Goodbye OH NINE, Welcome ONE-OH!

Another year, coming to a close and a new one beginning just a few hours away! It has been a good year.  God is good, He is good all the time!  
We will be staying home tonight, comfy, cozy and warm in our pj's. No big plans, playing a few video games that Maddie and I rented from Hollywood Video, which btw all video and game rentals are $1.00, just an FYI for those who didn't know because I didn't.  I was pleasantly surprised when I found out :).  I heart surprises! We also have a whole LOT of junk food to munch on along with chocolate chip cookies and icecream!  We will ring in the new year when the ball drops in NYC!

Image: Southern Living

(My version of the ball)

And then my Project 365:2010 begins!  I am very excited but nervous at the same time.  I honestly don't know how it's going to play out.  My hope is that if I do get to the end that I will have grown to become a better photographer and a more diligent and regular blogger.  We shall see!

Happy New Year!  Cheers to all!

WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN!

I heart Christmas decorations but I am one of those that starts to pack it all up right after Christmas Day is over.  Most people normally wait until after the 1st of the new year but I always have this urgent need to get my house back in order right after Christmas.  I've had it up for 5 weeks,  I think that's long enough.  It was time to pack up! woot! woot!


I started by taking all of the empty Christmas bins down from the attic.

I then proceeded to take all the ornaments off the tree, with the help of my Diva Daughter! Thanks Meg! Then I put all of the ornaments back in their respective homes. 

We packed everything else up in their bins by category:

• mantel accessories
• garlands
• ornaments/lights
• artificial tree
• willow tree nativity

all done in under 2 hours! All packed up and ready to be put back in the attic until it's time to decorate for Christmas 2010! 

Well except for my Christmas cards they will stay up for another few weeks!  I heart my Christmas cards!

Oh, and one last thing, and that's to pack up and put away the outdoor lights and decorations, that's the hubs project, my part is done! Yay me!

Inspired...

I have been inspired by the Julie/Julia project blog.  If you have not seen the movie, I highly recommend it. So I have been pondering on challenging myself to do the same.  I totally related to Julie, wanting to start something and finishing it to the end, because more often than not, like her, the end never comes around. Sad, but true. Oh, and NO, I will not be cooking 524 recipes in 365 days from Julia Childs "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" cookbook! Cooking is most definitely not my forte, but I do enjoy eating and I am a big foodie @ heart.

Before watching the movie I was already pondering on participating in the Flickr: Project 365 (to take and upload 1 pic a day) because for my birthday/Christmas present my family gave me a Nikon DSLR. It's a sweet little thing. So, I've decided that my project will be to incorporate 365 days of photos and blogging because in the end of 2010, umm, more like Jan of 2011, I am going to turn my blog into this. Another inspiration to take on this challenge!

Featuring my friend Amy and blogger...

franklyjournaling.blogspot.com

Click on Amy's link to check out her blog entry.

Pretty amazing huh? Thanks Amy for sharing!
I also found another site that does the same at Blog2Print.


I am a memory-holic and I take pictures up the ying yang.  It truly annoys my kids :-). I love the idea of scrapbooking but I don't do it, so a gazillion of my pictures are on CD or in my computers hard drive. Journaling with a pen and paper again is not one of my strong points, hence the reason for starting and attempting blogging back in 2006. Typing on a keyboard is 10x faster and easier! Pictures, thoughts, and random ramblings of 2010 published in a book seems like a wonderful goal and a challenge I could probably do, because I know it will be priceless in the end. LOL! That's if I get there.


If you would like to see my progress in this journey, enter your email address located on the right of my blog to get updates on my posts...Lord knows for sure that I am going to need a lot of accountability/encouragement to take this to the end.  Comments would be greatly appreciated :-). 

OR would you like to take on this challenge yourself?
New Year's resolution perhaps???  
Start a blog! Yes, you can do it!


