Thaksgiving Recap=Tons of pics

How was everybodies Thanksgiving and Black Friday? Oh and don't forget Cyber Monday???

Thanksgiving was wonderful. I actually didn't eat as much then as I thought I would. It's all they desserts that came home with me. Luckily my brother and his wife devoured my red velvet cake. Also, after cooking the italian cream cake my tongue went numb and we didn't know why, we thought it was some candy I had tried that my mom brought home, but the next day while taking the first two bites of my italian cream cake I learned that it had to be the coconut. No more coconut for me. However, I like something sweet for breakfast and that chocolate chip cheesecake came right in handy. Bad choice..lol

My brother and sis in law wanted to hit some black Friday sales so bad, but for two people who had never been to blackc friday sales before it was a shocker when we got to Toys r Us at 10 that night and the whole parking lot and half of the mall parking lot was filled with cars and the line was all the way through the parking lot. They decided not to try that, but to try Walmart, where we could not find a parking place and when we did and finally got inside it was rediculous. We tried to shop, but people were camped out everywhere waiting for the midnight sales and we just said forget it and came home. I did my black Friday shopping online. And I didn't even attempt Cyber monday shopping.

Here are some of my favorite pics from Thanksgiving weekend:





Exscuse the pic of me without makeup..I promise that was not actually Thanksgiving day!!








And My absolute favorite of all :)



On another note, I am going to start back with my diet and working out. I did a pretty good workout today and know I am going to be sore tomorrow. It envolved cycling, resistance bands, and the abs will. I however can't figure out how I really want to go about this diet. I don't really want it to be a diet, but I want it to be a lifestyle change. I really want to drop quite a few pounds by Christmas when that special someone comes to visit me. I've gained 15 lbs since the last time he seen me and it makes me sad. Please share any weight loss tips, lifestyle changes, exercises, etc. that you have. I am gladly here to listen to all tips and suggestions!

Until next time,

Carie

What are you wearing?

I am not going to participate in day 2 of the 12 days of Christmas Challenge because I don't usually shop on black Friday. Well I do, but I shop online. I can't stand crowds and getting irritable shopping in stores on black Friday.

Anyways, I have no clue what to wear for Thanksgiving. I had planned on wearing something cute an warm, but found out that it is going to be 80 degrees here on Thanksgiving and my grandparents plan on eating outside so we can all mingle. Hmm, so what should I wear??

For all of those that know me know that I love fashion and dressing up, so ladies what are you wearing for Thanksgiving?

12 Days of Christmas

Aly and Molly are having a really fun blog challenge called the 12 days of Christmas. I love Christmas sooo much that I just had to join. If you would like to join in this fun challenge click on the picture below! I hope you do and enjoy it as much as I think I am going to enjoy it :)

Day 1 : Traditions

Used to when my brother and sister still lived here and weren't married and the kids (my niece and nephew) lived here we would alway put the tree up the weekend after Thansgiving, but now we have little kiddos running around the weekend after Thanksgiving and a house full of people that we, my mom and I, put up the tree the weekend before Christmas. This is aso so we can enjoy it longer and the kids look for it the week of Christmas when they all start coming in.

Also, we used to only put one tree up in the living room with the front door, but the past couple of years we have put one tree in the living room, with all the decorative memories. We have carebears, rugrats, elmos, unicorns, my little ponies, dora, and horses and teddy bears and santas. This tree is memories throughout all of our life times. It has our baby pictures. It has Ornaments that we have made over the years and ornaments people have gave to all of us over the years. This tree means a lot. This tree is the kids tree. Santa comes to this room and sets it up all nice and pretty. However, we also put other presents from their parents, Grandma and Grandaddy, me, and their aunts and uncles and cousins upunder this tree.

The other tree is put into the dining room in the back corner and looks absolutely adorable. It is more of the antique tree. It has lots of balls and ornaments from my parents past. It has lots of gold, silver, red, blue, and green on it. It has coca cola ornaments and ornaments with a more antiquey feel that just have to go on that tree. It is beautiful. This is the tree for the adults: Parents, brother and sister and their husband and wifes, and little ol' lonely me. I kinda wont be lonely this year because Stephen will also be here, even though he isn't mine..lol

My mom and I and sometimes my sister used to get up early early on Black Friday to go shopping, but I just can't stand the crowds and would rather shop online on Black Friday. We do however take my Grandma shopping in Tallahassee two weekends after Thanksgiving and shop til we drop and then go to Olive Garden and if we still need to, we shop until we drop somemore. I love this girl time and my Mom and Grandma do to.

The week of Christmas my mom and I start making our candies. We make peanut butter balls, candied pecans, chocolate and white chocolate covered pretzels, and many other things.

Used to when my granny was still alivewe had Christmas with my Dad's side of the family the night before Christmas eve. When she passed away this tradition stopped.

