Better out than in

Staring down the barrel of Christmas was stressing me out. I finally determined a sure fire solution on how to alleviate some of that and make the process of suffering through the dreaded holiday a little more bearable. I have assigned my children various holiday duties... taking the stress off of me, and maybe locating my holiday cheer in the meantime... Tanner has been assigned the task of decorating (accept for putting the tree up.. of course I will do that.. I mean can you think of anyone better for the job?) Paige will be baking an assortment of Christmas goodies. Connor is in charge of taking the Christmas card photo. Garrett is in charge of writing the Christmas letter.. Smokey is in charge of shopping.. done and done

The person who brought you peanut butter and ham casserole and other delights has finally made it mainstream. Tanner was chosen to work with a chef, a nutritionist and two other students from his school as part of the healthy choices school lunch initiative that our school as well as many other around the country are participating in.  Tanner and his classmates are representing  San Diego Unified School district in a recipe competition.  Their creation will be first presented as an option for lunch at our school in early December.  Once the recipe is finalized it will compete against other schools across the country. The top 3 will head to D.C. for the finally competition with the winning menu item being featured in cafeteria's across the country.  Tanner is very excited. Today his hit the test kitchen and they created a fabulous chili dish. I had some, it's good.. I like it :) GO TANNER! :)

July 1st Staples in LA That's right... New Kids on the Block WITH the Back Street Boys!!  Does life get any better?? I submit that it DOES NOT!!  I am also guessing MORE tour dates will be released, (most likely soon) and I would guess that the odds of them coming to San Diego are very good.. so we could even hold out til they release more tour dates... Sooooooooooooo who's in?? you could see this or this or even this (all pictures I took at concerts (Hollywood and San Diego in 09)btw or make me go alone (then I just get Danny to myself.. *swoon*) sooooo???? oh you know you want to....

Every year (well for the last 4 any way) our school has it's gala and auction.  This is usually our big fundraiser of the year, and this year it went SO well. It was tons of fun, and I am so very thrilled that I got to be a part of it. Great food, great emcee :) and a super great time!  Huge thank yous to everyone who helped make this possible.  Our little school raised over 27,000$ and that my friends is pretty dang impressive. :) I already showed you the lovely painting I bought (generously donated by my friend and favorite artist Padgett), but here are a few other faboo photos from our fun little event.

Well it's almost upon us.. Thanksgiving, which means I'll be getting a Christmas card from Michelle the day AFTER Thanksgiving :), which means I need to start getting my Christmas cards ready, WHICH means that I should have a photo of my family to put in said Christmas card. I don't.  It is not for lack of trying. I've even had an appt.. or 12 to GET photos.. but something ALWAYS has come up. Between marching band, soccer, whooping cough, pink eye, the flippin Navy, plague of locusts, flood, famine, pirate pillagers et al.. I have no family photo. Soooo here are some Christmas card options.. A) Have all of my children draw a caricature of themselves B) Send a picture of the dogs (in santa hats of course) C) use one of these....   think anyone will notice???                                                             ...

which is good because I have a lot of them! I like to talk. A LOT. You may have noticed? No?? I even try to focus on NOT talking. It never works! I think part of my problem is I am easily distracted. So I will walk into the meeting/event/dinner/ what have ya.. PLANNING NOT to talk.. then I get sidetracked by shiny lights, or colorful objects and BOOM I forget that I'm concentrating on not talking, and then start talking, and then once I start talking I can't stop talking.  I know I know it's annoying, but I seriously CAN'T help it! I think this is why I married a mute. Ok he's not mute, he just doesn't talk much.. hmm I wonder if he talked much BEFORE he met me.. I should look into this.  Maybe I subconsciously try to surround myself with quieter people so that I can talk more and it not seem out of place, or MAYBE I'm completely nuts! No wait.. that's not it. So when it's quiet and I am rambling on, when you can't get a word in edge wise...

I am a mere 9 minutes before midnight, and dangerously close to messing up my amazing Nablpomo streak, and I can't let that happen... sooooooooooooo Look!!  I bought this AWESOME painting at the gala, painted by my favorite artist. I love it!!