So here we go, borrowing and taking on Flickr: Project 365 and incorporating that with my thoughts is going to be a HUGE undertaking for me especially the blogging part, updating with any semblance of regularity, is somewhat outrageously, well, impossible for me, as you can tell by how much I have posted in the past year.  I have more discarded drafts that you can imagine. Seriously! Oh well (sigh). And to put more pressure on myself, I am pondering on posting this entry on facebook.  YIKES!


365 days, 365 (or more) of photos and thoughts, one random girl with her new Nikon DSLR, her Casio Exilim point and shoot camera in purse at all times and her macbook...

How far will it go? 

We can only wait. And wait. And wait…..

1 Random Girl's Project: 365: 2010. Coming soon to our world of cyberspace!

Merry Christmas to all!

We had a great time celebrating this year!  Christmas dinner was at my sister's, along with my parents, the Cole Sr's, Matt and his friend Ralph.

This is our 3rd Carolina Christmas and each year it does get a little easier.  But it is that time of the year where we often reflect on all of our old Christmas traditions with the rest of the extended family back in California. And there's a whole LOT of them!  lol!

While we continue to miss everyone back home, God has richly blessed us with a wonderful community of friends whom we consider family.
With them we are home and for them we are thankful.

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ our Lord."

Merry Christmas!

Hey Mom, Is Santa coming tonight? wink, wink,

Christmas Eve...my sister and kids came over and we all feasted on our favorite filipino dishes.  Chicken/pork adobo and a crab dish with a delicious coconut juice sauce. Yum!  I ate so much it wasn't even funny!  

The kids had their annual gingerbread house decorating contest and for the 2nd year in a row, the girls won!  

We all had banana splits for dessert and the evening ended with Meagan asking hey mom, is Santa coming tonight? wink...wink...lol!

The kids, my parents and Nelson all went to bed...I of course, stayed up wrapping up some last minute little gifts for the kids along with the Santa gift. (No, they don't believe in Santa anymore but we still like to pretend and have fun with it all) Anyways, last year I vowed that I wouldn't be staying up and wrapping gifts  in the wee hours of the night but but unfortunantly it happened again this year.  Auuugggghhhh!  Grrrrr!  Now doesn't the 24th come at the same time each year?  And each year I can't seem to get my act together...sigh....So it is now 3:00 a.m.. I am done and I am going to bed. Merry Christmas Eve to all and to all a goodnight!

Celebrating December Birthdays!

My parents flew in last Wednesday night, to spend the holiday season with us!  Since both daughters and only children are here in NC along with their 8 grandchildren it makes sense for them to spend the holidays here.  Today my parents took us all out to eat at Cheesecake Factory minus Nelson :-( (he was busy working!).  But first we headed over to Phillip's Place to take my parents annual Christmas card pics with all of their grankids...then we headed over to SouthPark Mall where we enjoyed lunch at Cheesecake Factory to celebrate December birthdays because there's 4 of us...mine, Mike's and my two nephews Steve and Sam (today was Sam's real birthday day!). I had the lettuce wraps, which was highly recommended by my sister.  Can I say "YUM"!

The Lee Family Times- 2009 Review and Favorites!

NELSON'S NEW JOB WITH CARBUYCO AFTER 9 MONTHS OF JOB SEARCHING!...6 week vacation visiting family and friends in CALIFORNIA...MonaVie...Michael's perfectly straight teeth after getting his braces off...Meagan getting her braces on and ortho visits...baby Jaime's Christening...with Nelson being a Godfather... Alely's part-time job @ Grace Academy...Our 1st and maybe our last family 5k run @ the Elk Grove Run for Independence along with extended family and friends... UB and Cii's wedding...Fall trip to Outerbanks, NC...
...apple crumb pie with vanilla icecream...Maddie's 1st 2 night, 3 day trip away from home with her 6th grade class...Meagan & cousin Paige's 8th grade graduation blessing/party...

..reconnecting with lots of family members and old friends from all over the world (Hawaii, Canada, Philippines, Germany, The Netherlands, Alaska, Australia & Japan through facebook!)...sushi @ New Zealand's Cafe...Michael & Meagan on Homecoming Court...Fall Colors in the Carolinas...Sunday evenings with our Lifegroup...celebrating Michael's 16th birthday...sweet tea...our new next door neighbors...church family...

