my to do list

1. go grocery shopping. - check!
and i even stayed under budget too! thanks most in part to aldi, my favorite grocery store to get great deals. i got a bad og tortilla chips for 99 cents! can't beat that.

2. go grocery shopping for the super bowl party. - check!
and don't worry, it's not this huge blowout of a party. we are just having some friends come over, and they all have babies. so past some young ones bedtimes, we won't be very loud if arizona gets a touchdown. at least we have enough chips to go around! :) i am also rooting for the cardinals, if anyone wants to know. my reasons are a: the live the closet to my home state of california and b: i have been to their stadium before. pretty sports savvy reasoning if you ask me!

3. get stuff for james party.
this is not checked because i am not going until next week to get all his stuff. i am so excited that he is turning one! he's such a big boy now, and he becomes greater every day. the theme of the party will be balls seeing as that's his favorite thing to play with. (like basketballs, baseballs, tennis balls, etc. get your mind out of the gutter! :)) so i am going to make a basket ball cake and we are going to have meatballs and grapes to eat, among other things. the rest of the party though, i can't mention because it's pretty great. but i'm not going to build it up or anything because i don't want it to be a huge letdown for the people that do come in case our plans aren't that great. but i am excited nonetheless.

4. have a three day weekend. -check!
well, it's this coming week but since it is the end of the semester for my girls, we are getting friday off. who's excited???

that's about it i think...i do have cleaning and such to do to prepare for the party, but i can do that sporatically throughout the week. i think.

whatcha doing this week?

photos

here's some recent pictures of james

i'll put others up later!

on the upswing?

hello my lovely blog world, it's been a while!

okay, so i know i've been a bit of a putz when it comes to actively blogging. and i apologize. i've recently been in this personal slump and that has left me devoid (is that a word?) of any inspiration to post or put up pictures. and further more, my mother in law has most of our christmas pictures on her camera, so that's another excuse not to blog, seeing as i have no exciting pictures. lately, i've been sorta down, if i can be so honest. and this is my blog, so i will. it's been a lonely time for me lately, and when you feel like one thing is wrong in your life, it is much easier to point out others, isn't it? well, i have been feeling lonely, gained 5 pounds over the holiday, have some weird rash disease on my chin (slight exaggeration, but still, what the heck is it?), and yeah, feeling generally blah. in the mood where you want to wear swear pants all day every day and only put jeans on for church. (but insist that church should have a "pajama day"). and thankfully for my husband, he's put up with me and all my moodiness, tears, and grumpiness. he's let me stay in jammies, listen to me complain about the same thing over and over again, and just be plain ugly. thankfully he's also been encoraging to me when i've need to to, and lately, it's been working. i've decided that i don't want to be in that slump no' mo' and i'm trying to get out of it. (i was also inspired by taylor swift's song "fearless"- i'm telling you, i think that 18 year old and i could be good friends). so one step of getting myself back on track is blogging. so here we go. 

so do many of you have close girlfriends? or, for that matter, a close girlfriend? like in "bride wars" (fun movie if you have the chance to see it) they go running together, talk on the phone together, go shopping together, borrow sugar from each other, and the whole nine yards. you know friends like that? where you can call your friend up about something completely random and not need to have a whole conversation to catch up with each other? or know that if you have to go to the mall this weekend, you'll take her, because, i mean, who else would you go with? well, i don't know if it's only in movies, but i've been feeling an intense need for that. a close girlfriend. and i know i just moved to this area and it takes time...but i'm not the kind of girl that can survive that long on her own. so if a friend like this exists, let me know. or if you have one, you'd better hand her over to me!

so that's what's been on my heart lately. maybe tonight i'll post pictures of the hocker family christmas and other things. 

oh- and james' birthday is rapidly approaching. one year! holy smokes. i'll keep you posted with the plans.