**to finish off the week**

this christmas turned out to be a quiet one for sure. definately an adjustment. i guess that was to be expected. it was nice though. cj got his itouch that he has been bugging me about for months. now i don't have to listen to that. bailey got one of the new ipods in a cool blue color. of course books, dvds, and itune cards rounded out the rest.

i got this:













and this:


















dear sweet anne made me the most amazing painting. i can't express how special this is to me. it is one of THE most thoughtful gifts i have ever received.


















the poem reads:
...in this home
we do second chances.
we disagree.
we do mistakes.
we do "i'm sorry's".
we do loud...really well.
we do hugs.
we do family.
we do
LOVE

i am going to have it framed in black and hang it in my living room. it's the perfect colors and the perfect fit for our family. it couldn't be said any better.

xmas at my mom's was nice.








































i finally got all of my xmas decorations down, packed awesomely, and stored in the garage. i was kind of sad to see a few of them put away. silly.

we organized the garage to make room for the tables and chairs that i held onto from the shop. my dad had been storing them in his garage/workshop but he was needing the room so he brought them over. plus we are moving cj's weight bench to the garage from his room. he really doesn't have enough room for it in there and his grandma bought new furniture and gave him a great black leather recliner so he is going to put that in there. what a chair for gaming!

mom helped me get all of the new bedding on my bed since i switched from a king to a queen bed. it took a little bit since she insisted that the bedskirt needed to be ironed. why?? i would have just put it on there. hmmm. my brother-in-law came over and hung my tv on the wall in there and that cleared up some space on the top of my dresser. so now my room is finished.

bailey got new bedding for her room for christmas. we got all of that put on and it looks great. we took her room from young-teen to a little bit of an older look. i like it a lot better. it's very pretty and matches her paint colors so well.

we made a huge run to Goodwill. you should have seen the line of cars there making donations! apparently there must be a lot of people getting organized for the new year. it is a great feeling.

so it was definately a productive day yesterday and it kicked my ass but it's nice to have those things done. for the bazillionth time i will say that i still need to get my scraproom cleaned up. i have grand plans and they never get finished. it's so frustrating but i guess there is always tomorrow for that. =) hee hee

so to start the week out laughing here is some fun: