...and goodbye 29!

Tomorrow's my birthday. I'm gonna be...gulp....30. I've been dreading this day all year. I thought this holiday season would be hard. I'm famous for my "After Christmas Depression" that I sink into every year on Christmas day. But this year...it wasn't so bad. Praise Jesus!

I'm still kind of dreading my birthday, though. I don't like attention and I'm not crazy about getting older. Wow. How "Bella" of me. :)

Despite all that, I'm more than ready to kick 29 out the window. This has been a hard year. Lots of crap went down. Maybe 30's the magic number- it seems so grownup, doesn't it? Maybe I'll gain some maturity tomorrow.

So....goodbye 29!

Oh! Christmas Tree!

I just couldn't let the Christmas season end without posting about our Christmas tree.

Its Christmas night, and the Smith family has only had a Christmas tree for two weeks. For as long as I can remember, we've always put up a tree over Thanksgiving weekend. But this year, we've been super crazy busy. Two Saturdays ago, Shaun was invited to a birthday party and Chris and Jordan were looking for something to do. I suggested that the two of them take a trip to the tree farm to purchase our tree. Which they did. They even sent me this text message of Jordan in front of the tree that he picked out himself:


They chopped down the tree, strapped it to the top of our Jeep, and headed back into town to pick Shaun and myself up from the party. We drove home. That's when The Hubs forgot that the tree was still on top of our vehicle. And he drove said vehicle into our car port.

Thunk. Thunk. Bang.

Chris: "Oh man. I can't believe I just did that."

And then he backed the Jeep out of from under the car port. Because he had to, I guess.

Bang. Thunk. Thunk.

My family and I watch in horror as several tree branches slide down the Jeep's windshield. We get out to survey the damage to our Christmas tree and this is what we see:


Yep. That's our Christmas tree up there. With a big hole chopped into it. Chris and I look at each other and laugh. He offers to go buy another tree and I tell him that this one is fine...we can just put the "holey" side against the wall. And that's just what we did. We prepare to decorate and discover that we can't find any of our lights from last year. The boys pile into the car to go buy more lights.

Let's rewind back to last Christmas for just a moment. That was the year that we splurged and purchased all new matching Christmas tree ornaments in black and gold. The new ornaments coupled with clear Christmas tree lights made for one beautiful tree that was quite classy as well. Since we had used clear lights last year, I assumed that my boys would buy clear lights again this year. You know...because the clear lights went so well with all of our black and gold ornaments. But, Jordan wanted to pick out the lights. And since he had picked out the tree, Chris agreed to let this happen. And that's why they came home with multi-colored lights. Multi-colored lights that clash horribly with all of our beautiful black and gold ornaments.

What else could we do? We decorated the tree and I just had to laugh. There it was...with a huge hole in the back, fancy black and gold ornaments, multi-colored lights, and of course my hand painted upside down ornament.


Oh! Christmas Tree!

Riding on Cars While Waiting on Shaun

Last night, we were at church a looong time. Because its Christmas and Shaun is in our church's Christmas production. And a rehearsal was held last night. And Chris was needed to work on a video. So we went as a family and hung out at church on a Friday night. It wasn't as bad as it sounds! In fact, as you can see, Jordan had quite the good time playing with his friend Madison. Mostly, they played with a car. Or maybe on a car is more accurate.

These two are too cute...and rambunctious...for words!

Random Midnight Rants Regarding My Mood Swings

Mood. Swings. I'm experiencing them big time. I'm up, I'm down. I'm here, I'm there. Exactly like what Ben accuses Andi of in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". Except that I'm not acting this way on purpose as a way to get my man to dump me.

I know its most likely hormones. Or my adrenal gland's lack of ability to even out my moods and keep me from behaving like a crazy person.

But I'm tired. My personalities are many and its exhausting trying to keep up with them. Ha ha! At least I can still laugh about it. One more week and I go back to the doctor for my test results. One. More. Week.

I really thought I wanted to blog about this, but now I'm already tired of it. See? Did you see my mood just change?

My biggest fear at the moment: she'll say there's nothing wrong with me. Nothing to fix. That this is just me... the way I am. Ugh. I hope not. I think if that's the case, I'll definitely be looking into some anti-psychotic drugs. Just kidding. Kind of.

If I Believed in Karma...

I went out Saturday night to help my sweet friend Kendra celebrate her birthday. We ate:

Yes. I know. This is the worst-quality picture...EVER. But its the only one I've got!

and then went to paint pottery. I had my doubts about this activity, since I'm neither an artist nor creative (my coloring sheets always look as if Jordan did them instead of me) but decided to be a good sport. After all, it was for Kendra!

So there we were. Painting pottery. Here's a shot of the birthday girl herself and our friend Natasha, working on their fabulous creations.


They were really quite good at it!

I was not. It turns out that my handwriting is even more horrible when I paint than when I try to write with a pen or pencil. My Christmas ornament looked as if a five year old had painted it. When I pointed this fact out to my friends, my sweet friend Kendra burst into laughter. And then she reached for my ornament and pointed out that I had painted it upside down. Yes. "2010" is upside down on my ornament. Here it is:


Isn't that hilarious...and kind of sad at the same time? Everyone thought it was sooo funny. And Kendra laughed the hardest. So I didn't feel extremely sympathetic when she accidentally did this to her own ornament:


See those smudges on her beautiful ornament? Ha ha. Bwahahaha! I laughed the hardest at that! Of course, she was able to fix it. My ornament, on the other hand, was a lost cause. So I just turned it in at the counter to be glazed. And yes, I'm going to hang it on our tree when I pick it up. How could I not?

What a fun night. My stomach is still aching from all the laughter!