Meter-O-Love

I'll admit it. I didn't send a bunch of Christmas cards out this year. I just didn't feel like it and I didn't feel like spending the money on stamps. I didn't do a Christmas picture of us either for the same reasons - except the stamp thing. I would say that it isn't because I wasn't in the spirit of Christmas or was being a scrooge. I wanted to focus my energy's on things that I thought were more important -and at this point in my life, I am finding myself embracing those moments when I have nothing to do and doing just that.

But as the Christmas cards started coming in from friends and family, I started to feel a little guilty that those that had thought of us were going to be ignored by us this holiday season. So, I pulled out some Christmas cards I had stashed away and started filling them out. I sent to those who had sent to us. I also added on a few that I wanted to know that we were thinking about them. I always place my cards on the door to our study. I guess you could say I use it as a meter of how many people are thinking about us and care about us.

What do you think, are we loved enough?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

. . . Til the Cows Come Home

Oh, what a night.

It would have to go under one of the best birthday celebrations yet. We enjoyed great company, great shopping, fabulous food and lots and lots of laughs. Every so often, having one of these nights is food for the soul!

Happy Birthday Kim! I hope you had a great night!

Roasted

Oh my goodness, that hurts so bad. I can't believe I was so stupid. I think I'm going to need some ice. I don't think I'm going to be able to wear shoes, maybe flip flops, but no shoes.

A few days pass.

It still hurts. And it looks worse. Nice shades of purple and yellow. Maybe it's broken, someone says. Huh, I think to myself, maybe it is.

The next day.

The doctor declares, after an x-ray, that it's not broken. Relief passes over me.

3 weeks pass

Still hurts. Still hurts to wear shoes. Hurts when I bang it on anything. No purple colors anymore. The yellow is all gone. But it still hurts.

You ask what I did? You are not going to believe it. Like I said, it sounds so stupid.

I dropped a frozen roast on it.

See, I said it was stupid.

Stuffed

Another piece of ham? How about some turkey? Can I have the skin? Are those brussel sprouts done? Did anyone make pearl onions - those are my favorite? Is there salsa sour cream in the potatoes? Where are the children? Is it time to eat? Who set the table? I don't have a fork. Is it time to eat? Boys, settle down. Can I have some skin? Don't snitch that. Is the turkey cut? Can you get a fork for the ham? Where's mom? Is it time to eat? Where's mom? Who's snoring? Is it granny? Where are the girls? Who went outside? Can you close the window, I'm cold! It's too hot in here. Where's mom?

What can I say, it's Thanksgiving Day at my house!!

2 Pirates & A Princess

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Nothin' Like the First Time

They came, they fought, they conquered. What a way to start a gymnastics meet season by winning first place as a team. I really don't need to post much. The pictures show it all. Olivia scored a 9.5 on vault and won second place for her age division. She scored high enough on floor exercise to also earn a second place medal. Her other events, bars and beam, she scored well enough to medal.Her all-around score (which is taken by adding up all 4 events) was high enough to put her in second place. Check out the standings for the Tricks & Treats Invitational. Her scores would be at Level 4, ages 8 and up. Her gym is the Lehigh Valley SA (Sports Academy).

Bar Routine

Waiting to Salute the Judges

Team Spirit

Trade Off

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday my sweet Princess,

Happy Birthday to you!

It was brought to my attention by my now 8 year old daughter that she didn't think she needed a carseat anymore. The law in Pennsylvania is 8 years OR 80 pounds. Well, my daughter will probably be 80 pounds when she is 15! So, we compromised and I let her take the back off of her carseat and put it away to only be used on long trips (so she can rest her delicate head and sleep if she desires).

My kids are growing up. I miss having a baby around the house and a toddler to care for every day. I've traded all the dependence of babies and toddlers for independent school age kids. When I was growing up and dreaming about being a mom and having babies, I always imagined them as babies and toddlers. I would never imagine what life would be like once they were out of that stage. I guess I was afraid of what they would become or even that once they passed that toddler stage that life would be boring and uneventful. But just as much as I loved watching them learn to discover things in those first few years of life, I find this stage more meaningful as I can share and teach them based on my own experiences as a child. I can correct the things that were done to me as a child or the places that I thought my parents lacked in. I love relating to my kids at this level to say to them, 'yeah, my mom did that to me too!', or 'don't worry, I was the same way when I was little.' And just as much as I loved the look in my baby's eyes when they learned to roll over or walk, I love the look in my kids eyes when they realize they each have little traits of their parents.

