Mistle Toad

I know you have all heard of Mistle Toe.... But has anyone heard of a mistle toad? Well if you haven't, let me introduce you to my new friend. This lovely toad is our newest addition to our household. (at least during the Christmas holiday season) My grandmother has had this Mistle Toad ever since I was a tiny little girl. I loved that thing. And as usual, my grandmother had the very same Mistle Toad up while we were there visiting. Daniel and I made it a little joke to stop every single time we walked under it and wait for the other to come give that said person a kiss. And when I said every time, I meant it. Whenever we would walk under the doorway we would stop and wait... without flack or fail. So it was "our thing" and so when we left my grandmother insisted that we take it. I was so excited. Now when you people come over to our house next year you will have the privilege of getting to see our Toad!

North Carolina

As I mentioned in my previous blog (see below) Daniel and I went up to North Carolina with my family to visit my grandparents. (my Dad's mom and step dad) Unfortunately, it didn't snow this year... so that was a bummer. But we did have fun regardless for the no snow issue. My siblings had the wonderful idea of riding in a separate vehicle. (this ended up saving our sanity) So me, Daniel, Wesley, and Amanda rode in Amanda's Jeep while following my parents and Dustin.

It was a long, but fun 9 hour drive. Even though its a little hard to see, we did pass the Girls Gone Wild bus as we drove into the state of North Carolina... and it was because of moments like those that we were able to make it through a 9 hour drive.



The following pictures are a few shots I took during the trip. There was really nothing else to do in NC besides wander around the farm (yes, i said farm) and take pictures, so there are a ton of them. The first one is a picture of Amanda and my grandmothers key board. I thought it was adorable.






This is a random piece of farm equipment we found. It was extremely rusty and decrepit... so Amanda decided to risk her life climbing on it.







We all became extremely obsessed with these Magnetics toys. Daniel and Wesley made some pretty cool pyramids...









The following pictures are some pictures that Wesley and Amanda took on the farm, on the front porch, in the yard... or wherever the heck they could find places to take pictures. Ignore their expertise... it makes my pictures look bad. :)

We found a Teeter Totter! :)

Post Christmas

Whew! I finally have had time to breath. These past couple weeks have been so busy! Let me give you a sneak preview of what has been going on:



We of course had the whole Christmas to-do. We went to Daniels Grandparents, my Grandparents, my parents, Daniels parents, and so on and so forth. We also went to North Carolina where we visited my other set of grandparents. (pictures will be posted soon) We had a good time at each of the places we visited and got some wonderful gifts ranging from movies to yard equipment. (I have been wanting to complete my Disney Princess collection- I still need "Snow White" and "Beauty and the Beast" if anyone feels so inclined) Among wonderful spread of gifts came a few decorations for our house. We are wanting to start a Penguin collection- seeing as we are totally obsessed with them... so my mom gave us quite a few adorable Penguin's to start our collection off wonderfully. We also got a few things to add onto our kitchen decorating project that has been going on for about 5 months now. If you haven't seen our kitchen, its done in different browns and whites with coffee accents. My mom gave us some cute coffee plates to display





and my Aunt Diane gave us nifty some art work that she bought from Ireland.




Along with the Christmas giving and receiving, we decided to do a few home projects. We painted and mounted shelves for our plates to be displayed, hung up our artwork, put up a much needed clock in the living room, started to organize our closet in the living room, painted and put up our outlet covers, and I am currently on the never ending Take-down-Xmas- stuff project. (Am I allowed to have that many commas in one sentence?)


Last thing... then I will stop boring you, I promise. As part of a joint Christmas gift Daniel and I FINALLY purchased our very own, new and improved, Digital Camera. Not the exact thing I wanted, but for the price we paid, it is stinkin awesome. We didn't end up getting the printer that was an extra whatever dollars. so ignore that part of the picture. So yeah, I am excited. Now I just need to take lessons from Tammi so I can learn to take a decent picture.

Freak Show

Wow... 2 blogs in one day. I will never cease to amaze myself. Anyway, my grandparents are celebrating their 45th anniversary tomorrow... So my family took a group shot as part of their gift. This is my family and my mom's sisters family.

