Snow at Christmas!

Sunday will go down in 2010 as the day the BLIZZARD came. Poor Al had to work so he missed out on all the snow fun. The kids had a blast playing in it - if I had not been sick, we would have stayed outside longer and played until our legs were froze. :)

Molly wasn't sure what to make of the snow! But she enjoyed playing in it too.

It's a shame that we snow so infrequently that just a little bit makes us giddy!

Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I took a ton of photos of Christmas this year - but you'll just have to go to Facebook and look at them. I am BEAT. Christmas is the most wonderful day of the year, but also probably the longest. And on top of that, I have a horrible cold that has gotten worse instead of better. Boo. Oh, and we're supposed to get snow so Al is on call for work at any time. *sigh* OF COURSE....I'm sick so it would have to snow so he will be away for 12 hours and the kids will probably be hyped up. Fun times!

Anyways, we had a great day celebrating with Al's family. The kids got way too much but it's so cool how many little ones there are now that it just makes it that much better. Take a look at my photos. Sorry I don't feel well enough to post more - but I'm heading to bed to get some rest before I'm on duty tomorrow! :)

Christmas

Christmas Eve

Santa is on his way! Santa is on his way!!! We are just getting home from Nana and Poppy's house after celebrating Christmas with them and already the kids are in the bed. Olivia is TERRIFIED that Santa will come and she won't be asleep. Oh, how I love the magic of Santa....I dread the day when it's gone on these two!

We had a wonderful time with my parents - they spoil the kids way too much....and Al and I for that matter! And no matter what I get them, it never really seems to be enough to say "Thanks" - So Nana and Poppy - THANK YOU for all you do for us. We appreciate it more than we say. Tomorrow we spend Christmas with Al's side of the family and it's always a ton of fun. So many little ones running around now - it's completely chaotic and perfect all at the same time.

Poppy, Cooper and O

Family portrait at Nana's house.

Me and the kiddos on our way over to spend Christmas with my 'rents.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Sending cards to Santa

One of the coolest things about living in Hartsville is the town Christmas tree with it's own Santa mail box. This is something that was started last year by the mayor and I think it's an absolutely WONDERFUL idea. So this morning we got up early, the kids wrote out their Christmas lists and we headed out to mail them to Santa. I've been meaning to do this for a few weeks now so I hope it's not too late to get a response from the Big Guy. Last year he actually wrote back to both kids! How frigging cool is that?

Me and the kids in front of the tree.

It was pretty cold and windy!

Cooper putting his letter in the mailbox.

O's turn! Have you noticed that she wears those Ugg's like EVERYWHERE?

O's Christmas list....she wants a lot!

Coop's Christmas list....which includes "a sheep," "a school bus," "an airplane," "a Wii," and "a real camera" - among many other things!

He did all the writing except for the return address. How awesome is that?

Well....you know....

You know how busy it is in December right? So you don't hate me for not blogging much this month do you? :)

I think I am done Christmas shopping - except for two gifts....so in reality, I guess I'm not as done as I think. I hope to finish that up tomorrow so that I can steer clear of the crowds that form at the store so close to Christmas. This week is the last week of school for the kids and then they are out until 2011. Man, I wish work had the same schedule! They are so excited about Christmas break and just Christmas in general this year. I love the age the kids are at - they are so fun. But, it won't be long before all this magic is gone. I plan on enjoying it as much as possible.

Al is a great man - I say this because he let me trade my Jeep Liberty in on a car. I got a Nissan Altima - and I love it! I love the way it handles, the smooth ride, the leather seats, the sunroof, the 6 CD changer, the XM radio - and most importantly...the GAS MILEAGE. So much better than the Jeep.

But on a serious note - my Uncle Mitchell is having open heart surgery tomorrow morning. Please say a HUGE prayer that everything goes smoothly and he recovers well. My mom is also having a procedure done to her back because it's hurting again. Pray that is something minor and she doesn't have to go through back surgery again. Lots of stuff going on right now - so all prayers are needed.

