Christmas 2011

Well Christmas has come and gone and unfortunately my camera is having issues and I wasn't able to retrieve my pictures. Thankfully my sister in laws took some good pictures and I was able to copy them.
My sister in laws have started a tradition of shopping together every Christmas season and having lunch together. I look forward to this day as we laugh, spend money, eat, and enjoy each other without having to worry about kids, grand kids, and husbands. So we decided to take a picture in front of Jewelie's Christmas tree before we headed to Chandler Mall. Turned out to be a great picture and day.

Me, Jewelie and Penny

While we were out shopping they talked me into buying a Christmas shirt. I didn't want to spend money on a shirt I will only wear once or twice during the year or one that looked like my mom would have worn. But, I have to admit it was a cute shirt and I wore it to the Christmas Eve family party and all day on Christmas.

This year Penny and Rick, my brother and sister in law, hosted the party. We had carne asada, beans, rice, salad, chips and salsa, Tommy's famous guacamole, jello salad, shrimp, and a ton of desserts. It was all really yummy!

This my brother in law Rick who finally got a plate after cooking the meat.

We had our white elephant gift exchange. Above is Angela, my niece. She is patiently waiting for the game to start. Below is the gift I picked. It's a drinking game, buy instead of beer they had root beer with it. Of course it got stolen, in fact all the gifts I picked got stolen. I guess that's the fun of the game.

These are my nieces, Jewelie's daughter and her sister in law. The little one sitting on her mom's lap is a cutie. She used to have red hair but it has turned more blond and very curly. She was a hoot to watch.

Jewelie trying on my shoes. I have really big feet so they didn't fit her.

Yep, this is most of us. We still have family in Florida and Mexico City. We missed them and hopefully they can join us one of these years.
Tommy and I spent Christmas Day with Peanuts family and then to my good friends Wendi's house. We had a blast and it was so much fun to spend time with her son who just returned home from his mission. We ate, laughed, played games and just enjoyed each other.
I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and will have a very Happy New Year!!

Why I Haven't Blogged

First of all I had a birthday on October 28th, and that was at least 7 weeks ago, but that's my first excuse. Since I can never think of what I want for a gift, I figure home improvement things are good. When I painted my bathroom we had all chrome fixtures and I changed them to brushed nickle after we painted except for the sink, bathtub and shower fixtures. So I decided on sink fixtures. This is the before picture and if you look closely you can see where the gunk has eaten away part of the chrome. Yuck!!

New, shiny, pretty, brushed nickle fixture. I love it because the spout is taller and easier to get a glass or your mouth under when you brush your teeth!

The next reason I haven't blogged is because back in August, I bought a used dining table with 6 chairs at a thrift store. My current table on sits 4 people comfortably and you can squeeze 6, but it is a tight fit. I found this set and it was sturdy and in good condition, but as you can see, it needs a little bit of a face lift.

The seats were covered in this outdated blue and peach looking stuff. So off the the fabric store I went and found..............

this. It goes with the colors in my family room which is next to where the table sits. I'm excited to see what it will look like when I finish. That is if I ever finish!

Every spare moment has been working on these chairs. I put the stripping stuff on, but was not able to get to the chairs within the 48 hour time limit and I put it on 3 chairs. STUPID! I think I will stain the set black. Tommy tells me just to paint it but I want the wood grain to show through. Like it will be able to stained black! Oh well, we shall see.

This is after scraping and then I still had to sand them. The spindles in the chair take the longest and it has to be done by hand. Tommy took pity on me and bought me an oscillating tool that has a scraper and sander. So great to do the small areas, but still have to do some by hand and it's taking 4 to 5 hours to do 1 chairs. So far I have 2.99 chairs done. Next time I come up with an idea to do this just shoot me! Every spare moment has been sanding and I now wear a wrist brace every night and aspercream has become my new best friend!

I caught a cold last Sunday and just really wanted to not get out of bed. However, I had to teach my 11 year old Primary kids. Got up, showered, dressed, went to teach and then came home and died! Haven't been to the gym and I haven't sanded.

Since today was cold and overcast I figured what a good day to update the old blog!