The End of November's NaBloPoMo

I have made it to the last day and have managed to post everyday. I enjoyed doing my writing at the end of the day to a point that some days I think that I miss the midnight deadline. I started out doing both NaBloPoMo and posting a status everyday of things I am thankful for on Facebook. I kept up with NaBloPoMo, but gave up mid-November on the thankful statuses. I just didn't feel the passion anymore to continue to post things that seem to have become trivial to be thankful for. I did say that I would probably post on the blog my thankful status posts from Facebook on the last day so that is what I am going to do.

Day 1:  I am thankful I was able to spend time with my family this evening attending Church, dinner, and Riley's last Spooky Gym as an elementary student!

Day 2: I am thankful that my children got to meet their great grandmother while in Thailand last year.

Day 3: I am thankful today for my health and for the ability to lead an active life.

Day 4: I am thankful that we live in a city with an awesome library system!

Day 5: I am thankful for my parents who are always there for me and my family. I love you very much.

Day 6: Thankful that I knew Linda Umstattd! Wonderful person and friend. May she rest in peace.

Day 7: Today I am thankful for my friends, old and new, young and old, near and far. You all have influenced my life and made it richer! Thank you for letting me be a part of your lives.

Day 8: I am thankful that I am able to foster my children's interests, whatever they may be, from trucks and trains to Lego, Nerf guns, archery, and hunting. The future looks to hold more artistic interests, drawing, pottery, and cake decorating.

Day 9: To my gramdmother, Mon Chaisurat, thank you for leading us by your example. We will remember you always.

Day 10: Thankful today for a day of rest in order to be refreshed to face the challenges of a new work week.

Day 11: Thank you to all those who serve and protect our country.

Day 12: I am thankful today to know many parents who love and care for their children; parents who take the responsibility of raising a child seriously and believe in being a parent first and then their friend.

Day 13: Thankful for all the opportunities I have been given in life, personal and professional.

Day 14: I am thankful for my education and that I am able to use my education to influence the lives of others.

Day 15: Thankful for my parents today and everyday! They have always supported me in whatever I wanted to do!

Day 17: I am thankful for all children; they teach you with their innocence and truthfulness.

Day 20: Thankful that we are able to help where we can, both in our local community and overseas!

Day 30: Last, but not least, thankful for my husband and the life we have built together. May we continue on our adventures together for all the days of our lives. Love you very much.

Well, after going through my post, I had 18 days of thankfulness. I have much to be thankful for in my life and although I try to concentrate of the positives in life, sometimes the negatives do get me down, but not for long!

Thanksgiving Prayer

Last week Riley decided that he wanted to say grace for Thanksgiving dinner. Today, we sat as a family to compose what he would say.

I wanted to copy and paste or re type the words, but I am having trouble wifi connection. Happy Thanksgiving 2013

NaBloPoMo and Giving Thanks on Facebook

NaNoWriMo started sending me e-mails in mid-October about National Novel Writing Month. I have never participated in NaNoWriMo, but it did lead me to NaBloPoMo two years ago. I didn't participate in either last year and decided to try NaBloPoMo again this year. After I posted my first blog post in a long time, I got on my Facebook page and saw friends posting things that they are thankful for, and it reminded me that it was November, the season of Thanksgiving also. As the first day of the month was coming to an end, I decided to post my thankful things on Facebook as well as participate in NaBloPoMo.

So far, so good. I believe that I have posted on both for the first four days of the month. But, each day, I have forgotten about one or the other until the very last minute. I am hoping as the month goes on, I will start to post one right after the other or that the posts will start to crossover.

At the end of the month, I think that I will do my last blog post on the things that I was thankful for in November! We'll see if I remember...

Ron's Gift

My husband's gift is the ability to host and cook.  He is in his element and loves to entertain especially his family and close friends.  He always gets rave reviews for the dishes that he makes.  Christmas dinner included prime rib, wasabi crusted salmon, crab stuffed mushrooms, grilled asparagus, spinach salad, and creme brulee for dessert.  We hosted Christmas dinner last year and again this year.  Next year, we may have to go on the road, but what matters is that we are together.  This year's dinner numbered 19 and next year we hope that more family members will be able to join us.

The Boys

The Girls

The Adults



Santa's Gift

Reese made Santa a card for Christmas.  We did not have any cookies so we left Rice Krispies Treats, white chocolate pretzels, and a candy cane.  Santa snuck in while Mommy was wrapping gifts last night and ate some pretzels and one-half of a Rice Krispies Treat and took the card.

On Christmas Eve...

I am blessed with a great family and wonderful friends.  As our Chrismas dinner table gets fuller and fuller, I think of what fun tomorrow will be just to be able to spend time with the family.  There will be three generations of family here tomorrow, and time spent together is precious because we never know when it may end.  The oldest is 78, and the youngest is five.  May we continue to be able to have good health and peace in the new year to spend time together.

