Today...

I almost lost my Mom. I love her, but she drives me crazy most of the time. You don't realize how much someone really means to you until you almost lose them. You also don't really understand how it feels until it almost happens to you. She had a heart attack this morning, actually, it started a couple days ago, but she didn't tell anyone. Finally today the pain was unbearable and she went to the Emergency Room. Before an hour was over, she had a stint put in place and was admitted upstairs. She will stay at Rochester General until Monday so they can watch her closely. When we left her tonight she was tired, but looked good. She has many lifestyle changes to make, but maybe this is the wakeup call she needed. It's scary, heart problems run in our family. I've had 3 uncles with triple bypass, and my Aunt just had this same angioplasty performed in September. The hard part is that my Mom is only 50 and seems so young to have this problem. I am grateful she's doing better, but I'm still worried about her. She has a great husband now to take care of her, so hopefully I'll be able to sleep tonight knowing she's taken care of. Makes you think...on the way home Mike and I stopped quickly to pick up some healthy snacks and have a renewed motivation to get healthier. It was nice to see all of my siblings rally around Mom today. I hope she feels loved, because she is.

Merry Christmas

We took the kids to see Santa on Monday evening. They were so excited. I used my awesome software to make this little card. We wish you and all of your family a very Merry Christmas.

The First Christmas

Brooke's preschool class had a play yesterday of the First Christmas. Brooke followed in Seth's footsteps as the Innkeeper. Here are a couple pictures.

Brooke in her costume

Twinkle, Twinkle God's Bright Star

Brooke's speaking part "There's no room in here, go live in the stable."


Brooke had some special spectators Nana and Fuzzy G and Bama Simmons


We didn't get a picture but Mommy, Daddy, and Tyler were there too. We took this picture when we got home by the Christmas Tree.


I have a video of the performance, but I think it might be too long to put on here, and I have to pull it off the video camera. We'll see how that goes, I make no promises.

Did I ever tell you?

That I LOVE stand up comedians? This video came to me in an email. I think it's hilarious! enjoy!

Have you ever?...

heard something about yourself so many times that you start to believe it? Or decide to start living up to everyone's expectations? It's an interesting place to be.

Any Sound

This is one of my favorite bands. They are local, from Rochester and AWESOME! I'm really looking forward to going out and seeing them live again. It's been a while. Enjoy.

Seriously, So Blessed Giveaway!

Check this out and you could totally win some way cool stuff to make you toe-tallie righteous and HOT!

Decorating for Christmas...Take 1, Take 2, and Take 3

Every year I intend to decorate the day after Thanksgiving, it doesn't happen. One of these years it will, I hope. So we've been trying to get the decorations up as early as possible so we can take them down right after Christmas because Tyler's b-day is so close and I want his b-day to be separate from Christmas so he doesn't feel jipped.
Take 1
So Monday, Dec 8th we decided to start decorating. The problem was the kids were really not behaving too well, so we stopped. We got the tree up and the stockings. If you look closely at the picture you can see 3 stockings for mom and 3 stockings for dad. Mike put them all up and said that the kids could earn their way up to the stockings wall. I think it's hilarious...hey if you can't torture your kids once in a while, then what's the point?

Tyler was LOVING the tree! He thought it was great! He was standing there watching the star blink, and he kept looking at the lights. He's so cute.


Take 2
All week I was telling the kids, get your stuff done and we can decorate. They really don't like to listen to me, even when it will result in something fun. So in my desire to get things decorated, I just went ahead and let us do it last night. The kids loved it! These are the cutest Santas I've ever seen. (Our Santa hats seem to be too big, or too small. I feel like Goldi-elf and 4 Santas.)

Since the tree was already up, we just had to put the ornaments on. It's a tradition of mine to get the kids an ornament. I try to get one that corresponds with what they are up to that year. We also have the ornaments the kids make at school and a couple I've had since I was a little girl. The one with my name on it is from my head start program (like preschool) and the dog ornament is from Paula in 4th grade. Her mom made them for everyone in our class. (Why do I remember these things?)

A couple years ago the Antczaks came over for Christmas Eve and brought some treats and a little gift for me. Brooke thought it was an ornament...it ended up on the tree. (See the reindeer pot holder?)

Lynette and Dan sent us a package for Christmas and it came yesterday. They told us to open it early since it might not survive under the tree until Christmas morning. Here are the goodies we found inside...

