It's All About Them

A New Road To Travel...

2009-09-13T00:11:00.013-05:00

I just erased the longest post I've ever written. After re-reading it I realized that it needed to be scaled down so I decided to re-write it and try to keep it a little shorter; a little more to the point:

I've been struggling to figure out how to pick up blogging again because I really do miss it but the truth is, I don't know if I have time. So much has happened over the last 6 months (mostly good, some not so good) that has changed my life and rearranged my "down-time" that I just don't know if I can balance everything I want to do. This post is a way for me to try again to get back into the swing of things and start blogging. Just don't expect too much from me though! After you read this, I hope you understand why. Let me get you caught up on what has been going on.

In the post that I erased, I went into a very long explanation of how I got to where I am in my life; what moves me; what inspires me. It was way too much and you would have gotten bored reading it so here is the condensed version:

From the time I was very young I was always "artsy". I loved to color and draw, loved doing crafts, wore outfits that were "different" from what the other kids were wearing, and was constantly re-arranging my bedroom (sort of like my own kid version of HGTV's "Design Star"). Looking back I see that this was my attempt to express myself in artistic ways. As I grew older I conformed to what everyone else was doing/wearing/etc but every once in a while that artistic need would flare and something would happen. Take for example in my freshman year of HS I took an art class and created this charcoal portrait:

I suprised even myself since this was my first attempt at drawing a face. I remember when I showed my mom the picture, she was shocked that I had drawn it. I remained interested in art for a while longer but other circumstances steered me in different directions and again, I drifted around trying to conform to what everyone else was doing. However that "artsy" desire surfaced everywhere. I took some art classes in college but didn't pursue it at that time.

I ended up becoming a Pre-school Teacher, then a Flight Attendant, then got married and eventually we settled into the suburbs of Kansas City to raise our 3 kids. My love of all things "artsy" remained strong through the years but the hustle and bustle of raising the kids overshadowed any thoughts of steering myself back towards a life rich in art. However, the truth is that as I approached my 40th birthday I kept hearing this little voice in my head saying "follow your dreams before it's too late". I really didn't know what those dreams were though. I think I had lost any sense of what my dreams once had been. I knew something was missing. I have a GREAT husband and three WONDERFUL kids so it wasn't about them. Nothing was missing there and as far as being a wife and mother, I am more than fulfilled. But SOMETHING was missing and I couldn't figure out what it was. Little things would pop up and stick in my head as if they were signs trying to point me in the right direction. For example: I saw an old friend of my parents at a funeral that I attended a while back and she asked me what I was doing these days. I told her I was busy raising my 3 kiddos. She asked if I had ever pursued a career in acting, dancing, or fashion (all "artsy" things I had been interested in at one time or another throughout my childhood). I told her I had not and she seemed genuinely surprised saying "I always thought you'd somehow end up famous. You had such a presence about you and always wanted all eyes on you" That was true. Not only did I have a strong desire to be a part of the art world (in any form or fasion) but I also had a strong desire to be recognized for my contribution to that world. I didn't just want to be a dancer - I wanted to dance alongside Baryshnikov; I didn't just want to be a fashion designer - I wanted my designs to walk the runways of Paris and Milan; I didn't just want to be an artist; I wanted my art to hang in swanky galleries where the masses could view it. So those were pretty big dreams but the point is that I wanted to BE somebody. Another moment that stuck with me was when a friend said "I've always told my kids that if you want something in your life, you have to ASK for it. No one is going to voluntarily give it to you". She was talking about her kids but she was reaching ME.

I saved up every one of those moments of clarity and as my 40th birthday arrived, I began to feel more confident in my desire to pursue an old dream. The tricky part was that I still didn't know WHAT dream I should be pursuing. And then just 2 months after my 40th birthday it all became crystal clear.

Several years ago a once neglected part of Kansas City with old wharehouse buildings had been refurbished and became the art district of KC and is now known as "The Crossroads". The old brick buildings were transformed into cool, hip galleries and the city began celebrating what is now a VERY popular event called "First Fridays" Just as the name implies, First Fridays occur on the first Friday of every month year 'round. The galleries all open their doors to the public and people meander the streets hopping from one gallery to the next. KC is home to the Kansas City Art Institute which consistently ranks among the leading art schools in the nation. We are a city rich with budding artists and the talent here surpasses that of many bigger cities. First Fridays during the warm months also showcase budding musicians and performing artists. Bands set themselves up on every street corner, and fire-dancers, break-dancers, and just about every other type of "artsy" person can be seen doing their thing! It's a magical event!

I had heard a lot about "First Fridays" but we had never attended. Then in June of this year our friend invited us to meet him at his office which is located smack-dab in the heart of the Crossroads. We had a few cocktails and off we went to visit the galleries. I know it sounds cliche' but it really was one of those moments where everything falls right into place and in an instant you know what path you should be taking. As we viewed each piece of art my husband kept saying "I've seen you create pieces like this. You can do this." We went home that night and I, completely inspired by what I had seen, immediately started drawing. The next day I bought some paint and a few canvases and I started to paint. That was the beginning for me. I guess a new beginning. For the next few months I painted and sketched and as each piece got better and better, my confisence grew stronger and stronger.

I managed to work up enough nerve to ask one of the Crossroad gallery owners about showing my work in his gallery. One of the major requirements was that I would need to have enough work to fill the gallery - he prefers artists to do solo shows at his versus group shows. I continued to paint at a frenetic pace and when I felt like I had enough, I contacted him again. He viewed some of the pieces online and a show date was set.

Now in the midst of all of this came the not so good part...just before my work was set to go to gallery my best friend passed away. We had known each other our whole lives. We were inseperable growing up - incredibly close. For the last few years she had been struggling with who she was, where she was going in life, what her purpose was. Unfortunately her struggle was somehow different than what I had been going through. Mine wasn't about what I didn't have in life but more about what else I wanted in life. Her struggle was somehow much deeper. Much darker. She finally felt that life on earth couldn't be nearly as rewarding as after-life so she chose to end it. This has been one of the most difficult things for me to come to grips with. It is a pain I have never known and one I wouldn't wish on anyone. I have tremendous guilt and a sadness that goes deep into my soul. I always try to find good in situations but it's been really hard to do that in this situation. I can say though, that if there is anything good about this it would be that it has confirmed for me the idea that life is short, that we are all put here to accomplish certain things, and that happiness is a choice. It has encouraged me to chase my dreams. Keeping busy has helped me deal (or maybe not deal) with the loss of my friend and getting my work into the gallery has been a sweet distraction. With the good there often seems to come bad, but with the bad there is always good...

My work is currently hanging in the Apex Gallery in downtown Kansas City. I had my 1st of 3 solo Open Houses on December 4th (the others will be January 1st and January 8th). My parents and siblings flew in for the event and it was a spectacular night! Not only did I meet the goal of having my art hanging in a gallery, it was received very well. I even sold several pieces and just had my first art review (you can read it HERE)! It was so exciting and I feel like I am embarking on a whole new journey. One that I was meant to embark on my whole life. Sometimes we take little detours in life but the things we experience on those detours only allows us to bring more to the destination point.

The following pictures are of some of the 50+ pieces I have haging in the gallery. All of the paintings shown are mine:

The exhibit (aptly named 40) will be on display until mid-January. At that time select pieces will be moved to another gallery where they will be exhibited alongside the work of several other area artists. After that?...who knows! I'd like to show at galleries in other cities as well as compete in some art competitions. I'm enjoying this ride immensely and will go wherever it takes me! I'm really hoping that continuing this blog is part of my journey but I doubt I will be able to update often. If you'd like to follow me in my art pursuits, you can do so on Facebook. Just do a Facebook search for Jennifer Rivera Art and become a fan. Leave me a comment there and let me know you've visited! You may also view another blog that I have set up by clicking HERE. It's not the best layout and the header really needs some work. I'd like to set up a more professional website but for now it is serving it's purpose. If you have any suggestions on a better header, I'm all ears! Comments are always welcome there as well.

This entry turned out to be a little longer than I anticipated. Thank you for reading it and thank you for checking in here from time to time.

Anyone Out There???

2009-09-12T23:31:00.002-05:00

I really, really, really don't know if anyone ever checks this site anymore. I haven't posted since MAY!!! That's hard to believe but the truth is...I got sucked into the world of Facebook.

I see that I have a new "follower" BabyDoll08. Unfortunately I can't seem to connect to a blogger page for this person, so BabyDoll08- if you are reading this, please leave me a comment! I'd love to know who you are and how you found my blog. I'd also love to start following yours if you have one!

So, lot's of stuff has been going on since I last blogged. Stuff that has been keeping me VERY busy! I'm going to blog about it one of these days and give you a bunch of details but for now, suffice it to say that I'm chasing dreams and actually catching some of them! Like I said - more details to follow in a blog post soon - I PROMISE!!

For those of you who still check in from time to time - thanks for not giving up on me! I really do plan to post a little more frequently! And if I don't, leave me harrassing comments and force me to post! LOL!!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Our Latest Family Portrait...

2009-05-14T15:13:00.005-05:00

Just wanted to pop in to show you all our latest family portrait...

Confused?

All 5 of us are in quarantine for 7 days with...SWINE FLU!!!!

Pretty, yes???...

2009-03-28T17:12:00.005-05:00

In December...ABSOLUTELY!!!

At the end of March...NOT. SO. MUCH.

(above: the bench in our front yard)

(above: ice-covered trees)

.(above: my newly finished SUMMER patio set on our back deck)

(above: our across the street neighbor's house...I would have had to actually go outside to take one of our house)

Quick Post...

2009-03-23T09:30:00.003-05:00

Just a quick post to share some GREAT news...

Remember in this post I told you guys that F had been selected as the 5th grade poetry winner at his school for the PTA Citizenship Essay/Poetry contest? Well the 1st place poems and essays from each school went on to compete at district level and we received a letter informing us that his poem placed in the top 3 in the district!! WAHOOOO!!!!!!

Now to give you some perspective, there are 35 elementary schools in the district. Each school was able to send up to 4 essays/poems - their winning poem and their winning essay for 5th grade and their winning poem and their winning essay for 6th grade. To the best of my knowledge, once the entries were recieved by the district, they were combined and no longer competed by grade level. My math skills aren't too sharp people, but I do believe that means he competed against approximately 139 kiddos! Pretty good, huh!?! He will be honored at a reception on March 30th which also happens to be his 11th birthday!

WE. ARE. SO. PROUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FFF; "Green"...

2009-03-20T00:19:00.004-05:00

Can you believe I'm doing Favorite Foto Friday again? When I saw that this week's theme was "green", there was no way I was missing out on this one! F's favorite color is, and always has been, GREEN! So I knew I'd have no trouble finidng a good picture. Here is my favorite green picture...

F and his best friend D...

Green enough for ya!?! For more green posts, go see Sarah!

Once Upon A Time...

2009-03-18T08:44:00.003-05:00

there was a boy named Tarzan. He had two sisters, Jane and Baby Jane.

Tarzan and the Janes were on Spring Break and looking for entertainment while Mama Jane worked on Hut-Improvement projects. Tarzan found a wonderful vine hanging from a tree in the woods behind their hut. He pulled the vine to test it's strength. Ahhhh, just perfect for 3 little monkeys to swing from.

Tarzan and the Janes spent the next few hours playing with the vine. They pulled it, they climbed it, and they swung from it. Mama Jane was delighted that Tarzan and the Janes had found some good old fashioned entertainment. Nothing could put a damper on the fun they were having.

UNTIL...

An occupant from the next hut over informed Tarzan and the Janes that the vine was...

POISON IVY!!!!!!!!

Yes, it's true. Not just one, but all three of my lil darlins swung for hours on end from a Poison Ivy vine.

Good times, my friends. Good times.

So far, so good - no rash yet. That may have to do with the fact that I scrubbed most of their skin off of their bodies in a frenzied attempt to halt the entire disaster. They probably didn't need that much skin anyway. I've read that the rash can appear from 4 hours after exposure to 10 days after exposure. Good Lord, it's going to be a long 10 days!

40 'til 40

2009-03-17T08:49:00.000-05:00

It's 40 'til 40 day. Anyone wanna take a guess at what that is???

Introducing...

2009-03-17T08:42:00.002-05:00

My precious new nephew...

Donovan Jason Brandt
7lbs, 14ozs
March 12, 2009

Isn't he just gorgeous! I've been wanting to do this post since Thursday when Donovan was born but I didn't have a picture to post so I decided to wait.

Donovan is the first child of my little brother Jason and his wife Mar. This child has NO IDEA what amazing parents he has and what an exceptional life he is embarking on! I absolutely cannot wait to see him! I want to hold him and kiss him and whine about how I want another babyyyyy.

Donovan ~ Auntie loves you already!!

Maturity Is Not My Strong Point...

2009-03-07T20:36:00.006-06:00

Most of you guys know me well enough to know that I am not always the most mature person you'd ever meet. Case in point...we have names in our house. By names I mean body part names. I know that this is frowned upon by some moms who seem to think a child will be damaged beyond repair if they don't refer to their genitalia with proper terminology. I disagree. My kids are ~~normal~~ kinda normal and we have names. "Toto", "Tutu", "Boom Boom", etc. use your imagination people - I'm not tellin' which name goes with which body part. Now all of this is not to say that they don't know the proper names. We just don't use them.

Okay, I'm gonna stray for a minute here. Jenelle, stay with me...I promise this won't be like one of those college papers you have to grade. It will all make sense in the end...

My kids luuuuuuv the show "America's Funniest Home Videos". They laugh themselves stupid over the ridiculousness of the clips. Especially the baby videos and the animal videos. So, tonight they were watching an episode which showed a dog descending a staircase dragging it's hind legs.

K: "That's soooo funny! He's rubbing his - ya know - on the stairs."

I tried. I really, really tried but I could not pass up the opportunity to stir it up a bit. It's that immaturity factor I was talking about.

Me: "He's rubbing what on the stairs?"

See what I mean? Very immature of me! Anyway - K just stared at me until F leaned over and whispered something in her ear.

K: "His testicles"

OMG!! Okay. This, my friends, is why we have NAMES!! It is NOT RIGHT to hear your innocent little 7 year old daughter say the word "testicles". Ewwwww!!! Forget my kids being damaged beyond repair for not using the correct terminology - I am damaged beyond repair when they DO!

My Facebook Review...

2009-03-05T13:57:00.004-06:00

Well I've taken the last week or so to give Facebook a whirl and have found that there are both negatvives and positives. Here's what i came up with:

Positives

It seems a little easier to do a quick update on Facebook than it does here on my blog. I guess I feel like I need to have more to share than just one or two sentences when I post here. On Facebook, I like the option of just typing in a quick blurb about what I'm up to.

It is MUCH easier to keep up with my siblings on FB since they don't have blogs. For example, my poor sister slipped on the ice earlier this week and dislocated her elbow. If not for FB, I probably wouldn't have even known about it yet. She lives in another state and also has 3 kiddos so between her schedule and mine, we don't chat on the phone very often. Also, my brother and his wife are expecting their 1st bambino any day now so it's been fun to keep checking in on their FB's to find some news...no news yet!

I like how everyone's FB page is sort of linked to each other and almost seems like a conversation going on.

It's so easy to find old friends on FB. Sort of like an online reunion!

Negatives

Like Beth, I don't like all of the little thingies on FB. Stuff like the buttons and pokes and virtual cocktails. What the hell (pardon my french) is a virtual cocktail anyway? If I'm going to have a cocktail, let me tell you, it better have a cute little umbrella in it, it better taste like a cocktail, and it better make me look like this...

Like Mindy, I am in touch with most everyone that I have the desire to be in touch with. So while I think it's very cool to be able to find old friends, it's not something that I necessarily need.

I may be wrong about this one but I don't think you can put a hit counter on FB or a sitemeter. Those are 2 things I really like about my blog. I know how many people view it and basically where they come from. I have several blog stalkers that I'm still hoping will reveal themselves (you know who you are)!
.

So, essentially, the positives outweigh the negatives and I am now officially a Facebook'er! Fear not though, my blogger buddies...I have no intention of abandoning my blog! Just adding another addiction to my list!

If you have a FB and want me to add you to my "friends" leave me a comment and we'll figure out how to make that happen!

To Facebook Or Not To Facebook; That Is The Question...

2009-02-25T08:13:00.003-06:00

Okay - so I'm in a dilemma. I have a Facebook account which I originally opened just so I could keep up with friends who chose to facebook rather than blog. I've had the account for over a year now but really never used it. It seems that more and more people are FB'ing and even some of my blogger friends have abandoned their blogs for the world of Facebook. I like some of the aspects of Facebook but don't like others. I want to know what you guys all think. Do you facebook? If so, what do you like about it? What don't you like about it? Do you think it's better than blogging, worse than blogging, or just different? If you are a big-time facebooker, what are some good tips you've learned along the way about using FB?

