Xlerator

If you have seen one of these:

You know. :) You know how wonderful they are, how great they work, and how desperately you wish every public bathroom in the US had one.

If you have never seen on of them, let me explain: it is a bathroom hand dryer...on steroids. As you can see in the picture below, it is so powerful, it will literally blow the skin on your hand all around, and will dry your hands off super fast!

Funny thing is, I don't even remember if it was warm or not, I just enjoyed watching my hand skin blow onto the person next to me. It was awesome. :)

How do you think an Xlerator would look in our bathroom?

Fireplace Makeover

From here:

To here:

And a lot of steps (8 hours and 60 bucks) in between :):

(ps...this guy from craigslist took the mantle for free! :) )

Big change!!! :) New mantle still to come...

Canoeing Fun

Canoeing fun with the Wii...and you don't even have to get wet!

Danielle and Christa:

Danielle and Adam:

Andy and Jeremy:

PS: the blogger doesn't have to post embarrassing videos or pictures of herself, right? :)

Guitar Hero

We have been introduced to Guitar Hero, thanks to Danielle and Adam! It is fantastic and as of this blog we have been playing for 3 hours straight. :) Here are a few action shots:

Danielle rocking out:

Danielle and Jeremy doing a little canoeing:
Even Joe and Agnes get in on the fun:
Jeremy poses for a shot:
Dad was the best rocker of all!

What a Change!

There has been a lot of activity here in the last 14 hours! What started out as old yellow linoleum floor has turned into beautiful laminate floors! They match the old original oak floors perfectly!

Everyone was hard at work, and of course there was a new tool for the job...a new table saw (a small one, but it worked great!)!!! We had to put that together first (after the run to Home Depot to get it)...

The first piece goes in...

Moving quickly with all the help! (Dad, Jeremy, Adam and Andy worked great together) :) I see more business potential if Jeremy's and my drywall hanging business doesn't work out.

And a little iPhoning...

The finished product...a brand new kitchen! :)

And one very happy mother! Thanks Jeremy for all of your hard work!

So far...

Here we are in New Jersey!

After a wonderful Delta flight (**can you believe it???), we arrived in LaGuardia, NY. We took the scenic route home by accident through Manhattan , and sat in 3 hours of bumper to bumper traffic. :) Whoops.

My mom has her Christmas tree and decorations all set up...

Each year my parents buy one theme ornament. They have 28 now! I will blog about our ornament of the year when it arrives!

Anyway, this is their ornament:

My parents have also been doing massive renovations in their house, prepping for a possible sale. Painting, sanding beautiful hardwood floors, new doors, decorations, etc. Stay tuned for one last project at the Ciotta household.

My mom made a wonderful brunch today, including eggs, sausage, granola french toast, crumb buns, and more cookies and cakes than any reasonable person could eat. Good thing we not reasonable. :)

Here is Jeremy with Aunt Diane and Grammy.

Christa and Andy hanging out...
Dad and Joe getting ready Christmas morning. Both have their red shirts on! We are still waiting for two more family members...Danielle and Adam. :) See you tomorrow!

Sneak preview: This ugly floor is getting a facelift. Mom wants to clarify that this floor has not been showing for a long time, however another layer has been removed for the facelift. :)

Deep in thought. :) There is definitely something in the works here! More pictures to come.

PS-check out the renovated bedroom my parents did upstairs. Totally bed and breakfast style! :)

Bags are packed

All our bags are packed, were ready to go!

We have a tons of winter clothes to keep up warm in the 20 degree weather, a drill, a nail gun, a saw, Christmas presents, and two pairs of cowboy boots.

See you tomorrow NJ!

Busy Bees

We have been so busy lately!

Jeremy has stepped into his new job as flight commander, which includes many long days, phone calls and text messages at random hours, and non-stop thoughts buzzing around in his head all day long! He is getting the hang of it, though, and he is doing a great job! Turns out that flight commander is a perfect job for someone who owns (and loves) their P-Touch Labeler! :) His first class is headed to track select (where they will be told whether they will be on track to fly fighter jets or heavy jets) in just a few weeks!

My part time, outpatient job rapidly turned into a full time job last week, when the other OT went to work for home health. I'm on my own now, but I was fortunate enough to spend almost a whole year learning from her, so I have gained a lot of confidence. Additionally, I have been making good use of our YMCA membership (spinning and step aerobics), and a few months ago I joined a women's bible study, which has turned out to be a big blessing because I have developed so many new friendships!

