Blogging Strike

Yes, I have been on a blogging strike. After I post all my Christmas stuff, I might go on another "strike". I'm tired of blogging, and I'm tired of people saying I take too many pictures (I love taking pictures, get over it). So here is the Harris Sibling dinner at Tucano's. SO delicious. I was IN LOVE with their grilled pineapple. So much so, that the waiter practically brought me my own pineapple. :-)

The Branters and the Kell-ster.

Kit & Lynzie pooh. Love them!

The Harris Clan. We had a lot of fun that night. Thanks for thinking of it Summer & Liz! And I saw Nadine Wimmer. Practically a celebrity. Although I was too shy to ask for a picture with her.

The crazy boys.

Summer and Jarom. (Liz, I tried to find a picture of you and Jud on facebook from that night and could not find one??)

Continuing with the 12 days of Christmas from Benjamin
Day 8: Candle
Day 9: Muse CD

Day 10: Cookie cooling racks (love them...and needed them).

Day 11: Bath & Body works body butter and lotion.

Day 12: Christmas Eve he made an appointment for me to get My fingernails and toenails done. SUCH a SWEETHEART! Everyone at the nail place said what a thoughtful husband I had because he called in and made my nail appointments for me.
Thanks Ben, this was SUCH a neat experience. I'm grateful my husband is Awesomespice x 2!

Happinesshoodship

I was tagged by my awesome friend Melissa.

Here are the rules: List 10 things that make you happy, one of them needs to be something that has happened to you/for you today and then pick 5 fellow bloggers that make you smile to win this awesome award. And then they hopefully pass it along to keep the smiles going 'round.

#1 - Ben. He makes me laugh when I need it. He pushes me to do things I would never be brave enough to do on my own. He helps me find my voice, my opinion, without being walked on. He notices little things like when I cleaned the pee up from around the toilet. He lets me do my hair the way I want without judgement. I even put a huge red streak in it once and he didn't say anything to me. There is a lot more, but yes...Ben makes me happy.

#2 - Taking a Bath. If I'm ever stressed out I just turn on the bathwater to really hot, crawl in, and turn on the jets. I am in heaven...until I hear the kids banging on the door and saying, "let me in". I was going to put a picture of me taking a bath on here, but then I thought "that might be inappropriate". (haha, yeah, I'm funny).

#3 - Ryan - I love when he says to me out of no where, "I love you Mom". He can defiantly be a pill sometimes so when he is really sweet and helpful I just melt. I love it when he holds Ethan's hand and says, "I'll help you Ethan". Or, "Okay mom, I'll clean up my toys, I'll be so fast". And my favorite, "thank you for making this lovely dinner Mom". Ryan makes me very happy!

#4 - Ethan. He gives lots of kisses. He even barks like a dog and licks me and it makes me super happy. I love his cute little voice. When I say "I love you Ethan", he says, "Tank you Mama". I love it when he wakes up in the morning and says, "Hi Mom, where's Dad?" Or how he calls the Polar Express, the ChooChoo Express. He is obsessed with the Jazz Bear, so he LOVES to watch sports and watch for the "baseball Bear" (every sport is baseball to him). He is a really sweet boy. He has been an easy child, and he is very easy to love!

#5 - A Good Book. I love to read. I especially love when I have an awesomespice book to read, snuggled in a blanket eating caramel popcorn. Yummo! Although reading for school makes me fall asleep, how can I remedy that??

#6 - Being with the Harris Clan. I love my family. We have so much fun together. And I can be my crazy self around them. Where as around other people I hold back my awesomeness, until I know they can handle it! :-) We have a great time no matter what we're doing.

#7 - My Camera. I love taking pictures. I take it with me where ever I go, and I USE it! I capture every moment I can on camera.

#8 - Chocolate. Enough Said.

#9 - Target. I wish I could capture the moment I walk into Target and bottle it up, and put in on my Mantel. I love Target. My favorite color is Red, so that helps. They have the cutest displays, and the cutest kids clothes, and I love their PJ's, and socks, and toys, and decorations, and kitchen stuff, and on and on and on...

If only I won a shopping spree...

#10 - What made me happy today: My Car. I love having 4 wheel drive. I came out of Wal-Mart and the roads were terrible. It was snowing like crazy, and there were a ton of accidents, and I kept slipping. So I put my car in Neutral turned on the 4x4 and off I went without any problems! I'm grateful and HAPPY I made it home safely.