Help me!! Help me decide if I should start perusing the world of Facebook or if I should steer clear!

To facebook or not to facebook; that is the question!

Hellooooooo??? Anyone Still Out There?

2009-02-22T10:35:00.008-06:00

I'm not sure anyone is still checking on this blog anymore. I've been a total blog loser! Things have been busy. Poor excuse - I know!

So, wanna know what's been happening? Well, it's been quite a month for F!...

One afternoon at the end of January, F got in the car after school and we had the following conversation:

F: "Mom, remember the hero essays our class has been working on for a few months? Well today in class we read them and we all voted on which essay was best and mine won!"

ME: "That's awesome Buddy! Way to go!"

F: "So now I'm the class representative and I will go to the library tomorrow and read my essay to the librarian along with the other 5th grade class representatives. She will listen to each of us and then chose the best one and that person will go on to be the school representative at the district Hero Program."

After a lot of mother-henning on my part, F assured me he was well prepared for the next day. The following evening I received this email from his teacher:

"As you probably know, F was chosen from our class to recite his hero speech for the librarian today. The other fifth grade classes were sending their students to recite speeches to her as well. After hearing them all, F was selected to represent our school in the Roll Call portion of the heroes program at the High School on Friday, February 13. All fifth grade students in the district (approximately 600 people) will be there that morning to celebrate American heroes. This is an incredible honor. He was chosen from all of the fifth graders here to represent our school, and he should be very proud of himself! The speech he wrote, he did entirely on his own. He did not get help from teachers at school. It is a really great speech, and he reads it with such enthusiasm! I know he'll represent us well at the program. I'm very proud of him! He will need to memorize his speech as well as dress up like his hero for the program. Congratulations F!

~Mrs.Williamson"

OH. MY. GOSH!!! I actually cried when I read the email! I cannot tell you how hard F has worked this year and how proud we are of him! BUSTING AT THE SEAMS!!!!

Now while all of that was happening, other stuff was brewing too. Remember back on this post I told you guys I was working on a PTA project that was keeping me pretty busy? Well the project was the PTA Citizenship Essay Contest. It's a yearly contest supported by the state PTA in which 5th and 6th grade students submit an essay or poem about a given topic. This year's topic was "To Be A Good Citizen Means To..." The students were to complete the thought in essay or poem format. This was my 2nd year serving on this particular committee and I have LOVED it both years. It's fascinating to take a peek into the minds of these students and to read what it is that they are really thinking about. Of course, being that this was an election year, there were a lot of entries that addressed voting and global warming. But there were also essays that addressed just about every other aspect of citizenship. It made for some very good reading. As a co-chair for this committee, I served as one of about 8 judges who have read and scored the essays. This made for a bit of a tricky situation this year because F is now in 5th grade and so he too submitted an entry into the contest. The essays do not have student names on them and the only information about the students that the judges are given prior to reading the essays is their grade level. However, I am a rule follower and so I went to great lengths to ensure that I did not have anything to do with any part of scoring F's essay. As a matter of fact, I handed over every 5th grade essay to the other judges and I only read the 6th grade entries. Can you see where I am going with this?...

After all entries were read and judged, the scores were averaged and the winning entries were selected. At that time, I emailed the student ID #'s to the school secretary and she emailed back the winning names. I about FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR when I got that email back and saw my son's name listed as the 5th grade poetry winner! You cannot imagine how quickly I sifted through the papers searching for his entry so I could read what he wrote. It was great and I am so proud of him! Here is his entry:

To be a good citizen is to…
Pick up trash in the school hall,
You should also do it at the Mall.
There are papers, bags, and cans,
To pick up this stuff we need a lot of helping hands.
You can start by picking up one,
Pretty soon you’ll have a ton.
Be a good person and recycle every day,
And if you do our planet will stay.
You can also help with community service,
If you sign up you shouldn’t be nervous.
You can wipe graffiti off of walls,
You also can clean bathroom stalls.
Remember, to be a good citizen is a good thing,
And when I’m a good citizen I feel like I need to sing!

The winning essays went onto the district where they will compete at that level and if they win there, they will go onto the state level!

Everything seemed to happen all at once. The Hero Program was on February 13th and the winners of the Citizenship Essays were recognized at a city council meeting on February 17th. The timing was a good thing because my parents flew out from California to watch F read his Hero speech at the Hero Program and my mom was able to stay a little longer to see him receive an award from the Mayor at city council for his Citizenship poem.

The morning of the Hero Program we arrived at the HS early so that we could get the best possible seats. Turns out that we were actually first to arrive. We met with the woman organizing the event and she and Frederick chatted for a couple of minutes:

ORGANIZER: "Who is your character?"

F: "I am William Clark from the Lewis and Clark Expedition."

ORGANIZER: "Since you are first to arrive, you will be first to recite your speech which also means you will be line leader. Are you okay with that?"

F's reply??? In his oh so dry tone:

"Ma'am, I led an expedition. I think I'll be okay as line leader."

Here is the expedition/line leader himself:

The below shot shows only about half of the people who actually attended the program. Big stuff, I tell ya!:

Being early paid off. We got setas right in front of a huge screen which showed each school representative as they recited their speech:

So proud of my boy!:
William Clark with Nana and Pop-Pops:

The next big event was the City Council Meeting:

(below) Receiving his award from the Mayor:

(below) With his principal:

(below) With his fantastic, fabulous, awesome, amazing teacher, Mrs. Williamson (can you tell we looooove her? I'm old enough to be her MOTHER! Maybe I should word that differently...she is young enough to be my daughter!):

Proud, proud, PROUD family!:

Nana treated us to a great dinner out to celebrate F's week of success!

So all of that coupled with a visit from Nana & Pop-Pops, Valentine's parties, Valentine's dinner, ice skating lessons, cheerleading, roller skating, etc. etc explains my blog slacker status! Don't give up on me! I promise to try to post at least once a week from now on!

Woooo Hoooo!!

2009-01-29T00:06:00.003-06:00

Wow!! What a great response to my 10,000th hit request! It seems that a few of you are vying for the coveted title of "It's All About Them 10,000th Hitter" Let's just call you all winners! Okay, okay...I'M really the winner with such great blogger buddies like you guys (even my dad left me a comment...thanks Dad)!

TEN THOUSAND!!!

2009-01-28T13:36:00.003-06:00

WOW!! I was so excited when I just logged on and saw that I am just 2 visitors away from my 10,000th hit! Look at the sitemeter to the right of your screen and if you are the 10,000th hit, please leave me a comment!

Long Live The King...Morris Luther, The King

2009-01-19T22:25:00.002-06:00

I know, I know! I have fallen off the face of blogland again! I'm in the midst of a PTA project that has me pretty busy but I swear I have NOT forgotten about 2008 Year In Review Part 2! This, however, is not it! I just couldn't let Martin Luther King Day go by without sharing one of my favorite K stories...

A couple of years ago, K came home from school and we had the following conversation:

K: "Mom, what would happen if there was a peach person and a brown person in the same family but they didn't get along?"

Not realizing that her class had been discussing Martin Luther King, I was completely thrown off by this question and wasn't quite sure where the conversation was heading.

Me: "Well, they would have to work it out."

Apparently that was not the answer she was looking for. An incredulous look crossed her face and she replied...

