They knew the Gators were going to win so they were sleeping peacefully by the time the fourth quarter started.

Here is Houston cheering for the Gators. He really had fun last night. He got so excited everytime we all cheered. It was just too darn cute. That's my boy ... a Gator fan already!

Brody and his friend Ansley hung out during the Gator game. Ansley traded her pacifier for Brody's water bottle. Ansley's mom, Kim, and I got a kick out of how much they look alike. I never noticed it before this night.

Ready for the big game. Go Gators!!!

My Socks

Here is a picture of my very first pair of hand knit socks. Last year my knitting goal was to learn to knit socks. Mark that one off the list! My knitting goal for this year is to get a knitting guild/group/meeting or whatever you want to call it started here in Lake City. There are just some things I don't want to have to drive all the way to Gainesville for and I figure if it doesn't already exist then i'm just gonna have to start it myself. I've got a great cafe picked out for the meeting place. Now I just have to pick a day/time and get the word out. We have two quilt shops in town that would probably let me hang a flier. I'll probably hang one at the LYS in Gainesville too. (LYS is local yarn store for you non knitters)

The men in my house ... I am seriously outnumbered here.

Bathtime is a lot of fun these days. Houston plays really well with Brody in the tub and I sit and knit while I watch them.

Too much Christmas fun for Brody!

Yes this was taken in December. It is freakin' hot here!!!

December 25, 2006

Christmas Eve '06

GO GATORS!!!

2007 BCS National Champions!

Florida Gators crush Ohio State 41-14.

If you ain't a Gator, You're Gator Bait !

Brody is 7 months old

I can hardly believe how time flies. Where did it go?

A GOOD IDEA FOR THE NEW YEAR

I just ran across something on the internet that really caught my attention. A group of friends in San Francisco made a pact to not buy anything new for a whole year. They made exceptions for food and toiletries and a few other things. Check out the yahoo article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070103/ap_on_re_us/shopping_sabbatical
And here is a link to the related blog: http://sfcompact.blogspot.com/

I think this is a great challenge. I'm not sure that I could do it for a whole year but i'm considering doing a three month trial run. Living in Lake City may make things a bit more complicated but I think it's worth a shot. We have a few consignment stores but I don't think we have a freecycle group. This could really help me with my new year's resolution of getting serious about getting out of debt and de-cluttering. I often shop at consignment stores anyway and try to be as enviromentally conscious as I can. I always buy used books (gotta love half.com), nurse my babies and mostly use cloth diapers (little less often now that i have two but Houston is good with the potty and only uses about two pull-ups a day). I think this would be a great challenge and it would have the added benefit of cutting down my grocery bill from super wally world. All those impulse buys would be out the window for a little while.

Anyone up for joining me? I'll have to set up my rules soon. If you look at the blog I posted above and go back to their January 2006 archive you can see the rules they set up.

In the interest of the new year and its resolutions i've been meaning to post mine here. (this way you all can keep me honest) So here it goes:

1. Get serious about getting out of debt (would love for this to just say "get out of debt" but that is impossible in one year. we're about to get on Dave Ramsey's financial peace plan though and i'm excited about it. i want to be non-mortgage debt-free by the time Houston starts school.)
2. Lose 10 pounds (15 or 20 would be great but i'll settle for those last 10 baby pounds)
3. Eat healthier (i find that since i've had kids i'm much more likely to grab fast food ... not just drive-thru but pre-packaged easy to pop in the oven stuff. have you read the ingredients on that kind of stuff lately? yikes! and we wonder why so many people get cancer. i used to eat very healthy. i blame my downfall on trying to be a stay-at-home-,work-at-home,do-too-much, mother of two who lives in Lake City ... the town that will probably never see a Whole Foods, or Mother Earth type store anywhere in the next 200 years. i'm so busy during the day that by the time i realize i need to eat something i don't have the self-control to make a salad or pasta or something like that. i grab what's available quickly or just 'run through somewhere'. and let's not even get into the soda thing here. let's just say i need to give it up!)
4. Get back to YOGA!!! (For the love of God, why can't I just stick with something that I know is great for me physically and emotionally? My life is so much better when i'm doing yoga. I know this. I know how to do yoga. I don't have to practice for two hours a day. Ten minutes a day would be just enough to really make a difference. What is my problem? I have serious self-discipline issues. Anyone have a great used book on this issue that they want to swap for a book on yoga? hee hee.)

Anyone care to share their resolution(s)?



a little side note:
here's something i ran into on a knitting blog ... http://pennyknits.blogspot.com/
Wallys
"Just wanted to let you knitters .. crocheters and sewing Friends out there that Walmart is not putting Craft departments in there New Stores.. And they are " shrinking" that Craft depts that they all ready have... Bummer, Huh ??My Sister workes in the one here in Florida and this is what she told me... She said that we should all call.... 1-800 Walmart..... and COMPLAIN !!!This stinks... I do get alot of craft things from Wallys... For my Seweing and knitting and beading, etc...Go Ahead Everyone and make that Call !!!!!!"

