Did Someone Say Chocolate?

Happy New Year's Eve

Last day of 2004. Wow. It's funny how time passes isn't it. There is a line in one of the songs on my new CD I got for Christmas that goes something like this "Life is what happens while you're busy making plans". It's so true.

We are doing nothing tonight as usual. We were talking about it last night and I can't imagine what we'd do even if we were going out. You really need a circle of social friends to do something with if it's going to be fun and drinking usually goes along with it and if you do neither, well you end up home playing poker with your kids like we'll probably end up doing. Heh. I'm okay with that though, I really would not want to be out driving anywhere tonight. Games night will be fun, however, I'm not sure if we'll make it 'till midnight. It was a very long tense day at work and I'm mentally exhausted! We'll see.

What are your plans tonight? How much are you paying for a sitter if you're going out? I remember when I was young, I'd get pretty big bucks for babysitting new year's eve and that was back in the day of $1/hour and $2/hour after midnight. How funny. I'd kill to be able to pay someone $1/hour now! Geesh. Well I'm going to go throw mini meat loaves in the oven for supper. Fun fun. Still lovin' that Homemade Gourmet stuff!!

Tired head

Tense, busy days at work this week. I've nursed a headache both days. I'm tired, not sleeping well. I keep thinking about that dog next door and about work stuff. Doug is watching tv, Sarah is watching a movie, Daniel is reading his books in his room, Justin is lurking around trying to stay under the radar and Cody just got his butt into a lot of trouble, so Doug has sent him to his room. Earlier today, Doug set up Daniel's new basketball hoop out on the back step. He got it as a christmas gift from Doug's parents. The boys were told not to play it. I mean, it's a baby toy, they have hoops at the school to play with, PLUS they have a barn full of their own balls. So what happens tonight the minute they aren't being supervised? Yup, they played with the little basketball it comes with, Cody kicks it over the fence right into the chomps of Arnold next door. Sigh. I got such tired head.

Isn't it great how you get a smile right back every time you smile at your little one? Enjoy it, because it doesn't last. When they're 13, they just gawk back at you and growl "what are you looking at?" or better yet the scream "WHAT?!". As I was typing this, Daniel came into the room, I smiled at him and he gave me a great big smile back. Then I asked him for kisses and he comes running right over with big smoochies on his lips for me! One of the best feelings in the world. That love with no strings attached!

I've been working late again this week. I'm glad Monday is a holiday for us. I'm tired this week. I know I sat down to blog something and I've got such tired head, I have no idea anymore what I was going to blog. I'm sure it'll come back to me, I'll post more later tonight.

Pretties

See all the little goodies that Doug's mom wrapped up for me Christmas morning. She put everything in that fancy little bag that she got at their antique mall.



You'll notice a pair of earrings, a necklace/earrings set and a beautiful broach (sp?) all in pink to match my new outfits I bought before Christmas! I haven't worn pink in many years! I'm a black, blue, white and khaki person, no reds or pinks usually. Also there is a bar of soap there from the antique mall that smells like oranges. I LOVE it. The can is an orange vanilla room spray. I just adore citrus/fruit scents. YUM. I damn near sprayed it all over myself after opening it thinking it was perfume. Thank god I saw at the last minute that it said room freshener, that would have been pretty embarrassing to say the least. heh. There was also fifty dollars in that little bag to buy my pillows that match our new bedding. She didn’t' want to pick out the wrong ones! I've got one bought so far, now I'm just waiting for another 20% off coupon to come in the mail for the other one. Yes I try to be cheap. =)

Sarah also got some earrings this year, so we had Grandma commit to taking her so I won't faint doing it. After seeing the contraption they use down here for piercing there is no way in hell I'm taking her. It's bad enough I practically fainted getting mine done, let alone "standing" there watching Sarah go through it. No thanks. *shudder*

Sad news

I received an email tonight with unexpected news. For all of you clanlord players, I just read from a family member that Eyeball (Bill Michael) passed away on December 7/04. I wonder if those who still play clanlord already knew this? I may actually be a bit behind in my news, but I haven't read it anywhere, so who knows. I have no reason to not trust this email I received, yet somehow I'm searching for a way to think of it as some cruel joke. She says he died from respiratory failure and complications from Muscular Dystrophy.

His family misses him horribly and if anyone wants to leave or send his family messages about him, she'd love to read them. She sent this message to email addresses she found on his computer, mentions that she does not know what our relationship was with Bill, just that we shoud know he treasured his friendships.

Closing up

Hmmm I just got spammed on my password protected journal. How incredibly odd. Has that happened to any of you that require passwords on your blogs? Oh well, Trash Talkin' is shut down for now. I've deleted all of you users. It doesn't matter much anyway, I have such long spurts in between postings that even when I do post, I don't think any of you were checking. Maybe I'll start something new some other time or maybe I'll shut down this blog too and re-start something else, somewhere else to just be done with it.

My blog anniversary is coming up. Three years...I think it's time to clean the closets. I feel this blog is going down the drain. Even when I update like crazy, I hardly can tell anyone's reading. The odd comment once in awhile and mostly that's from my own mother. Ever feel like it's time to just close up shop and move along? That's what I'm feeling. Things just need a face lift, I also need to lose the whole "felicity" thing. I'm tired of being called that, I don't even "like" the name. It's a thing between my husband and me and I think it's time to put it back there where it belongs. =)

Hubby is out playing poker and I'm feeling the urge to clean the boy's room. ICK. I go back to work tomorrow, blech! Here until March will be busy busy busy.