...Mei-Mei's adopt-a-dog-niversary-day!...Nelson's mom's successful surgeryPTL!...and for all the prayers that were lifted up for our family.

This year has been a difficult one with the loss of Nelson's job and has brought many challenges and fears along the way but we rest and find peace amidst all the unknown's in God's sovereignty. He has faithfully met all of our needs in ways we could never have imagined!


The most glorious promises of God are generally fulfilled in such a wondrous manner that He steps forth to save us at a time when there is the least appearance of it.


C. H. von Bogatzy

Hair we go!

So I never thought I'd blog about my hair but just thought I'd be RANDOM today and just blog about it. I have come to realize that as much as I love long hair the shorter length is much easier to maintain.  Well, back in September, I believe on the 13th I made the decision to *as the Nike slogan goes...."Just Do It!"* and went with a hairstyle I have been pondering on for a few years now.  I just never had the guts to make the drastic change.  I loved the new cut and the new look and so did everyone else, including my kids! Can you imagine that?


Well, it's been 12 weeks since the cut, enough time to ponder on growing it out or cutting it.  It was also starting to get on my nerves! I made the decision last Thursday that I needed to go in and cut it and so I did.

Lifegroup Christmas P-A-R-T-Y!

Our annual lifegroup Christmas party @ the Makla Compound is always so much fun!  We feasted on grilled steak, chicken, ribs by Mr. Makla himself!  The rest of the families brought either a sidedish, dessert, or salad to share.  We sang Christmas carols together, played a song game, had a devotional and ended the evening with the white elephant gift exchange.  The most wanted item of this year was an plastic Elvis guitar filled with popcorn which ended up with Mr. Makla! My bad!  I deleted the picture I had with him and the guitar!

Michael's S-I-X-T-E-E-N!

I can't believe today my baby boy turned 16!  My how time flies!  He invited some of his good friends over tonight to hang out, eat pizza, and cookie cake since he is not much of a cake person.  Later in the evening Nelson and I packed them all into two cars and headed over for a game of bowling.  All the girls were picked up and the guys spent the night and went home the following afternoon.  He had a great time and it was fun having his friends over in our home. 

Happy Sweet Sixteen...my sweet boy!  Thanks for being who you are!  You're the best son a mom could ever ask for! 

Finally! New Christmas Stockings!

Ok, for years now I have been wanting new stockings!  You know like the Pottery Barn looking stockings and each year after Christmas, I believe, for at least the past 3 years I would look online to buy some of those PB stockings you know at 50% off, and each year I never did :-(.  It's probably because I knew that I could make some myself and it would still cost less than the clearance price of a PB one. 

Well, I happened to stumble across a blog post on Shabby Nest and she made stocking from old blankets that she had. I thought to myself, surely, I have something I could use to make new stockings for my fam.  I scoured the house looking for something that might work and sure enough I found an old tablecloth I have not used for years!  It was perfect!

I already had the sewing machine out because I had to sew my daughter's dress that morning so I got really excited and started on this D.I.Y. project right away!

This is the tablecloth I used...

I traced our old stockings on the tablecloth like this.  I used a pink marker so you really can't see it too well.

After tracing 8 stockings onto the fabric, I cut all of them out. (5 for me, hubby, and 3 kids, one for our dog mei-mei, and a stocking for each of my parents who will be visiting us for Christmas).

I cut what was left of the velvet ribbon to make the hooks on the stockings.

I sewed them onto the stocking like so...

Then I used individual sepia pictures of each person and glued them onto solid alternating red and cream colored scrapbook paper to border the picture. I then used glue dots to stick them onto the stocking so that Santa would know whose stockings belonged to who.

My preference would be to monagram each stocking like Pottery Barn's below but what i've done will have to do for now.

I love our new stockings!  It's so much better than what we had before.  I'm glad I didn't have to spend a dime!