Family Photos...

These were taken at Thanksgiving and they actually turned out really well....I used these on our Christmas card.  Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!

I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas!  We are off to Hot Springs (in our canoe)....the news says that I-30 is closed due to flooding but we are going to try anyway.  Safe travels!!!!!

New Recipe

This past Wednesday night we had our Sunday school Christmas party at our home and I made my first cheesecake ever! It was actually really good so I want to share with the rest of you.


Eggnog Cheesecake

• 12oz gingersnaps (about 48 cookies), finely crushed
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 4 packages of 8-ounce 1/3-less fat cream cheese (32 ounces total)
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups eggnog
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• Garnish: freshly grated nutmeg

1. Stir together crushed gingersnaps, sugar, and butter in a large bowl. Press mixture onto bottom of a 10-inch springform pan. (I used a 9x13 casserole dish instead and it was good!)

2. Beat cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth; add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add 1 1/2 cups eggnog (leave 1/2 eggnog for topping), and beat until blended. Fold in powdered sugar and flour. Carefully pour cream cheese mixture into prepared pan.

3. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Turn off oven and let cheesecake stand in oven with door closed for 1 hour. Remove and let cool completely. Cover and chill for at least 8 hours.

4. Topping: Beat whipping cream at high speeds with an electric mixture until stiff peaks form; fold in remaining 1/2 cup eggnog. Spread mixture evenly over the top of chilled cheesecake. Sprinkle freshly grated nutmeg on top, if desired.

I thought the gingersnap crust was good, but Josh's critique was that next time I should do a graham cracker crust. He ALWAYS has "helpful" information when it comes to cooking :) "Ape this is great BUT it could use a little of this and a dash of that...I'm just trying to help!" Anyway, everyone should try making this cheesecake for your family!

We only have 5 more days til' Christmas! I still have not finished getting gifts for the fam, talk about procrastination! Josh is actually already out this morning trying to find his Dad and his brothers the perfect gift. I just have my Dad left and I think I have an idea of what to give him. Lori is visiting us this week and it has been nice having her here (minus the snot rags). She got here Wednesday afternoon and will be leaving next Wednesday. Lori has really bad allergies and her nose has been running non-stop so there are snot rags EVERYWHERE!!! For those of you who know my sister, you know what I'm talking about....She walks around with a wad of tissue up each nostril and when she changes them out, instead of throwing them away, she puts them on the coffee table. Gross I know! Lori also has what I call "college" style eating habits. We had a bag of chocolate candy that has slowly disappeared over the past few days. An entire bag of ruffle chips are gone...she ate that in two days by herself! I was going to make her a sandwich for lunch yesterday but she went to Sonic instead. She had to go to Kroger to buy herself some "snacks" since we don't have anything for her to eat. How in the world does she stay soooo skinny is my question! Nonetheless I love having her visit :) I'm waiting on her to wake up for the day of activities I have planned for us to do. We are going to find Dad a gift, take Koen to the dog park, maybe go to the mall...the day is still young!

Christmas Decor Pictures (Inside)

The cleaning peeps came yesterday so I decided to have a mini photo shoot of the Christmas Decor!!! It was a nasty rainy day today so I'll take pictures of the outside decor tomorrow...stay posted!

I hope you enjoy the glimpse into our home! :)

Our Decked Out Living Room...

The Mantle Decor...

Coffe Table Decor...

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree....

Winter Wonderland Tree Branches...

Pine Cone Decor that Memo gave me...

Kitchen Area...

The Foyer & Stairs (plus Koen's ball!)

Upstairs ....

Guest Bathroom....

Play By Play Weekend

This weekend we did pretty much NOTHING and it was wonderful! Friday night we watched our tivoed shows and then went to bed. Boring I know!

Saturday morning I slept in to about 8:45am and then jolly Josh woke me up to finish putting up the Christmas decor outside. We are in a competition with some friends and so the Matthews are going for it! I took some pictures but I still need to upload them. I'll do that tomorrow. Saturday afternoon Josh went to a friends house to watch football and Koen and I did some laundry and picked up the house a little....then Saturday night was date night! We went to Olive Garden and spent the leftover gift card from Memo and had a wonderful little dinner with my husband. We left stuffed and came home to lounge on the couch and then went to bed.

