New Year, New Post

Happy New Year!  I know that I am a little late, but that is me lately, a day late and a dollar short.   Better late than never.  Ha!  I do hope that everyone was able to spend the holiday safe and happy with loved ones. 
I keep trying to write this post and am having a very difficult time getting through it.  Not that anything has happened, I am just having difficulty writing and I'm not quite sure why.  Although finding the time is part of the problem as always.  Things have not slowed down much now that the holidays are over, that's for sure! 
Though I'm not complaining, it's what keeps me getting up in the morning.  (So I keep telling myself anyway.)
Mr. Wonderful has been working at de-'Christmassing' the house and I help when I get home from work.  It is a task that's for sure.  Why is it so much more fun to get it all out than to put it all away?  There are boxes and tissue and stuff all over the house!  Nothing is in the right place and right now the house looks like a tornado has blown through it.  I am anxious for all of it to be put away.  I told Michelle that I was hoping for the Christmas fairy to come in and wave a magic wand and it would all be put neatly away and the house would all be back to normal.  Her response was 'Let me know how that works out for you!'.  It didn't.
In other news, I was able to hit some of the after Christmas sales-that was fun.  I saw on another blog a pretty little tree that was decorated with all sweet treats and I just loved it and decided I would like to do one like that next year.  (As if I don't have enough trees already.)  So, I had seen some really pretty ornaments that were candy and sweet themed that I liked, but were a bit too pricey for my taste.  After Christmas though they were 50% off and that was more to my liking and I grabbed them right up.  A few of my favorites?  Sugared ribbon candy, a cherry topped cupcake and a double dipped ice cream cone.  Yum!
So, now I am on the second full week of trying to finish this one post-incredible.  I am determined to get it done today! 
I had a very productive weekend, believe it or not, and I am feeling realy good.  Tired, but good.  Saturday morning I cleaned up around the house and finished getting all the last of the Christmas stuff put away and getting the house back to its pre-holiday normal.  It feels good to be back there.  Then Michelle and I went downtown with Shawn and Bella and went to look for invitations to the wedding.  Michelle had asked that I do them and I had every intention of doing so, but it suddenly occurred to me that I just didn't have time to do it and we really needed to get going on them.  So, we went into a local little shop and looked around.  What beautiful things she had to choose from!  Michelle is pretty decicive and knows what she likes and what she doesn't so she picked something out pretty quickly then looked around some more to be sure and she was sure so we ordered them.  Next we headed a few doors over to another shop that I love and looked at favors.  I had seen these a week or so earlier and told Michelle and Shawn about them and wanted them to look at them.  They are small bags of coffee.  Both Michelle and Shawn are mad coffee drinkers and so this suited them perfectly.  They could choose the flavor coffee, the color of the bag (silver, gold or black) and then have the label personalized with a picture or design on it too.  Very cute and the bag makes a perfect pot full of coffee.  Sold.  We placed our order.
Since we were downtown already, we stopped in at a local bridal shop and looked at their shoes.  Michelle needed to find some before we could begin to schedule her dress fittings so she looked and choose a pair that she liked and that suited her style.  When we asked for the price we found out that they were on clearance and they marked them down to $5.00-what a deal!  We also got her veil there and it was the one that she tried on with her gown in the same color and was also marked down from $225.00 to $25.00.  It was my lucky day and made up for the pricey invitations! 
Yesterday we met up with Justin and Carrie (my nephew and niece) and their son Austyn and all drove together to Pittsburgh to visit the rest of Jim's family for Christmas.  Bella came with us too.  It was nice to see everyone as it is a very rare opportunity indeed.  Only my nephew Ben was missing, and my kids-Ben had reserve duty, Tim had to work as per usual and Michelle and Shawn were taking a much needed day off.   We exchanged gifts and had dinner and it was mass pandemonium, but it was family, and it was good!  My SIL Linda gave me one of the greatest gifts, I was just tickled to death with it.  You may remember when I told you about a certain piece of pottery that I had and was cooking a pork roast in when I went to check on it only to find that the pottery had broken in half and the roast was now sitting on the rack in my oven.  I searched high and low for a replacement for that piece of pottery as it was one of my favorite pieces, but the company had gone out of business and I couldn't even find it on ebay.  Well, Linda gifted it to me for Christmas!  She had the same piece and didn't use hers to cook in and wanted me to have it so she gave me hers.  I was so touched and so happy to have it!  Thanks Linda, you made my day.  :)
Bella was thrilled because she got a little friendship bracelet kit and Carrie, Sarah and Tiffanie, my niece and my nephews wives' all played with her making bracelets.  She felt like the queen of the castle and she told us that she had new friends because they gave her the bracelets that they made.  Thanks girls, you really made my little girls' day!
The only bad part of the day was that the Steelers lost the game and we had to listen to it in the car on the way home.  Jim and Justin were both quite dissapointed and after we got home Jim called Tim to speak with him and he was so angry about the game he couldn't work-or so he said! 
Well that's about it for now.  I am hoping to have some new pictures soon.  As soon as I can load them from my new camera onto the computer that is.  Ha!  Until then-Karen