Now I'm supposed to tag 5 people.

But you all know I don't like to leave anyone out. So if you read my blog, go ahead and consider yourself Tagged! I'll be waiting to hear what makes YOU happy!

Full of Trivet Goodness

This post has a lot of photos. I apologize in advance. Day 5: Trivets. Ben must have noticed my ugly hot pads I've been using since the dawn of time (I guess that makes the year 2002 the dawn of time).

Day 6: As mentioned before I freaking love Weezer. Ben said he cheated on this one because he read it on my blog, but he said he had to see the cheezy smile on my face when I listened to them. And he got his wish. Ben thought to buy all the awesome songs. Buddy Holly is my new ring tone.

Day 7: New Moon Game. Although mine is the card came, not the board game as pictured. I can't wait to play it. Anyone want to play??

On Friday night the older Clegg siblings went to Cafe Trang for dinner. I love Cream Cheese Won tons! It was also Jake's Birthday. Happy Birthday Jakey Pooh! Above: Sam & Shalleece

Jake & Shayla

I was Seth's date too. I love Seth, even though it does look like I'm about to give blood. I promise we had fun! :-)

Liz & Rick

Ben gets so mad when I break out my camera. He thinks we should all enjoy the moment, and I think we should capture the moment on camera and blog about it. So here is his sad face because we're taking yet another picture.

Rob & Kandis. Yes, Rob took Ben's advice on the pout.

Saturday night was the Harris Christmas Party. We had a great time. I love the Harris'! (I've always wondered about that...is is Harris' or Harris's??) Here I am with my cousin Chance (also my across the street neighbor). We are cool, we just sat on the couch while he showed me how to play (or suck at) games on his iPhone.

Notice #1 - My new Hair. As opposed to the lighter and more gray version above.

Notice #2 - Yes, I am wearing the same sweater I wore the night before. I do that often. I like to wear the same clothes over again. I'm awesome like that. Just ask me.

Kelly, Chance & my sister Summer

My brothers are all in town. Although I did not get a picture of them last night, I'm sure I will over the next 2 weeks. But I did get a picture with Lizzy a.k.a. SuperSpice.

Liz & Kell

We had a great time and the food was fabulous.

We have a busy week ahead (as I'm sure most of you do), I will try to post when I can.

Tomorrow: Dinner with Harris Siblings at Tucanos. Yum.

Continuation of Ben's Awesomeness

Ryan has been begging us to put up Christmas lights on our house ALL YEAR. Well, Ben has been really busy with work/school so he has not been able to do it. We decided to look for them on Monday night because Ben only had one more final to go. Well, they were pretty picked over. So we talked Ryan into getting a mini tree instead and we'll do lights next year. We got this tree decorations and all at Wal-mart for $12.50. Awesome! They were on sale obviously. We're going to look for lights after Christmas. I like the big bulb Red and White ones preferably LED. Where do I find those??

Continuing with the 12 days of Christmas. These are backwards. Here is Day 4. My favorite chocolate! Yummo!

Day 3: I LOVE colored socks. I don't care if they even match what I'm wearing, I wear colored socks anyway. Seriously, I didn't even think Ben noticed my sock fetish.

Day 2: New Pj's. He has the best taste! For realzies (yeah, that's my new made up word). Thanks Ben, you're a stud.

My baby brother (I'm sure he'll love that) is getting married the day after Christmas. I'm excited for Kit and Lynzie...they are awesome + Cinnamon = awesomespice.

Kelly's tidbit of the day: I freaking LOVE Weezer. I've loved them since the sweater song came out in 1994. Still love them. I just get a cheezy smile on my face when I hear them on the Radio. You don't want to see it, it's not pretty.

Temple Rectangle

The past couple years we've been going to see the lights with the Buchanan's. We'll meet at The Gateway to eat then ride trax (or as my boys call it, the train or the choo choo) over to Temple "Square" (because we all know it's not really a square). Above are my handsome boys.

This is what Ryan was doing while we took the family picture at the bottom. He hates pictures! He will not be in them if he gets in his "mood". So yes, we do love Ryan just as much as Ethan, but Ryan just hates pictures.

Mom and Ethan. Yeah, we're awesomespice.

So b. e. a. utiful

The "family" photo. Brr, it was cold!

