Merry Christmas to All!

Christmas was here and now gone, but the celebrating has not stopped. We had a great Christmas. Jamie is enjoying his new GPS. Rachel loves her big slide, books and dolly stuff. I, on the other hand, have not tried my new things out yet. Tomorrow I will use the electric griddle, tonight the magic bullet and hopefully in the near future...my scrapbooking stuff!

Christmas Eve...Rachel and Santa...not a good mix!

Family Photo Op...

After Santa made his stop at our house...

The slide...

The dolly stroller...

During the time off, we have working on the basement...it is amazing what 2 hours down there does! (The scrapbook area is now back to being set-up!) Now, we are getting ready for my brother to get here with his family. If Rachel only knew how much fun is in store for her. Then, we are having a New Years Eve party with brothers, cousins and kiddies!

Christmas and Me

Welcome to the "Christmas Edition" of getting to know your friends. It's the season to be cheerful!!!

1 . Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper
2. Real tree or Artificial? Real!
3. Colored lights or white? Colored
4. When do you put up the tree? Weekend after Thanksgiving
5. When do you take the tree down? Sometime after the New Year…depends on how many needles are falling!
6. Do you like eggnog? In limited doses
7. Favorite gift received as a child? Fur coat for may doll
8. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, but not out this year due to the fingers of a little girl!
9. Hardest person to buy for? My Dad
10. Easiest person to buy for? Rachel
11. Worst Christmas gift ever received? Cowboy boots…don't ask!
12. Mail or email Christmas card? Mail
13. Favorite Christmas Movie? Christmas Vacation for sure! But The Santa Claus and Home Alone are up there too!
14. When do you start shopping for Christmas? October
15. Have you ever recycled/re-gifted a Christmas present? I don't think so, but if I did , I don't think that I would admit to it!
16. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? The Polish Christmas Eve…Fresh Sausage, Perogi, Stuffed Cabbage (Guwumki… sp?)
17. Favorite Christmas song? Oh Holy Night
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay at home!
19. Can you name Santa's reindeer? On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer, on Vixon, on Comit, on Cupid, on Donner, and Blitzen…but do you recall the most favorite reindeer of all…Rudolph! You just have to sing the song. (For the record, I can also sing the Fifty Nifty United States song…which means I can name the states in alphabetical order. Ok, I will admit this too, I may be able to name them, but couldn't find them all on a map! Brett (my nephew) knows them better than me!)
20. Do you have an Angel on top of the tree or a star? Angel
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? In the morning, after Santa comes of course!
22. Stockings or no stockings? Stockings
23. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The traffic at Lakeside Mall
24. Best thing about Christmas? Spending time with family and gifts!

Save the ta-tas!

Did that get your attention??? As many of you know, my mom died as a result of breast cancer. I believe that she was 36 when she was diagnosed, so in December I am having a baseline mamogram. Well, yesterday I watched a tv special on channel 7 and it was about breast cancer. I thought that I would share the Internet link, because this is something that could happen to any one of us. I will admit this, I don't do the self breast exams as often as I should. I am getting better. I encourage you...better yet, challange...you to keep up on this!

http://www.wxyz.com/content/community/townhall/breastcancer/default.aspx

Some interesting facts...

- More than two million women are living with breast cancer.
- A new breast cancer case is diagnosed every 2.2 minutes.
- A woman dies from breast cancer every 13 minutes.
- Men develop breast cancer too, counting for approximately one percent of cases.
- White women are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, while black women are more likely to die from the disease.
- More than 50 percent of breast cancers occur in women who have no identifiable risk factors other than age.
- Mammograms do not prevent breast cancer. They detect tumors, but can miss more than one-quarter of all breast cancers.
- Low income breast cancer patients have five-year relative survival rates that are nine percent lower than higher-income patients.
- Low-income black women are three times more likely than higher-income African American women to be diagnosed with advanced disease.

So, where did my title of this entry come from??? Have you ever heard of this site? http://www.savethetatas.com/home.htm

So, it is the holiday season. I thought that this was something that I could give to all of you. The gift of knowledge, support and love.

I lose!

I am officially the worst blogger known to man! The funny thing is that I will log on and check to see if anything has changed on the blogs that I read!!! I promise to get better!!!

Newsworthy events...last week my dad was in the hospital for terrible back pain. So, needless to say that kept us busy at home and being at the hospital a fair amount. He is home now and back to work. He is doing physical therapy three times a week, combined with some good pain killers.