Today we went to early church and Sunday School...After Sunday School we went to Panera Bread with a few peeps from our class. When then came home and have pretty much been worthless all afternoon! Well we did bring the new neighbors across the street a loaf of "Christmas Bread" and introduced ourselves. We remember when we moved in and we were so excited to own our own home and NO ONE came to welcome us to the neighborhood. We thought we would be neighborly and be nice! So yeah our weekend might not seem to fun to most of you, but it was great for us because we got to spend it at home and be lazy! Tomorrow is Monday and a whole new week!

Turkey's Done!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and ate a lot of delicious food like we did! We did two Thanksgivings so let's just say we are a few lbs heavier this week.  I have been super busy at work so I have not had time to blog. So sorry for all of you who keep up with me!  I just wanted to share a few photos from the Holiday weekend. Josh's parents family (both sides) did Thanksgiving lunch together so there were a TON of peeps!

The "Fisher" Family (Josh's Mom's Side)

The Matthew's Family (Josh's Dad's Side)

Preparing for "extra" seating...

Koen had to stay outside because there were too many people in the house. 

He was scolded by Aunt Sarah for being in the kitchen...I know Ko-Ko she's mean :)

The Matthews minus Koen

After lunch we headed to the large town of Star City for dinner at my grandmother's house.  We didn't take too many pics but I do have a couple of my "1st cousins once removed"....Luca and Alana are too cute!

Well Bowen HATES hats but he still is precious!

Miss Alana

Gifts from Memo :)

Fa la la la la, la la la

It’s starting to look like Christmas at the Matthews household! Pictures to come very soon! I asked Josh yesterday to be thinking of a few things he’d like to have for Christmas. I on the other hand have already started my list! I really don’t NEED anything and I’m just being selfish, but I do want just a “few” items. Nothing big…I need a new throw rug for the living room, a new electric toothbrush re-fill, a gift card to “Holly Lolly” for the After Christmas SALES!!!!, etc. I have a huge problem buying Christmas décor! I think I need to be admitted into Christmas Junky Anonymous! I’ve been informed by my husband that it’s too early to put up the Christmas tree so I have been slowly adding a little Christmas here and there all over the house this past week. I won the battle and the tree went up last night!!! Josh came in from work and said our house looks like a Hallmark Store :)
I just LOVE this time of year. It’s starting to get colder and I just love the happiness in the air! I think that Josh and I are going to do Christmas for a child in need again this year. We need to give to someone who doesn't have very much rather than adding to our pile of stuff! (This coming from the 27 year old woman who has a Christmas list) Last year we went to the mall trying to find the Angel Tree and they didn’t have it! I was shocked! The lady at the Dillard’s counter looked at me like I was speaking French when I asked if she knew where the Salvation Army Angle Tree was located in the mall. We will defiantly get one maybe two children this year….Christmas is LOVE!!!!!!

"Creepin" on Facebook

This is a really random post.........A few weekends ago I went to Bentonville to see my family. Lori was sitting on the couch playing on the computer and her friend Carly came over and said "Lori, who are you creepin on?" No wonder I'm so uncool with the kids at Godtalk, I don't know their lingo! Apparently this means to stalk people on Facebook (Slang words just keep on getting more creative these days!).
First, hats off to the people who created Facebook! I have reunited with people from my childhood that I would probably NEVER of come in contact with again. People seem to come out of the wood works and people ask you to be their “friend” and you don’t even know them. I suppose that Facebook is like a conversation. You can chime in when you want to or you can sit back and “creep” or you can bombard all of your “friends” with what you’re doing for the weekend. I may not interact with Suzy Q today but 5 months from now she may post something that I find interesting and I start to interact with her again.

Random thought….. Are there any benefits of having lots of friends on Facebook? Is it some kind of desire for popularity? If I don't interact with a “friend”, should I  de-friend them? I guess the answer is NO because you can “creep” on them without them finding out any time you want! Very stalkerish don’t you think!