Take 3
So as you can see in some of the pictures, Tyler REALLY loves to touch the tree. Before we even made it to bed last night this is what happened...

Yes, that's a santa hat, a tree skirt and just about every ornament at short man level. He had them in the basket you see there and was carrying them around the house. So take 3 was this morning when Mike put the tree on an end table and McKee helped me redecorate the tree with all of the ornaments from the floor.

Tyler isn't up yet, so we'll see how it goes when the tree is up high. I'm just hoping that he doesn't pull the tree on top of himself. Wish us luck!

Yesterday was a GREAT Day!

We really had a great time yesterday, December 5th. The kids had off from school for parent/teacher conferences so it was nice and relaxed. We started our day with really fun movie "Enchanted." We watched it last year at the Theater on the Ridge Kodak movie theater as part of a special showing for employees only and Mike was able to score us tickets. It was so much fun and the kids loved it. I got it out from the library to enjoy again. They loved it again. (I love it too! The songs are really catchy!) After the movie the kids and I did our chores and cleaned up the front room and organized so we can set up our Christmas tree and decorate for the season. They are all so excited to get that going. I always intend to have it done the day after Thanksgiving, but I never do it. One of these years...anyway...I managed to get our star on the front window made out of a strand of white lights. The rest will hopefully be done today when McKee gets home from Damon's.

Another fun part of yesterday was Tyler's 23 month birthday! We sang a song to him at the breakfast table and he was grinning from ear to ear! When we tell Tyler to smile this is what he does...(that boy cracks me up.)

"Happy 23 month Birthday to you,
Happy 23 month Birthday to you,
Happy 23 month Birthday dear Tyler,
Happy 23 month Birthday to you."

At 23 months Tyler is 27 lbs, 33 1/2 inches tall, and the cutest little boy ever (I know I say that about all my kids, but I really mean it for each of them.) Tyler has a sense of humor that makes me laugh, and is all boy. He thinks it's hilarious of someone toots, and if he's talking and a burp comes out, that's one of the funniest things that could ever happen. He Loves McKee and Seth and copies just about everything they do, especially at the dinner table. He has discovered shooting and the sounds that go along with it. He was playing with a little squirt gun and "shooting" squirrels out the front window a couple days ago. He loves to fold his arms reverently and say prayers with us as a family. He loves to sing songs, his favorites are Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Once there was a Snowman, and anything crazy that I might make up at the moment (I'll refer you back up to my Happy Birthday song). His vocal words are Mom, Mama, Dad, Dada, light, book, more, baba, no, mine, baby, bean, bell, ding, bike, hop, ball, me (there might be more, but I can't remember at the moment. He signs more, milk, please, and fish. Animal sounds, moo, baa, neigh, doodoo doo (cockadoodle doo), hop hop, (ribbit) ibit, oink, and will repeat just about any other sound I ask him to. He will also race the other kids to do something I might have asked them to do, for example, "Seth will you turn off the radio." Tyler "me, me" and he'll run and do it. Speaking of running, if you need to put his coat or shoes on or change his diaper, he runs the other way. One of the more annoying parts of the toddler stage, the big chase.

The other fun thing about yesterday was going to the Theater on the Ridge again (see above about last year) and watching the movie Bolt with the kids.

It was a really cute movie, the opening scene was a little scary, but once we were into it, it made sense. We had a blast. We sat on the 3rd floor up in the Balcony.
Brooke and McKee were a little funny about sitting up there, but once we were in the seats they didn't seem to mind so much. Tyler did pretty well sitting in the seat for about the first hour and then he got antsy, but everyone else sat fairly well. A couple fun facts...the gentlemen in front of us at the movie was a little germ-a-phobic. Tyler has a little cough, and TWICE last night he coughed and the guy in front of us pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth and left it there for at least 2 minutes. The other crazy people were the couple who sat right in front of us with their teen aged kids, they saw that we had 4 children lined up along the row, and then decided to give us dirty looks when Tyler accidentally pulled her hair, and the funniest was seeing them plug their noses because Tyler decided to poop part way into the beginning of the movie, and oh boy did it smell bad. I think after some musical chairs Brooke ended up behind the woman and she may have kicked the back of her chair too. Hey, if you come to a children's movie, you have to expect that there are children there and then be patient with the ones that you sit in front of. That's my rant for the day. (Mike took Tyler out and changed him by the way, so we weren't sitting there with his stench.)

