Paper or electronic?

I'm kind of on the fence about electronic reading devices. I love to read, but, to me, part of the experience is the feel of the book in your hands & the sound of the pages turning.

However, I'm certainly willing to give it a try.

Fiddledeedee is giving away a Sony Pocket Reader on her giveaway page. Go check it out & enter if you want... but I'll be honest, I hope *I* win!

BTW - do you have one of these electronic reading devices? What are your thoughts?

Christmas 2009

I can't believe Christmas has come & gone already. I know we say it every year... but, boy, this year has flown by! We had a wonderful Christmas. The only bad part is that we weren't able to see my parents this year. This is the first time EVER my sister or I haven't been with our parents on Christmas. We had just seen them at Thanksgiving, so that was good, but still, it was weird.

Haley spent the night with us Christmas Eve so she was here to open gifts Christmas morning. She joined us at Chris' parents that afternoon for lunch.

Now, on to what y'all are really here for... the pictures. I hate that Picasa will only let you post four pictures at a time. I have way more than that! So, here are a few highlights. I chose the one's with the best facial expressions! LOL

Diego cars from GaGa & PaPa.

View-Master from GaGa & PaPa.

Color Flash Laptop from Granny (Which he's playing with right now on the desk next to me as I type this.)

Real Projects Workshop from Santa


Turst me when I say this was just the tip of the iceberg of the things he got! Somehow the only pictures we managed to get at Chris' parents house were of Jboy opening his stocking. Hmmm. I'll have to ask them for copies of their pictures so I can share those as well.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas too!

Cookies for Santa!

I really wanted to start some fun Christmas traditions this year. One tradition we started is making cookies to lay out for Santa. I still haven't learned to not mention things we'e going to do too soon, so I had said something several weeks ago. Almost every day Jboy would ask if it was time to make cookies for Santa. Next year, I won't say anything until the day before. ;o)

The day finally arrived & Jboy was super excited to help stir the dough. He loves "helping" in the kitchen so he was in heaven.





Santa requested chocolate milk to go with his cookies. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the crumbs left over... I guess we'll just have to recreate the moment. I'm sure Santa won't mind.


Stay tuned for pics from Christmas day!

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Santa

A look back at Jboy's pics with Santa.

2006 - So tiny!!!

2007 - So not happy.

2008 - Not too sure about this.

2009 - An old pro! (photo courtesy of Photography by Elena)


At the beginning of the month, Santa came to Jboy's school for chapel & talked about the real meaning of Christmas. After chapel was over a professional photographer was on site to take pictures of the kids with Santa. I thought they turned out great! You should go check out the photographer's site: Photography by Elena. She's really good. I'd love for us to get a family portrait done soon.

Today Jboy's class (and I think the rest of the school) had their "Happy Birthday, Jesus" party. Stay tuned for pictures!

Christmas All Around

Last night was the Christmas program at Jboy's school. Ever since we signed him up I've been looking forward to this. I wasn't too worried about him being shy on stage or anything as he loves to sing & dance.

Before we left I took a few pictures of him in front of the tree in his fancy new duds. Doesn't he look handsome?! Thank you to Grammie & Grumpy for the adorable outfit. ;o) It was a bit of a challenge to get him to stand still & smile "normal", but we managed to get a few good shots. I tried to get his Santa hat shot for this year at the same time, but I think I had pushed my luck enough for one go round. We'll have to try again today.



The doors to the church opened at 6:30, and we got there a few minutes before that. Well, we should have arrived a lot sooner. There was a huge crowd outside when we pulled up. Originally we were all sitting in the back (Chris was standing so he could videotape). They asked if some of the men would mind standing so more ladies could sit, so Chris' dad & a lot of other men stood up in the back & around the walls. I was lucky enough to snag a seat on the 3rd or 4th row at that point.

Jboy did such a great job! We were all so proud of him. He sang the songs & did the motions like a pro. The whole production was great. Mrs. Melody, the music teacher (and my friend), did such an amazing job putting the whole thing together. All of the staff did. We talked afterwards about how well everything went & there weren't any catastrophes which, in a room of 135 preschoolers is a miracle no matter what.



Here's a little video I took on my phone at the end. The quality isn't very good, but it's something. ;o)

History

I've seen this floating around blogland today & thought I'd play along. If you decide to join in the fun, leave me a comment so I can go check it out!