I really do enjoy getting on Facebook but there is one thing that just annoys me to death and is just silly! Anybody who has ever used Facebook is familiar with the status update application. Basically the status update allows users to put a brief message next to their name to let their friends know what they are up to. When you write something on your status update it appears on your friend’s Facebook homepage. For example if I were to write on my status “is going to Wal-Mart” it would appear on your homepage as “April is going to Wal-Mart.” Now why do people need to know my every move throughout my day? However, I do think its okay to post something every now and again, but there are people who change their status more than 5 times a day! It’s not necessary to know that you’re going to the bathroom people! I just saw the status update about the bathroom and it inspired me write about this on my blog!

Results....

I called Ashley's cell today hoping that she was already out of the hospital and it turns out she went home Saturday! They let her go early! Ashley said that she begged and begged and even got herself dressed and put make up on to make them believe that she was okay. It worked! Ashley and her mom were shopping at Hobby Lobby and Garden Ridge for Christmas stuff like this whole thing never even happened when I talked to her earlier. Ashley is truly blessed and I know she’s very thankful for all the prayers.


The Results: The news is very frightening….The biopsy of the tissues in her appendix showed that Ashley had a tumor in her appendix that was cancer. They said that it was “:medium grade” which we don’t know what that means (I’ll look it up later) and the tissue they found in her blood turned out to be nothing. After all the test they’ve done on Ashley, the doctors believe that there is no cancer present in her body at this time. The only reason they took out her appendix was because of the bleeding in her stomach. There is no other way they would of found the cancer until it had spread. I have tears in my eyes because it’s so scary! I want to believe that it was God who caused the bleeding in her stomach so they would take out the appendx. They still don’t know why all the blood was there! It has to be HIM! Every day is precious gift and most of us only call on God to ask, plead and ask again. Before we start to pray, we already have a long list of petitions and we often end the prayer without thanking Him for what He has already done for us. I’m totally guilty of this! It is right to thank Him EVERYDAY! We must thank Him because He has been good to us. The Bible tells us to “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.” – Psalm 100:4. This incident it has taught me one thing….Healing can be attained by trusting in His Wonderful name!!!! Thank you all again for your prayers and remember to THANK THE MAN UPSTARIS EVERYDAY ALL DAY!!!!!!  I love you Ashley!!!!

I called today to check in on Ashley and she was sleeping.  I spoke with her mother and she said that they had Ashley on a walking schedule and it was wearing her out.  She said that she was doing much better and she should be going home next Tuesday.  Still waiting on the results from the tests! Thanks for all the prayers!

Today I stopped by the ICU to see Ashley and she was perched up in her bed with her USPeople magazine and her computer and phone by her side...Typical Ashley style! She looked 100 times better! They are moving her out of ICU and they had just took the tube out of her nose that went to her stomach…she’s is doing awesome! I sat with her for about 15 minutes and we just talked about nothing really (the celebs, tv shows, etc.) Ashley hasn’t eaten anything since last Friday and she made sure to tell me that she was STARVING!!! They told her that she has to “pass gas” before she can eat. She said “If only I could fart, I can have something to eat!” They are still waiting for the test results to come back from her appendix and the tiny piece of tissue that they found in the blood they removed from her stomach…pray!

Update on Ashley....

I went to the hospital again today and there still is no result as to why the bleeding happened. Ashley is a little more coherent and still in a lot of pain from the stomach surgery. They started her on the blood thinner medicine that she normally takes daily and they are keeping a close eye on her. She is still in ICU but they should move her tomorrow to a recovery room. I have met the whole family and these past couple of weeks has been the worst for them. Keep up the prayers!

Prayers Needed

Yesterday, I got a text from my beautiful friend Ashley Salter. It read "Im in hospital"....I immediately called her thinking that she would answer since she just sent me a text. Then I got a text about 30 minutes later that read "Baptist ill call hen i cal tlk". So of course I'm panicking but I’m thinking she has her phone so she must be okay!

A brief history of Ashley’s health condition…..Ashley was diagnosed with ARVD back in 2001 when she collapsed playing basketball. “ARVD stands for Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia. Arrhythmogenic means causing an arrhythmia. The right ventricle is the chamber of the heart that is affected and dysplasia means there is an abnormality of the structure. ARVD is a specific type of cardiomyopathy (a disorder of the cardiac muscle). Simply put, ARVD is a genetic, progressive heart condition in which the muscle of the right ventricle is replaced by fat and fibrosis, which causes abnormal heart rhythms. ARVD is estimated to affect 1 in 5,000 people. The disease can affect both men and women. Although it is a relatively uncommon cause of sudden cardiac death, it accounts for up to one fifth of sudden cardiac death in people under 35 years of age.”