One more AWESOME part of yesterday. Gas fell below $2.00/gallon at the station near our house! $1.97!!!!!!!We stopped to fill up last night and it cost us $30.66. I didn't think I would see the day that we were below $2.00 again!

Look at the time this was posted!

So, last night ended a few minutes after 10pm, with Crystal and I once again trying to explain to McKee why he is punished for his choices, and how it is his choices that make him punished. Sure, he's smart enough to realize that at some point Crystal and I made the choice to punish him, but we explained how that will not change, so now only his behavior can change to keep him from punishments.

Then, we left him at 10-O-something-pm with directions to clean his room and a "have a good night, I'll see you at 4am" from me. See, I've been getting up early to go to work and thought that since today is another one of the Greece Central School Districts made up free days off for kids, that it would be ok to get him up at 4am and start him on his chores....did I say chores? Make that chore. Yes, singular (like me, throughout most of my high school and college years) chore. See, if he actually did the dishes, I'd probably give him a stay of execution (someone look that up and see if i'm using it correctly) and not have him worry about the other (yes, singular again) chore....well, maybe 2 other chores since the kids have 2 per day, but dishes are on McKee's "do 'em till you learn 'em" list.

....back to the story. So, at 4am, my trusty (not rusty) LG (Life's Good) cell phone starts up singing Morrissey (even if he's gay and celibate, the man can write and sing.....so shut up you anti-Morrissites......I bet you even hate the dentists....) and I hit snooze....twice. Sure, sure, sure, I'm so anti snooze that I'm one step from hitting the Washington DC scene to lobby against the snooze buttons existence, but, lately, I've been enjoying it as a guilty pleasure (if only I remembered that for yesterday's quiz.) Well, after I hit snooze the second time (man, I need professional help), I hear a noise.....an 11 year old boy walking into my room type noise. It's McKee......awake, on his 2 feet, and walking. He was complaining of a bad dream (how do we replicate that every school morning at 6am to get him up this easy for his mom) but he was up. So, I got dressed and down stairs we went.

He didn't (and hasn't yet) whined a single bit (Sorry Crystal). Then, he proceeds to pull 2 bowls (I just wrote "bowels" but realized that was wrong) from the dishwasher and sat down wanting breakfast. Hey, that's freaking progress. So, Peaches & Cream oatmeal it was. He's sitting there, eating it....and now I have a few minutes before I have to fire up Old Betsy and drive to work. He'll be left here, at 4:41 1/2am with instructions to get the dishes done. Wish him luck!

Last night he took close to 3 hours to start (yeah, not finish, just start) the dishes. Here's hoping 4:30am is an easier time to get them done.

I'm off to work.....when you slackers wake up in a few hours I expect some comments!!!

I wasn't tagged: by MIKE

I don't like these things, but thought I'd give one a try (I'm stuck on the first question and can't answer it)

Favorite Person (outside of family)? : Mr. Steelhead

Favorite Food? Cheeseburgers!

Quirks about you? Sometimes I do a full body twitch without control, does that count?

Any regrets in life? Not saving every penny I ever made (except for those pennies spent on fishing and family)

My favorite Charity/Cause? Like Crystal, I really only donate to my church, but soon hope to be a more active supporter by volunteering for Project Healing Waters (you know you want to click it)

Favorite Blog recently? Moldy Chum (yo momma says "don't click it!")

Something you can't get enough of? Didn't I already answer "cheeseburgers?" this test is redunditative!

Worst job you've ever had? Well, besides sewing Kathy Lee Gifford brand underwear in a tiny, 100 degree room, with 100 of my closest friends, I'd have to say selling coupon books door to door.

What job would you pay not to have? Crystal's answer was "house cleaner", mine is....midwife to a moose.

Guilty Pleasure? cold, cold (did I mention "cold") drinks.

Got any confessions? I confess that Crystal's confession is SO true! Besides that, I want to........

If you had $1000 dollars to spend on yourself how would you spend it? I'd buy myself all the stuff I already have, but haven't paid VISA back for!

Favorite thing about your house? I like it

Least favorite thing about your house? It's never big enough, or the right color (from what I hear) :-)

One thing you are bad at? Not being perfect and (can i have 2?) picking one thing I am bad at.

One thing you are good at? Picking my nose without getting caught. Think about it, you've never seen it happen, have you? (if by chance you have, please don't use the public comment section, but privately contact me about your experience and we'll see if we can't get it published in the National Geographic....or Reader's Digest "Life in America" or something like that)

If you could change one thing about your circumstances, what would it be? I'd have actual savings in my savings account, and a job that doesn't give me the opportunity every month to wonder if I'm going to be employed when the month ends.

