New Year's Resolutions

In light of one year's end and a new year's beginning, I felt it would be a good time to make just a couple resolutions (reasonable and attainable).  Sure, I have done this before, but I have never held myself accountable and no one has held me accountable for them.

Seriously, I am making New Year's resolutions for 2011.  What you may ask?  How many?  The answer is simple...

3 resolutions!!!

That's right, you aren't reading that wrong at all!  I have made myself 3 goals to reach for 2011!  They are as follows:

1. Quit drinking soda
2. Go to the gym 3 times a week (minimum)
3. Make (sew, scrapbook, craft) something new each month

Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?  I am pretty sure I can do it, just have to get started on the right foot.  I will be sure to post every now and then on my progress.  The most difficult is going to be the soda...I love the sweet and the carbonation, oh and the caffeine.  Yep, that will be the toughest part and the first one to accomplish.  Once that is accomplished, I will have no problems getting to the gym regularly.  That carbonation kills me when I am trying to run or speed walk!

So there you have it...my 3 New Year's Resolutions.  Now tell me, what are yours?

Love's,

Beth

MIA...

So sorry I have been gone so long!

I will be back very soon with new and exciting posts. 

Once the hustle and bustle of the holiday settles down, I will have lots of fun posting

and catching up on reading all of your blogs!

For now, I am taking in the time with both of my babies being home with me during the day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!

Hugs,

Beth

Christmas Traditions

Over the 11 years that my husband and I have been dating and married, we have celebrated the Christmas holiday with old and new traditions.  I think it is important to adopt new traditions as you start your own family or move to a new home with your family.  I wanted to take this opportunity to share with all of you the old and new traditions that we have withing our family (immediate and extended).

Let's Start With the OLD 

Start decorating the house and put up the tree the day/weekend after Thanksgiving.

The Sunday before Christmas, we celebrate with Jason's extended family from his mom's side and Santa brings gifts for the little ones (Santa remembers everyone's name and speaks often of the gifts that he's brought family members over the years - approximately 32 years with the same Santa).

Take a family picture in front of the tree on Christmas day.

Pack everybody up and head off to spend Christmas afternoon/evening with Jason's family.

On New Year's day, the Christmas decorations start to come down.

Now On With the NEW

Bake cookies and make candies to deliver to the neighbors.

Last minute shopping on Christmas Eve (we are notorious for this).

Christmas Eve with Grandma or Grandpa Hansmeyer (we switch off each year).

Logan and Jillianne each get a new Hallmark ornament from mommy and daddy (we are going to need to start buying a new ornament for us, or our tree will be bare when the kids grow up and head out on their own).

Wake up way too early on Christmas morning to see what Santa has left and open gifts from

mommy and daddy.

Depending upon the year we will get together with either Grandma or Grandpa Hansmeyer a couple days after or the weekend after Christmas.

Those are our traditions. Sometimes they are altered a little bit depending on the year and the weather.  Last year, 2009, we were stuck at home and unable to go anywhere due to a really bad snow storm that closed the interstate.  It was nice to have the day to ourselves, but there was a sense of loneliness without being able to spend time with Jason's family.  It all worked out thought and we just relaxed the day away while the kids got to play with all of their new gifts.

What kinds of traditions do you have?  Have you adopted new traditions over the years?  I'd love to hear about yours.



Thursday Lovelies (2)

My beautiful family decorating our Christmas tree.

I don't think I tell my mom enough how much I love her and how much she inspires me to be the best mom I can be.  Thank you Mom, for always being here to support me!  I LOVE YOU more than words can say!

 

I love Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter...in photos!  hehehe

Summer can be much too hot for my liking where we live and Winter is way too unpredictable.  Spring and Fall are my two favorite seasons because they are so colorful.  The temperature is usually pretty nice too!

Those are my Thursday Lovelies for this week.  I would love to know what your lovelies are too!

Have a lovely weekend!

I Know I Told Y'all That I Like to Sew

Yep, I really do.  As a matter of fact, I have made a few things lately that I am giving to our kids for Christmas.  At least I can share these things with you, because I know the kiddos won't see them before the holidays!  :-)

First up is felt food for our daughter.

