Fried Chicken and Donuts... Sigh

My sister is a director for Purdue Musical Organization. This is the time of year that it gets crazy for her with the Christmas Show that they put on every year. I think that it is nationally televised on Christmas Day...I think. Anyway, I drove over to Purdue last night to see her and listen to a little of the rehearsal. She also had my Christmas cards because I had them made in Lafayette. She also took the picture for the cards, which turned out very nice. She took the one of the kids on my blog header too. She and her hubby have 4 kids, so she takes all of their pictures and they look professional.

Back to my little story. So, Eric woke me up yesterday right in the middle of a dream. I was getting ready to take a bite out of a piece of fried chicken (I know, that's sad) and he woke me up! How rude was that? Well, on my way to see my sister I passed a Chick-fil-A and had to have some nuggets. No, I don't want to know the calories, thankyouverymuch! Before that, I passed a Krispy Kreme with the "HOT NOW" sign on. It was ALL I could do to not turn in.

Here is where I caved...big time.

I sat in the parking lot of Chick-fil-a and ate my 8 piece nuggets, after I squeezed the oil off of them with a napkin. Yes, I did that. This too is sad. It did make me feel better about eating them, so if it works, it works. The problem was, I was sitting there facing the Krispy Kreme "HOT NOW" sign.

Confession time: I ate a donut. Nope, I ate two.

Here's the part that kind of stinks. My stomach hurt so bad on the way home from all of the fat! I haven't had that much fat and sugar at one time for awhile now. It was so totally NOT worth it girls!

My husband was ever so loving to look up the calories in those donuts, and lets just say that I was at Curves first thing this morning!

Here is a picture from Thanksgiving of me and my sister. I actually have two sisters. I am not sure where the other one was during this photo session. I will have to get her in the next one. My dad took these. He was being kind of ornery, which explains the first picture!

My 100th post! Grab some coffee and a cookie, you may be here awhile!

So, this is the famous 100th post. I guess I am supposed to tell you 100 things about me. I'm here to tell ya that it is going to be very hard because I really am not that interesting.


1. This is my favorite wall in my house:

2. I love pictures (like you didn't know that already!)
3. I am 32
4. I have lived in the same town for all but maybe a year of my life.
5. I want to move somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight...
6. I can usually think of a song for EVERYTHING -- ask Tasha, she'll tell you!
7. I worked in a bank for a long time before staying home with the kids.
8. I loved working at a bank
9. I might go back to banking soon... who knows??
10. I like to sing
11. I sing in the church choir
12. I sang in the school choir in high school
13. I also played on the high school tennis team.
14. Tennis is my favorite sport and running is second.
15. I used to play the piano.
16. I wish now that I would have practiced more and stuck with it
17. two of my kids take piano and I want Ben to take too.
18. It's been fun to see them learn how to play
19. I want them to stick with it so they won't be sorry later on in life.
20. I have played on the church volleyball, softball and bowling teams.
21. I have been in charge of VBS at my old church.
22. THAT is a lot of work, so kudos to all of you that have been there!
23. We went on a cruise with our best friends about 5 years ago
24. Tasha got me to sing Karaoke with her.
25. We sang Rocky Top -- it was pretty funny!
26. I would love to visit New York sometime and California
27. We took the kids to Disney World a few years ago with my parents.
28. They are still talking about it, that's cool.
29. We love to visit our family in Alabama
30. They're the best darn family a girl could have!
31. I graduated from high school in 1993
32. I was an average to above average student that could have applied herself a little more. ;)
33. I am blessed enough to have three best friends
34. Tasha
35. Angie
36. Tiffany
37. I love them all
38. I also have two sisters
39. Michelle
40. Sharon
41. I love them too!
42. I like to read, when I have time.
43. I like the Cape Light series from Thomas KInkade/ Katherine Spencer
44. I am running out of things to say
45. I don't care for the snow and ice
46. I might just be happy not to have to deal with snow very much...ever.
47. We got like a million inches on Valentines Day last year.
48. Maybe it was more like 19 or something

49. It was more than I ever want to see again

50. My favorite food is pizza

51. My favorite drink is Diet Mountain Dew

52. We never had a pet, growing up

53. Then we got a poodle three years ago...

54. now I know why we never had a pet, growing up!