Arnold

I'm very annoyed with our neighbors. These neighbors moved in late summer maybe? I had heard through our old neighbors that they had a one year old, same age as Daniel. I thought great, someone to play with for Daniel. Well up until a couple of weeks ago, I had never seen the woman or the girl.

When they first moved in, our dogs went nuts for about a week because they had a dog that they kept out in the backyard. We thought our dogs would never shut up. Barked and barked for about a week! Now they love to play with each another. Each side of the fence all the dogs have the grass beat down into a path from running. We've often felt bad for the dog next door because we never see them pay any attention to him. We're home a lot and outside often, he always sits on the other side of the fence watching us and he gets really excited if one of us goes over to the fence to pet him. Sometimes I sneak out a dog bone or two for him and give him a little pat on the head. He's really a sweet dog!

As it's been getting colder and colder, we wondered if they were letting him in at night. Just before Christmas, we had a bad freeze here, it snowed and everything. Doug went out really late and saw that the dog was curled up on their back step, still outside. That pisses me off. It's bad enough, they ignore him, let alone leaving him out in the sickening heat and now the bitter cold all day and all night.

I remember when I first saw Arnold. I said how beautiful he was and that it was a shame he was stuck in the backyard all alone, but at least they kept him fed. Well, I just can't say that anymore and we feel that we're going to have to say something to them. I've noticed lately that he seems to be getting thinner and thinner. Today while we were all outside cleaning out the barn, Arnold was going nuts next door. He kept trying to jump the fence to get over with us. I kept going over to pet him and try to calm him down. I felt bad, he just wanted to play with the kids and their balls. Well I turned to go back to the barn and when I looked at him again, the poor little dog had climbed in behind the fence and the big tree and basically had himself stuck in there. I yelled to the kids to go knock on their door to tell them to come get their dog before he hurts himself. Well he had gotten himself turned around and started running back and forth between our back fence and our backyard neighbor’s back fence. There were twigs, branches and thorns back there, I thought for sure he was going to hurt himself, poor thing was stuck trying to run back and forth.

He finally got at a place that I could reach down with Doug's help and pick him up. Doug put him back on his side of the fence, but what a sin. He was so desperate to come over to play. Well when Doug put him down, I pointed out how thin he was now. Doug said Dexter felt heavier. It's like they have put him out back and forgot about him. I wonder if they feed him every day? A dog that gets a meal every day wont' thin out like that, but he looks horrible. I took a picture. Look, you can count his ribs and back bones.


Doug says he should ask them if they need help caring for him. It's just awful and it's breaking my heart to see him starving like that. I did something I probably shouldn't have done, but because we knew they weren't home (they didn't answer the door when Justin knocked on it), I got Cody to run over and check his water. Cody said it was filthy, so we dumped it and gave him fresh water. Then I got some dog food and a dish and fed him. I swear to god, he acted like he was starved. He spent a good ten minutes sniffing and digging for more. Awful! I'm so pissed off at them. People that don't want to take care of a pet shouldn't have them! Period. We are figuring they had the dog before their baby was born, then stopped letting him after the baby was born because of his size. We're guessing.

You can see he's sweet!

A new milestone

My Christmas entries are broken up into five entries below. I'll still list gifts at some point too more for my own record!

For the past six months I've been telling my friends that the goal with Daniel is that he'll eat Christmas dinner with us. Getting him to eat table food as you know has been a real struggle. When he got up from his nap, we had all just sat down to eat, so I dished him up a plate full of food and put him in his high chair. He dropped food to the dogs etc as usual and just before I was about ready to get him down, I tried to sneak some potatoes in his mouth. Well when he got some, everyone at the table started cheering and clapping for him and he got so excited, he took more bites for me!! He even ate a carrot without too much fuss! Everyone just clapped and clapped and Daniel was loving all of the attention!

The next day, I figured I'd give it a go again just to see and holy crap he ate again! Not a big plate full or anything, but he fed himself pieces of carrot, peas and corn and even dug into the potato! I got some pictures, I was so excited!

Look at that carrot he's eating!


This is the first time he has ever gotten messy eating. I mean I've messed baby food on his face feeding him before, but for him to get messy feeding himself has never happened until now!


He even had a piece of cheese! I'm so excited. I hope he keeps it up! I tried cream corn and fruit cup today. He didn't like the corn at all, but he fed himself some peaches from the fruit cup, so that was progress!

Trampoline fun

The trampoline is a big hit with everyone this year. What fun! After we all ate and Doug's brother left, Doug, the kids and his step-dad all headed out to assemble it.



The enclosure is really what took the longest. A million and one things to tie and screw on. So Cody is a crazy boy on it, he flips this way and that way. Sarah is just getting confident enough now to flip over and Justin jumps so high he damn near clears the enclosure. It's fun to watch them on it. I went on it once and the bottoms of my legs have been hurting ever since. I'm horribly out of shape. At least I'm pretty sure it was the trampoline that made me sore, it might have been from being on my feet so much the day before. I don't know.

I have some pictures to share of Daniel on the trampoline. It's pretty funny.


Here's a shot of the whole thing. One giant playpen!




He had a blast, he runs and runs and falls down and just cracks up! He had his little sweater coat on and he got so full of static, look what happened to his hair!!!



We just about died laughing at him.


When Doug touched him, he got a big shock, then all his hair fell back down LOL!!


I'm so glad we got this for Cody, it seems like it'll be something we all enjoy. Let's just hope it lasts awhile!