In the stretch...

At this point I am pretty much done with Christmas shopping.  I have a few gift cards to pick up and all my wrapping, cleaning, and Christmas cards still left to finish.  Hopefully, the house will be mostly clean tonight, and the Christmas cards will get finished!  Loftly goals, I know, but I need a sense of accomplishment.  I have to work the next two days, and then we have guests for Christmas.  I love watching the kids open their gifts on Christmas morning.  I hope they like what they get!  If not, the money they get for Christmas will be used to fill in the gaps especially since Reese is not always really clear in what she wants.

Two Surprise Gifts

My husband and son took off for New York tonight to go and see Fort Niagara.  My daughter and I had some bonding time finishing up the Christmas cards.

When my husband got to his father's house, his oldest brother showed up as a surprise from Maine about 10 minutes later!

A Christmas of special gifts, Merry, Merry!

Secret Santa Gift Exchange

Secret Pal, Secret Santa, everyone calls it something different.  At one of my old schools we use to have year long secret pals.  You gave one gift a month and you would reveal yourself at the end of the school year in June.  At the school I am at now, they do Secret Santa, five gifts over five days for $5.00 each.  I did it last year, and I am doing it again this year.

Last year when I did it, one of my friends said that she didn't do gift exchanges or secret santa because it just added to the stress of the season.  For me, even though I sometimes feel stressed by it, I also like to do it.  I think that it gives me something to look forward to leading up to the holiday.  I also like to get to know someone who I might not know otherwise.

This year I had to pick three times.  The first time I got myself; the second time I got the person I had last year; the third time I got a person that is the polar opposite of me.  Her favorite thing to eat is peanut butter, and I put on my form at the bottom that I cannot eat peanuts, but can eat things that are processed in a factory with peanuts.

So far, I have given Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Reese's Pieces in a gift bag and caramel corn with peanuts.  I have another gift that I forgot to get out and give today.  Then, I think a Tim Horton's Gift Card and a non-food item from the list of favorites will round out my gifts!  I have gotten a bag of Chex Mix, a jar of Jelly Bellys, and Mint Truffle Hershey Kisses, all of which make me very happy!

The Gift of a Little Girl

When my son was little, he asked for lights in front of the house.  I bought the bush lights and the candy canes and put them up in the front of the house, and he was happy.  This year, our daughter asked for lights on her house.  She wanted them to be hanging from the house and wanted lots of them.  She would have preferred colorful lights, but any lights were better than none.  The thing about her is that she was willing to help, and she brought the family together to get the job done.  Both her dad and I helped each other, and I made trees out of our tomato cages.  There is only one up right now because the lights on the other one did not work.  Looking good!

Do you like to try to guess your gifts ahead of time?

No, I do not like to try and guess my gifts ahead of time.  One year, when I was about 12, I found all my Christmas gifts in my parents' closet.  On Christmas Day I was so disappointed because all the things that I found were the only things that I got.  There were no other gifts and no surprises, teaching me that sometimes, it is better to wait.  Ever since then I never go snooping and try to give lots of ideas so that I will not know exactly what someone is getting me.

What was the first tangible gift you remember receiving?

I don't know what the first tangible gift that I remember receiving was.  I do know that one Christmas when I was about nine or ten years old, I went with some family friends to their relatives' house.  They were not my relatives, and they were not expecting me to join them for Christmas.  As they sat and opened their gifts, I looked on longingly until the mother of the house came down the stairs and handed me a gift to open.  It was just a Mickey Mouse paint and marker book with a set of markers to go with it, but it was so special to me because it was so unexpected, that someone would think of me, an unexpected guest and have something just for me.  To this day, I remember the warmth I felt receiving that gift and remember the mother fondly.  May she rest in peace.

Black Friday

Well, it is the day after Thanksgiving and one of the first in many years that I did not go shopping.  When looking at the ads yesterday, it seemed like there were not many deals.  Add that to the fact that we were leaving early in the morning, and it was not worth getting up.

This afternoon I did stop at Office Max for a portable hard drive that I have been eying for awhile now.  The flyer prices for the various stores have been the same since the summer.  When I went to Office Max, there was a sign on the door that said that there is a shortage of portable/desktop hard drives because of the flooding in Thailand, so customers are limited to one per purchase and of course, the ones on sale were already gone.  On top of that the prices are not going down, but going up because of the shortage.  I was going to buy another portable hard drive that had less gigabytes and was more expensive, but then just decided to buy a 16GB flash drive instead.

I also ended up at the Dollar Tree today looking for containers to store games in at school.  I did not find the containers, but found magnetic cookie sheets and some decorations for the Christmas cards that I think I am going to have my children make.

Lunch, Movie, Library, and Dinner with grandparents rounded out Black Friday! 