We saw some graffiti that described our family to a tee. So we decided to partake in being halfway funny.

After the previous picture was taken, I thought it would be a good idea for everyone to be Emo... since we were dressed in black and white and in front of graffiti, it seemed appropriate. Obviously we all need to work on our emo/depressed expressions, but its a good first try. A lot of family memebers wouldnt have a clue what emo is. So I give them 4 Kudos for knowing exactly what to do.

Kudo

Kudo

Kudo

Kudo

Turtle Park

Today I spent the day with the coolest little girl ever. She was in my class last year, and she is utterly adorable. We went to turtle park, the mall, ate at chick-fil-a, played at my house, watched a movie, took a nap, and ate cookies! So we had a very busy day. Anyway, I just wanted to share a few of the pictures that Daniel took of our Turtle Park adventure. Enjoy!

short and sweet

I am so tired of looking at that wedding picture. I really need to remember how to update my profile picture. I just cant seem to figure it out! Apparently I am just having a brain fart or something.

Vent

I am cranky. And pouty. I hate paying bills. It makes me realize how much money we dont have and how much I cant spend because we dont have it. And the worst part comes when I think about how much other people dont have. Some people dont have a house, some people dont have a car. Some people dont have food to eat or cloths to keep them warm. And here I am complaining that we have to move money over from savings so that we can pay our bills. I should be thankful we have a savings account. Not complaining about having to use the money in it. Thats what the dadgum account is for isnt it?

I guess when it all boils down, I am cranky cause I know I shouldnt be having a bad attitude about this stuff. Things could be a lot worse. I need to see the glass as half full... not all the way empty.

Classroom Doors

As you all already know, I teach K3. Its not an extremely easy job, but I LOVE it. One thing I do not love is the fact that I have to change my door every month. We have to change it to either the holiday, or unit we are studying... basically just change whats on the outside of it so it looks cute and interesting every month. So last year me and one of my fellow coworkers decide to start painting things and putting them up on our doors. we had the cutest doors ever. This year another K3er gets in on the painting idea... so we all get in competition mode. Both of my competitors painted. One painted carolers singing with the saying "sing praises unto the lor", the other painted a snow scene with a Christmas tree and baby Jesus laying in a trough underneath the tree with the saying, "Don't Forget the True Gift of Christmas". I had three main beefs with this particular door. 1) Since people are brown nosers, they try to be all spiritual with their doors. Putting Jesus under a Christmas Tree as a baby was dumb. Jesus wasnt born on December 25th. The Bible never says that date. Someone picked December 25th to celebrate His birth. 2) On this door, He is put under a tree in the winter time with snow coming down. He could freeze. 3) the saying is a ball of cheese. just gag me. Ok, i am done. On with my story.

What was I going to paint? Nothing. This month I decided to rise above painting. I went 3D.

I don't want to brag or anything... but:

I traced and cut out a bazillion hand prints from the kids in my classroom. I single handedly curled every finger on those hands and pieced each of those hands together to make over 15 rows of hands. I cut out 60 tiny lights from construction paper. I copied and cut out 25 ornament patterns and had the kids color and glitter them. I copied and cut out 8 items that would go under a Christmas tree (presents, rocking hoarse, teddy bear) and had each kid color one of those. I put "Merry Christmas" over my door, instead of a cheese ball saying. All in all, I spent over a week and a half on this door. And what do I have to show for it?

A freakin awesome door, thats what.

So I dont have a "spiritual" door. I have a sinking cute one.

Family Joys

Today I had my 4th and final Thanksgiving shindig. Basically every Sat. after Thanksgiving every living person on my Mom's side of the family comes over to my Grandparents house. Tons of good food is brought with everyone of course. Anyway, this is our one time a year to get to see everyone. So I decided to share my pictures of me and my cousins. The picture to your left includes all the cousins that were in attendance today. Some of them are first cousins, second cousins, step cousins... i am not sure how we are all related... all we know is we have grown up together and most of them are pretty cool to hang out with. The next picture is me and my sister and our cousin Ashley (i am pretty sure she is a 2nd cousin). We got bored sitting inside with the "adults" so we ventured outside to a local tree stump. The next picture is me and my sister and my actual cousin, Miranda. We were balanced on this lovely tree stump for quite a long time while everyone ran over to take our picture. Either we were really cute, or really silly looking. Regardless, we almost toppled off that thing.