Sharing Some Great News!!!

Brett passed the PE exam! I'm so proud of him. We found out two days before Christmas. We couldn't have asked for a better gift. Of course it wasn't really a gift since he worked for it but you get what I mean.

New Washer!!!!!!!!!!!

Well Sears came through for us. The repair man came last thursday and fixed one problem on the washer and then the pump died right there in front of him. That put us over the limit for repairs in one year and qualified us for a new washer. Now I thought they might end up giving us some credit towards a new washer or something like that but they really stood up to thier word. We went to Sears yesterday and the manager called in for the authorization number he needed for our account. As he was doing this Brett and I looked around at all the washers and tried to guess which one they were going to say was comparible to the one we have. I found two I thought were good choices. Then the manager came and showed us the one he found that matches all the features ours has except it has a bigger capacity. It was $1100 and they gave it to us for free! We didn't have to pay a penny or even sign anything. And they would have delivered it for free as well but we didn't want to wait for that. We had them load it up into the back of Brett's truck and off we went with a brand spanking new state-of-the-art washing machine. I don't know how we ended up with such a great deal but i've got to give props to Sears for truly standing up to what they say. I would highly recommend the Sears maintainance plan to everyone. We had a five year plan and our washer was four and a half years old. Now we have a brand new fancy dancy washer and still have six months of our service plan left that they transfer to the new washer. It's so cool. It has what they call "canyon" capacity and it is super quiet. I think the coolest thing of all is that the lid is see through so you can watch it. That and it has a self-cleaning feature. So as much of a pain it was not having a reliable washer for the past two months, it all paid off in the end. I've been washing clothes all day (trying to catch up) and you just wouldn't believe how much stuff fits in there. Sears says it holds 23 towels. I'm not sure about that, maybe we have big towels, but it definitely holds a lot of stuff!

Christmas Cousins

Washer and Christmas Pics

Our washer broke again yesterday. That would make four times in about one month. Lucky for us we bought a service plan when we bought our washer. I'm pretty much on a first name basis with the repair guy now. I don't even have to escort him to the washer when he gets here. He knows right where to go. Between coming to check it out and having to order a part and coming back to install the part he has been here five times in the past month and has to come again this week. The good news with that is that as long as the repair man finds something wrong with it on thursday it will be considered a lemon and Sears is going to buy us a new washer. Well I can tell you there is definitely something wrong with it. I washed a load of clothes and they came out dry! It looks like I will be heading to the laundromat (did i spell that right?) once again. And it looks like we will be getting a new washer for Christmas, or shortly thereafter. What a pain in the behind though. Do you have any idea how much laundry accumulates around here in a week? Not to mention a month!?!? I went last weekend and did twelve loads. Seems everyone else likes to do laundry on sunday afternoon too so I was there for four hours. What fun.

I had this great idea that I was going to get out of planning a trip for Christmas pictures of the boys. Usually it requires a trip to Gainesville and very careful planning of time so that they are both in a cooperative mood ... not hungry, not tired, clean diaper, clean clothes, haven't been sleeping recently so their hair is a mess, etc. And after being strapped into the car for about 40 minutes Houston has to let off some energy before there will be any "sitting pretty" going on. After the last pictures where the photographer about lost her cool I thought I would try to do them myself this time. BAD IDEA!!! I tried today, after putting it off for a few weeks, and was not very successful. I couldn't find Houston a Christmas shirt or outfit or pj's or anything so I decided to do jeans and santa hats. Easy enough, or so I thought. I even got some big candy canes to use as props and put a bench in front of the Christmas tree so it could be our background. What a mess it turned out to be. My lighting was all wrong and I couldn't get them both looking at the camera and smiling at the same time. About five minutes into it all Houston decided he was done. Then I couldn't get Brody to look at me because he was too interested in Houston running through the house with this big candy cane. And since Brody has started crawling he longer wants to sit still. I did manage to get a couple of decent shots but nothing with both of them in it that's worth printing out an 8x10 of. I'll post some here for your enjoyment.

UPDATE ON THE BOYS

Brody had his six month check-up yesterday. He weighs 18 pounds 4 ounces and is 27-3/4 inches long. His doctor was very surprised at how well he is sitting up and moving around already. He is so close to crawling. I wouldn't be surprised if he was crawling by the end of the week. He already scoots around to get where he wants to go but he keeps trying to get all the way up on his knees.

Houston is being a total two-year-old lately requiring a lot of patience from myself. I've been doing some Christmas shopping and leaving him with Brett which has been a much needed break for me. He is starting to pronounce his words a little better, which is nice. He is really in to Go, Diego Go and anything to do with animals.