Quiet as a Mouse...

Nope, not hardly.
Everyone says that saying and I have no idea why.
We have had a little friend living inside our bedroom wall for quite sometime now. This mouse has driven me and Lou up the wall for about a week now. Getting into the wall is not really a possibility, because right above the wall is an upstairs room, and on the side is our laundry room. Lou would literally sit, stare, growl, and bark at the wall for hours. (if I let him), At night is when our friend would be the loudest. It would scratch, chew, jump, etc. The sounds made me want to go through the wall and just destroy it (i know, it sounds brutal for a little innocent mouse, but seriously I wanted to.) For 4 nights we slept upstairs because Lou could not ever calm down enough to actually sleep, which meant no sleep for me as well.
On a side note- Yorkshire terriers were originally bred in England to kill rats and mice in peoples flats. So he is just doing what he was bred to do!
Anyways on Saturday, the mouse finally got to Lou, he could take it no more. He was determined to get it. While Marc was wrapping presents and I was cleaning, Lou was in our room unattended and pulled a great big chunk of carpet up by the baseboard in our bedroom. There were strings going every which way and mounds of carpet were all around. At this point Marc came unglued because he thought he was going to have to re-carpet the whole entire room. I was just hoping we could get to the mouse to kill it or should I say "kindly remove it from our house!" Luckily we found an extra strip of carpet in the garage and Marc did some surgery on it and it looks great now!
All that to say, we have not heard from the mouse in 2 days! We have slept in our room for 2 nights YAY! So maybe Lou scared it off. Probably not, but it is either gone or actually being "quiet as a mouse"

Fa La La La

We had a Christmas party a few nights ago! It was so great to catch up with some old and some new friends! We had a ton of food, with little leftovers, which made me very happy! It was so great to have lots of my favorite people in the same place at one time!

The menu for our partay was:

Bears famous chicken wings, baked brie, homeade guac, marinated pretzels, cream cheese w/ jalepeno pepper jelly on top, some homeade brittle that i made, honeybun cake, ra's sugar cookies, meatballs, cheese and crackers! Yum, Yum, Yum!
It was all delicious, I had some help from some sweet friends though!

Jenessa, Katie, Sawyer and Me!

my new skillet/pan from Ra!- Which I am oh so excited about

cuties!

super weird angle

8 is great!

I have been tagged by Rachel to do this fun little blog game!


8 TV shows that I watch: (I would watch a whole lot more if I had DVR!)
1-The Office
2-Jon & Kate Plus 8
3-GMA
4-Top Chef
5-Project Runway
6-Lost
7-Real Housewives of OC- (I think its hilarious!)
8-Eli Stone


8 Favorite Restaurants (I loove to Eat!)
1-Noodles
2-Theos
3-Chick-fil-a
4-Copelands
5-my in-laws (im with Rach on that!)
6-Marketplace
7-Bordinos
8-Shoguns


8 Things that happened to me today
1-I had to sleep upstairs due to a mouse keeping me and lou up by scratching on the wall
2-I Christmas shopped on my lunch break
3-I ate lunch in my car by myself in the walmart parking lot (I'm a loser)
4-I cooked 2 corn casseroles
5-I have my work Christmas party
6-I talked to Ben and Liz on gchat today
7-I received the cutest Christmas card I have ever seen- from the Nolen's
8-I had to spank Lou for barking at nothing once again


8 Things I look forward to
1-Having children someday (healthy ones at that)
2-Christmas next week
3-Seeing ALL of our family and friends the next 2 weeks
4-The mouse that has been living inside my bedroom wall to DIE
5-Good, fun surprises
6-Good food! (always)
7-growing old with Marc
8-being skinny/smaller someday after Christmas :)



8 Things I wish for
1-To be able to have kids
2-An I-phone (I'm with everyone on that, but it will never happen)
3-An Ipod- I haven't had one in 3 year-(which means I have not had any new music in 3 yrs)
4-For my back not to kill me during pregnancy
5-A son someday to be able to go hunting with my dad and Marc!
6-DVR!!!!
7-The mouse to go away so I could sleep in my own bedroom!
8-Marc not to hunt as much (wink, wink, I know that one is a long shot)



Now I get to to tag some friends! I tag- Louise, Leah, Chelsea, and Ben! Boys can play too!
Have fun!

Why?

Well I feel like lately I have been asking myself why a lot.

Here are some of my whys:
Why is the economy in such turmoil, why do so many people have to lose their jobs because of it, why do people have to suffer because of others bad choices and decisions, why do we have to worry about job security, why do people and children have to suffer from awful, awful diseases, why does tragedy happen, why does Christmas have to be a stressful time, why is it so hard to figure out the REAL reason for this Holiday, why is it so hard to be a "perfect" wife, why do I fear, why do I worry, why can't I just have faith, why do we have to worry about money, why, why, why....

We all have our "Whys," some more than others, but I do know that the Lord is in control of all of my "Whys"

Here are some basic verses of encouragement that have help me be reminded that the Lord is indeed in control. So if any of you have some whys- please know God is in control!

Jerem. 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord. "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Romans 8:28, "and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who LOVE God and are called according to his purpose!"

The Christmas Spirit

My sweet mother came up to help me and my other "mother" aka-M.O.M decorate for Christmas (my. other. mom. is what Marc and I like to call our mother-in-laws!)
She worked her little tail off for us to have beautiful homes nicely decorated for Christmas. We are both thrilled and love everything she did for us!
Thank you mom!


outside door

Mantle

my tree- green, red, and gold

my table

mom, brenda and me

Brenda's beautiful mantle

Her beautiful orange, gold, and bronze tree!

For all my tree hugger friends

Marc showed me this video a couple of weeks ago, and I do have a few tree hugger friends out there, so this is for you!
I hope you will enjoy! I know we sure did!





Sorry if you have already seen this!

My Fabulous Find

So while I was in Little Rock this past weekend, I was on a mission. My mission was to find some type of cabinet or buffet table to use to store food in. I have been looking for months and months and have literally been dying not having enough storage space. (please note our new house has no pantry and half the cabinet space from my last house.)

Well I found it! Yes I found a steal of a deal of course. It is absolutely perfect for what space I had to work with! It was half off and they had just got it in at io-metro! woo hoo!

Check it out!

What do you think? Honest opinions please!

Thankfulness

HI! I hope everyone had a tremendous Thanksgiving. I know we sure did. It was wonderful to be with our families (well most of them) We missed the Yount side this year. We went to my parents lake house and had a great, laid back time. We didn't even eat turkey. Keith, (marc's step dad is an amazing cook, and he actually used to be a professional caterer. He made the most amazing piece of meat I have ever seen, a Massive prime rib! It cooked for 2 straight days! It was delightful! It was nice to not to have the usual turkey, I guess we are a pretty non-traditional family, but we love it!
Although I'm a bit disappointed in myself this year. I really did not sit down and think through all the many things I am thankful for this year, so I thought I would just list my top 10 right here so I wouldn't forget!
1-Having a relationship with Lord
2-My sweet, servant husband
3- My mom, dad, and sister
4- My "other" families...aka in-laws
5- Our amazing circle of friends
6-My job and Fellowship Bible Church
7-Grace
8- Forgiveness
9-a House, neighborhood and FENCE!
10-A car that is safe and works properly!

Now that thanksgiving is over I am full force into the Christmas spirit! I decorated my blog and my house tonight! The house is still kind of a working project, but I promise to post pics as soon as I finish, but not til then!

Christmas tags

Since Christmas in nearing, I thought these were so cute. They are little gift tags to put on presents. I ordered some and thought they were so cute that I should share with others. Amy Hannon is the creator of these and does an incredible job!
Check out her website: http://www.sincerelyyoursonline.net/. She creates beautiful wedding invitations, Christmas cards, and note cards as well. Which I'm sure some of you have seen or received before!
If you are interested in ordering some, just email her at: sincerelyyours@cox.net !

"So you must be doing prety well!"

Our good friends, the Jakshas came to visit us this past weekend! We had such a blast. We went shopping, went to the lighting of the Ozarks, ate alot, etc, etc. All in all it was a tremendous weekend! We are so thankful for such wonderful friends and really wish that they would move here :)
Here are a few pics from our fun weekend.

Paisley and Lou love each other!

at the square (plus a randy random that jumped in)


So cute

The boys playing the wii

So that was our fun weekend!

Funky Fresh

Someone showed me the funky fresh choir today. I though it was hilarious, therefore I thought I would share it with you!
Enjoy!

Branson

Well this past weekend my mom, my sister, and I went to Branson! We have taken Branson trips for years, well for as long as I can remember. We always go opening weekend of hunting season because the men in our lives always leave us! So to pass the time, we go spend their money! We love, love to SHOP. I mean shop til we drop. We can shop for hours upon hours, days upon days. While we do this hardcore shopping, we find deals and sales like you wouldn't believe. I am the best bargain shopper there ever was, because I learned from the master- aka my mother and because I have been practicing for years! I seriously have a hard time paying more than $20 for shirt. I know some might think that is "unheard" of, but it can be done. You can be mostly fashionable for a reasonable price! This weekend was great to find deals, gap and banana were having the friends and family 30% off sale, plus everything in the store was already 30-40% off! It was amazing. We had way too much fun.