Anyways, I promise to get back into the swing of things as soon as possible. I have a few things to blog about - like the kids starting Upward Basketball again, the THA Christmas program - but I just don't have time to get it done right now.

Christmas Parade 2010

We got up this morning and headed out to the Hartsville Christmas Parade. We met Uncle Adam and Loren up there and had a really good time!

THA representing in the parade. Go THA!

Santa and Mrs. Claus. :)

O and Loren

Loren, Olivia and Cooper - it was COLD!

I love the horses in the parade....they've always been my favorite part.

Daddy and Cooper - my two men!

The clown car - it was a hoot!

Christmas Card

Peppermint Bliss Christmas 5x7 folded card

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Happy Birthday Louis!

Happy 4th Birthday to the most wonderful little nephew in the whole wide world!

Oh yeah, Aunt Mandy hooked him up. :)

The birthday boy - who wasn't feeling pictures at the moment.

Blowing out the candles! Love that little face.

Amy and Josie (she turns the big ONE in March!)

Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving to all my loyal blog readers!!! What are you most thankful for today?

I have so much to be thankful for - a job I enjoy, a house to sleep in, good health, the love of family and friends, a husband that loves me at my worst, a God that loves me and forgives me - and for the two most wonderful people I help "create"....Olivia and Cooper!

Like every other Thanksgiving, we spent the day between our two families. We had a wonderful lunch at Nana and Poppy's house and loaded up on turkey and dressing! Later we headed over to Grandma and Papa Alton's and visited with Louis, Josie, Loren, Amy and Jay. It's been a wonderful, yet exhausting day! I think I could OD on some dressing and gravy right now. Ha! And I am looking forward to putting up the Christmas tree and all the decorations in the next few days too!

My two hearts. :)

Griggs Family - Thanksgiving 2010

Me and my two "thank yous!"

Hello 33!

I'm 33 years old today! :)

I've had a wonderful, great, joyous, happy - you name it - birthday today. The kids have been more excited about my birthday than I've been. Ha ha! O was absolutely beside herself all morning....and since Muffins for Mom was today at school, *everyone* at THA knew it was my big day before I left. :) I love my girl's enthusiasm.

I have so many goals for myself this year, it's not funny. I'm still going strong with my running program and I find myself enjoying running more and more. I am so proud of myself I can't stand it - and I've never been proud of MYSELF about anything before. The feeling of accomplishing something that I thought I would NEVER be able to do is unreal. I WILL run a 5k in 2011. 33 is going to be my year. I just know it! :)

Goodbye 32

Today is my last day as a 32 year old! And you know what? I'm totally cool with that.

I can't think of anything specific on why this past year has been great - unless you count the fact that God has provided me with good health, two happy kids, a man that loves me no matter how crazy I get, family that adores me, and friends that I could never dream of living without. Ok, that's specific enough isn't it?

I'm looking forward to another year - and I pray that God blesses me with all the same that he's given me. Because honestly, that's all I need and all I really want. So, bring it on 33! You don't scare me. After all, I'm still pretty hot! :)

Funny

A Diary Review: Moving to South Carolina, 2010

May 30, 2010:

Just moved to Columbia, South Carolina from Chicago, Illinois. Now, this is a city that knows how to live!Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. What a place! I watched the sunset from a park while lying on a blanket. It was beautiful. I've finally found my home. I love it here.

June 14, 2010:

Really heating up.Got to 100 degrees today. Not a problem. Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I'm turning into a sun worshipper.

June 30, 2010:

Had the backyard landscaped with western plants today. Lots of cactus and rocks. The yard is a breeze to maintain! No more mowing the lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love living in Columbia.

July 10, 2010:

The temperature hasn't been below 100 degrees all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least it's kind of windy, but getting used to the heat and humidity is taking longer that I expected.