****15 YEARS AGO TODAY (1994)****
1) How old were you? 18
2) Who were you dating? I think Stephen Harmon
3) Where did you work? How can I not remember? Either: Chick-fil-a, Coggin’s Shoes or Sewell Mill Preschool
4) Where did you live? With my parents in Marietta, GA
5) Where did you hang out? church
6) Who were your best friends? Kesha, Tiffany, Stephanie
7) How many tattoos did you have? None
8) How many piercings did you have? One in each ear
9) What kind of car did you drive? ’89 Pontiac Grand Am
10) Were you Single/taken/Married/Divorced? taken
11) Any Kids? nope

**** 10 YEARS AGO TODAY (1999)****
1) How old were you? 23
2) Who were you dating? Married a year & a half
3) Where did you work? Hitachi Power Tools
4) Where did you live? Townhouse in Snellville, GA
5) Where did you hang out? At home with hubby or with friends
6) Who were your best friends? Pam, Lacretia
7) How many tattoos did you have? none
8) How many piercings did you have? One in each ear
9) What kind of car? Honda Accord
10) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced? married
11) Any Kids? no

****FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY (2004)****
1) Age? 28
2) Who were you dating? Married for 6 ½ years
3) Where did you work? Hitachi Power Tools
4) Where did you live? This house, Loganville, GA
5) Who were your closest friends? Pam, Lisa, Rebecca
6) Where did you hang out? With friends
7) How many piercings did you have? One in each ear
8) How many tattoos? none
9) What kind of car did you have? 2002 Jeep Liberty
10) Were you Single/Taken/Married? Married
11) How many kids? none

****TODAY (2009)****
1) Age? 33
2) Where do you work? Home
3) Where do you live? Loganville, GA
4) Who are your closest friends? Pam, Lisa, Rebecca, Mae
5) Do you talk to your old friends? Occasionally, thanks to Facebook
6) Where do you hang out? With friends
7) How many piercings do you have? One in each ear
8) How many tattoos? none9) What kind of car do you have? Jeep Liberty
10) Are you Single/Taken/Married? Married
11) How many kids? 1

Meeting Ree a.k.a The Pioneer Woman

You may {or may not, that's okay} remember my post in March about Rebecca & I attending a book reading/signing for Jodi Picoult. We had such fun and decided to keep our eyes/ears open for any other opportunities to meet our favorite authors. Both of us have been fans of Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman's blog for quite some time. I love that she's an "average" lady who one day started a blog for the heck of it and has now "made it big", if you will. She's a great writer and so funny. Recently she came out with her first cookbook and is currently on tour promoting it. When Rebecca & I found out she was coming to Atlanta, we immediately began making plans to attend.



Originally the event was set to start at 7:30pm. Knowing there would be a huge crowd, we decided to get there very early. Chris was gracious enough to take the day off work so I could meet Rebecca at her office at 12:30. Yes, 7 hours before the signing. ;o) Border's (where the event was held) started handing out wristbands at 9:00am! Thankfully, Rebecca had called them, so we decided to stop by there first to get our bands & then head to lunch. Even though they had moved the signing up to 6:00pm, we had plenty of time. After getting our wristbands we went over to Phipps Plaza for lunch.

Phipps is a very high end mall in Atlanta, so we ate in the food court! ;o) I had never been to Phipps before, so we walked around for a while. I really wanted to go into some of the stores; Versace, Armani Exchange, Jimmy Choo, but I was quite intimidated. First of all, it was obvious I would never be able to afford anything in those stores. And second, it was obvious I'd never be able to WEAR anything in those stores. We were joking that "big girls need clothes too!" LOL Ah well, it's fun to dream.

We made it back to Border's at about 4:00 and were thankfully able to find a place to sit. I think we may have found the last seats as there were a lot of people hanging around for the signing. At about 5:30 they started lining up the first group. We were in the sixth group, and I think there were about 50 people (+/-) in each.

Here's a shot of the crowd while we waited.


Finally they called our group & we lined up. I think it still took almost an hour after that, but we had a good time chatting with everyone around us. Turns out, one of the ladies in front of us used to work with a girl I was best friends with my freshman & sophomore years of high school. Small world!

Here is our picture with Ree. Apparently we're all looking at Rebecca's camera in this shot! LOL She was so sweet {and pretty} in person and seemed genuinely happy to be meeting everyone.


Afterwards we had to have our pictures taken with our newly autographed books. We did the same thing with our Jodi Picoult books. I feel a tradition in the making!


I am so glad that we were able to do this! We're on the lookout now for our next event. Does anyone know of a website or something that keeps a list of authors on tour?

Go check out Rebecca's post on our fun day!

Want to win a computer?

I thought so.

Go check out this giveaway on BooMama's blog.

Amazing! Oooh, I hope I win!


PS.... stay tuned for a post about my getting to meet Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman!