Goodbye 2007......

This has been a year full of adventure for the ole West clan. Just a few things to remember about 2007 for us...

*bought a house
*made new friends
*found old friends
*bought furniture
*painted furniture
*our trip to Disney World was cancelled
*Mom's knee replacement surgery
*Keith left Chili's after ten years
*Picked out LOTS of fabric for window treatments
*landscaped a yard for the first time in my life
*made more "art" than I ever have
*learned to be myself (ourselves) - we like us! LOL!
*Thanksgiving at home
*Our first Christmas in our own home (EVER!)
*organized the garage
*discovered myspace
*I got INK'd! (got a tattoo....)

That is all I can think of for now.....we are off to the "Elk's Lodge" for a dinner thing tonight. It is prime rib, two hours of open bar and they are giving away $5,000. Why not? (Keith's dad is an Elk.) So thanks to everyone who touched my life this year, and I look forward to all our adventures to come - we are off to party!!!
Love & Blessings.......

Puppy is a RELATIVE term.......

All I can say is when we pulled up to the parking lot where we met Kobe's "mama" I was expecting a cute little puppy, well sort of. Because on the way - Keith told me "Yeah Matt said Kobe is a 6 month old husky." Well I knew then and there we were in for a major adventure. Kobe is not a puppy - my MIL calls him "a miniature horse." And that he is. But Marlie is having fun playing with her buddy, and Kobe had a GIRLFRIEND in my Marlie Pa! :o) Oh me oh my - the things Keith & I get ourselves into! LOL!

LOOK at this BIG OLE BABY BOY!

Keith teaching Kobe the "high five" (look at those freakin' PAWS!!!)

My Colts just lost to the Titans, but that is ok. My boy wasn't playing, and we all know if Peyton had been in they would NOT have won. :o)~ But now I am off to bed with my sinus infection to sleep the night away. Love & Blessings ~ Lori

WHAT A CHRISTMAS!!!

I have SO MANY PICTURES to share, so I am just going to start with a few for today. Last Friday night we spent the evening with my family in Waverly, TN and had our Christmas Party. We always play "dirty Christmas" and I got an awesome Betsey Johnson Travel Bag Set - stole it from my cousin, who I do not think was too happy about it! LOL! Then Sunday we spent the day at Maw's house (Keith grandma.) We exchanged presents, hung out with Keith's aunts, uncle and cousins and of course played with all the kids. And Keith's brother and his friend Carlos were there. They dropped by our house on the way home to open gifts - and this is Carlos opening his dremel tool from us. He loved the hat decoration I put on the outside!!! The dremel is perfect for his artwork. He is an amazing artist, and is venturing into the 3-d world of sculpture, so I hope the dremel helps him on his way. :o)
Then after Mike & Carlos left we took our annual tour of the Christmas Lights of Columbia. We always go to a subdivision up on a hill - Claremont, and by Keith Baker's House (my pics from there didn't turn out,) and then in Sunnyside the house below is always decked out to the MAX! They have lights, music, moving figures - so awesome!!! We get Baskin Robbins ice cream and tour the city looking at decorations. We've done this every year since we moved here, and I love it - we load the girls in the truck and take off! Now I have more pictures to share, but here is some of my Christmas Loot! I was so excited to get my Nintendo DS Lite, and also all my "toys." The Peyton Manning Figure and helmet are already on my scrapbook shelf, but my OCD Action Figure is still in the packaging (I don't think people will "get it" if I take him out.) He comes with a surgical mask, and a sanitary, hypoallergenic moist towelette! Oh and he has on gloves - LOVE IT!




Well I guess that is all for now. We are going to Spring Hill in a little while to pick up a puppy we are "puppy-sitting" for a few days. I will OF COURSE have pictures of that to share. So hope everyone had a merry CHristmas! And look for more pictures tomorrow!!!

Funny for the day (Thanks Shonna!)

Shonna always sends me the FUNNIEST cartoons. And I think this is hilarious!!! It is 2:24AM and I just finished wrapping presents. Now mind you I started at 12:30AM, so only 2 hours, but still. I had a BIG present to wrap, and several little ones that I forgot about. NOW I only have one more to wrap and it is out in the garage, and I just cannot do it tonight. I have finished all the laundry and now just need to tidy up the house. If Keith will just get all his wrapping done then I can tidy up the spare bedroom and be ready for Christmas! WHEW!

Hope everyone is having a WONDERFUL week! We have a party Friday night and a party on Sunday and then it is CHristmas! WOOHOO!

Love & Christmas Blessings!
Lori

ok here they are all the pictures I promised!!!

This is our nativity scene. You can see our stockings behind it. My MIL made the doggie stockings. And of course they are all embroidered. And then I took a closer pic of the Nativity. This Nativity was bought for my paternal grandmother by my parents when I was 10 or 12. They bought plain wood because my grandma was a painter and thought she would enjoy painting them. She only painted the angel and baby Jesus. Not sure if this was intentional or all she got done before she passed away. But it is very special to me because she touched these, painted them, and displayed them in her home.












This is a page I just did in an art journal swap. We are all mailing our journals around and then we each do a page in each journal with the person's theme they have chosen. This theme was "All that Glitters" & I LOVE this quote!!!














This is a better picture of the marabou tree I made for my BFF. Still not a SUPER pic, but oh well, I gotta remember to take pictures of stuff before I give it away! LOL!
















Two versions of the Christmas Card I sent out this year. The stamp was just some rings of dots, so I made it into a wreath by adding glitter glue and ribbon. :o)



















These are two ornaments I made last week. The pink one went to my bff's ornament exchange party and the white one is on our tree.




















This is Rudolph. He was a nice little reindeer we bought at Michael's but he had a scary velvet ribbon and gold bell. So I stripped his ribbon off, tied cute ribbon and a cute bell, and of course added his red sparkly nose!!!



















I am off to wrap presents before Keith gets home later tonight. He left so early for work this morning, even though he is the closer. They were having their employee Christmas Dinner tonight. Well, at 3pm I got a message from him saying that his TABC card was expired and he had to go to Cool Springs to a class to get it reinstated. WHICH is very silly because he has 5 more shifts left at Chili's before his resignation date. Guess I should have announced that in an earlier blog, but we had to keep it on the D.L. So sorry - but his last day will be Christmas Eve at Chili's. But it was either send him to class or pay a $1,000 fine, so I guess they just sent him. But now tomorrow on his OFF DAY we have to go DOWNTOWN Nashville to get the goofy card. His new job doesn't even REQUIRE at TABC card (this allows you to sell liquor/serve liquor in Tennessee.) So whoop-ti-doo-da! Oh well, gotta do what ya gotta do.

Love & Christmas Blessings!
Lori

Ornament Exchange Party & Christmas Shopping Galore!

Last night I went to my best friend - Shonna's - house for an ornament exchange party. The rule was bring an ornament (wrapped & unmarked in any way) and we were to draw numbers and play "dirty christmas". I made my ornament (I'll show it off later) and was so excited to go and see everyone. Not to mention that I was spending the night at Shonna's and we were going to have a "GIRL'S DAY" the next day. So starting off with a few shots from the party. Here is Shonna table with all the yummie treats she had for us to eat, and everyone's wrapped ornament. Also in the little green "bucket" were bags of peppermint bark Shonna had made for all of us. And since everyone was a dog lover - her baby boy Mason had made Peanut Butter doggie bones for everyone to take home to their own babies!

Here is a picture of Shonna SURVEYING the scene as she decides which bag to go for! She drew #2, so she knew whatever she opened might get stolen pretty quickly!

This is a picture of Shonna & her mom - Pat. I made this marabou tree for Shonna as a hostess gift, along with a cell phone charm in her fav color (RED!) I also gave her a little ornament that said "NAUGHTY!" Because we all know she is! (HA HA - Love ya sis!)
We all had a super time opening ornaments, and I was #4 and I STOLE from another guest - HA HA! I stole the coolest ornament. It is handmade of wood and a SEA URCHIN - how cool is that? I will show pictures of it later too. And it was wrapped in the CUTEST penguin felt bag that I am TOTALLY going to carry as a purse to the rest of my Christmas Gatherings I will be attending.

Now we had food, ornaments, and wine - what else could a girl ask for??? It was a lot of fun, and then after everyone had gone out into the chilly weather to head home, Shonna & settled in for a nice long talk. We haven't gotten to do that in a while. With my mom's surgery, Thanksgiving, etc. there just hasn't been any girl-time. So we talked and talked, took Mason for a walk, and around 11pm we headed to bed. I got to sleep in the West/Gibbs suite (her spare room is for me & hubby or her mom &dad) and it was WONDERFUL! Bed so so comfy, sheets so soft and smelled sooooo good. And to top off my night, my little man - Mason (or Mae-Mae) slept with me all night! The kicker was about 30 minutes after we turned out the lights we hear this HUGE BANG! Mae-Mae and I look at each other and then look toward the door, and then we hear giggling - well the neighbor's had been somewhere and were having a LITTLE TOO MUCH FUN and had had a LITTLE TOO MUCH TO DRINK. SOOOOO FUNNY! I found out this morning that Shonna had heard the noise too and gotten up because she thought something fell in the kitchen!

This morning we got up around 9am. Got ready and headed for Opry Mills Mall. We had breakfast at Cracker Barrell (got an ADORABLE SINGING SNOWMAN FOR $8.00!) and then to the mall we went. We got to the mall around noon and we left at 5:30pm or so tonight. So DEFINITELY a full day of shopping. We got some presents, a goodie or two for ourselves, and I even bought a present that my mom needed me to pick up which finished her shopping totally! WOOHOO! We headed back to Shonna's and then I headed home. We had SO MUCH FUN TODAY - it was awesome! I just couldn't have had a better girls' weekend!

Now as for all these pictures I keep promising to show, blogger and my dell are not getting along tonight, so I will post pictures tomorrow. And SHONNA I PROMISE to post a picture of the Nativity tomorrow - I PROMISE!

Love & Christmas Blessings!
LOri

Learning the joy of finding the ULTIMATE GIFT!

Ok, so I can't say what the gift was, or who it was for because someone might be reading this blog, but I learned what parents feel like every Christmas when they find "THE TOY" their child is wanting. I almost CRIED when Keith came out of the store carrying the bag with our little treasure in it! This was store #4! And we had called a store, and had one store check with all their others in the Nashville area. OMG! So you can imagine how EXCITED I was to see that little bag in his hand! WOOHOO! How do parents do this every year at Christmas and birthdays? I cannot imagine if we hadn't found it. I can tell you this, if we are blessed with a child I will be shopping EARLY EARLY EARLY and hopefully won't go through this too often!!! PHEW!
Love & Christmas Blessings!
Lori

Christmas Time's a Comin'......

I am going to start off by showing off a card I made for my Card of the Month (COTM) partner on my stamping group. I smashed the bottlecaps in my cuttlebug, and the background was embossed using my bug as well. The stickers are just stuck on the bottlecaps,but I thought it turned out really well. This was my NOVEMBER COTM, will post the one I am sending to my partner this month tomorrow (hopefully!!!)

Now to show off my Christmas Decor! We had so much fun decorating this house this year. Part of the reason was because of "Mumble" below. We inflated him inside just to make sure he worked!!! You should have seen the look on Marlie's face, she was like "What the heck is this thing???" He is so cute and looks super cute outside the house. :o)

The wreaths we still had from our house in Gallatin. I made the bows myself! I was so proud, and they still looked nice after 3 1/2 years in storage. We didn't put any lights up this year. We decided we'd add a little something every year. Keith is getting excited about decorating the outside of the house, he has all these plans for next year about making wooden cutouts and painting them to go out in the yard. Then of course the tree! My mom bought the tree for us, and it is so NICE to have a pre-lit tree. On the left you see Marlie, Missie & I putting it up. Which is NOT much trouble at all considering, you just pop it out of the box, plug it in and fluff the branches. SO FUN! No frustrations about tangled lights. We went for a FUN tree this year. We got rid of any ornaments that didn't mean anything or that were broken (& I had tried to save) and we used everything we loved on the tree. Then I took a Pink Feather Boa and some Red Marabou, cut them up, hot glued them to little clips and clipped them all over my tree. I LOVE IT! I just knew Keith would hate it, but he thought it looked great! Then of course my

very traditional angel DID NOT match the tree. So we hit Hobby Lobby and found This adorable Santa dressed in PINK for the top of the tree. He was $5.00! I just couldn't believe it. There are MANY other things around the house, but I'll start with showing off these things, and share a few more pictures every couple of days.

The next big deal for us, is we are going to be spending the first Christmas in our own home. We have been married since 2000, and have always gone to my Mom's at Christmas, but we decided last year if we bought a new house we would stay in it this year. So here we are. Then my mom decided she would just come Christmas Day for brunch and presents, so I am busy figuring out what to cook for Christmas Breakfast and for Christmas Eve Dinner.

My mom left the Rehab facility last week, and went to stay with a friend. Then yesterday we drove over and took her back to her house. She was very nervous to go home at first, but as soon as she got there she was so glad to be there. We got her unpacked, washed some clothes, went to the grocery store. And my wonderful husband cleaned up her kitchen and cleaned out her refrigerator for her. (I got a good one girls, I'm tellin' ya!) I called her today and she was resting and doing laundry. She was happy to be in her house, and sitting in her recliner. Now that she is home I am a little more relaxed. I will still worry about her for a little while, but I know she will do fine. And me worrying is NOT out of the ordinary anyway!

I have Christmas Cards to finish up, Red Circles to Punch for my mom, & Ornaments to make for a party. WHY am I punching red circles you ask??? Well last night I got Mom's circle punch out for her so she wouldn't hunt for it. I handed it to Keith and thought I told him to put it in her scrapbook bag, well as we pulled into Columbia he says "Why do I have a circle punch in my pocket?" So when I called Mom to tell her we were home, I told her I would punch the circles and mail them to her. AND BOY AM I GLAD I AM DOING IT! There is no way she would have gotten them done - they are being little stinkers to punch! I punched tin foil with the punch and everything, and it is still stiff. Oh well! And then my ornaments I am making are for my best friend's 1st Annual Ornament Exchange Party next Friday! I am so excited!!! I asked if I could make ornaments and she said "YES!" So I got busy. I cannot wait to finish them, but have to wait till my stinkin' Christmas cards are done. WHEW!

Life is busy as always. Keith's truck was in the shop for two days this week, we went to dinner in Cool Springs and did some shopping for Christmas (YIKES!) Keith's mom adopted a new doggie this week - he is a little 8 pound Shih Tzu named Scrappy! He is SO CUTE! He was being neglected, and my MIL loves to help out. Her doggie Muffet just died a few months ago - she was over 13 years old, blind and deaf, and my MIL had adopted her like that because Muffie's real mom was in the nursing home. But Muffie has gone to heaven, and now Scrappy has a new home. And he is a little bundle of cute I'm tellin' ya! As soon as I get a picture I will post.

Well, it is time to go get busy on my Christmas Cards.......................