Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends! I hope everyone enjoys their special family time. Give them all an extra hug this Christmas.

I hope you get what you asked for. I was very practical and asked for a freaking AWESOME vacuum cleaner. I'm tired of having to operate on my old one every time I use it. I hope I've been extra special and Santa will bring me an extra surprise. LOL Its always nice getting something you're not expecting.

Have a safe and blessed holiday!! MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM DIXIE!



With Love,

Songs of Inspiration

What better way to keep in the holiday spirit than listening to songs of worship? Lets always remember that JESUS is the reason for the season. We would be so lost without Him.

Here's a few songs that I really enjoy throughout the year(thanks for letting me steal your idea Toni). I hope they touch you as they touch me. God bless!

Word of God Speak (MercyMe)


Four Days Late (Karen Peck & New River)
When God's 4 days late - he's STILL on time.


Who Am I (Casting Crowns)


Does Anybody Hear Her (Casting Crowns)

Wordless Wednesday

Friendship

Friendship! Think about that word for a minute. What does it mean to you? Are you a good friend? Are your friends true to you?

I'd say I only have a few true friends. Sure, I have tons of acquaintances but I could count on one hand my true friendships. Some may say that's sad but I'd take my few friends over two handfuls of bitter, back-stabbing women any day.

When I think about friendship, I think about the good times, the bad, the laughter, the tears, the secrets, the hugs and the honesty. I consider myself a good friend and I think my *true* friends would say the same thing.

If you've indeed gossiped about me, laughed at me behind my back, felt the need to choose one friend over another, then chances are I'm not your friend anyway and vice versa.

There's no greater feeling than being able to confide and lean on your friends. Friends are nice to have during the good times but they are especially important during the tough. If you can't turn to them during trying times, then what do you have? Who can you turn to?

Think about yourself and your friendships today. Do you need to be a better friend? Do you need to release the hold on someone you *think* is your friend but honestly you know they aren't?

Hug your friends today and tell them how much they mean to you.

Funny Friday

This is an oldie but a goodie.

Awesome Giveaway

My good friend Toni at Just Stop Screaming, is having a wonderful giveway for a Hanna Elite Flat Iron valued at $200. Who doesn't need a top of the line flat iron?

I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to have it but I'm feeling the Christmas Spirit. I love my Sister-in-Law, Francesca and she's much more deserving of such a wonderful prize. She really does have a heart of gold.

Back around 2003, Francesca was working part time as an early morning waitress at a local restaurant around the block from my office. After her shift change was over between 9:00-9:30, she would come pick up my son, Tyler, and babysit him for the rest of day. She continued to do that until she got married and began watching multiple children during the day and kept right on until Tyler started school.

Then child #2, Gavin, came along. She began babysitting him at 7 weeks old when I returned to work. That was a trying time for all of us. At 7 weeks, Gavin weighed less than he did when he was born and after many tests, Gavin was diagnosed with extreme acid reflux. He was on multiple medications, cereal mixed in every bottle, spit-up, clothing change, spit-up and more spit-up but Francesca was still there and never complained about the extra work.

Francesca's son, Memphis, started school this August and she also lost her other children she was caring for because the Mom quit school but she still spends her days tending to Gavin. She would make much more money going back to work but she hasn't. She goes above and beyond what most childcare workers do. She doesn't mind keeping Gavin earlier and later if I have something special going on at work. She's been known to take Gavin to doctor's appointments for herself and Memphis. When Tyler has a school holiday, she jumps right in to keeping Tyler too. She even takes Gavin with her on Memphis's field trips with school.

I think Francesca is very deserving of this giveaway. We were talking last Friday and she still hasn't joined the flat iron trend. I know once she gives it a try, she'll wonder what took her so long. She's beautiful all the time but I'd like to give her this opportunity to feel extra special and drop dead gorgeous.

Love you Duda!