___________________

Last night Ben started the 12 days of Christmas for me. It's only been day 1 and I am so excited. I just think Ben is pretty much awesome to think of this. I'm going to keep a list of all the fun things Ben thinks of. But honestly it's not about the gifts, I think it is really cool that for a few minutes every night Ben and I have time together. I'm just embarrassed I didn't think of something this thoughtful!

p.s. Ben will be embarrassed I wrote this on here. I'm not trying to embarrass him, I just want him to know how much it means to me!

Day 1:

Lady Antebellum CD

Love it!

My Texting Soap Box

I like to text. I really do. I think it is awfully convenient. But when did it become some people's entire relationship?

Thanks to everyone who wrote me a comment on texting. They were super funny and very useful. Here are times when I like to text.
1. When Ben is in an all day meeting I like to text him if I need something, or if I just need him to call me when he gets a break.
2.I like to text family/friends if I have a quick question. That way we're not on the phone for 20 or so minutes. It saves tons of time.
3. I absolutely love picture texts! If I'm at a store and want to show something to my sister I just send her a text. If I see a crazy person/thing I take a picture and send it to people so they can see how funny it was.
4. Lists, grocery or other.
5. If I'm lost in a store and I need to find out where my husband went.
You get the idea...

Texting really is awesome. I feel some people just don't know how to use the awesomeness correctly.

During dinner (I have done this before and felt SO bad after). Do not text while you're at dinner.

If I invite you to my house, do not text 3 other friends at the same time. I really makes me mad. If you're here with us, be with us. You could actually be texting something about me to whoever you're writing right in front of me. SO RUDE. Even if you're not, if you'd rather be talking to whomever is on the other text then GO OVER THERE! Now I'm okay with a question now and then. Sometimes my family will ask me a question via text, and I answer with one or two texts. Not 20! I just hate full on conversions with text messages (except when I had my tonsils out, I could not talk so texting was all I had).

This actually does not just bother me at my own house. If you are with other people at your house, my house, the park, a restaurant, a gay bar for all I care, stop texting other people and live in the moment with the people you chose to be with.

I don't think I need to discuss texting while driving. Don't be stupid! If you need to answer a text have your passenger do it for you, if you do not have a passenger, then pull over.

Forwarded texts. I hate these. Don't send me a forward saying I'm not a true friend or I don't love Jesus, or I'm going to get herpes if I don't pass it on. They are lame. And a waste of text messages.

Texting in movie theaters=Bad. We can still see the light from your phone.

When you are with friends and you don't think it's that big of a deal to carry on a conversation via text because you have it on silent, we can still hear the buzz buzz of the vibrator and your fingers clicking away.

I think that if anything requires real emotion you probably better call the person.

I looked up "Texting Etiquette" on Google. They agree with me, so I can't be that crazy. Other people must think the same thing. So please, if you are a texter (and I am), please think of the people you are actually with and how it might make them feel while you text away.

Thanksgiving 2009

Seriously, could he get any cuter?

On Thanksgiving Ben's mom put up this back drop for pictures. Yeah, this is the best family picture we had. Ryan was screaming and kicking and Ben and I were laughing. I couldn't tell if I was laughing because it was funny, or because I was embarrassed Ryan was being crazy. People without kids will always tell you what to do about it though....I'd spank him, or put him in time out, or "I'd show him who is boss". Well yeah, those people obviously have never had a child throwing a tantrum before. While you're taking a picture and other people are waiting you can't just spank him and make him cry harder, or put him in time out when you have to get the picture done now.

I hate couples pictures. What are we supposed to do? Put our arms around each other, hold hands, sit on his lap, sit up straight like we don't know each other?? So I opted for this.

Ben's siblings minus his older brother Rob. Starting at the top left: Seth, Jake, Ben, Maren (in front of Ben) Liz, Sam. Front: Marshall (who has a sweaty head from playing basketball) Linda, Bob, Peter.

Ryan's cute turkey he made at preschool.

Ethan's cute turkeys he made with Grandma Linda on Thanksgiving.

The Clegg Clan (minus Rob and family). I'm grateful Ryan is sitting still, but Ethan looks like he wants to escape.

We had a good Thanksgiving with Ben's family. I like that they do it at a church so there is room for everyone to breathe.

I am Thankful for: Turkey (with CAN berry sauce...I hate the real stuff) & My cute little family

And please still leave me a comment about Texting below. You better believe there will be a texting post coming up, and I need your opinions!