Merry McChristmas to you!

Last night, D left to go bowling and the house was normal.
He came home to a Christmas Wonderland! I think there's still more to do, though, so he will probably be surprised when he gets back tonight as well.
Sneaky Snake, I am!

Some pictures for you---

Our Tree! I'll put another picture when I wrap the other presents :)

This is beside the tree - against the wall you walk in and see. I wrapped the lamps with tinsel to make them Christmas-y! So fun! Who needs fancy crap, I use $1 tinsel and bobby pins!
Also, Note the Green and Yellow/Gold Balls. 12-0

 My boyfriend Santa greets you at the door. Be careful- he's watching even if he does appear to be winking! And he might be staring at your butt a little, too. Who knows.  We've had to get creative with him because he's old and fragile and Carmen's whip of a tail will kill him with one good lick if we're not careful!

The Children's Stockings. Tini on L, Carmen on R with Brown Dog on it

Even our DVDs are in the spirit!

 Yes, Santa dancing singing bear-Elvis and Large Elvis ornament that sings and dances and lights up. Love it!

Baby Christmas Tree on the table

More pictures are to come, I'm sure... but there's a little hint of how crazy our house looks right now.

Enjoy!

♥ EM


***UPDATE***
There is now a second Tree. It's 4 feet tall and in the window on the opposite side of the room :)  That's what happens when D goes to Franklin 2 nights in a row.  We'll see how he takes it...

Baby Tree with niece presents under it

WORLD CHAMPIONS

There was this one football game last night...  Only a few people watched it, though, so I don't think everybody knows what happened yet!

Apparently there were these two teams playing for this bowl? :) It must be pretty awesome because people keep saying it's super. 

Yes, this was the scene during the game. He sits right in front of the TV so that they can hear him better. If you didn't know, we are Packers fans. The Pack beat out the Steelers last night to win the Super Bowl and become the world champs! It was pretty exciting! I don't remember much about the game, since the party was at our house and I was running back and forth the entire time, but what I saw of it was GREAT! 

Once the Packers stopped the Steelers' drive in the very end of the 4th Quarter, this is what we saw:

That's right, everyone giving him High Fives because--- I don't know if I've told you before or not, but--- D not only coaches the team, he's also the Offensive and Defensive Coordinator, QB Coach, Lineman coach, and best friend of every member of the team.  Yes, that's everyone giving him high fives for him winning the game! haha 

I love my husband. He's perfect in every way! 

So TIREd!

So, do you ever have one of those days where you just want to whine and complain about EVERYTHING?!
How about one of those... weeks?
I feel like I complain to everybody that I talk to.
AAaaaannnd I'm sorry, friends!

The truth is, it's much easier to complain and then continue complaining and talking about people/things than it is to shut up, deal with it, and do something about it.  Or even to just accept the things that we have no control over and focus on the things over which we have influence.
Why is this? Why is it that we are so hard-focused on talking about the negative instead of focusing on the positive?
I don't like it. And I'm tired of hearing/saying, "I'm normally a pretty optimistic person, but..."  I hope to start catching myself before I get 6 feet into the hole of talking about how much stuff sucks. I'm pretty much tired of finding myself 30 minutes into a contest to see whose story makes them seem like more of a martyr. SO, as of right now, I'm going to try to start remembering to monitor myself.
If you're my friend and you read this (both of you), I hope that you will help keep me accountable!
I have a bunch of cool things to write about, but right now this is the only thing I could tick tick out.
Happy February!

In Honor of Green Bay's winning the NFC CHampionship and heading to the Superbowl, here's a picture of me sick and kind of asleep during one of the games this season. It's rough, but Martini looks cute. This is tradition. We have to wear our outfits! Sick or not!

Crock-Pot Lasagna

First things first- PACKERS WON SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Everyone cheer, go ahead, it's ok!)

I thought I'd add a picture of some crazy friends we sat near at the Falcons game to celebrate 

This evening, I set out to make Crock-Pot Lasagna. I got the recipe from Jamie Ivey, who I blog-stalk religiously.  The link to her recipe is here.  I can't follow directions, so here's what I did-  (in a 7Qt Crock-pot)

*If you don't want to make your own sauce, you can probably get 2-3 things of Spaghetti 

Sauce and use them... actually- that would make this an "easy crock pot recipe," as it really

 wasn't that easy once I spent half the afternoon making the darn sauce!* If you do this, skip the next 11-12 lines :)

Her recipe basically walks you through making your own tomato sauce, so I used what she had and went with it a little...
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1-2 handfuls of mushrooms chopped up teeeeny tiny (however much you want- I don't like them, but D loves them, so I put them in and bare it)
- 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
- 1/4 cup bell pepper (red blends right in!) chopped pretty small
- 1/4 cup frozen corn (come on, you've seen the Garden Style Spaghetti sauce!)
- 12-16 oz ground meat(like) product - I use Yves Meatless Ground
- 2 Large cans organic crushed tomatoes
- Salt, pepper to taste; I also add Basil, Oregano, Parsley, Garlic Salt, a little Rosemary, and fresh German Thyme- all by what you like stuff to taste like... I just add and taste and add and taste and add stuff until I think it's juuuuuust right! - Oh and a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper just because I'm crazy.