Christmas dinner

Let's see...we had:
turkey
gravy
stuffing
potatoes
turnip
carrots
peas
corn
pea salad (farmed out)
fruit salad (farmed out)
rolls
coleslaw
deviled eggs

dessert:
apple pie
pecan pie
chocolate pie
carrot cake
sugar cookies
chocolate macaroons
shortbread cookies
white chocolate cran-orange cookies
cherry balls
dark chocolate fudge

Overall, dinner was fine. My only problem was this...we did all we could the two days before Christmas. I mean, there wasn't a minute that went by that we weren't all wrapping, cooking or cleaning something. However, we didn't peel veggies ahead of time like I had hoped. Thinking we'd have time to in the morning anyway was a mistake. We started opening gifts around 9:15 a.m. and when Doug's brother and his family showed up noon’ish, we were still opening gifts and I had yet to put on veggies. My bad. I sat Daniel's and my gifts aside, brought out some chairs for our guests and we all started on more gifts again. Doug's brother decided that his girlfriend and his two girls would have their Christmas at our house, so he lugged all of their gifts down. Sadly I missed a lot of that gift opening because I was scrambling in the kitchen preparing dinner.

I ended up getting a little flustered for three reasons:
1. About mid morning when I checked on the turkey, it was practically full of juice to the top of the roaster. I was horrified. I quickly drained a lot of it off so as to not BOIL my turkey.
2. Because of all that juice, the gravy turned out bland because the dripping flavor was basically watered down.
3. After the gift opening was done, a lot of the men hovered around the kitchen which flustered me and made me nervous, plus I was already stressing over the turkey.

When I took the turkey out of the oven (finally), to me it seemed over cooked, so then I really started stressing. I even started a fire once!! I was pouring said drippings into a pot to make the gravy and spilled some on my high burner and a big flame shot up about a foot and burned for a few seconds while we all stood around admiring it. Not fun LOL!!

In the end, everyone walked away having filled their guts. Sadly only two pieces of carrot cake got eaten, none of the other desserts got touched. Everyone was too full. I suppose that's a good sign. Heh, either that or they hated my cooking so much, they didn't dare try the baking =). The good thing that came out of all this bustling around is next year when I become the slave driver, my husband won't roll his eyes and wonder what the big rush is. *grins* He'll totally get it. Even with everything we did in advance, we were still rushing around like mad idiots trying to get everything ready and make things comfortable for our guests.

Those busy, crazed moments during the holidays is what makes Christmas. When our kids are all grown, we'll miss it.

Merry Christmas

Grandparents arrived just after 9:00 a.m. After unloading the gifts, the kids started on their stockings. I was happy to see that Daniel was actually interested in opening some gifts from his sock. Here he is concentrating very hard on ripping that paper open!



He opened about five gifts like this and as soon as he got a truck to play with, that was the end of gift opening for Daniel. Even later in the day, he was very distracted with the kid's toys especially these big popcorn tins they got. He discovered they make great drums. I think we finished opening Daniel's gifts for him around 4:00 p.m. Oh well, he was happy no matter what.

I'll put the rest of our Christmas pictures in the extended entry to save the headache of slow connections.

Doug's Mom came a couple of weeks ago and took each kid out shopping separately for clothes for Christmas. Apparently Cody was the pickiest and took the longest shopping. Because he KNEW exactly what he wanted, so he run his grandmother all over town looking for it. LOL. Well one of the things Sarah picked out was this hat. Ginny said as soon as she put it on, it just suited Sarah so much, they bought it! I think it's adorable!


Cody bought Isabella this little Santa hat. It was the funniest thing ever. Bella looked so insulted to be wearing the stupid hat, it cracked us all up! I thought this was a great shot of Sarah and Bella!


Daniel was wandering around aimlessly through all the mess (we were still opening gifts) and I was trying to get his picture. I said "peek-a-boo Daniel" and this is what he did. It was his "peek-a-boo". We all laughed.


Sarah picked up one of her opened gifts and started waving it up and down at Daniel and well he LOVED it. He would flap his arms up and down and just laugh out loud. He loved it so much every time she stopped to open another gift, he screamed. We were all laughing because poor Sarah got stuck waving this thing at Daniel until we could figure out a way to distract him.


During all the hustle bustle of Christmas morning, little Bella stayed here on the pillow beside Sarah all morning long. It was pretty funny to see Sarah throw paper and boxes around and Bella not move the whole time. Lazy dog.


Here's Justin showing off his lazer tag gun and his new hat from Grandma.


As most of you know, we got Cody a trampoline for Christmas. Awhile back, I was pretty sure they snooped in the garage and saw it, so to add a little kicker to their asses, we wrapped the big boxes up and put it to "mom, from Santa". Well Cody went out to the garage three different times to re-check the garage. He couldn't figure it out. We got down to the last few gifts for each of them. We always save their big gifts for last and Justin opened his things, Cody got a big box of bubble gum balls for his gumball machine and Sarah opened her tv/vcr combo.

We said well that's it. Justin was like "no, we're not done, Mom's got to open her big gift". Cody was like "what do I get?". We said you got your gifts already....so he runs back out to the garage for one last look, we're all laughing to ourselves at the poor kid...so at the last minute, I said you know, I think Santa may have made a mistake tagging this gift, I'm pretty sure it's yours Cody. Well he jumps on it, ripping paper and yelling and when he sees what it is, here's what we get....a giant hug for the big box! Yes we love to torment!


Here's Daniel later in the morning enjoying one of his new toys. He doesn't have this one quite figured out yet and he's a little unsure of the noise it makes. Heh.


This was one of my favorite gifts for him. Here he is receiving his little chair. Look how happy he looks. It's so worth it!


This little ride-on car was a huge hit with Daniel. It moves so much easier than his old one. Doug said his tongue hung out the whole time he was riding it!


I love this picture of Daniel. We took him outside to play after half of our company went home and things were cleaned up. This is one of his new hats. We got him this one and I think it's just adorable!!! Look at that face!