July 15, 2010:

Fell asleep by the pool.(Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body.) Missed 3 days of work. What a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson, though. Got to respect the ol' sun in a climate like this.

July 20, 2010:

Morgan (our cat) sneaked into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got to the hot car for lunch, Morgan had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag and stank up the $2,000 leather upholstery. I told the kids that she ran away. The car now smells like Kibbles and shits. I learned my lesson, though. No more pets in this heat.

July 25, 2010:

The wind sucks. It feels like a giant freaking blow dryer! And it's hot as hell! The home air-conditioner is on the fritz, and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive by and tell me he needed to order the parts.

July 30, 2010:

Been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. The monthly house payment is $1,500 and we can't even go inside. Why did I ever come here?

August 4, 2010:

It's 105 degrees. Finally got the air-conditioner fixed today for a cost of $900. The temperature gets down to 78 degrees, but this freaking humidity makes the house feel like it's about 95 degrees. I hate this stupid city.

August 8, 2010:

If another wise ass person cracks, "Hot enough for ya today?" I'm going to strangle him. Damn heat. By the time I get to work, the radiator is boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like baked cat!

August 9, 2010:

Tried to run some errands after work. Wore shorts and sat on the black leather seats in the ol' car. I thought my ass was on fire. I lost two layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs and ass. Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried ass, and baked cat.

August 10, 2010:

The weather report might as well be a damn recording. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. It's been too hot to do anything for two damn months, and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn't it ever rain in this damn desert? Water rationing will be next, so I might as well watch $1,700 worth of cactus just dry up and blow into the damn pool. Not even cactus can live in this damn heat.

August 14, 2010:

Welcome to HELL!!! The temperature got to 105 degrees today. Forgot to crack the window and blew the damn windshield out of the car. The installer came to fix it and said, "Hot enough for ya today?" My wife had to spend the $1,500 house payment to bail me out of jail. Freaking South. What kind of a sick demented idiot would want to live here?

LOL - Pretty funny because most of it is true right? :)

Already....

It's already the first week of November. And that week is almost over! Wow. Can this year go by ANY faster? I'm happy to report that we all survived Halloween - still have a *ton* of candy, but I plan on throwing some away little by little over the weekend. My goal is to be candy free by the end of the week. Wish me luck. :)

Nothing new to really report - I have started this "running" program with my friend Pam. We're 3 weeks in and it is STILL tough. Of course, neither of us are runners so I think we're doing awesome. Our goal is to run a 5k by April or May next year. I'm not quite at the place where I can say I enjoy running, but I definitely feel better after I do it. Basically we're building up the length of time we run - this program is designed to "teach" you to run if you've never ran before. Of course, my ultimate goal is to lose weight. :) I feel pretty awesome about myself for keeping this up though.

Oh, and I turn the big 33 in about 2 weeks. Yikes!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Our two little monsters racked up on Halloween goodies this year!
And that's a good thing for Mommy and Daddy. :)

Funny story - we stopped at a neighbors house down the road and apparently he didn't have any candy yet. Instead of just telling the kids he didn't have any candy, he ran to his kitchen and grabbed two root beers and two packs of pudding. Yeap, you totally read that right. I laughed so hard I was literally in tears. The kids thought it was awesome. I have no idea who he is, but he is my new hero. Of course, by the time we got back up the street, he had the door closed and the light off! Ha!!!

My kids are awesome!

Olivia made STRAIGHT A's!!!!! We are ssooo proud of her! Especially after the tough year she had last year, I couldn't have asked for a better teacher than Mrs Jenner! Thank you Mrs J for helping my daughter love school again!

Cooper also got a GREAT report! He doesn't get a report card but he did get an "assessment" sheet and did WONDERFUL. I can't even begin to tell you the difference in him from last year to this year. He has a few things he still needs to work on but that's ok and to be expected.

We are so proud of our kiddos!

Boo at the Zoo

Boo at the Zoo is AWESOME!!!!

