Christmas

Okay, here is the awaited Christmas post! ha (I know, I know...probably not all that awaited, but I don't want to leave it out in the scheme of major events going on.)

We had a wonderful Christmas with lots of family time! Santa was BEYOND good to us! I won't show everything, but we are blessed to have gotten some new goodies.

On Christmas Eve, we spent time with Eric's family. It is extremely rare that the whole crew is together at one time (due to Eric's sister's boyfriend's kids not always being on the same schedule as everyone else), so I used my fancy DSLR to capture a picture of the group. Wow, wasn't that a mouthful!?! lmao And you can also tell how much the guys "love" to smile!?

The Padgett Family

Then we spent Christmas morning taking it easy at home while the girls spent the morning at their mom's house. We picked them up mid-afternoon and came back for food and presents with mom and my sister.

Jordan was pretty excited about EVERY gift

one of my favorite gifts (came from my sis) - 2 of our wedding pics matted with the burlap and lace we used to decorate the ceremony arbor - now we're just waiting on frames!

this is her "fake" surprise look - she knew what she was getting, we're just shocked she waited until Christmas to open it! ha

I had to include this pic of Emma because it matched her dad's shirt AND she is wearing those crazy panda onesie pajamas

and last, but not least - momma got a gift cert to one of our families fave spots - yummy fried chicken!

Happy 2014!

Hello friends!

I can't believe it's January 1, 2014. December flew by at lightning speed...and here we are in a new year. I hope to get some "catch up" posts done this week and then...and then...actually keep up with posts! ha I feel like I've done a poor job at that this past year.

The other year I did a challenge of a photo a day for a year, so I thought I might try my hand at that again. Somedays it will feel like a task to come up with something "interesting" to capture the memory of the day, but there are so many times that I get lazy and don't snap a picture, later wishing I had. Now I have a challenge to force me to do that again! ;)

I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday. We celebrated the New Year by staying home and having a few drinks while watching the NYE Dick Clark special. I am dealing with a somewhat obscure medical thing (and in order not to gross anyone out, I will NOT be sharing - hahaha - trust me on this!), so I've been trying to take it easy and will hopefully be back to regularly scheduled life soon! 2013 was sooooo not my year, medically speaking.

Hoping for good things this year...for us AND for you! :)

Holiday Shopping! Support Small Businesses

Scentsy Super Sale!

Avoid the mad rush of Black Friday and get started on your holiday shopping early! From 12:01 a.m. PST Friday, Nov. 22 through 11:59 p.m. PST Monday, Nov. 25, save up to 70% on Scentsy Fragrance closeout products on the PWS.

As a small business owner, I am asking you to support the entrepreneurs this holiday shopping season. If you're like me, you may already be DONE with your shopping lists. I realize most people are not crazy about it like I am...so if you still have shopping to do and are looking for a unique gift...SCENTSY makes an awesome gift! ;)

I've posted a few pictures of some of the nice pieces that should be included this weekend. Be sure to log on my website Friday (11/22), Saturday (11/23), Sunday (11/24) and Monday (11/25) to cash in on the deals! All closeout products will be up to 70% off regular prices!! MAJOR DEALS!

Sale prices will not be revealed until 12:01 am Pacific Standard Time on Friday, Nov. 22nd. I am guessing the items will change each day, but you never know! 

And please know...your orders help my family. As my husband and I are both without jobs right now, Scentsy is our income and we truly appreciate your support! Your orders keep food on our table and pays the bills.

SAVOR THE SCENT - Erin & Eric's Scentsy Business

Halloween Display: A Family Outing

There is a local family that does an annual pumpkin display. The display has around 200+ carved pumpkins each year. Tonight was their opening night for this year, so mom, Eric, Emma and I headed out to see it! It was cool to see all the pumpkins and get some ideas for our own Halloween decorating next year! :)

You park on the side of the road, walk up to the house, and wander around the yard with the masses. Seriously, there are people everywhere! They set it up in a great format though. There were 4 hay wagons out in the yard with roped off area and you just circled around those. Then there was the front porch of the house down out along the side of the yard which led to the last wagon. There was also a graveyard with headstones. ;)

Pinterest: Christmas Decor

I pinned this project LAST year and even had the bottles (Starbucks bottles) to do it, but as always, never got around to it! We had white spray paint left over from painting pumpkins and had bought some red paint that we never used, so I found a use for both. Yay for finished projects!

Now I can't wait until after Thanksgiving to put these out! All I need to finish it is some glittery branches to put in the bottles for display.