K: "Nooooo Mom! They would call Morris Luther. He's a King and he would help them figure it all out."

~~~Long pause while brain tries to decipher meaning behind conversation, followed by...
~~~Loud CLICK as brain engages, followed by...
~~~Hysterical laughter!!!

Happy MLK Day!

2008 ~ The Year In Review (PART 1)...

2009-01-02T22:54:00.005-06:00

This post ended up being muuuuuuuch longer than I anticipated so I am doing it in two parts. Come back in a few days for part 2!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had fun ringing in the new year! One of my blogger friends, Sarah, posted a recap of her 2008 and I loved the idea so here is my version (which will also serve as my FFF post this week)...

January

The start of a new year! It's time to go back to school and to find fun things to do while keeping warm! Here is what we were all doing...

F: Decided he was too old for a bunkbed and we started transforming his room from a little boy's "camo" themed room into a more mature "no theme" room. Those of you who know me personally (and even some of my blogger friends) probably know that this was very difficult for me. Verrrrry difficult. I'm all about the themes. Themed birthday parties, themed blog posts, and for goodness sakes, THEMED kids' bedrooms! No more theme. Just a boys bedroom...

(below: the old room)

(below: the new room)

K: was sad to see the Holiday festivities end but enjoyed doing some post-Christmas baking with Nana...

M: began expressing her fashion independence with some fabulous lookin' outfits. Let's call this one "A Little Bit Of This & A Little Bit Of That"...

February

This is by far the hardest month of the year. Having come from sunny Southern California, we all suffer a bit of seasonal depression! Gray. The sky is gray. The trees are gray. The grass is gray. My skin even gets a little grayish looking. Everything is gray and it's depressing. We muttled through though. Here's how:

F: performed a fantastic speech in his 4th grade Pioneer Days celebration at school. For a funny - very funny - post about that day, click here. Here he is at Pioneer Days...

K: had fun celebrating Valentine's Day with her friends at school...

M: continued to sharpen her "express oneself" skills, sometimes much to my dismay! To read a very funny post about one of her moments of self expression from last February, click here (you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the post where it says "Butter"). Here's another fashion expression. We'll call this one "Mermaids Gone Wild"...

March

This was a busy month. Between Spring Break, Easter, F's birthday, and soccer starting up, it seemed to just fly by.

F: turned 10 on March 30th which is STILL so hard for me to believe. I guess I better get a grip on that because his 11th birthday is right around the corner! Here he is at his 10th Birthday party (a Survivor Hike party at the nature center)...

K: played soccer for the first time this Spring and did great. She really enjoyed it...

M: also played soccer for the first time and really DIDN'T enjoy it! I do have to say that I can't blame her. I know a lot of you blogger friends are soccer moms but I am soooo NOT a soccer mom! I actually really hated sitting out on the sidelines in the freezing cold with the wind whipping all around me and falling off fences at the soccer field. Confused? Click here to read all about it. And as for M, forget playing soccer. She just wanted to know who brought snack and what they brought. 1st picture is her with her beloved soccer snack (hanging out of her mouth - lovely) and 2nd picture is of her in a game...

Both K & M: got to enjoy attending an American Girl Tea Party with Mommy, Nana, and Oma...

And no month would be complete without a little fashion expression from M! We'll call this one "Freezing Dahhhling, Simply Freezing"...

April

Apparently I must have been on camera hiatus during the month of April because NONE is what I got! Not even a fashion fiasco shot of M! I turned 39 at the end of April. Maybe I was thinking that if there were no pictures to prove April ever happened I could just pretend I was still 38. Doesn't work? Fine then. See if I humor YOU when it's YOUR birthday!

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May

You know what they say:

"April Showers Bring May Flowers"...
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And here in the midwest, they also bring TORNADOES. In May of 2008, this town in Western Kansas (which is NOT where we live) was completely flattened. Gone. Virtually nothing left standing...

We have been fortunate that we've not been hit by any tornadoes in the 5 years we've lived in the midwest. We have a tornado shelter off of our basement and that's where we go when the tornado sirens go off. Last May they went off for quit a while and we hung out downstairs until they stopped (which was a couple of hours). The winds were quite strong and several trees in our neighborhood lost limbs (including one of ours) but that was the extent of the damage in our area...

May didn't only bring tornadoes though. It brought lots of exciting things for the kids too...

F: graduated from 4th grade and was looking forward to a fun summer...

K: graduated from Kindegarten and some of her art work was sent to the District Art Exhibit...

M: continued to shock the world of fashion with her creative self expression. We'll call this little number "Kelly Osborne Goes All Tinkerbelle"...

And this one is known as "The Panty Parade"...

June

June was another jam packed month. My parents treated us to a trip to California where we packed in as much fun into 2 weeks as possible. We started out in Southern California where we enjoyed the beach...

Made our way up to Northern California...

And back down to Southern California again for some fun days at Legoland and Disneyland...

F: began the summer just as he likes to; in the pool and climbing trees...

K: celebrated her 7th birthday with a "Camp Rock" birthday party (click on picture below to view)...
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K's Camp Rock Party

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M: continued her fashion self expression, designing her own line of little girl swimwear called "Butt Floss For 4 Year Olds"...

The end of June was not so great for us. K had a very long seizure episode (18 hours) which landed her an overnight stay at the Children's Hospital. That was the beginning of a summer full of tests and procedures...

which unfortunately led to another dead end in the quest to find a diagnosis for her.

Stay tuned...part 2 coming in a few days!

Christmas Morning At Our House...

2008-12-25T13:42:00.008-06:00

'Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house

Not a creature was stirring

Not even a mouse

The children and hubby

Were nestled snug in their beds

While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads...

AND MOMMY WAS ASSEMBLING ALL THE FREAKIN' TOYS!!!!!

Boy, let me tell you...I was SO organized this year. I was done baking. I was done shopping. I was done wrapping. I was ready to go. All that needed to be done was for the gifts to be placed under the tree once the kids went to bed.

Santa brings each of the kids one gift every year and he doesn't wrap them. Assembled but not wrapped. Okay, so I was almost ready to go. Just wait for the kids to go to bed, quickly assemble the Santa gifts and get a good night's rest. Yeah RIGHT! I was in Mattel hell last night! If anyone ever considers getting their daughter one of these...

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or one of these...

...consider yourself warned. Assembly required folks! Lots of assembly required. The boat? 90 minutes. The castle? 3 and half HOURS!! I was up until 4:30 in the morning! I didn't have to assemble F's gift since he asked for legos and, well, he would have been a little peeved if they had come assembled since assembling them oneself is the whole point of legos. Thank goodness for that because I probably would have never made it to bed if I had even more to assemble.

It was all worth it this morning though when they woke up and...well...see for yourself (click on the photo below to see the kids run downstairs for their gifts)...

Christmas Morning 2008

Our Family's Christmas Wish List:

F: Legos ~ CHECK

K: Barbie Cruise Ship ~ CHECK

M: Playmobile Castle ~ CHECK

Daddy: Fancy Wine Opener ~ CHECK

Mommy: Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Siblings ~ uhhhh...still waiting on this one!

I hope you all are having a wonderful day with your family and friends! Be safe and be merry! And for some more FFF Christmas posts, go see Sarah.

Happy Holidays From Our Home To Yours...

2008-12-23T23:18:00.016-06:00

Some might call it "going green". Truth is, I just didn't get my act together quickly enough this year to get cards out! The holidays really snuck up on me. It's a sign of the times and of our very busy lives!

Let's start with the kids...

F ~ (10 years old) is in 5th grade. He has a fantastic teacher this year and he adores her. Who could blame him? She is young, energetic, and full of creative ideas for teaching kids! Through her, he has found a real love for school. He still has a strong interest in outdoorsy things (frogs, snakes, bugs, etc) and has taken up the trumpet this year as well as Debate Club. He and his buddy "D" performed a parody of "Twas The Night Before Christmas" in the school talent show. It was very funny and they did a great job. We are extremely proud of the academic success F has achieved this year. He has been on honor roll since the start of the year.

(above: F dirty & loving it, catching fish at the lake ~ July)

(above: F in the school talent show)

K ~ (7 years old) is in 1st grade and also doing very well. She is a perfectionist with her work and it really shows! Her penmanship rivals that of some adults I know! She is extremely social and enjoys spending time with her friends. This year she and her friend "A" performed a jitterbug dance in the school talent show. They did a great job and were absolutely adorable! She still loves Cheerleading and Dance and was named "Co-Captain" of her Summer Squad. She is looking forward to starting up her cheer classes again in January. This past summer was a rough one for her. She had a long seizure episode which she was hospitalized for. The weeks following were filled with many doctor appointments. She was tested for several different things and we were able to rule out various scenarios but we still have no answer as to what is happening to her or why it happens. Hopefully time will tell.

(above: K cheerleading ~ May)

(above: K in the school talent show)

M~ (5 years old) is in Pre-K this year and to say she loves it would be an absolute understatement. This child is so ready for school! She played soccer last Spring and l-o-v-e-d snack time. Playing soccer - not so much! She'd last about 2 minutes on the field and then start inquiring as to which mom brought snack, what kind they brought, and how much longer she'd have to wait before indulging! She loves her food!!! She is a happy-go-lucky girl and is usually more than willing to participate in any fun activity. Her teacher told me "I've taught for a long time and I've never known a child who is so happy. It doesn't matter what is going on, everything is always right in M's world." That pretty much sums up M!

(above: M at soccer ~ May)

(above: toothless M ~ December)

In June, my parents treated me and the kids to a California trip which was jam-packed with fun! We spent a couple of days in So Cal and then headed up north to see my brother and sister-in-law. We had a blast and my kids proved that they could spend 14 hours in a small car together and still sort of like each other at the end! The tail end of the trip brought us back to So Cal for a few more days. We squeezed a whole lot into one trip...Disneyland, Legoland, La Brea Tarpits, Cabrillo Museum, beach days, Golden Gate Bridge, Boat Tour of Alcatraz, etc. It was so much fun!

(above: F, K, & M at Torrance Beach in Southern California ~ June)

(above: M, F, & K at Muir Woods in Northern California ~ June)

The end of the summer brought about a lot of changes in our family. My sweet cat Tori died. She was 19 years old and was with me for 18.5 of those years. The kids had never known life without Tori. We sure do miss her. Another big change for us was the sale of our restaurant. Although a bittersweet time, it has enabled Fred to be home with us more often and become a more active part of the kids lives. We are all so much happier now that he's home regularly.

I am still working for the school district. Because I work for the same district that my kids are in, I am home when they are home. I leave for work after they go to school and I'm home before they are. How lucky for me!!!

I wish you all the happiest of holidays. May 2009 bring you peace, stability, and much joy!

A Little Christmas Weirdness...

2008-12-21T13:27:00.006-06:00

We are on day 3 of Winter Break and my kids are already getting a wee bit stir crazy. Thankfully they are finding, err-umm, creative ways to work through their crazies together. I'd give an intro to the following clip but...well...what can you say about this?...

Gotta love F's high-pitched note there in the middle. Can you say PuBeRtY!

Now onto something that is NOT weird...my friend Anissa is doing a fabulous giveaway on her review site so go check it out HERE!

Snowman Soup...

2008-12-15T20:12:00.004-06:00

I am posting this for all of my readers who may need a cute, inexpensive gift idea for their kids' class parties...

M's preschool party is tomorrow and we decided to make "Snowman Soup" for her classmates. It turned out to be about 50 cents per child so although they are SOOOOOO cute, they were inexpensive and easy to make! Here is what you need:

1 styrofoam cup per child ( I got these snowman cups at Dollar Tree. 12 cups for $1)
1 candy cane per child
1 package of cocoa mix per child
about 5-10 mini marshmallows per child (I got these pre-packaged mini marshmallows at Oriental Trading. 6 dozen packs for $3.49)
1 cellophane bag per child
1 "Snowman Soup" recipe card (I just typed them up on Microsoft Word and added some clip-art. See below)

Here is what the recipe card looks like:

You don't have to use the pre-packaged marshmallows. I've made these in the past and either put the marshmallows in a small ziploc bag or just dropped them into the cup. You may also add a Hershey's Kiss to each if you'd like.

Place the cocoa packet, candy cane, and marshmallows into the styrofoam cup and place the cup in a cellophane bag. You can either put the recipe card in the bag with the cup or you can tie it to the outside. Tie a ribbon around the bag and this is the finished product:

Enjoy!

What Do You Get When...

2008-12-14T10:45:00.009-06:00

you mix way too many of these...

(Candy Cane Martinis compliments of our Hostess Aimee)

with a bunch of girlfriends at a Holiday/Pajama Party/Bunco get-together?

I believe you get this...

and this...

and definitely some of this...

(our Hostess Aimee taking a self portrait after a few too many Candy Cane Martinis)

and a whole lot of these...

(Okay, I'm looking a wee bit tipsy here. Oh yeah...I think I might have been. Was I? I don't remember. What is my butt doing in this picture? It looks like I'm sitting on a flattened doughnut in Christmas pajamas. Yee-gads!)

**UPDATED TO ADD:

Okay - per Aimee's suggestion, I have to tell you what provided much of the laughter that evening (besides over-consumption). Every December our Bunco group does a Christmas party and we have a gift exchange. This year there were 2 HOT gifts that made their way around the room. One was the purple scarf seen in a couple of the above pictures (from Pier One) which each recipient wore proudly until someone snatched it away. The other...well...it was...ummm...something we dubbed as "The Aqua Globe Douche Bong". I'll give you a minute to conjour up an image of what that might have been.

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Done imagining? Everybody with me now? Okay. Well, we didn't get any pictures of said Aqua Globe Douche Bong for the obvious reason that amidst the laughter and guzzling, we forgot! But here is a stock picture of something similar...

'nuff said!

To all of my Bunco girls...THANKS for the fun night! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time! I love you guys!

And The Winner Is...

2008-12-14T00:16:00.012-06:00

Well, my 100th Blog Post Giveaway is officially over! I put the names of everyone who left a comment in a bowl...

Did you count them? No? Scroll back up and count them. Count those little white pieces of paper in the bowl. Go ahead...I'll wait right here.

tick...tock...tick...tock

You back? How many did you count? Five? Yep, that'd be right. There were only FIVE names in the bowl even though I know PLENTY of you read the post. I'm not bitter about that though. Nope, not at all. It's ooookay because I love my FIVE faithful bloggy followers who left comments! Thank you Mindy, Melisa, Aimee, Anissa, and Natalie! You guys ROCK!

Anyway - then I picked a name from the bowl...

Who won? My sweet and very funny friend...

YAY for Natalie!!! She's a winnah! She's a winnah!

Natalie, as soon as I get your address, I will send off your prize...

Thanks to all who participated! And even though I joke about those of you who check in but don't participate, I really love ya anyway and appreciate you checking in with me!

100th Blog Post (UPDATED)...

2008-12-08T21:16:00.010-06:00

UPDATE:
I wanted to add a few things to this post...

I've decided on a prize.
If you are a stalker of my blog, now is a great time to "come out". Don't hide...I want to know who you are so I can start stalking your blog too! If you visit regularly (or not), please leave a comment!
I've decided on a really cute prize.
You are still considered to be "blogging" even if you don't have a blog but enjoy visiting blogs (But, really??? You ought to get yourself a little blog).
I've decided on a really cute aaaaaannnnnd oh so fabulous prize.
The deadline to enter the give-away is 10:00 pm central time on Saturday night (the 13th).
I've decided on a really cute and oh so fabulous prize aaaaaannnnnd I know the suspense is killing you, right?

(Oh c'mon...you know it is!)

So.
Without.
Any.
Further.
Adieu.

(Can you even stand it???)

The prize:

Yes, it's true! This very cute and oh so fabulous Vera Bradley coin purse/key chain/ID case could be yours so don't hesitate! Enter now! See below for entry details...

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

It's my 100th blog post!
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Does Hallmark make a card for that?!? But seriously people, how do you celebrate something as big as your 100th blog post? Many of my friends have done some really fun posts for their 100th. Things like:

"100 Things About Me"
"100 Things I hope to Accomplish In My Life"
"Ask Me A Question"

Well if you're a regular visitor to my blog, you know a lot about me by now and anything that you don't know is too boring to list. I couldn't even begin to fill 100 lines of things I hope to accomplish during my life - I'm lucky to get through a day just accomplishing a couple of things I set out to do! And as far as asking me questions...well you can do that anytime (not that there are probably a whole lot of burning questions on everyone's minds)! So I thought and thought and finally decided to ask YOU a question and have a little giveaway...

QUESTION: "Where do you blog?"

Odd question? Not for me. I am definitely a visual type of person. When I'm reading an email from someone, I imagine them typing it. When I'm speaking with someone on the phone, I conjour up an image of them on the other end chatting away. One of the things I love about blogging is that most people post pictures on their blogs which make it so much easier to connect with them. When I visit your blogs, I try to imagine where you are when you're blogging. Are you in your home-office? On a laptop at the kitchen table? Do you blog while you're at work? Wherever you blog, I want to know!

GIVEAWAY: I have yet to determine what the prize will be but...wait, wait, wait...it will most definitely be ~*~FaB~u~LoUs~*~ I promise! Once I figure out what the prize is, I'll update this post and let you know. In the meantime, here's how you can win...the unknown prize... which will be fabulous...

To earn ONE entry into the giveaway: Leave me a comment describing in detail where you blog (ie; I blog at my desk in my home office.")

To earn TWO entries into the giveaway: Leave me a comment describing in detail where you blog AND let me know that you have posted about my giveaway on your blog

To earn THREE entries into the giveaway: Leave me a comment instructing me to visit your blog because you have posted about my giveaway AND posted pictures of your blog station

I couldn't possibly ask you guys to do this and not share with you where I blog! I recently gave my home-office a face lift. Here is what it looked like when we bought our house...

and here is what it looks like now...

It's not completely done. You'll notice that one of the chairs is missing a slipcover, the cabinets are missing the hardware, the lighting isn't completely finished, and I still have some accessories to add. But I'm getting close to having it done. Also, the color on the walls is much more subdued than it shows on these pictures. It's actually a very light watery blue. The pictures above my computer are all black and whites of the kids (Mary, this is what I was telling you about).

So that's it folks...my blog station! Now you can imagine me sitting there blogging away! Not really? No? Hmmm...maybe I'm just weird that way!

Thanks for making the last 100 posts such fun! I'm looking forward to 100 more!

Another Milestone For M...

2008-12-05T23:34:00.004-06:00

Since there is no theme for Favorite Foto Friday this week, here is a glimpse of how our day started out...

