It can be tough...

This time of year is the most AMAZING time for me. It is when I feel at my best, most energetic and excited as I can possibly get! But this year is a little different for me at the moment. My little sister lives in another state and is going through a VERY tough time. She has ALWAYS done everything on her own, treats everyone with love and is probably one of the kindest people I know. She has always been known as the quiet and sensitive one where I was "labeled" the loud and obnoxious child. :o)

It so hard to understand sometimes why things go so badly for some people, especially the ones who wouldn't hurt a fly, have the best intentions all the time and are always giving to those around them. But I guess the best way to think about it is that God has a plan for everyone and all the trials that we go through in life are to bring us to a bigger and better place, that does offer me comfort when I am filled with anxiety.

I, along with my church and friends are raising money to get her here by the 17th which is when all her utilities will be shut off. The week of the 17th is when we are doing a fundraiser for the Hutto Orange Santa which raises money for children in our community who would not be receiving gifts this year, wrapping all the gifts and having an event that all those families come to pick up the gifts. The timing almost couldn't be better. Once we have enough money raised to get her here, we will dive into Orange Santa week. At least it will keep her mind busy and she will be with family before Christmas, which is REALLY what Christmas is about. Being together and celebrating with family and friends.

I am reaching out to all of my friends and readers asking for ANYTHING that could help in her getting here. She lives in Orlando so even if you can't help financially, maybe if you know of a church there or anyone else that wants to help make a difference in someone's life during this time of year, please email me auditore@suddenlink.net.

Your prayers are so much appreciated by all of us....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

WOWWEEEEE ALFREDO!

I had a rough couple of days and was getting ready to make Baja Fish Tacos for dinner tonight when my friend Sabrina called asking if she could bring some dinner by on her way to the mall! I stopped what I was doing IMMEDIATELY when I heard her say Chicken Alfredo!!! She had NO idea that I was having a rough two days but just wanted to bring it "just because" . . . man am I lucky!!!!

OH AND THE ALFREDO.........THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD! And that's alot coming from an Italian! :o) She even brought it by on a gorgeous platter, garnished with fresh rosemary....man! The presentation alone was to die for, never mind the aroma of fresh shredded cheese, bacon and roasted chicken...OH MY GOODNESS! I grabbed a fork and dug in immediately without even getting a plate waiting for Chris to walk in the door!!! I feel 10 pounds heavier already. LOL

This woman has the heart of an angel! She is wonderful and so very giving to the people in her life. The lady bakes her own bread, cooks gourmet meals, and can bake like Betty Crocker! It's no wonder the American men have a thing for the Irish women, their accent alone is enough to swipe up a guy in a second. We went to her daughter's 2nd Birthday party on Saturday and I got to meet her cousin from Ireland and his accent is just as "lovely". I loved to listen to their lingo, especially the way they use the words lovely and grande...it's so great!

I just KNOW we are going to be friends for a long time. We come from the same type of culture and that's very hard to find, especially since Chris and I moved here to Texas. Sure you can find people with the same values as you which we are so fortunate to have found, but to find people who curse like it's nothing, realize the importance of having your house in order and lip gloss put on 15 minutes before your husband is about to walk in the door, submitting to him and respecting him first and foremost, understanding the importance of traditions that have been carried on for generations and having the desire to make sure your children are cultured in Arts, Music, Film, even if you have a BOY! :o) AND DON'T JUDGE YOU, well that's pretty awesome to say the least! Don't get me wrong, I've met quite a few people who do all of those things I just mentioned and they are all dear friends of ours.

I just wanted to brag on my friend Sabrina for a bit, because I'm on a cholesterol, fat high right now and AM LOVING IT!

THANKS SO MUCH GIRL!!!!!
YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I was just ASKING for TROUBLE!

Okay so my week has started off with LOTS of drama, but that's okay, at least I can blog a bit! LOL (The kids are napping so I have a sec.) Anyway, I had a crappy start later this morning but it is all working out and I just ended up playing with the kids and setting up the train set around the tree all day instead of leaving on errands. ( I said I wouldn't do this till xmas eve because those of you who know my son, well let's just say he LOVES to get into EVERYTHING and keep busy busy busy just like his mamma!)

See for yourself....

