Hubby and I don’t always do gifts.  During lean years or times when we don’t need or want anything we may forgo Christmas gifts, birthday gifts and anniversary presents.   Other times we go all out.  This Valentines day I gave Hubby a six pack of Sam Adams.  It may seem silly, but he liked it so much more than a card and cologne!  He spent the entire weekend re-doing my KITCHEN! 

Yeah!  Our kitchen was nice before, but the several shades of green just weren’t for me.  I wanted Spice and lots of it!  Hubby delivered and not only painted the walls, but the cabinets.  He also bought matching rugs,  and wall decor, built a corner shelf and just all around did a fabulous job!

Hubby is the decorater in our relationship. I hate having to pick out colors and decorations.  It put way to much stress on me as I am freaked out about choosing wrong.  If it were up to me all my wall would be ecru and I’d  have no curtains, not because I dislike color and decoration, but picking things out paralizes me (a lot like crafts).  Hubby, however, does a great job with colors and I am content and very greatful that he is.

He said next year he is getting me flowers… maybe I’ll get him a twelve-pack…

Photo Credit Mandy W.

Another great Christmas is almost over. Good memories have been made.  Great pictures have been taken (yet to be edited!).  We will always remember this Christmas as the Disney Christmas, as we surprised the girls with a trip to the happiest place on earth!  I’m excited about the trip, but tired just thinking about the planning  I’m sure we will have even more great memories by the end of next week.

I highly doubt I will be blogging much over the next two weeks, but I will try and upload pictures regularly and when I get back and recover I’m sure to have stories (both bad and good) and tips to pass along to all my family and friends.

Happy New Year and God Bless us all!  Mandy

Next year your hair will be as long as you want it to be. Keep growing it out!

Dear Mandy,

Christmas 2009 was great and we made a lot of great memories.  I just wanted to let you know a few ways you can make 2010’s Christmas even better.  You need to stop stressing on the stupid things, let go and live in the moment.  This is easier said than done and you have done better this year (e-cards saved time and money!) but next year try and remember a few things:

1) Don’t buy matching Christmas outfits.  It was a miracle they all wore them ONCE this year, and that miracle won’t happen again until they are older and trying to make their geriatric mother happy.

2)Don’t ask them to be in the Church Christmas play.  Wait for them ask to be in it and then have them sign a contract swearing that they will go to all the practices without whining. They were so cute this year and I am very proud of them.

3) Bargain more.  Tell them they will get a bigger Christmas gift if we skip some of the Christmas “fluff” activities like Breakfast with Santa and Santa’s Secret shop (Sorry PTO).

4)Don’t expect them to love and cherish your favorite Christmas book, song or activity. It’s not worth the energy and they will like it better without your endorsement!

5)Don’t begrudge your Hubby to much for being right on more things than you would like to admit.  Maybe he has it right that matching hair bows just aren’t life and death and the fact that Elle wore snow-boots two years in a row to see Santa isn’t all that bad.

Mandy, I hope you remember to read this next year and do as I say.   If you don’t maybe someone will remind you and save the season.

Take care and drink a lot of Chai.  Enjoy the season while you can and remember that one day you’ll be asking to join them in their family’s celebrations someday.

Love,

You

Last month was National Adoption Awareness Month as I have mentioned before.  I used all my November AVON profits to buy Christmas gifts for a local foster child. I chose a ten year old girl since I have some experience with them!  Thanks to everyone who bought products from me! I was able to purchase 2 outfits, 1 backpack, 1 purse, a Hannah Montana pillow and blanket (she requested these as I am not a fan!), hair things, lotions, lip glosses and some fun tween toys.  Of course the mom in me also got underwear, socks, shampoos and school supplies.

Here are some pictures of the gifts.  I have so much fun playing Santa…thanks!

Photo Credit Mandy W. 2009

Our family had a great Thanksgiving weekend!   We got to see everyone and eat great food. I even made a dish of deviled eggs (remember cooking isn’t my thing!)  I send thanks out to my mom and mom-in-law for hosting my large and loud family!  We love you!

We decorated our tree and went and saw the  A Christmas Carol in 3D (kids didn’t so much like it FYI).  Here are a few pics from our weekend, including a bike ride yesterday that was a bonus due to the nice weather we had!

Thanksgiving means cousins wrestling!

Christmas tree time!

Hubby looks good holding our new niece... he is a natural!

Elle did great on the bike ride!

Photo Credits Mandy W. 2009

I have to send the love over to FireMom at StopDropandBlog.com for this contest. It kept my kids busy when I needed them to be busy and we also are entered to win something and those who know me know that I love to win!  Check out this coloring contest for a Christmas DVD. This DVD would be great for the kiddos to watch while I wrap gifts….or take a bath!

While your cooking the turkey (or watching mom cook the turkey) the kids can be coloring up a storm and get in t the mood for the upcoming Holiday Season.