As if the fact that my baby has turned FIVE isn't enough, now she's lost her first tooth! It had been wiggling for the past week and this morning it finally fell out!

To see more FFF posts, click here.

Make A Wish...

2008-12-03T19:42:00.006-06:00

Many of you may already know about this but I wanted to post about it for those who may not know...

Macy's Department Stores has teamed up with the Make A Wish Foundation this Holiday season. They have placed mailboxes in each Macy's across the country and are collecting letters to Santa. You can even download special stationary for your child to write their letter on. For each letter Macy's receives (must be in an envelope and stamped), they will make a $1 donation to the Make A Wish Foundation up to one million dollars!

SAHHHWEET! I love this idea and we will be heading to Macy's tomorrow with our letters to Santa!

If you'd like to read more or download stationary, click here.

Ho ~ Ho ~ Ho!

Call of the Wild...

2008-12-03T00:16:00.003-06:00

It's midnight and I'm the only one awake here at my house. My kids go to bed at 8:30 and hubby went up to bed a couple of hours ago. I've been catching up on my tivo'd shows.

Anyway - I was fially ready to head up to bed myself when it occured to me that I wasn't sure if hubby brought our dog inside for the night. So I went to the back door and the light was off on the deck. I could make out his furry outline right in front of the sliding glass door. And I do mean RIGHT IN FRONT of it. That was sort of strange because he generally likes to hang out in his doghouse when he's out there. But, whatever. My hand was on the handle to pull the door open when the light of the moon hit the furry outline just right and I realized that the outline did not belong to my cute furry little doggy! Nope, it belonged to this guy instead...

I wish I had grabbed my camera faster because as soon as he saw me, he came right to the door and put his little hands on the glass and watched me. Very cute! I am sure this is the same little guy who pays us a visit several times a week. When he first started coming, I kind of freaked out when I saw him. My dog was on the deck and this racoon was sitting on the railing hissing at him. So after scurrying my dog inside, I grabbed the first thing I could which happened to be a golf ball. I tossed it - not AT HIM - but in his direction and he immediately put his little hand over his eyes and froze. He sat that way for several minutes and every once in a while he'd uncover part of his eyes and peek at me. Now that's a moment I wish I had gotten on tape!

One thing I didn't anticipate when we moved to the midwest from Southern California was all of the wild animals! We see deer every day, we have seen a cougar, bobcats, groundhogs, opposum, racoons, and countless types of birds (including pelicans). All in our own backyard - literally!

What can I tell ya? It's an exciting life here in the midwest! Now if I could just find the darn ocean!

Graham Mudder & The Cup?

2008-11-27T23:17:00.006-06:00

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Happy Thanksgiving!

This week's Favorite Foto Friday is, of course, "Thanksgiving". We had a great dinner with lot's of food and fun and M provided some entertainment for us during dinner. She has left us all with one burning question...

"Who is Graham Mudder and what's up with the cup???"

Turn your speakers on and enjoy!

"Over da river and froo da woods to Graham Mudder's cup we go."

To see more FFF "Thankful" posts, go see Sarah.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-26T23:07:00.005-06:00

Happy Turkey Day to all of my bestest blogging buddies! You guys rOcK and I am thankful for each of you!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving (now let's have a cocktail!)

By the way - my friend Anissa is doing a contest giveaway on her site. Go check her out!

Sakes Alive! Look Who's FIVE...

2008-11-20T22:20:00.018-06:00

It's even hard for me to type these words...
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"My baby girl is FIVE!"
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I don't know how on earth that happened so fast! It seems like yesterday that she was a teeny tiny baby but on Monday, she turned FIVE!
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Rewind to March of 2003. We were living in Southern California in a tiny little house.F was just about to turn 5 and K was 20 months. I had just started a home business and our tiny house was busting at the seems. My husband went to Mexico with his cousins for a fun guys only weekend. I took the opportunity to meet up with my friend Sue for dinner. We took all of the kids for pizza and had a great time. When we got home I tucked the kids into bed and settled into my bed to read a book. Then all of a sudden...HEARTBURN! I never got heartburn! Never...except...when I was pregnant! One thing you have to know is that pregnancy didn't come easily for us. We struggled for 5 long years before having F and for a couple more before having K so I kept telling myself "There's no way. NO way!" We weren't even trying for baby #3! The next morning I had to stop at the market to pick up snack for K's "Mommy & Me" class so I grabbed a pregnancy test thinking it would be a waste of money but since I was a couple days late in my cycle I wanted to know for sure. We ciontinued on to our church where the "Mommy & Me" class was held and I snuck into the bathroom to take the test. Typically you wait a couple of minutes before the result shows up. Not this time. It was positive IMMEDIATELY! That was the beginning of M's miraculous little life. She was a gift to us. The best surprise I have ever received and I cherish her every single minute! The song I have playing on my blog with this post is "Wonder" by Natalie Merchant and it always reminds me of my M! The lyrics go like this:
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They say I must be one of the wonders of God's own creation
And as far as they see they can offer no explanation
I believe fate smiled and
Destiny laughed as she came to my cradle
"Know this child will be able"
Laughed as my body she lifted
"Know this child will be gifted
with love, with patience and with faith
she'll make her way"
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Here is a glimpse of that precious life over the last 5 years...
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November 17th 2003, 3:19 pm

1 month old (12/03)...2 months old (1/04)...3 months old (2/04)...4 months old (3/04)...5 months old (4/04)...6 months old (5/04)...7 months old (6/04)...8 months old (7/04)... 9 months old (8/04)...10 months old (9/04)... 11 months old (10/04)...1 year old (11/17/04)...2 years old (11/17/05)...3 years old (11/17/06)... 4 years old (11/17/07)...5 years old (11/17/08)...When I asked M what theme she wanted for her party this year, she said "Something with lanterns". So we had a pretend campout! We set up a tent in the family room complete with a moon and some stars hanging above...

And invited her friends to come celebrate with us...

I took the kids on a "hike" through the house and we ended up in front of the tent. We all piled inside and I told them silly stories and we sang songs and played games...

Then it was time for CAKE!! Back in March we went to an American girl Teaparty and M won a gift certificate for a custom cake from a local cake maker. We saved the gift certificate for her birthday and the cake maker did a FANTASTIC job on it! Not only was it beautiful and just perfect for a pretend campout, it was tastey too...

Here is the birthday girl with one of her besties. She calls him "My B" I have to say, she knows how to pick the cuties...

At the end of the party each guest went home with a personalized goody-bag filled with camping fun...

She may be FIVE now, but she'll always, always, always be my baby...

In honor of M's FIFTH birthday, here are the FIVE things I love most about her (in no particular order):

M is very easy going and happy. Her pre-k teacher told me the other day "I've been teaching a long time and I have never known a child as happy as M. It doesn't matter what's going on, everything is always perfect in M's world."
M talks...A LOT! Sometimes it can be exhausting but it's always so much fun to hear her carry on about her day and share her thoughts about EVERYTHING!
M has a way with animals like noone I've ever seen. She absolutely loves them and they feel the same way about her. This affection towards all living things began very early. When she was just 4 months old, she'd scoot herself as close to the back door as she could get and when our dog would bark, she'd bark right back at him!
M is extremely loving towards her brother and sister. She always wants to buy them things when we are in a store and she is always very grateful for every kind act they bestow on her. She adores them and they adore her!
M has the softest, sweetest smelling skin and I LOVE when she climbs up in my lap for a snuggle. I know these days won't last forever so I try to make them last as long as I can! When I ask her "Do you know how much Mommy loves you?' she smiles and says "SO MUCH"...she's right!

Dear M,

You are my precious one and I love you forever and a day! Happy Birthday big girl!

Love,

Mommy

xoxo

By the way - this will have to serve as my FFF post for this week since it is almost 1 am and I'm exhausted!! If you'd like to see more Favorite Foto Friday posts, check out Sarah's blog.

100% WEIRD...

2008-11-01T17:23:00.006-05:00

My sweet friend Rebecca tagged me! I am supposed to list 7 things about myself on my blog and then list 7 bloggers that I am tagging. I decided to change this up a bit and list 7 WEIRD things about myself (because there are SO many weird things about me to choose from). I'm also adding an award to it. I have tagged seven bloggers. If you are one of them, copy the award off my blog, list 7 weird things about yourself, and then pass the award on to 7 other bloggers.

I love BLUE inked pens. Not black inked pens, or red or any other color. Just BLUE! And if you really want to make me smile, make it a BLUE inked PAPERMATE pen! LOVE 'em. Don't know why!
I also love Sharpies. However, when buying a Sharpie, I always choose BLACK! Go figure!!!

I've mentioned this before on my blog, but I LOVE to paint. I change the color of my walls ALL the time and I love going to Home Depot and buying Oops paint. This little quirky thing about me drives my hubby CrAzY!!! ;O)

I like to keep my closet super organized. I LOVE wood hangers and buy myself a box of them every once in while in the hopes that someday soon my closet will have only wood hangers in it (I'm getting close). I keep my clothes organized in a certain way. All pants are hung together and are color coordinated. Shirts are hung together (long sleeved together and short sleeved together) and are also color coordinated. etc. And here is the really weird thing...when it comes to my closet, nothing makes me happier than 1 inch spacing between my clothes! It certainly doesn't always look perfect and the 1 inch spacing is hard to maintain but if I had my way, my closet would be perfect all the time.

I don't really like meat. I was a vegetarian for years but when I was pregnant with F I had really bad anemia so I started eating meat again. I don't eat it often though. I would choose veggies and pasta ANYTIME! Packaged lunch meat freaks me out (I only buy lunch meat from the deli) and I NEVER, EVER, EVER buy Spaghetti Sauce with meat in it. EWWW!

I can sleep anywhere. Literally. It's a skill I acquired while flying for American. When I first started flying I was on reserve and was flying trips all over the place at really odd hours and I was exhausted. I learned very quickly to take advantage of any moment that I could catch some "z's" and that skill has stuck with me. I can literally lay my head down on a table and fall asleep.

I cry when I watch "The Price Is Right". I am an overly sappy person and there's just something about those people getting so very excited about winning that gets to me. I'm so happy for them that I cry.

Told ya...I'm WEIRD!

Here is who I am tagging:

FFF; Happy Halloween...

2008-11-01T10:23:00.014-05:00

Well, it's Saturday so my Favorite Foto Friday is a day late but since I haven't posted for FFF in a couple of weeks, I wanted to try to get in on this one even if it is a little late.

The theme for FFF this week is "Happy Halloween". If you'd like to see more Halloween FFF posts, check out Sarah's blog.

Halloween 1998

F (7 months old) ~ "Chunky Monkey"

Halloween 1999

F (19 months old) ~ "Turtle"

Halloween 2000

F (2 1/2 years old) ~ "Clown"

Halloween 2001

F (3 1/2 years old) ~ "Indian"

K ( 4months old) ~ "Ladybug"

Halloween 2002

F ( 4 1/2 years old) ~ "Knight"

K (16 months old) ~ "Baby Chick"

Halloween 2003

I can't find these pictures :O(

F (5 1/2 years old) was a "Devil" and K (2 1/2 years old) was a "Unicorn"

Halloween 2004

F (6 1/2 years old) ~ "Vampire", K ( 3 1/2 years old) ~ "Cinderella"

M (11 months old) ~ "Bumblebee"

Halloween 2005

F (7 1/2 years old) ~ "Batman", K (4 1/2 years old) ~ "Cheerleader", M (23 months old) ~ "Witch"

Halloween 2006

I can't find these pictures either :O(

F (8 1/2 years old) was an "Alien", K (5 1/2 years old) was "Tinkerbell", and M (almost 3 years old) was a "Cowgirl"

Halloween 2007

F (9 1/2 years old) ~ "Old Man", K (6 1/2 years old) ~ "Vampiress", M (almost 4 years old) ~ "Indian Princess"

Halloween 2008

F (10 1/2 years old) ~ "Cyclopse"

K (7 1/2 years old) ~ "Angel"

M (almost 5 years old) ~ "Vampiress"

Yesterday was the most beautiful Halloween Day with temps in the mid 70's! Perfect!!! We carved out pumpkins in the afternoon....

and then the kids had a blast decorating the house for the trick-or-treaters...
Then it was time to hit the streets with our "Hoodies" (as my friend Mindy calls them) for some trick-or-treat FuN!

I also wanted to share my favorite Halloween memory...

Last year when M was 4, we were finishing up our trick-or-treating and M was walking with Daddy. She was holding his hand and she looked up at him and said:

M: "Daddy, did you do this for us?"

Daddy: "Do what, sweetie?"

M: "This. All of this. Have the neighborhood decorated and the people give us candy. Did you set that all up for us?"

Well, Daddy paused for a moment not sure how to react and then he decided to seize the opportunity and said:

Daddy: "Yes, M, I did."

M: "Thank you Daddy. This was the best ever."

So sweet!!!!

I'm In Love Part Deux...

2008-10-29T08:16:00.003-05:00

Okay, so some of you wanted to know more about my new lovah (if you didn't read part one, click here or just scroll down to the previous post).

The Pros & Cons of the Simplicity 3500 Vacuum:

Pros

only weighs 8 pounds
has a bag (this may be a con for some but I hate bagless vacuums)
super strong suction
easy to maneuver
compact and easy to store
35 foot cord
3 year warranty comes standard (no shelling out extra $$ for an extended warranty)
competitive pricing (mine was $250)
Made in the USA

Cons

No hand tools. On the model I chose you just get the vacuum, that's it. There are other models that come with handtools but they are not lightweight like mine. I opted for the lightweight model and I'm keeping my old cannister vac to use on the stairs.
Only sold by dealers so a little harder to find than other vacuums.

Hmmm...looks like the pros outweigh the cons!! Click here to go to the Simplicity website where you can view the entire line of vacuums and find a dealer near you!

I'm In Love...

2008-10-28T13:40:00.006-05:00

The girls I work with think I'm a little ~~anal retentive~~ particular. Shutup Mary. And that maybe I stress ~~obsessively~~ a little bit about work. Quit laughing Pam and Beckie. So I admit it. I'm a little that way. I can't help it.

Now picture a mildly anal retentive OCD woman with no vacuum. Not pretty. Worse yet, picture a mildly anal retentive OCD woman with a vacuum that only works with the handheld stair attachment. Really not pretty. Now picture the same mildly anal retentive OCD woman vacuuming her 4700 square foot house on her hands and knees with that ~~piece of crap~~ lovely vacuum for over a year. Horrifying!

Yes folks, that would have been ME! But not anymore because I'm in love.
L.O.V.E ~~~ luuuuuv!!

Oh c'mon girls! You know if you could have anything at all - ANYTHING - this is what you'd want too! Check it out mamas and try not to be jealous...
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Oh yeah! That'd be a "Simplicity Freedom 3500" and it is fabulous with a capitol FAB!!
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This mildly anal retentive OCD woman is OFF her hands and knees!
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AMEN!!!

Vacation at HOME...

2008-10-27T15:24:00.018-05:00

We're back from our mini vacation and we had FuN, FuN, FuN! We stayed local but had a blast! It was a scheduled day off from school on Thursday and Friday because of Parent/Teacher conferences so a couple of months ago I made reservations at Great Wolf Lodge. Well the timing was perfect because we ended up having a great reason to be celebrating...F made the A/B Honor Board!! Plus he made Honor Board for "Sportsmanship" and K made Honor Board for both "Sportsmanship" and "Creative Writing"!
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So on Thursday afternoon we headed out for a mini vaca at the Lodge! We got the "Kid's Cabin" room which means that it had a little log cabin inside the room for the kids to sleep in. They LOVED it!...
After goofing around in the room for a little while, we hit the pool...

Each of the kids had their favorite spot in the pool area. F's was the Basketball Pool...

K was actually pretty much everywhere and enjoying everything the water park offered...

And M was all about the "Kid Pool" (for the love of all things good, don't call it the "Baby Pool")... She went up and down the slide over and over...

and over...

All 3 kids loved hanging out with Nana in the "Lazy River"...

Miscellaneous Pool pictures...

F with nana & Pop-Pops...

K & M...If ever there was a picture that personified K, this would be it...

M...

M held her nose when she'd go under the waterfall...

We checked out of the Lodge on Friday and headed back to our house...

It had rained pretty much the entire time we were at Great Wolf (not that it mattered to us since we were inside the whole time) but on Saturday, we woke to the most glorious Fall weather! We decided to head to the farm because there truly is nothing like a beautiful Fall day at the farm...

The end of our long weekend came quickly and Sunday found me with a hot date with our...

L.A.U.N.D.R.Y

Yep...back to reality!!!

And We're Off...

2008-10-23T07:57:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to write a quick post to let you know I'll be MIA for a couple of days. My parents are in town and we are taking off for a super quick vaca! I'll post when we get back and I'll have a TON of fun pictures to share!

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Christopher Columbus Is Dead...

2008-10-14T19:32:00.005-05:00

Yesterday M brought home a cute little boat that she made in preschool. She pulled it out of her backpack and said:

M: "Mommy look what I made at school."

Me: "Wow! It's a boat!"

M: "It's the Santa Maria."

Me: "Really?"

M: "Yes. Columbus sailed on the Santa Maria."

Me: "Yes he did. That's very good M."

M: "Yeah. But sadly, he died a few days ago."

Then F chimes in:

F: "When did he die M?"

M: "Firteen (13) days ago."

We may need to work on time concepts, ya think?

Thirty Nine and A HALF

2008-10-10T16:22:00.008-05:00

A few of my blogger buddies have left comments wondering what on earth happened to me so I thought I'd better leave a post to let you all know that I have NOT permanently disappeared from Blogland!

I think I have bloggers block. I just haven't had anything all that exciting to share with you guys so I haven't posted. Plus I've been working on a project which I plan to post when it's finished (it's almost there). Plus we've been super busy. PLUS I'm now thirty nine and a Ha...Ha...HALF! Yep...thirty nine and a freakin' HALF!!!
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You're probably wondering what that has to do with anything right? I don't know what it has to do with anything except that it's really bugging me and I'm feeling rather nostalgic these days (you can tell by the music I've chosen for this post). I have no idea WHY it's bugging me because I've never really been all that phased by my age. As a matter of fact, a year and a half ago I was thinking I was 38 about to turn 39 and a few days before my birthday I realized I was actually only 37 about to turn 38! HA! Best dang birthday gift I'd ever given myself, I tell ya!

So why am I feeling this sudden and slight angst about my upcoming birthday? And by "slight angst" I mean "Oh dear GOD, what has happened to me???" I don't know. Maybe it's normal. I know a lot of women have a hard time turning 40. But do they start having a hard time a full 6 months before their birthday? Maybe it's because I am seeing the subtle changes in my body. And by "subtle" I mean "Oh CRAP! My birds have flown South never to return and my arse is sliding onto my thighs which are beginning to resemble a dairy product which shall remain nameless." and by "nameless" I mean "cottage cheese".

40!?! How can that be? I'm going to start counting backwards. On my next birthday I will be turning 38. I just hope the birds and the arse cooperate with this plan!

Oh! And by the way, speaking of my arse - we were outside today and F brought me a chair and said:

"Here you go mom. Here's a chair for your big hen."

BIG. HEN.

He clearly does not want to live long enough to see HIS 40th birthday (or his eleventh for that matter)!!!

Move Over Goldie Hawn...

2008-09-21T22:00:00.007-05:00