Now I make my cakes, pies, candies, and goodies for Christmas Eve at my Grandma's the night before Christmas Eve. The day before Christmas eve is the day my brother and sister and their families come into town also.

Christmas Eve is spent seperating presents out to go and cooking last minute goodies. We then all load up in vehicles and head an hour away to my Grandparents house where we have a big meal followed by opening presents. We swap names way back in August and buy for that person. The kids usually get pajamas then so that they can all change and be ready for sleep on the ride back to Mom's house that night. We load up the cars with all of our goodies, say our love you's, thank you's and goodbyes and sing Christmas songs and look for Santa in the sky all the way home. Of course we don't all fit in ove vehicle and all the kiddos choose to ride with Grandma and Grandaddy :) I usually takes 3 vehicles to go with our big family to be able to go and bring stuff back.

Everybody gets in bed and sometime within the night Santa comes. The first person who gets up Christmas morning wakes up the rest. We then all open presents in our pajamas and get our huge stockings full of goodies. We usually all wait for the kids to open theirs first. Then head to the other room to open our presents. After that we all take off to our rooms to find that one perfect new outfit to wear. My mom fixxes a yummy meal of dressing, turkey, etc. and my Grandparents come to our house to spend time with the kids they don't get to see all year.

I love our traditions even though they may not be much :)

What are yours?

This I ask...

I know this is far from what I usually talk about, but I wanted to talk about something that has really been weighing down on me lately.

To tell you the story of now, I have to tell you the story of the past. The good and the bad.

My sister hs led a hard life. My sister was very sick when she was 15 and the school started giving her problems about missing school. She ended up begging my mom to just let her quite so she could get her GED and go to college. This was 13 years ago now. Her boyfriend was living with us, not in same rooms of course which was definately not allowed as long as my daddy lived in this household, because his family moved at the start of his senior year of highschool. After he graduated my parents signed for my sister to get married, at 16. She was pretty mature and in love. After they got married, my sister started having a lot of problems with her endometreosis. They had to do surgery and reconstruct one of her overies at 17. The doctor told her that she would probably never be able to have kids. He told her to go home and try. Sure enough, he was wrong. My sister was blessed with a beautiful little girl when she turned 18. By the time she was 20 she also had a handsome little man. The night my nephew was born my sisters marriage fell apart when some events( I don't know who might possibly read this blog so I will not tell what actually happened on here) happened that led to police and having to leave the hospital early with doctor's permission while the nurses watched my nephew. My sister wasn't the same for quite some time. She tried to find love, but all the guys she fell in love with she didn trust her kids around and kept them away from them. Not to mention they hurt her and each one got increasingly more harmful that the previous. After having her ribs, wrist, and tailbone broken by a boyfriend she finally just let go of love for a while. Unfortunately her kids resented her for it and today she regrets it. She has turned her life around and found a man that she loves that treats her and the kids well and is happily married. But she is missing one thing. She wants a baby. She knows she done wrong by the first two and wants a second chance. She knows that it wont fix what she did to the first two, but she wants that chance. Her husband and her want a baby together more than anythng in the world and the kids really want a little brother or sister.

However, my sister has been going to her doctor and the doctor gave her the okay to go for it and said that he didn't think she would have a problem getting pregnant. That was back at the beginning of the year. She had a lot of tests done that showed she could get pregnant and the doctor also did something to clean out all the old nasty stuff (sry..tmi but I wasn't sure what it was called or how to explain). The doctor was sure she would get pregnant after doing that. That was back in April. We all think that she just wants a baby so bad that if she just sits back and relaxes it might happen. I was there all summer with her and I know every month she would buy a pregnancy test hoping she was pregnant and I saw the hurt in her eyes everytime the test said no. I know how she still always had hope. She even would stock up on obulation tests hoping that she could hit it right on the spot.

She went to the doctor Wednesday with pains in her stomach. The doctor orered and ultrasound and on Thursday they found a cyst on her right ovary and could not find her left ovary (the one they reconstructed) and the doctor said that her uterus was so thin that he wasn't sure she would be able to carry a baby if she did get pregnant. However, he did say that he could give her medicine to hopefully take care of that and I know that my ex sis and law had to have that medicine when she was pregnant with my niece. My sister also remembered having medicine for that with her first baby. The doctor said that he believed she had been pregnant and lost the baby. He however said that if she didn't start by next month to come back in. And then he mentioned that if she did that he was going to refer her to a fertility doctor. I know she's hurting and I hurt for her. I know how much she wants this.

I hope she relaxes some. We also told her that this was between her and God and that she needed to pray and talk to him about him. If anything is possible, he can make it happen. My mom also told her that she might need to ask him for forgiveness for what she did to the first two. I pray that she gets pregnant. I pray that she gets just one more baby to love and cherish.

