HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I know that not very many people read this, but to those who do, I'd like to wish you a very happy new year to you and your family. Whether 2007 was good or bad to you, I hope 2008 is better. I wish everyone health, happiness and prosperity, and that you be surrounded by friends and family.

HAPPY 2008!!!

We had a White Christmas!!

I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas this year and that Santa was good to you. Mine was very nice. Spent it with my husband's family at his sister's house. There were 21 for dinner.

As the title above states, we had SNOW!! It does snow in the Portland area, but not often does it snow on Christmas. The news reports said that the last time we had flakes on Christmas day was 1990, and it didn't really stick. This year it was maybe only an inch, but that counts as a White Christmas!

You have to try these cookies

I'm totally stealing this from my friend Lisa. But that's ok because she stole it from Pioneer Woman.

These are sugar cookies, but they're not just your ordinary sugar cookies. You take egg yolks and dye them different colors (red & green for Christmas, pastels for Easter, pink & red for Valentine's, etc.) and then paint the cookies before you bake them. After they've cooled, you pipe in some frosting to define the shapes, and you can add sprinkles and other embellishments too. But also, the recipe itself sounds so darn delicious it makes my mouth water just to read it. This would be a great kid activity.

I won't post the entire recipe. Go to this site to get it. She's a bit wordy, but that's a good thing. Lots of pictures showing each step of the process. The actual recipe is at the end of her post.

The first picture below is from Pioneer Woman's site, and the second one is a batch Lisa made with her husband and three kids. (The poor gingerbread man on top reflects her husband's sense of humor. Gotta love him!) Let me know in a comment if you tried these.

Ve are going to PUMP ..... you UP !!

We've decided to join a gym. I hate exercise. Hate thinking about it, let alone actually doing it. But, we decided we have to. I have high blood sugar, and my husband has high cholesterol. Exercise will greatly benefit both of us. I've actually been a member of Curves and I did lose a few pounds, but I just lack motivation. I think my husband is doing this more for me than for him, because he knows that if we go together we'll motivate each other. What a guy.

The gym we're joining is new to town, but I'm not sure if it is a national chain or not. It's called Snap Fitness. What we like about it is that you don't have to sign a contract. It's just month to month. And we can get a family rate of $49.95, which is great. Also, they're open 24 hours. So now we have something to do all those mornings at 3:00 am when we used to sit around saying, "I'm bored. There's nothing to do." (Yeah right. Like that ever happened!)

We'll probably start next week because hubby has a bad cold right now. I'll blog about it once we get going. I'm really dreading it. Anyone have words of encouragement or advice?

How was YOUR Monday?

Ok, here's how my day went. I hear a very loud noise at 9:00 am. I'm thinking earthquake, a four-year old boy at my house is thinking "really big truck". So for the next 10 min I'm watching the local tv channels to see if they say anything about an earthquake. They didn't, so I went with "really big truck". Five minutes later a cop is banging on the side of my house telling me that a car drove through the house directly behind me, (see picture below) broke a gas line, and that we need to evacuate NOW. Well, I've got two little kids here and it's cold outside. They needed to get their shoes and coats on, I needed to forward my home phone to my cell phone, I grabbed a couple snacks and some juice boxes, a book and toy for each of the kids, and we left. Hubby has the van, and I don't have carseats. So we pile in the pickup and drive to where they tell us to park. 15 minutes later they walk up to my truck and I'm thinking, oh good, we can go home. Nope, they're telling me there's some problem getting the gas line shut off, and I should go to the catholic church a block away. Well, there I sat from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm trying to entertain two kids. I spent a lot of time on the phone calling five sets of parents to let them know what's going on, then they'd call me back to get updates and talk about whether they should come pick up their kids. Then I start to worry about the bigger kids coming on the bus after school, so I call two different schools to find out if they can be dropped off at this church if it looks like I won't be home at 3:30 - you know, planning ahead. Luckily I was home by 1:45, so that wasn't an issue. To top it all off, I had an eye doctor appointment at 5:45 which I totally forgot about. (With the day I had, can you blame me?) They called me about 5:55 and I did end up going. Now my eyes are dilated and I can hardly see what I'm typing.

Wow, what a day. Must be Monday.

O Tannenbaum

We bagged and tagged our Christmas tree on Saturday. It's a Nordman Fir, and it smells wonderful! I love how that evergreen smell fills the house. We (ok, my husband) cut it down. Trees are very reasonably priced in Oregon. We payed $25 for a 7-foot tree.

I look forward to digging out my lights and ornaments every year. I have lots of Hallmark ornaments, but I also have some hand-made ones, and others that have special memories attached. It's fun to open the boxes and see each one as if for the first time.

Number 1 or Number 2 ??

Why do they insist on interviewing people on Survivor while they are squatting in the bushes looking like they're answering nature's call?

Go Elf Yourself

There is a hilarious website (well, I found it hilarious anyway) where you can take digital photos of your friends' and family's faces, upload them to the site, and they become dancing elves. I about pee'd myself laughing the first time I saw my husband, brother-in-law, and two nieces dancing to a jazzy version of Jingle Bells!

The pictures don't have to be great ones. They don't have to be large, either. If you don't have a closeup of someone's face, don't worry. After you upload it, you can zoom in to just the right size. It is very user-friendly. You can have anywhere from one to four "dancers". Once you get it just right, you can e-mail it to anyone you want. Make one of an unsuspecting family and send it to them.

The website is at elfyourself.com Have fun, and leave a comment if you tried this. If you want, you can link us to your creation. I made several, one of which can be found here.

Rain, rain, go away.....

It started with a snowstorm, then it warmed up and turned to rain. It is raining something terrible here in Oregon. We have flooding galore. If I wanted to get to the Oregon coast or up to Seattle, I couldn't. Well, without taking a ridiculously looong way around. Lots of highway closures. Interstate 5, the freeway that goes from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, is closed in Southwest Washington until at least next week. What usually takes 3 hours now takes 7 due to the detour.

This picture is of I-5 in the area where it is closed. The little green sign way at the bottom is an exit sign, and the bridge in the middle is a freeway overpass.


And the wind... wow. Hurricane force, they say. 125 mph at the coast. Poor birds were flying, but not going anywhere. Ok, it was kind of funny. But in a sad way.