Santa Stopped Bye.....

On Christmas Eve, Rob and I were up late waiting for the kids to fall asleep so we could get things set up and I think we finally got to bed between 1:30 - 2:00 am. And the next thing I hear is.... Santa Came!! They were awake bright and early!!! It was so much fun watching the kids open all thier gifts.....here are some pictures, not in any kind of order...

Ian got a drum stick that was used by Travis Barker from Blink 182

We waited until all the gifts were opened before we gave them the Nintendo DS

Santa ate all of his cupcakes and milk!!
Grandpa Buck loved getting his Sun Pass
Here's cousin Billy - He loves Transformers
Nathan made this ship with cards he got for Christmas
Ian got a Lava Lamp
Megan LOVES Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty Barbie!!!
Rob showing off his new socket set
The boys got skateboard pillows...they are so cute
Nathan with his own screw driver set

Underware!!! for Ian

Right before Rob & I went to bed...notice Megan sleeping on the couch.
Megan with her xmas ornament from her Daddy

Christmas Eve 2007

The Kids all dressed up and ready for a fun Christmas Eve

This is my second attempt at the Chocolate Trifle - I made it for Xmas Eve
Dad (Buck) and My Aunt Dot
Here's just a few of the kids all ready to open thier presents....
This is the Department 56 Pillsbury House my Mom gave to Aunt Dot and she made it so cute in the basket.

Christmas Eve is always a big deal for us. We get dressed in our Christmas Clothes on and go to dinner at Aunt Dot's house and then we exchange gifts with all the cousins and Aunt Dot & Uncle Lenny, it was always the best part of Christmas when I was growing up!!!
Over the year's it's the crowd changes on Christmas Eve as some of the family move away or some get married and children are born, but not matter who is there, it's always special. It's still my favorite part of Christmas. This year was even more special because we had Ian, Nathan and Megan with us......

Gingerbread House

Nathan, Megan and I attemped to make a Gingerbread house, they gave up pretty quick and I wasn't far behind but it came out pretty cute I guess. We went to the Moschette's house and they made the same one but I think theirs came out way better. Here's a few pictures of ours.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We want to wish all of our Family and Friends a very Merry Christmas!!!!
Here are a few pictures of our little tree and all the presents I wrapped!!
Merry Christmas!!!
Love The Millers
Rob, Pattie, Ian, Nathan & Megan

Holiday Crazy Fun Times………

I don’t know about you guys but it’s been crazy busy for us. I was off work Wednesday through Friday (thank goodness!!!) and I finished all my shopping and on Friday I spent all day, and I mean ALL day wrapping presents. I needed to get everything wrapped, as Megan & Nathan were returning from their cruise on Saturday.
We picked them up Saturday morning and they had the BEST time ever!! Megan even got her hair braided in Jamaica. We spent the day hanging out with the kids, my friend Laura, Kristin (the kids Mom) and her husband Joe. Yes, it’s true my husband’s x-wife and her husband, we all get along great and we enjoy sharing our time with them and the kids, it’s a blended family that works great for us and especially for the kids. I hear so many horrible stories about x-wifes and x-husbands and step kids. But we all get along and it’s GREAT. We are very blessed and lucky and we think it’s healthy for the kids. Because it should be about the kids not us.
We are so thankful that Kristin & Joe are letting the kids spend Christmas with us this year. I can’t tell you happy we are. I know how hard it’ll be for Kristin to be away from her kids on Christmas, so Kristin, thank you so much and you are in our thoughts and hearts. The kids are so happy to be with their Dad, they can’t get enough of him and it’s the same with him, he is so happy to have all three kids here. We just came from the movies, we went to see the Chipmunk movie. It was adorable!!! Go see it with your kids.

Congratulations Tiffany and Stevo!!!!

They Eloped!!! My Gorgeous Cousin Tiffany married the Man of her Dreams, Stevo, on December 14th. Congratulations on your Marriage. We can’t wait to see you guys on the 22nd so we can properly congratulate you!!! We are so happy for you both. We wish you a Long and Happy Marriage and we hope all your Dreams Come True. We love you guys!!!

Ian showing off his Tripp Jacket

Ian has been bugging us about getting him some “Tripp” Pants, but we said no way because they are just ridiculous. I think the pants weigh more than he does. Here’s a picture of a pair of “Tripp” pants, not to mention they are very expensive. I don't about you but it reminds us of the Michael Jackson Thriller Video....LOL

He came down with a "Tripp" Jacket that his friend Kyle allegedly grew out of. We told him it's not cold down here and there was no need to bring it, of course he brought it. So here are some pictures of Ian showing off his Tripp Jacket. I guess the jacket is not as bad as the pants, but still a bit much...I guess we should be happy that he finally cut his hair!!! Now we can see his gorgeous face.

This is his GQ photo...LOL

The Kids are Cruising.....

Our two youngest kids (Nathan & Megan) are currently cruising around the Caribbean. They spent the night with us Saturday then we took them back to the hotel to pick up the kids Mom (Kristin), Step Dad (Joe), Grandmother (Loretta) and cousin (Lauren) and we drove them to the Port so they could board their Ship for their cruise. Ian is still with us, as he didn’t go on the cruise this time, he’s already been. But this is the first cruise for the other two (lucky kids, I was in my 30's before I went on my first cruise), and the first cruise for Kristin also. We hope they have the BEST time ever!!!Here are some pictures……

Lauren & Megan

Loretta, Nathan, Ian, Megan, Joe, Kristin & Lauren

THE KIDS ARRIVED & TREE DECORATING

The kids arrived on Saturday after a long drive from Alabama. They were so excited to get here and we were so excited to see them. We picked up the kids from the hotel and brought them to our house and we decorated the tree and they spent the night.
Pictures are below.....

