Ready For Christmas!

This year, J had the day before Thanksgiving off but had to work the day after Thanksgiving. You know what that means…I had to put up Christmas 2 days earlier this year, yay! Usually, I decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Lucky me, J had to work after Thanksgiving so I had to put Christmas up before Thanksgiving. Otherwise, who knows when it would have been done. As y’all know, time FLIES this time of year! Once again, I sent J into the attic to retrieve Christmas. Without further ado, let's dive into another Prickett holiday season!!!

I love you too! Here is Mr. Man bringing in our new tree! Last year, I expressed to Jeremiah that we needed a larger tree that will look more proportionate to our new living room. After all of the Christmas sales started last year, we found this 7.5ft tree on display for $235 at Target. They were slashing the prices on all of the Christmas trees that were on display and we only paid $35 for it!

My little elf! So far, she is enjoying Christmas as much as I am. I'm glad that she got her momma's Christmas genes!!!

Scarlett is pulling up on everything and anything. If she can pull herself up and walk to where she wants to go, she will. I won't be surprised if she is walking before her 1st birthday. Anyway, I had to keep my hearth very child friendly this year. It is down to the bare minimum just for Scarlett. She can continue to pull up on it and I get to rest easy knowing that she can't break anything...and attempt to eat glass!

Checking out the penguin! It is so cool because it has lights, it snows and it plays Christmas carols. I think Scarlett is trying to figure it all out.

For some reason, Scarlett is not interested in pulling on the Christmas tree. She is all about the snow. The snow blanket under the tree AND the snow blanket on the fireplace. She eats it, tears it, and plays with it! What's with the snow?!

Our new tree with all of the trimmings! I thought I would never get finish decorating and trimming it.

Black Friday! We survived!!! Believe it or not, we didn't do too much. Jeremiah was pleased about that I'm sure.

I'm sure this mantle will change 2 or 3 more times before Christmas. If y'all see some great garland and a wreath for a great price, let me know. You can't really tell but all of the plush decorations are on the hearth for Scarlett's enjoyment.

I am so glad that Scarlett is a happy baby! We took this after church yesterday.

Here's to a great Christmas this year!

By the way, Thanksgiving was fine. We visited Jeremiah's family and then it was off to my parents house. Like always, I ate way too much. Regina, I took a few bites for you just like I said I would :o)

As usual, I'm grateful for my dear sweet husband Jeremiah. I'm grateful that he has a job to provide for us financially. I'm grateful for Scarlett and Elizabeth and all of the joy that they bring to Jeremiah and I. I'm especially grateful that the good Lord was so merciful and blessed us with Scarlett's sweet spirit. I'm grateful for my parents and my siblings. I'm grateful for my house. I'm grateful for the groceries that we have. I'm grateful that I get to stay home and be with the girls. I'm grateful that Jeremiah and I have reliable transportation. I'm grateful for our health. Most of all, I'm grateful that we live in a country where I can love and serve God freely.

I understand that all my blessings can easily be gone in an instant. But for now, I'll show my appreciation for my blessings by taking care of what I have. Whatever the Lord's will is for us, I will graciously accept it. At the moment, life is good and I am so grateful for that :o)

$1.31

Lately, there hasn't been a lot happening in the Prickett camp. As a result, I haven't had anything to blog about...until now.

When we moved into our house last year, we selected Reliant Energy as our provider. At the time, we went with them b/c they had the cheapest rate on the market. About 4 weeks ago, someone from TXU knocked on the door and they wanted us to return to TXU. TXU is currently cheaper than Reliant Energy...so we switched back to TXU.

Last week, we got our "final" electric bill from Reliant Energy. $455!!!!! What?! Did an intern make a mistake?! Did someone misread the meter?! Maybe our address was inverted with someone else?! Do they have me confused with another Gwen Prickett?! Because THIS Gwen Prickett, the one that y'all know and love, was NOT about to pay one cent of THAT bill until someone from Reliant Energy explained how in the world our electric bill could be $455!!!!!

After 90 minutes of venting out loud to Reliant and TXU, I got some answers. When we moved and switched to Reliant last year, we committed to a 24 month contract. I thought we were on a 12-month or a 18-month contract. Because our 24 months were not up, we were charged a $295 cancellation fee when we switched from Reliant to TXU. In the meantime, TXU has a $200 cancellation fee. After pleading my case, TXU was kind enough to let us out of our new contract without paying a cancellation fee. Not only that, Reliant welcomed us back with open arms, yay! As a bonus, Reliant also waived the cancellation fee, double yay!!! Jeremiah's wallet could breathe again :o)

After the dust had settled and I retracted my claws, Elizabeth surfaced. She came to me with a bag of her personal money. She said she wanted to give it to me to help pay the electric bill because she didn't want the electricity to be turned off. When I counted her money out, it was a whopping $1.31! As if that would make a dent in $455! I told her that was very sweet of her to share her money on behalf of the family. I also told her that Heavenly Father is so proud of her for wanting to sacrifice something of hers for someone else's benefit :o)

She's a great kid and I'm glad that she's ours. But the next time she leaves a light on, I'm taking that $1.31 to put towards next months bill!

Carrots

Two months ago, we attempted to give Scarlett some rice for the very first time. The few times that she had it, she didn't love it but she didn't hate it either. Generally, she ate it without too much fuss. Now that she is almost 7 months, we are seriously trying to get her started on solid foods. Having said that, last night we attempted carrots on our first journey to solid foods! Let's see how it went shall we?

Before the storm...

...the storm...

...after the storm.

The carrots were definitely new for her. Surprisingly, the mess on her face was the only mess that she made. We'll continue to give her carrots for the next few days. Maybe we'll try fruit next week. Truth be told, we probably should have tried fruits first. Oh well. She didn't finish her carrots but she did okay for the first try. After a while, we decided to put her out of her misery and then she fell asleep :o)