The dogs have been spending a lot of time outside with our long work hours, and Beagle is miserable ;), but until he learns the "no dogs on the couch" rule, he gets kicked out too. I did purchase a "Sofa Scram", which is designed to keep your dog/cat off the couch by setting off an alarm when they step on it. It was shipped to me on Saturday, and I will keep you updated. It might be a scam itself, but then again, it might keep a certain beagle warm and cozy all winter long. :)

We don't have to tell anyone that we have ripped apart our house! :) Slowly and steadily we are working on renovating and fixing up our old 70's style house and making it more modern. My sister suggested I make a project ticker on the blog, and 2 hours later, I got one to appear! We enjoy working on our house together, and the Air Force is going to have to physically come to our house and pick me up and carry me out by the time we are done. ;) I'm not leaving!

We are headed to New Jersey on Thursday to spend Christmas with the Ciotta gang, and then home for a week, and out to Arizona to hang out with the Schuld family! Lots of travels, lots of fun, and WAY too much food. Maybe a little snow mixed in there too. :)

We have a lot going on here, but in the midst of all the craziness, we know that we are so blessed in every aspect of our lives, much more than we deserve! :)

Tile Land

There has been a lot of progress in tile-land. :)

We had a volunteer this past weekend. :) Thanks Dan!

Jeremy put all of the outside tiles in the dining room and entry way. It was time consuming, but we are really excited about it!

Hello, dining room! You are finally coming together! :)

Electronic Christmas Card

One of these days I am going to get with the program. One of these days I will remember other people's birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and other special days. One of these days I will shop for Christmas gifts before December 24th. One of these days I will show up for things on time (sorry Rebecca for missing your party all together!). One of these days I will cook homemade meals for your new baby, and keep my house clean enough to have surprise guests over.

But until then, here is our electronic Christmas card, since I was unable to get my act together to get it out in time. :) There is always next year! :)

Merry Christmas!

Love

Jeremy and Jamie

Aileron, Rio, and Riley

Adaptable

Some days, you just have to adapt to your surroundings! Nobody, apparently, is better at that than Beagle!

Peanut Clusters

These are awesome...you will love them, and they are SO easy! If you are looking for an easy Christmas cookie that tastes wonderful, these are it! All you have to do is throw the chocolate in the crockpot and you are set! Doesn't it look amazing? I could just lick out the whole thing.

16 oz jar of unsalted peanuts (dry roasted)

16 oz jar of salted peanuts (dry roasted)

4 oz bar of Bakers German chocolate (green box)

12 oz bag semi-sweet chocolate chip morsels

3 lbs white candy coating (vanilla), only buy the trays, not the morsels

Directions

Put ingredients in order in 5-6 quart crock pot on LOW for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring. Drop spoonfuls onto wax paper and let dry. Do not refrigerate. Gently pull off wax paper and enjoy!

Enjoy!!!

PS...not fat free, unfortunately! :)

Comfy

We have furniture!!! It is so comfortable! We can sit in our new living room, with and enjoy a fire and snuggle up with some blankets! No dogs allowed, so that is kind of a rough change, but they will get it. Thats my big chair there in the corner, Perfect for a quilt and a book!

Another step toward putting our house back together!!!

Pepper and Tiles

Our pepper plants got too cold in the last fews days (of ridiculously cold 26-30 degree temperatures). The plants are starting to look wilted, so in an effort to save our little babies, we picked lots of them today! Such a bummer...they were doing so great. Anyway, I cut up several of them and froze them. We are both going to bring a few to work. Jeremy saw a co-worker eating a raw pepper (like you would eat an apple), so hopefully he will enjoy them!

On a totally different note, we have made good progress on our tile! Our living room and laundry room are totally tiled, sealed, grouted and sealed again. It is so wonderful to have a floor! We are very happy with the way it looks. We are also happy to have the washer back in the house again!

The tile has also begun sneaking its way out into the entry way, and Jeremy is doing such a great job of keeping it in straight lines and level with the tile next to it!

Our furniture arrives on Tuesday...a few more another steps in the right direction! :)

Mohawk

The new hair-do didn't last long. It felt "nappy". So...off it went. But not without a little fun first!

Back to the same bald guy from before...and isn't he cute?!? :)