My former English teacher is reading this, and she must be devastated.

Yes, really, I think she must be. When she looks at this blog and observes the complete lack of grammatical correctness…she probably throws herself in the floor and rocks back and forth…really fast.

I spent the first year of this blog (2007) hiding it from almost every person I know. Well, I let the people that make fun of me on a regular basis read it but that was it. Yes, I wanted to write about things. I had all this crazy up in my head. I just didn’t want people to know how crazy…I really am. Then at the beginning of 2008, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and slowly let people into Big Nanny’s House. And you know what? It’s been fun.

I’ve been looking back over the last year, and I’m glad that I documented every single moment. The sad moments like when the Medium Nanny graduated and left for college. The proud moments when the Lil’Nanny rode a bus and went to church camp without me. The tragic moments like when Lawnmower Man broke his foot. The busy moments of getting a new church building ready for opening day. The funny moments of forgetting to add butter to my cake. The scary moment of running from a homeless man in Hotlanta. The political moments of the one and only Sarah P. And the all informative posts about where to get a good hotdog. You know you can’t get a good hotdog stand review on just anyone’s blog. You need to get that type of information from a trustworthy source. And of course there were the awkward moments where I wrote about something that I thought was hilarious and no one left me a comment. Boy, was that awkward.

And I’ve had a good time reading your blogs, too. Wow! Almost every person I know has a blog now. I’m amazed at all of the useful and not so useful information that I get from reading about your daily life. I love knowing about your family and all the fun stuff that y’all do. (I inserted the y’all for my southern readers.) And since I have some northern readers too, I will rephrase that last sentence just for you….I love knowing about your family and all the fun stuff that you guys do. I just want to make everyone happy. Please know that I never use the phrase “you guys” anymore. I would never look at a group of women and say, “hey, you guys, look at my new purse.” I have lived in the south too long and know better.

But most of all I love writing. I didn’t know I loved it until I started doing it. Some of you are laughing because I call this blog “writing.” But I think we would all agree that the Hair Bow Mafia post is some high quality literature. When people look up the word hairbow on Google it comes straight to me. It also comes straight to me when you Google the word mafia…you gotta be careful with your word choices. The blog has sometimes been stressful, too, like when I have something to say and not enough hours in the day to blog about it.

So about one year ago today my mother gave me the challenge. Remember when she talked about my friend Teresa’s blog, and how she enjoyed reading it. Remember when she told me that I could do it too? And how maybe I could get some advertisers? (Insert the smiley faces and hysterical laughter here.) Well, that’s all I needed. A mother who believed that I could write on the real live www, and she would be thrilled to add me to her favorites list. I wonder after I put the video of her icecapades if she was regretting the day she urged me to get to writin’.

So, in the year 2008, I was able to write 103 posts. I’m not sure what the year 2009 holds. I’ve already been to every hotdog place in town. I don’t have a daughter graduating. You already know that I work at a church and hang out with the young mommy mafia. I think I let way too much crazy out in one year, and I’m not sure I’ve got much more to say. We’ll see. Lord willing and the creek don’t rise…I’ll blog again in 2009. That kind of rhymed…maybe I’ll start rapping?

And Miss Anita…I’m sorry. You were a wonderful English teacher. I’m sure there are lots of students all over these United States that know all there is to know about commas, semi-colons and proper adverb clauses, but I ain’t one of them;) However, I would like to point out that you were my government teacher as well, and I voted for Sarah Palin this past November. That simple fact should fill your heart with pride and allow you to erase every grammar error that you’ve ever read on this here blog.

Happy New Year!

My Favorite Christmas Song

Merry Christmas!

Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays

Meet my friend fake BFF, Boomama. She's a famous southern blogger and her blog was one of the first that I read on a regular basis. Her blog is hilarious, and I've sent just about everybody I know over to read it. The above picture was taken when she came to my church for the Gloria! concert a couple weeks ago. I'm sure she doesn't think I'm a stalker crazy or anything.

This is the third year that she has hosted the Christmas Tour of Homes. It actually started yesterday but I didn't have time to post. I think I'm #797 on the tour. So here is my home decked out in holiday style...


This is what you will encounter when you walk in the front door. A tray of Christmas balls and a snow globe...real original.


We have a two sided fireplace in the middle of our living room. So I have two mantels to decorate.