Christmas morning was a lot of fun. The older kids said many times throughout the day that it was their best Christmas ever! One of the items Cody really wanted this year was a necklace with a cross on it, so as a last minute gift, we went to the mall, dickered with a kiosk guy and bought him a sterling silver box chain with a cross on it. Little did we know, Doug's Mom bought him a gold necklace (14k plated) with a cross on it. We all chuckled about it, neither knowing that Cody asked us both for it. I guess he wanted to make sure he got it! The necklaces are very different, so it doesn't matter any.

Well he says it's the best Christmas ever because he got a trampoline and real gold and silver! Ha ha. Doug says he's probably thinking in the back of his head, he could melt them down and buy a house LOL. Sarah was absolutely thrilled with her tv. It was a definite surprise for her and not on her list. There were a few items off her list that we got loud squeals for. Ginny and I would laugh because I'd lean over and whisper you can tell the list items from the surprises LOL. The girl was totally silly!

I'm pretty sure Justin was equally happy with all of his things, he just doesn't show it like Sarah and Cody do. Instead of one big item, he got two pretty big things, his re-bounder and the K'nex set, plus the lazer tag thing was pretty expensive too. Anyway, he didn't have a huge WOW thing, but they were all things he asked for. Doug said had we bought him a personal DVD, then maybe it would have been the WOW thing, but yikes....maybe next year when the prices drop a bit and he doesn't ask for a million other things.

At some point, I'll do a summary of what they got, but not right now. For any of you who made it to the end of this entry, kudos!

Santa came

That's one big pile of presents! That was before the grandparents and Uncle came with all their gifts. Yikes. Daniel was first up (well the other kids were awake, they were just waiting until they knew we were up before coming out). Daniel has mostly been unimpressed by this whole Christmas thing. He's barely given the tree a second look. Christmas morning was no exception. He just sat there on the couch watching the Wi*ggles while drinking his milk. I asked him if Santa came and pointed to the tree, he glanced over at all the presents, got a big smile on his face and that was about it. heh.

Sarah came out begging for no pictures because her hair was sticking straight up and Justin came out pretending to complain about the Christmas music being so loud and that he was trying to sleep. Yeah right. And Cody I swear bounced from the hallway and landed on the couch in one jump. Crazy kid. We all bustled around Christmas morning trying to do last minute things before our guests arrived. Doug was basically rolling his eyes at me for wanting to do so much so early in the morning. His thinking "we can do it after they get here". Yeah right. Okay dear. Lesson learned later for next year. *snicker*

Christmas Eve

Yes I'm back dating. Spank me!

We went to Doug's dad's place this year for gift exchange with that side of the family and a light supper/dessert.



Cody is hiding behind a present. I don't have a lot of pictures to share from that event because it was mostly complete chaos. We took a few, but they have a lot of Doug's family in them, I don't like to post pictures on the net of others unless they know about it. It's nice to be able to visit with everyone and prior to opening the gifts, things remained somewhat under control. However, when everyone piled into one room to open gifts, that was nuts. A few times I had to just cover my ears, it was so loud and with so many little ones in the room, one was whining or crying at all times and poor me was in the center of the room surrounded by mine and Daniel's gifts.

Daniel was not impressed by all the noise either. When we first arrived, his Uncle Andy picked him right up and after about sixty seconds, his little eyes all welled up with tears. He got pretty upset, so daddy got him from Uncle Andy and held him for awhile on the couch until he settled in. He is a bit of a shy guy sometimes. During all the opening of gifts, he wasn't very happy at all. What makes it difficult at Doug's dad's place is they have this big, beautiful staircase that Daniel loves crawling up and down. Well he certainly can't be on the stairs unattended and he cries when you stop him from going up. They really need a gate with all their young grandchildren, at least to put up while we're all visiting. They have such a beautiful house, I can see why they wouldn't want an ugly ole baby gate on their stairs, but gosh...

Anyway, I'm just yaking to yak now. We got a lot of great gifts. To name a few: One of my favs was a CD from Doug's parents (that I'm listening to by candlelight right now) by Celine Dion. Doug got a pair of bookshelves from his dad that we are very anxious for and a small drawer organizer for the garage. Sarah's closet has been stuffed full of Doug's books since we moved here, it'll be so wonderful to have those finally displayed! We got a ton of gift cards from Mervyn's, Office Depot and Best Buy. I also got a set of great mugs and plates from Pier 1. Beautiful! Pyrex carry-out dish from relatives out of town and I got a long, warm housecoat/nightie from his step mom. Lovin' it!

I mostly lost track of the kid's stuff. I saw some flex pillows, walkie-talkies, books, gift cards, candy and a subscription of some sort. I know that Daniel got a TON of clothes, hat/scarf, wooden puzzle (he loves those), beanie babies, cookie monster, turtle hammer toy (he loves it, but I don't really know what to call it), books, a clock with his name on it for his room and a step 2 basketball hoop for his room! It's huge and Doug's parents will deliver that this week with the shelves as well.

On the way home, we stopped in a ritzy neighborhood to look at lights. Those houses were absolutely beautiful! One of them in particular was just nuts. Their garage was nicer than our house. Unbelievably HUGE places. My mouth was hanging open. I'd kill to go nosing around in places like that just to see how they decorate them.

Daniel fell asleep on the way home. I was worried (as usual) that he wouldn't go to bed, but he was an angel. He had some milk, got changed and went straight to bed like a good boy. It was the first time since he was born that he did not have a bath before bed. It was just too damn late for one by the time we got home. We bathed him in the morning instead LOL. God I'm so anal. The kids were all good, we were proud of them. They stayed up pretty late watching a Garfield Christmas movie while Doug and I bustled around preparing for tomorrow's activities. Ha ha, that's another story.