She loves to "cook" in her little kitchen and I am tired of stepping on the hard plastic food that gets left all over the floor.  I haven't made a whole lot of stuff, but it's a good start.

I also made this little set for her to cook in.

This set however was sold to someone, but I am making another set for little Jilli-bean for Christmas.

I am also working on something for Logan, but it is not done yet...

Actually, the only thing I have gotten done on it is cut it out, but I will be completing the sewing on it sometime this weekend.

He has been asking for a new school bag (messenger style), so that is what he's getting. 

It will be denim and green camo.  I have a couple hunters in the family!

As soon as I finish that up, I will be posting pictures.

I was so excited to be sewing so much for the holidays, that I just had to make some new stuff for the kitchen.  I love the hot pad and towel.  The wine cork trivet is something that we have had for a while now, but I made this one a bit bigger.  FYI...I am currently working on a tutorial for the trivet which I will be posting in the near future.  Aren't these just so much fun!?!

Well, for now, I will leave you with that.  Like i said before, I will post more pictures after the holidays of the fun things I've made for everyone.

Thursday Lovelies (1)

Okay, I am not new to blogging, but you'd think I was.  I'd love to have something new to tell you about every day, but unfortunately, I am not that full of words to put to type.  I do love that I have made some new friends on this journey and am very excited to make even more.

Today I was thinking about something I can do special for Thursday's.  That way it makes it a little bit simpler to post - for at least one day of the week.  Maybe you'll also have fun with it and share with me too!

Well, to get started with the first installment of Thursday Lovelies, I would like to share the following photos.  These are just some lovelies that I have found and would love to own.



PB Advent Calendar - I have always loved advent calendar's just don't own one myself

PB Picture Frame Card Holder

Oh how I would love to have a mantel to decorate for the holidays!

At some point I think I will try to talk dear hubby into putting a mantel behind the stove when he finishes the wall.  I think it would look so pretty with the "rock" wall he wants to put up.

I could list lovelies all day, but I have a little girl that is begging for some attention and a silly boxer that apparently wants something, because he won't stop growling at me.  Better go see what it is that he wants and then do a little bit of cuddling and watching cartoons with my little Jilli-bean.



What are your Thursday Lovelies?

Wow, Such a Busy Week

Golly!  I have been so busy lately that I have sadly been neglecting all of you.  I don't even have anything good to post for you today.  I usually work on the week's blog posts the week before, but I am frantically trying to get things made for Christmas and keep the house in some sort of order for my husband.

So instead of any words of wisdom or specifics on what's happening around here, I want to leave you with some pictures that I've found and enjoy imensly.

source

source

Isn't this cake gorgeous?

source

With that I leave you for the day.  I hope you are having a wonderful week and I promise, I will have something a little more exciting next time.  This time of year just gets way more busy than I like it to be!

Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You...

Maybe it is important that you all get to know me, so I thought I would post some facts about me on occassion.  This will be part 1 of I don't know how many "Getting to Know You" posts.

Getting started...

I am married to Jason and we have two children:

Logan and Jillianne

We also have two dogs:

Nickel (our Weimaraner/"bird dog")

and The Great Gladiator Maximus - Max for short (our boxer)

We live in a lovely home in the midwest, where it is currently stinking cold.  I have lived here all my life and I just can't seem to ever get used to the winters.  Hence my new love of our wood-burning stove.

I love to laze on the couch and watch cartoons with my daughter or movies all morning, but sadly there are things that I must get done during the day, so I don't get to laze every day.

My family (all of my family) is important to me...

**I don't have recent pictures of ALL of my family, but will post some after the holidays**

             

Today, Jillianne and I slept in till 10:00 a.m. and it felt fantastic, but that kinda messeds up the plans that we had for the day.  Excited that tomorrow we will be heading out to eat a bite of lunch with my sister.  Probably won't get to see her again before she heads back to Santa Fe on Saturday since she'll leave early in the morning and I work Friday night.  I am excited to take a vacation down there sometime in 2011. 

I love you Kirsten and Mike!  Can't wait to visit you in your new home in Santa Fe!!!

Well, that's about all I have for y'all today!  I haven't been sleeping well lately, so I just can't seem to get into my creative mind! Hopefully over the next few days I will have something exciting for you to read about or maybe even a project that I might be able to get done.