So here is how the story goes, Christmas morning we get up, I snap two shots of the kids delightfully discovering Santa's surprises and my camera powers down. I had JUST put fresh batteries in the night before. It has been eating up the batteries like crazy and taking blurry pictures, so while I understand that the camera is almost 6 years old, my wallet isn't ready for a new camera, so...I'll have to think of something fast before hannah's birthday in two weeks!!!
I'll have to beg, borrow and steal some pics from everyone else's camera of our fun christmas morning and day with the family at Rendi's house.

Happy New Year 2009 to everyone!!

I forgot to put up a post of the Gingerbread house. Taylor is so funny, he asks me the other day what traditions we do and I mentioned making the gingerbread house that we were doing that night, and this year he didn't participate. It's really fun to have my own kids and incorporate traditions I have done from my childhood with new ones, like making the gingerbread house and we always let the kids pick out a new christmas ornament and write their name and year on it. When they grow up and move, they can have all those ornaments. We also make cookies every year and I do believe I love it more than they do!

I have worked about 60+ hours this week, a little crazy for me and I will never do it again!! I have hardly seen my kids, my Christmas to-do list is stacking up and my house...well we won't even go there. The GOOD news is I can smack down some money on that new computer I had to buy that I am really enjoying, plus extra money this time of year is handy. But still holding down four jobs at once isn't fun. The good thing is it adds variety! My current "four jobs"-ad set at Kohl's, temp job at collection agency, cook at an assisted living center, graphic design work.
Variety is the spice of life, and I have to keep learning, that is a good thing!

We had a great weekend! We just got the christmas tree decorated and up. Thanksgiving Day we all pitched in and cooked-Hannah and Taylor helped make the pies. I added a photo to show off my pastry leaves.



The kids set the table and we enjoyed our feast and then watched movies for the rest of the night.

I had to work the day after thanksgiving, "Black Friday" for those in retail. It was okay but after nine hours on my feet I was ready to come home! Now we can gear up for Christmas!

'Tis the time of year where coughing, sniffling, sneezing and hacking is about us, especially in this house. Taylor was down for 4-5 days with a fever and sore throat-poor kid sounded like he had been smoking for 20 years. Look at pretty picture below.



So Taylor graciously handed over his germs to Hannah who has all the symptoms, plus a barking cough and waking herself up in the night gagging. Took her to the doctor and the doctor said..yep it's croup and gave her some medicine to keep her airways open.
These are the times I am very GRATEFUL I don't have to work full-time and I can stay home and watch lots of cartoons with my sick little one and push those fluids. Thank goodness my kids sleep a lot when they are sick or I'd be crazy!!


Ahhh..Hannah at her finest-mad at me for taking a picture when she doesn't feel well.

Here's to a healthy rest of the month!!

We are very blessed to have a WONDERFUL music department at Taylor and Hannah's school. They do music programs for each grade every year. So Friday, they had one in honor of Veteran's Day, and Mom and I went to it. The amount of planning and practice that went in to was obviously a lot! It was just the third graders and they did group songs, and then each class got to do a song where they played instruments. Taylor was on the sandpaper as you can see in my blurry pics (time for a new camera). We even got to hear from a WWII veteran who had some great stories to share. My camera was a little funky and the pictures turned out red, so I just made them black and white to save your eyes!

On November 8th, I was honored to have a baby shower for my dear friend Heather. She is expecting her second-a girl, so we got to pink and purple out. Because her last shower was traditional, I decided to go a little different. I served lunch of chicken alfredo pasta, salad and my Mom made her yummy french bread. We used real plates and cloth napkins and instead of a cake, I decorated cupcakes and rather than those *really fun* baby shower games that EVERYONE knows, I opted for some fun personality tests to see our traits, based on color/design and questionaires. I had a great time and hopefully everyone else did. I also made my first diaper cake (the ribbon is slipping in the picture).