HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To my blogger friends, you are special to me. You have made my life fuller and I thank you. Be safe and have a happy night. Love debi

Baby Madison

All those toys and she goes for the coke.

Cady

Just thought since I took pics to share here that I should post them. This is my Cady opening her favorite gift,her cell phone. She did not expect it.

Oh Gee Is It Over?

Loved it but I am so glad the stress is gone from my shoulders. Joe and I worked so hard last night. Slept 4 1/2 hrs until Cady woke us up. She loved this Christmas. She has her first job and saved all her checks to buy gifts for her family. She went at it with such a sweet heart that I may rethink my way of choosing the right gift. She was very excited when she opened the phone her Dad got her. We have never been keen on the whole teen cell phone thing. Now that shes working it would be helpful. The entire gang of 19 was here today including the ex-husband. I can't hog up all the kids and Grandkids and then leave him home all alone.We borrowed tables from church and it was nice to all sit down. I am always so disorganized. I wanted to have the tables all set and pretty. But there was no time as the tables didn't get here till an hr before we ate.I know someone said nobody wants to know what you ate for dinner but I think thats hooey. Molly posted pics of her food she was taking to a party and I think we all loved it. Okay,I drooled a little.By last night all my kids and even my ex had called to tell me how much they loved their presents and the dinner. Now I feel like all is well.My friend Lynne didn't go to Arkansas to see her family this year so she cooked prime rib for 19. It was so good. Too bad my family thought the meat was raw and had to nuke their plates. It was a wonderful day. After reading Mollys post I have to say that those years when your babies are little and their little hearts go thump thump at the mention of Santa are the best years for Christmas. Can you imagine Christmas without cameras? It would be awful. We had a great day but we are exhausted. Oh wait,,we still have new Years left.If you want to see some very cute Christmas kids, check out "lostasock".

Merry Christmas!

It's the first time ever that we have finished wrapping and stuffing stockings before 4 am. It's only 2:45. I spent the last 6 hrs working on presents alone. I am gonna get organized next year. No more waiting till the last minute. Pretty sad that I am sitting here huh? Winding down,thats all. God Bless you everyone.

Jolly Old St Nicholas

Here is Gage helping Grandpa fix the sleigh. I took this a week ago, The sleigh went on the roof today. We are sadly behind on everything but catching up today. Although the one thing we really need to do is still sitting undone. We have not wrapped even one thing.We have a big family and I am so going to regret putting it off. Tomorrow night when others all nestled all snug in their beds with visions of sugarplums ect ect..I will be sitting all frozen in the livingroom with a pain in my back,wrapping and tying bows. I will spend hrs on this and then when I finally finish,I will take all the gifts out from under the tree and re-arrange them.They have to be just so. I can make 5 presents look like a room full. This is my kids favorite thing.The grown kids always tell me how they loved to peak out in the morning and see the entire room bulging with gifts and toys.It wasn't so much what they got but the memory of that scene.I love it!

Christmas Party or Drink Up and Dance

Joes Christmas party was fun.It's weird to party with people I see 2 times a year but they are nice and we are all half crocked so it's not that bad.I went for one reason,to blog about it later. Well, I never got around to it and now the funny stuff I would have said is stale.

Happy Birthday

Today is Natalies first birthday. She is our 5th grandchild and our first granddaughter. She is a little sweety and her 2 brothers are so in love with her.
Happy Birthday baby girl.

IMAGINE

Lynne and I don't recognize this as a day to remember(we have a celebration on Oct 9th each year) but, 3 different old friends called this week to ask if we were going to get together for the 26th anniv. of the murder of John Lennon.I am on my way out the door to go to Lynnes to borrow something to wear to the Christmas party tomorrow night but thats about it. I think John was a bad husband to Cynthia and a bad Dad to Julian. That being said, I still loved him as part of the band that wrote and sang the soundtrack to our lives back then. What was I doing when the news flashed on the TV screen? I was living in Fountain Valley,Calif. I was vaccuming the living room. I just stopped and stood there and stared for a long time. Heather was 4 yrs old and Billy was 2. During the evening I received calls from friends I hadn't heard from in years. It was strange but nice to be drawn back together again.

Hometown USA

The Alamogordo Annual Christmas Parade was last night and it was so cold. Our parades include such parade favorites as people walking dogs wearing Santa hats(the dogs) fire trucks with sirens blaring, garbage trucks with all over blinking lights and large groups of bikes and 4 wheelers. Ahh,I love it. Cady marched with her ROTC group and was picked to be one of the kids holding the banner,a big honor. I stood freezing waiting for her to pass by for my pictures. When the time came the light was bad and my flash not big enough to get any pic at all. I had to run a few blocks and get ahead of her to get a not that great shot. I am not the skinny girl I was and that run could have been my final hour. I know I looked dumb running my fat butt through the parade waving my camera but ya gotta do what ya gotta do for those pictures you cannot live without. As I said the picture is not very good but the best I could do while trying to catch my breath and hold the camera still. If they could have just stopped and let me take a few it would have been nice.

TGIF

What a week. It has been very cold and snowy. I guess we are lucky as the midwest got it alot worse. I am so excited that for once in my life I got something done on time. Last night I finally made my final choices for my "Cheesy Love Songs".I have 5 lists that I made and had to dump. I seem to have a problem with what I feel a love song should be. I would start out fine and then end up with something that may have been a bad choice. I like rock n roll and I just wanted to include lots of it. Well in the end I did include some but tried to make sure I also had my fair share of cheese. Pretty sure that Debbie Gibson song was super cheese. Joe is in Roswell till tomorrow night and I already miss him. I wish that I had time to write but there is always someone calling me or needing soemething.Geez,I am so busy but have gotten next to nothing done at the end of the week.