Must make blog a weekly priority, AGAIN!

The boys in their new tent

H bowl game day

GO VANDALS!!

I don't even know where to start since my last blog attempt. It has been a whirlwind holiday season, and here I sit almost 2 weeks into the new year. I guess I'll sort of pick up where I left off!

I decided that this year I too was going to have a birthday WEEK. I pampered myself and when the going got tough reminded myself and everyone else, that it was my WEEK and I'd do it as I pleased. We had a fabulous date night on Thursday, Dec 17th. We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and followed up a dinner of 1 million calories with a friendly game of black light miniature golf. Since it was my birthday WEEK, I was declared the winner, even though the score was actually Casey -10 and me +2. Friday night, Casey's parents spoiled me with a cherry cheesecake, and the scrapbooking cubes for my scrap room. It was great fun to have them over. On my actual birthday, we went to Pojo's in the morning for a little family fun. Won some silly prizes with all of our tickets, but that's a huge part of the fun! And we topped the day off with a wonderful dinner of mexican food, at one of my fave restaurants, Casa Mexico! Ryan joined us for dinner, and brought over the movie The Proposal for us adults to watch after the kiddies went to bed. We also watched Up with the boys before their bedtime. It was a fabulous night, and I got a lot of cool CTMH scrapbooking stuff to make my day even better! : ) Sunday night my dad and stepmom came over bearing gifts and more CAKE! My fave gift, which was also a gift for the hubby was a Vandal snowman! He hates that I decorate the house with at least a million snowmen every year for Christmas...but this is one snowman he actually tolerates! I had a blast with my birthday WEEK, and will try for another fabulous repeat next year...minus all the calories in the food!

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas holiday again this year. We all got spoiled beyond all imaginable belief! Casey and I got a new computer for Christmas, which was planned. We also got a new garage door opener, and snow tires for his BMW...which weren't planned so much! We followed our tradition of cheese soup at my parents house in Kuna on Christmas Eve. The boys had a ball with their good buddy Osso, the sad thing is that he is getting older, and may not be around for many more celebrations, so they have to really enjoy him while they can! Christmas morning is spent at our home in our pj's. Santa spoiled the boys with a kitchen set, a new adjustable bball hoop, and a tent. It was especially fun this year, because they both know about and understand the whole Santa concept...and they were just ecstatic! Uncle Mike and his girlfriend, Sanjuana, came over a few hours later, bearing more gifts of course! Uncle Mike is like a grandparent or Santa times 1000! The kids ALWAYS love what he picks out for them, and he didn't disappoint this year. A HUGE race track, and a big ol' T Rex that walks and talks. After our celebration with Uncle Mike, we packed up the presents and headed over to Casey's parents house. Doug and Trin, Mike and Sanjuana were all there as well. We did the gift exchange with them, and sat around and talked and ate. We assembled the kids toys (a new garage that is WAY cool, and a new bball hoop to replace the stool/bucket assembly). We ate way to much, but had a great time with everyone!!!!

Our friend Joe came to visit from Seattle. He stayed with some other friend's of ours, so it was a pretty easy time for us. He made it just in time for the big Humanitarian bowl. The guys are all Vandals, and Joe bought all of the kids new Vandal's shirts for the game. A great time was had by all, and the Vandal's pulled off an amazing last 30 seconds of the game win! Truly AWESOME!!!

New year's eve was supposed to be a 'slumber' party at our house for the Neisen kids and ours. We had never tried it, so we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into...but we failed! Oh well. We did get to play one round of rummy, and even though I lost AGAIN, it's always fun playing that game when Joe is in town! We didn't stay up until midnight AGAIN this year... maybe next year the boys will want to try it!

The new year got off to an awesome start! I had the girls over for some serious scrapbooking at 9am on the 1st! We scrapped the day away. And our consultant for CTMH came over and did a private showing (along with free goodies) of the new catalog...it was HEAVEN! The girls left, the babysitter arrived, and we were off to dinner with Joe, Pete and Misty. We decided to give Jalapeno's bar n grill a go...some pretty good Mexican food there, but still not as good as Casa! We topped off dinner with dessert at the Cheesecake factory, and a 'friendly' round of the Farming game. I lost so miserably that I was a poor sport and didn't even count my money at the end! Once again, a very fun game to play when Joe visits!

I keep saying that "I'm serious this time, I really want to lose the last of that baby weight", and of course, I never do it! So I decided to get serious about it. After seeing my friend Sarah lose a ton of weight, I decided to give the Bodybugg a try. It arrived on the 7th, and let me tell you... I LOVE IT!!!! It is a dream come true for an OCD person such as myself! I have lost 5 pounds in less than a week...and am only 18 pounds away from my goal! I have always known that I like to eat...I never really had any idea what a pig I was though. It tells me how many calories I burn, and gives me a calorie budget for my day. Between the amount of money I spent on it, and my husband's reverse psychology (saying that I won't stick with it)...I'm on track, and VERY motivated to stay there!

The last of my exciting news, is from today....THE IPHONES ARE IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have decided to enter the new decade in style, so we purchased iphones. Soon the landline home phone will be gone, replaced with a magicJack, and it will mostly just be our cell phones that get used! I may (but please don't hold your breath) learn how to text message! : )

Anyways, apologize for the length of this post...but if you remember, I'm doing it for a journal keepsake. Hope I didn't put anyone to sleep. Until next time...whenever that may be!