End of Year Meme

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?
Tried a personal trainer. Mastered a sewing machine.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yep. We needed to get our retirement situation set up. Check! I will make more resolutions for 2010.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not immediately close

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope

5. What countries did you visit?
I only stayed here in the good ole USA

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
I want to workout more and lose more weight. I have been able to lose and keep off 12 pounds this year which I am totally proud of.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The entire week in June that we spent at Topsail Island. Bliss.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Passing my OB/Gyn registry!

9. What was your biggest failure?
Just an overall lack of motivation and general blah-ness. Mostly from my work schedule, I guess.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Sporadic stomach bugs, but I consider myself lucky.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My Polar F6 Heart Rate Monitor.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Probably food and bills

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Who knows. Probably a lot of stuff. Stupid tv shows, stress at work, work stuff, weight loss weight gain, music. The usual stuff.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
"Use Somebody" - Kings of Leon. I love hearing the boys sing it in the backseat of the car.

18. Compared to this time last year, are you richer or poorer?
I'm about the same.

19. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish I would've taken the boys to visit their great-grandmother more often than I did.

20. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Spending time on the internet.

21. How will you be/did you spending Christmas?
With my family

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Been in love since 2000.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
The Biggest Loser, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, The Good Wife, Real Housewives, Kardashians, CSI-Vegas, Community, SNL, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Dirty Jobs, The View, Rachael Ray....just to name a few.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Kind of.

26. What was the best book you read?
I read so many freaking books. The Twilight saga.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I used to hate, hate, hate country music. I'm loving it even more. Especially Zac Brown Band.

28. What did you want and get?
A new kitchen knive set and crockpot. Domestic Diva!

29. What did you want and not get?
iPhone

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I freaking loved "The Hangover" and "Four Christmases".

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Worked. Went out to dinner with my family. I turned 30. Ugh.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I'd rather not say.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
I finally splurged on a few new trendy pieces for myself this year, although I have a new place in my heart for AE hoodies. People are gonna start laughing at me, I think.

34. What kept you sane?
My husband. Exercise. Friends. My babies sweet smiles. My pups.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Joel McHale. Edward Cullen (yes I know).

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Health care. Since I work in that industry I'm not too happy with what is going on and worried about what may or may not happen.

37. Who did you miss the most?
My grandpa, of course.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Lots of cool people

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
That I shouldn't trust people. Because I got stabbed in the back and I'm still not over it.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I'm never good at that. I listen to too much rap.

It's officially fall break!

Yipee! I will still get up about the same time everyday, but it is going to be so nice not to have to rush around to get Bryce to school every morning. Drew will still be on his normal schedule this week. His preschool follows the traditional school schedule and Bryce is on the year-round schedule. That means that I better take advantage of the two days it will be just me and Bryce. He has requested the zoo one day and the movies for Thursday. I may sway him from the movies to either bowling or Adventure Science Center.

Drew's 2 year well check appointment is this morning, so we're going to visit the good 'ole doc and of course treat the kids to Julia's afterwards. I'm really in the mood to decorate for fall too, so I need to drag down the old decorations and see what I've got!

Our first parent-teacher conference....

I am a very proud momma after last night's meeting with Mrs. Allen. I always wonder how he does when I'm not around, and apparently he's even a better kid for other people. He passed all the areas they tested him in, except for tying his shoes. He knows his complete address (even zip code!), phone number, birthday, all of the colors, upper and lowercase letters (and sounds)...well, you get it.

Mrs. Allen said most kids are at a Pre-A level with their reading. Bryce is acutally at the next level up, which is level A. She wants them to be on Level B by the end of the year and she doesn't think he will have a problem with that at all. The only area we needed to know about (which she stressed wasn't a big deal) is that he still gets pretty upset if he gets corrected for a mistake. He thinks he has to do things the correct way the first time, but thank goodness for erasers! It was so nice to sit down and chat with someone who spends more time with my son than I do these days!

I love it when....

I wake up feeling productive! Yesterday, I was so *blah* feeling but today I more than made up for it! After I dropped Bryce off at school, I dusted the entire house, cleaned bathrooms, made beds and did a load of laundry. I went to zumba also this morning to make up for my miss from yesterday. The biggest accomplishment of all was getting my stinkin' coupons organized! That has been a mess hanging over my head for sometime now.

sewed a little more today

These burp cloths were much easier than the bibs! I had a lot of fun making them too!

just a little bib

This was my weekend project. I cut enough fabric to make 10 of these little bibs. They went together really quick! Now if I can manage to churn out around 15 more I might end up selling them on etsy.

Check it out!

BethanyTramelPhotography is having a giveaway on her blog for her 100th post. Head on over there and register for a chance to win a very cute banner!

Monica Who?