I am posting this as my Favorite Foto Friday post for this week. I am clearly "off-topic" as the theme for FFF this week is "Silly Smiles" however, I have caught the flu or a cold or something and I just don't have the energy to dig through pictures tonight! I feel like garbage and I'm going to BED!

If you want to see FFF posts that are ON topic, click here!

Anyone remember the movie "Private Benjamin" starring Goldie Hawn? It was released in 1980 and it was about a sheltered young high society woman (played by Goldie Hawn) who joins the army on a whim and finds herself in a more difficult situation than she ever expected.

All I can say is that Goldie better look out because Private K is comin' to town...

Here is the story of Private K...

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It is Wednesday night and Daddy is working on something with F, and K decides she wants his attention so she starts pestering them. Daddy tells her to stop several times and she keeps pestering. Daddy warns her that if she doesn't stop, the consequence will be that she will lose her TV privileges for the rest of the evening.
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Does she stop? NOOOOOO!! So Daddy tells her she can't watch TV and she has to leave the Family Room. He gives her the option of going to the playroom (by herself) or to her bedroom. After a few minutes of dramatics, she heads to her room only to return with this:

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Daddy's reply is "Go to your room" and like a good little soldier she retreats once again.

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A couple of minutes later, she returns with this:

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Mmm-hmm, this girl knows the chain of command around here!! Once again, the soldier retreats and returns a short while later with this:
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OOOOOO, she's really firing the ammunition now folks! But alas, daddy again states his orders for her to return to her bunker and she retreats (begrudgingly)...

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Seeing that none of her tactics are working, she decides to change the color of her crayon and resorts to buttering up the captain:

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His response?..."I love you too. Now go to your room."

Those captains are made of steel I tell ya!

Made.
Of.
Steel!
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We have no drama in our house.
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Never.
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Never-ever.

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Maybe sometimes.

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Okay.

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A lot.

(disclaimer; In the midst of a stiff lesson in actions & consequences, I did not - I repeat DID NOT - make my child pose for pictures to coordinate with this post. They are from a few years ago but were too perfect not to attach. They must have been serving spaghetti in the mess hall that day.)

Locks of Love...

2008-09-20T22:13:00.002-05:00

Just a quick post to share some info I recently received regarding Locks of Love...

My friend Anissa's daughter Peyton has Leukemia and Anissa has a blog where she writes about their journey through the nightmare of cancer. Anissa is a gifted writer and her blog is one of my absolute favorites. I never, ever leave her blog uninspired, uneducated, or unmotivated. Not to mention the stomach cramps I get from laughing so hard! To say she "keeps it real" is an understatement.

Her latest post positively FLOORED me. In this post she shares some information regarding Locks of Love. I can't possibly reiterate what she said as perfectly as she said it in her post so I will let you read it yourself.

Please take a moment and click HERE to view Anissa's post. Especially if you have ever donated to Locks of Love (or more importantly plan to donate in the future).

FFF; Hope...

2008-09-19T19:42:00.007-05:00

The theme for Favorite Foto Friday this week is "Hope". I had to think on this one for a while. Over the course of my life, my hope has changed. Here is how...

When I was little, I had HOPE that I would be famous. I wanted to be a STAR!! The closest I came was when I danced at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The production was Hansel & Gretel and I was a tree stump. Don't laugh. There were several tree stumps but I was the only DANCING tree stump! It was big stuff people, I'm tellin' ya! I recently asked my mom if she had any pictures of me in my full costume and she said that parents were not allowed backstage (imagine that happening nowadays...doubtful) so she never got any. We do have one picture of me with my green tree stump face paint on though (circa 1978)...

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As I grew from a child into a young woman, I had HOPE that I would find someone wonderful and get married. After dating for 16 months, my husband and I were married on July 25th, 1992....
I wanted to start a family right away but that didn't exactly happen! In August of 1997, after struggling for FIVE years, we finally found out we were expecting a baby. I had never been filled with so much HOPE as when I was pregnant with each of our little miracles...

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F (born 3-30-98)~

K (born 6-29-01)~M (born 11-17-03)~.

Now that I am a mom, my heart is filled with more HOPE than I ever knew existed. I HOPE every day that my children will be safe, that they will be healthy, that they will be happy, and that all of their dreams will come true. In retrospect, I see that my hope has always been self directed and for the here and now. My HOPE is now for the future. Their future...

I decided to ask my kids this question "If you could hope for anything at all, what would it be?" Here are their answers...
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F - "I would HOPE for every game system in the world."

K - "I would HOPE for thirty hundred little ponies."

M - "I would HOPE for us to never, ever, ever trade our dog Riley because I love him so, so, so much."

Okay, so now I HOPE that I can instill some deeper, more intellectual &/or emotional desires in my children! LOL!!

If you'd like to see more FFF posts about HOPE, go see Sarah's blog.

Hello Penelope! Goodbye Penelope!...

2008-09-15T22:31:00.006-05:00

On Friday when I left work, I was driving home and something crossed the road up ahead of me. It was small, slow, and greenish/brown. As I got closer, this is who I saw:

In just a few short moments, I was on the phone with my husband"

Me: "Guess what I found in the road on my way home..."

Hubby: "What?"

Me: "A turtle."

Hubby : "Really? Too bad F wasn't with you. He would have loved that."

Me: "Yeah well, guess what is on the floorboard of my passenger seat..."

Hubby: "You're kidding!"

You have to know F. If there is ANY kind of critter - especially something like a turtle or frog - anywhere in the vicinity, F is there. He loves that stuff. Lives for it! So what kind of mother would I be if I didn't scoop the poor turtle up and bring it home for a visit?

What kind, you ask? A SANE one, that's what kind! I should have rolled down my window and said "Hello little turtle. Be on your merry way!" But noooooo! I had to bring her home. I had to find a box for her and give her raw vegetables. I had to research what kind of turtle she is (Box Turtle, in case you're wondering). I had to find out that she was a "she" and not a "he" (you can tell by the shape of her under-shell). I had to determine that she is 7 years old (you can tell by the rings on her under-shell). I had to start thinking she was pretty darn cute.

The kids loved her! They named her Penelope which was the perfect name for her. How you know when you've chosen the perfect name for a turtle you find in the road, I have no idea. But Penelope was the perfect name! F was in HEAVEN and played with her all weekend.

Then M came to me and said:

M: "Mom, Penelope is so good and smart."

Me: "She is?"

M: "Yes. She is so smart for a turtle."

Me: "How do you know?"
M: "Because we told her to play hide and seek and she did it!"

Me (feeling a bit of anxiety rising in my chest): "What do you mean?"

M: "We said 'Penelope, we're going to play hide and seek and you have to hide", then we stopped watching her and when we looked again, she was gone! She was hiding!"

GULP! Did you know that turtles poop? A lot? They do. And we aren't talking cute little bunny poopies. We are talking slimy, nasty, runny, stick in your carpet kinda poopies. All I could think of was all of the poop that she had already decorated her living quarters (the box) with. Penelope is like Martha Stewart. Except she's a turtle. And Penelope decorated her home with poop instead of creative fine decor. And...

sorry, sorry, sorry - got off topic for a moment there!

Anyway, I was having visions of turtle poop all over my brand new carpet in my lovely brand new finished basement and I was thinking "Shoulda left the darn thing on the side of the road!" So I said;

Me: "Did you find Penelope?"

M: "Yep. She was hiding in the playroom. See, that's what I mean. We told her to play hide and seek and she actually did it. Pretty smart!"

Me: "Yes, she is very smart. Now please go put her back in her box."

So, much to the disappointment of 3 little faces, we let Penelope go today.

Bye-Bye Penelope!

Saturday Morning Logic...

2008-09-13T10:58:00.007-05:00

I woke this morning to M standing next to my bed:

M: "Mama, why are you still sleeping?"
Me (halfway opening one eye): "Because I'm tired and I like to sleep in on Saturday mornings."
M: "Yeah? Well I'm hungry and I like to EAT on Saturday mornings."

Damn, I hate when they throw logic at me!!! Especially on a rainy Saturday morning!

By the way - 3 posts in 2 days! Can you guys even stand it! You must all be falling out of your seats in shock! HA! I'm baaaack!

Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are!!

2008-09-12T20:54:00.003-05:00

When I started blogging back in February, I couldn't really imagine that anyone would check in on my blog very often (except maybe my friend Aimee). However I was wrong and for some reason, which I will never fully understand, some people have found my crazy little life interesting! A while back I installed a site meter which allows me to see what state people are signing in from, how long they are visiting for, and to see what site they arrived from. I have recently noticed that several people are repeat visitors but I don't know who they are. This leads me to my next question...

Are you a Closet Blog Stalker? Do you check in on my site frequently but never leave me a comment letting me know who you are? If so, PLEASE leave me a comment! I want to get to know you too! And if you are commentaphobic and don't want to do that, just click on my Blog Followers List over there on the right side of my blog --->. That way I can check out your site too and we can stalk each other! ;O)

Oh, and by the way...even if you do leave me comments regularly, please sign up on my Blog Followers List!

SHOW MAMA SOME LOVE PEOPLE!!!

FFF; Remembering 9/11

2008-09-12T15:41:00.018-05:00

Happy Friday! This week Sarah decided the theme for Favorite Foto Friday would be free choice. Since yesterday was September 11th, I decided to make my theme "Remembering 9/11".
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Where do you even start with that? I guess the best place to start is always the beginning and for me, the beginning was 1991...

In February of 1991, when I was 22 years old, I trained with American Airlines to become a flight attendant. Here is my graduation picture. Can you find me?...

I am against the rock wall and 8th from the top. Gotta love the hair, huh? If you can believe it, we all desperately wanted our hair to look like our trainer's hair (she is the blond in uniform standing next to the guy to the left of the staircase). YIKES! Looks like a lampshade!!
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I was first based in NY City where I lived for the next 8 months. I was completely overwhelmed by the city and since I lived by myself, I was timid and rarely went beyond the comfort zone of my own neighborhood. I was also petrified of the subway system and therefore spent A LOT of money on cabs!!

One of the VERY best memories I have of flying was when I first started. It was April of 1991 and American was flying special flights to bring our soldiers back from the war. I was privileged to have been on the crew of several of these flights. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures but one time after the soldiers had deplaned, I found a book in the seatback pocket. Inside the book, I found this message...

I still have the book and will cherish it forever!
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In December of 1991, my transfer to Los Angeles came through and I was headed home! Here I am in front of my parent's house when I got back to LA...

The next several years were filled with lot's of fun trips (and lot's of different hairstyles). I often flew with fellow flight attendants who had become my good friends.

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The following pictures are from my 25th (?) birthday. My crew threw me a surprise party right there on board a DC-10 en route to Miami! Such FUN!...

Another great moment for me in my career at American was when I was awarded the "Professional Flight Attendant Award". I was so surprised that I had been nominated for the award! We were treated to a wonderful formal dinner and awards ceremony. Here my husband and I were the night of the ceremony (HUSH! I can hear all of you laughing about my hair! It was the 90's people! And I was a FLIGHT ATTENDANT!! There was a BIG hair prerequisite for us in those days!)... .

This is my Professional Flight Attendant Pin...

After my husband and I got married, he often traveled with me so he could hang out with me on lay-overs. The following pictures were taken on a NY layover and were shot from the Empire State building. The sight of those towers still brings me to tears... .

After a long period of time, I had finally earned enough seniority to start flying trips that I wanted to fly (vs. crappy trips). I LOVED the red-eye flights to the East coast and flew them every month. Boston had become one of my favorite cities and I always opted for Boston layovers when I could. I had become very close with both the flight crews as well as the cockpit crews that flew these flights. We were like family. We flew the red-eye flight into Boston from Los Angeles, had a 26 hour layover, and then flew the morning flight back to LA. It was actually in Boston on a layover that I found out I was pregnant with K. It was November of 2000.

I took a medical leave of absence for the pregnancy and after K was born, I took Family Leave followed by extended leave. I was still on that leave on the morning of September 11th, 2001. That was the day everything changed.

My husband woke me very early that morning and said that I needed to come watch the news with him. We watched the TV as the video footage of a plane hitting the World Trade Center was played repeatedly. Then Peter Jennings announced that the 1st flight that hit Tower 1 was an American Airlines flight which had departed Boston at approximately 8am and was en route to Los Angeles. I sobbed. That was my plane. It was days before I got an official crew list. I had no idea who was on that plane. Miraculously, none of my friends were. That didn't lessen the blow though. I may not have known the crew personally, but they were my fellow co-workers. I knew every nuance of that flight. I knew exactly what they were doing when they were overtaken. I knew what they were trained to do and that nothing in their training ever prepared them properly for what happened.

American Airlines Flight Attendants were in contract negotiations at that time and we were being offered an early retirement package. After 10 years of flying and with 2 small children at home, I decided the time had come for me to end that chapter of my life and to focus my attentions on my family. I had so much guilt though. I felt like I was abandoning my flight family at the very worst possible time. I was able to wear my uniform one last time though as I joined hundreds of others for the "Flag Across America" ending ceremony. It was another moment of my career that I will never forget...

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The traffic was crazy! My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest when I saw the American flag as it came up over an intersection on it's way to the site of the ceremony....

The ceremony was held close to LAX airport on Dockweiler Beach with planes flying overhead... .

The mood was somber and was made even more so by the sad sound of bagpipes...

I believe there were flags representing each state that the American flag crossed on it's journey across America. This one says "Qui Transtulit Sustinet" meaning "He who transplanted still sustains"...

Family members and friends of crewmembers who had been lost on either of the American or United flights spoke of their loved ones....

and we all remembered....

My life was forever changed on September 11th. All of our lives were. And we will never forget.

FFF; Oh Baby!

2008-09-05T21:42:00.011-05:00

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I can't believe I haven't blogged in a whole WEEK!!! What has become of me!?! And I have been a bad blogger buddy too! I just haven't had time to visit everyone's blogs but I promise I am going to try to catch up with everyone this weekend.
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The theme for Favorite Foto Friday this week is "Oh Baby!" and the instructions were to post the earliest pictures of yourself and then similar pictures of your kids.

Here is a picture of me when I was about 18 months old. It was Halloween and I was "A Bride"...

Here I am 22 years later as "The Bride"....

When F was a baby, he looked A LOT like my husband. This is my husband when he was about a year old... .

And here is F looking just like his Daddy did 32 years before... .

Once again, like father - like son! This is first haircut for my husband... .

And first haircut for F....

K looks just like me when I was little. This is me when I was about 2 1/2...
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Here is K when she was about 2 and then again when she was about 3...
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M looks more like her Daddy than she looks like me. This is my husband with his mom when he was just a few months old...

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And here is M at about 4 months old...

Here is Daddy pretending to drive when he was about 2...

Here is M pretending to drive when she was about 2...
This was a really fun FFF! To see more photos like these, go see Sarah's blog.

Favorite Foto Friday; Black & White...

2008-08-29T20:26:00.005-05:00

Late again this week! The days are so busy right now and I am looking forward to the slowing down! The theme for FFF this week is "Black & White". I have been desperately waiting for this theme as I have SO many B&W pictures of my kids. It was really hard to choose but here are a few of my favorites...

These pictures were taken by our old neighbor when we lived in California. F was 4 1/2 and K was 1 (M wasn't born yet)...

This is M when she was about 4 months old. I love this picture...

Here are all 3 of my monkeys in the tub (F 6 years old, K 3 years old, M 10 months old)...

If I find more B&W pictures that I absolutely love, I'll add them! If you'd like to see more great Black & White posts, go see Sarah. Have a great weekend and Happy Labor Day!!

Check Her OUT!...

2008-08-23T10:44:00.003-05:00

One of the many blessings I have reaped through Blogland is the friends I have made. All of whom I am sure I would never have met if not for blogging. One of those friends is Jenelle who is my Poppycock Soul Sista! Jenelle and I are very much alike in very many ways yet very different in other ways (she is like WAYYYY smarter than me). You should go check out her blog because she is very funny and her son is too cute for words and because TODAY (Saturday 8/23) she is having her 100th Post Blog Contest and you might just be the lucky winner of a really cool book and a bag of Chocolate Poppycock!

Go check her out by clicking here!

FFF; Favorite Stuffed Friends

2008-08-22T14:43:00.004-05:00

Happy Friday everyone! I'm getting a bit of a late start on this FFF post but it's been one of those weeks! Anyway, Sarah chose "Favorite Stuffed Friends" for this Favorite Foto Friday post. If you want to see more FFF posts or you want to link yourself in, go see Sarah by clicking here.

It was a little tricky to find F with stuffed animals. He was never much into them. As a matter of fact, the bear in this picture belonged to the photography studio!...

K on the other hand has a VERY special stuffed animal named Lovey. We have so many pictures of K with her Lovey but the next one is my favorite. Check out how ~~dirty~~ loved Lovey is...

I have posted about Lovey before and we even have a montage made up about Lovey. You can view it by clicking on the link below the next picture.

K & Lovey ~ Friends Forever

Here is M with her favorite stuffed friends...

Have a great week!

Oh Dear...

2008-08-16T22:42:00.003-05:00

This afternoon I was putting laundry away in M's room. She was sitting on the floor playing with some Barbies and singing a Hannah Montana song called "Start All Over" (it's playing right now). The chorus goes something like this:

Out of the fire and into the fire again
You make me want to forget
And start all over
Start all over