GOTTA LOVE THOSE TODDLERS....

front door

FAMILY TREE


OH YEAH, AND LIKE MOTHER LIKE DAUGHTER...
(Adrianna's bedroom!HA!)
YES, SHE DECORATED HER PINK TREE HERSELF!(MUCH BETTER JOB THIS YEAR THAN LAST,lol)

It's Official!

The Christmas season has truly "OFFICIALLY" kicked off! Chris and I spent the past two days at Garden Ridge, Michael's AND Hobby Lobby. Yep, you read correctly my husband went WITH me to my "candy stores"! :o) It's the only time of year he initiates going to them, LOL He is probably MORE excited than I am to do the exterior lights. We dream of the house on the block 10 years from now that people drive from neighboring neighborhoods to come see. We add a little more every year and learn from mistakes from the previous year so we figure in about 10 years we will hopefully have perfected it.

We are TOTALLY that cheesy house with WAY too many lights, inflatables, plastic lawn figures, candy canes, and so much more . . . heck, the more the merry for us!!! Most adults would rather a simple, classy look but I swear we are just like big kids when it comes to decorating and the KIDS go crazy over the decorations. I remember last year my niece told me how cool our house looked. Nothing like the approval of a 4 year old! :o) Now Adrianna can't stop talking about it this year. It's so very exciting!!!!

Oh and what kicked off our season? WE PUT OUR TREE UP!!!!!! YAY!!! My mantle is decorated, stockings are hung and the tree is glowing... What a way to start my week!

Smells Like Christmas!

Friday night my friend Sabrina surprised me with a few candles from her trip to Yankee Candle to get my Christmas Scents going.... I HIGHLY suggest this one, reminds me of trips to Christmas Tree Farms.....oooohhhhhh!

Friday...the End of the Week or just the Beginning????

Yes, today is Friday . . . supposedly the end of the week but for those of us who work 7 days a week, it really isn't. It's actually the beginning of the fun weekend! :o) I was up at 5:30 with Adrianna, don't ask me why she wanted to get up with me today?!?!?!?!?! We baked a "Sock it to me" cake for our 10:00 playdate, picked up her Aunt and cousin then enjoyed some shopping afterwards. Now, kids are napping, I'm drinking coffee and getting ready to make some dinner for a friend whose been under the weather this week. Guys are having a poker night with some new friends, I'm heading over Sabrina's to just have some one on one coffee time and that is just the beginning of a jam packed weekend!!! Sometimes it seems like alot, but come Sunday night it is always fun to sit down with a glass of wine, or coffee and talk about the fun weekend we had!

This is one of the things I'm so grateful for being able to stay home. I used to work part time nights and weekends so it never seemed like I had a life! Well watch what you pray for because now, I KNOW I have a life, LOL! It is full and fun, hectic but fulfilling....I could not ask for more.

Have a great weekend!!!!

Memoires of Adrianna :o)

So I HAVE to be the proud mamma and brag a little here! My princess is just walking around 24/7 WRITING by herself! :o) She has been writing for some time, but now she is starting to walk around the house with her notebook copying things she sees! SO SO SO CUTE!!!!


THIS SHE SAW ON A PAPER ON THE FRIDGE . . .
THIS SHE SAW ON A GREETING CARD...
THIS SHE CAME UP WITH ON HER OWN!
(said it spelled Louis?? Someone on television, beats me!)

THIS IS HOW SHE PHONETICALLY SPELLS HUTTO TEXAS! LOL
(HTO TOES) I don't know.... :o) I went ahead and showed her the right way but was proud of her trying on her own!


And the list or shall I say pages go on and on. She has been sitting copying the newspaper for the past 45 minutes while I clipped coupons! I found some "Bob Books" from a seller on Craig's list that I'm hoping to pick up tomorrow and got them for a steal!!! Usually each set runs about $15 or so and is great to get your preschooler reading short sentences. She SO wants to learn so I figured, why not? It can't hurt.

OUCH!!!!

OUCH!!!!

Okay so TODAY was NOT the day for me to pull my back out!!!!! We spent the day yesterday pulling TONS OF CHRISTMAS decorations down from the attic and I was the one crunched up passing sterilites to Chris to bring down the ladder. Sure my back was sore last night when we were over his brothers watching the Giants/Cowboys game and it was still sore this morning when I woke up at 5:00! I ran out the door with the kids by 8:00 to get some printing items, decorations for Gift Donation Receptacles and the decor for the 15 $ donation jars to be delivered TODAY for the ORANGE SANTA KICKOFF that our church is sponsoring for the city! (Many more details to come, I'm SO excited about this!)