Baking goodies

Sarah and I baked shortbread cookies, macaroons, white chocolate cran-orange cookies and chocolate fudge w/ pecans. My back is throbbing. Doug has already rubbed me down once. My back cracked 3 or 4 real good times, felt better for a short while, then I was on my feet again and it went back to throbbing. I'm totally ready for bed.

The kids are getting a little more excited each day that Christmas is coming! Our shopping is only a couple gifts from being done. A few small things left to wrap. A whole shit load of housework to do. Sigh. I'm all but begging for Friday off at work. Turns out something that was supposed to be done on Friday can now be done on Thursday. I'm hoping to be off so bad! I have so much left to do to prep for the meal.

Aside from it snowing today in TX, nothing exciting happening here, so I'm off.

Merry Christmas all. Enjoy your family time!

Who cares about titles anymore?

I contacted my gal at Home*made Gour*met on Friday to place an order for myself and some co-workers. She delivered mostly everything tonight! Woo! We're having meatloaf tomorrow!!! Yum!



I'm still owed another carrot cake mix, vegetable beef soup mix and chicken noodle soup mix. I'll get those later this week. If any of you out there get a chance to try this stuff, you should.

Daniel was Mr. Independent today. I pick my battles with him and one of the things I'm firm on is he is to "sit his bum down" in our kitchen chairs that he now climbs. We have hard ceramic tile floors and him standing up, wobbling back and forth is just plain not a good idea, for his safety nor for my nerves! Today I was getting after him and I'm sure he told me "NO". He'd also climb up with this gleam in his eyes, watching me....waiting for the reaction. I've made it clear it's not a game and Mommy is not laughing. What I do think is comical though is he totally knows he's not allowed to stand up and yet each and every time he'll watch me until he sees a possible opening to give it one more try. Silly kid!

Last night at supper time, we had a bit of a break through with his eating habits. As you all know, he won't eat table foods, still eating jarred baby food. Every night, I dish him up what we're eating and give him a spoon hoping for the best. Last night we had a ham dinner with applesauce and all the veggies etc. I dished him everything, including the applesauce. It was pretty late when we were sitting down to eat. Really late for him actually. I managed to squeak in a bite or two of applesauce on him. He ate it looking quite surprised that something off the plate actually tasted okay. He then proceeded to take his spoon and dip it in the applesauce all by himself and lick it off the spoon. THEN to our amazement, he dipped the spoon in to the potatoes and ate those too! We were all pretty shocked to watch him do this over and over again. We couldn't believe that a. he was eating food and b. he was actually feeding himself the food! Little by little!

Here he is playing cars with his dad today.



We finished wrapping the kid's gifts last night. Tonight we'll work on stocking stuffers and other people's gifts. Our errands are almost finished (well my errands are, Doug still has quite a few to-do's on his list *snicker*). I have a lot of cooking and housework to do yet, but heck who doesn't! Happy Holidays everyone!

Oh Christmas Tree

Okay, I dimmed the flash, so it's not quite so brass looking.



I've had this type of tree for quite a few years now (red beads, red bows, red and white lights/ornaments) and I think I'm due for a change. I think I'd like blue and silver and maybe lose the beads and bows and add ribbon. I don't know. We'll never have one of those magazine trees because I have too many homemade/sentimental things on the tree from the kids and that'll never change. Well we're going to go wrap now that kiddos are all in bed!

Lights

House lights. Some day we dream of lighting up our BIG tree. Some day.



As soon as I can get a half decent shot of our tree, I'll post that, but cripes every picture I take makes it look trashy. It's so much prettier in real life.

Busy times

Wooo! A productive day so far. My back is throbbing, but oh well. Doug and Justin cleaned out the garage, it looks great! The kids picked up the brick around the patio and stacked it in the barn until spring when we'll finally finish that backyard project! We put the old couch on the curb and have had numerous people stopping to look at it. It's our bulk pick up this week, we don't suspect it'll be there when we get up in the morning. Oh well, good riddance! Funny thing is this older woman stopped to ask us if she could have it, we said by all means, take it, she explained she knows a girl that just had a house fire etc...she drove off explaining she needed to go get help. Thirty minutes later, another woman came with a truck asking for it and Doug explained to her what the other lady said, so she drove away. Sadly the stupid couch is still sitting out there. Heh.

I totally cleaned our computer room, even the windows!!! Our desks are all organized, everything is filed (which I always put off until it's a huge pile) and floor is vacuumed. It's nice in here again! I also straightened up the living room some too and of course I cleaned up the kitchen, but the kitchen is always a work in progress! I've got a ham baking right now, so the entire kitchen will be tossed by the time I'm done cooking. I don't know about you all, but I can never cook neatly! By god, our food is hot when we sit down though! =)

Doug finished hanging all of the christmas lights outside. I worked on the bush lights, but sadly I half destroyed the bush when I decided to trim the stupid thing. I should have just left it alone!! Actually, what I should have done was use my small hand pruners, not the gigantic ones. I'd have more control and flow to my cutting then. Oh well, it's like a weed, it'll grow!

I even got all of the laundry done, not put away, but everything is sorted (thanks to Cody) and all I need to do is put our stuff away. Doug is out picking up our van (service done, more repair work on Monday too, uff) and will stop to run a couple of errands that I can now chop off our to do list! Hopefully tonight after Daniel goes to bed, we can wrap gifts! Ideally, I'm going to have time this week to do some Christmas baking with Sarah. I mentioned to her today that I should just buy some baked goods from the store to save on time. She says "but Mom I love Christmas baking". Sigh. She does. So I guess we'll have to make time for some christmas baking...some how.