Last but not least, we have all of the female "cousins" in one way shape or form.

Ok folks, that all of my lame blogging. I will return again soon for more of this lame blogging when i have pictures of my anniversary trip.

Ta Ta For Now

Its beggining to look a lot like Christmas

Daniel got off work at 12:00 this afternoon, and I definitely didn't want to get out in all the madness of Black Friday, so to kill time we decided to decorate for Christmas. Last year we had a real tree (and loved it), but this year we wanted to try our hand at a fake tree. (just to weight all our options fairly) We ended up making out like bandits at Home Depot. The pre-lit 6 1/2 foot tree was $29.99 with a $30.00 mail in rebate. yeah... what a steal. Anyway, we figured if we are going to buy a fake tree, might as well get one for basically nothing. So we came home and while watching " A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving " we set up and decorated our tree. Now, we will probably go back to a real tree next year, just because I like the look and smell of it, but we will see how this fake little thing does for now... unless of course we can find a pine scented candle.

Anyway, that's all I can muster up tonight. We have our third thanksgiving meal at 8:30 in the morning, then our fourth and final at 11:30. It's a tough job eating all that food, but someone has to do it.

Ewok's

Every Sunday night my brother and sister come over to our house and we partake in what we like to call, our Star Wars Saga. Now, this saga has been going on for a total of 6 weeks now... We started at the very beginning and just finished Return of the Jedi last night. While the Jedi was indeed returning, my love for Ewoks was rekindled.

For those of you who are not Star Wars fans... Let me explains what an "Ewok" is. Ewok's are cute, adorable furry creatures that live on the mood Endor. They stand approximately one meter tall and travel in packs. They are very old timy. They use slings, hangliders, spears made out of sticks... And so forth. Most Ewoks live high among the trees of Endor's forests, in villages built between the closely spaced trees. Ewoks venture to the forest floor to hunt, and set traps to catch various prey. Here is what the Ewok's villages look like.





All that to say, I am in love with Ewoks. Oh what I would do for an Ewok. When Daniel and I have a kid, we are going to dress him or her up as an Ewok and made them walk around with me just so I can live out my dream. But for now, I am going to settle with a stuffed Ewok. These two pictures are the Ewoks that I am hopefully getting from Santa Clause. The first one is Wicket, and the second one is his friend with benefits, Princess Kneesaa.










On another note... am I the only one that was surprised that Princess Leia could look this seductive? I mean, honestly. I would show you a picture of her in chains with Jabba the Hut, but because I would like to keep my job for a while, I will refraine.

I need to be digital

Wesley and Amanda came over yesterday and kept me occupied. While they were here they played in my backyard. Wesley climbed a light pole that is randomly smack dab in the middle of my yard, and Amanda proceeded to sit on one of these things.

Apparently its a net rebounder for baseball players. Regardless... It was left in my yard when we bought the house and Amanda was attempting to balance it against a fence and lay on it like a hammock. In the end, Wesley ended up risking his life laying it.

Anyway, I took pictures of all of this... But guess what. Amy Lynn doesn't have a decent digital camera! We have one...But it sucks. It was amanda's old one. It is a piece of junk that is 200 years old with no zoom and no memory whatsoever. So Amy Lynn went old school and took pictures with her regular camera. So you wont be seeing those pictures for another few months. It takes me forever to develop film... If I ever take a whole role!!!

All that to say, if you want to get me a decent digital camera for Christmas, I will not be stopping you!

Hobby Anyone?