55. This post is totally stressing me out

56. One of my favorite songs is "Blessing in the Thorn" by Phillips, Craig and Dean

57. It's a powerful song

58. The UPS man just knocked on my door. Let's see what he brought...

59. It's my vitamins and energy drinks... I need one of those to finish this post

60. This is something that I recently purchased. I love it!

61. Let's see... 40 more to go

62. I have been married for 11 years.
63. We lived in Chicago for 5 months after Eric graduated from Purdue. We hated it.
64. We were young with a new baby
65. I got pregnant with Ethan 6 weeks after we got married.
66. The honeymoon was over real quick!
67. I wouldn't trade him for all the money in the world
68. He was going to be a n only child, but Sarah came along 3 1/2 years later.
69. Ben was 19 months after her.
70. I think we're done with the baby thing
71. Unless the Lord chooses to trust us with another one
72. I have 15 nieces and nephews, 6 girls and 9 boys
73. They range from 4 months old to 21 years old
74. I went to Toys R Us at 5AM on Black Friday --- DUH!!
75. I like to scrapbook
76. Which goes along with the whole loving pictures thing
77. I have really enjoyed blogging
78. I have met some wonderful people through it
79. It has been nice to know that I go through a lot of the same things that they all go through
80. I am really getting stuck now
81. Hmmm.....
82. The best restaurant we have in our town is Applebee's
83. The only bigger store we have is Wal-Mart and it's not super either
84. I would like to live in a bigger town
85. I am most comfortable in jeans and sweatshirts
86. I like to dress up on occasion
87. I did find a black dress to take on our cruise
88. I was excited about that
89. We are really looking forward to the time away
90. just the two of us
91. It's a cruise with Christian artist, so we can't wait
92. It will be fun, fun, fun
93. Is anyone still reading this?
94. I was going to do the Christmas Home Tour thingy that Boomama is doing, but I didn't have the time to figure out how to link up and all of that
95. Someday I will figure all of that out
96. Thanks Alana, for being such a faithful comment poster!
97. I enjoy getting comments from all of you that take the time to do it
98. I know that it's hard sometimes to leave comments on lots of blogs
99. But I do appreciate them
100. Yee Haw --- Love ya ALL!!

over and out!

It's 32 degrees out...let's go to a parade!

What do you do when it's 32 degrees outside? Most "normal" people cozy up to the fireplace with a book or slip under a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate or tea and watch a movie or something. Sounds so nice, doesn't it?

Well, around these parts we feel the need to bundle up and walk downtown for a parade filled with floats covered in Christmas lights and such. Oh and there is the candy that is rock hard because, well, it's frozen. Nothing will make you feel colder than seeing the high school dance team walking down the middle of the street in thier short skirts and nude colored pantyhose. I mean seriously, do they not have pants?

All of this was after a very LONG day of shopping with my sisters. We started our day off at 3 A.M. in Meijer. We were in line for some "hot" items and we actually lasted until 5P.M. That is dedication at it's best. I think that this was the first time that I shopped all day on Black Friday. Usually I will go early and then come home to go to bed and then I finish on another day. I have never seen such long lines at the checkouts. It was fun and I did get some really good buys. The best one was Sarah's Christmas dress which was regularly $60 and I got it for like $15.It's soooo pretty. I am sure there will be a picture of her in it on here shortly.

Did any of you go shopping?


Here are the pictures from the parade.

Not too thrilled with the cold.

Obviously, we live in a town filled with nuts! Oh, I kid!
Did I mention I had been up since 3? This was the last thing that I wanted to do, but Ethan sings in the Children's Choir and they were in the parade.
Cassidy's dad works at a bank in town and they had a float, so here she is all bundled up, strolling down the street.
Did you say Candy?
Aw, pretty
This was the float the Eric's company did. It's a farris wheel with gingerbread men riding on it.
The loot... so far
You can't tell, but they are totally frozen.
The last float... yee haw! Then we had to walk at least a thousand blocks to our car. Maybe it was more like 6, but it felt like 1000!

Turkey Trotin'

I made it! And obviously, I'm still breathing. I did think that I was going to heave though as I was running up the last hill... but I managed to hold it together!
We had such a good time this morning at the Turkey Trot. There were over 300 runners, this is more than they have ever had. I was pretty happy with my time of 43min40sec. (or so). I shaved over 5 minutes off of my time from last year, I was excited about that. Eric finished ahead of me by about 3 minutes and David, my bff Tiffany's man, totally blew me away. He placed 9th overall and second in his age division. Go David!
The Lord was so gracious in giving us a wonderful morning to run after we had a whole day of rain yesterday. I'm talking downpour people. There was no snow or ice... it was perfect.

This is David and me, after the race. Yeah, the hat was staying on. Talk about hat hair!

Daddy and Ben
My mom came and walked the mile with the kids. Sarah and Nic, my nephew, finished first and Ben was second. They ran the whole mile! Ethan stayed with my mom and walked it.
This is Staci(pink), Melinda(red) and Jessie. Staci is Eric sister, Melinda is married to his older brother and Jessie is her daughter.
David with his awesome clear blue plastic, kinda glassy looking, trophy. You go David, you are a machine. I think his time was 25min.40sec. ...or something crazy like that!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! Have fun taking this little Thanksgiving quiz. Enjoy your turkey! By the way, this was the part of Thanksgiving that I am most like: mashed potatoes.

You Are Mashed Potatoes

Oridnary, comforting, and more than a little predictable You're the glue that holds everyone together.

What Part of Thanksgiving Are You?

So I pulled the sofa away from the wall to sweep...

...guess what we're talking about after school today.

