Tis the season...

How should I begin this update? Let's just start from the beginning...

Friday: Daniel took the day off and I had to work, so we decided to meet up for lunch. It was a really good lunch, but it was going to be the last time I was going to see him for over 24 hours. This may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but Daniel and I are always together. We've only spent one night apart, and I made my mom stay with me to keep me company. I was going to stay at my mom's this time and he was going to stay at our house. After work that day, I went straight to Prairie Grove for a church event. This was the worst traffic ever..they are working on making the road bigger, which means they first have to shrink it down to 1 and 1/2 lanes with barrells lining the road all the way. When I finally arrived at the church I had to run in and change in to my pajamas! The women were having a pajama party. We ate, had a fashion show, watched a comedian, had a cake walk, did a gift exchange and cleaned up. Very exhausting, especially if you have a bad back and are wearing house shoes on a concrete floor. It ended around 9 30 and then we went to my mom's house. We unloaded my back seat which had my overnight bag and entire kitchen in it. The following day we were having our 2nd annual Christmas Candy Making Day! We stayed up preparing breakfast for the next day and cleaned the kitchen. Bed time was 12 am.

Saturday: I woke up at 6 30am, hoping it was only 12 30am, and got ready. We started breakfast and the girls arrived. We had a great breakfast and then I presented everyone (even the three younger girls) with a gift that Daniel had come up with. Daniel's grandmother makes these adorable aprons and I gave everyone an apron specially for this day!

Then the candy making commenced!! It was a fury of melting, dipping, rolling, stirring, chocolate everywhere, caramel on everything, marshmallow cream, peanut butter, peppermint extract....crazy! We had so much fun and it was so much more organized and enjoyable than last year. We planned well! After we got finished we had to clean all our dishes and divide all the masses of candy up for all 6 families. We didn't finish all this until 4ish or something...I had lost track of time by then. My feet were hurting so bad, I wanted to cut them off. I got all my belongings together and headed home. When I was ALMOST to the Rogers/Bentonville exit, (Hwy 112) I realized I left my suitcase at Mom's! I had to turn around and she met me at the Wal Mart in between us. I didn't get home until 6 something. When I got home I left everything in my car, ran in side, and fell in the chair. Daniel told me to go look in the kitchen, low and behold he was cooking a roast! And there were rolls rising in the oven! And, could it be? ROSES! The three R's all right there in all their glory!! He is the BEST HUSBAND EVER! He really loves me! It was the first time I had seen him since 1pm the previous day, and he missed me too!! I didn't even realize I was hungry until he brought me a plate and I ate everything on it. Sooo goooood. Needless to say I went to bed by 9pm.

Sunday: We woke up (barely) and went to church. After that we went to Mom's for lunch, and around 2 we decided to go Christmas shopping. That only lasted until 4 30. We were cranky, tired and getting on each other's nerves so we went home. We got home and Daniel said "why don't you go to bed?" And I was like, "It's 5 30!?" It didn't take me 5 minutes before I was kissing him goodnight and asleep...and I slept for 13 hours. I didn't wake up until 6 30am the next day!!! (which was today...) I've never felt better. I could not believe I slept that long, and I guess I needed it. Daniel cleaned up after me all weekend and was so loving, he has been the absolute best husband anyone could ever ask for, and he's mine!!

It was an exciting weekend, and I'm glad it went well. I'm also glad it's over. I cannot begin to imagine what life would have been like this weekend if we had kids! Ohhhh.......I'm tired just thinking about it!

Quick update-short and sweet

Daniel and I have way too much fun together. We always laugh and have dumb games we play all the time, and making the bed is one of them. We usually end up in a pillow fight that's kinda dangerous but we are laughing histerically the whole time. Well, I wasn't expecting it tonight. I was tired, just wanted to get it over with so I could sit down and chill. Apparentely Daniel had other plans. We have one large, decorative pillow that we put on the bed last, after everything else is done. So I'm standing there on the side of the bed looking at him, he's directly across from me looking back, and he decides to throw this thing, as hard as he can, at me. (NO joke, it weighs about 15-20 pounds...it's big) Well I saw it all happen in slow motion. I couldn't move! It hit me square in the gut. I let out a "HUUUGHHHHH" and drop to my knees, trying to catch my breath and laugh at the same time. He runs to my side and laughs so hard for about....oh....10 minutes straight. It was one of those moments that if we had a video camera filming this, we'd win America's Funniest Home Videos.
Just wanted to share.