Decorating our fake tree......
Ian put on the top half..........Thanks Ian, he's almost as tall as our tree!!
Below is the finished Product...it's almost a Charlie Brown Tree....hee hee
It looks much better with the lights off

New Camera & Hog Fest at Work…..

I got an early Christmas Present!! My husband surprised me with the camera I’ve been wanting. I’m very excited!! Thanks BABE!!! So be on the look out for new and improved pictures.
This week in the office our floor is doing our version of what used to be called the 12 Days of Christmas (comely referred to as the 12 lbs of Christmas) which starts 12 days before Christmas and we (the associates) bring in Breakfast, lunch and/or afternoon snack for the entire floor, everyday for 12 days. It just got to be way too much food. So we’ve narrowed it down to just 1 week, this week. Now comely referred to as the “Hog Fest”. The associate’s sign up for which day they want to bring in food, and we can decorate if we want to. There are about 35 people on the floor so we have to make sure there is enough food to go around; it’s actually kind of fun, a lot of work but still a lot fun. Today was my day, along with 5 other associates. We had breakfast casseroles and bagels, fruit, waffles, pancakes and zucchini bread and then after lunch we put out desserts and snacks. Today we had cheese & crackers, caramel cake, surprise cookie bars, pumpkin mouse and I made a Chocolate Trifle. I was nervous about the trifle as this was the first time I’ve ever made it. Below are the pictures of today's desserts.

Close up of my Trifle.....I think it came out Pretty Snazzy!!!

Weekend Recap & Great Friends….

We had a busy weekend of painting and shopping, mostly at Home Depot…LOL. The good news is we are 95% done just a little touching up and baseboards to finish, thank goodness, but it looks great.
We did manage to have some fun on Friday night; we went to a Christmas Party at Sharon & Wayne McLennon’s house. It was the first time we saw their new “Dream House” and it was GORGEOUS!!! I wish I had pictures to share but my camera isn’t feeling well and I don’t think it’ll make a full recovery anytime soon. I am hoping to upgrade to a new for Christmas…hint hint to Santa. The party was fun with lots of great Food and Fabulous Friendly people. The McLennon’s have two beautiful Sons, Alex and Matthew who I haven’t seen in years and they are so grown up now, and just adorable!!
It was so nice to spend time with my old friend Sharon and her family. The best friends are the ones you know you don’t see all the time but when you do, it’s just like you’ve seen them everyday. I wish we could see them more often. As we were chatting with a new friend at the party, we discovered that they had been friends with Sharon & Wayne since they were young and living the wild and crazy New York City life. I told my husband that’s the kind of person Sharon is a Life Long Friend and I’m so grateful to have her as my friend. Thanks Sharon & Wayne for inviting us to your fabulous party, we really enjoyed it.

Sunday night we also had the opportunity to spend some quality time with some old friends that we rarely see anymore. (Kelly & Hans) Kelly & I have been friends since the 5th grade, another Life Long Friend! Hans is great friends with Rob also, he moved here from Holland around the same time Rob and I met, so they bonded pretty quickly and both are avid fisherman. Kelly has two sons, Alex and Even that keep her pretty busy, they are great kids and she is such a good Mom. But it’s hard to find some alone time to get away, but on Sunday they called us to say they had a few alone hours and would we want to hangout, so of course we said yes, and put down our paint brushes for a few hours and had a nice dinner with our friends, even though it was brief it was just what we all needed!!! I wish I had pictures to add to my post, I hate not having pictures but I’m having camera issues, however I did find this picture of Kelly & Hans when they were dating….how sweet.

Painting Update and Weekend Plans......

I’d like to tell you that we’ve finished painting, but I can’t. I feel like we’ve stalled a bit. We really just have a small amount of trim work to do in the entry way but then we decided to start the kitchen, it just looked so awful compared to the rest of the place, so we reallty had to do it, so here we go. And last weekend Rob pretty much worked most of the weekend at his other job; I was going to say real job, but shouldn’t our home be our real job? So we really did not get much done, except for what I did, which just wasn’t enough. We told ourselves we’d do a little each night when we got home from work, YEAH RIGHT!!!!
So Rob is taking Saturday off and we are dedicating this entire weekend to finishing up our painting project.
We did manage to unload a few boxes of junk on my Mother for a future garage sale. It feels so good to be rid of the excess clutter of nick nacks that were just collecting dust.
We need to get the tree up as the kids will be arriving on December 15th!!! And I can’t begin to decorate until everything is back in its place.
So my goal is to have everything done and the tree up by Sunday night….am I crazy? Probably because we do have some other things planned this weekend, Friday night we’re going to Christmas Party at a friend’s house (Sharon & Wayne) we can’t wait!!! And Saturday night a local band is playing in Boca at Mizner Park that Rob must see!!! So pray for rain people, because it’s an outside amphitheater….hee hee, just kidding. I’ll suffer through it. You see Rob’s taste in music and mine are complete opposites. He’ll just have to go Christmas shopping with me as payback!!!

Getting Excited!!!

Rob and I are getting so excited because the kids will be here soon and we can’t wait!! We get Ian for a week first by himself while the two little ones go on a cruise with their Mom and Grandmother, then we’ll have all three of them for Christmas!!! Yippee
Have I mentioned how gorgeous my step children are?? They are Beautiful, check out the photo below. It’s always hard to get all three of them together, but this is my favorite one.