I am officially a Navy mom!

Yes you heard it here first! I am now, as of today, officially the mother of a brand new United States Navy sailor.  I have been waiting for that call from my boy all day telling me he passed his final hurdle and is now a sailor! I have never been more proud of him. 

Spiders

Olivia has recently decided that she is deathly afraid of spiders.  Yeah I agree they are pretty yucky BUT I have been designated the official spider killer.  Lucky me.  The girl is a spider magnet! She just found one in her room and came downstairs and said "Mommy come kill this spider! Spiders LIKE to die! It is their DESTINY!" 

Let me go help this spider fulfill it's destiny.............

The Wedding Cruise

Some of you may know that my oldest daughter got married recently.  The wedding took place on a Carnival Cruise to the Bahamas.  Sounds great right? Not so much.  Although the wedding had been planned for almost a year in advance it was a comedy of errors from the beginning.  Carnival had apparently "overbooked" and did not have my daughter's wedding even scheduled to take place.  She was at one point told that they couldn't even do her wedding.  Things went downhill from there.  Her guest didn't receive the gifts she had arranged through Carnival, her wedding pictures were horribly out of focus and so on.  I'll just leave it at that and say because of the extremely poor customer service we experienced with Carnival, we will plan on cruising with other cruise lines in the future. 

Now on to the pictures that I managed to get of our trip and a few of the wedding. 

Our ship, the Carnival Sensation.  Not really so sensational............



 A pretty street in Nassau 

One of my beautiful daughters waiting for the wedding festivities to begin.



The prettiest beach in Nassau by far.  I could have looked at that view all day. 

 The most interesting part of our trip....annoying the Saudi Arabian royal family on their yacht which was docked next to us.  We didn't realize who it was at the time else we probably wouldn't have acted like such fools.

 Me and my girls on the beach.

 THE shoes!

And last but definitely not least the newly weds.

Happy New Year!

I love the idea of posting resolutions.  Mine, I will admit, will probably fall to the wayside within weeks of making them.  I do not have the strongest will power even as stubborn as I am!

1. Drink less soda.  Notice I said "drink less" and not "give up" soda.  I think I might actually be able to DO the drinking less but I KNOW that I'll fall off the wagon quickly if I try to give them up altogether. I HAVE switched from regular Coke to Coke Zero so that's something!
2. Lost a pound a week in 2011.  I really don't think this should be all that difficult.  I lost about 25-30 pounds in 2010 by just cutting out regular Cokes and NOT eating school lunches this school year.   School lunches are full of nothing but fats, sugars, and carbs.  Despite what you might like to believe they are not healthy. 
3. Quit caring what other people think.   Enough said. 
4. Develop a routine for chores and cleaning.  I know it will be easier to keep track of things if I have a routine as much as I HATE having a routine! Maybe a few list might help also. 
5. Spend more time with family and friends.  I tend to be a hermit and would happily stay at home most of the time.  I do enjoy my time with friends and family when I FORCE myself to go out and for those of you who know me best I really do force myself. 
6. Express my gratitude for something each and every day. 
7. Read more.  This should be pretty easy since I got my new Nook which I LOVE so much.  I would probably marry my Nook if I could!
8. Continue eating healthier.....started last year to be continued this year.  It really does become a habit after a while.  I also don't forbid myself from having anything.  I just try to make sure my healthy choices outweigh my less than healthy ones.
9. SAVE!! I need to save more...not that I have a ton left over at the end of the month but when I do I need to save it. 
10.  Go back to couponing.  I saved SO much money when I did....which could be applied to resolution number 9. 

December 2010

December is always a busy month for us.  We have so many big things going on I guess I'll start at the beginning which was the princess's performance in The Nutcracker.  As always she did an amazing job and I enjoyed every second of it! This year she was a party girl and actually had to dance with "GASP!" a BOY! Although she was a little concerned about him remembering the steps, I thought he was fabulous as was she. 

 Here she is after the show posing for her adoring fans.........AKA her brother and myself. 

 In costume..............finally after multiple wardrobe malfunctions and many tears. 

With her nutcracker collection.  She gets a new one each year. 

Another big event in December is parent observation at the princess's ballet school.  I only managed to get ONE picture because apparently since the last parent observation in October they have enacted a no photographs policy which I was NOT informed of.  I got yelled at...........yeah it was embarrassing but I'll live! I love going and watching her dance and seeing how much she has learned in such a short time.  I guess I'll have to get used to NOT having pictures of it.  Not easy for a scrapbooker!

Santa was VERY good to the princess this year.  Her favorite present was probably the Mousetrap Game that she said she had always wanted.  She also received a new Webkinz dragon, Littlest Pet Shop Blythe dolls, Clue and a lot more.  

 She was NOT thrilled with the new undies........not thrilled at all! It's not Christmas without new undies though!

 This is my favorite picture!  She looks deceptively sweet here...........she actually is very sweet....when she's not being Evilivia!

 THIS was the one thing she actually asked for and the ONE thing she didn't think she was going to get! She was thrilled to find this under the tree and spent several hours on Christmas watching the DVD and trying to master tricks. 

 Santa was VERY good to the princess this year.  He brought her the retired Elizabeth doll from American Girl! She was lucky enough to receive Felicity also from Gan Gan so she has both friends to play with. 

 Our first white Christmas in Georgia since the 1870's!! I will admit that when I saw the snow on Christmas I almost cried I was so excited! Almost........

The weirdo loved her monkey PJ's so much she wouldn't even get dressed to go play in the snow!

She hit me with this ginormous snowball moments later!

The culmination of our Christmas was a trip to see The Atlanta Ballet's performance of  The Nutcracker at the beautiful Fox theater.  Both the venue and the performance were amazing.  Olivia was even more thrilled to see that it was snowing AGAIN when we left the theater after the show.  I don't quite know how Santa is going to top this next year!