Our house is decorated, both inside and out. We skimped this year on the outside lights...we only did the bushes because the day that we did it the weather was terribly cold and we still had to work outside and get 10 (yes 10) lawn bags filled with leaves from 1 (yes 1) tree. The inside is done for the most part, but yet again, we skimped. We went to English Gardens to get a tree rather than cutting one down on our own and we did not put up the fake tree in the basement. Oh well, better luck next year...At least then Jamie will be in his last semester of school and will be finally done!!! Well, back to this year...here is a picture of Rachel by the tree in her Christmas dress!

Now, that was the previous weeks update so on to this past weekend! I got a lot of Christmas shopping thanks to two trips to the malls with Jodi/Kristen and Lisa Merriam (yes, Lisa, I still say Merriam!). I only have a couple things left to get and I am all set. Well, other than waiting for Jamie's super special surprise gift. Can't say what it is, because he may peak at the blog! (Jamie - If you are reading this, I think that you will like it, despite the company's efforts to think that I will be exporting it...very strange!)

Tis the Holiday Season!

So, for Thanksgiving we went to NJ to be with my brother and his family. Well, Rachel got a stomach bug/flu on T-giving Day and then Sunday just before we were leaving to do the 12 hour drive home, Jamie got it. Thank God my dad was with us and he did most of the driving home, because I was also a bit queezey. This was a pretty nasty bug too, because my brother, sister-in-law and neice got it as well. Everyone is better now, but it made for an intersting holiday weekend.

So, now we are home and the house is in disarray. I am planning to work on getting the Christmas decorations up this weekend, so I have my work cut out for me!

I need to do better with pictures (I actually took some tonight), but frankly, I am just too tired to download and post them tonight. Sorry!

Can baby feet be any cuter???

YES! On Friday while Rachel was eating breakfast, I painter her toes. Take a look! Aren't they cute!!!

Bye bye blondie! So, I got my hair done on Saturday and brown is back! And I now have bangs. Scary, huh? I have not had brown hair since 2002 and from 7th grade until 10th grade my hair was all one length and then I got banges once and hated them! Haven't had them since! The funny thing is that when I got home, I showed Jamie the new color and he said that it was different. Then when I said, see I have bangs, he replied with "why did you do that?" Guys... In all, I am pleased with the new look.

To dye or not to dye...

Pretty profound, I know! For those of you that have seen me lately, my roots are getting pretty bad! (I go through this every time, because I am too cheap to do it as frequent as I should!)

Well, I have hair appointment scheduled for Saturday in which I did the normal schedule of 2 hours to get a cut and highlight. Well, with my soon to be "career change," this lifestyle of spending $$$ on hair will need to go to the waste side! It is not that Jamie is telling me no, for once it is me telling myself no! I would rather have the money to spend on scrapbooking or meeting up with friends for lunch. So, I guess you could say that hair is no longer a priority.

With that said, should I just have my hair dyed back to its natural color and leave it be (then use a home dye kit to occasionally cover up the gray...yes I have some gray hairs!) or should I dye it back to my regular color and maybe do some highlights, but not the blond ones that I have now...maybe something darker that I can get my hair highlighted less frequently.

I am interested in your opinions!

Sleeping baby and...Candles, candles, candles

For the first time in at least 6 months, Rachel fell asleep in Mommy's arms! So, naturally, I sat there and snuggled her for her nap. Can't let an opportunity like this pass me by!

Tonight I had a candle party at Heather's house. It turned out really good. (I am sure that Jamie will be having a few comments to share about the garlic dip is snacked on!) Thanks to Heather for taking this one on!

Lastly, a girls night out is needed. Jamie would probably beg to differ...But I want to get out scrapbooking once more before the holidays. I am going to try and make it to Heather's friends house in early December, but would also like to do a Friday night crop. Anyone interested?

And why do we go out to dinner?

Ok, yes, the answer is because I did not want to cook after being at work all day. Well, we decided to go out once Jamie got home and Rachel was less than pleased. I guess that will all change in the future because it will be Chez Mama Nicholson! I hear that the water there is excellent!

The funny thing is that Rachel was in a good mood before dinner. We were sitting on the floor have a good ol time reading books.

To take off of Alison, I will talk about Michele, a friend and co-worker. She got engaged over the weekend and is really excited...rightfully so! I can't wait to relive all of the wedding planning through her.

Now, on to Alison, another friend and co-worker. She is moving on to Troy with the company Jamie is with. It will be a longer drive for her, but hopefully a good move that will get her out of work on time and home to her family.

Michele, Alison and I have one thing in common...ok a lot of things in common, but one in particular...SCRAPBOOKING. We need to start thinking about a scrap date!

Keeping with spirit of Halloween!

Rachel was Princess Fiona from Shrek. Here she is with her partners in crime...Brad and Logan!

Just Getting Started!

So we will see how this goes. Am I good at blogging or not? Time will tell!!!