Christmas 2015

Our Christmas this year was amazing. Cayce and I had our gift wrap date night this week and it was so much fun to watch the girls tear into their presents. I know it will be better as the years go on. We woke up around 8 and the girls were already awake and waiting for their alarm to go off, but instead we went ahead a got them. We had to wake Addy up though and she was not happy until she saw the presents.

Cayce took one girl at a time and made them cover their eyes and they had to face the kitchen with their backs turned to the Christmas tree. It was so fun to count to three and have them all turn at once.

Sammy

Ariana

Their faces seeing the tree

They immediately ran to the tree. The first thing Sammy picked up was the frog, Addy picked up the duck and Ariana got one of the white bears and then she spotted the pink one. Those were free reign to whoever.

Sammy got to play Santa this year and she handed out the presents. She picked out some that were for al three of them first and then she went and picked individually. I have so many pics but I am only going to post a few.

unwrapping the first present of Christmas 2015

Samantha's first present. 

I am going to have so much fun teaching her how to do these

Ariana opening her first present

look at her face

Addy opening up a present

she said "WOW"

we wrapped the elf on a shelf that Cayce won at work. 

We will be doing this next year.

Addy got a doctor's kit.

her sisters are playing with it too.

sammy got these in her second stocking

holding a new book

Ariana opening another present

This is what Cayce got them.

This is what I got for Christmas along with my other gifts.

I made Cayce two music playlists that he can listen to. One is Smallville season 1, and the other is Smallville season 2. I found a website that has all the songs listed from every episode and I went to Spotify and got to work making those playlist for him and he listens to it every chance he gets.

Sammy got her Ariel doll.

Addy got candy

Addy got a Frozen Elsa dress.

This chick LOVES Frozen

got some gloves in their stockings that will hopefully be used sometime this winter.

this was in her stocking

the little Olaf came from my Influenster voxbox. 

Since she loves Frozen and mainly Olaf, I gave it to her

my sweet girl.

Samantha and Ariana also got a new TV for their room

Christmas Favorites 2015.

After all the present were unwrapped and the girls were occupied. Cayce decided to nap in his chair and I got started on breakfast. This was around 10am. I saw a recipe last month that I had to make for Christmas morning. It is Biscuit and Gravy casserole. It is so delicious.

After breakfast, the girls played and watched the minions again, while Cayce and I slept for about another 3 hours. The girls were surprisingly occupied and we got a very good nap in that rarely happens. When we woke up, we started cooking our Christmas dinner and then we went outside to play with some of the new toys. Now, in the pictures my kids are wearing summer clothes. That's because it was close to 80 degrees outside. It didn't feel like winter at all, especially since I got bit by mosquitoes.

A few hours later, we had our Christmas dinner. It was ham, homemade mac and cheese, green bean casserole and deviled eggs. It was so damn delicious.

After dinner, we got ready for bed. Addy made it to the couch before she knocked-out.

It was a successful and awesome Christmas. The girls were happy and that made Cayce and I happy. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Now let's end the year 2015 on a positive note.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY LOVELY FOLLOWERS. I hope you all have a great day with your families and that you got everything you wanted for Christmas!

I am going to be including my Christmas decor in this post, because no more will be going up this year. I will be taking everything down on January 1st. I don't have a lot of decorations, but that will be changing in the coming years.

potholde

our smallest cookie jar

mine and Cayce's stocking. his has deer on it.

Missy and President Snow share a stocking.

I have no idea where the girls took their stockings

I love this little tree. 

I found it at Family Dollar and it has candy canes and snowflakes on it.

I had this little stuffed Dalmatian puppy when I was a kid, so we put him up this year.

The train is what the kids built this year.

we got this snow owl one year for Christmas and here is the other train and Samantha's blocks

Cayce and I have had this bear since 2008. That was the year we moved in together. His hat is a definite pain in the ass.

Those are my decorations. It's not a lot, but I do plan to get more. We found the perfect Christmas tree right in our yard, that we are going to clean up and take care of to decorate for next year. It is going to be our outside tree.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and spent it with family, and got everything that you wanted.

Christmas EVE

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! Hope you all have gotten everything ready for the big day tomorrow. Today for us, was very exhausting but relaxing. Last night around 11:30, our power got knocked out. A car on the main road snapped a power pole in three and we were without power for 6 hours.

This winter has been the complete opposite it should be. We are having so much rain and hot weather, and the temp in my house last night got into the 80's. It was sweltering and I can't sleep in hot weather. Our power came back on around 5:30 and when it did, Cayce and I jumped up to turn the air conditioner on and our ceiling fan and portable fan on full blast. This was not just for us, but for the girls too, especially Samantha. She sweats so easily and she gets hot quick. We also had to hurry and get President Snow happy because he is spoiled. He goes to sleep at a certain time every night and if he can't see me or hear the fan going, he goes crazy and meows like someone is hurting him. He did get sick in the middle of the night and he was fine the rest of the day.

We didn't do school today and we won't be doing school tomorrow. We watched movies all day and they colored all day and just listened to the rain pour outside. I got some amazing goodies today. Some are freebies and some that I bought myself. The freebies will be in the freebie post.