I need a hobby. I get so bored when Daniel works the closing shift. Since I am no good at entertaining myself, I need some possible hobbies. I tried scrapbooking in middleschool, but that only lasted for a week or so. Daniel told me to take up building model rockets then launching them... But that's no fun to do by yourself. So anyone got any ideas??


gosh I need a life

Mommy Ring

Preface:

My husband is the greatest. I have known that ever since we have been dating, but the past few weeks have made me fall even more in love with him than I thought possible.

Body:
When we got married, Daniel claimed he wanted seven kids (yeah I laughed too) and so after much deliberation, he settled with having four. (yet again, bringing laughter from within me) So I jokingly told him that he would have to buy me diamond jewelry for every child that I had. Tuesday we lost the baby and he gave me this. Its my mommy ring.

Closing:

Yeah, he is the best.

Lawn Upkeep

I have known for quite some time now that our backyard desperately needs to be mowed. But when Daniel mows the lawn, our top priority is to make sure the front yard looks decent so the rest of the neighborhood don't come come chasing us with pitchforks. Today we woke up bright and early to work on the yard. Daniel and I picked up the rediculous amount of pinecones that ended up in our yard (some from the trees shedding them, and then some naked ones that our squirrel friends ate) and then he started mowing the front yard. now... here is a picture of the front of our house. not amazing, but the yard looks decent at the moment. (this is before we cleaned off the walkway- so ignore that)

Now, in our backyard we have two fences surrounding us. The first fence is around our whole backyard. It runs right behind our shed and playhouse. The second fence is a doggy fence. Let me go ahead and clarify that we bought this house about 4 months ago.... and the previous owners had a dog, and kids.... so the play house and doggy fence made perfect sense when they were living here. But thats beside the point. Anyway, it has been a while since we have mowed the back yard... and it has been an even longer while since we have mowed the little doggy fence part. Actually, we have never mowed inside that doggy fence. (quite frankly its because we are lazy and procrastinators, and we have no use for the thing) So Daniel decides to take on the task of mowing inside the doggy fence. After he finishes mowing the first strip of the forest, this is what it looks like.

Pitiful huh?

Moral of the story? Get a dog for your doggy fence.

Camryn

I have a great group of kids in my class this year. I have this one particular great girl in my class named Camryn. She is just the cutest thing ever! She is short, always wearing cute cloths and either has her hair in pig tails, or in one poney tail on the top of her head looking like bam bam from the Flinstones. Oh my gosh she is adorable. I can be having the worst day in the world... not in the mood to talk to anyone and Camryn can walk by me and automatically get me in a good mood. I was having a very "bla" day today, and after Camryn woke up from her nap she ran up to me and with open arms said, "Here Mrs. Titus", and gave me the biggest hug ever. I love that. I absolutely love it. That right there is what makes me come to work everyday. (well, that and a paycheck)

i have to stop reading tammi's blogs

I get on the computer in hopes of posting a decent blog. I am bored, so i figure it wont be hard to just write decently and then click the "publish post" button. But like an idiot, I read Tammi's blog before I started writing. I mean honestly, I cant write after reading Tammi's ultra cool story about her child pooping on the wall! I guess I will have to wait until I have kids to write nifty-ly. (i think i just made that a word) anyway, I am off to the Howell household to eat dinner. my hubby is out of town... therefore Amy Lynn doesnt eat, because Amy Lynn doesnt cook, because Amy Lynn is lazy. Its a sad, sad world I live in.

Ta Ta for now

November 19, 2005

Ok, I am trying to get the hang of putting pictures on here without blogger freaking out on me... its actually starting to piss me off a little... I cant exactly get the pics how i want them- so work with me here.
These are some pictures from my wedding. Not amazing, but hey- we didnt know Tammi before we got married so we couldnt get the best. Daniel played around with the color on the black and white ones the other day... so the credit goes to him for making them look so cute! :)

Just a little bit of tid bit for ya... daniel and I have been married for a little over 10 months now. so yay!

Pictures

My great friend Hayley took some pictures for us before we got married. So anyway, I wanted to show you some of them... they are all black and white. The other ones arent on the computer yet. I will be posting a few of my wedding pics sometime in the near future!