i think the morning sickness is kicking in...

UGH. i don't feel good. i think that dreaded morning sickness is finally starting to kick in. i was never sick with my first pregnancy (miscarried at 8.5 weeks and was never even queasy once.) i am 8 weeks today, and for the past 3 or 4 days or so i have been just plain yucky in the mornings.

fortunately, i have not thrown up. haha, yeah, i know, all you people who have 3+ months of violent illness are hating me right now. i haven't thrown up... yet. i feel like i could.

i should be in the shower right now, getting ready for work. i have too many dang "points" (walmart is stupid, another long story i will tell you another time) to miss work right now without getting a "verbal coaching" which would go on my record and cause me to not get as good an evaluation in february. if you have a coaching on your record, you don't have a chance of getting an "exceeds expectations," which is a 60 cent raise, which would be really nice. otherwise, all you get is "meets exectations," which is a 40 cent raise, which is nice... but there are too many other people in my area who have gotten exceeds and didnt really deserve it, and i'll be pissed if i get a meets just because of a coaching.

enough about walmart and its stupid ways of evaluating people AND its extremely stupid point system. i guess i should try to eat something (we don't have any saltines, grrr) and take a shower and get ready for my job. it's awful, walmart at Christmastime. WHY do people wait until the 22 and 23 and 24 to come in and look for wiis, games, tvs, etc.? makes no sense to me whatsoever.

ugh, i don't feel good.

playing catch up

i know, i'm behind on my blogging! it's been sort of crazy here these past couple weeks. working at walmart during the holidays is not exactly at the top of my "fun list." it's exhausting, more mentally than anything, because people just ruin the holidays when they come in looking for a wii and get all upset because we don't have any. EXCUSE US! this is only the 3rd Christmas in a row that it's been the #1 item, did you REALLY think that we would have loads of them stored away in the back? you should have come in this summer, when we had 200+ in stock.

many new things going on in the olmstead household. we got a new puppy, she is a beautiful boxer named bella! absolutely adorable. she and kodi are slowly making the transition to being full-time outside doggies, while baxter and zoe will be our indoor dogs. secondly, we're expecting a baby in august! stephen and i are very excited, but trying not get our hopes up too much, because of the miscarriage i had a few months ago. i was 8 1/2 weeks when i miscarried last time, and as of right now i am 7 weeks, 5 days. so, we'll see. assuming everything goes okay, we should be hearing the pitter-patter of little feet around august 5.

well, i'm off to get ready for work. have a wonderful sunday!

christmas is my favorite time of year!

i just love Christmas. i love winter. i love snow.

i love everything about the month of december. how i wish i could take a leave of absence from walmart every december. working there during december *almost* makes me lose my Christmas spirit. however, when i come home to my house, and see my TWO -- yes, two -- Christmas trees, i just get happy all over again. i wish i could take pictures of my trees and presents, but i can't seem to find my camera right now. i'll take pictures when i find it.

stephen and i got/made the CUTEST gifts for our parents and my brother and his girlfriend, britney. it's sort of a gag gift. ok, a really cute gag gift. i'll explain more later (after Christmas, because i can't ruin the surprise) but i am hoping that everybody likes them. i sure do. =)

we had a good weekend. friday night we went to the mena Christmas parade, which lasted a really long time, but was fun. afterwards, we went to janssen park to watch the fireworks show and the lighting of the park decorations. the show was great, and we were able to meet up with my parents and my cousins from out of town, who were visiting for the weekend. afterwards we went back to my parents house and learned a new card game called Nerts.

so, it's time for me to clean up the house. maybe i'll find my camera!

one long week

Happy first day of December from the Olmstead family!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with our family and friends. Our internet went down last Tuesday and was just fixed this morning. I am really glad to have my internet back up and working. I was going stir-crazy and missed reading people's blogs!!

On Thanksgiving Day we visited with my parents and brother (but didn't eat.) My mom took some pictures of Stephen & me with our children dogs. Today, I made holiday greeting cards in the photolab at WalMart and will be sending them out to our friends and family sometime in the next week or so. (Hopefully. I just finished sending off the last of our "thank you" notes from the wedding.) We ate a LATE lunch with Stephen's mother, and it was GOOD. Thankfully we had only eaten breakfast that morning, so we were plenty hungry for lots of turkey, cranberry sauce, rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pie. We watched the Cowboy game that afternoon --apparently this is an Olmstead tradition that I am supposed to participate in every year. My sweetie husband ran home to get my laptop so I was able to get an internet fix while "watching" the game. =)

Saturday night Stephen and I held our first Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament. We had a $5 buy-in and several people came over and played, including my dad and Stephen's mom. It was a lot of fun and we're looking forward to doing it again.

Big News... yesterday - November 30, it snowed. In Mena, Arkansas. IN NOVEMBER. Now, for those of you who don't know, I LOVE SNOW. Most people really, really like snow. Not me. I LOVE snow. I was really excited when I married Stephen because my initials now spell "SNO," which just makes me really happy. Anyway, it flurried lightly all day yesterday and even some this morning. Not very much, but by 8 this morning a little bit was sticking to the grass and my car had a cute little layer of snow on it. Unfortunately, I had left my camera at work yesterday and couldn't get a picture of it. =(

My christmas trees (BOTH of 'em) are up and twinkling. I have my presents for my parents and my wonderful hubby, but I still need to buy for my brother, his girlfiend, Stephen's brother and his wife, and Stephen's mother. And I need to put together some sort of little gifts for our friends/co-workers. All of this without making my checkbook cry.

So, at that note, I am going to wrap up this blog and start shopping online to see what kind of deals I can find there. Wish me luck. =)