Who would you like to meet someday? My father in law, President Bush (current one) (sure, say what you want about him, but when I see him, he seems sincere and like he's really an honest and decent person.)

What makes you feel sexy? Sex... flat out, bang it out SEX!

Who is your real life hero? You

What is the hardest part of your job? Trying to not get caught typing ridiculous things on my wife's blog.

When are you most relaxed? when I'm knee deep in the creek.

What can you not live without? food, water, shelter, and clothing, but there's plenty of other things that make those more enjoyable.

Do you agree or disagree with the recent article that reported that blogs are authored by narcissists? I've always held true to my belief that anyone who takes narcissists or any other type of drugs are people who need professional help, and therefore, since I don't take drugs or narcissists, no, i don't think blogs are authored only by them.

Why do you blog? because Crystal hasn't blocked me yet.

I was tagged...

Favorite Person (outside of family)? : Rachel

Favorite Food? Tomatoes

Quirks about you? The list of my anti-quirks would be shorter

Any regrets in life? Not going with my mom when I was 6yrs old. as soon as she left, I felt so sad for making her sad.

My favorite Charity/Cause? I donate through my church, but anything that helps children is big.

Favorite Blog recently? Summertime designs (free digital scrapbooking kits, and heartwarming stories)

Something you can't get enough of? time alone with Mike

Worst job you've ever had? I've enjoyed my jobs, I've learned something at each one...worst people at a job?...that's another story

What job would you pay not to have? house cleaner

Guilty Pleasure? chocolate, hoarding scrapbook paper, digital or actual.

Got any confessions? I don't think all babies are cute. I still love them all, but some are funny looking. (sorry)

If you had $1000 dollars to spend on yourself how would you spend it? I would fly to Colorado to visit my dad.

Favorite thing about your house? my family lives here with me.

Least favorite thing about your house? my family lives here with me.

One thing you are bad at? telling people no.

One thing you are good at? crafts

If you could change one thing about your circumstances, what would it be? we would have enough money that Mike wouldn't have to work so hard and stress about it.

Who would you like to meet someday? My Dad, Grandma, Aunt/Cousins, Mary Kay Ash, Mike's Grandpa

What makes you feel sexy? I'm always sexy...(ok, ok...stop laughing...when Mike comes up behind me and hugs me from behind)

Who is your real life hero? I don't have a hero...wait..maybe Katherine. She deals with so much with Claire, and does it with class and love...she's awesome.

What is the hardest part of your job? dealing with whining, The realization that all parents are just faking it, and we don't really know what we're doing. But making it look good, that's the real challenge.

When are you most relaxed? fishing a popper on a quiet pond next to Mike.

What can you not live without? Mike and the kids.

Do you agree or disagree with the recent article that reported that blogs are authored by narcissists? what?

Why do you blog? share pictures with far away family and friends. and as an outlet.

Who do you tag? Janet, MaryAnn

Tuesdays with Morey...

Wait, I've never read that book. This post is Mornings with McKee. We really enjoy ourselves at 6am in my house. Here's a little bit of the action.



After I walked away from the table McKee decided to play with a marble that he found this morning and make it into a rocket ship. So it's blasting around the table as his cheerios get soggy and then eventually thrown away in the sink. I lead a glamorous life! All I can do is wish a kid just like him on him. But that wouldn't be fair to his wife, since she's the one who has to deal with the kids more...I'll have to plot my revenge in a different way...(Wait, was that out loud?)

Blessings in the middle of a crazy day.

Today has been crazy, annoying, busy, and tiresome...and it's only 10:17am. But I am not here to complain. In the middle of the craziness my mind bounced back to last night and it brought a smile to my face. Tyler was put to bed at 7:30 with the rest of the kids like always. I went in to check on him and cover him up, like I always do, at about 9:15 or so and I woke him up. He was happy to see me and to see Mike out in the hallway. It was very sweet, he was all smiles and cuddled up with his blankie. After I said my last little "I love you" I walked out and mostly closed the door and I heard some beautiful singing. He must have been singing for about 8 or 10 minutes. It was so cute. I ran downstairs and grabbed the camera. It was dark, so the video isn't much of anythingto watch, but you can hear him. Enjoy! (It's kind of long with some quiet in between, but it's so cute.)