Back to work.....

So today is my first day back at work after having a nice 2 week Christmas vacation. I am finally over being sick (just a little runny nose left) and our life is starting to get back to normal. Except for the fact that Scott has left me home alone for 4 days while he is in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl. Is there such a thing as a Football widow? If so, that is what I am this week. Scott left yesterday and will be back Wednesday. I guess I should enjoy the alone time and the fact that I can eat whatever I want for dinner without having to worry about cooking. So while he is having fun, I am getting back in the swing of getting up EARLY and going to work. A mug of FULL caffeine coffee gave me the boost I needed this morning.

To make my Monday morning a little brighter my co-worker, Kim, calls me about 8:05 this morning to let me know that she has shown up to drop Graham off at daycare and they are closed! What the crap? So she brings Graham to work with her. YEA! He is such a good kid. It makes for a fun 1st day back at work, when you really don't want to do anything but know you have to be there. It worked out well since Kim and I are the only ones back here today. We are just running a little daycare out of our offices.



Here is a shot of me and Graham. Can you believe he is only 4 1/2 months old?? I guess tomorrow its back to the real world. Oh well, we will enjoy this one last day of not doing much work.

Christmas 2010

Scott and I get 2 weeks off work for Christmas. We started out with a few days at home, then headed to Marion on the 22nd to see one of my BEST friends! Once we got there, we grabbed some lunch in Memphis then headed to Gigi's cupcakes to try some AWESOME cupcakes. From there we headed to Premier Fabrics so that I could buy fabric for curtains for our bathroom and front door. I got some awesome fabric for only $10 a yard! We spend Wednesday night in Marion and then headed to Jonesboro on Thursday to have lunch with my mom and spend some time with my parents. We went to the movies and saw the Fighter on Friday. It was pretty good. Then we came back to my parents house, made some fudge and some party mix and opened our Christmas presents. We got Fiesta dishes, north face jackets, and money! The on Saturday morning we drove back to Sherwood and Scott's family came to our house for Christmas. We racked up again. Scott got an iPod, some clothes and a razorback lamp. I got a KitchenAid stand mixer, some pajama pants, and some rain boots.

I had been feeling sick since Thursday but decided it was just my sinuses. Turns out I had the stomach bug which hit be in the middle of the night Christmas night. I didn't get out of bed for about 36 hours and missed Christmas at Scott's grandparents. Here it is a week later and I am still not back to 100%. At least I still have a few more days before I have to go back to work.

Connor and I (while in Marion)

Oliver and I on Christmas Eve

Scott and I

Opening some presents


My niece Eliza-Grace

I'm still sad that I didn't get any pictures with her, but since I was sick almost the entire time she was here. I didn't even get to hold her until right before they left. She is getting sooo big!!!

Have a safe New Years!

Cabinet Remodel

When we built our house in 2009, they guys we hired to paint the house wanted a huge amount of more money to paint the cabinets a different color than the trim. I decided it wasn't worth it and settled for white cabinets. I hated them to begin with, and I'm still not a huge fan. So I decided I was going to glaze them over Christmas break. I bought the stain last week and Scott thought I should try it out on the bathroom upstairs. I probably should have practiced a little first, but I think it turned out pretty good. Maybe a little darker than I was going for, but not too bad. Now I just have to decided if I REALLY want to do this in the kitchen. I mean it's one thing to do the upstairs bathroom that doesn't get used a whole lot, but completely different to do the kitchen. I am soo afraid it will not turn out like I want/hope/picture. I mean I'm not the more talented/crafty person and I have little patience.

The stain is a more brown than it looks in the pictures. Here is a sneak peak at the upstairs cabinets.

Cabinets before.....

Cabinets after......

Another after view....

Work Christmas Party

So today we had our annual IT Department Christmas party at work. Since our group is always running atleast 30 minutes behind, we were in no hurry to get to the Tech Center for the luncheon. Well this is the one time they started on time. We show up about 30 minutes late and everyone is already eating. Since there aren't many seats left, we get some food and find a seat where we can. Just after I sit down, they decide it's time to play games on the Wii and I hear someone say....."We knew Erica was coming, but we didn't know you would be here Jermaine. We had planned on playing Wii boxing though." I thought....Jermaine....boxing....no way and I looked to my left and I thought to myself "OMG I think that's Jermaine Taylor...no way." I was trying not to stare, but still trying to get a good look b/c why in the world would Jermaine Taylor be at our Christmas party. I get up to get some more food and Kim says to me "What is Jermaine Taylor doing here?" So it's confirmed it is him....holy crap! After they left, I finally asked and found out that his wife's sister works in our department......mystery solved. His wife sang a little karaoke and he even joined in the Wii games by dancing to Thriller. I had to sneak a little video...see below. It's not the best video...