Yes, yes. I know (*hangs head in shame*). It's been a looong time since my last post. My facebook addiction totally consumed my blogging time. FB's getting a little dull now so I'm jumping back on the blog bandwagon. I've been bitten by the creative bug thanks to some awesome craft blogs I've found, so look for some "nap-time projects" to be posted!

Where have I been?

WORK! The hospital has been super busy lately! After only my second night of call I've already been in five times for nine ultrasounds. Sunday night was by far the strangest night I've had in my career. Labor and Delivery called me in (immediately after the ER paged me) for a 25 week'er that had no prenatal care. She was having contractions and wanted an ultrasound to check everything out. Usually I'll stop at the store on the way in and get a soda or fill up my gas tank but I went on in that night. I'm glad I did! When I got up there I wheeled my machine into the triage room where my patient was supposed to be. One of the nurses yelled at me to go to the OR. "Ummm.....okay?" I got the 411 on the girl when I got in there. She was having TWINS and never, ever had seen a doctor. One of the routine tests they run on a "no prenatal care" patient is a urine tox screen. Her test was positive. I'm not sure what she had been on, but they were trying to find out how long it had been since she last used. It was in the babies best interest for her to fess up, but she said it had been at least a month. So sad. Anyway, I was in there to determine the position of the second twin, and they had her in the OR in case the second baby had to come out cesarean. I was literally held hostage up there for two hours. I did my initial scan and then the doctor wanted me to stay until the first baby came out to scan again (making sure the second one didn't turn breech). Due to respiratory, the neonatologist, two incubators, a team of nurses from the nursery, anesthesia, scrub nurses and ultrasound....I ended up with the WORST seat in the house. I tried every way possible to obscure my view of her va-jay-jay. I saw enough to do me for a lifetime. It was real-life "A Baby Story". Screaming, puking, crowning....EEW! Now giving birth can be a beautiful thing, and I usually get teary-eyed when watching a movie/television show about it. Something about not knowing her/middle of the night/empty stomach that has just warped me for life. I'm not sure how the babies are doing. They sent them to Vandy for some much needed care, but keep them in your prayers! They have a long road ahead of them!

Wanna hear something freaky weird related to the above story? Well, our church started a campaign to collect money for the Pregnancy Crisis Center here in the 'boro. You can pick up a baby bottle and fill it up with change or a check to help out babies like I saw that same night. I've been dropping in change over the past couple of days, but the experience that night just made it very "real".

untitled

No clever title for this entry.

I took Bryce yesterday for a "meeting" with the principal of the Discovery School. They haven't done this in the past, but the principal and the literacy director (I think that was her title) wanted to meet with each student one-on-one. They took him back to another room while I waited for about thirty minutes. The only comment I was given by the principal was "You have a very hard worker!". I tried to quiz Bryce about what he did back there. From what I understood, they told him a word, like "dog" and asked him to say what the first letter and the last letter of the word was. I have no idea how he did on the last letter thing. He's nailing beginning letters though. He also had to write his name, but Bryce said everything was easy. He goes in for a standardized test on Saturday!

We're also having Bryce's birthday party at the house on Sunday. I've hired a magician, so hopefully it will be fun! He's doing balloons for all the kids, and adults if they want :) I also decided to make the cake and cupcakes for the party, so wish me luck! I was pretty decent at making cakes back in the day. My high school job was at Food Lion in the big town of Smithvegas. I was the first one to turn 18 so they sent me to the deli. Can you imagine me slicing ham?!?! The best part about it was they taught me to decorate cakes. Well, it was exciting to me at the time. I could do the roses, leaves, scallops....all that stuff. I'll be sure to post some pictures when it's done! You may end up seeing a cake from Kroger's if everything flops.

Ringing in the New Year

This is how we spent New Year's Eve.
We're a *wild* couple (kidding).
I wouldn't have it any other way.

Project 365

The last week or so I have been hearing about a kit from Creating Keepsakes called Project 365. The concept is to have some sort of snippet of your life everyday for 365 days, most of that being pictures. I started thinking about this concept and decided that I am going to give it a whirl. The kit that Creating Keepsakes is putting out looks nice, but I decided that I am going to do my own thing and use up some of the stash that I have already. It is probably a good thing since the kit went on sale yesterday morning, the CK website crashed and there are lots of unhappy people that didn't get a kit. It sold out before lots of people could even get the page to load to order one. The whole thing was a mess.

Hopefully this will help me get some of my scrapping mojo back. I just don't have the time to scrapbook the way that I used to. I would spend a lot of time and effort on one page to highlight ONE picture...two if I were lucky. Plus, I never have been diligent on the journaling aspect, which is a big chunk of this project. I started with my first picture yesterday, that pretty much summed up the entire holiday for us :)This is the D-man and all his clingy-ness. Poor thing. He's got a little sniffle and this was his reaction pretty much every time daddy or mommy sat him down.