Happy Halloween and Happy November!

Well, we had a military Halloween at work at LOC-Arvest! I got to wear some of Daniel's old uniforms! It was fun! Lots of people in our department participated and it turned out pretty good. They had a costume contest for the whole campus (three different buildings), but we didn't win. The departments that won did a circus theme and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. My department put me in charge (for some reason) of getting our theme together and organizing the "party planning committee". I think I did ok for my first year!

On October 22nd around 2pm, my newest nephew was born! My brother Franklin and his wife Rebekah welcomed their 4th child into the world, Nathan Heath Hamrick! He is a SWEETIE!! So cute, and so good! He hardly cries! Everyone was quite excited! He'll be about 3 months old when we get together for Christmas! He has 2 big sisters and one big brother who are so proud.

Not alot has been going on other than that. We're gearing up for the holidays this year, and for my class to end. I will be registering for next semester in about a week. Also, I will be very glad when this election is over, although I may be very afraid for our future, depending on who wins! That's all I will say... =)

Sleepless nights, and we don't even have kids yet

Lately, I haven't been sleeping well. I don't know if it's the weather, stress, or what. I even have a hard time falling asleep, and that's not normal for me. Last night was the worst though. I can handle most things that wake me up, but this was a bit extreme. It starts out with me heading to bed around 10pm, as usual while Daniel finishes watching whatever show he's watching at the time. I'm just about to doze off when I hear Moxie getting in to something she wasn't supposed to be in, so I chase her around and spank her until she's under the bed, out of reach. I had returned a phone call to my friend but left a message telling her I was going to bed around 9 30, so she calls me back around 11ish. I haven't talked to her in a very long time so I got up and we talked for about an hour. This is all well and good...until around 1am. Daniel had come to bed at who knows what time and we were both sound asleep. Now, you'll have to understand that the TV in our room is different, and the buttons are on the top of it instead of on the front. Sometimes Siggy will jump up there and turn the thing on by stepping on a button but it's never done anything this weird before...

I guess he somehow hit just the right combination of buttons, but when that thing turned on, the volume was ALL the way up, and it sounded like it was a scratched CD skipping, but 10 times worse! It seriously sounded like a machine gun going off in our room. Needless to say I bolt up and start yelling "DANIEL! DAANIEEEL THE TV!!!" as he's waking up a little. (he is a very deep sleeper) He's halfway awake, staring at the alarm clock beside him and I start shoving him and yelling "DANIEL!! GET UP!! DO SOMETHING!" I'm still halfway asleep or I obviously could have fixed it myself, same goes for him. He gets up and starts hitting every button on the alarm clock...and I'm staring at him when I finally realize what he is doing and then try to reason with him. "DANIEL! NOT THAT! IT'S THE STUPID TV! COME OONNNN!" He then wakes up completely and yells "THEN YOU DO SOMETHING!" (you have to understand, if we didn't yell at each other, you couldn't hear the other one over the friggin MACHINE GUN IN THE TELEVISION...) So he runs over there while I meet him there and he hits every button except the volume, for some time I stand there like an idiot and watch him, then I yank the dang power cord out of the wall. Silence......we both start grumbling, fall in bed, and go back to sleep. This afternoon I realize how crazy this night was so I decide to tell my mom about it, and we end up laughing and crying about how hilarious this probably would have looked. The whole time this was happening, we have the windows open, Daniel is running around in his boxers, and we're screaming over this horrific blasting sound...I'm sure we woke someone in our neighborhood up....

First Weekend of October

Well this weekend was busy! We spent Friday night at home, but our Saturday was a full day. We met my dad and aunt at my brother and sister-in-law's house at 8am. We all piled into one vehicle and went to eat a quick breakfast buffet at Rick's Iron Skillet. (This happens to be the exact location that Daniel took my parents to ask for their "permission" to marry me August 2006) It was a great breakfast. We all got back in the car and started heading for Mena. We were on our way to go celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday. It was a surprise party, so she had no idea anyone was going to be in town. Well, we also decided to have a surprise baby shower for my other sister-in-law right after the birthday party. Seeing that my grandmother had no idea about her birthday party, she also had no idea about the baby shower. So we had to assign someone to buy a baby gift for her to give to my sister-in-law...yeah the whole day was as crazy as that explanation.