Shutterfly is a Gift Giver's Best Friend

As I was contemplating what type of photo card I would like to do for Christmas this year, I got the Shutterfly 2010 Holiday Cards and Gifts catalog in the mail.  In the past I have done 4x8 photo cards and used 4x6 pictures in the cards where you can insert pictures.  This year the card that caught my eye was the Top Ten Moments Christmas card.  I liked this card because it was flat.  I also liked the newsletter format of the card where I could highlight certain aspects of our year.  What really caught my attention was, in the example, the #1 moment was celebrating our 10 year anniversary, and my husband and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary also this year.  I really like how my card turned out and enjoyed thinking about our year and trying to determine what events were the best ones to add to our card.

I have used many shutterfly products in the past, but this is the first Christmas card that I have done.  I make a yearly photo book for my children that is the same on the inside, but I am able to customize the covers to match their personalities and their favorite colors.  Recently, I tried another photo site because shutterfly did not have the size photo book I wanted for that particular project.  Never again will I stray from shutterfly!  The quality was not as good as I am use to with shutterfly, and my pictures that I thought were cropped correctly when I made the book were cut off when I received the book.

I started making a calendar for my father in law many years ago and it has now become a Christmas tradition.  Thankfully, all of the relatives help out and send me their pictures to be included in the calendar.


If you need photo gifts, shutterfly is the place to go!

Hawaii Day Eight: Surfing

We went to Kalama Park to cookout and surf and swim. Usually, we leave the beach at about 2pm because the winds pick up at that time. On this day we decided to stay all day. It is a good thing too because we did not get there until later than usual, and once we got there, they decided to cook first rather than swim first. This park was nice because it had a playground for the kids. There was not much beach to speak of. The park set up off the beach on a break wall of sorts. This helped with the winds at 2pm because they did not knock over our umbrellas.

Riley was playing on the playground and needed help with the handle so he could swing on the rail. As I was walking toward it, another mother helped Riley get the handle back. I thanked her and started walking back toward my lunch when I noticed another girl. I thought that she looked like someone from home, but I thought, no way. I turned back around and sure enough it was the girl that I thought it was, someone I have known since the day she was born; I even went to the baby shower that was given to her mom before she was born. We talked for awhile, and I found out the she moved to Maui after graduation. She was visiting her brother and decided to stay. She lived not too far away from the park we were at, and was there with her friend and her friend's kids. I am happy for my friend; she is enjoying life and living for the moment right now.

Riley was having so much fun playing on the playground that he forgot to go to the restroom and had an accident. I did not have another pair of swimming trunks for him so I improvised for him, and he ended up wearing Speedos, Reese's swimmies. He didn't think too much of it and just kept on playing.

The family wanted to go surfing so they rented two surfboards. Ron went out with them first and tried his hand at it. I am not sure exactly how he did because I was watching the kids and they were too far out for me to see in the sun. I went out for round three, and I actually got on the board and was able to kneel and stand on the board, but did not really ride that far before falling off. My sister in law helped out by pushing the board when it was the right time so I did not have to paddle to catch up with the waves. I had a great time and was pretty proud of myself for being able to get up on the board.

To celebrate New Year's Eve the adults went out for appetizers and drinks at the Wailea Golf Club. Although it was cloudy and we were not able to see the sunset, we got some beautiful pictures because our clothes matched the gray-blue sky of the evening. We had an interesting time with ordering the brie appetizer. We asked for extra bread to go with it. When the brie came out, we got the three pieces that were included in the appetizer. We asked for more, like nine pieces and were even willing to pay for it. We got three more. We asked for six more pieces; we got four more. We gave up after that, and we still had brie left.

We spent the evening figuring out the characters on the new Mah Jongg set that arrived in the mail that day. We have been waiting for this set for days because it is a game that we enjoy playing as a family, and they did not have a set at the Maui house. We have been substituting by playing Bonanza which is fun in a different way. The good thing about Bonanza is that it is not limited to four people. But family time for us is Mah Jongg time!

We quit Mah Jongg about 10pm in order to light up the neighborhood with fireworks. There are no laws here regarding fireworks. We were able to buy them at the local Walmart. The younger kids fell asleep before this point so they missed the action, but the adult kids and the older kids had a great time being young again.

We ended up going to bed early on the basis that everyone else on the mainland had already celebrated new year's. Mainly, we were tired from our all day excursion at the beach with surfing. I saw 11pm Maui time, but did not see the stroke of midnight.

Hawaii Day Two: Christmas on the Beach

We are staying with my sister and brother in law at their house on Maui. They have a really nice house just down the street from the beach.

We opened presents on Christmas morning, and they were really generous with their gift to us in addition to sharing their vacation with us. Once we were done with all the present opening, we headed to the beach.

