Brian, Mana & Clara the Zebra

I am not much of a football watcher. I am an Alabama fan! I went to the University of Alabama the day after I graduated from high school. No summer break. I enjoyed going to college there. (A little to much! That is why I did not graduate from there! You learn from your mistakes!) Growing up I was an Auburn fan because my family were Auburn fans. I even remember wearing an Auburn sweat shirt in high school. Gasp! Anyway, the University of Alabama gave me an art scholarship so that is were I went. I even had a hand in converting my cousin into an Alabama fan! I don't think her parents were to thrilled with that! I loved going to the games! Watching them on tv doesn't even compare to going to the games. I guess that is why I do not watch them. It just isn't the same. The atmosphere, the people, the food, the half-time show, the excitement. It all comes together for an enjoyable time. I miss going to the games with my friends. I watched the Alabama vs Auburn game Saturday while sitting at the computer. I kept asking Brian what happened. What the score was. I am sure he wished I would have come into the living room and sat down. I watched the last few minutes. That was good for me! They won! I was excited!

Picture of the day...

"Brian, Mana & Clara the Zebra watching the game!"

Around the Christmas Tree

Gathering around our Christmas tree is my favorite way to start off the Christmas Season. Brian pulled out all the decorations and put the tree together. (Pre-lit, the only way to go.) I have never had a real tree. I would love to have the whole real tree experience once in my lifetime, without the allergies to go along with it. My job is to "fluff" the tree, as Brian calls it. Mana gets to pull out all the ornaments. She loves to go through all of them and ask who's was who's growing up and the story behind each one. We usually have Christmas music playing, but this year a lovely football game was on the tv in the background. A couple of days ago, I took Mana to pick out our new Christmas ornaments for this year. In past years I have picked out some snowmen with her help, of course. I love snowmen. My whole tree is filled with them and snowflakes my Grandma made. You would think I would want it to snow or something. (2 days maximum is all I think I could take!) Mana picked out the "Bad to the Bone" dog ornament. I picked out the "All I want for Christmas is a Hippopotamus" ornament. (Up there on my top 10 Christmas song list!) Mana picked out her dad the "08 Nascar" ornament. Once all the ornaments were on the tree, one last ornament is to be placed near the top. It is a little angel. It always went on last on our tree when I was young and now it is last to be placed on our Christmas tree. I just wish I could find my tree topper!

Pictures of the day...

"Mana hanging ornaments."
"Brian hanging his ornament."
"Mana is Bad to the Bone!"
"Hippopotamus"
"08 Nascar"
"Little Angel"

"Our Christmas Tree"

"Mana's Pink Christmas Tree"

Thankful

I am thankful for family. I have a wonderful family in which I did not get to spend Thanksgiving with. Happy Thanksgiving! Miss and love all of you! I also have a wonderful In-laws family that I did get to spend Thanksgiving with. We went to Brian's parents house for lunch. We had a great lunch! Mana got to help prepare some of it. She enjoyed that. We had our annual football game in the back yard. Then we celebrated Mom-in-law's birthday. After the dessert, we went into the dinning room and played uno attack! That was a lot of fun!

Pictures of the day...

"Mana Helping!"
"Football"
"Birthday Cupcakes"
"Uno Attack"

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish for everyone to have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Rocks, a Train, and Grocery Shopping

On the way back from my sister's house, we stopped by for lunch and went to a park that had some big rocks and a train. I could not resist. Picture time! I will have to go back, because my lovely camera focused on the rocks and not my daughter! I should have zoomed in on the view to make sure everything was fine, but she wanted to play. Taking pictures were 2nd in her mind of course! I still got some good ones. They are just not as sharp as I would have liked! Better luck next time.

Today we did as little as possible! We did have to go to the grocery store to get my sweet hubby some food since I have none in the refrigerator! Of course, I waited until the last minute. We drove to Wal-Mart and I turned around and went to Food World. Less people=Less Stress!! I was already getting snappy before we started to Wal-Mart because I was not looking forward to the crowds! I know, I should not let that bother me! It just does!

Pictures of today...

"Mana & the Focused Rock"
"Mana & the Train"

A Zebra, Black Lab & a Moose!

I thank God Mana only had a 24 hour bug!! That being the case, we got to go on our Annual Build-A-Bear trip. Each year, my nieces and Mana get Build-A-Bears for their Christmas present. We usually go to the one here, but they got one where they live and the girls wanted me to see their store. So off we go to my sister's for a fun filled day of bear (animal) building! We headed out to the mall around 10 am. It was not that crowded. (I loved that!) The girls picked out their animals and went through the process! The smiles on their faces are always the best part! They had the best time picking out outfits for them. Mana picked the zebra with a blonde wig, pink dress and the Hannah Montana song sound. One of my nieces picked a black lab with a camouflage pink "Girls Rule" outfit and a barking sound. The other one picked Holly the moose with a Christmas outfit and the I love you sound. They all were so cute hugging on their animals. I will have to say, when we get to the time that they do not want to do this anymore, I will be sad! The whole trip was a lot less stressful then usually, due to the lack of people and that we went before Thanksgiving. Usually we are trying to go through the mall here in December. Not again. I would rather them have them earlier then do that again. My sister and I are so stressed and worn out by the time we get home normally that we are useless. This time we only got a little stressed. That was because we had to visit the restroom 5 times in that one mall trip!