Ashley will be 29 years old in a few weeks on November 23rd so this is why I freaked out and thought it was her heart! Ashley has a implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) which is a small battery-powered electrical impulse generator which is implanted in patients who are at risk of sudden cardiac death due to ventricular fibrillation. The device is programmed to detect cardiac arrhythmia and correct it by delivering a jolt of electricity. When Ashley first got this device put in, it would go off all the time for no reason. When I say “for no reason” I mean she would be walking in the airport and she would just fall to the ground. It turns out that they had a recall on the particular ICD that she had so they had to go back in and do another open heart surgery and put a new one in her body. Ash has a big scar on her chest from this surgery….I’ve only known Ashley about a year and half now but the only time her ICD has gone off in the past three years was this year back in Aug I think…

A few weeks ago, Ashley had another heart surgery to change out the battery in her ICD (I think that this is done every 5 years) I could be wrong but anyway! The day before Ashley’s surgery, Ashley’s mother had a stroke and ended up in the ICU. (Her Mom is okay now…but could the timing of been any better!) Ashley had the open-heart surgery and was recovering while her mom was in the ICU.

The last text I got from her yesterday was “Um un icu riftgh now visting ha+rs r form 8 to 1130Pm Jopefupleyu I’ll ne I me moves romm omorrow”. She wasn’t making any sense and I immediately went to the ICU at Baptist and found her. They told me that she had been in the ICU all weekend. It wasn't her heart...on Friday Ash woke up and had really bad cramps, but she said that it wasn’t that time of the month and she never gets cramps. She went on and went to work but the pain kept getting worse and worse. It finally got bad enough where she asked one of her co-workers to take her to the emergency room. When Ashley got to the hospital they did a emergency surgery where they removed 2 liters of blood from her stomach. They removed her Appendix and tried to find where the bleeding was coming from but couldn’t! They sewed her back up and she’s been in the ICU ever since watching her closely to make sure there is no more bleeding. Please keep Ashley and her family in your prayers!!!!! Ashley was heavly drugged and her husband had sneaked her phone in the ICU but made a deal with her that she wasn't allowed to call or text anyone....of course Ashley didn't listen and notified me.  Ashley’s heart might be the healthiest but she is a STRONG woman and one my very good friends…please pray!

What a Beeeeautiful Family!

This year it was my turn to pick our Halloween costumes....so what's better than going as a BEE FAMILY! I searched EVERYWHERE for these outfits. It all started when I bought Koen's little bee suit at Target for $9.99. Josh and I couldn't figure out what we wanted to beeee :) So I said let's go as the bee family! So here we are…..

Yes that is my husband in spandex and our precious little Koen :) I know it will be worse when I have a human child! We ended up winning the costume contest and I have to say we did look pretty cute! Next year it’s Josh’s turn to pick….it better beeee good because we have to claim our winning title again. By the way, we also won last year’s costume contest at a different party (we were characters from Dodge Ball)...

The Cleaning Lady

I remember as a little girl that we had a cleaning lady that cleaned our home. I’m not sure how often she came to clean, but I do remember that the day before she came Mom would make us CLEAN! Yes that’s right…“Girls, it’s time to clean your room Trish is coming tomorrow!” I’ve never really understood that until now! With my new job I am a member of the Chamber of Commerce and we have two monthly meetings. That is where I met Tammy. She is the owner of a company called Cottage Care. It is a cleaning service company that comes in and cleans for offices as well as residential homes. I was just curious in getting a quote on cleaning our 2500sq ft home so I asked her about it! Now don’t get me wrong I LOVE to clean, bbbuuuttttttt……..I really don’t enjoy doing the “detail” cleaning. It just takes FOREVER to do and I end up spending my whole Saturday cleaning. I can clean the living room for two hours. (I have a problem I know!) I can't stand clutter and on top of that I don’t think that the floor is cleaned until I get on my hands and knees and scrub! I got the quote back and discussed it with Josh and we decided that we would have Cottage Care come in once a month to clean the whole house for a “detail” cleaning job. (In the meantime I will be doing the weekly cleaning and daily chores.) Our house has been put on the schedule and the cleaning people will come the first Wednesday of every month. Next Wednesday they come for the first time and I can’t help but want to clean for the cleaning lady. What’s wrong with me!?! Oh well I guess I'm crazy like my mom! :) I am very excited because our first visitor is going to arrive just in time for the brand new CLEAN house! Lori (AKA Tooter Poot) has a teaching conference next Friday so she is coming to Little Rock and staying with us. I believe that she will be here Wednesday evening so the house will be super fresh for my baby sister! (I know Lori could care less but whatever!) I’ll let you know how good of a job they do….it shall be interesting since I’m tad bit picky!

