Christmas Day

 

Santa navigated his way to our new house and WHEW that was a relief. Anna was pretty worried! The kids are enjoying their new electronics and toys. Anna got the CUTEST little pink video camera from Santa that he found on the DELL website on sale for $30. It is the BEST thing ever. She is having a blast with it and the quality is very good. It is the size of a cell phone. Logan also got a video camera that is small. It is a HD Kodak zi8 or something like that. Brandon is enjoying his new digital camera, but I am not enjoying it flash in my face constantly. They are all enjoying being off of school and just doing whatever.

Christmas with Barry's family

 

 

 

 

We went to the Schmidt's on Christmas Eve as usual. A delicious seafood lunch was had by all and then we hung out and opened gifts, etc. That night we went to their church service.

Christmas at the Sid's

 

We had a nice dinner and visiting with my parents, my Grandma and my sister and her family.

Just in Case

 

I sent this collage out with our Christmas cards this year. Sadly, I am STILL sending out cards. I also had some returned. Anna help me this year and I guess I missed that she didn't put postage on a couple. LOL!

Heading to Disney!

Barry got an itch to head back to Disney with the kids. I was a bit shocked. We talked to Logan about the trip first. He had to be willing to miss school and do homework there. He takes Geometry as an 8th grader and it is a 10th grade course. I wanted to make sure that he would be able to be gone from school. We have a day and a half to do homework before we leave, so that will help. Good idea to leave on a Sunday. We will need to rent a wheelchair for Logan to ride in some while we are there. His feet just can't walk very far. We had a stroller for Anna three years ago and this time we will have a wheelchair. No big deal. You just do what you have to.

Anna is literally bouncing off the walls about the trip. I thought that telling her 5 weeks away would be ok....now I am not so sure that a day away would have been better! Poor Mrs. Warren at school!

Weekend Christmas fun!

We had Chrismtas at my Grandma's on Saturday. There was about 28 people in her house. Brandon and Anna finally got to visit Santa, too. We had dinner, games and then we went to see the lights at the park. There are a ton there! Today my parents treated all of their Grandkids to swimming and food at the pool about 35 min away. The kids all had fun and I am sure it will be a quiet night around our house. They are all really tired from the swimming and waterslide, etc!

My cutie pie

 

 

 

I am really missing my gal around the house these days. She is perfectly fine at school, but she would be perfectly fine at home with me, too. I miss her throughout the day because we have been attached at the hip for many years. I look forward to the weekends when she is home. She has already asked if we can have a "Girl day" over Christmas break. I recently took Brandon Christmas shopping for a day and out to Panera for a bagel and then he picked Roadhouse for lunch. It is nice to have one on one time with each kid.

Ready for the snow

 

 

 

The kids were excited on Monday morning to see the first dusting of snow.

Christmas is Coming!

We have been quite busy preparing for the Christmas season. We have been decorating up at storm here. It is fun decorating a new house and today we finished with our real tree.

This past week Brandon had his program at school. He was Charlie Brown for part of it. Logan will have his school program this Thursday and the kids all their church program today at 4. It is always nice seeing them all sing. They did a great job. We take little Justin on Wednesdays to church and he does such a fantastic job! We will finish up with programs next Sunday when the kids are all in the Cantata at church and they will sing two or three songs.

oh and I think Anna must miss me taking pics of her, as she was quite the little posing gal!

Thanksgiving

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving Day at Barry's sister's house 2 hours away. The adults played games and visited and the kids all had fun playing together.
On Saturday we had Thanksgiving at my parents' house. It was a beautiful day out so the kids were able to play outside with their cousins and Grandpa Joe trying out the twins' gift we got them.

Chicago

 

Barry and I went to Chicago for his work trip. I spent the days buried in a book and shopping. I met up with our friend, Erin, from Show Choir in High School. Barry and I went out one evening for dinner and celebrated our 17th anniversary. The other night we went out with his Credit Union people. It was a nice get away. While we were gone, my parents kept the kids one night at our house and one night at theirs. Barry's parents helped out, too. Unfortunately, while we were gone, the vanity sink on Logan's side of the upstairs bathroom had an issue and flooded. Thank GOODNESS my parents stayed at our house. If they hadn't, I cannot EVEN begin to imagine the where the flood would have reached! The kitchen, laundry room and probably the basement! YIKES.

Everything is all put back together now. YUK.

Catching up

 

 

It was fun visiting Anna and Brandon's classrooms for Parent Day! Anna's class did a little Thanksgiving skit. Anna was a little Indian girl and her big line throughout the play was "SHHH! SHHHH! SHHHH!"

Brandon had prepared a neat little page to make me all teary eyed about what he was thankful for. Cute.

