My moment of knowledge

Joe asked me a question today. "What is the difference between a roll and a biscuit?" My reply "A roll has yeast and a biscuit does not." "Oh" said Joe.

Then I realized it--I knew something that he didn't know. It was an amazing moment. Especially if you know my husband, you exactly how amazing this is. And so now it is recorded forever--or however long the internet exists.

Our treasure hunt

We (Joe & I) went to see National Treasure this afternoon. A great movie. I always love treasure hunting movies--Indiana Jones, The Mummy, etc. I leave the theater feeling exhilerated, ready to look for adventure and treasure. Normally, reality sets in after a day or two; today it smacked us in the face in the parking lot--we couldn't remember where we parked the van. Then we remembered our trip to Target before we watched the movie. We were looking for couch covers and could not find them. After about 10 minutes of looking, we finally found them only to realize that we had been right next to them earlier when we got distracted by some red pillows; all we needed to do was turn around. We would probably get sooo beat if we ever ran in the Amazing Race.

Random Thoughts

Nathan thinks that the new lawn mower we got him for Christmas is a vacuum.

Our DVD player caught fire on Christmas eve. Seriously, there was smoke and everything.

You may wonder, how does she ever was Nathan's blanket if he is that close with it. I just tell him it's time to take a bath--it's the only thing he likes better.

I was vaccum sealing leftovers from Christmas and accidently put the ham in the eggroll bag and the eggrolls in the ham bag. That could be interesting in a few months.

Christmas is over at our house. Everything is boxed away and I finally choose organization over frugality. It has become a tradition at our house--every year after Christmas we visit the store and they have all the Christmas decoration organization stuff on sale. And Joe always says, "I think we should get some of that stuff (ornament boxes, wreath box, etc.). Then I always say "Our boxes and trash bag (for the wreath) works fine. Those are expensive we don't need it." Well, this year we were at Target, and I finally said, what the hey, go for it and get what we need. I think we threw out 2 huge boxes, lots of smaller ones, an abundance of waaaaay over used tissue paper for ornament protection and now I have lots more room for other storage. Yeah Joe!!!! As always, I'm not really sure why I don't listen to him more often.

I froze 3 bags of left over pecan pie muffins to take to my parents. I got two of the bags out this morning and I just got the third bag out because the kids and I are probably going to finish off one of them before we leave. Very yummy....

I am going to be an aunt 3 times over next year. Actually, one of them may arrive yet this year. She's due on the 31st. The next one is due in April and then my sister is due in June. Believe it or not, her three will be closer together than my oldest three. Is that possible????

My computer is near death I fear. We actually looked at new ones the other day, but they all have Vista and, from everything I've heard, I am more paranoid about Vista than I am excited about possibly getting a new computer. Now that is really paranoid!

Me and the girls

I don't have very many pictures of me with the kids because I'm usually the one taking the pictures. The girls got new outfits from Aunt Kim, so I decided to take the opportunity to have my picture taken with them while I had the camera out. We're even somewhat coordinated.

December pics

Okay, before I even begin on this post, I need to say that I think I misspelled niece in my last post. Is it "i" before "e" except after "c" or "i" before "e" except before "c"? I'm pretty sure it is the former which means I misspelled it in my title. I could go change it, but it's Christmas eve and I'm being lazy, so I will just let you know that I know I messed it up.

I finally got some pictures off my camera. This isn't all of them, but it will give you a flavor.

The gang with their favorite food--pizza!
I can't remember what they were doing--checking out the first snow? looking for birds or squirrels? waiting for Daddy to come home? saying goodbye to Daddy? This is a fairly favorite pose for them all.

My spiderboys

The boys sporting their new Christmas robes from Grandpa & Grandma Snow

My neice and nephew

As you may remember, I visited my sister and her kids a few weeks ago. Her husband, who is a pilot in the Air Force, was deployed at the time. Praise the Lord he got home yesterday evening--just in time for Christmas! I finally got the pictures off my camera and, in order to spare you some time, I only included two of the bazillion pictures that this proud aunt took.

Hannah
Luke

The annual Christmas Open House

Our annual Christmas open house was last night. Here's how it went:

What was different:
Normally we have it for our neighborhood. This year we were going to have it for our neighborhood on one night and our church family on another night. Due to various circumstances, we only had it for our church family. So next year we'll try to have it for both.

What I listened to on my iPod while I was preparing:
In my opinion, preparation music is really important to how efficiently and effective the preparation is so here was what I listened to: Carrie Underwood, Third Day Christmas Offerings, Metro Austin Unplugged. Yes, I realize Carrie Underwood isn't very Christmasy, but Joe gave me an early Christmas present of her newest CD and I could resist to listen. At one point I had a serious attitude problem, and so I needed a little praise/worship music to help adjust it---thus Metro Austin

What was on the menu:
chicken eggrolls, chips and salsa, cream puffs, chocolate eclairs, and pecan pie muffins

Minor glitches:
We were going to have BBQ meatballs, but I could only find Italian, so I switched at the last minute to eggrolls.

I temporarily lost one of my favorite oven mitts. Now I realize most people do not have favorite oven mitts, but I have an unusual fear of burning myself when I reach in the oven and I feel very protected with my favorite mitts. Thankfully, after about 15 minutes I found them again so it was only a minor glitch.

I turned the oven off while the last batch of pecan pie muffins were in it. As my husband says, I got a little too efficient.

Unusual occurances:
I ironed the tablecloth by my own initiative. To fully appreciate this, you have to understand that I am not the iron master in our home--Joe is. I really do not like to iron and never do it unless it is to iron Joe's clothes or he has strongly suggested that I iron the clothes that I have on. (This usually takes place before church.) But, he must be rubbing off on me, because yesterday I decided the tablecloth needed to be ironed before the party. About halfway through I was really questioning my judgment, but at that point I was fairly committed to the project--a half ironed tablecloth would have looked worse than one I hadn't ironed at all.

I cleaned the kitchen first. I usually always clean the kitchen last, but for some reason yesterday I shook it up a little, really reached out of my comfort zone and cleaned the kitchen first and the living room last. I am not sure that I will do that again--I started getting confused as to what still needed to be cleaned.

What was showing in the movie room (AKA kids' room):
The Santa Clause
Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

What didn't get done before the party:
I didn't get a Christmas party playlist put together on my iPod, but as it turned out you couldn't hear the music over the crowd anyway. So I guess it wasn't that much of a big deal.

The Final Result
I think everyone had a great time and we didn't have any really major child meltdowns, so I call it a success.