and turned my computer on in hopes that maybe...just maybe my internet provider has fixed their towers and I'd have internet....

Guess what.... they did. ;) I was so excited. Took me awhile to go through all of my 1965 emails. Chad had 43...LOL



Lord willing, we won't have to do all of this again anytime soon.

Pictures from our Evacuation

Like I said before, I'd share some photos with you... So here we go.

Here's Ryan and Saira swimming at the motel in Weatherford.

And here's the whole family, including Chad, my brother in law and my neice. Chad's family evacuated to the same motel as us.


So remember on Friday I met Kari and we had lunch? Well we went over to Applebee's and had a very yummy lunch!! I wish I could join her for lunch right now. Well the next day we went to On The Border. Mmmm, YUMMMMMMMMMMM!! I could've eaten there every single day I was there for every meal. ;) Yum yum yum!! You must go check out Kari's blog entry of our visit. She has other pictures that I didn't have. ;)



Well that's all for this post. I have lots more to add another day.

Yesterday and the Next Day

Yesterday was my 13 year old brother in laws birthday. Me and the kids weren't home to celebrate with him, but from what it sounds like, there wasn't any celebrating. He was out on his skate board and broke his arm. He was in the ER all day. Poor thing. Nothing like breaking your arm the day you become a teen.

My great aunt, Saira and I went out shopping. We went to Target to get groceries. And when we came back we got my brother who lives with her and Ryan and went over to GameStop to get Ryan a new Nintendo DS. He traded in his Gameboy advance and a few games in to go towards the new system. That was his present from her for his birthday. After that we went store hopping, looking for a game for my brother....I think it was the new WarHammer game. Woo woo, fun!! LOL He's into that and that crazy crack game, World of WarCraft. We finally found it at BestBuy. And then we decided to have some lunch at Chili's.

Today we have to go back to GameStop. Yep, Saira wants to trade her gameboy in for a DS. Oh and last night she lost ANOTHER TOOTH. The kid is practically toothless. But she's tooooo darn cute!!

Tomorrow Chad is coming to see us. He's going to take me out for lunch. It's our 11 year anniversary tomorrow. 11 years ago tomorrow we started our lives together and it's great to see how far we've gotten.... 2 wonderful kids and a house that's still standing. ;)

He's been cleaning up. He took pictures of the mess, so when he gets here tomorrow, I'll post them for you all to see.

Another update...

Monday we went home and saw the house. We spent the night, but on Tuesday Chad brought me and the kids over to my aunts house who has power.

We have two HUGE branches on our house. No big damage at all though. And there is ALOT of debree throughout the yard.

The kids are all better, but I'm still getting over this cold. I've practically slept all day, off and on.

I'll update again soon.

I'm ALIVE

Well, Ike invaded my area. The word is, He did a number on Daisetta. Practically all the houses have a tree in the middle of them...EXCEPT for a few. Mine being that few. Thank you Jesus!!! We prayed and prayed about it. Of course, we did not stay. We evacuated on Thursday around 12pm and hot tailed it up to Weatherford, TX. Home of my dear blogging friend, Kari. ;) At the moment of booking our motel room, I didn't recall her living here (yes, we are still here). But probably about 5 minutes after booking, I sat there saying to myself "weatherford, I know that town......." and it finally donged on me, that Ms. Kari lives here. What a great opprotunity to meet up with a new friend.

So before we walked out the door at home, I sent her a quick email to let her know of our plans. And every day we've had a WONDERFUL time!! She's the sweetest. She really knows how to make an evacuee feel at home and enjoy their stay. ;) Friday was her birthday. So we met and had lunch...scrapbook shopped and of COURSE stopped at Starbucks,. She's a girl after my own heart I tell ya. Oh and we also stopped at Michaels. We had a most wonderful day!!

Saturday, we met up for lunch again. It was spitting rain on us so we just ate and then ran over to Target for Starbucks once again. This time I had to have her come check out all of my scrapbook albums and layouts. That took most of the afternoon...LOL Darn rain, we could've gone scrapbook shopping again or even shopping at the town square. Maybe today...lol ;) We'll have to see.