*This picture was colored by the famous Mita who made her first snowman just last year and cannot ever recall watching Frosty the Snow Man (did we really miss it last year?  Was I that busy?)

I was very excited to find out that I had been chosen to host a Shutterfly House party last Saturday.  For those of you that are not familiar with Shutterfly, they are a online site that you can store, edit, buy prints and make projects out of your digital pictures.  There are a lot of online sites that can do this, but I have always been partial to Shutterfly as there site was easy to use when I had slooooooow Internet speeds and other sites didn’t work.  Plus, Shutterfly loves to give out free stuff and seems to always have a sale or free shipping going on.  These things make me HAPPY!

At my party I had 14 sets of photo book coupons and coupons for 12 free Christmas cards to give out.  I felt like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve!  Photo books are some of my favorite things to make as I failed with the scrap-booking thing and love pictures of my children.

Add some wine, great tasting cookies and we had a nice time.  My wire-less Internet proved to not be able to handle ten different users at once unfortunately, but everyone got to see how to make a photo book extremely quick and easy for those of us creatively deficient or lacking time.  For the scrappers out there, Shutterfly has some great ways to create your masterpieces with many options, fonts, lay outs and themes.

Thank you Shutterfly for helping my friends and family have a great time.   I cannot wait to see every-ones finished books and cards.  If you want to have your own House Party, you can click here and see what opportunities await you.

Books I've made through Shutterfly.

FireMom and Outnumbered mom enjoying themselves.

(Disclosure:  Shutterfly gave me and 14 of my guests coupon codes for 8×8 hard cover photo books and 12 holiday cards, as well as a Shutterfly bag and pen. I also received a 7×8 soft cover book, and balloons to have at my party.  All of this was in exchange of sharing my Shutterfly products with friends and family. I was not asked to blog about it…but I had such a good time I wanted to!)

Photo Credits:  Mandy W. 2009

October is my favorite month for taking pictures of the kids.  Not only are the leaves beautiful, but the crisp air tends to bring out the genuine smile of a child.   Their cheeks are rosy, noses are often glistening with a bit of snot (yes, even snot can be cute at times) and their eyes bright.

This week I’m going to post a lot of my pictures as I have been taking them like a mad woman.  With  one more Halloween party and trick or treat I am sure to take another hundred or so this week!

Mita participated in her first ever Pumpkin Bowling game at her cousin’s birthday party.

Elle wanted me to take this picture. She was feeling cute I think!

Enu was still recovery from the flu, but she loved getting out in the fresh air for a walk.

Meg milking a cow.  It was a fake cow built to teach people how to milk.  Not sure why this exists, but it does and it is at our local corn maze for the kids to check out!

All these pictures were taken by ME, Mom or Mandy W. in October 2009

My friend FireMom has been a busy bee with giveaways lately.  I was going to keep all of this knowledge to myself, but the angel on my shoulder told me not to.  Actually I get another entry for blogging about them   Everyone likes to win, it really doesn’t matter what we win, we just have a great feeling when we do.  Two weeks ago I won a case of V8 Fusion from MomCentral.com.  This may not be a fabulous trip to Italy, but think of all of the Girl Scouts I’ll be able to hydrate!

Here are a few giveaways at StopDropandReview :

A Harry Connick Jr. CD

A VeggieTales Christmas DVD

A Fire Safety Giveaway worth $135

A $100 Gift Card (That’s right One Hundred Dollars!)

A Joshua Bell CD

I hope you all take the time to enter the above contests and hopefully you will win one. If any of the above is given to you for Christmas from me, please don’t be offended as I view it as earth friendly to re-gift!

Photo Credit

September 11th will always be a day Americans will remember for a terrorist attack on US soil. My dear friend has blogged  about one of 9/11’s victims today.

While we as a family recognize the seriousness of this date, we also have started celebrating September 11th as the Ethiopian New Year.  Enkutatash is celebrated as the new year for Ethiopia.  If you want to get all smart on the subject check this out.

Since Hubby has a crazy work week we celebrated last Wednesday with Ethiopian food cooked by ME, believe it or not! I made Doro Wat (spicy chicken) and red lentils with fresh injera (bread) that I picked up in Columbus for the occasion.

Today the girls took some Ethiopian activities and some Ethiopian sweet bread to share with their classmates.

Doro Wat in the pot cooking.

Look at me cooking!

Mita and Elle at our Ethiopian table setting (no utensils!)

Enu with our Ethiopian Saba doll we bought the girls.

Meg with the Saba book.

Hubby with a full mouth!

The kids loved the dinner and ate and ate and ate!  I love having an Ethiopian-American family.  The heritage and culture of Ethiopia are amazing to experience and I encourage all of you to try some Ethiopian food sometime!  Remember if you want it to not burn off your mouth order “alecha” not “wat”!

By request, here are links to the Ethiopian recipes I  used the other night.  If you try it, let me know how it turned out!  Some of the spices have to be bought in a specialty store, or Amazon!  Doro Wat ,  Mesir Wat (red lentils).