Christmas wouldn't be so nuts this year if we weren't having company, but yikes Doug's whole family is coming! It'll be great having everyone here, but yikes yikes yikes, the pressure is on! I need to come up with a menu still. I placed a large order with Homemade Gourmet and found out today that I'll have all of my products by the first of the week (there was some concern she thought she might not have everything, but she scrounged around with some other representatives and got everything!!), so I'll add some of that stuff to Christmas dinner too. Yum.

Daniel's curtains

I had some annoying issues with my computer the past couple of days or I would have posted these pictures earlier! Here is the shot of Daniel's new curtains that Grandma made from the material I picked out. Aren't they cute?!



I'm loving them. I am also very glad I did not go with denim curtains, I think they would have been too dark for the room. I like how these curtains pop out against the color of his walls! What's even cooler about this material is it was the ONLY material in the entire fabric store that even come to close to what I had in mind and it is so perfect. It's also seasonal material and I ended up buying all they had. We have a little bit left if I want to make a pillow or something later out of it!

Here's a picture of Cody and Daniel messing around in front of the tree. Justin was in the background shaking a bag in his mouth making Daniel laugh. Daniel thinks Justin is just the funniest! They were doing that yesterday too and Daniel was practically falling over he was laughing so hard!



Notice just above Daniel's head is the angel he made me in school this year. His picture is the angel's face and the wings are his handprints! How cute is that?! Daniel had his Christmas parties this week at school. Now he's finished until Jan. 3 (which is pretty early to go back, but they have days that they have to make up, so whatever). Doesn't change tuition regardless. The kids are all out now too. Poor Doug. I get to hide at work! Ha ha. Actually I'm not hiding, I'm swamped. We have a little staff get together on Monday that I'll be going to, so I think Doug is going to take the kids over to a Mall up north. Get this...we have four couples in our family (both sides), so this year because we all have so many kids now, we've decided to just swap $10 gift cards, for example, I'd get one from each couple to the store of my choice and Doug would get one from each couple from the store of his choice and so on. Well I picked my store to be Mervyns. His brother's girlfriend picked Nordstrums. Ha ha. Doug said he's sure they'll look at him funny when he asks for a TEN DOLLAR gift card LOL!

Anyhoo...got my Christmas cards almost done, finally. I have had no excuse to not do them. We didn't do picture cards or anything fancy this year. Maybe next year we'll get a new family shot done for cards, we'll see. We have a lot to do this weekend and I'm betting the stores are going to be wild! I also have to prepare things for Christmas dinner and do some baking this week! Ack, I'm not even sure what I'll bake yet. Last year was nice having Mom down to take care of all that baking!!! I want my moooommmmmmmy! Speaking of mommies, I heard Daniel calling for me today! I was in the bedroom getting ready and he heard me open and close the door. He come running mumbling mommmm moommmm moommm. Cute! About time too! He also said a very clear daddy yesterday too, that was cool.

Sigh

I am so sick of having unwrapped presents in the house to tempt nosey kids. I've got such a bitchy crank going on today. I worked on bank recs. the entire freaking day and I'm still not balanced. Something is totally out of whack and be hell if I can figure it out. I had to bring home Daniel today in time for Cody to get home because Doug is busy doing what teachers do this time of year. Well I got tied up as I was leaving work and ended up racing against time and idiot freaking drivers and got here at 2:55. Apparently the back door was unlocked because innocent Cody was sitting on the couch "waiting" for me to get home.

Okay, I was five minutes late and it is cold out today, but it totally drives me nuts to think he went in our room and looked at everything. Deep down I KNOW he did because I definitely would if I was him. He swears he didn't snoop at all and I got pretty mad. I was actually more mad at racing home and mad at that stupid bank rec, but when I saw him sitting in here, my crank got worse. Sigh. I don't even remember what Doug asked me to make sure Cody had today when he got home. I have totally forgot what it was.

Why do I get so cranky sometimes over stupid shit like presents? I just need to get off my lazy freaking ass and clean the house and wrap the stupid gifts. It's just so hard these days getting anything done. I feel like such a dickhead.

What am I missing?

Hey where is everyone? Doesn't seem like a lot of blogging going on (okay...okay some of you are) lately. What are you all doing that's got you taking part in real life these days?

We got our tree up on Sunday night. Joy. Aside from the lights and beads, the kids did most of the decorating this year, so it's clumpy in spots, but oh well. Someday I'll be the only one decorating the tree and I'll wish they were all here to help. I'll post pictures later. Daniel has so far found the tree completely uninteresting. As a matter of fact, I had to blink the lights off and on just to get him to look at it. How funny.

He had his first of two Christmas parties today at school. He got all sorts of goodie bags and a stocking full of presents from our class party mom. It was funny to watch the other four toddlers in his room devour their cupcakes smearing icing from one end of their selves to the other and there is Daniel's lone cupcake sitting untouched in the middle of his tray. We all got a big kick out of talking about Daniel's eating habits. It's actually starting to get a bit embarrassing to admit he still eats baby food. Oh well, some day I'll find the whole thing pretty amusing.

Doug and I are going to Dallas tomorrow to eat while his mom babysits. Speaking of Doug's Mom, she came today with Doug's step-dad to hang the curtains she made for Daniel's room. They really look great. I'll post pictures of that later too. I need to get little hooks for the tie backs is all.

Work has been really busy. I'm not seeing a light at the end of this tunnel. I know over the holidays we have a four day break which is great, but it's really just an illusion of a break because when we get back to work that Wednesday, we hit the ground running! Oh well, it's life and it'll all calm down by March and things will go back to normal and we'll repeat it all ten months later! Life is funny that way isn't it?

