Good Morning. Barb, Kiko, nice pics, looking good! Keep up the good work!

I'm sitting here with a headache and legs sore... sis and I went to Waterloo Outlet for a dress for the Christmas party at work. I believe I've mentioned how much I love that mall, but maybe this will reinforce that... my dress originally cost 80... I bought the dress, a pair of jeans and corset for $63 including taxes! I then took my $5 coupon they gave me for spending over 60 to Bass and picked up an awesome brown corduroy jacket that I can wear with my jeans for Fridays! The jacket origianlly cost 70, my price at check out.... 23.92. And the shoes to go with the dress.... half off! UM, I'm broke, but it was worth it! To put on the 16 jeans and have to try the 14s, and they FIT, was well worth the aches and pains of the shopping trip... for some reason the boots I had on were killing me... guess they were not "made for walking". lol...

Anyway, coffee is ready and the pups are begging to come inside... so I am going to try to get rid of this headache. Later will bring puppy's to park since they were locked inside all day yesterday, the poor dears. In my feeble attempt to make up for it I bought them both bones, which they devoured through the night....

hope you all have a wonderful day. I will check in later.

Good morning, Beachies. Great pics, Barb and Kiko! I certainly agree about Brian being a charmer - smart too!

Just had time to glance back and see that everyone is getting back on track. I wish I could say that I was! Got on the scale and I am definitely out of ONEderland. I sure need a butt kick!

Lori, my three are outside running around like crazy. It sure has been fun having three dogs but hard to pet everyone with only two hands. The Pypers will be here this afternoon and probably stay for dinner. I am going to just do frozen meatballs in BBQ sauce with noodles and salad - no roast or other fussy meal. I'm tired this morning!

The Pageant went will last night - no major goofs except the Choir Director forgot one song and I had to prompt her. Tee-hee! A city reporter was there and kept saying he knew me from somewhere. It was The Vagina Monologues four years ago and he just about fell over when I told him. Another reporter from the local weekly reminded me that she wants to do a feature on my Katrina rescue so Disney and I will be famous. I'm hoping it'll give a boost to all rescue dogs. We'll be doing that in the next two weeks as it's to run last week of December.

Church is a parish service at 10:30 so I have extra time. I am going to soak in the tub for a while and not even think about costumes!

Have a great Sunday.

Good morning,

Lori, you really made out well yesterday! I hope all your soreness goes away today.

I'm glad Jake up the outside lights yesterday since it's raining today. We usually go with all white lights, but this year I wanted blue lights mixed in with the white, with a blue spotlight. We just have a lighted garland around the door, a ginormous wreath for the windows, and a couple of fake potted trees clustered together on the front steps, but I think it looks pretty good.
Today will just be a day of cooking and catching up with the laundry. The kids will probably all be here for dinner, and it will be fun trying to keep Tyler from touching all the decorations.

Lori - It's good to see you I wondered what you were up to this weekend. I do love bargains and it sounds like you got a few. You will, of course, post pictures of this holiday ensemble??

Ruth -
Could you return the favor, please? I was dreading the November weight loss thread and there it is

Cottage - I love white lights. Will you take pictures? I'm curious about adding the blue, it sounds lovely. We no longer decorate at all. I know it sounds sad to decorators but no one but us sees it and it's just so darned much work. Now I enjoy other people's decorations

Quiet chore filled day today. Yesterday we took off for the ocean and spent a lovely day walking along the island. Didn't see many interesting birds but I had a wonderful walk and a relaxing day. Today I have The List staring at me.

Looks like we are in for our first bad weather tonight - snow and ice. I hate ice storms. I just hope the power stays on. The ground isn't frozen yet so trees may come down if we get much. I'm hoping that doesn't happen.

How are things in your corner of the world?

I got the tree decorated yesterday and want to start on the yard art today. I realized I don't have to put the lights on the hedges since I cut them out. Yeah!! Less work!

We need to get to church soon and I have the back of the car loaded with cardboard boxes to drop off for recycling. We have stuff to take to Robert. I might just drop Brian off there and go grocery shopping except that will add an extra 40 minutes of driving. I'll see what seems right at the time.