So, go check out Toni's giveaway and enter your chance to win until Wednesday. My fingers are crossed for Francesca.

Wordless Wednesday

This is what flour and a 3 year old can do to your kitchen.

Twilight Review

Twilight is a must see movie! I really enjoyed the movie but the book is 100 times better. Rob Pattinson looked AWESOME. I can't believe how different he looks in the movie and then his regular appearance in interviews. I've been obsessed with watching all the videos on Youtube for the past month so I've gotten used to his "normal" self. I love Rob anytime but dayum in the movie with the perfection of make-up, OMGosh I about wet myself just thinking about it. LOL

I like that it stays loyal to the book but I wished they would have cut a few non-important scenes to make the crucial scenes longer. It seemed to jump from scene to scene too fast. My favorites are the baseball scene (LOVE LOVE LOVE IT) and fight scene but both of those were too short IMO....especially the fight scene.

POSSIBLE SPOILER - I'm SO hoping Stephenie will finish Edward's POV (Midnight Sun) because I'm dying to see Edward's reaction when he finds out Jasper and Alice lost Bella in the airport. I was SO looking forward to that in the movie but the entire scene got cut. That was probably my biggest upset.

In the books, my favs have always been Edward, Emmett and Alice but after watching the movie, I love every one of them. The actors did a FABULOUS job portraying these characters. KUDOS to them.

All in all it was a great movie and I want to see it again just so I can concentrate on the movie itself and not have my brain trying to compare. I will definitely be buying it when it comes out on DVD.

Twilight Extravaganza

My good friend Toni over at Just Stop Screaming is having an amazing Twilight giveway just in time for the Twilight release at 12:00 TONIGHT. Its been running for over a week now and she's had some really great items. Its too bad my luck hasn't been good enough to win yet. HA HA

Today she has a really awesome necklace that I would love to have, check it out here.

Tomorrow is the last giveaway so I'm super excited to see what that item will be. Depending on what is, I just might be willing to humiliate myself on video. What's a girl to do? :o)

So head on over to Toni's place and give her some love.

Wordless Wednesday

Cameron Mathison - All My Children's Ryan Lavery

Promote Blog Peace: Join in the stand against Drama

I was listening to Jen from Posh Point of View today on her show over at The Classy Closet and she said something that really stuck with me. She said "World peace, everybody"

When I heard that I thought what a phrase, of course most of us know that it's the 'beauty queen' phrase but when you think about it why not apply it to blog land and have "Blog Peace"

We all know how drama filled the world of blogging can be (and has been lately) and let me just tell you I personally am tired of it, it's a big blog world out there with lots of people to get to know and enjoy. Banning, backstabbing and cattiness need not be in the blog world.

If you are like me you use blogging as a means to escape your everyday "real" life for just a little bit. It's a place to be theraputic, have fun giveaways, share cool products you come across and just get to know other awesome people. You have the chance to just have a good time and give others a laugh or cry.

So why oh why do we need drama??

The answer is WE DON'T!!!!!!!

Please REPOST this on your blog to take a stand and have your voice heard:

Now come on all you blogging queens let's join together and let everyone know we won't stand for drama, we won't stand for blocking people from our sites, we won't stand for being immature,

We won't stand for bashing other blogs...because we stand for BLOG PEACE!

We come here to have fun, to win stuff, to learn about others and thank God that someone else's child is not ours when we see him/her doing something naughty! It's a place to be yourself and

Share who you are with tons of people and brighten other peoples day.

Who's with me, who out there in bloggy land is tired of the blog bullies? Who out there is tired of the mean girls in the blog world?~And I will be the first to admit I was a mean girl to one blogger in the past and I am so very sorry for what I did~

Who wants to stand up and say "We want blogging to be fun again", "We want blogging to be about friendships?", "We want to not have to look over our shoulder and wonder if we are going to be blogged about".

Let's stand together today and say to everyone out there in blog land "We Promote Blog Peace" and we want everyone to just get along.