So here we are on Sunday. We planned on going back home today, but decided to stay one more day. Poor Ryan ended up with a stomach bug last night. It's not fun being in a motel room with a sick kid. :( It just broke my heart.
This afternoon Kari stopped by the motel and picked Saira and I up to register for FEMA online at her house. I think Saira is really enjoying the inneraction with Kari and her family and being in a HOUSE and not a little bitty motel room.

I really am not looking forward to going home. First of all because I will miss Kari, I've truly enjoyed hanging out with her. She's GREAT!!! ;) But the other reason is because my power will not be restored anytime soon. I've heard a few rummors from the local electric company guys that it could be December. PLEASE PLEASE pray that they get to Daisetta very soon and get power to us.

Hull-Daisetta ISD is all distroyed. So it will be interesting to see how school will go for the kids. The post office is messed up. But from several friends who stayed around (who were extremely scared and will never stay for another storm again) say that our house managed to stay untouched. Of course we prayed really hard that the Good Lord above would spare our house, and he did. There is a small branch on Chad's brand new car, but they say it shouldn't have done any damage at all.

That's all I know for now. I will post again when I have power I suppose. Or the next time I'm by a computer. Just wanted to let you all know that we are all fine and so are our belongings.

until next time....

Still CRAZY around here

It hasn't slowed down yet.  School, TaeKwonDo, Football, school TaeKwonDo, Football.  Over and over and over again.  A couple of days ago I threw in a little extra fun in my day with a candle party.  It had been awhile since I gathered my friends together with an at home party.  Before the candle party Kim and I scrapped.  We both made 1 layout.  As soon as I jounal on it, I'll share a photo of it.  :)

But to add more craziness to my life, last weekend I got a brand new truck.  We had a Silver '05 Dodge Ram truck.  Now we have a Red '08 Chevy Silverado truck.  It's awesome and I LOOOOOVE IT!!!!

I'll post photos soon.  ;)

That time of year again...Back-To-School

What an exciting day!!  The first day of school.  When I was a kid, I loved the first day of school.  I always looked forward to it.  Of course I looked forward to seeing all my friends, but I really enjoyed most of the subjects.  I loved History and Geography.  Today, I'm really not so great with dates and some history, but I still love it!!!  But Geography has never left me.  Tonight I was reading a paper that Ryan filled out and it had info about himself.  What color hair he has, what color eyes.  He wrote, "Hasl" or something like that...HEHE, he has Hazel eyes.  But anyways, it asked something like what subject you look forward to learn the most.  And he wrote "Math".  I was so proud to see that.  I hope he excels in math.  He always does soooo good in it.  My mom and grandfather were like whiz-bang mathematicians, so much I think they took my part....LOL  ;)  But anyways, that was really great to see.

They said they had a GREAT 1st day back to school.  :)

We started our day off by getting up and watching a cartoon while I made blueberry pancakes.  Gotta start off the day will a full tummy to fuel those little brains.  They got themselves all pretty and handsome and we loaded up with our overly heavy backpacks and extra bag of supplies.  Off to school we went.  This year was the first year I was pretty much in and out of there....compared to previous years.  This makes Ryan's 5th year of school....Pre-K thru 3rd now.  And all the previous years I would hang around for a good few minutes and watch him as he got his day started.  I'd help with his supplies and all that good stuff.  This time....  pshhhhh!  I showed him his room.  Helped him find and empty desk and that was that.  :(  How sad.  I think all the students were glad to see me.  ....they like me...lol  ;)  HEHE  Some I hadn't seen in a few years, because they haven't been in his class the last several years.  But his teacher came back in the room and I asked her if I could take a picture of the two of them.  And she was all excited about that.  She suggested where to take it....  along her Olympic Medal display.  She told me she was hooked on it the last 2 weeks, I said ME TOOOO.  lol  You'll see that pic at the end of this post.  So then I was off to Saira's room.  I had already dropped her off at her room first.  The parents were instructed to pull all their childrens supplies out and put them in the proper assigned location for each item.  That made it easier on her to put them away later on.  After I did my duties, I asked if I could take their photo too.  And so we did that.  I told them bye and took a couple of pics of Saira as I was leaving.  What a quick morning, I tell ya.