Give Us Our Dog Back

Last Friday, Josh and I headed to Jonesboro for Homecoming weekend at ASU. We have been looking for a new place to board Koen and we got some good reviews on this place in North Little Rock called Premier Boarding After Hours Clinic (Do not bring your dog here!) We dropped him off Friday afternoon and we "checked" out the area for our precious puppy and everything seemed great! When Sunday morning rolled around we got up, got dressed and headed to Cracker Barrel for breakfast before we left Jonesboro. I had the Apple crisp French Toast which was AWESOME by the way! The deadline to pick up Koen was by 11am. We cut it pretty close....we pulled up at the boarding place at 11:04am....the door was locked, however, there was the dude that gave us the tour of the place standing outside so Josh asked if we could get our dog. We had already paid for his visit and everything. All they had to do was give us Koen! The dude let Josh in the door and I waited in the car. About 10 minutes later, out comes Josh with NO KOEN and his face red as a beet! They told Josh that he could not pick up Koen and according to Josh he spent 10 minutes arguing with the manager. This made Josh VERY upset....the lady was rude and was not at all lenient in the pick-up policy (obviously they’ve had issues before). I understand that there have to be rules but really 4 minutes late..come on! Josh told the lady that he would “NEVER bring his dog back to this DUMP and that he would be calling the owner on Monday morning!” The manager responded “GOOD, I’ll do something even better, I’ll have you a stamped envelope waiting for you when you pick up your doing during our working hours!” Wow is all I have to say! I wonder if Koen was treated any different when we left. I went back at 5pm to pick him up and did the walk of shame with the ‘sorry my husband went crazy on you’ look on my face. So needless to say, we are not welcome back to this boarding place ever again. Back to the drawing board! I hope that when we have kids, it won’t be this hard!  

Koen the Monster...

HAPPY 32nd BIRTHDAY ADAM!!!!! Last night we had a birthday celebration for Adam (Josh's brother) in Hot Springs at Gran & Granddaddy’s new home. (It's beautiful by the way!) Josh had called Gran before we left and asked if we could bring Koen so he wouldn't have to be locked up in his crate all day. For those of you who don't know, Koen is our 1yr old puppy who can be quite a handful at times. He needs constant attention and can be a little rough! Of course, Gran said yes so off we went! I am very proud to report that Koen has gotten over his "motion sickness" problem and did not throw up once! Good boy! We had a wonderful dinner & dessert prepared by Gran...we were all having a lovely time chatting in the living room when Koen (AKA. The Little Monster) gets all wound up and starts to play with Granddaddy (who is very fragile). Next thing you know, half of Granddaddy's skin is hanging off his arm and he is bleeding on his opposite hand too somehow. Apparently Koen swatted his paw and Grandaddy was too slow to move in time. I am soooooo embarrassed and terribly sorry! He was just playing and I can’t help it that Koen LOVES to play with Granddaddy! This past summer Koen trampled Granddaddy over in our front yard and made him fall to the ground! He’s a wild one I tell ya!!! Granddaddy told me to be expecting a bill from his doctor…funny guy!

E-Baying It

So I decided to finally put my wreath on Ebay. Who knows if it's even going to sell! I made the teal/lime green wreath for about $35 and I hope to at least sell it for $50. I just enjoy making them...I tell ya what...if anyone wants me to make them a customized wreath, all you have to do is pay me for the materials and you'll get a one-of-a kind Ape-A-Lape awesome wreath :) I think my business has failed in this short time, but I am not letting that discourage me. I think my best bet is to sell the wreaths at a craft fair or something. Wish me luck on EBAY!!!!!