Christmas 2015

Oh boy, I can’t believe another Christmas has come and gone.

Christmas break started out with some good ol’ Christmas pictures.

In between that time and December 22, life was pretty normal. I worked both of my jobs, Morgan started working with me at one of my jobs, the brothers played their video games, and my aunt came into town.

On December 22 my dad’s brothers and my aunt’s husband came into town. On the 23rd, we all went to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas. My parents had gone before, but my mom loved it so much that she wanted to go back again so we took the family!

Who’s ready to learn?!?! My siblings are!! 😉

The first exhibit that we went into was the Home for the Holidays one, it mimicked what The White House is like during the Holidays. It showed how it was decorated and all the work that goes into making it Christmasy over there in DC. My favorite part was Curious George, he’s definitely the best cartoon. They have the White House decorated with all sorts of different cartoons. Alice in Wonderland too. I mean, you name it!

This is the replica of one of the many Christmas trees that decorate the White House. Each of the little characters on the tree are hand-made and signed by the maker.

I personally think they are super creepy…but hey it’s not my house 😉 Here’s a close-up of Cinderella for ya!

Rick LOVES The Polar Express so when we saw the train mom wanted him to take a picture. If you know Rick you know he hates allllllll things picture related. This was the best I could do.

One we rounded that corner we got to The Lamb of God. Every year, George Bush hand paints a canvas. They then have the painting put into an ornament and sell it in the gift shop. He’s seriously talented. It was cool looking at it from the side to see where the raises were from the paint. In the top corner you can also see a cross.

We walked to the other side of the library and the first thing you see is all this information about his life. Where George and Laura both grew up, what home was like, raising their girls, etc. There are narratives where he starts talking as well. I took a picture of this quote, because I just really liked it.

After seeing a mock oval office, we went to this theater. Every player had the opportunity to get information from congress, the united nations, and others about a situation we all voted on. Everyone in the room picked Saddam Hussein and so we’d get the information and vote on it. At the end it showed us what George Bush chose to do and what the room chose to do about the situation. Our room chose the same thing Bush did. That was really cool to see!

After we went through the gift shop on our way out, purchased little mementos, and walked out, I of course requested a picture.

The fam minus my dad and the uncle my aunt is married to! And me of course.

Then we got a picture of everyone in besides my aunt this time. Ahhhh, what a fine looking group of Middletons.

Goodbye George Bush Museum!

Christmas Eve consisted of wrapping, eating clam chowder for dinner, going to Church, and volunteering at Church. But Christmas morning came and everyone was all kinds of excited…especially Rick. He couldn’t sleep!

The Christmas morning family room!

After we opened stockings, my dad needed eye drops. Rick being the oh-so-kind son that he is decided dad needed moral support so he held his hand. Weird family…

We finished presents around 2:00p.m. and all layed around with our gifts and played with our presents for a couple hours. Around 5:00 my dad, uncle, and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. We got back, ate dinner, and then by 8:00 we were playing Bean Boozled that I had my mom get my brother!

If you’ve never played before it’s pretty simple. When it’s your turn you spin the spinner and eat the jellybean that it lands on. The spinner will show you two options that the jellybean might be…for example “Chocolate Pudding or Canned Dog Food”. This game was SO FUNNY! We were all cracking up at each other, but not when it was our turn. You should play at least once! But I will warn you: I got canned dog food and I seriously felt like I could taste it the next morning still. Awful.

My dad’s brothers left the next morning and I went into work while Morgan, my mom and aunt went to run errands. I went with them later in the afternoon and then we hung out the rest of the day. My aunt and uncle left Sunday and we’ve been unpacking gifts and cleaning up the house since everyone has been gone. Christmas was awesome this year.

I love this Holiday. And I hope you enjoyed yours too!

Thursday Favorites: Christmas On The Mind Edition

Well, tomorrow i’ll be elsewhere (come back to find out where!) so today i’m posting my Friday Thursday FAVORITES.

…with Erika, Narci, and Andrea of course.

And actually that brings me to number 1 today. A couple of weeks ago when Erika guest blogged for me on her love of online shopping, I didn’t really understand fully what she was talking about. I’d online shopped before, but not that much. After I ordered one thing in the mail this Christmas season, I just kept ordering because I AM OBSESSED WITH online shopping now. I mean, it’s my FAVORITE. This is me on Christmas morning last year and I can only imagine what this year will be like since I hardly had to go anywhere!! Which may or may not have meant more shopping and more gifts 😉

Speaking of deliveries and going places, I put this little gift together last night. I actually found this on Pinterest so I can’t take credit for it. After looking at it, I decided it was perfect and had to do one for our mail carrier. For $3.50, you can easily make their day. It’s not anything huge, but it’s something to let them know we are thinking about them during the holidays too. Making people feel special is one of my FAVORITES.