I didn't really do much, except for come home, eat my breakfast, make coffee, have a few cups, watch tv, fiddle on the computer and talk on the phone with everyone.  Then it was time to go get the kids at 3:10.  OMG, what a terrible/crazy line of cars at the school.  Craziness I tell ya, craziness.  I swear, those parents don't know how to form one line.  And I hate those parents that park on the side and walk up to get their kids.  UGH, so annoying to have those cars stuck in the way.  We didn't get back home until 3:25.  It doesn't take but 3-5 minutes to get from my house to the school for heaven's sake. 

So then, it was rush time.  Time to eat our snacks as fast as we can, get dressed for TaeKwonDo and head out the door by 4:00.  My son is the slowest clothes changer I know...LOL  But anyways, we made it to TKD right on time.  Once that was over, we had to go straight to football practice.  He changed into his football gear there at TKD, they all looked at us like we were goofy or something...LOL  On my way to practice Chad calls me, and says he's stuck in traffic and won't make there on time and asks for me to fill in for him.  ....say what?  Me??  ...yeah, ok, I'll fill in.  I'm now Coach Jayme.  Woo Woo....LOL  "down.....set...HUT!!!"  I was impressed with the boys, they actually listened to me.  I wasn't very nice either.  You can't be nice...LOL It's football.  I did a good job I thought.  ;)

Our day finally ended around 8:30.   And I have to tell you, I hate football and baseball season.  It means my kids don't get to bed on time.  Bed time is at 8pm here at my house.  But after being Mom, Bus Driver, Chauffeur, Coach and then mom again...shesh, I was pooped.  LOL  I'm going to bed early tonight.

But here are the few pictures that I had taken today....

So we had a wonderful day back to school...a little busy at the end of the day, but it was a good day.  :)

Layouts from the Retreat

Like I mentioned earlier, I made 10.  I was proud of that.  Because my goal was to complete the vacation album.  :)

This first one was pics from my birthday this year....at my '2nd Party' as the kids called it...LOL I used Scenic Route papers with Scenic Route alphas, stampin up buttons and a ribbon from one of the ladies from the retreat.  :)

This 2nd one, I've scrapped the pics before.  But I put the layout in my 'whatever' album...lol  I made this one for Saira's album.  The pics are from Christmas '03, her 1st Christmas.  The pics crack me up becaue if  you look carefully, you'll see how she gets more and more into her brothers face.  LOL I used Daisy D's papers here

Again, this is her first Christmas...  my how time goes by so quickly.  And it was really neat to experiance the 2 Christmas' with Ryan and Saira.  His first, he was just 2 1/2 monthls old.  Were as she was 11 months old.  And able to enjoy her Christmas.  :) I used Daisy D's paper here with stampin up buttons.

See?  LOL  he was my little bitty guy, not knowing what was going on for his first Christmas.  I used stampin up papers here and bazzill card stock.

I guess I was tired of working with baby pictures...LOL  These St. Patty's Day pics are from this year.  It was a MAJOR windy day that day.  It was practicly knocking us down.  So I made it a quick photo shoot...LOL

More St. Patty's.  Check out the wind blowing through her hair...LOL  I used Bazzill bling CS, American Crafts ribbon, fancy pants chipboard, doodlebug glitter, some misc. green paint, and a pre-made journalling block from one of the ladies at the retreat.  :)

Yep, more St. Patty's.  :)  I used Bazzill CS, stampin up PP's, MM's buttons, and Creative Memories title sticker.

Love this one.  :)  I used Bazzill CS, MM's alpha's, Crate Paper PP's and tag.  These pics are from the last crop I went to in May for National Scrapbook Day.  Had lots of fun there with Kim!!

Haha, this one cracks me up....  or should i say...  quacks me up...ROTF!!!!!  Anyways, this is my brother.  And I'm pretty sure the little duck belongs to his step daughters...LOL  He's so goofy!!!  I used Crate Paper PP's and some misc. cardstock as well as stampin up cardstock, MM's buttons, and Thickers.

I'm not to thrilled with this page.  I think it's mainly just the photo.  I didn't like my wedding pictures.  But as you can see we were tickled pink to be married.  ;)  I used Crate Paper PP's, Bazzill CS, MM's flowers, SU buttons, Pink Paislee alphas.

Thanks for looking at all my LO's.  :)