Pinterest: Halloween Decor

Most of us love to "pin" all these things we'd enjoy having in our home for holiday decorations, etc. I want to do them ALL, but without a job and full-time income, my resources are pretty severely limited right now. I have been using some of my boring days at home to contemplate how I can create these pretty things without too much money involved! ha

The girls love to be crafty, so I thought this year we would do a few new things for Halloween. Last year, we did the pumpkin milk jugs for the front porch. Not thinking clearly, we threw them away at the end of the season (because we have NO place for storage for "extra" things).

The first thing we did was paint our pumpkins. Eric decided he liked his pumpkin better as it was (I just don't think he felt like painting...ha), but the girls and I got into the festive Halloween mood!

Jordan was kinda disappointed about not carving her pumpkin, so as a trade off for painting, we let her carve a watermelon. I know, I know. Bizarre! However, we have a huge pile of watermelons sitting back by the garden and we're all kinda burnt out on watermelons. :p With the upcoming frosty days, I doubt her watermelon jack o' lantern will last long, but at least she had fun doing it!

And to finish it off, we used black contractor trash bags to create spider webs for the doors. The girls loved it, but didn't really have a good concept of how to cut the bags properly despite lots of coaching from me (can you believe they've never made snowflakes from paper?!? I thought all elementary schools did that!). We put them up regardless of their success and the girls liked how they turned out. I did one to show them and hung it on the mirror.

Here are my pins that we got the inspiration/directions from if you choose to do it in your home! You can follow me at emenchho1.

Spiderweb: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/115686284151494928/
Initial Pumpkin: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/115686284149217738/

4th of July

I know this is a little late, but I've been busy! Between my leg (update in the next post I write) and Scentsy Reunion (the last post I wrote), plus going back to work instead of working from home...I'm exhausted!

We had a pretty low key 4th of July day, but that weekend we had some time with my dad's side of the family. My cousins are like my siblings and their kiddos more like nephews/niece than cousins. Love them to pieces!

Here's some fun moments I wanted to remember...

mom sitting with her little buddy, Roxy (our friends' Yorkie)

Henry, Callie & Roxy entertaining Jen

Callie eating strawberries and sitting with Jenna

I think Henry had just "stole" Eric's heart and was trying to keep it away from him...too funny! (we always did the "got your nose" bit when we were little)

Henry & Callie getting Eric to lift them up...over...and over...and over ;)

Neglected Blog

*sigh* Well friends...here I sit...FINALLY getting a chance to blog! The sad thing is, there's so much to say that I probably will just give in and go the easy route with a simple few sentences to sum things up while I've been on my blogging hiatus (an unintentional one at that) and throw in lots of pictures to distract you from that fact! ha

We've been super duper busy as always! We even managed to fit in a Thanksgiving trip to Gatlinburg, TN to relax for a few days. It was a fantastic trip and I wish it wasn't over....coming back to work and dealing with open enrollment for insurance (lots of new options this year), plus still doing 2 jobs at once, fitting Scentsy stuff in as much as I can, getting ready for Christmas, and working on wedding plans...life has been chaotic at best. I get worn out just thinking about it!

Before the trip there was wedding registry stuff, Christmas shopping, work, and making plans for the holidays.

I unfortunately don't get any other break from work besides the normal weekends until the week of Christmas. The countdown is on! Speaking of countdowns...did you know that Christmas is 27 days away??? I almost have my Christmas shopping done. Just have to get online and order the last few items. Once again, it's mostly about finding the time to do it.

And now for some pictures of what we've been up to!

**Tried posting this last week, but I am out of photo storage space and I refuse to pay for more! ha Had to delete a lot of pics, so if you are looking through old posts and a picture is missing, that is why!**

Confession

I have a confession to make....I am not very exciting. Like, barely at all.

Everyone is posting all these fun 4th of July posts and I have nothing to share. Nada. Wanna know why? Well, let me tell you.

I had to work. Yep, you read that right. We were originally scheduled to work 4 - 10 hour days (M, Tu, Th, F). On Tuesday, a few pains in my side at work decided to complain about a day off in the middle of the week. Yeah, no shit Dick Tracy. Just about every local place did the same schedule. Brilliant time to change your minds that you don't like it. They convinced the boss man to change the schedule (I was the only person opposed to it...not really, it's just that they harped on the 1 other person until he relented). So instead of enjoying a day at home relaxing with my mom and boyfriend, I had to sit at work...bored to tears. I actually almost fell asleep at my desk in the afternoon. I wish I were kidding, but falling forward towards my desk woke me up. *shaking my head* I was not exactly the nicest person yesterday. Can you blame me?? So now I have Friday off, but guess what...my loved ones will be at work! What a bunch of crapola. And yes, I did tell off the 2 people who started the griping and got the boss to change the schedule. It did make me feel slightly better. ha

Last night I left job #1 and stopped to pick up AxMan at his place. He went with me so I could do payroll at job #2. (I had a dentist appointment Monday night when I would have normally done it and Tuesday we had other plans as well...oh and I kinda forgot! ha) After finishing up there, I rode with him to go collect money from a side job he'd done. He loves landscaping and he trimmed hedges for a lady who always has him do it every year. On the way back home, he decided that he didn't feel like eating in, so he took me out to dinner. And yes, sadly that is only like our 3rd official date out somewhere. haha I introduced him to a local restaurant that my family loves (some family friends own it), Crossroads, and he liked it as well! Not many places left in the world where you can go eat big, hearty, homemade meals for $17 for 2 people.