The first thing I got that I am super excited about is a poster. It's not just any poster.

Yep, it is a The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 signed by Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Natalie Dormer and Lenny Kravitz.

Before my mom and dad showed up, I got two packages from UPS and those packages will also be in my freebie haul. When my mom and dad arrived, they had a bunch of presents. My mom decided to do the Christmas Eve box, that has been going around on Facebook, with a movie, matching pj's, hot chocolate and some popcorn and candy. My mom did that and my dad got the pajamas.

They ripped into that box. It didn't have a fighting chance...lol

they got the 50th anniversary edition of Dr. Seuss How The Grinch Stole Christmas, matching pink princess pj's, Sammy and Airy got 2 new mugs. Addy is still learning how to drink our of regular cups, got a box of popcorn and a box of hot chocolate, with a zip lock bag full of candy. 

They also brought over my old easy bake oven and then three more gifts for the girls to open tomorrow. 

 My parents gave Cayce and I some money and a LED Christmas Globe that I can put out as a decoration next year. We also got a snowman and reindeer cheese plate and I got a much needed notepad. I am constantly looking for paper to take notes down.

I had to get a picture of my babies.

Getting ready for the hot chocolate.

We had dinner, which was ball park chicken patties and then we made sugar cookies. Cayce was on his way home then and he let us know that he also got us more stuff.

I was nervous on how these were going to turn out because I ran out of butter,

Ready to pop these bad boys into the oven

enjoying hot chocolate while waiting on the cookies.

loving her hot chocolate in her new mug

cookies turned out great.

Cayce got home and we let the girls open up a present from us. It was a movie that we have been wanting to see. It was The Minions. Then Cayce gave me my gift that he bought me from Toys R Us. Yes I am 25 years old and he got me something from Toys R Us. It was something that I was not expecting and definitely earned him points.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 "Peeta" doll

He said that he saw the Katniss doll and had to look for Peeta. He said as soon as he saw them, he had to hurry up and get it because the rest of the packages were damaged and he didn't want to fight nobody off. I am seriously thinking of doing a post of all my The Hunger Games merch. Be on the lookout for that.

 But before we watched the movie, we had to clean up the kitchen and get the girls cleaned up so they could get into the new pajamas. They were so stinkin' cute together in the pajamas.

my kids are just adorable.

We had Missy in tonight to watch the movie with us. President Snow was sleeping underneath my desk, and I guess trying to relax and get his sleep that he definitely missed last night.

So that is the end of my Christmas Eve. I will leave you with some pictures of my tree and just to let you know, Santa has already come and gone. Merry Christmas ya'll!

School Week 19 Recap

This was a short week. It was only two days, my mom asked why am I doing school for only two days and not give them the week off. OK, 1. I don't want too. And 2. I want to be able to finish at the beginning of May again this school year.

Monday: My 25th birthday and I didn't want to do school, so we had a great day doing absolutely nothing. They will be doing a lot of work tomorrow and Wednesday, mainly computer work, writing and reading.

Tuesday: We had a very late start to the day. I didn't go to sleep until almost 2:00am and I woke up at 11:30. They had a quick breakfast and then we started school. We couldn't do anything very loud because Cayce was sleeping before he had to leave for work. So they did their morning work and then they colored some Christmas pictures.

They did quiet time after. President Snow loves cuddling up to the kids during this time if they are on the floor. He just lays there watching them. I have a feeling that both of my cats are part dog. They are so loyal.

For the rest of the day, Samantha did workbook pages on addition and subtraction and telling time and Ariana was writing words in her comp notebook to work on her writing. We had a very productive day. Tomorrow will be all computer work and separate quiet times.

Wednesday: Merry Christmas Eve Eve! We started the day off with watching The Santa Claus. I love watching these movies 1-2 days before Christmas. After the movie, they drew their favorite parts from the movie.

Sammy drew reindeer and Santa

Airy drew Santa and elves.

After they got done with their pictures, they did quiet time together. They didn't want to do it separately. That went by fairly quick and then Samantha did more math work in her workbook and Ariana caught up on 3 days worth of computer workd.

Listening to this story on Easy Peasy Homeschool

alphabet maze game. yes, I have a touch screen desktop.

That's how we ended the day. It was very productive. Sammy is getting so much better at ding math without her bears. Airy's handwriting is getting better. The only thing I wasn't happy with her today is that she scribbled and didn't stay in the lines on the pages she was working on and she knows how to color very well, but today it seemed like she just got lazy.

Thursday: CHRISTMAS EVE!! NO SCHOOL

Friday: CHRISTMAS DAY!!!!!!!!  NO SCHOOL

Christmas Questions

I found Christmas questions, and I thought it would be fun to answer them so ya'll can learn more about me and get to know me better.