And speaking of the holidays…this week we attempted our Christmas card picture. The brothers hate, hate, haaaaattteee taking these pictures. Me, any pictures are my FAVORITE so it doesn’t bother me and Morgan doesn’t care either way. This is usually a huge ordeal because the brothers don’t cooperate and it takes hours, so finally my mom just started snapping pictures…

…she obviously has a gift for the flattering pictures…

…but we ended up with one that nobody hated so we called it a winner, and were done no more than 5 minutes later!

Merry Christmas from the Middletons!

Speaking of Christmas, I went out with my mom and aunt last night to do some shopping and they take a sweet forever just to go through the aisles of the dollar store. So when we finally made it to Target I was about to keel over, naturally I hopped in the cart like the mature adult that I am.

Notice the fuzzy socks, leggings, and house shoes. #FAVORITE #it’smyuniform

Month 2 Fitness Goals: Week 2 Update

Having goals is one of my very FAVORITE way to keep me accountable. Now, how did I do this week you ask?

• No eating within an hour of a meal. I did surprisingly well with this goal. I think part of the time I was conscious about it, but most of the time I was just listening to my body so if I wasn’t super hungry I didn’t eat. I’ve really found how much listening to your body makes a difference.
• No QuestBars or Larabars more than 2 days in a row.  I actually did this one!! I think without even realizing it though. Although some days I did have one and a half, and some days I had some dark chocolate bark things or others in place. But at least i’m cutting back on these!
• Continue working out 5 days a week. Yep, check! I’ve worked out every day except for yesterday this week. And I probably would have had I not talked myself into taking a break…it’s so needed!
• Be in bed by 11:00. Nope. In fact, i’m finishing typing this up at 1:00AM. You guys, I told you this was going to be a real deal for me! My uncle even called me out on it when he saw I had texted him late the other night…oops.

Whew! And now this time next week it will be Christmas Eve…can you even believe that?! Ahhhh, I hope the rest of my online shopping arrives by then or things could get #awkward around here 😉

Have a great day!

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Boo! Why am i’m just now recapping this holiday a week later? Because lots of fun stuff has been happening on the blog this week!!

Monday was all things stocking stuffers related.
Tuesday was the ULTIMATE giveaway.
Wednesday had us talking about great reads for the month.

And today is all about Thanksgiving. I love this Holiday.

You know, when you’re old and grown and have grey hair (ha, kidding) Thanksgiving break just doesn’t hold the same meaning. In grade school we got the week off to literally sit around and do nothing at all. That’s not so much the case when you have to be an adult and still make money. Therefore, I got Tuesday and Thursday off…where I did absolutely nothing productive.

This girl came home late Friday so I met up with her for dinner on Saturday night. We went back to her house afterwards to watch One Tree Hill and eat our popcorn with butter because #traditions.

Morgan came home the Thursday before Emily. She did a lot playing Mario with Rick…but I joined in too. I didn’t really know what I was doing so I kept dying at all the levels and they wouldn’t save me anymore so I wasn’t allowed to play. RUDE.

One day (I began to lose track of my days) my mom was wrapping presents in the guest room, so I took my laptop in there to work on my school stuff while Santa’s workshop was producing. We had Christmas music playing and the sun shining in on us. Life was good.

There were a couple (heated) games of Monopoly. Someone might have quit…not to name names *cough rick cough*. But it was still fun.

We usually do our Christmas cards during Thanksgiving break when everyone is home to give enough time to have them out by Christmas…we got lucky last year and used this one from our vacation last July.

But we didn’t take them last week. By the time we started planning outfits, it just got too late. So that might be happening next week when Morgan comes home again. Maybe.

 Finally it was the long anticipated time of the week. Mom always plans to eat around 4, but everyone was starving at 3….alas we waited until 4:00 and…

…Potatoes, Yams, Green Bean, Corn, Cranberry, Turkey, Ham (WHAT?! Yes, only my family…), jello (Morgan really wanted jello, so she made our family. You can kind of see them), and pumpkin pie for dessert. Oh my!

Here’s a totally unflattering picture of me. The 4 siblings went to see Mockingjay part 2 Thanksgiving night (Ryan’s hiding). I had never seen any of the series before, but Morgan briefed me a little beforehand. We got there super early and the guy that ended up sitting closest to me smelled, was chomping on his popcorn loudly, sniffling, and just about everything else that annoyed me enough to have my mom pick me up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it for 2 hours, so her and I popped popcorn and watched Hallmark movies. And yes the siblings laughed at me when they got home, but I actually thought i’d go crazy…tell me you’ve had an experience like that before too.