We went back to his apartment and he decided to put away a few more boxes of stuff that he had started on earlier in the day while I was at work. I promptly fell asleep on the loveseat. For 2 hours. hahahaha Seriously. I'm a terrible date. He took me out to dinner and to thank him, I fell asleep on his couch while he cleaned. Ummmm...jeez. We won't be winning any awards for most exciting couple anytime soon! ;)

So although my holiday didn't start out too great (getting up at 4:30am to be at work by 6 is less than thrilling and obviously quite exhausting), it ended pretty great...including a late night bowl of ice cream. :p

And now I'm enjoying another lovely and boring day at work. Thankfully it's the last one of the week! 5.5 hours left to go...... #countdown

Day 276 - A Fresh Start

"...it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good..."



Happy 2012! When I ended my 2011 post, I said I'd conclude our festivities in this post...and so I shall. ha It was really rather uneventful when we got back to the hotel. This year I had the foresight to order us a pizza so we'd have "drunk food" when we got back from the bar. Usually we close down the bar and by that time, no restaurants are still open. Bummer, right? As you can see, this pizza didn't last long. We were staaaaaaaarrvin'!

We all slept...I slept blissfully unaware that the other 2 did not sleep so well. ha I am a heavy sleeper, so I did not notice mom's million trips to the potty or Jen's unsound sleeping. I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to start the day! I showered and got ready (I was even up BEFORE our alarm was set). We packed up the car and made a quick stop at Starbuck's for some morning sustenance. ;) Dropped Jen off at her place and made the journey home, with only one extra stop - groceries!

Since I've been home, I've unpacked my bag, done laundry, exercised, caught up on blogging, and am now preparing to do a little computer work while I do an ionic detox (it's seriously been waaaaaaay too long since my last one!).

As of today, I am back on the Weight Watchers Plus bandwagon. I have gained 17 pounds since I stopped tracking. I mean, UGH! I am more than a little disappointed in myself, but after 3 months of not tracking or exercising, Thanksgiving vacation, a family weekend full of food, Christmas, and New Year's binges...I am in need of some serious self-tough-love. Today I stocked up on some healthy foods. I completed Week 1 Day 1 of C25K. I was contemplating tracking how many miles I run/walk this year, but hadn't committed and now I see many friends going for 1,000 miles running (I will be doing a combo deal), so what the heck...I'm in too! ha I stepped on the scales and weighed myself so I would know just had far I had let myself go...although I pretty much knew after weighing myself right before Christmas and I added 4 pounds since then! EEK! My body is definitely feeling the hurt tonight as I completed C25K at a faster pace (one I usually have to work up to over a few weeks) and I thought I was gonna die! I survived though...we'll see how well I am moving tomorrow. haha And to finish the day, I witnessed a beautiful sunset of this first day of the year...

And now, I will share my 2012 Goals. I'm not going to call them resolutions, as I had a friend post on Facebook that resolutions are acceptable to be broken and Goals/Plans make you feel more accountable. That is quite true. People break their New Year's resolutions within days of making them (although I stuck with mine nearly all of 2011!) and this year I want them to stick all year, not nearly, ALL. Some of them are repeats, but I didn't exactly master them last year, so I feel they are important enough to stick with it again.

1. Be Healthy - A lifestyle change is what is necessary for me. Food has always been a problem, thus leading to weight issues. I'm not trying to be a skinny little thing (that would be unrealistic), but I want to get down to a healthy weight so I can be the best me. Exercise will become a happy habit.

2. Travel - Continue exploring new places and making time for one of my #1 passions!

3. Financial Freedom - Continue working towards being debt-free. Make conscientious spending decisions and make a deliberate effort to save money when/where I can.

4. Enjoy Life - Sounds simple enough, but to not let myself be the introvert that I so often tend to be. Take chances and DO things rather than think about doing things. You'll definitely see this goal come to life soon! ;)

5. Do Things Bigger - Wait, what?? ha I plan to give my best in everything I do this year. Dream bigger, work harder, play more, laugh louder...all part of enjoying life and becoming healthier! After reading my horoscope year overview (yes, I read it as a fun thing, but mine is always eerily true), I am even more determined to do more for myself and to not let opportunities pass me by. I truly believe big things are on the horizon for this year!