Pictures of the day...

"Mana with Zebra Clara" "Blonde Clara"
"The Animals"
I must blur my adorable nieces faces! :(
I do understand! Safety first! "Carousel"

My poor child!

My poor baby is sick. We had a wonderful day of Christmas shopping. We have accomplished finding four presents for our beloved relatives. After shopping we went to Heidi's house to learn how to make dressing from scratch. She had a house full of all our friends. We had a great time sitting around the table talking and the food was excellent! We got home around 10 pm and Mana got sick. Needless to say, we will not be at church tomorrow. I hope it is just a stomach virus and she is done with it now. I hate when my child gets sick and we had spend the day with friends or relatives. You start to feel bad, thinking that they may get sick also. Not that I knew she was sick. She had a stomach ache before lunch. It went away after she ate, so that just told me she was hungry. My poor child had to sit there and see her mommy freak out. I can not handle when someone gets sick like that. I get sick also. So I am NO help at all! I finally got her taken care of. Then my poor child had to stand there and spray air freshener so I could clean up the mess, trying not to look at it. She was crying. I was crying! Overall bad situation. My mommy skills are so lacking in the taking care of a sick child department! Everyone for themselves!! That is usually my motto when people are sick! You just can't do that with a child. You have to step up and take care of them. I managed in the end. Just with A LOT of drama! My poor baby!

Breakfast, Winter Clothes, & Painting

I had breakfast this morning at Jack's with Sherry. She wanted to go to the outlet stores to see what Claire's had left. They had 10 items for $10. There was not much left. We didn't find anything we couldn't live without. We then shopped for winter clothes. Neither one of us had any winter clothes. I found a sweat suit, two sweaters and three shirts. I am done for winter shopping now. Just in time. I have an automatic habit of putting my flip flops on. Needless to say, I froze my toes off this morning! I went home before shopping and put my tennis shoes on. (Which I also replaced today!) I told Sherry that I was going to wait and get tennis shoes for Christmas, but she insisted that I needed them today. Mine are in really bad shape. Merry Christmas to me early!!

After I picked up Mana from school, she and I straightened up the house. We got a lot done. Not near enough though! So much more to go. Heidi came over to paint tonight! I will post her picture later. (There is a reason for that!) We ordered pizza and watched "Barbie, A Christmas Carol." We ordered one pizza and a cinnamon sweet treat from Papa John's. The driver gave us two large pizza boxes and a small. I didn't really notice until he had left and we were opening the boxes. He had left us someone else's pizza. I called the store so they could call him to come back to get it. They told us to keep it, that they already were making another one for that household. So we got a free pizza. It was good too! Bacon and pepperoni. Yum! Painting tonight was fun! Mana even painted. She did really well. She drew hers all by herself. No tracing! Heidi used to come over all the time and paint with me. I am glad she came tonight!

Pictures of the day...

"Heidi's Painting"
I will post later.

"Fall Leaves"
I painted from my own photograph.
"Mana painting"
"American Dragon, Jake Long"

A Winter Snowman!

The Builder is done!!!!!! I can relax now! I love doing the Builder! I do get stressed easily during it. Just because I let the little things bother me quickly. It is fun though. I like that even though I do not work a full time job, I can keep my skills up by doing the Builder. There are still things about Photoshop and Publisher I can learn. I got to Photoshop seven people into our staff picture this month. That was a lot of fun! The number one thing I get from people is "You need to make me skinner!" All I can say is Photoshop is an awesome program!!

Tonight, Mana went to ballet. I like to go over to the gym and talk to my friends, Robin and Debbie. They were in the middle of Upward Basketball & Cheerleading. First night of practices. All I can say is, I am glad I am not in charge of that! Complete chaos! Two people to help 50 kids get to the correct spot. I would scream and run!! They were getting it done, with lots of problems being thrown at them. They just kept going! Getting everything taken care of. The first night is always crazy! I admire that they didn't lose their cool! I so would have!!! I bet they are going to sleep good tonight. They are going to be so worn out!

While Mana was staying at my dad's house this past weekend, she and my step mom painted me a Christmas snowman. It is too cute!! It has holes along the sides to put Christmas lights in them. Mana did a great job painting it.