My message to mom's of babies and toddlers - enjoy where you are today because soon, in the blink of an eye it seems, they will be school aged and have a whole new bag or worries and excitements! Enjoy being a mom!

Pinata Time

Birthday Gifts
The Birthday Girls in Their Tea Hats

I Wouldn't Dare Me

We recently had a huge party for my Granny's 90th birthday. Lots of family came in and we got to spend time with cousin Lexi and the IL cousins. It was a very elegant shindig. My Granny invited 150 people or so and most of them showed up. I was in charge of making the cake for the party so I needed to go with something big to accommodate all those people. I chose a 3 tiered number with picture rings between each tier and a flowing fountain under the tiers. The cake table included lots of pictures of my Granny's life that all the family brought in. The fountain was surrounded by fresh flowers and the topper for the cake was a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. On each tier of the cake was written words that embodied who my Granny is. My sisters and I sat down before the party began and came up with words that we thought really described Granny. I knew that this was going to be part of the cake decorating way before the big day arrived. I spoke to my mom and sisters weeks before and asked them to start thinking about words that I might use on the cake. My sisters and I definitely all agreed on one certain word that we felt summed up Granny. My mother most whole heartedly disagreed with this word. I don't know, maybe she thought it was crass or something but for those grandchildren and great-grandchildren who know her, they know that this is a word she uses often.

So when the day came and we sisters were all sitting around discussing the words to put on the cake, this forbidden word came up again. Just about that time, my mother passed by us. We all looked at her, my sisters sitting in various places, me sitting at the table, cake in one hand, icing in the other and she just gave us that look that said, "Don't you dare!" We all knew full well what she was talking about. She didn't want that word ANYWHERE on the cake. Not only had she scolded me verbally weeks before about this word, here she was scolding me with her looks.

Well, I just have to tell you, those looks just didn't stop me. I did it anyway. That word made it's way onto the cake, despite mom's scolding and disapproval. I guess the greatest thing is, nobody knew but us.

Hint: The 'bad' word isn't 'sincere'. And only those that know us understand the significance of the 'bad' word.

Happy 6th Birthday to Foo

Seriously postdated

Happy Birthday to Foo

Happy Birthday to Foo

Happy Birthday dear my Fiddley Foo

Happy Birthday to you!!!

Breakfast in Bed (with her rubber Llama)

Her Party

My table exploding with tulle ballet skirts

The girls are adding sequins and flowers to them

Bouncy Bounce

It just so happened to be the day to start putting our summer away and start thinking about fall. My project for the afternoon was to deflate the kids little blow up pool that has the blow up slide going into it. I did my part and deflated the pool and asked the kids to help deflate the slide part. Well, they did this instead.

Back 2 School

It's that time again. My children are chomping at the bit to get back to school. What is wrong with them?? Don't they realize that is a 5 day a week ritual of getting up at 7:30 a.m., getting dressed, making their beds, getting to the breakfast table and actually FINISHING their breakfast (Gabi) before school starts and then having their butts in their seats by 8:30 a.m. Don't they realize that mommy has to have her butt out of bed before them and have herself dressed and ready and maybe, just maybe enjoy a little peace and quiet before awakening the chaos for the day.

I guess these things just don't cross their mind. They are eager to learn and I don't want to squash that desire in them. We had a fabulous year last year with minimal speed bumps. I am holding my breath and hoping we are blessed with the same kind of smoothness.

So, without much further ado, here are the kids on their first day of school.

Jake - 5th Grade

Olivia - 3rd Grade

Gabrielle - 1st Grade

MNO

Beep

I'm sorry but Jenn is not home right now. Didn't you know, it's MNO. Oh, you don't know what that is. That's meetup.com speak for Mom's Night Out.

Where did she go?

driving

experiencing the 'other' side of going to a bar

drinking

screaming

laughing

lounging on the comfy brown couch with her feet propped up wishing the guy with the "stop staring at me and picturing me naked" t-shirt would bring another round of shots

sharing how we met our husbands

singing at the top of her lungs

watching her very good friends dance and try to get her on the dance floor

being a back seat passenger in the back of a convertible with the top down

rising to her knees in that convertible and reaching her hands to the sky exposing that adorable navel ring to the world and yelling at the top of her lungs every time a fellow car drove by

Funny how reality can bite you in the butt sometime. It's just better to accept it and move on. To many times people cry wolf and don't realize that someday, maybe someday, you might push the people you love so far away that they never come back.

will I regret this in the morning

oh yeah, it's already morning

i don't think so

Blast From the Past

Anybody know who this is??