While I'm at it...

Everyone please whisper to my husband how great a new digital camera would be!

Kodak?

Anyone know what the heck is wrong with the Kodak website? I've tried loading that page numerous times over the past couple of months. I really need to update my photo software and it's just not loading. I've tried other sites for updates and their sites load, but refuses to load the Kodak software download. I'm really annoyed at it now. I'm guessing I may have to switch software now. Ghrrrr.

Lame title here

Took the kids out to eat for lunch at Ci Ci's pizza. Their garlic fingers are good, the pizza I could take or leave. Daniel fell asleep while we were there and he's still asleep (so almost two hours now).

We set up our tree last night. I've got to work on that today while Doug has the kids out. They have been waiting and waiting to decorate the tree. It's a really big deal for them and I'm glad because that's the stuff they're going to remember when they are grown!

I finished my scrapbook for my grandparents. I'm hoping to send off that parcel today. We'll see though, by the looks of the clock and considering the fact that I've yet to reach Mom, it's probably not getting mailed today. It might be late for Christmas now anyway. Oh well, she'll be happy when she does get it.

oops two hours later now. Where did the time go? I totally forgot about this post, got sidetracked, yet got nothing done. Heh story of my life. Daniel is out back playing with his brothers like a big boy! I've got to get him fed now though, then I'm going to work on our tree. Pictures later. I could get away with just posting a picture of last year's tree considering it looks the same every year LOL.

Joy

Got home from shopping to find out Cody got a three day suspension for scratching a school desk, plus we have to pay for a new desk. Grand. I wonder how much that'll soak us. It's always something with Cody. He'll be my problem child, that's for sure. Oddly enough, he's the one without a disability. Sigh.

Justin came home today with a new team picture for me. I think it might have been one the coach had around because it was an 8x10, I ordered a 5x7. Only issue was they put the wrong team picture in his folder to take home, so that was fine. I'll take the 8x10 no problem.

My last online order that I was waiting for was delivered today. I feel at peace for now. I told Doug now's his chance for some whoopee, I'm not so preoccupied with busy brain! ha ha

Will the shopping ever end?

I got a nice loud wake up call this morning by my little guy who apparently has some pent up frustration at not being able to climb the bed as quickly as he would like.

I am off work today so Doug and I can finish up some errands. We're going to head into Dallas to eat at Cheesecake Factory. Yum. We just don't know how to let go when we find something we like. Lucky for that restaurant this year!

Doug said Daniel woke up today at 7:30. He is sleeping in soooo much better in his new room. I have had no mid night wake up calls and no crack of dawn awakeness. He never woke up much through the night anyway, but a couple of times through a week, he'd wake up around 2'ish and want to be tucked in or what not. A lot of mornings he was getting up around 6 a.m. which was a killer for whichever one of us got him up (usually Doug heh). But now, his room is quieter, he doesn't hear us snoring/breathing or the alarm going off so he sleeps longer. Plus his room is darker and I think the blue is every soothing.

Well I'm going to go shower now so I can drag hubby out to shop and eat! Later.

Sarah's concert!

I am so proud of Sarah and her school's band. They did such a great job. I went anticipating the worse. You know cringe, cover your ears and smile anticipation, but it wasn't like that at all. It was such a great time and I can't believe how well they did considering most, if not all, of them have only been playing since August. Daniel even had fun and was good as gold! I actually got all teary when they played. I remember Justin's very first Christmas concert when he was five. It is such an incredible feeling to see your child in such a different light and all grown up. It swells up pride from the pit of your stomach, pride you didn’t' even realize you had. Every concert/school event I go to, I always feel all emotional.

Actually it's been one of those days for me anyway. Earlier today at work, I ended up in tears because a good friend of mine that I work with and care a lot about had to put her dog down on Friday and she brought it up during a staff meeting today and it got pretty emotional. She doesn't have kids, her three dogs are her babies and it's so hard to say goodbye. I just can't imagine. =(

In other news, Justin brought home his cross country photos from school today. We had ordered them about a month or so ago. Well I opened the package and there are two pictures in there (exactly what I expected). One of Justin alone and the other one of the whole team. Well what I didn’t' expect was to not see Justin in the picture. I asked "where the heck were you?" He says "Oh, that's the varsity team". So I paid $17 for a picture without you in it? I don't think so. That baby is going back to school tomorrow. How freaking annoying. ghrr

New bedding

Only have a minute to post because we're heading out to Sarah's first band concert. Please cross your fingers for her. She's nervous about it.

Our bedding arrived.



It appears a little on the red side in the picture, but it's more wine/burgundy. It has some creams/greens/wines, so I have lots to choose from for paint color. It's my incentive for painting. I'm not opening it up until our room is finished and we have all our new furniture in! Yikes.

Silly Daniel has learned how to climb up on the living room furniture now. This is not fun. At least if he rolls off our King sized bed, he lands on carpet. Tile floors just don't feel the same on the noggin. Poor kid.

Okay must run.

A new couch

The Payday game arrived today. The guy shipped it on Nov. 29, so that was pretty timely considering the auction closed just before Thanksgiving. The game is in great shape too!

I also checked on the status of our new bedding and it's scheduled to be delivered tomorrow!!! It's only a couple of hours away.