Of course we had to stop at Wal Mart on the way there, and we ended up arriving to the party location 15 minutes before she was going to be there! The rest of the day was craziness. There were kids running around, family trying to catch up, food to prepare, and while all of this was going on my grandmother arrived and walked in! One person said "...oh! surprise!!" and everyone else ran to the door......needless to say it wasn't much of a surprising welcome, but she was still very surprised and glad to see everyone. She got some great gifts and had a great time. After she had opened her presents and everything seemed to get quiet, we announced "Well, there is another surprise. We have another party!.......for Rebekah!" Everyone clapped, she was TOTALLY surprised, and all the kids in the family came out with all the gifts. It was very cool. She got lots of great things and several things that she really needed.

The day was kind of chaotic, but it was worth it. Everyone had a good time and it was great to see the whole family again. The trip back was eventful as well! Instead of just one vehicle filled with 6 people, we had 3 vehicles filled with 12 1/2 people! (1/2 for the baby boy who is due in 3 weeks. =)

Daniel and I ended up staying at my parents house that night. We got to spend Saturday and Sunday with my aunt who left to go back to West Virginia this afternoon. The last time I saw her, I was about 13. While she was down, my dad helped her learn to email and she now has a gmail account!

The moral of the story is that I love my family, no matter how crazy it can be when we're all together. Family is so important, and I am very blessed to have a great family in my life.

October 3rd, 2008

Really original title, I know. Well, I decided to start a blog, however, in order for this to work I will need some people to visit my blog periodically. I seem to do a pretty good job at reading other people's blogs, so I bet I have some friends who will do the same for me.

To start off, I am glad that the work week is over! It's been a long week seeing that we were off all last week. The week after a vacation seems to be the longest week ever. I'm loving this weather, and I have been listening to my Christmas playlist alot. I've always loved Christmas time, but now that I've married the biggest fan of the Christmas/winter season it makes it that much more fun. Daniel loves cold weather and he really loves how our house looks when it's decorated during the holidays. I thought that was really adorable seeing that it's only been decorated once! This year will make twice! Does anyone else love going to Hobby Lobby to browse through their extensive selection of Christmas decor, even in June!? We do! A friend of mine was blogging about how her husband enjoys to put their Christmas lights up every year. We didn't do lights on the house last year, but I bet we'll start that tradition this year. I would be very proud if Daniel did our house up in lights.

I've come to realize that each family has their own special holiday traditions that they do each year, and ours is no different. It's changed a little since all of us have gotten married, but maybe we can share some of those with our kids as they grow up. Here are some of my favorite things that we would when we were kids..

Essential Christmas Music- The Nutcracker Soundtrack, Classical Christmas, Anne Murray Christmas, Mannheim Steamroller, Neil Diamond Christmas

Christmas Tree- Tree trimming ALWAYS happened the day after Thanksgiving. We would decorate while singing and dancing to our favorite tunes.

Uncle Halley's Peanut Butter Fudge- Special recipe, best fudge ever

Movies-How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Mickey Mouse's Christmas Carol, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Merry Christmas Charlie Brown

Presents-We opened our presents on Christmas Eve instead of the next morning. I'm not sure why or how this got started, but I love it

Christmas Story- We never believed in Santa, our parents wanted us to always know the real Christmas Story about the birth of Jesus. We would read the Christmas story in the bible before we opened presents. Now Christmas means more to me because I always knew what it was really about

More presents- We draw names almost every year. We might change it up a bit this year and play a game with it...most people know the game but everyone has a different name for it! Dirty Santa, White Elephant, Yankee Swap, Gift War, Grinch Exchange, Rob Your Neighbor, and Thieving Secret Santa are some names for it.

Now I am in the Christmas spirit, as they say! Send me some of your special traditions and favorite memories! I would love to hear all about them.

Happy Fall!