It's the same boy wrapped in my arms in this picture.

And if I could find my older photo albums, that boy would be a baby that I'm holding in my arms. I've known this kid since he was in his momma's tummy. He's now graduated from high school and onto bigger and brighter things.

Sometimes certain things come along that just put everything into perspective.

BTW - the time stamp on this post is correct.

Don't Do It

I said I wasn't going to do it. I guess on one level I said that because I felt it wasn't necessary. But as the day has drawn closer and the hands of time have moved forward faster, I just can't seem to help myself. I could even add that it was prompted by my son. And now that I think about it, I was planning on letting it go until he said something. I blame the boy.

He came up to me several weeks ago and said, "Mommy (my 10 year old still calls me mommy), what are we doing for our 2 year anniversary? Can we go out to dinner like we did last year?"

If you don't remember my posts last year at this time, it might interest you to read into the archives of August 2006 and if you really want to torture yourself with more reading, go to the archives from August 2005. Last year I posted every day of the anniversary of our move and titled them "Reflections". Really, I intended on letting this go but as these days have now come upon me, I find myself drawing on my past. Not to relive it because that is really painful but I think just to sort of test myself. My sister and I have this ritual when we deal with something painful. If it hurts to much, we take the issue and mentally envision putting it in a box, taping it up and storing it in the closets of our mind. Then, every once and a while, we envision taking that box down from the shelf, opening it up and seeing if it still hurts. If it does, we tape it up and put it back. We've had so much hurt to deal with in our lives, that we have put lots of boxes in that closet. I'm not saying that we don't take the time to deal with issues, that can be destructive and lead to years of bitterness, I'm saying that sometimes it hurts so much that we can't deal with it at present. And that's were I find myself with this issue.

Reliving all the pain and anguish of that time still hurts to much. I'm keeping that taped up in its box. What I want to focus on this year, as we have now lived in the great state of PencilTuckey for 2 years, is what I have gained and even lost because of this move. It's almost like there was a big trade off moving here. When we were in OH, we had no family around and no family to consider in our day to day lives. We also, after 10 years of being there, found ourselves with a small circle of friends that we interacted with mostly on a monthly basis. Our trade - here we have family all around us and constantly have to consider family in our day to day lives but we have a very diverse circle of friends who we interact with on a daily/weekly basis. We are busier here because of the friends we have made and the fact that we jumped feet first into an array of activities for ourselves and our kids. EXAMPLE-Olivia's social calendar this past weekend. Friday she had gym from 9-12. After gym she begged me to have one of her teammates over to play. We weren't doing anything so I agreed that she could come over. Come evening time I told them that we needed to decide whether her friend wanted to spend the nite or wanted me to take her home. She decided she wanted to stay, which was fine with both parental units. Come bedtime, the little girl got upset and wanted to come home. After speaking to her mom, we both decided that that would be best. We made arrangements to meet halfway. I took Olivia with me and when we met the girls mom, the mom asked Olivia if she wanted to stay over at her house. Olivia was dressed in a robe, pj's and flip flops and asked me if I could just go home to get her Princy doll and her blanket so she could sleep over. I told her it was way to late, 11pm by then, and that she could either come home or go to her friends house without it. She decided to go anyway. Well, I didn't see my daughter until Sunday morning. She not only stayed over Friday but Saturday too. She would have stayed most of the day Sunday if it weren't for the fact that her social calendar was already full for Sunday afternoon because she had another gym friend coming over after church to spend the nite. Come Monday, my little social butterfly was certainly exhausted. That kind of stuff just never happened in Cleveland. The kids had never been to a friends house to sleep over, there were never friends knocking on our door to play, we rarely had friends calling for the kids to play at their house and we never had neighbor kids and all the issues that entails.