The beach is less than a five minute drive from the house. It was a great day; very relaxing and enjoyable. While, on the beach, we saw dolphins jumping and a sea turtle that was about 10 feet from Ron. Riley learned to stay on a boogie board and surf the waves near the shore. Reese really enjoyed the sand. At one point someone asked what time it was, and no one knew or really cared. We did end up leaving shortly after that due to the winds and the tide coming in and blowing our umbrellas down.

For Christmas dinner we went out for Korean food. The bulgogi was awesome as was the fish. On our way into the restaurant we got our family picture taken as the sun was setting. For dessert we went for ice cream at Lappert's. They have this amazing ice cream called Tutu's Anniversary, raspberry and passion fruit sorbet with coconut bits swirled in vanilla ice cream.

It's Christmas Eve!

I've made it to Christmas Eve. The presents are all wrapped and ready to go. We have made it to see our family and have enjoyed some quality time with them. Now, rest and relaxation for the next two days. Then, Wednesday it is back to the grindstone of work and preparing for Riley's birthday party on Saturday.

The Work Is Never Done

I keep thinking that I am done Christmas shopping because I have bought for my children and my family. But, the list just keeps growing as to the things that I need to get done before Christmas. I still have nine teachers between my children to think about, a few others that I am forgetting right now, and Christmas cards, which, for some reason, I decided to make with my children this year. They are really cute though, and my son really likes to paint. I even got my daughter to paint her hand for a few.

In addition to all that, I need to get invitations out by this weekend for my son's fifth birthday party on the 29th. I hope that two weeks is enough notice to get a few friends to come. Riley is looking forward to this birthday and its party because he has seen birthday parties all year long and really wants one of his own. I hope that he can stick to one theme so that I can come up with theme related activities.

Oh, I forgot, wrapping, I have not started yet! That's another part of Christmas that I keep forgetting about, what is bought has to be wrapped. Come to think about it, I have not even checked to see if I have wrapping paper left over from last year!

Oh yes! The mailing of packages and cards, I keep relegating that to the backseat, but it has to be done soon or else the packages will not get to their destination before Christmas and I will have to stand in some long line at the post office.

Oh boy, everywhere I turn, I need to get something done and soon so that I will have a sense of accomplishment!

The Things We Do for the Holidays

This is the third year that I have participated in the annual day after Thanksgiving sales. Three years ago I started shopping on the day after Thanksgiving because my assistant at the time talked about all the great deals that she got by going out. I decided to try it and it was actually easier to shop very early in the morning because I did not have to find a babysitter for my child. I could zip in and out of stores with my list and handful of ads. I came back with lots of things, especially clothes for my son.

Last year I was not going to go out and shop at 5:30am on Friday because I had a newborn at home that did not sleep through the night, but decided after looking at the ads to go anyway. I was glad that I did because my son was going to school with me last year and the time that I would have had to shop after school, he would have been with me. I got lucky at Toys R Us because I found what I wanted down the main aisles and just turned a corner and there was the line for the cash registers. I got some good deals last year even though I spent a lot of time trying to find a Radio Shack that did not have what I needed anyway!

This year, I set my alarm for 4:30am even though the stores opened at 4am. I thought did I really want to go out before 4am if I have to work from 11-5 and I cannot go home and take a nap because I have two children that need attention? The answer was no! Anyway, I missed my alarm and woke up at 5:15am. Usually, I go to JC Penney's last, but this year it was one of my first stops. I got my clothes that I needed from there and went to Michael's for picture frames. I ran into Julie and Becky there and they told me not to even try Toys R Us because the line inside was incredible and it was on 7:15am. Good thing for me that they did not have very much that I needed or wanted. Onto K Mart I went and thought why am I standing in line for things that are not on early bird special, and I am not even sure are priced for my benefit. I put my things back and left. I got home about 8:30am, my wallet a little bit lighter, but my stress level lower for finishing some of the people on my gift list.

Will I have time to run to Target after work? We'll see....

Will I do it again next year, you bet! Shopping without kids in tow is awesome!

Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something goody to eat!

My son came home from school on Halloween saying the title to this piece. He was very excited to put on his firefighter halloween costume and join his friends for trick or treat. So, we rushed home, ate our pizza, and dressed him up. He had to wear boots because "the firefighters will be mad at me if I wear shoes". I sent him outside with some of the neighbors while I got my daughter ready and when I got outside, he was already walking down the street with the neighbors trick or treating!

My daughter was the hunny pot from Winnie the Pooh. Daddy dressed up as Pooh for her this year and neither of them was too happy. We have the pictures for the memories, but not for posting! Unfortunately, trick or treat started at 6pm and my daughter usually takes her evening nap at 5pm. Needless to say her nap was short yesterday and dinner was early so she was a little out of sorts as I put her in the wagon to go and track her brother down.

We ended up doing most of the neighborhood houses which is more than we have done the past two years and had a great time with our neighborhood friends!