I was kind of tuning her out but subconsciously must have been listening because all of a sudden a little light went on...

Me: "M, what did you just sing?"
M: "Start All Over from Hannah Montana."
Me: "But what were the words you sang?"

She breaks out in song again and...brace yourself...

M: "You make me want to f#&k, yeah. And start all over. Start all over."

Uh-oh! I know she had no idea what she was actually singing but one cannot allow her 4 year old daughter to continue on like this. It's just wrong on so many levels...

Me: "Okay. It actually goes 'You make me want to FORGET and start all over"
M: "Ohhhhh, forget."

A couple minutes went by and she was deep in her make believe Barbie world when she absent mindedly started singing again...

M: "You make me want to f#&k yeah. And start all over. Start all over."
Me: "M, you just sang it wrong again. You have to sing it right or you are no longer allowed to sing it."
M: "Oh, sorry mama. I forgot."
Me: "Sing it right. It's 'You make me want to forget and start all over"
M: "Okay."

A few more minutes went by and she was, once again, immersed in Barbie world when she started singing the lyrics incorrectly again...

Me: "M, that's not how it goes!!!"

She looked up at me with her big blue eyes and a look of anguish on her face and said...

"Now I can't sing the song anymore? Barnacles!"

Uhhh, yeah. Barnacles!

FFF; Back To School...

2008-08-13T17:44:00.014-05:00

UPDATE:
I know a lot of my FFF friends have been checking in to find out about K's test results so I thought I'd add them to this post.

Good News/Bad News...
The results are negative for both the Neuroblastoma (thank GOD) and for the Pheochromocytoma (sigh). We were really hoping for a diagnosis of Pheochromocytoma would be given. We'd have the tumor removed and go about our lives but I guess that wasn't in the plan. Unfortunately what this leaves us with is a strong possibility that K's "episodes" will not be diagnosed therefore there will not be a treatment plan. I don't really know what to say beyond that.
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FFF; Back To School:
School started this morning so this was a perfect Favorite Foto Friday theme for us! If you'd like to see more FFF posts, check out Sarah's blog and feel free to link yourself in as well!
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This year I did all of the school supply shopping alone. I left the kiddos with hubby and spent a peaceful hour ALONE at Target!!! It was heavenly! You ABSOLUTELY have to click on the link below. It's a Staples commercial and it is EXACTLY what I felt like doing while I was shopping...

CLICK HERE
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The next day I showed the kids what I had bought for them and asked them what they wanted to wear for the first day of school. Here is F's response...
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F: "I'll wear one of my new T-Shirts and a pair of shorts."
Me: "Which T-shirt and which shorts?"
F: "The brown shirt and denim shorts."
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Done.
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K's response? A little different...
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K: "Oh gosh. It has to be super cute. Maybe a dress. Or some cute capri's. No, not capri's. Maybe my new skirt that has the black and pink flowery things on it. But I don' t have a shirt to wear with it. And I'll need new shoes."
Me: "We can get you a new shirt and some shoes."
K: "Okay, I want a shirt that has pink and black and all kinds of designs."
Me: "Well, you'll need to get a solid color shirt. You don't want a print because the skirt is a print."
K: "Why can't I wear a print with a print?"
Me: "Well, you usually wear a print with a solid."
K: "But I wear a solid with a solid so why can't I wear a print with a print?"
Me: "Because you just don't. It would be too busy."
K: "Are little flowers a print?"
Me: "Yes."
K: "Well you have picked out clothes for me that are stripes on the shorts and flowers on the shirt."
Me: "Okay K, we just aren't getting a printed shirt. We are getting a solid."
K: "Okay, then I want you to write a big fancy K on it for me."
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Oh gawwwwwwwwd...who am I raising here??? A "K" on her shirt??? I was having flashbacks of Laverne and Shirley episodes. I was so worked up by the fashion crisis conversation that I told my husband I was taking her shopping right then and there so we could get it over with.
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Here was the conversation in the store...
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Me: "How about this K?"
K: "Mmmmm...too plain."
Me: "How about this?"
K: "I don't like black."
Me: "This?"
K: "I think I want a tanktop. A lacey tanktop."
Me "You're not getting a lacey tanktop."
K: "A sparkley, glittery tanktop?"
Me: "No lacey, no sparkley, no glittery. Just pick a shirt K."
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For goodness sakes, I felt like I was shopping for the star of "Girls Gone Wild" instead of a first grader!!! And we hadn't even started on the shoes yet!!!
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K: "I want high heels."
Me: "Uhhh yeah, NO, you are not getting high heels."
K: "These sparkly pink ones are cute."
Me: "Black. Black shoes is what you are getting."
K: "Oh but these sandals are super cute mom."
Me: "No sandals. No sparkly. No high heels. Black shoes. Pick some black shoes before I lose my ever lovin' mind!"
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THREE HOURS LATER folks, we finally had an oufit...

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K also got a High School Musical locket. It was a compromise. A peace offering if you will. Or maybe a bribe. Whatever you want to call it, it's what I had to purchase so that she "feels fancy" when she wears the outfit! Do you see it there with the outfit? No? That'd be because she has LOST IT already!

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I told my husband that we better start shopping for her wedding gown NOW because it will probably take us the next 20 years to pick the dang thing out. His response? "God Bless the man who marries her."
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The kids were up bright and early this morning which is when we discovered that K's locket was missing. We searched endlessly for it and when we finally decided we weren't going to find it in time for school, K decided she wasn't going. I won't get into the details of that drama-fest but suffice it to say that she finally got dressed and we moved on. Yep, we moved on...to drama-fest #2...
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F really should have had a haircut several days ago but somehow we didn't end up working it into the schedule so this morning his hair was a wreck and he was not happy about it. He kept telling me to "just cut it all off". I can do a lot of things but a haircut (especially a boy's haircut) is not one of them. We finally got his hair to look presentable (sort of) and we were off to school. In bad moods. Great way to start the year off! Check out these faces (Happy kids? Not so much!)...

F prefers I don't walk him into class anymore so my "picture with the teacher" moments are over but K was more than happy to oblige! Here she is at her desk and with her teacher Mrs. M who we loooooooove!! F had her and she is awesome!.

Both kids came home happy (and hungry) and ready for a good year (thank goodness)! I took F for a haircut and he opted to cut off all of the surfer hair he'd been growing out for so long....

Hopefully we'll be off to a better start tomorrow morning!

K Update...

2008-08-13T17:00:00.004-05:00

Well, we are nearing the end of all of the testing for K. Here is what we know so far...

EEG (brain scan) has been done and showed a "blip" in the back of the brain. The neurologist said it could be something or it could be nothing so essentially the EEG was inconclusive.

EKG has been done and was normal. We saw a Pediatric Cardiologist last week who confirmed my suspicion that the elevated blood pressure and heart rate was in response to the seizure and not causing the seizure.

MRI has been done and was clear. We went to see the ENT today and he said we could definitely rule out a brain tumor and pretty much rule out vertigo. He said Meniere's Disease is a possibility but a very slim one. A hearing test will confirm Meniere's Disease but must be performed within 24 hours of an episode so we'll do that next time.

24 Hour Urinanalysis has been done and we are waiting for the results of this test. They are checking for 2 things. The first and scariest is called Neuroblastoma. I would bet everything that I own on the fact that she DOES NOT have Neuroblastoma. For those of you who are not familiar with Neuroblastoma, it is a cancer that commonly begins in the adrenal gland. Being that K has had these symptoms for so long (over 6 years) there is little to no chance that it could possibly be NB. The other illness they are checking on is called Pheochromocytoma which is a tumor of the adrenal gland. Only 10% of these tumors are malignant and treatment is fairly uninvasive. Laparoscopic surgery to remove the tumor is usually all it takes.

If the labwork comes back normal, we are back to square one. If that happens, we'll try some migraine medications to see if that works. I know it sounds really weird but I'm actually hoping that it might be Pheochromocytoma. Don't get me wrong - I want nothing more than for K to be 100% healthy with nothing wrong at all, but having a diagnosis (especially one as benign as PCC) means having a treatment and that means putting this behind us. If it is found that K has severe migraines or an undiagnosed seizure disorder, she'll struggle with it for her whole life.

I expressed the fact that I was hoping for the Pheochromocytoma to the ENT today and he agreed that it would be a much easier fix than migraines or seizures. We talked about how both of those things would effect K's life. I asked "If it is migraines or seizures, will she have these episodes forever? Will she be able to get a driver's license? How will this effect her?" His answer was simply "I don't know at this time. We'll have to just wait and see." I don't want to wait and see. I, like every other parent, want my children to have normal healthy lives. I want it guaranteed. There are things that could be so much worse than what K is going through and I know that. Believe me - I know that. I'm so incredibly grateful that this isn't more serious, but it is still very frustrating.

I'll post again when I get the labwork back.

FFF; Having a Ball On Our California Vaca!

2008-08-08T16:07:00.011-05:00

The theme for Favorite Foto Friday this week is "Having a Ball". I have been wanting to post some pictures of our California Summer vacation and thought this was a good opportunity because we definitely had a ball! To see more FFF posts, go check out Sarah's blog.

If you missed Day 1 of our vacation and would like to see those pictures, click here.

La Brea Tarpits (Day 2)

Nana (my mom) had all kinds of fun stuff planned for us to do. One day we went to the George C. Paige Museum which is also known as the La Brea Tarpits. This was really great! It's a small museum which is perfect for kids because it's not so overwhelming...

Many dinosaur remains have been found in the tarpits and many more are still waiting to be uncovered...

We ended up on an upper level of the museum which was sort of like a rooftop patio. The kids had run ahead of us and when we reached the top of the stairs, we saw them teetering on the edge. My heart dropped and I said to my mom "I can't believe there is no railing!"...

The kids continued to goof around right on the edge and eventually fell off and clung to the edge, holding on for dear life...

Don't worry - there was a grass hill that led right to the edge of the concrete!! The kids had so much fun rolling down the hill...

I even got to sneak out for a while that evening to spend some time with one of my BFF's! I miss you Sue!...

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (Day 3)

We spent another day with part of my husband's family. We don't get to see them often so it was really fun! We went to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and the kids had so much fun...

They got to touch so many different sea creatures in the "Touch Tank"...

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We made a quick stop at the gift shop before heading off for lunch. K saw this pink jewel encrusted seahorse trinket box that she fell in love with. It was pink and glittery and oh so very K'ish but it was also $40 so I told her we'd have to pass on it. She was disappointed buuuuut...

somehow, without me noticing, Auntie Tita snuck back into the gift shop and bought the seahorse for K. I honestly don't know if K has ever been so happy to receive a gift...

After leaving the aquarium, each of the kids got to sit on Aunt Renate's motorcycle...

The kids just adore my husband's aunts and uncles. There is some odd tradition in his family of giving everyone at least one (usually several) nicknames.

This is F with Aunt Rezi (aka Aunt Theresa, aka Aunt Lilly)...

This is K with Aunt Tita (aka Aunt Ann)...

This is M with Aunt Renate (aka Aunt Rudie)...

Aunt Renate's pretty silly! Ya think she and M have anything in common?...

We ended our day together with a wonderful lunch at a seafood restaurant on the pier (from left to right: Uncle Mike (aka "Crispy"), Aunt Rezi, F, M, K, Aunt Renate, me, Aunt Tita)...

I still have tons more pictures of our vacation so keep checking back! Have a great weekend!

Results Are In...

2008-08-05T16:52:00.004-05:00

Normal. Normal! NORMAL!!!!

Never has that word looked so good! K's MRI results are normal. Now what? Well, during her well-check last week, her Pediatrician suggested we do a urine-analysis so that we could rule out 2 things that were nagging at him. It is very unlikely that either of these 2 things will be diagnosed but at this point we are just playing the process of elimination game. Testing entails a 24 hour urine collection (oh what FUN)! and then a 5 day wait for the lab to process the urine and get the results to her doctor. So...here we go again with another long wait for test results. I'm actually totally okay with it for 2 reasons. 1) my mommy gut says that K doesn't have either of the things she is being tested for and 2) I'm just really glad that the doctors are taking this seriously and are wanting to get a diagnosis - finally!

I'll let you know when we get the results!

Goodbye Sweet Girl...

2008-08-03T18:02:00.009-05:00

Today was a really sad day for our family. Our treasured kitty Tori died this morning. She was 19 years old which is 93 in human years.

Back in 1989 I had a friend who had just gone through a bad breakup with his girlfriend. He lived alone and wanted a cat to keep him company. I searched several pet shelters but couldn't find any cats that seemed right for him. Then one afternoon I stopped by a pet shelter and was looking at the kitties in their cages. They all seemed pretty indifferent towards me but then I saw this teeny little grey tabby. As soon as I looked into her cage she gave a sweet little "meow" and I fell in love! The shelter assistant told me that she was not up for adoption because she was sick and was going to be euthanized the following day. I begged them to let me take her to a vet to see if there was anything that could be done for her. They hesitantly agreed and I was out the door. The vet checked her over and said she just had a cold and that with a little antibiotics she'd be good to go. I brought her to my friend who seemed to like her at first but after a few days he found her to be too needy so he gave her back to me.

At the time I was only 20 years old and living with my parents. My mom is NOT a fan of cats so I had no idea what I was going to do with this cat but I certainly was not going to bring her back to the shelter. I brought her home and told my mom I'd find a home for her ASAP. That night my dad came home and Tori was laying on my lap. He looked at her and said "Who's this?" she looked up at him and gave him that same sweet "meow". He looked at me and said "Oh, she's stayin'!"

All through her days Tori remained that same sweet kitty. She loved to be held and cuddled and she was always happy to hold a conversation with you. Lots of meows and purrs for anyone who would give her a moment of attention. Even after we added a HUGE labrador to the mix and again when the kids came along, she stayed sweet. She let them tug on her and pick her up. They even put hair clips on her and silly dress-up stuff. She was simply the best cat anyone could ask for. The best. I'm going to really miss her. We all will.

The kids were very sad but M has definitely taken it the hardest. She was the one who paid the most attention to Tori. She was really upset today so we invited her friend over to try to get her pre-occupied for a while. At one point she was playing with her friend and I overheard this conversation (keep in mind these girls are 4):

(M): "My cat died today. She's dead."

(Friend): "Huh?"

(M): "My cat. You can't see her anymore cuz she's dead. She died today."

(Friend): "Oh. I don't really deal with that. Let's go watch TV."

(M): "No, let's go play."

(Friend): "OK"

That was it. Grieving over (for the moment). I wish it was that easy for me!

Here are some pictures of the kids with our sweet kitty:

I have no doubt that our labrador Tucker was right there to meet her this morning...

K drew these pictures of Tori this afternoon...

M drew these pictures of Tori this afternoon...

Goodbye sweet girl. You are already missed!

I'm BRILLIANT I tell ya!

2008-08-01T23:27:00.011-05:00

Okay so not really. But Anissa thinks I am so right now we are going to pretend that she's right! I'm brilliant and so therefore I have received the "Brilliant Weblog Award"! Check it out...

Better than an Academy Award, right? And yes, I have been accused of being Academy Award worthy before too but I so much prefer the Brilliant Weblog Award! It SOOOO speaks my name!

Okay so here is how this thing works: 1st I have to answer a little questionnaire thingy which is pretty much all about ME! Get excited folks - this is big stuff! Then I have to choose 7 bloggers who I feel are BRILLIANT (see list below) and I give them the award. They will post their own answers to the questionnaire on their own blog and they will choose 7 more recipients. And so it goes!

Here is the questionnaire (drum roll please...) :

A. Attached or single? Attached
B. Best friend? Sue and Diane
C. Cake or pie? Pie
D. Day of choice? Saturday
E. Essential item? Snapple Peach Iced Tea
F. Favorite color? Brown
G. Gummy bears or worms? Gummy Bears (preferably chocolate covered)
H. Hometown? Wayne, NJ
I. Indulgence? Massages
J. January or July? July
K. Kids? 3
L. Life isn’t complete without? My family, Poppycock, and Peach Iced Tea. Oh yeah - and Oops Paint!
M. Marriage date? July 25, 1992
N. Number of brothers & sisters? 1 older sister, 1 younger brother
O. Oranges or apples? Apples with caramel sauce
P. Phobias? Hmmm...I don't think I really have any. Maybe heights.
Q. Quotes? "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."
R. Reasons to smile? The things my kids say, a SUNNY day, and funny reality TV (I loooove Flipping Out)
S. Season of choice? Spring and Summer
T. Tag seven peeps! (see below)
U. Unknown fact about me? I walk and talk in my sleep
V. Vegetable? Cucumbers
W. Worst habits? I grind my teeth
X. X-ray or ultrasound? ultrasound
Y. Your favorite food? Anything Italian...bring on the carbs baby!
Z. Zodiac sign? Taurus. And oh such a Taurus!!!

I did a similar post a few months ago so I won't be "tagging" the same people. Here are 7 other BRILLIANT bloggers:

Andreea
Jill Marie
Leslie
Lisa
Mindy
Natalie
Rebecca

FFF; Bed-Head and Crazy Hair...

2008-08-01T12:07:00.012-05:00

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MRI update: We don't have any results yet which I am thinking is probably a good thing. No news is good news. The doctor is now out of town until the 11th so it will be a while before we get results but I think they would have called immediately if the radiologist saw anything alarming. K had her 7 year old well-check today and her Pediatrician suggested some other possible causes. Some were upsetting and scary but my mommy gut tells me it's not any of those so I'm just taking this one step at a time. If the MRI comes back clear, we'll proceed with some other testing to rule out these other possibilities. I know I have said it a million times but THANK YOU for the prayers, well wishes and messages. We appreciate it!
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The Favorite Foto Friday theme this week is "Bed-Head & Crazy Hair". To see posts by fellow FFF'ers check out Sarah's blog.
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F with Bed-Head, Easter morning 2005

K with Bed-Head, June 2004.
M with Bed-Head July 2008 .
Since my kids love costumes, dress-up, props, etc, I also have some pictures of them with

C-r-A-z-Y hair...
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F on 70's day at school (2005)...

K playing dress-up (2008).

M playing dress-up (2008)

Veggies Cause Brain Damage...

2008-07-30T11:49:00.003-05:00

Did you know that? It's true. I'm living proof of it.

It's raining today so I thought I'd take the kids to a movie. Our local theater has a summer movie program. They play older movies and only charge $2 admission for them. Today's choices were Surf's Up or Veggie Tales; The Pirates Who Do Nothing. All 3 of my kids wanted to see Veggie Tales. I never in my life wanted so desperately to get home and do laundry. Pay the bills. Scrub the bathrooms. Anything but watch that movie.

I'm sorry if I offend any Veggie Tale fans out there but I don't get it.

Why do vegetables talk?