Good morning Beachies,

Loriann you did good with bargain shopping gotta love it.

Kiko and Barb you both look great and your kiddos are really cute.

Ruth- glad to hear everything went well, now get back on track.

Cyndi- sounds like you had fun walking around the island. Hopefully you will not lose power today.

Cottage glad you got everything up, white and blue sounds lovely.

As for me- I got up all of the decorations as well yesterday with DD2 help, she loved it and went really quick since we only put up the tree inside and the outside decorations. Went and got a few more Christmas gifts as well.

Have a great day Ladies

We're having the group of extended family members over to our house this afternoon. I need to finish some laundry and clean DS' room, but other than that everything is cleaned and ready to go. I'm going to make turkey tetrazzini for anybody that wants it.

I think DH is going to put up Christmas lights this morning.

What to do for breakfast.....

Morning! So much to do, so little time. Just popping in to say hi before I pour my first cup of tea and start sorting laundry. Have a fantastic day chickies!

Barb and Kiko, EXCELLENT pics! you're both beautiful!

busy, busy weekend. Unexpected company yesterday but thankfully I had a crockpot of jambalaya cooking so everyone enjoyed it very much.

Zeff - I thought of you last night. Years ago we were in Lafayette and stopped in a restaurant where they had zydeco music and the tables where filled with big families and everyone including the kids were dancing. They sure know how to slide across the floor there. So quite often in the summer when we sit on our deck on a Saturday night one of us will say - They're dancing in Lafayette tonight. DH loves zydeco music and we have quite a collection of CDs. Another favourite of ours from that way is Dr. John.
More company tonight - doing a big brisket.

Have a nice relaxed afternoon everyone.

Sophie

Sophie - I didn't really know what Zydeco and cajun dancing were until I moved here and DH taught me. We both love to go dancing and last night was a lot of fun. I wasn't quite as light on my feet as I was a few months ago, but I still managed to not fall!

Hey chicks...

Just checking in for the day. Busy with a morning full of church, then lunch with the family, and grocery shopping. The best part is that I got to grocery shop ALONE! That doesn't happen often for me and was lovely.

I have my meals planned for tomorrow and am hitting the gym in the afternoon. I had Rob take some "before" pictures for me- scary!!!!!!!!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful evening and an even better Monday!

Hey there! Kids go back to school tomorrow.. life is back to routine! So looking forward to that! After 2 days of rest from the gym my foot is feeling so much better!! I have a bad feeling it is a bunion forming! (that is such an ugly word, isn't it?) I so want to go to the gym tomorrow and run! I miss it! I'll give it a try tomorrow and see how I feel.

Thanks for the pep talk Zeff! Made me feel better.

Friends of mine came over today. We usually get together for a few hours make a HUGE batch of Christmas candy to give away as gifts to teachers, neighbors, etc. We made a ton today. I had to sample of course, felt so horrible afterwards and honestly it didn't taste as good as previous years! Good thing! I quickly packed it up and froze it. Hopefully I won't touch it again.
What a long week! The house is completed decorated. The laundry is finishing as I type. Kids are in bed. I am going to stay up for another hour for some reading, then off to bed and ready to start another crazy week!
Enjoy what's left of your Sunday!
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Zeff - Yes, the trees are prelit. They look awesome by the front door!! They are only $20, still a great price. Check them out! On Walgreens.com there is a coupon good Monday & Tuesday for $5 off a $25 purchase. You can get your tree, and then some $5 stocking stuffers for free!

Jen - I checked all the Walgreens around us and they were all sold out and not expecting to get more in I'm going to check online, although I hate to pay shipping on something like that.

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We were supposed to have family over later this afternoon (around 3-ish)...well, some of them showed up at noon to watch the football game. OY! I hadn't showered and I still had a few things to do around the house. I scurried around and finished everything quickly.

Made a turkey tetrazzini for everybody using leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. It was really great - unfortunately there isn't any left over for DH's lunch tomorrow. The thanksgiving leftovers are really dwindling! Not much turkey, just a few servings of mashed potatoes and a few random roasted sweet potatoes.

Have a great night girls.