And it's just not the kids, it's me too. I have more friends that I would not have a problem calling in the middle of the nite than I did in OH. In fact, I can only think of one person I would have felt comfortable bothering in an emergency and that person was still kind of iffy because of how far away she lived from us. But here, oh my, I could name a handful right off the top of my head. That also includes the hubby's uncle who has become a big part of our lives. I have so many friends from different parts of my world. There are those that we have met through Jake's sports. There are those that I have met through my work. There are those that I have met through Olivia's gymnastics. There are those that I have met and continue to meet through the kids homeschool group. Now that we have switched churches, that's another group of people that I really want to know. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I locked myself in a room and never went out when I was in OH. We were just as involved and our kids were just as involved. But here it's something different. Almost like a blessing for following our irrational calling to pick up from a place we had called home for 10 years and move to a place we never wanted to be. I'm glad to be at the place in my life that I am at. It's hard to believe that it has been two years since we started this new chapter in our lives. It seems like yesterday and when I take that box down from the shelf it feels like it was yesterday. Yep, still hurts, tape it up and put it back. But I must say that the pain is different. The pain is only a memory of what it felt like to be ripped from all I knew and thrown into a place I didn't want to be. To have the feeling of being disconnected from everything and not belonging anywhere. I don't feel that way anymore. I can honestly say that I feel connected here and definitely belong in this place. That box in the closet is distant memories of pain not the present place that I am at. Next year, when I take that box out of the closet, I hope I can take those distant painful memories and say, "Yep, that part of my life really hurt. I've moved beyond that now and can now let it go for good." I'm almost at that point now but just not quite.

What She Said

I don't think I could have summed it up better or said it better than my sister. I've wanted to post for weeks and just haven't found the time or the right words to say. I've started so many posts and started with so many angles. Do I really want to divulge my honest opinion of how I felt during CampG? Do I discuss with you the undertones that occured that only certain people picked up on? Should I mention the destructive conversations that went on behind closed doors without my knowledge?

I choose not to.

I choose to just link to my sister Lizzie's blog and have you read her post "Summer Vacation Take 3" to view all the pictures of our week together and to read about all the great things we did. And while you're at it, scroll up a post and listen to Rascall Flatt's song "Stand" while you're reading. You might want to take a minute to read the lyrics as you're listening because they mean alot to our family.

We came together for the 7 cousins to be together, for my mom to have her week being the Camp Director. And despite all the drama that happened beforehand, the three of us survived that week. We tried to put our differences aside, dodged oncoming daggers and came together for our kids.

That's all that matters.

Tooth Fairy Strikes Again

What can I say? I must have the touch.

Alyssa becomes toothless

That's number three for me. Anybody else?? Madelyn, your next!!!

Double Duty

It seemed like a regular day.

Sunday is church. Getting myself and 3 kids up to get there on time is always a chore. But this Sunday I had to get 6 kids up and out - that was a feat. But we made it and all 6 sat as still as church mice during the service. We took up an entire pew and placed adults strategically between the most disruptive children to ensure a peaceful worship service. After church, we got home, ate lunch and everybody just chilled for the afternoon. Before I knew it, dinner time came (pork roast on the grill and fresh corn from a roadside stand)and that was when this ordinary day turned into something special.

My older daughter announced that her tooth was loose. I did a tooth check and sure enough it was pretty loose. After we finished dinner, my sister, my cousin and I went out on the swingset to enjoy the cooling evening. Olivia came up to me to check her tooth out again and my innocent tooth check turned into a tooth removal. POP. Out it went! This is her third but her excitement was still new.

Within a few minutes of spreading the news, my youngest daughter came up to claim that she had a 'wiggly tooth'. My tooth check proved that she did and actually, it was pretty loose. That evening happened to also be a family party for my now 10 year old son. After the cake was served and the presents opened, Gabi announced again that she wanted me to do a tooth check. To my surprise it was much wigglier. Since we were leaving within the hour for a trip to NY, and I already had to play "tooth fairy" to one child while traveling, I was hoping this wiggly tooth would hold off until we got home. But my baby Foo insisted that she wanted her tooth out. I had bought 2 little Tooth Fairy bags at a boutique to hold teeth for the Tooth Fairy and up until this moment had only needed one. So I told Gabi that I had a special bag for her tooth to go in and went downstairs to get it. When I showed it to her she said, "Let's bring it to NY just in case my tooth comes out when I'm there." "No," I said, "the bag only goes with a tooth in it." Well, let me tell you that those were the right words to say to that little girl. She took me into the study, away from all the people in our house, and had me do some really strong pulls on that little tooth. After a few tears, she sucked up the pain and told me to just do it. I obeyed and pulled just enough so it was literally hanging there and she was able to do it herself.

Now my little baby doesn't look like a little baby anymore and my princess is just simply toothless! The sorrows and joys of parenthood.

Little Tooth Hangs On

Little Tooth Lost the Battle

Double Duty

Gabi Pulls out her Little Tooth