Scott says I should have asked to have my picture made with him....but I wasn't about to be THAT person. Not today anyway....


Good times at the LRSD......

Retail Therapy....the best type of Therapy there is

I love to shop. When I'm having a bad day or week, one of the best things I can do is to go shopping. When I find the perfect purchase I get all excited. If it's on sale I get even more excited. Even if I don't buy anything, just looking at stuff makes me feel a little better. This is one of my favorite times of year. Even when I don't need anything, I have a great excuse to shop for other people. Being an Aunt this Christmas has also made the Christmas shopping a little more fun. I thought I had planned what I was going to buy Eliza-Grace until I was shopping a couple of weeks ago and saw an awesome gift (and it was completely opposite of what I thought I was going to buy her). Okay no problem.....until I saw something else for her that I just couldn't resist. I won't tell you what I got her b/c her mother reads my blog from time to time, but I will have to post a couple pictures after Christmas because I love it!

Every year our church adopts a family for Christmas and we all sign up for things to purchase. This year the family we adopted is a single mother with 8 children. I signed up to buy clothes for the 11 year old little girl and the 12 year old little boy. Since I couldn't wait any longer, I hopped in the car today at lunch and ran to Old Navy. I felt like a kid in a candy store. Almost everything in the store was on sale and I almost never made up my mind what I was actually going to buy. All these choices, it's a good thing I signed up for specific things or I would have easily bought more stuff and spent way to much money. All that is left is to wrap them up and take them to church on Sunday.

Below are a few pics of the great stuff I picked up. I hope they love the clothes as much as I do.

I just love the sparkly jeans! I couldn't pass them up!

I love to wrap Christmas presents also. I am not the best wrapper in the world and I am horrible at making bows (so most of my gifts don't have bows on them), but I love to wrap. This works out great for Scott, but he hates to wrap.

Only 4 more working days until Christmas break! I love having a job that gets 2 weeks off at Christmas!

Free Christmas Cards from Shutterfly

So Shutterfly is giving away 50 free Christmas Cards to bloggers. How awesome is that? If you would like to participate, just go here. Shutterfly is a great way to upload photos and share them with your family and friends. They can even order pictures right from the website.

One of my favorite things that Shutterfly has are their Christmas Photo Cards. They have tons to choose from. I have been thinking of sending out Christmas cards for the past few years, but have never gotten around to doing it. I am using this as an incentive to actually send them out this year. I have been browsing their site and below is one of my favorites. Of course, I would change the pictures! I don't have any pictures on this computer so that I could make my own.


Here is another version of this card, but just in different colors.


I love that you still have room for a personalized message. I think the message of "Faith, Hope, Love" is great. Christmas is a special time of year. We are celebrating the birth of Jesus and I think this message says a lot. I can't think of a better way to sum things up. Faith. Hope. Love.

Shutterfly offers lots of other things than just Holiday photo cards. They also have a wide variety of Thank you cards. They are much cuter and cheaper than some of the things you see at the store. You can find a thank you card for any occasion. You can add pictures to many of them also.

Their birthday invitations are also great. They have invitations for all ages and you can personalize them. Some hold one picture, some hold several pictures, and there are even some that don't require a picture in case you are just looking for an invite.

All in all Shutterfly is an easy way to get your Christmas photo cards made with out having to fight the crowds at the store. Enjoy!!

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

This is one of my favorite times of year.....no...it IS my favorite time of year. We are celebrating the birth of JESUS!

In the couple of weeks leading up to Thanksgiving I am always itching to get the Christmas decorations down. I usually don't put any decorations out or put the tree up until Thanksgiving afternoon. Since we went to Springdale for Thanksgiving this year, I put all of the stuff up the weekend before. The amount of decorations I have grows each year. Usually my dad is there to help put up the Christmas tree, but this year Scott and I did it all by ourselves (maybe that's why it's not exactly centered in the window).

Here is the tree. I have not yet perfected the art of putting mesh in my tree, but I think I did a little better this year than last. I am trying to find something else to go into the top of the tree to make it even bigger. Maybe something glittery.


Below is the mantle. I love it, but I feel like it needs a little something more.


I have more decorations than this, but I only took a couple last night. I have a Willow Tree Nativity set which I LOVE (thanks mom!), lots small decorative Christmas trees, and Scott even has a Razorback tree upstairs.

I also love this time of year because Lifetime and Hallmark Channels play cheezy Christmas movies all the time! I will watch almost any of them once and I have some that are my favorites that I record every year and watch at least 5 times.

I hope to do a little Christmas shopping this weekend so we will finally have gifts under the tree! MERRY CHRISTMAS!