Why don't they have arms or legs?

Why do only half of them have eyes?

Why do veggies that don't have eyes wear eyeglasses?

Why do I even care?

That's true - why do I care? Why am I even blogging about this?

Holy Shit-ake Mushrooms! I think it has something to do with the brain damage I sustained while watching exactly 1 hour and 25 minutes worth of the Veggie Tales.

See? Veggies cause brain damage.

The MRI...

2008-07-29T19:11:00.003-05:00

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Today K had her MRI. She's had a couple before but had always been sedated. This time - no sedation. She was very brave and was not stressing at all. At least not until the MRI tech told her she'd be getting an injection. This was a really bad call on the tech's part because the injection was going to be administered AFTER most of the MRI was done. During the MRI, K was supposed to lay very still. Uh-huh. Yeah, she's gonna do that after she's just been told she's getting an injection. I don't think so. It would have been much better for everyone if they just hadn't said anything until it was time for the injection. But they didn't do that and K was hysterical by the time they strapped her in and rolled her into the MRI machine. So hysterical that I had to come in and stand next to her while they did the MRI (I was supposed to be waiting outside the door). Although the tears went on for the entire 30 minute scan, she did lay pretty still and I'm just hoping they got what they needed so we don't have to repeat it. When it was time for the injection, she really lost it and refused to let them give it to her. I had to hold her down. Very unpleasant. Anyway - it's done and now we just wait for the results. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything.
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When I asked the techs if I could take pictures they kinda looked at me like I was a lunatic but I took them anyway!
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K getting ready (pre-injection announcement)...

Getting strapped in (post injection announcement and crying hysterically)...

All done (check out those puffy red eyes)...

Showing off her war wound...

Real Men Have Biceps & They Fish With Pink Butterfly Nets...

2008-07-28T22:22:00.020-05:00

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We own a restaurant and we're closed on Monday nights so we reserve these nights as our "Family Night". We usually try to do something like take the kids to the park or for icecream or go for a walk. Tonight was a nice night so we decided to go to a nearby park that has a huge lake. As we were getting in the car, F comes running around the corner from the backyard carrying a PINK butterfly net in his hand. My husband - the manly man - looked rather perplexed...

(Dad) "F, why do you have that net?"

(F) "I want to catch frogs or fish at the lake."

(Dad) "But why THAT net? Why a pink net?"

(F) "It's the only one we have."

(Dad) "I wouldn't go running through the park carrying that butterfly net. Ya might look a little silly."

Clearly my husband didn't think it was a great idea for his son to be seen carrying a pink butterfly net but he didn't push the issue any further.

A few miles down the road, another interesting testosterone driven conversation arose. Our restaurant is adjacent to a strip mall which is home to a large athletic club. Apparently F has been thinking about getting a membership there...

(F) "Dad, can you and I start going to the Sports Club?"

(Dad) "Why do you want to do that?"

(F) "I need to take my biceps to the next level."

I about choked on my iced tea! You have to know F...he is so skinny that if he stands sideways you can barely see him!

Shortly thereafter we arrived at the park and F immediately went to work trying to catch some fish with the net while the girls goofed around and played with Dad...

After a few minutes without any success, my husband started giving him some pointers...

"Stay real still."

"Be as quiet as you can"

"Make sure the net is low enough in the water to scoop the fish from underneath."

But pretty soon...WAIT...WAIT...WAIT...

Is that MY husband carrying a PINK BUTTERFLY NET!?!

In PUBLIC!?!

Mr. Testosterone, himself!?!...

LOL!!! Pretty soon both F and Dad were in the water up to their knees trying to scoop out fish!...

And of course they did!!...

F loves anything to do with nature - frogs, bugs, fish, you name it...

M wasn't at all squeamish about holding the fish...

K on the other hand, well she's like her mommy. Fish? Not so much!...

I'm happy to say that despite the pink butterfly net, my two boys left the park with all manly parts still intact, testosterone a-pumpin', and biceps which, I'm pretty sure, had gone to the next level.

Now let's just cross our fingers that a video of my husband fishing with a pink butterfly net doesn't surface on YouTube.

Yeah.

That'd be bad.

FFF; "Best Friends"...

2008-07-25T02:12:00.006-05:00

UPDATE:
Success!! Hallelujah! Finally a doctor that speaks my language! I took K to the ENT this morning and the first thing he asked after looking at the chart was "Where are her MRI films?" I explained that the neurologist didn't want to do the MRI because there was only a 1-5% chance of there being a brain tumor. He said "Correct. That sounds like a pretty big percent when we're talking about brain tumors, don't ya think?" He said there are a variety of things that could be causing the episodes but that he wants the MRI done so we can rule out the worse case scenarios first (things like Vestibular Ataxia, Menieres Disease, Brain Tumor, etc) He said his gut is telling him that the episodes are Complex Migraines but that until we had the MRI done, he didn't want to make any assumptions. So, next week we are off to the imaging center for the MRI! YAY!!! I'll let you know as soon as we know anything. Thanks again for all of the prayers! Keep them comin'!

The theme for this week's Favorite Foto Friday is "Best Friends". To view more FFF blogs, go see Sarah by clicking here.

When we lived in California, F made his very first best friend, S. Even though we moved away, those boys are still buddies!

Here are F & S back in 2003...
And F & S in June of this year...
We moved mid school year and on F's first day of kindergarten at his new school, he met a friend who had also moved here at the same time. It was D's first day of school too and they became instant friends. They are still best buds today!

This is F & D back in Kindergarten...
and F & D on 4th of July weekend of this year...
K has a BFF who she met this year in Kindergarten. Sweet A is such a good friend to K and they get along so well. They could play for hours without a single disagreement!

K & A...

M has a BFF too! Funny thing is, she's the daughter of my husband's best friend who happens to be K's Godfather!

M & N...

Below is a montage of K and her ABSOLUTE, life long, best friend. There have NEVER been 2 friends quite like these 2! Check it out by clicking on the link below the picture...

K & Lovey ~ Friends Forever

Happy Birthday Nana!...

2008-07-23T09:04:00.004-05:00

Today is my mom's birthday. She is the BEST Mom and Nana! My parent's live in California and we live in the midwest but she will hop on a plane in the blink of an eye for ANY reason (Southwest Airlines LOVES her)! She comes out to help me paint, for any of the kids' activities, to go pumpkin picking in the fall, you name it and she'll be here. The kids ADORE her (that might be because she spoils them just a wee bit) and they are out of their minds when she comes for a visit. The first 30 minutes after she arrives generally consists of:

100 hops of excitement
200 "Nana look at this..."
300 "Come see my room..."
400 "We're so glad you're here..."
and 500 hugs!

Oh, and we can't forget the 1 paper bag we have to have on hand just in case someone hyperventilates due to over-excitement!

In honor of her birthday, I put together a photo montage for her. It was not easy, let me tell you, to sift through all of the pictures we have of Nana with the kids but I found the perfect song and here is what I came up with:

Happy Birthday Nana!

Happy Birthday Mom! I ordered you a DVD of the montage and you'll get it sometime next week. We love you and are looking forward to seeing you in August!

Tricks of the Trade...

2008-07-21T17:32:00.003-05:00

My kids have learned to not even think about throwing temper tantrums in public. They have each done it once or twice and learned that it simply wasn't worth the consequence they would have afterwards. BUT...if they decided to throw caution to the wind and show the world what a good old fashioned melt down looked like, I might have to try this mommy tactic (and hope I could keep a straight face)...

FFF; "Bootylicious"...

2008-07-18T08:33:00.007-05:00

Sarah, who usually hosts Favorite Foto Friday, is on vacation this week so there is no set theme for FFF. I chose "Bootylicious" and here's why...

I have been diligently sorting through my kids' baby pictures and trying to put them into photo montages (you can view them by clicking on "One True Media" on the right side of your screen, or you can just click here). When I came across the pictures below of M, the first and ONLY word to pop into my head was "BOOTYLICIOUS"!! You may wonder where on earth that word came from...my blogging friend Mindy used it in her blog the other day to describe her kids' tooshies and it made me laugh.

So without any further ado, here she is...Miss Bootylicious:

Have you EVER seen a baby's butt that BIG before!?! I am, however, glad to report that eventually M did grow into her booty and she is perfectly in scale now. LOL!!! Here is Miss Bootylicious now...

The Germaphobic Tuxedo Man...

2008-07-15T07:07:00.011-05:00

On the way back from the pool yesterday I had this conversation with F...

F: "Mom, I like tuxedos. When would I wear a tuxedo?"

Me: "Most often, men wear them for weddings."

F: "So I'll probably only wear one at my wedding?"

Me: "Or if you're in someone else's wedding. You wore one when you were in Uncle Jason & Aunt Mar's wedding. Remember?"

F: "Oh yeah. But who else's wedding would I be in?"

Me: "A friend's or when K or M get married."

Then M pipes up...

M: "I'm NOT getting married"

Me: "You're not???"

M: "NOOO"

Me: "Why?"

F: "She hasn't gotten that germ thing yet."

Me: "German thing???"

F: "No, GERM thing. That's a GERM that makes you want to do that." (insert look of pure disgust)

Brick Walls...

2008-07-12T18:13:00.008-05:00

Brick Walls. We seem to have a propensity of running into them around here. Metaphorically speaking that is.

The other day, I spent half the morning on the phone with various doctor's offices trying to get appointments for K. Each call required that I go through the whole long and drawn out story as to why I wanted her seen by that particular specialist. I was able to schedule her appointments with the eye doctor, cardiologist, and neurologist but when I called the Neuro-Opthamologist (N-O)...BAM...the brick wall again. The receptionist informed me that this particular doctor does not treat children and that even if he did, we'd need a referral. I told her that the eye doctor had referred me to them and so she suggested that I have the eye doctor call and maybe he would make an exception and see K. So, I called the eye doctor and asked if she would see what she could do.

In the meantime, K had her eye doctor appointment and everything looked fine. Her eye doctor suggested that we wait until K sees the N-O before ordering the MRI and that she had left a message with the N-O and was waiting to hear back from him.

Lo and behold, the N-O called her back and, well let's just say it's no coincidence that his abbreviation is "N-O". He said NO. He wouldn't see K because he felt that her symptoms were presenting in a way that suggested more of a neurological disorder than a visual disorder. What a surprise...another brick wall! He did suggest however that we get a second opinion from another neurologist. Well bless his little heart, I would have NEVER thought of that (insert sarcasm)! We've already gotten opinions in TWO different states at TWO different Children's Hospitals from FOUR different neurologists who seem to have FOUR different ideas of what is wrong with K! And that doesn't count all of the Resident Neurologists who have seen her. If you counted all of them, we'd be somewhere around 13 or 14. Yet somehow not ONE of these doctors has been able to give us a diagnosis.

And as for the MRI, my neighbor (the eye doctor) can't order it for K because she'll need to be sedated and she's not licensed to prescribe sedation. Good times (again...insert sarcasm here)!

I'm not giving up though. I have no problem pulling out the "Lunatic Mommy Card" if need be! Stay tuned...I'm sure this story hasn't ended!

By the way...I posted a video montage of K from birth through 1 year old. I'm slowly going through the kids pictures and putting them to music. F is next and I'll add that one soon. You can view them by clicking on the link titled "One True Media" at the top/right of my blog.

I want to thank all of you again for your concern & support, your prayers, and your kind messages. It means the world to me! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Feeling Better...

2008-07-05T14:21:00.004-05:00

I wanted to thank everyone for all of the kind messages for K! We appreciate it! She is feeling much better now. Hopefully she'll go a little longer than 6 weeks before another episode. I am scheduling a lot of doctor appointments and hoping to get them all squeezed in before anything else happens.

We are putting the brakes on the medication plan at this time. There are a few things that are nagging at me and I'd like to dig in a little deeper regarding these things before we start medicating her.

When K was initially admitted to the hospital on Tuesday night, the doctor said they would not only be doing an EEG but also an MRI. After the EEG was done, they canceled the MRI. When we asked why they no longer felt it was necessary to do the MRI, we were told that after reviewing her history, they didn't feel the seizures were being caused by anything like a brain tumor (which is what they'd be looking for in an MRI). They said that if they were being caused by a tumor, the tumor would have presented itself in other ways by now. That makes sense to us but we still feel like we'd rather be safe than sorry and we'd like to be able to rule that out completely. The doctors didn't agree and so K didn't have the MRI done. We'd still like to have one done.

One thing I didn't mention in my last post was that when we got to the ER, they hooked her up to all sorts of machines. One of them was a Blood Pressure monitor and everyone was very concerned by what they saw. Her blood pressure was off the charts (high). Typically a child's blood pressure should be somewhere around 105/68. K's was 154/? (don't know what the bottom # was). That is WAY too high and could be dangerous. She was also hooked up to a Heart Rate machine. In between seizures her heart rate was at a healthy 105(ish) and it would shoot up to about 145 right before a seizure. This might be a normal response the body has to the seizure but we'd like a cardiologist to verify that for us. We don't want to make any assumptions at this point. The combination of the elevated blood pressure and spiking heart rate got me to thinking that possibly these seizures are somehow connected with a heart condition. We want to see a Pediatric Cardiologist.

We googled the medication K had been prescribed. Good move/bad move. Good because we found out about a host of side effects that we knew nothing about. Things like Spinal Deterioration, Heart Failure, Liver Failure, Psychotic Episodes, and Suicidal Tendencies. Bad because we were reading so many conflicting theories that our heads were spinning. We did take into consideration that you can't believe everything you read on the internet and that there are a lot more success stories than horror stories regarding prescribed meds, but we were still left feeling very uneasy. I think we really need to follow that parental gut feeling.

My neighbor's son has a heart condition and she has spoken very highly of his cardiologist so yesterday I asked her for the doctor's number so I could schedule an appointment for K. My neighbor also happens to be an eye doctor and when I told her everything that happened Tuesday night, she had some ideas of her own. She mentioned a few conditions which I can't possibly remember the names of. These conditions would require diagnosis & treatment from a Neurological Opthamologist and she knows a really good one. I'm very interested in what he has to say since many of K's symptoms are of visual disturbances (pain behind the eyes, dizziness, seeing sparkles & floaters, etc). Another notable fact is that the area of the brain that controls vision is the back portion which is where they noted the blip on the EEG. I am scheduling an appointment for K with my neighbor who will give her a thorough eye exam and has also agreed that she should have the MRI and will be scheduling that for us. I'm also making appointments with the Cardiologist and Neurological Opthamologist.

So that's where we are at. Hopefully we'll get some answers! By the way - if anyone has any input, I'm all ears. The name of the medication they wanted to start her on is Depakote.

Thanks again for all of the support! Blogland is a wonderful place! Enjoy your 4th of July weekend!!

Jennifer

Poor K...

2008-07-02T20:42:00.013-05:00

*Update* K is feeling pretty well now and we have changed the direction of her treatment plan. If you'd like to see the updated blog post, click here. (but you may want to read the post below first so that the other post makes sense)

FFF Friends ~ too tired to try to dig up pics for this week's theme ("Dancing") but thought you might want to see what poor Miss K has been up to this week - YUCK!

This is K after the brainscan. Despite the horrible night she had before and the fact that she was still in the midst of the Post Ictal Phase, she could still muster a smile for us. Poor Baby! She really has been such a trooper!

I know I have mentioned a couple of times on this blog that K has an "a-typical seizure disorder". Let me tell you that any time your child has an "a-typical" medical condition it is beyond frustrating. Medical professionals are hesitant to run tests if the tests are not clearly necessary (and without a diagnosis, it is difficult to deam them necessary). They don't want to label the medical condition if they are not 100% sure of what it is. And most frustrating of all, a diagnosis never comes. Without a diagnosis, it is nearly impossible to move forward with a reasonable treatment plan for your child and this leaves the parents feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. This has been our life with K for the past 6 years.

K has had many different tests run. No diagnosis. She has been sedated, poked, pricked, and prodded. No diagnosis. She was even severely overdosed on an anti-seizure medication which very nearly killed her when she was just 14 months old. She has continued to fight the seizure monster sometimes for upwards of 12 hours straight in one episode. Still, no diagnosis. Frustrating doesn't even begin to explain our feelings and no doubt poor K's feelings.

Her seizures have - for lack of a better word - mutated over the years. As an infant she suffered classic seizures (tight gripping of objects, eyes rolling, eyelids fluttering, and severe vomitting followed by an unresponsive period called a Post Ictal Phase). Then when she was about 3 yrs old, the seizures changed and we could barely detect the actual seizure and would only see the aftermath which included the vomitting and post ictal phase. These episodes almost always followed a sudden change in equilibrium. We thought we had found her trigger. Then about a year ago, the episodes changed again and seemed to only occur when she was waking from a deep sleep. They were much shorter in duration (sometimes lasting only about 5 minutes from beginning to end) and less severe. We thought she was outgrowing them. Then in the beginning of May she had a 6 hour episode. We stayed home and waited it out but I decided that if she had another long one, we'd head to the ER in hopes that she could be put on a brainscan while she was seizing.

At about 8:45 last night she started seizing. I waited until about 10:00 and decided to head to the Children's Hospital. They admitted her but couldn't do the brainscan until this morning. She continued to seize until about 3:00 in the morning and then had lingering effects until about 3:00 this afternoon. Luckily, there were several doctors and nurses who witnessed first-hand what was happening and our Resident Neurologist was determined to figure out what was going on.

Long story short, K had an EEG (brainscan) this morning and it showed a "blip" in the back portion of her brain. Unfortunately, this was not enough to draw any conclusive kind of diagnosis and because her symptoms not only mirror those of seizures, but also of migraines, we left the hospital without much more than what we came with. She is still considered to be having "a-typical seizures" &/or "a-typical migraines". The Chief of Neurology saw her this afternoon and suggested a trial medication plan. After MANY questions and a lot of consideration, we decided to try it. We are of course hesitant due to our past experience with seizure medication but we feel confident with the 2 doctors that are treating her and they are both aware of what happened prior so they are being very cautious.

We will likely never have a diagnosis for K and that is frustrating but at least we are now focused on a treatment plan. Keep your fingers crossed that it works and that she doesn't have any ill side effects! Please say some extra prayers for my girl that her days of fighting that nasty monster in her pretty little head are over!