To start off our trip, we high hopes in some fun plans. Come to find out, the odds were very against us. I really don't know why, but they were. First, we decided to go check into our hotel, come to find out they put us down for the wrong nights and were completely booked for that night. Second, we were planning on going to Silver Dollar city (or steal your dollar city as Marc would say), but it was raining ALL day. So instead we went shopping of course. When we got there mom accidentally locked the keys in the car, had to call 3 different locksmiths- fun times. Thirdly, We ended up going to Silver Dollar city on Sat. in the bitter cold, it actually flurried while we were on Thunderation. And lastly we were signed up for one of the cooking classes at the new Culinary school at SDC, but the people that gave us our confirmation # also gave us the wrong time, therefore we missed a really awesome cooking class, which I had been so excited about. Even after all of that, we really did have a great time. It all became pretty humorous by the 2nd day!

Culinary School- look at that Kitchen!


Hand blown glass

Mom and Meg

T.A. and Meg


Yay for new, warm boots!


Ran into some crazy friends! The Goforths and Martins

Damage=ALOT

Thank you mom for a fun and wonderful shopping trip!

My Lou

Well since I don't have kids, I don't have a whole lot to brag about or talk about, so I decided to talk about my crazy/sweet dog. Which I know is ridiculous, but I do love him!

He is always great entertainment to Marc and I. He is a great companion/guard dog when Marc is gone. And he is the absolute best snuggler ever. He definitely rules the house!

This is how I found him the other morning waking up!

AT least he isn't spoiled :)

Marc's eyes

I just wanted to give a brief update on Marc's eyes! He went for his post-op visit today and everything checked out great! We are so thankful for that. The surgery was incredible, it took 15 minutes and done. He came home and slept the rest of the night and the next morning could see better than ever. He was so excited, it was like a kid waking up on Christmas morning. Which is funny because this actually was his Christmas present from his mom, which we are soo THANKFUL for!
We would definitely recommend this surgery to anyone and everyone that has to wear contacts. It is worth every dime. Dr. Brown did an excellent job as well. He also prayed with us before surgery, which was very comforting.

He still gets to wear his protective goggles while he sleeps so he won't rub his eyes! I think they are pretty darn hott!

How bout you?

99 Balloons

I know several people have already seen this video and heard the story, but I decided to post a link just in case you have never seen it. It is such a beautiful story about faith, hope, love and dedication.
This sweet couple, Matt and Ginny Mooney are from Fayetteville, AR. They lost their son a couple of years ago (2 yrs from this Monday to be exact, which is Ginny's Birthday) to Trisomy 18. Matt is now a community pastor at Fellowship Bible church NWA, which is where I work. They just had their second child a couple of weeks ago and she is precious and perfectly healthy. They have truly made an impact in so many peoples lives around our community and all over the world.




I feel like this story really opened my eyes to how I would rely on God in such a tragedy, or would I just just become angry? It really made me think hard about if I could have joy in a time like that. They are such an inspiration to me and so many others! Eliot’s fingers may have been small, but they have sure made a large fingerprint for Christ across the globe.

They were on Oprah on Tuesday, October 28th. Their story was shared with millions of people. They felt that sharing his story was honoring to God and to Eliot. I'm thankful that they are so open to share their life.

You can watch clips and see pictures from the Oprah show if you click the link below:
http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081001_tows_miraclechildren/14

They will also be on Oprah Live this Friday, 10/31 with their new Baby, Hazel! So watch and you can see their new little blessing!

Matt and Ginny also created a blog for him. It is called "Eliot." You can find it under my "Blog List" on the right hand side of my blog. They have also started a new blog, it is under "Matt and Ginny."

My prayer is that the world can see where their faith and hope truly comes from!

Fall Fun Festivities

Last night we had a random, little fall get together. We had such a blast. I made lots of dessert, the boys played some serious ping pong, and then we had a pumpkin carving contest!

I love the fall, so this was such a great time!

Here are pics from our night!

Let the carving begin!


Marc getting to work on ours!


Me and Lou just chillin



"mYm" was our masterpiece

The Hartnesses working hard

Their finished product:

Ben and Louise's drunken pumpkin?

All the punkins

Ra and I made a "Boo Ya" punkin (didn't turn out so great :)


The Martins working hard:

Their finished product: Colonel Sanders (kfc)

All the girls!

All the boys!