Are YOU smarter than a fifth grader?

I am not smarter than a 5th grader. It saddens me to admit that, but I'm not. My son will soon pass me up. I was looking up El Paso, TX on Google maps today and found out that I totally stink at Geography. I had no clue that El Paso was on the west side of Texas, under New Mexico. I thought it was south. Man, even at thirty-two, I'm still learning something new every day.

On to something different now. I have mentioned before that we are running in the 4 mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. All 5 of us are going to participate. The kids are going to do the one mile walk with my mom and we are doing the 4 miles. I ran the course on Saturday, and lets just say that I'm not in it to win. Finishing is my goal, hopefully without having to walk...we'll see. I can say though that I am very happy that I found this at Target. I absolutely love it and it does it's job very well. Let's just say I had an unfortunate costume malfunction last week that prompted me to seek out better support for, you know, stuff. (can I get an Amen from Tasha please!)

So this weekend we had two Thanksgiving dinners to attend. The first one was on Saturday, at my mom and dad's and the second one was on Sunday evening at Eric's mom and dad's. Oh and I shot a 22. I haven't shot a gun in like 18 years. I actually hit the Diet Coke can that my bro-in-law put in the field. It was kinda fun. Unfortunately, we don't have any picture proof, but believe me, I did it.

After many years of trying, we finally got a good picture of all of the Rogers grand kids. This is some crew, so this picture is nothing short of a miracle. Dustin, the oldest, is graduating in the spring, so this could quite possibly be the last one with all of the kids in it. The ages are 17,15,10,8,7,6,5,3,2,1,& 4 months. Whew! Holidays are energetic, to say the least.

Missing My Girl

I miss having my girlie-girl around every day. The Dr. that her mom worked for moved to another city, so she isn't working right now. It's kind of quiet around the house during the day. It makes me feel a little sad, so hopefully a job will come open and I'll get to watch her again soon. You know, when you watch a child from 3 months old on, you get a little attached! I love my Cassidy-girl.

I could just squeeze the stuffing out of her!

You can't see them, but she has on purple wings under her coat!
As you can see, I've rubbed off on her!

Could you just say "cheese"...please?

I was over visiting Alana'a blog and she inspired me to share this photo session that we had about 4 years ago. Wow... 4 years, that seems unbelieveable to me. Anyway, I tell the truth when I say that this particular session took a whopping 2 1/2 hours to complete. Thankfully the person that took them is a cousin of mine. She was very patient, and even feed us supper in the middle. Now, that's what I call service. As you can see be the following pictures, we have three goofy children. Two and a half hours people, two and a half hours.

(notice Ben's pacifier)
This is what we ended up with. Thankfully, our pictures aren't this hard to take now.

Wordless Wednesday

My nieces

Where in the World is Tom Turkey?

I am officially in my fourth year of Kindergarten. All four with the same teacher. I had her 27 years ago, and all three of my kids have had her, with Ben being the last... Yes...the last.

I told her that she couldn't retire until all of my kids got through K... she's free after May!


I am in my third year of cutting things out of the magazines for EACH and EVERY letter of the alphabet. One letter a week, PLUS about 12 colors. One color a week for 12 weeks. Although I do understand the importance of this activity, you know, the finding and cutting and gluing and whatnot--all important. However, the creative juices just don't flow too well. Not to mention the fact that I want to cut all of the jagged edges off of the pictures that the kids have so carefully cut out all by themselves.



I.don't.like.the.jagged.edges.



I try to refrain from this so that it keeps it's kindergartner flair. It's hard, I'm tellin' ya.



So, much to my delight, I found a paper in Ben's bag on Friday attached to a turkey with the instructions that we needed to disguise Tom Turkey so that he won't get eaten on Thanksgiving. Best of all, we needed to do it together, as a family. This was so fun! So look at the picture below and try to find Tom.





I think I'm going to pass Kindergarten...again. Oh, and I promise that I let the kids help. Just not with the cutting.
The next picture is just for fun. I saw this shirt at Gymboree and thought it fit fairly well!

There's some heel on those boots!

This one is for all my shoe lovin' bloggy siestas! Believe it or not, I bought my first pair of heels today at Cato. And best of all, they were only 15.99, marked down from 24.99. I just love a good sale! Can you believe that I am 32 and have never bought a pair of heels? I guess I'm just feeling a little more adventurous these days!

I've been in the midst of changing a few things in my life, one being my weight. It has been a slow and steady process, and I have shed 34.5 pounds this year. I have about 26 to go before I get to my goal weight. It's amazing what can happen when you realize that YOU are not in control of things, but GOD is. Like I said, it's been a long process, but the rewards have been worth it. I know you've heard it before, but it's not a diet, it's a change in lifestyle. It's been good for me not only physically, but mentally and spiritually.

I am a work in progress!

I guess these boots were a bit of a reward.

So, if you read a post on here soon about me having to go to the hospital and get a cast because I broke my ankle trying to walk in these things... don't be too surprised!