Pictures of the day...

"Mana & Snowman"

"Snowman"
"Dancing Lights"
"Water Droplets"
"Fall Leaves"

OCC, Captivating, & Thankfulness

This morning, Mana's school had their Operation Christmas Child chapel service. It is a wonderful sight to see the children all lining up to put their boxes they packed with great care on the stage of the sanctuary. It is awesome to hear of the stories of what great things God does with these boxes. He gets the correct boxes to the right children. He knows what they need and He provides. I love being apart of it every year!

I made it through my first Bible study!!!! Tears and all! I now wish that this one could have gone on a least a few more weeks! "Captivating" will be a book that I will repeatably go through. God has showed me great things through this Bible study! I extremely recommend reading this one! Just be ready to sit down with God and have a good cry! I know I sure did!

I am thankful for all those that help me with the Builder (newsletter). Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the ones that proof (even when sick!) and to all that got their articles in on time! (Yeah! Three cheers for you!) The ones that help with tabbing and labeling and just putting up with my crazy self! All I have now to do in fix the errors found from proofing, print and mail! The goal of the Builder being done before Mana's out on Thanksgiving break will be met. It is a relief that I will be done on time during a short work month!! Now I can sit back and enjoy having my daughter out of school!

Pictures of the day...

"Mana & her Shoe Box"
"OCC Shoe Boxes"
"At Chapel"
"Builder Cover"

Silence, Vacations & Big Pink Foot

Will there ever be silence in my household? No, I don't think so. As I am typing this, my lovely daughter is singing at the top of her lungs in the shower, "Lolli, lolli, lolli, lollipop! It is now probably the 300th time!! Now I am getting a crazy version of "Santa Clause is coming to town" and other songs all mixed up in one! I will have to say it is never dull around the Stringfellow house!

I went to Wal-Mart today. I know, that is not interesting or unusual. I am excited though that I had a place in the trunk of my car to put the groceries! You see, my trunk is always filled up to the top with stuff! I had to clean it out to go on the beach trip. I should go more often! The car might stay clean! That is a great idea. Every time the trunk gets full, I'll go on a vacation! Perfect!

I think I have a thief in my house! She is about 53" tall, brown hair, blue eyes, and has pink feet. She steals everything that is mine. French fries, candy, paper and now my brand new pink comfy house shoes. Her name is "Big Pink Foot!"

Picture of the day.....

"Big Pink Foot"

Throwing Rolls, Blue Angels & Popsicles!

My friend Sherry has been working quite a lot here lately and needed a weekend with just the ladies. She invited me and several others to the beach. It ended up being three of us. We picked up Mana from school and headed to my dad's house to drop her off. Then on to Orange Beach. I let Sherry drive the rest of the way from my dad's house. (We took my car) You have to understand that I have a trust issue when it comes to being a passenger in a car. I always drive. I even let her drive home on Sunday night. I didn't even scare her to death by holding on to that lovely handle really tight! You know the one! When I'm a passenger, I usually have a very tight grip on that handle the whole drive! I'm getting better about it. (Shhhh, Don't tell my husband that! LOL!)

We got down to Foley and ate at Lambert's, home of the throwed roll! It was the first time I have ever been there. That was the best cheeseburger I have ever eaten. And all the veggies! Yum! We headed on to Orange Beach. We finally got there around 11:30 pm. We stayed in the Phoenix I.

Sherry and I got up around 6:40 am and watched the sunrise. It was beautiful! God paints the best sunrises, don't you think! We decided to go and watch the Blue Angels fly. We ended up parking out aways. We were told the Blue Angels started at 2 pm, but not that they were having an air show all day. We didn't miss the Blue Angels so we were happy. It is amazing to watch them. How they get that close and don't crash. What trust they must have to do that! Watching them was the best part of the whole trip. We all decided, that next year we will bring the kids. They will love it! They played the music really loud and there were tons of people there.

We ate at Doc's seafood restaurant after the show. It was also pretty good. On the way back to the condo we stopped to take some pictures at a beach public access and froze like popsicles. We got some great sunset pictures and saw some cranes. Then we stopped across the street from the Florabama for a picture by their bus! Then we went to the condo to watch the Alabama game! Roll Tide Roll! Sherry and I decided to go get in the hot tub and then get in the freezing outdoor pool. We went from the hot tub to the pool several times. Christy thought we were crazy. It wasn't all that bad.

Sherry and I woke up to see the sunrise again. We got some beautiful pictures this time. It was gorgeous! We left to come home and visited my sister on the way in! We finally got home around 7:15 pm. I was so exhausted! We had the best time! Can't wait to go back!

THANKS DAD FOR KEEPING MANA! :)

Pictures of the day...

"Lambert's"
Above

"Our View"
"Blue Angels"
"God's Masterpiece"