I didn’t take as many pictures as usual this Thanksgiving. A lot of the time I was working, doing schoolwork, or online shopping so it was nothing glamorous. Along with looking like ^^^ most of the “break” because why wear make-up when you don’t have to, right???

We still had a good time. And a great Thanksgiving. And now as we go into the rest of the year and begin a new one, i’m really focusing on this quote…

Christmas Pictures

This is crazy early because fall has only just begun, so don’t hate me for this!!! But, in spirit of the first official day of fall (YAY!) i’m posting about Christmas Cards. Some of you may not want to think about it, but Christmas will be here before you know it. For us, we always try to get our Christmas pictures done with before Thanksgiving. I know, I know, it’s out of the spirit, but you’ll see why… Christmas pictures for our family is a MULTIPLE HOUR fiasco. We tell my brothers that we are taking Christmas pictures….cue the whining.

It takes a lot of prepping…boys want to look pretty.

Girls don’t want to be looking this creepy.

 

Most years we take the “school picture” photo. Do you remember in grade school they always make you tilt your head and lift you chin and you just look like a fool? Well, we do. And we like to make fun of it.

Or you get squinty eyes.

We have to use “back-drops” AKA dad holding a sheet and mid-picture drops it on our head.

And eventually, you will get there.

Merry Christmas from the Middletons 2010.

And the next year, you’ll wear different clothes.

You’ll always get someone goofing around.

You’ll get one you think is cute, but someone else hates.

You’ll get the family’s “typical picture.”

You’ll get some other random poses, and when looking at it you’ll wonder what the heck you were doing.

This specific year we thought it would be a good idea to incorporate our sports into the picture. SO we tried more poses.

And we finally get one.

Merry Christmas from the Middletons 2011.

The next year maybe the same-ish colors, but switch kids. We took these pictures when I was home for Thanksigiving break my freshman year at OU. My parents usually end up sending our Christmas card out waaay late, so this is when we finally decided on starting earlier in the year.

    

We always try different poses, different places, different angles, different lighting, etc. to make sure that we can get ONE that is acceptable.

 

Merry Christmas from the Middletons 2012.

And then when we procrastinate and don’t do it during Thanksgiving break, it’s too cold to go outside. This particular year we went with the military green and black for the boys.

“Really, we have to check the lighting in every angle of the house?”

This one was just too awkward and blurry…it happens.

This one just….no. We tried to go with the cute presents in front look, but it didn’t work. Rick looks gigantic with that present and Ryan looks goofy.

Personally, this was my favorite. It was cozy and casual.

Merry Christmas from the Middletons 2013.

And let me just tell you this. We have our Christmas cards. Well, they aren’t sent out, but they just have to be addressed for this year. YAY! No fuss, no hassle!! And we had them done in JULY!

We started with the generic pose.

And then I was taken out of the family for a shot. 😦

 

And we took different poses here as well.

 

And we took some just the kids. Don’t make fun of me!!! I know i’m short 🙂 

And some of just mom and dad.

Now I created a couple options for our Christmas cards. Mom and dad couldn’t agree (go figure) so dad’s sending out his and mom’s sending out hers. His and hers Christmas cards.

Merry Christmas from the Middletons 2014.

What we’ve learned from Christmas pics:

1. Start as early in the year as possible. If you are anything like our family when taking Christmas pictures, you will be so relieved when you’re done before the season, with one less thing to stress about.

2. Have everything prepared beforehand. Know where you are going, who is taking the pictures, what you’re wearing, what poses you want to do. It will just go so much more smooth when everyone has an understanding of what to expect. 

3. Look for clothes in your closet. We don’t want to purchase a bunch of new outfits for a snapshot picture that most everyone will throw away in two weeks. We use whatever we can find that we have in our closets, and if we need something else, we can go get it. Also why we start planning early!

4. Utilize Costco’s website. If you have never used Costco’s website and you are a member. USE IT! We take our own pictures, upload them to Costco’s website. And get 50 cards for $16.00 with tax (don’t quote me on that), envelopes and all. So cheap and they have many options for greeting cards.

5. If you have pictures from a summer vacation, use them. Our card this year is from our Orange Beach vacation back in July. And we’re done. We don’t have to worry about it, no whining males. It’s great. Plus it’s a little different than what we normally do.

6. Don’t be afraid of bribery. Tell your kids if we can get this picture done in an hour, we get can dessert tonight, or whatever your kids/family like! It works, and bribery can be key sometimes. My brothers are 13 and 15, and we bribe them still. Or maybe it’s just the male species….:)

Good luck, friends. I hope your Christmas cards turn out wonderful for 2014!!!!