Hello from Florida

I am here on Marco Island for the 4th November in a row with Michelle and Robin (2 of the mommies that went to China when we wentto adopt our girls). Heidi stayed home again this year. Her hubby had a bad fall at home while building their new house. He broke numerous bones in one of his legs/feet a few days before we left. We missed her again this year.

We did our typical beach things, lots of shopping and also eating yummy good food. We had less beach time this year since Hurricane Ida caused some weather related issues. Darn it. Today it was quite a bit cooler and we have had a ton of wind at times. So, no beach today. We did enjoy a day in the condo watching MaMa Mia, the rest of Twilight and making chocolate chip cookies. Good and very lazy day!

It was a great week! I head back home Friday night.

Our little friend

We adore Justin and each year I try to take pictures. I didn't do as good of a job this year. Lighting just didn't seem right, but Justin is so cute, so......

More Halloween Fun

Anna dressed up as a witch this year, Justin as a Lion, Logan as a Robber (who did NOT do any trick or Treating) and Brandon was a Monster Rocker or something like that. The day started with a photo shoot with Justin. We also went to our church in the afternoon for Trunk or Treat. Barry took Anna and Justin and Brandon around the neighborhood and also to our parents' church to their Trunk or Treat. I stayed around the house to pass out candy. OH MY....our new neighborhood had a TON of people out and about trick or Treating. There were cars and people and kids everywhere.

Halloween cookie time

FALL LEAVES

 

 

 

 

Just doing some yard work at my parents' house last weekend

Anna stuff

 

 

 

 

Anna had a field trip to the Pumpkin Patch, so I chaperoned! I had a pretty good group of kids, but one boy really made me work! Yesterday was Halloween Craft Day in Anna's room so my mom and I went to help. Fun Day.

Marco Countdown

 

My gal pals and I leave for Marco Island next Saturday. I cannot wait!!!!!!It has been 90 degrees in Florida there, so we wil be baking in the sun shortly.

Misc

Whew! What a whirlwind of a couple weeks here. We are finally over the whole Influenza A/h1n1 stuff here! Brandon had gotten sick on our trip, but then mended quickly. Then Logan got it. He was a mess, then Brandon got worse and then Anna. The boys ended up on breathing treatments and tons of other meds. Anna had the Influenza A, too, but fared the best. She had the high fever, but she was put on Tamiflu right away and got better pretty quickly. Logan missed 7 days of school and was just aweful! Barry and I were basically fine since we took the Tamiflu. I started coughing a lot, but that stuff really works!

So, my time was spent with sick kids, a ton of dr. appointments and not really good sleep for 2 weeks. Because I am really crazy, I decided that I couldn't stand the ugly floral wallpaper any longer in the entry, dining and butler pantry. It was just bad and I had had enough. So, Brandon and I started ripping it off. it was a terrible job, but I couldn't complain since I did it! Plus, I knew that all of the sore fingers, sore back, etc. would soooo be worth it! Brandon and Anna helped as they felt good here and there and Logan did not. He was miserable and was being a teenager anyway, so......
Barry couldn't believed I started on this project, but I was stuck at home with sickies, so I thought it would be a good distraction and a great time to do it. Barry helped a ton, as he decided it would be nice to speed the project along. It took me peeling and ripping off the paper and trimming some. Barry painted last weekend and it looks great! The den is still a mess and ready to be painted, etc. now! It feels so much better with all of the flowers gone. The rooms look so much bigger, better and cleaning looking without all that distraction.

I will removing border and painting the laundry room sometime and the main level bathroom will be painted in January and the wallpaper border removed,too! BUSY!

We made Halloween cookies a couple days ago. I got a little bitty camera that I have been trying out, so it was fun to try to use!

More trip pics

 

 

 

 

Trip to the Smoky Mountains

We had a great trip to the Smoky Mountains from Friday until Tuesday with my parents. We got a lot of rain and the boys got sick, but it didn't spoil the trip. We had some good moments of weather and we were able to head to the mountains to see the beautiful trees. The pictures don't do the scenery justice. You have to see it for yourself. We rented a quaint little cabin in Cosby, TN and we travelled into Gatlinburg to do a few fun things like the Aquarium, Ripley's Mirror Maze and Ripley's Museum during the rainy times. The kids loved those. I enjoyed the aquarium, but could have done without the others. The mountains and the trees and leaves were just beautiful. The kids enjoyed having their grandparents along and we all had a good time. As for the sickness....well, Brandon is fine now and Logan is pretty darn sick. I am not sure what is ahead with him, but I hope he mends quickly!

So...scroll down to see a million pictures for now.I think there is about 7 posts of pictures. I can never figure out how to add a bunch in one time.