Other Stuff:
- 1 box of lasagna noodles (I use Tinkayada Rice noodles because they're gluten free!)
- 24 Oz Cottage Cheese
- 8-12 Oz Skim Ricotta Cheese
- 4C Mozzarella Cheese
- Parmesan Cheese sprinkles as needed


Sauté the onions for a couple of minutes, then add the garlic and mushrooms and other veggies (besides frozen stuff), then add the meatless ground, cook everything a couple of minutes, and then add the crushed tomatoes, spices, corn, and turn back down to a simmer while you get the other stuff ready!
**if you are using real meat, of course brown the meat before adding the onions and stuff***

Other things:
- I mix the Cottage cheese and ricotta cheese together to give it a little bit of flavor, then you want to layer the stuff in the pot in the following order:

- CROCK POT LINER is a MUST HAVE!!-
- Thin Layer of Meat Sauce
- Layer of noodles- broken up to make a single messy layer
- Cottage/Ricotta Cheese mixture
- Sprinkling of Mozzarella cheese
- Repeat- using more generous layer of meat sauce

Out of my massive amount of sauce and stuff that I made, and my one box of noodles, I got a good 5 layers- maybe 6.

Put in crock pot and cook on Low for 5-6 hours, or on High for 3!
Just make sure you test the noodles with a fork before you cut into it so you know they're ready!
Enjoy!


PS- if you have any good Crock Pot Recipes, please let me know about them! This is my first thing I've ever made in a crock pot!! I am EXCITED!

The "G" stands for "Greatness"

I'm sure you remember that our anniversary was actually a little over a month ago (a month and 8 days, actually), but today the present was completed!

Well, it will be in 4-7 days, according to ticketmaster.com :0)

I do not remember what all I included as to what I got for him, but I think I'll give you a quick rundown. If it's still on this page of feed, suck it up- or just skip to the next paragraph! I gave him the following things (and in this order): Reservations to a hotel in Atlanta, a walking map from the hotel to the GA dome, and faux Greenbay tickets that I made myself (since they weren't for sale yet) for the Falcons/Packers game on 11/28/10. In case you didn't know, D is a big Packers fan. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned these things before!

Single-game (non season-ticket holder) tickets for the Falcons home games went on sale today at 10am EST. So NATURALLY, I had 2 alarms set and a giant post-it note stuck to my computer screen with the time, what sections are OK, and the maximum amount I need to spend on the tickets written on it.

8:55 hits, I log on to Ticketmaster.com (just in case their clock is fast)

nothing.

8:57 I decided to waste some anticipation by doing a little work- I wrote up two families service plans...

8:59 I went back to Ticketmaster.com and following took place:

REFRESH REFRESH REFRESH REFRESH REFRESH REFRESH

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

BEST AVAILABLE *CLICK*

BEST AVAILABLE *CLICK*

SEARCH *CLICK*

...

searching...

Your results will be ready in less than ONE MINUTE

...

...

RESULTS NOT FOUND

Try expanding your search criteria to find more results

Are you KIDDING me!??! NO- There ARE results to find. YOU FIND THEM, INTERNET! That is your JOB! There ARE NO MORE RESULTS POSSIBLE!

So, I tried again... I did not put any search criteria in at all, and got the same thing two more times, then I tried all possible combos of the options... SAME STINKIN THING!

I then followed the link to the right to NFLTicketexchange through Ticketmaster... I proceeded in ordering two tickets in the section I had previously picked out for $10 each cheaper than I expected to pay. They will be delivered by 8/4/10 (supposedly)!

I'm pretty excited!

The view from our seats:

Yeah, that's right. (haha I say that like it's close... it's not. It's not really close, but the stadium isn't very big, so it really IIIIISSSSSS close!!)

This evening, I looked up PackerBacker clubs in GA, as there are a couple here in the Ville, so we expect that there MUST be such a thing in every major city.

I didn't find too much that was current for Packer Backers in ATL, however, I did find out that there is ONE MORE Packer Backer club in Nashville than we knew of. As far as D and I knew, the official meeting place was in Franklin @ the Franklin Family Entertainment Center (Bowling Alley). They go there and watch all the Packers games during FB season... D used to be the server for this freak show weekly display of cheesehead devotion, and I would occasionally go to watch the crazies games. HOWEVER, there is apparently another such place. We will have to check this out. Nashville Packers is the other PackerBacker club in the Ville area... found the site, looked at it, and saw some familiar faces. Most notably "Greenbay Mike"- Bet you can't guess which one is him in the pictures- Two hints: Green and Yellow Contacts, FACE PAINT. I also saw that their summer party just passed, which makes me very sad. I wonder if they watched the Packers Fan Forum on NFL network tonight? Crap we should have DVR'd that stuff!!

- Just a little secret- I tend to talk about D being crazy and how he yells at the TV and everything.. and how he's a big fan, but since being in this family, I have learned a whole lot about the Packers... and I now can discuss such things with random people. And, I actually enjoy watching the games and I know many of the players' names (so I can join in the yelling at the TV since they can hear us if we yell together), and... you'll be proud, I requested to NOT work support groups the night of September 28th... BECAUSE THE PACKERS PLAY THE BEARS ON MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL. I CANNOT WORK THAT NIGHT! HELLO!

I have learned not to wear any of my Packers gear unless others in the party I'm with (Namely Donnie or Don) are also outfitted in such a manner, as random out-of-towners tend to come up to me and tell me how they're a Bears fan... or that they Hate Brett Favre (which I don't mind hearing one bit), or how Aaron Rodgers became the first NFL QB in history to throw at least 4000 yards in each of his first two seasons ... They also like to ask what part of Whisk-ahhhnsin I'm from... Nashville. That's the answer. Nashville, Whisk-ahhhnsin, Tennessee.

So, yeah- I'm pretty excited about our trip to ATL in November... and if anyone else is going to this game, let me know. PS if you need a place to stay, we may have an extra bed- I might have booked a room that sleeps 6, I don't know.

I'm just really excited about getting the tickets... and getting to wear my Clay Matthews Jersey to a REAL GAME... and Tailgating with the cheeseheads... and not getting shot in Atlanta... and taking Donnie to his first ever live Packers game... and watching my first real live Packers game... (!!)

Oh sweet baby Jesus, I'm becoming one of them...