1. Do you like to stay in your PJ's, or dress up for Christmas? If I am staying home, and not having guests over, I will stay in my PJ's with Cayce and the girls. I only dress up, if I am having guests over and I will get dressed right when they get there or if I am going to family member's gatherings.
2. If you could only buy one person a present this year who would it be? I am going to change this up and say I would buy just one big present for all three of my kids to enjoy together. 
3. Do you open your presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning? I always opened my presents on Christmas morning, but I let my kids open one present on Christmas Eve and it is always the present from my mom and dad.
4. Have you ever built a Gingerbread house? yes
5. What do you like to do on your Christmas break? If I was still in school and had a christmas break, I would sleep and relax and get ready to end the school year.
6. Favorite Christmas meal or treat? My favorite part of my Christmas meal is the ham. I can't stand turkey on Christmas. Turkey should stay in November for Thanksgiving.
7. What's your favorite holiday movie? My favorite is How the Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carey. That is my favorite and it makes me laugh every single time. Also Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. That's a favorite to watch with my daddy. 
8. Candy Canes or Gingerbread Men? Spree candy canes
9. Have you ever made a Snowman? I have never made a regular size snowman, because if and when it snows in SC, it's very little and we have to make them on the hood of our cars.
10. Which do you like better, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Christmas Day because I get to see the happiness on my kids face when they tear into their presents.
11. White lights, or colored lights? both.

I AM 25!!! & Crowning Fantasy

I am officially half way to 50 today!!!!! Lol, It's my 25th birthday today and I feel different. You know how someone asks you every year on your birthday do you feel older, and usually the answer is no, well mine is yes. I felt the exact same way when I turned 20.

I immediately thought right after I woke up that in 5 years, I will be 30 and I want my life to be way different and better than right now. So I guess that scenario is what made me feel older, because I want different things and I am willing to make changes to make those things happen.

Anyways, I had to mention that little spiel. Now onto my birthday recap. Cayce did not have to work yesterday, so we all "celebrated" yesterday. We didn't do anything he planned and mainly he watched the kids and watched movies with them while I got work done and basically relaxed. We did watch a couple movies together that I love. We watched Taxi and Magic Mike XXL. Those two movies just made me laugh so hard and it took my mind off all our troubles for a while. We also went shopping for a few things and it was nice to just get out of the house and shop for a little. We only got laundry detergent and pull-ups but it was fun to window shop I should say.

The first gift I got was a couple of weeks ago. It was after we got How the Grinch Stole Christmas from the library and I told Cayce that I wanted our own copy that wasn't scratched and didn't skip. He got me a copy and it is amazing. I love it.

Last Wednesday when Cayce stopped by Edible Arrangements to get the free sample, he also bought me a pineapple Christmas tree. I took a picture of this one, I actually restrained myself from eating it before I snapped the pic. Cayce and I shared it and it was SOOOOO DELICIOUS!!!!

Last week, Bath and Body Works did a sale on the body creams/lotions and I got me some. I bought them for 4 dollars a piece and my total was $23.00. I got only got 4 when I was going to originally buy 8. I was going to wait until today to open them, but then right when the box gets inside the house, Cayce ripped it open and started pulling them out. I was so irate at him for ruining that for me and he was definitely in the dog house.

Left to Right: A Thousand Wishes, Tahiti Island Dream, Endless Weekend, and Paris

Just by these 4 scents, you can tell that I am ready for Spring and Summer.

Now, yesterday I got the best gift of the year. It's a necklace that I have been wanting since I seen it last month. It is of course, The Hunger Games related. It has my favorite phrase or quotes engraved in it. The phrase is "stay with me" and "always". My mom bought it for me from The Hunger Games: The Exhibition store. I was going to get some things for myself, but couldn't. I am so glad that my mama got it for me. I could not stop smiling.

My mom always make whatever cake I request for my birthday. If it's easy or hard, she does not disappoint. Last year, I requested the Crown Royal cookies. YUM!!! This year I requested Grinch Cake. It is so yummy. It is pound cake with vanilla frosting, and it is SO GORGEOUS!

She also brought me a new phone case that I will be using when I upgrade to a new phone. The phone I have now is a little small, like a smidge. It's cute and I love it!

The last present I got was the movies. I got Magic Mike XXL and Taxi.

That is all for my birthday portion, now onto my final book post of the year 2015. The book is called Crowning Fantasy.

This cover is beautiful and MISLEADING! The phrase "don't judge a book by it's cover" should be taken seriously. My review will be up next month. If you are into fantasy and confusion, then this book is for you.

Birthday Freebies!!

I was going to put all of my freebies into my birthday post, but I figured that I would make one post for my birthday freebies and then one post focusing on my birthday.

**December 2**

I got my first birthday freebie. I got a email from Krispy Kreme saying that I could get a doughnut of my choice for my birthday.

#YUMM

**December 19**

I got the rest of my birthday freebie's today. Cayce went out and got them for me. I love that man.

free coffee and doughnut.

this doughnut was just too sweet and the yellow buckle was pure sugar. I gave Cayce the coffee

Frozen hot chocolate. 

It tasted like an unsweetened milkshake

Free burger from Ruby Tuesday

I got the Chicken BLT. The little biscuits were also free

I always appreciate these little freebies.