My 2008 reflections

Saw this on my friend Wendy's Blog and thought what a cute idea.
Now that I have decided to sit down and reflect I am drawing a blank.
I have done a lot of searching within myself this year and am trying to grow more as a person and not let things that I went through growing up affect me so much. I have learned that it is ok to let people go that are not health for me to go even if they are family.
I have had my baby girl graduate from high school. As I sat watching her walk across the field to get her diploma I felt so proud.
Had a great family vacation to Mazatlan. I really wish that we could do more family vacation.
I have joined a wonderful design team for my scrapbooking. See it is not just my hobby, I am making money also.
I have made new friends and have let some other friends go and reconnected more with some old friends.
I have had the pleasure to share some wonderful moments with many of you.
We have also gone through some struggles with Daren's business. This economy is not good for an engineering firm.
And yes even hit a few bumps in the marriage, but I believe that they have only made us stronger because we have been able to work through them.
My children have been a constant wonder to me. How did these little babies grow so much. They are becoming little people with their own ideas and yet I still see so much of both Daren and I in them. I doesn't matter how old they are I will always call them my babies.
There is more but I don't want to put you all to sleep.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of 2008. I will hopefully see you in 2009

Dumont Dunes

The day after Christmas we headed out for some motorcycle riding. It was kinda a last minute plan when we found out a bunch of Daren's family was going. I don't have any pictures because I left my battery at home in the charger.
The first night did involve some drama because our dog ended up in a fight. I don't believe our dog started it and if you know him he is a big teddy bear. My poor baby was so scared and just wanted to cuddle afterwards. After that was all settled we ended up drinking. I did my first Jager Bomb and a few more after that along with other stuff. I will tell you that it is not pretty coming back up. So Saturday I spent most of the day in our trailer laying on the couch in and out of sleep. Sunday was fun though, we went on a nice long trail ride which is always a treat for the kids because I don't ride as much as they would like. We stayed until Monday and just relaxed and hang out.
Ok I found Daren did have a few pictures on his camera but his battery was low we didn't use it much. I think we must have been feeling might good at this point.

Merry Christmas

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas this year.
Our family had a good one. Christmas Eve was at our house this year so we had both sides of the family. The theme this year was Mexican potluck so we had tamales, enchiladas, rice and all the good stuff. I really enjoy hosting big get together at the house. The food was good, the drinks were flowing, Warm apple cider and spiced rum was the drink of the night and later my special chocolate martinis were mixed.
Yes that is what Daren is drinking. Maybe one day you will get lucky and I will post my recipe.
Christmas morning was also nice. The kids slept past 8, infact we were awake waiting for them to get up and then like every year I get a picture of the kids on the stairs before they go downstairs. I'm sure I will hear from Ashley how horrible the picture is.

The first Santa present being opened is the family gift. Guitar Hero world tour band set, the whoo-hoos could be heard throughout the neighborhood.
It was nice having Ashley home for Christmas. She even stayed with us and didn't go visit friends though I'm sure she made a few stops on her way home.
What is Christmas day without a trip to the movies. We saw Marley and Me. It was so cute and a few tears were shed near the end. After the movie we had to go look at Christmas lights. Almost every house get decorated for Christmas and not just a string of lights on the roof they go all out. This street is amazing but I don't think I would want to live here.

Gingerbread House

During a recent trip to Trader Joe's the boys talked me into buying them a Gingerbread House that they could put together. I wasn't to excited because in the past I have bought them and they just end up being a mess. But they won and I caved in. If you are ever in the need for a gingerbread house buy it from Traders, they are so easy and the frosting is sticky and dries fast.
I pulled out my handy dandy cake decorating tools and they went to work. It turned out super cute. Now it is sitting on the table growing stale. I now that they are going to want to break into it when they get back from Aunt Stacy's house. I'm just hoping that when don't get more snow in the next couple days. It would be horrible for them to get snowed in away from home over Christmas.

My Layout Challenge

Being on a the design team at the Scrapping Lounge sometimes means that you have to come up with a layout using paper you may not be fond of at first sight. That was me with this paper by Glitz, it is not something I would normally pick up and think how cute is this. I had no clue what I was going to do but then inspiration hit me that night. I really like how it turned out.

Joseph's Chorus proformace

Joseph decided that this year he wanted to join the chorus at school. This came out of left field because he had shown no interest in the past. He has really gotten into it and will sing around the house and he even got up at a Christmas party last weekend and sang some songs. I never realized how deep his voice was, it should be interesting when it starts to crack.
He looked so cute in his tie that is a little to long but he refused to let me buy him a clip-on. I loved watching the boys both learn to how to tie them, because you know that Hunter wanted one as soon as Joseph said he needed one.
Joseph is in the front next to the boy that looks like he wants to crawl under a rock and hide.
Also you don't have to watch the video but I'm a mom and thought they were cute. To you they are just some kid singing


This wasn't the video I wanted to post but it was the only one that was loading

More New York Pictures

I was informed today that I am a blog slacker. OK maybe not those exact words but that was the point right Wendy =)
So here are a few more pictures from when I went to New York

A few years ago I would give Ashley a hard time because I thought Uggs were the ugliest things but I love them now and they kept my feet all toasty warm


Yes this is ice on the fountain. It was cold

New York City

It is official......I love New York City. Which is kinda crazy because I am so not a city girl. Maybe I would get tired of it if I lived the life for awhile, but for now I'm gonna just going to go on with my love affair for this one big city.
I was so glad that one of my oldest and dearest friends was able to fly out and meet me for a few days. I'm just sorry that Tina was in the middle of a family crisis and couldn't make it, but we I kept he up dated on what we were doing. I think I did more texting in those few days then I have in a long time.
Spent the first few days with Ali and when she had to fly home Daren who was staying with his friend packed up and stayed the last night with me. It was perfect.
We stayed in the Upper West Side in a cute little hotel. It only had a few drawbacks. Shared Bathrooms, yes we had to share the bathroom with a few other rooms but it wasn't as bad as I was thinking. My first shower was possibly the fastest and coldest one I have ever taken, found out later that the hold and cold settings were backwards. Our room was cold and the radiator made some really horrible sounds
The window displays were really neat to look at and all the stores were decorated for Christmas. We tried to see most of them but I know we missed some. The city was so crowded that in some areas you could hardly walk. We just stayed bundled up and walked past as many as we could find.
This was a must on our places to eat. Serendipity is the cutest little spot. On Sunday Ali and I put our name on the list because it was a 2 hour wait and went walking. The wait really was worth it because the Frozen Hot Chocolate was so yummy. I even took Daren the next night just so he could see it and it had no wait so I had to have another. It was still just as good.

I loved walking through the park. I couldn't believe that we ended up walking through the whole park. It really didn't seem so bad until you realized how many blocks it was that we walked. Let's just say our Hotel was 94th st and the park ends around 60th st and then from there we walked to Macy's on 34th. Yeah a little crazy.


Daren and I found this cute little arch in the park on our last day. It was kinda funny I was so intent on getting pictures that I didn't even realize that all over the ground were pages torn from a dirty magazine. I happen to glance down and thought gross. I would have picked them up and put them in a trash can but I was afraid of what was on them.

I will post more pictures in a few days.