Welllllllll while pulling Christopher out of the car at Dollar General, I just about dropped him and instantly started to cry. And out of no where here pulls up Ruth on her way to the hair salon and she pulled in to see if I needed help! She was at the right place at the right time for me, that's for sure! I got everyone into the car and drove a couple blocks to Erika and Kyles going about 5 miles an hour not able to barely turn the wheel and Erika unloaded me and the kids onto her couch until Ruth left the salon to get us. This was just way too ridiculous and inconvenient for ME!! I had a TON to do!!!! Thankfully Erika put together all the jars, took over making dinner for a friend that is sick and I planned to double up on my dinner tonight for AND Ruth came over, picked us up and brought us home, putting Christopher down for a nap for me.

I got in touch with Chris who at the moment was running some errands and on his way back to the office to spend the next 5 hours doing Monday paperwork, but instead turned around and headed home for me with those AMAZING back patches, a bottle of advil and a gallon of milk for the kids! He made Blue Cheese Stuffed Burgers and kept telling me he doesn't know how I do it by myself. (that put the biggest smile on my face, that's for sure!)

So, in spite of the agony I've been feeling, it was great to see everyone pull together to help me today! I can finally sit up for a short time and even walk around before having to slide back on the couch. "Gina" not able to run around like a nut getting things done . . . you KNOW that stresses me out beyond measure! LOL

Riverbend Church

Okay so I know I've written alot this week, but that's only because my mother in law has been here so this may be the last blog for a few days! :o) Christopher has been up once again since 5:30 (4days in a row now so I'm thinking this might be his new rising time,LOL) so by 7:00 I was wide awake when Chris woke up. We watched a service on TV from Riverbend Church and I was SO LOVING IT!!!!

It was about "contentment". Being content in a Type A World! You know a type A person, the perfectionist, the leader, the competitor, and so on. That type of personality sets the bar for the rest of us and isn't a bad thing at all. The pastor went on giving all these crazy examples of if we lived in a world where everything was only 99.5% perfect what the results would be and he gave examples such as, every day 12 babies would be given to the wrong parents, 5 million or so cases of soda would be made without carbonation, 2 million books would be shipped with wrong covers and so on. I think you get the point.

So while that's all good, you NEED to be content with where you are. It seems like we are always trying to be older (when we are young of course and vise versa), trying to be richer, trying to have more assets and so on. So why can't we just be content with where we are? Well there are three major things that prevent us from doing so..

The enemy of Contentment:
*impatience
*immaturity
*complicating your life

He said something else that will just stick with me probably forever!
"Don't dig up your own seeds", basically just have patience, live in the MOMENT and just know it will all work out! He gave an example of being a young boy on his parents' farm and every spring when he'd see the fresh soil tilled and seeded he didn't question if the crop would grow, but waited for it to sprout up! Patience.

This spoke to me so much this morning so I just wanted to share it with all of you.

cute!

This was from Adrianna's 4th Birthday last February and we were just watching it AGAIN, so I wanted to share...

1 Samuel 24:12

Okay, so all of my friends and family KNOW that I am NOT knowledgeable at ALL on the Bible, religion, prayer, etc. BUT I do want to know more. I want to learn about the stories, find the meaning and be uplifted just as I would from any other book I would choose to read. One of my main reasons for reading the Bible is so I can teach my children. I think it's wonderful to grow up with that sense of security like Chris did.

Anyway, I've been part of 3 different Bible Studies, the first was definitely my FAVORITE! We covered the book of Mark and I'm thinking about going back into the New Testament very soon. My friend Erika and I have been meeting biweekly for what is called an LTG (life transformation group) if you want the "title" , I call it . . . ME TIME, time to enjoy some healthy reading and sharing the weeks insights and or struggles. We've read Ruth, Esther, Some Psalms (138-150), just finished 1Samuel and are in the midst of 2Samuel now.(I'm only up to Chapter 9 Erika!). Well, my sister in law Ruth has asked to join our Bi-Weekly Team as well as my friend Catherine too which I think is pretty cool! What mom doesn't want a night every other week to just sit and have coffee and REAL conversation, uninterrupted by our little ones?! I've never experienced anything like this and am in NO WAY what friends back home would call a "Bible Thumper". I don't mean to offend ANYONE by that phrase, I just want to ensure my family and friends that what I'm doing is enriching my life beyond measure not joining some sort of crazy group or anything.

