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!)