Here is mantle #1, the more "formal" side. We rarely sit in this room but it looks nice and neat when someone comes to the door.

Here is the front side of the tree. I use my nicer ornaments on this side of the tree. I always place a big bow at the top of my tree.



Here is my nativity set on top of the piano. Note to my CraftiMama: The Madagascar Lion Happy Meal toy has officially been removed from the nativity scene...I appreciate the special touch that you thought he would add. Of course, she insisted that the wise men be over to the side because they weren't really there when Baby Jesus was born. She wanted my nativity scene to be biblically correct. Do you know that some people don't add Baby Jesus to the nativity scene until Christmas morning? Does anyone do this?

Here is the other side of my tree. I place all the kid ornaments on this side.

Here is the other mantle...the less formal side.

I have to pass through the dining room to get to the kitchen so I keep the table set with dishes so that I'm not tempted to junk up the table with mail, junk, etc. These plates are available at your local Target.

And here is the whole table. CraftiMama is going to say the candle is too small. It is, but I didn't want to pay $20 bucks for the big one that I saw at Target.


I hope you'll join me on this bloggy tour of homes. I would love to see your Christmas decor!

Favorite Foto Friday

My favorite part of this picture is that the Medium Nanny continues on with the smiling even though there is a serious problem happening on the other side of Santa's lap.

I'm smiling, I'm turning in my list and I'm getting my presents...

oh, her, over there, I don't know her.

On a side note: I've heard that Santa won't force you're kid to sit on his lap anymore...what's that about? Is this true? If I'm paying $10 bucks for a picture, you'll hold my kid and you'll like it. Do you see the hold that Santa's got on the Lil'Nanny. Those were the days. Now you're all laughing because I think Santa pictures still cost $10. Aren't you?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Please know that when you send your child to college you have big dreams of them getting a

quality education and changing the world...

Or

Maybe wear some goofy Christmas sweater and make gingerbread houses out of graham

crackers. It looks like I could have saved a few bucks and sent her to Kids on the Korner.

Never under estimate the power of a hot curler

Big Nanny and the Medium Nanny, circa 1993. I wanted a mother/daughter picture so I hot curlered up my head, and we headed on over to the Olan Mills Portrait Studio.

This picture reminds me of a conversation I had just last week:

After eating lunch with a friend I got into my car and listened to two voicemails.

Voicemail #1 went something like this: Hey, give me a call when you get this message.

Voicemail #2 from the same person went something like this: Hey, when you get a chance, can you give me a call, I'm having a hair crisis.

I returned the call immediately because it's just part of the call that God has on my life.

To help those in need.

Big Nanny: What's the problem?

Friend: I under estimated the power of a hot curler and my hair is really big. Like pageant big. What should I do?

Big Nanny: Wet the hair brush and brush away. Don't use any hairspray. Water and hairbrush. Pull it back in a clip for a while if necessary. It will fall within two hours. Hot curlers do not give you long lasting hold.

I saw my friend later that night and she looked completely normal. Said hair had fallen and she had some nice, natural curls.

And another thing, by the looks of the above picture, I under estimated the necessity of a simple tweezer.

Sister and Brotherly Love

CraftiMama wanted a picture of her babies.

Tammy Faye, brother-(he needs a blog name), and Big Nanny.

Do y'all think we look alike?

Tammy Faye and I were not trying to match, but we both had the goal of wearing stretchy pants on this day so we could eat alot. We're smart like that.

Skatin' with the Blog Stars

This is what we did the day after ThanksChristmas.

Looks like fun, huh?

Don't you like CraftiMama and her ice skating "walker"?

I had only been ice skating once before, and I wasn't aware of this contraption.

CraftiMama was glad to have it. She was able to skate around the circle twice with it.

The Lil'Nanny had been bugging me all week to take her ice skating. She had never been before. She's the athletic one in our family and in true Lil'Nanny fashion...

Her first time on skates.

Water skis, roller skates, ice skates, softball, gymnastics...she can do it all.

And now, let's see CraftiMama's skating video...

I think I paid around $8 bucks for her to skate around 2 laps;)

but let's give the 62 year old CraftiMama props for trying.

She'll do anything for her grand youngins. I think maybe she should stick to the crafting. This all made me a little nervous because I was having flashbacks of when I was 7, and she broke her arm at our church's skate night. Fun times.