Al and I took the kids over to Riverbanks Zoo yesterday evening for their very first Boo at the Zoo. We had the best time ever. They got lots of candy, goodies, we made s'mores, danced in a street party, and saw some of the cutest costumes EVER. We even ran into my friend Tommi Lynn and her kids. And the absolute BEST part? The kids were knocked out on the ride home - thank you Boo at the Zoo!!!

Can you find the kids? :)

Lugi and a giant spider.

Olivia aka Vampire Panda/Princess Peach. Oh, one of the Zoo workers actually recognized O's costume as Princess Peach. She was sooooo happy. Of course, nobody else had a clue....but no "I told you so" from Mommy. :)

Family photo!

Me and my two super heroes on our way to the zoo. Aren't they the cutest EVER? Yeah, I think so too.

Two people

These two beautiful, perfect, people were created (or invented as O would say)........

...by these two imperfect people! And with that, made us perfect for each other. :)

What is Daddy thinking?

This is how the kids look when Daddy is on duty. :) I find them to be super cute Rag-a-Muffins, don't you?

O's outfit is incomplete in this picture - she absolutely HAS to pick out her own clothes, and well, she has her own style. I'm a blue jeans, tee shirt kind of girl - O LOVES dresses, skirts, anything sparkly, etc. So she had picked out this outfit. I fought - told her it didn't match.....but in her little world, it was *perfect* - so I gave in and let her. She wore her new metallic pink cowboy boots too. She was rocking it out for sure! Hey, if she's happy, then it keeps all of us happy. :)

I'm pretty sure that's chocolate icing on Cooper's face - although I'm not sure where his other sock is....and come to think of it, I still haven't found it! I'm sure it'll turn up somewhere outside - Molly will find it for me! LOL

Monkey

How stinking cute is this cake I did tonight? ADORABLE! I sure hope Chance likes it on Saturday when he turns the big ONE years old. :)

10-10-10

Happy 10-10-10!!!!

Something about this day is making my kids act like wild monkeys though.

Sally Loves Joey

Have I mentioned lately that O has a wild imagination? Today she wanted to play pretend "Sisters" so she was my little sister, Bella and I was the older sister, Sally. Cooper wasn't really interested in our game so he didn't play. Ha ha! Al wasn't my husband - Sally is only 18 after all! - so he was my boyfriend Joey. And I was taking care of my little sister while our parents were on vacation for 2 weeks. This little game of O's lasted about 2 hours. NO LIE. My girl does not break character in the land of pretend.

Sally's declaration of love for her man, Joey (pronounced like JOOOOEEEYYY).

Bella

Those are new jeans folks - and now they are covered in dirt and side walk chalk. UGH.....little boys are killer!

Red 40 Update

I thought I'd give a quick update on how the whole Red 40 diet has been going.

It's been going WONDERFULLY!!!!! I can not believe how easy it is to actually purge this stuff from our diets - there's so many options out there, it's unreal. Of course, I can't keep Cooper from eating ALL foods with Red 40 in it, but I think we've done a great job at eliminating as much as we can. And believe it or not, most of the stuff I find isn't organic or any more expensive than what we normally eat.

Can we tell a difference? YES, YES, and YES!!! Even Cooper's teachers have told me how great he's doing this year in school. It just amazes me on what this kid is retaining these days - such a difference from last year. He started a hip hop class a few weeks ago too and I promise you - HE remembers more of what he's learned in class that day than Olivia does! Of course, I don't know if eliminating Red 40 has been the only thing that has helped our boy....the fact that he's a little older could be a factor too.

I definitely think we've done a job though - and I most definitely think my Lil' Man is reaping the benefits. Way to go Cooper!!!!

Thanks to Matt Damon

I decided to start this blog for many reasons - mainly for my family and friends that live across the US. And I really enjoy writing, so blogging comes easy for me. Every now and then though, this blog is my "therapy" and I bravely let everyone in on how my crazy brain works.