Doug's at lab tonight. Bah. I really wish he didn't have to go, I really wanted to work on the tree. Oh well, I have bank recs screaming my name tonight. We bought a couch from a co-worker of mine today. It's old, but we got it for thirty bucks. We soooooooo needed a couch. I'll have to post a picture of what we currently have in the living room. You'd laugh. We certainly didn't want to buy something new anyway with all the critters we have in this house, so this was a good find for us and cheap too! It's all beige in color, so it'll match nice with all of our wood tones and flooring in the living room. I think we'll try to pick it up Wednesday. Here's a shot:


Well the kids are waiting for me so we can watch Extreme Makeover - Home edition. For some reason they really like that show too.

Pictures of Daniel's room

I finally finished putting that boy's room together. It required a few trips out here and there and I still have one or two finishing touches left. Mind you as soon as Christmas happens, I'll have to re-think some stuff. He's getting a lot of toys (my bad or I should say us bad) and there just isn't a heck of a lot of room left. We're thinking a small toy box in the computer room to house leftover toys, oh who knows! We'll just see!

Okay, here's some shots:
As you can see, we did paint the back of the closet door. We will need to paint the other door as well. It just looks better white. The tigger stuff may stay, it may go. I haven't decided yet.


We were going to hang a quilt over his bed, but decided it wasn't worth the risk of him pulling it down. The Discover Space picture matches his bedding set that he got from his Papa B and Nana Jan. I feel pretty safe with that hung there because he's never bothered it before. The fish are soft and stuffed, so even if he ends up reaching those, he can yank 'em down all he wants.


The curtains are not done yet, but soon! Doug's Mom picked up the material yesterday, so maybe by Christmas. I'm worried with the striped curtains, it may be a bit much with the quilt hanging so near. We could change out quilts if we need something not so bright. I'll cross that bridge when we get the curtains. Also the little jar on that shelf will eventually house some dried flowers. I may or may not keep it there though.


I have a small adjustment I need to make to that shelf. I'm not sure if I like Mr. Frog there or not. I'm betting it'll grow on me. I love the few frogs that I got for his room. Eventually the change table will go away. He's close to being too big for it. That's why I didn't bother painting it white. Again not sure about the quilted pocket hanger thing yet. I'll definitely be switching out some of those animals.


You can see another frog by the door. It's a hanger for jackets and hats that Daniel can reach himself. I think it's adorable. We also bought that small shelf/cabinet because I needed something for q-tips/powder etc. Moving his plastic drawers to the closet, I lost my table top space. You can see here how much better the door would look painted!


Toys, toys and more toys, what can I say?! We foresee his garden activity center being moved to the computer room. His room is just too small for it! Plus eventually I want a table and chairs set in there AND a play tool bench!


And here's the little guy enjoying his new room!


He slept in there for the first time yesterday afternoon. His first night was last night. He was good as gold! We do need a smaller light though. We have him used to sleeping in a fairly dark room and his lamp just made it too bright. Overall I think his room turned out really cute. It's a little busy, but then again so is he! Next room on the agenda, mine and Doug's. yikes. That will be the biggest job yet!

Not tired

I am so tired of feeling like I am a walking "to do" list. I swear for the past couple of months, I have been antzy...driving myself crazy with lists of things to do (all in my head). Lately it's been real bad. I lay down to go to bed and my mind clicks on like a light bulb. I have all these things I want to do and get, stuff to organize and finish...I'm beginning to wonder if/when I actually finish everything, will it truly be done or will I just fill it up with more to do. Tonight I can't stop thinking about placing an order with Homemade Gourmet and arranging Daniel's room. We lugged all his toys in tonight and well, let's just say, not all the toys will fit. We're going to need to keep some out in the computer room still. Christmas hasn't even happened yet! Yikes.

Oh well, no biggie. I'm getting things done. It's ridiculous of me to let my mind run away with things like this. I just lay there and think and think and think and think. Next thing I know, an hour has passed...two...still awake...yawn. I think what it is, it's so noisy around me all day when everyone is awake, I can't think straight, so I do all my planning and thinking at night when it's quiet. Sadly I end up keeping Doug up much longer than need be and he gets up so much earlier than I do. Know what I bugged him about tonight? A couch. Yup. a stupid couch. I let my mind wander ahead and that's what it come up with. Want..must have...couch. Simple. He agreed. Poor man, I'm sure he just agreed to shut me up LOL! Blah blah blah...going to bed now.

pfft

Still no deliveries of my stuff! ghrrr.

So I got turned down for a Mervyn's card. Bah! Oh well, I'll just apply in Doug's name, that's what I should have done to begin with. I have no credit and when they pull up my SS number, I'm sure it shows it's for work only and that I'm not a citizen. In the refusal letter, it said the credit report had nothing to do with their turning down my application. I don't really want the card, I just wanted to save $45 off my purchase the other day.

I swear I'm going to knock those kid's heads together if they don't shut their traps and stop that stupid bickering and picking at each other. I just went in there and ripped loose. They better stop it.

Anyway...Doug's back home with Justin now, so I'm going to scoot.

Here's a shot from Thanksgiving day



Another one from the other day sporting his new winter coat!

New room for Daniel

Okay we finally finished cleaning out paint supplies etc from Daniel's room. Everything is done except for the curtains which Doug's mom will make as soon as I can get the material to her. We haven't moved anything in yet, so all I have is pictures of the bare walls. Oh well, better than nothing.

Here are a couple of before shots as we started to paint.



Not great pictures, but will at least give you an idea of how plain and bare the walls were. Not near as many nicks and picks in these walls as were in Sarah's though, so that made a bit less work.


Here are some shots of the after: We have decided to paint the other door in the room white as well because we think it looks so much better. I should have painted Sarah's doors too. Oh well lesson learned. This first picture shows up more blue. The other pictures seem to look a little grey, which it's not in person, so go figure.






I'm loving the color and I hope all things match well.