Happy Birthday K!..

2008-06-29T11:02:00.005-05:00

Today is K's birthday. Hard to believe my precious itty bitty baby girl is SEVEN already! We have a busy day planned with lot's of fun stuff so I don't have time to compose a full post right now. She's having a few friends sleep over tonight so while they are busy being silly seven year olds, I'll post again. In the meantime, here is a video montage I put together of her party that she had last week. Click on the link under the picture and enjoy!

K's Camp Rock Party 6/20/08

FFF; Summer Lovin'...

2008-06-26T21:34:00.023-05:00

The theme for this week's Favorite Foto Friday is "Summer Lovin'" so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to post some pictures from our trip to California.

Besides the fun afternoon we spent at the beach with Christina and her girls (you can see a post about that day by clicking here), we were lucky enough to have 2 more glorious days playing by the sea! The first day was with my parents and the second was with our friends.

Beach Day With Nana & Pop-Pops (6/6/08):

This is Torrance Beach which is located at the base of beautiful Palos Verdes Peninsula...
The kids had a blast collecting all kinds of beach treasures like rocks...sand crabs...seaweed...
and mermaid tails (aka more seaweed)...They played for hours in the sand...and Nana even buried them in the sand...For those of you who don't know M personally, this picture is worth a thousand words! She is ALL ABOUT the snacks...Unfortunately for M, this seagull was all about the snacks too. It kept getting closer...and closer...and M was NOT too happy about it...Now this here is what you call a "take it out on prom night" kind of picture...

Beach Day With Friends (6/18/08):
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We hit the beach one more time during our trip. This time with one of my very best friends in the whole world, Sue. Sue's son S is F's best buddy but unfortunately S and L had Football camp this day so they couldn't join us. However, Sue's hubby Ross and their son B did and we all had tons of fun. Of course Sue and I were so busy gabbing that I didn't take very many pictures.
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Here are a few shots of the kids playing in the surf...
Here is Ross giving the kids some pointers...such as how to stand sideways so the waves won't knock you over...Look closely, can you see the fins of the dolphins that were playing just yards away from us....
We love the beach and will miss it...until our next Cali visit!
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For more Summer Lovin' pictures, visit Sarah at Kiss the Frog.

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To view my entire blog, click here.
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NEED. VALIUM. NOW...

2008-06-24T19:22:00.006-05:00

K is going to be seven on Sunday. Seven , not seventeen, okay?
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Today she picked up my People magazine and started flipping through it. A few minutes later I found her longingly gazing at this picture of Mario Lopez....
I snatched the magazine away before she flipped the page to see these pictures (I SWEAR, this was People Magazine, not Playgirl)...

She's not quite SEVEN people! Imagine what she'll be like when she is SEVENTEEN???

For God's sake, somebody get me a VALIUM!!!

New Friends...

2008-06-21T12:17:00.014-05:00

We are back from our fantastic 2 week vacation to California to visit my parents! I have TONS of pictures (over 500)! I started sorting them by day/activity and thought the best way to sort them was to make drafts and then I could select which draft to post first. WRONG! Apparently once you make a draft, blogger automatically sequences them in the order that you created them. So in other words, because I made this draft first, I cannot now make another draft and post it first. Bummer! Lesson learned though! Now I know and I will make sure to create my drafts in the order that I want them to post!

Anyway - this was a really fun day that we had while in California...

This is me and my friend Christina...

Christina has triplet daughters!...

Emily...

Ashley...

and Madeline...

(Did I get that right, Chris???)

I met Christina in blogland!! We met through Sarah who does the FFF themes and both Christina and I found Sarah through Heather's blog. While looking at pictures on Christina's blog one day, it struck me that her neighborhood looked very similar to the one we lived in when we were in California. I looked at her profile and saw that she lives in Southern California. I thought there's no way it could be the same area but I left her a comment and asked if she lives in Torrance. She does! Amazing!! Not only that but we also lived in another city (Lomita) at the same time back in the mid 90's and only lived a few blocks away from each other! What a small world!

When we planned our trip to Cali, I emailed Christina and let her know we'd be there. We agreed to meet up at the beach and it was SO MUCH FUN!!! The kids hit it off right away! We took a walk over to the beach playground...

Christina on "swing duty"...

M and Ashley (don't they look like they've known each other their whole lives!?!)...

M and Emily...

(from L to R) Ashley, Madeline, M, and K...

my 3 monkeys...

The whole gang (L to R) F in the back and then K, Ashley, Madeline,Emily, and M...

After playing at the park, we had some wet and wild time in the surf...
It was hard to say goodbye to our new friends but I feel so lucky to have found them in blogland and to know I'll be able to keep up with Christina and her beautiful kiddos through her blog!

Thanks for a FUN day Christina, Ashley, Emily, and Madeline!

FFF; Bloopers...

2008-06-14T20:26:00.004-05:00

The theme for this week's Favorite Foto Friday is "Bloopers". We are still on vacation and I am still unable to download any of my pictures from our trip or access any that I have saved on my computer. So, I decided to tell you about a MAJOR blooper moment and add pics from the internet. Here goes...

What's at Disneyland?

Of course there are these...

and this...

and lot's of these...

and there are even these...

for the special times when a certain 4 year old who looks just like this...

gets her head stuck in one of these...

Yes, that's right! Standing in line for a ride M thought it would be a great idea to shove her head through the bars of a gate. I looked down and there she was struggling to get her head out of the precarious place she had stuck it (no, I did not take a picture...I was afraid it would spoil my chances of winning mother of the year). I do have to clarify though that we did NOT have to call the paramedics because we were able to turn her body sideways and slide her through the gate and then lift her back over but there were a few very stressful moments prior to getting her unstuck. Funny thing is that just moments before getting in line for that ride, we passed a couple of paramedics who were walking through the park and I thought to myself "With any luck, we'll get through this vacation without having to call in those special people but it sure is good to know they are here if we need them."

The best part of the whole experience...she did it AGAIN about an hour later!!!

How do you spell Disneyland? I spell it S.T.R.E.S.S!!!!

FFF; Messy Spaces &/or Disorderly Conduct...

2008-06-06T19:40:00.005-05:00

Happy Friday! The theme for this week's Favorite Foto Friday is Disorderly Conduct &/or Messy Spaces. This was a hard one for me. I have perfect children who NEVER behave in a disorderly manner. And they NEVER make a mess. And I my friends, live in a delusional state.

MESSY SPACES:

My kids have mastered the art of making messes. I have plenty of pictures that would have been appropriate for this post but unfortunately I do not have access to any of my saved photo files. We are on vacation right now and I am borrowing my parents' computer. I even have several pictures on my camera that would have worked but I can't seem to download them to this computer. So, I went back in my blog archives and found one picture of the girls in their playroom. It looked like a tornado had touched down in there!...

DISORDERLY CONDUCT:

Yesterday we flew to California. By the time we got there, I was ready to lock myself in a dark room with padded walls! About half way through the flight M looks at me and loudly announces:

(M) "Mommy, they have to stop the plane now."

(Me) "No, they can't stop the plane."

(M) "Yep, they have to cuz I'm gettin' off. I'm bored."

(Me) "No M, they don't just stop the plane because you're bored. Color, listen to your MP3 player, look at a book, or take a nap."

(M) "Nah. I just wanna get off the plane. Tell the pilot guy to stop the plane."

This went on for several minutes and then she finally fell asleep. Not long after that, K wakes up from a nap and yells:

(K) "I'm bleeeeeeding!!"

(Me) "What???"

She points to her mouth and shows me that her very loose tooth had begun to bleed. I handed her a tissue and as soon as she saw the blood she started sobbing. I mean SOBBING. I thought M had been loud when she announced that she wanted off the plane. K put her to shame:

(K) "Oh my GOSH! Look at the blood! I can't stand it. I can't stand it. I CAN'T STAND IT!!!"

(Me) "You'll be fine. Why don't we just pull the tooth out?"

(K) "NO! Oh, what are we going to do? This is so bad. So, so, BAAAAAD!"

she's not at all dramatic, is she???

(K) "Mommy, help me. I'm telling you how bad this and you're not helping me."

(Me) "Well K, I don't really know what you want me to do. We can either pull the tooth out or we can get some ice and hold it on there."

(K) "Okay. Let's try the ice."

I asked the flight attendant for a cup of ice and K finally quieted down. For about 5 minutes. And then:

(K) "Oh NOOOOOOOOO!!! It's bleeding again! That's it. I'm never going on an airplane again. EVER."

(Me) "How are you going to get home then?"

(K) "I don't know. This is just so bad. So, so bad!"

She cried for the rest of the flight. Sometimes silently, sometimes not so much. We eventually landed. M was happy to get off the plane and K forgot about her tooth. About an hour after arriving at my parents house, the tooth fell out. Hopefully some of the drama departed with it!

Hmmm...can that all be considered "Disorderly Conduct"??? I'm sure our fellow passengers would give a resounding "YES" to that question!

I'll add pictures of the kids on the plane and of K's missing tooth when I figure out how to get them off of my camera and onto this computer.

We'll be on vacation for 2 weeks so keep checking back for some fun vacation posts!

College Boy & The Text Message...

2008-06-01T07:53:00.006-05:00

I am not very technically advanced. I can navigate my way around the computer world pretty well but when it comes to cell phones, I'm an idiot. I pretty much know how to answer it when it rings. Text messaging? Uhhh...yeah, no. It could take me like a year to type in

"Where R U?"

However, a few months ago I did figure out how to view a text message when I receive one. I probably never would have even tried to figure that out but I kept receiving messages from someone and I was curious to see who it was. Once I figured it all out, I realized that the person sending me these messages must have had the wrong number because it was from an area code I didn't recognize and the messages didn't make much sense to me. Albeit they were definitely written in English, reading them was like trying to read something written in a foreign language. I mentioned it to the girls at work and one of them told me that the area code was that of our college town. Ah-ha! The one-sided foreign language conversations were coming from a college kid. Now I understand why I didn't understand. I would be considered OLD to college kids thus I couldn't possibly understand their lingo! I wasn't getting texted (is that a word in college town?) very often so I decided to just ignore them. Until Friday night. I was sitting at my computer when my cell phone made that very pleasant little chiming sound indicating that someone (most likely the college student) was texting me. I opened up my phone and this is what I read:

"Sweet Titties! Tell me you're at the City Market!"

Okay, so as I suspected, my text buddy is a guy! We'll call him "College Boy". I decided to text him back. It took me 4 hours to type in:

"wrong number dude quit texting me" (I threw in the "dude" part to make myself look cool, and please take note that I couldn't figure out how to capitalize or punctuate)

Well, College Boy is much faster with the phone than I am and he immediately replied:

"Sweet Titties, I will. Sweet Titties, the good Dr. Quinn is a medicine woman!" (he even PUNCTUATES)

WHAT???? Does someone out there in Blogland want to decipher this for me? I guess it doesn't really matter because all I really want to know is...

Does College Boy's mother (ya know, the one who is probably paying his tuition) know that he is texting an almost 40 year old woman about her tatas? NO, probably NOT!

And further more, how does HE know if I have Sweet Titties? I did once upon a time. Now they just resemble tube socks with oranges in the bottom.

Don't tell anybody, but I'm actually jealous of College Boy. I once was a college kid too! Now I just have saggy boobs.

FFF; "Pajama Party"...

2008-05-29T19:11:00.007-05:00

The Favorite Foto Friday theme for this week is "Pajama Party". I had no trouble figuring out which pictures I would post for this week! When K turned 5, she wanted to have a slumber party but most of the girls had yet to actually sleep at someone else's house so we agreed on an "almost sleepover party". We had such fun! I made custom invitations that read...

K's turning 5 and wants to celebrate with you!

Bring your sleeping bag and pillow and wear your PJ's too.

Don't forget to bring your favorite stuffed friend.

Then head on over to our house for a sleepover that's...

PRETEND!

After all of the girls arrived, they had pizza, did a craft, and had manicures and facials...

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They danced and played...

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Then they got into their sleeping bags for a story...

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After they ate some cupcakes, K opened her presents!

The best part of a birthday party is the goody bag and the best part of sleeping over at a friend's house is having breakfast in the morning so I decided to make the girls "Goody Night Bags" and "Goody Morning Bags"! Each girl received a "Goody Night Bag" containing:

a toothbrush
toothpaste
a book
a miniature teddy bear

and they each received a "Goody Morning Bag" containing:

a poptart
a juice box
a plate
a napkin

They had a blast at the "Sleepover" and the best part...they all went HOME at 8:30 that night!!!

For more FFF Pajama Party posts, go see Sarah by clicking HERE.

School's out for SUMMER!...

2008-05-29T17:27:00.003-05:00

Today was F's last day of 4th grade! He is officially a 5th grader now which I absolutely CANNOT believe!! I remember going to Kindergarten Roundup when he was just 5 years old and asking the teacher "Will there be someone in the cafeteria who helps the kids get their lunches? I'm worried that he'll get all the junk like pudding and none of the good stuff." Yes, I actually said that! Well for the past 5 years, he's gotten all of the good stuff and only a little bit of junk! The junk that I am referring to is the wee bit of teenage attitude that I've been seeing over the past few weeks. For example this morning he about DIED when he saw my camera in my purse when I was taking him to school.

F: "What's the camera for?"

Me: "So I can take pictures of you on your last day of 4th grade."

F: "MOM!! That is so DORKY."

Me: "Oh come on. I just want a couple of pictures."

F: (heavy sigh) "You're not taking any pictures."

Well, of course I did take pictures and as seen in the 1st photo below, he wasn't too happy about it! Thankfully he smiled for the picture with his teacher though...

This past year was really a growing year for F. He is SO smart but he doesn't really like school and he does just what he needs to do to get by. This year, though, he really applied himself and his grades showed it! Here he is showing off his EXCELLENT report card...

Way to go Buddy! We are so very proud of you! Get ready for a FUN summer!

Graduation Day...

2008-05-28T17:30:00.010-05:00

Today K graduated from Kindergarten. She is all ready for 1st grade but sad to be leaving her really, really, REALLY wonderful teacher, Mrs. G. This past year saw a lot of changes for K. She is reading with incredible accuracy, she is adding and subtracting, she did some amazing art work which ended up going to the District Art exhibit, and she has learned so much in every other subject as well.

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Here are a couple of pictures of K's art work that went to exhibit...

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For graduation day, Mrs. G. had each child create a hat representing what they would be doing over the summer break. K's hat showed all of the fun places we plan to visit on our trip to California to see my parents.

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Here she is modeling her hat the night she made it......

The kids ended their Kinder year with a "Hats Off To Summer Parade"......

Not only did K do very well academically this year, she also made some really great friendships! She has some amazing BFF's!!!... ...

Watch out world! K is on her way and she's takin' it by storm!!

K ~ Mama is SO proud of you!!!

Rah...Rah...Shish Boom Bah!

2008-05-27T15:55:00.007-05:00

The girls have been taking cheer/dance class for the past 3 years and have cheered at many different venues (festivals, parades, etc). The performance they most look forward to though is when they get to cheer at a Minor League Baseball game. The stadium is quite large, there are lots of people, and it's just plain exciting! The first year they cheered, M went out on the field with her binky in her mouth! Unfortunately I can't find any pictures of that but trust me, it happened and it was FUNNY!

This past Saturday was the day they'd been waiting for. Severe thunderstorms were in the forecast but the skies cleared and it turned out to be a glorious evening just perfect for a baseball game. Here are some pictures of the evening...

Lining up to enter the field...

Getting ready to start...

I just love this picture! They are too cute!...

Look at those smiles! They've got it goin' on!!!...

The cheering was fun, but the cotton candy; that was SAH-WEET man!...

We invited a bunch of friends to join us at the game. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures of our little gang and the ones I did get came out blurry because the setting on my camera was off. We all had a lot of fun though!...

Our team won and a spectacular fireworks show was the perfect ending to a perfect evening!...

FFF; Only One...

2008-05-16T23:40:00.005-05:00

I'm posting this early because I have had a heck of a week and I'm exhausted so I'm hitting the hay early tonight.

Well the theme for this week's Favorite Foto Friday is "Only One". We are supposed to pick ONLY ONE picture to post this week. It should be our favorite picture of the week. If you have been following my blog for any amount of time, you know that I NEVER post just one picture for FFF. With 3 kids, it's too hard to choose just one picture. I thought I'd have a really hard time with this theme but then M appeared. In this outfit. Her own creation. Creativity she does not lack.

So here it is folks, ONLY ONE of my favorite pictures of the week...

If you would like to see more FFF posts with ONLY ONE picture on them (LOL), go see Sarah by clicking here.

Ahhh, Mi Bella Italiano!...

2008-05-13T23:53:00.004-05:00

Us moms all have our little phrases, that we repeat, right? Mine are as follows:

Phrase #1: "What?" I use this word most commonly in conversing with my children. It usually goes something like this:

"Mom?"
"What?"
"Guess what..."
"What?"
"I saw something cool on TV."
"What?"
"It was a doll and guess what..."
"What?"
"It drinks water and it pees and guess what it pees..."
"What?"
"The water. And ya know what K said..."
"What?"
"She said she doesn't like that doll cuz there's a better doll that she likes and guess what that doll does..."
"What?"
"It cries and it says words. Ya know what it says?"
"What?"
"Mom."
"What?"
"No, that's what the doll says... it says Mom"
"Oh. "

Yes, it's true...I say "What?" A LOT! Amazing how you can have a conversation with someone and only use 2 words "What?" and "Oh."

Phrase #2: "Stop!" Here is just a sampling of how I use this word throughout the day:

"Stop throwing the ball in the house!"
"Stop screaming"
"Stop running"
"Stop teasing your sister"
"Stop taunting your brother"
"Stop tapping your foot repeatedly"
"Stop leaving your wet towel on the floor"
"Stop chewing with your mouth open"
etc, etc

Phrase #3: "Quit antagonizing each other!" I am notorious for this one! Like they'll EVER actually quit antagonizing each other...dream on mama! Sigh.

Mother's Day was full of all 3 of these phrases as apparently my children were not aware that moms should not have to repeat any such phrases on this blessed holiday. The kids fought all day and were really under each other's skin which got under my skin. By the end of the day, I was worn out! BUT in the mispronunciation of just one word, all was made good again! I laughed so hard, I could no longer be annoyed! Here's what happened...

The kids were in the family room fighting like 3 cats stuck in a bag when M stood up, placed her hands on her hips and in an attempt to use my phrase #3, she yelled out

"QUIT ITALIANIZING ME!!!"

It's official...my German, Irish, Mexican, French baby is now Italian! Viva Italia!!!