Please, please, please pray for her that she gets this baby that her and her husband and her children want so bad.

Thank you all so much for reading this!

Yay me!! And you!!!

I would like to thank both Leslie @ Life in its Ordinary Form and Emily @ East Goes West for this lovely blog award!!



Here are the rules:
*to thank the person that gave you the award....check
*to tell you 7 facts about me :)...
*give the award to 7 wonderful bloggers that I just love
*leave a comment and tell the 7 bloggers that I am giving them an award

1. I love to shop, but I hate crowds. I get furious and act funny when I'm in crowds. I have found a newfound love with online shopping. LOVE it!!! I still go shopping in town though, but I go on week nights so that I can avoid big crowds. I know right? I'm just a little weird!!

2. I love ketchup and hot sauce with my fried chicken.

3. I Christmas shop all year long. I love finding bargains!!

4. I prefer the lake over the beach. It's not that the beach isn't pretty and that I don't like the salty water because it is perfectly fine with me, but I can't stand trying to walk in the sand. I absolutely can not do it. I look like a duck or something tripping over my feet. I keep telling myself that I need to move to a beach somewhere and just walk in the sand everyday so I don't look like the waddling duck and feel like everyone's staring at me!

5. I am so quite around new people. I am the person holding up the walls at parties with people I don't know. I always am furious with myself the next day, but hey this is me. I guess that's why I'm not a big party person unless I know more than 3 people there!

6. I love planning. I love, love, love to throw parties (ex. birthday, baby shower, wedding shower, etc.). I love setting everything up and making it all pretty. And I love, love, love to have a reason to cook!!

7. I make a list for absolutely everything. I have so many note tablets it is crazy. I have 3 on the fridge, one on each side and have been known to have more. And then of course I have a dry erase board on the fridge also. I forget to easy so I have to have reminders :)

I pass this award on to these blogs that I absolutely love!!

Mayra @ Life is Bananas

Laci-Jae @ Just the Simple Life

Pam @ Relatively Reagan

Nicole

Ashley @ For This Child I Prayed

Just Me and My Life

Lucky In Love and Life

What I'm loving Wednesday!

I'm loving that I got to spend some time with these boogers this weekend!! I love my nieces and nephew!



I'm loving that in just a few short weeks I get to go see my oldest niece and nephew. I miss them. They are the ones that lived with me for 9 years. I miss them!!

I'm loving that we finally have boot and sweater/jacket weather here in South Georgia! Hello cute outfits!!!

I'm loving that I recently found out that both my bestie and a friend are both having little girls. One is due any day now and the other is due in February. I went shopping for little girls last night. I have to atleast get one package in the mail SOON!!!

I'm loving all the Christmas shopping I've been doing. Especially the online shopping!

I'm loving that God had a different plan for me and decided that the nursing program was not for me this coming up semester, but I will try again. Many people are suggesting a college swap. It would just be an hour away. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

I'm loving that I found out today that the guy that I am crazy about, my bro-in-laws best friend, who I got to know over the summer will be coming to spend Christmas with my family. He says I have to make him a "red cake". He wants a red velvet cake that I made for us in the summer. I'm so excited!! I hope his plans don't fall through.

I'm loving that no matter what God has a plan for me!!





**I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow. Please pray that we find some answers!! I've been battling this pain in my right side for over a week and still don't know what's going on.

Ten on Tuesday

1. What is your favorite breakfast pastry?
Hmm, I'm not really sure. I'm not to big of a breakfast person. I do like McDonald's McGriddles everynow and then if those count..lol..and I like banana nut muffins and choc. chip muffins :)

2. Were you ever in a Thanksgiving or Christmas play?
Nope :(

3. What is your favorite clothing accessory?
shoes!!!! scarves!! belts!! hair accessories!! Rings!

4. What is your favorite item of clothing?
hmm..my shoe collection :)

5. What is your favorite color and why?
Lime green, I love anything bright :)

6. What is your favorite type of Christmas cookie?
Peppermint choc. chip :)

7. What is your favorite scent (food, perfume/lotion)
midnight pomegranite from bath and body works!

8. What is your favorite household cleaner?
hmm..idk pledge furniture polish, lemon scent!

9. When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? And what did you actually grow up to be?
a doctor and a mom..I'm currently in school to be a nurse, without a boyfriend anytime soon..not that I don't want one!

10. What is the last song or album you bought?
I don't buy songs or albums..I'm in love with pandora!My channel depends on my mood, but I am loving the christian channel and will soon swap to the holiday channel :)




On a different note, I wanted to let you all know that I have decided on desserts :)
I am going to make my red velvet cake, a italian cream cake, pecan pies, diabetic coconut pies, and a chocolate chip cheesecake. I still wanted to do something cute for the kiddos, but haven't decided on something easy and cute yet!!