So, back to the title - Matt Damon is to blame for a MAJOR hormonal moment I had last night. I've seen the previews for "Hereafter" a few times but never really "saw" them, you know? And I still have no idea what the main concept of the movie is - what Matt Damon's character is supposed to be doing - but I do know I'll NEVER see this movie. Last night while playing games on FB (my guilty pleasure), I looked up and saw a part of the preview where a mother and child is running from a massive wave of water. The look of fear and panic unnerved me. And it's obvious the wave wins the race. So, at that moment, nothing in my heart or head said anything. That would happen a few hours later.

I can't explain it....and if I could, I'd probably be rich - but later that night while I walked by the kids room and looked in on them, that imagine of the mother and daughter running from the tsunami wave rushed into my brain. And the tears started flowing. Not just little tears folks - I mean, real LARGE tears that make the snot run down your nose. Al's response "Mandy, those are just actors you know" - UGH. Just like a man.

Yes Al, I KNOW they are just actors. I KNOW the wave isn't really there about to crash down on them, that it's computer animated (or generated - whatever the word is) but I do KNOW that someone, somewhere during that time, actually went through that. Some mother run for her life with her child in tow. My heart was touched folks - thanks to Matt Damon.

Crazy thing though about this though.....during this whole, little, crying episode I was having - my brain was looking around saying "What the heck is going on? I thought we were going for a glass of water and now we're crying?" And my heart was saying "Shut up Brain, she's feeling something here. Let her cry, it'll be ok." Just for the record - my little episode only lasted a few minutes so please don't think I'm losing it.

And no, I'm not pregnant either. It was Matt Damon's fault for making that movie. I'm sure it's a wonderful movie - it definitely looks like it will be, but I'll probably never see it. My heart can't take it.

What's up Nick?

Today Nickelodeon supported and encouraged "World Wide Play Day" - which normally I would say is an absolute WONDERFUL thing. Problem is - isn't Nickelodeon and other channels like that part of the reason "we" felt there was a need to promote such a day?

I'll be the first to admit that I probably use the TV as an easy way out with my kids. Especially at 6am on a Saturday morning. Yes, Mommy likes to sleep a little later than that on the weekends so I'll pull the "ya'll go watch tv" card. Ok, and maybe I pull that card when I'm trying to help O with her homework and Cooper is running around the house at warp speed. I'm sure there's more examples but I'd like to think those are the only two. :)

Anyways, I just feel that although Nick was doing a great thing with this WW Day of Play gig, maybe they should promote playing outside - oh, I don't know - EVERYDAY. Three hours one day just isn't enough in the grand schemes of things. But I jumped on board today - I forced the kids outside in the heat (even though it's officially FALL) and made them play. The only way to keep them from coming in and out every two seconds was to actually go outside with them. *sigh* (That wasn't supposed to be part of the deal!!!!) It didn't last the whole three hours but I did get some outside play time of those two.

Fall

It's Fall! Today is the first day of Fall! Yay!!!!! *Now*, when is this heat going to go away????

It's been a busy few weeks here in the Griggs household. School is in full force and the kids are LOVING it - which makes Mommy and Daddy love it too! :) Olivia got her first interim report yesterday and so far.................................................she's making STRAIGHT A's!!!!!!! How frigging awesome is that?? I feel so much better about O and her teacher this year. And Cooper....wow, what can I say about Cooper? He's doing GREAT in school this year. And I swear that kid is growing way too fast. You should see his legs, I think they sprouted 5 inches!

Cooper - the DS addict. Sad thing is - he's pretty good at it.

Not sure where O gets her sense of style from.....but I have to admit, she's into fashion in a way I can't quite comprehend. Then again, fashion was never my thing. Maybe she gets that from her Daddy and Uncle Marty. :)

This picture always makes me smile....O with her Halloween wig on.

Now that Fall is upon us, I can't wait for festivals, Halloween, hot chocolate, and cooler weather! Hello Fall, Goodbye Summer!