For Unto Us a Child is Born

May you and your family be blessed on this joyous day and may the love of Jesus be ever present in your heart and lives.

Merry Christmas Friends!

Amanda's Gift Guide

How many of you are done with your Christmas shopping? And how many live for the thrill of last minute shopping?!

I'm almost done with my shopping, but I have to say that this is the first year that I have bought everything online so far....it has been awesome! I haven't had to step foot in a store yet and it's been glorious! I come home from work in the evenings and upon my doorstep sits 3 little packages that took me a total of 15 minutes to find, decide whether to purchase, enter my pertinent information and push submit. And quite frankly, I've been finding such great deals on ebay and amazon.com that the few extra dollars for shipping and handling doesn't bother me one bit because I've saved money on gas and time. And time is money people.

So...for all you last minute shoppers, here is a list of some of my favorite things and gifts ideas for the person who has everything!



The Butler Bag - My all-time favorite purse. It is pricey, but I have used mine for a year and I still love it today. And it keeps me so organized, which I just can't get enough of. It comes in two sizes and a whole slew of colors and I can guarantee you that any woman would love to receive this as a gift! www.butlerbag.com








Wooden Salad Bowl and Serving Utensils - This is my go-to gift for housewarming gifts, birthday presents, etc. I love wooden salad bowls and quite frankly I don't think you can ever have too many of them! You can use them to serve salad or for a centerpiece filled with decorative balls. This one is from Target and was priced at $14.99!! But they range all the way up to $50.






Tiki Tissue Box Cover - haha, this is for the person who has EVERYTHING! haha...I bet they don't have one of these! I don't know why this makes me laugh so much - but it definitely does! This sells on amazon.com for $19.99.









Photo Sculptures - Basically everyone in my family is getting one of these for Christmas this year. I am obsessed! These are from www.zazzle.com and range in sizes and prices from about $15 - $150. You can basically personalize anything you want on zazzle.com, it's incredible; Shoes, shirts, skateboards, the list goes on and on.





Tervis Tumblers - Insulated cups that don't "sweat" from icy drinks. You can buy these with all sorts of different designs, words and names, personalized pictures, etc. These are really the only cups that Johnny and I ever use. We love them! www.tervis.com




Pure Beech Sheets - the ONLY sheets that are on our beds in our house. They are totally affordable for how comfortable they are, and once you sleep on these amazing little strands of comfort, you'll never want to sleep on anything else either! You can buy them in either jersey or sateen. The sateen are a little bit more expensive than the jersey, but they are thicker and hold up for longer I think. You can buy these at Bed Bath & Beyond.








Old Fashioned Receiver for Cell Phone - How perfect is this for a grandparent or parent who doesn't like converting to today's technology?? I would love to see someone driving down the road with this to their ear! Hilarious!





iKaraoke for your iPod - What a great idea for a kid or even an adult who likes to frequent the karaoke bars on the weekends! You can find this at amazon.com for about $27.00.





Monogrammed Beer Mugs - Aren't guys the hardest to buy for? All the men in my life are, that's for sure. So for the guy you don't know what to buy...why not get him some monogrammed beer mugs? These mugs come in different styles and can be found on www.redenvelope.com.









The Intellectual Devotional - Have you heard about these books? They are pretty stinkin' cool if you ask me. Even though I was never a huge fan of learning about Christopher Columbus or the 23rd President of the United States, now that I'm out of school I never want to stop learning! These books are an easy way to stay up-to-date on American history, culture and art. You can find these at any bookstore like Barnes and Noble or Books A Million or online at amazon.com.






BBQ Tool Set - Again, what guy wouldn't like this?! It is totally my go-to gift idea for a guy I have no clue what to buy for. Brookstone has this on their website for $79.99, but I know you can find them cheaper than that.







Ice Cream Ball - Have y'all seen these? You pour all the ingredients inside the ball and then kick, throw and shake the ball all around until you have ice cream! What a great idea for a kid or a family. LL Bean sells these but I've seen them at WalMart and Target too.









Hanky Panky Underwear - My favorite underwear of all times. It is the most comfortable stuff EVER! It's a little pricey and sometimes tough to find (check little clothing boutiques or specialty lingerie stores), but the thongs are amazing.





Electric Wine Bottle Opener - I received one of these Emerson Wine Bottle Openers for a gift a few years ago and I use it all the time! It is so quick and easy to use and this would be a great gift to give someone along with a favorite bottle of wine! Target sells these for $20.00.










Beef Brander - Personalize this brander with your man's initials and he will be one happy guy. It's like arts and crafts on the grill for guys - they'll love it!











Board Games - I come from a fairly big family and when we all get together, we break out the board games. Two of my favorites are Apples to Apples and Cranium. Both are interactive and promote lots of laughing! Toys 'R' Us has the best selection of board games I've ever seen.

Coming Soon...

I'm working on a list of gift ideas for all you last minute shoppers!! So stayed tuned :)

Blogging Blues

So, I’ve been a bit under the weather in my “blogging life”. I’m sorry faithful blog followers. I think about my dear sweet “tangled blog” every day but when I log in to write a post, I go blank. I literally just haven’t had anything to say. Now, if you know me in real life, you know that I am NEVER hurting for words to say, yet it seems I can’t come up with anything interesting to write about on the blog. Maybe I’m thinking too hard about it and need to stop trying to come up with amazing, genius topics to write about. Maybe I should just log in and write.

I think a lot of my absence during the past month and a half has been adjusting to Johnny being deployed. I have cram-packed my every waking moment with something. Literally in the past 7 weeks, I have only had three evenings (after work) or weekend days that I haven’t had plans. And one of those nights I was sick and the other I was packing to leave for a trip at 4 a.m. the next morning. And the third time was last night and I was “relaxing”. Whatever that means! I only did it because Johnny reprimanded me for being too busy. Except I was miserable last night! I cried more last night than I think I have in total since he left! I feel like I’m doing what I need to do to survive this next year. When I’m busy I don’t have time to be sad or lonely and quite frankly, those are two feelings that can easily creep up out of nowhere and knock me down hard. But being busy isn’t really an excuse to just randomly go MIA from my blog world. It’s not fair to you. I know I hate it when I find a blog I enjoy reading and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they disappear! It just doesn’t seem fair; even though I may have never met that person, I feel like we’ve been through so much together through all their blogging! So I’m sorry friends! I hope you’ll forgive me and come back to me. I promise I’ll try to do better about writing. I can’t promise you are going to be interested in anything I have to say…but I’ll at least ramble a bit from time to time for you!

Feel free to throw questions or topics my way…that will surely inspire me when it comes to thinking up something to write about! Until my next post here are two pictures which usually give me a good laugh. Johnny and I may be in our mid-20s but we act like a bunch of kids and I loooovvveee it!

(It’s a cabbage leaf!)