My friends now are REAL, with real problems, real struggles, real joy and real support. They are just like any other friends I would have, just with strong community focus and what I call real "humanitarians". It's amazing that I found them! I am not going to be one to quote scripture or anything like that because that's not where I'm at right now in my life. I'm more aware of people and their feelings, I want to do more than just focus on my life and my family, I want to reach out even more than I have in the past to others and help, and THAT I just can't help to not see is from my growing relationship with God! We are made to have these beautiful hearts and a conscience, now what we do with those or let be done with them is all up to us...

So today while I was reading for my LTG I couldn't' help but to go back to 1Samuel to something I highlighted (yes, I write and highlight in my Bible that doesn't' even look like a Bible, it's called The Book and it's WAY easier than the King James version for sure!) And I sat and thought about it for a minute and wanted to share...
"Perhaps the Lord will punish you for what you are trying to do to me, but I will never harm you." 1Samuel 24:12
"You are a better man than I am, for you have repaid me good for evil." 1Samuel 24:18

I've lived most of my life thinking "well screw you, you hurt me and so I'll do the same back to you!" But I am realizing more and more and find comfort when reading something like this and trusting it that dwelling on the negative or trying to punish someone else will NEVER do you any good and really won't even make an impact on them either. "Kill them with Kindness" my mom always said and it's soooooo true!!!

Ireland

Last night I was thinking about some great places to visit if the opportunity ever came and I couldn't help but to think of Ireland. I have a friend who is actually FROM Ireland and you just have to hear her accent, it's "lovely" as she would say. :o) I don't know what it is about accents, but I just LOVE them! Especially Italian ones, LOL
(above is a picture of Northern Ireland. I googled images just to see the lush beauty and WOW, the little red flowers are called Fuchsia and are my FAVORITE! Also very popular flower/bush in Italy (my mother-in-law's fave flower)

I lived in Massachusetts from the age of 14 to 21 and loved it there! Of course it was full of the Irish and there was an older Irish woman who was like a mom to me. Her name was Grace and I loved everything about her! She had a heart of gold, a mouth of a truck driver, and a smile that would stop traffic. She had the most amazing blue eyes that were so warm that you couldn't help but to love her. AND she was a touchy feely type person which is what I grew up around, always hugging and kissing people so I felt at home with her from day 1. It's so funny how in this country you can see so much the diversity of people and culture . . . some curse, others are appalled by it;some meet you and hug you immediately,others are SUPER uncomfortable with touch and their personal space; some would NEVER speak a word of disrespect towards their elders, where some could care less about the elderly in general; Values vary from one house to the next . . . Now don't get me wrong, diversity can be good. It's just when you move out of a community, culture, environment where what "YOU" do and say and behave is the "norm" , it's hard to feel like you belong anymore.

So what do you do then? I ask myself this all the time. We now live in Texas where well, people aren't like what we're used to. We've met some pretty incredible friends, no doubt, but they are all very different. Some people may take offense to the way I speak, the way I behave, or the things I do. But I am fortunate to have been given some amazing friends that share the same values in their heart even though some behavior or culture may be different. I had a long conversation with a close friend about the difference in life here in Texas , life in Florida, life in the Northeast and yes, the New England area will ALWAYS be my favorite , but living here in Texas is where I've GROWN the most. I've experienced some amazing relationships, some good some bad, but I wouldn't change either! Being OUT OF your COMFORT zone is how you GROW! And MAN it's not easy....it's stressful at times, but wow how fulfilling it can be.

Okay so I got off track about my vacation dreams. I was talking to my friend Sabrina (Irish Gal) and she told me stories about her favorite places to visit and her number one?? ITALY! It's so easy to travel to Italy when you live in Ireland and wow, now I have a place to stay when we are privileged enough to go over seas for a vacation one day and I will actually be able to go to the two places I've always wanted to visit!! AND NOW I'LL HAVE FRIENDS THERE TOO... (Sabrina, we need to go together FOR SURE!) :o)

Well, enough of my daydreaming . . . I'm off to get ready to start my day!
Have a GREAT WEEKEND!!!