Please repost, grab the "I Promote Blog Peace" button to wear with pride, and sign mister linky if you want to take a stand for Blog peace and link back to here. As well as let's all get out there and tweet that we promote blog peace too, spread the word. When you tweet just put #blogpeace (no spaces) in your tweet, that way if anyone searches for blogpeace they will find all of us who support it!

My brother's wedding drama has begun

Complaint 1
My little brother, Eric, is getting married this Saturday and Gavin is going to be the ring bearer. He called me semi-frantic Tuesday afternoon that he had Gavin's tux and we needed to find out as soon as possible if it fit so we could get replacements in time. That's understandable and standard procedure so what's got you so upset? Eric got his tux at the same time and it was nothing but the tux itself. There was NO tie, no vest, no fancy jewelry buttons and his shirt was the wrong size. What are these people smoking? How can you "forget" to include 1/2 the freaking tux?

Complaint 2
My Mom, Dad and I are hosting the rehearsal dinner Friday night. My Mom gets a call yesterday morning from the preacher's wife which also happens to be the bride-to-be's aunt. She asked Mama what we were having Friday night. First off, its doesn't really matter what we are eating. When you are a guest somewhere you don't call and request a dinner menu. Anyway, my Mom tells her the menu all the way down to the desserts of strawberry pies, chocolate delight and banana pudding. The preacher's wife says "That sounds good except for one problem?" Yeah, what's that problem? "Paul (the preacher) is a diabetic and he can't have those desserts. You need to have a sugar free pie." Then, she proceeds to tell my Mom that at Walmart in the bakery they have sugar free chocolate, lemon and coconut pies and that we should buy one for Paul.

You know what lady? I am in charge of the desserts and your husband is a GROWN freaking man. He knows what he can have and what he can't. If you want him to have a pie so bad, YOU buy one from Walmart and he can have the whole freaking thing when he gets home from rehearsal.

When you go someplace like this if there's something there you don't like, want or need, you just skip over it and move on to the next thing. I can't believe anyone would do such a thing much less a preacher's wife.

I'll have to listen out and let you know if she requests something similar at the wedding reception.

Wordless Wednesday

Out of the mouths of babes

The other day we took the boys to McDonalds and I ordered Tyler the usual cheeseburger, "No pickles, add mayo" not even thinking about onions. I'm driving so DH is trying to get the boys' food ready and he says

"Why do they put this on kids hamburgers? They know kids won't eat this crap?"
DH proceeds with scraping the onions off the burger and Gavin says "Do you, Daddy?"
DH - "Do I what?"
Gavin - "Do you eat that crap?"

I thought I'd lose control of the car laughing SO hard.

------------------------

On Saturday, Gavin sees this Black & Decker tool bench on a commercial and he decides he wants it for Christmas. Here's our conversation:

Gavin - "I want you to call Santa Claus right now and tell him to bring me that for Christmas."
Me - "I can't call Santa right now, he's sleeping. Its nighttime where Santa is."
Gavin - "No he's not, he is working."
Me - "Where does Santa work?"
Gavin (in his most sarcastic tone) - "At Georgia Power with my Daddy."

Busy weekend

Its been quite a weekend for me. Saturday, I spent the entire day with my Mom doing last minute shopping for my brother's wedding next weekend. My boys put in to spend the night with her and how could she say no to her grandbabies? She was exhausted but so was I and she took them home with her anyway. I was SO relieved to have a small break.

Today was my SIL's bridal shower so the boys stayed home with DH. They got a lot of great stuff and NO doubles so hopefully few returns.

I hope everyone's had a pretty uneventful weekend.

Blog Virgin

Hey everyone, I guess I'm officially popping my blog cherry. Its a little overwhelming right now but I'll get the hang of it soon. I can't believe I finally created a blog but its all my friend Toni's fault. She made me do it! I just hope I can live up to the expectations.

Happy Friday!