Happy New Year's Eve!

Hope everyone has a fun and safe time. We're staying in - Paul has strep. He's doing much better after 24 hours on the antibiotics, but still not venturing out. We had invited some friends over but now their kids are sick too :-(

Sitting here reflecting on this past year. Didn't get a ton accomplished this year, but I did manage to bring a beautiful baby girl into the world that is our pride and joy. I didn't manage to get my house spotless, but we sure had fun making it a mess! I didn't get to go on lots of hot dates with the hubby, but we had lots of great evenings here at home. Even if I didn't get things accomplishes, at least I have a lot of memories of all the wonderful times my family has had. I can't ask for much more than that!

As far as the year in the future, I have high hopes for accomplishment this year. I plan to play with my kids more and enjoy the little things. I plan on getting to know friends better and being a better friend. I look forward to things like our potential trip to NY in July, possibly returning to Disney next fall, and getting my bedroom back by Anna moving out and into the girls room. Yes, she's still in our room. She never wakes up, it's mainly for my peace of mind. Besides, who wouldn't want to wake up to hearing a little sweet baby giggling at you!

Hope everyone has a blessed new year!

Nothing!

Absolutely NOTHING! That is what I'm doing right now. Finally! The tree is down, kids are all asleep for naptime, dinner is pulled out and ready to cook, house is clean, laundry and dishes are done. There is nothing to do. This feels sooooo good.

I had a nice holiday season this year. Had my business closed since we took our trip in November. It's been so nice actually getting to do things this year like making lots of cookies, making all kinds of Christmas projects, etc. Definately not as stressed as I usually am.

Christmas Day Evening we went over to our friends house for dessert and had a nice time being lazy with them and letting the kids play. Here's a quick pic I took of Anna before we headed a mile down the road to their house:

Now I'm just enjoying being lazy for the day. Next on the agenda is getting a few more organizers for the kids rooms and then starting to tag everything for the consignment sale!

Christmas 09

It's over. Come and gone so fast. It was an okay day - definately better ones in the past. Stayed up until 3 am finishing gifts and wrapping presents. Had a nice time with my family over. Had a ton of extra food since Chris' family didn't show up. The kids had fun with their cousins though. Here are some pics:

Paul's snake - I even found minature maracas to put in the tail to make it rattle!

Gracie's teaset. Didn't get everything finished that I wanted to.

Paul's fishing game. Again - didn't get all the fish made that I wanted to.

Our Tree

Gracie opening her one "store bought" gift. Actually, ebay bought. Got the groovy girl dolls and horse MUCH cheaper gently used than what it would have cost to just buy the horse new.

Anna opening a present

Anna decked out for Christmas

My SIL and nephews

Paul and his new beanbag chair from Great Grandma

Our three

The 5 cousins. I'm so mad that my camera blurred the kids in the 2nd row :-(

Family pic

Family pic of my brother's family

The kids had a blast - got lots of nice things from their aunt and uncle, grandma, and great grandparents.

Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas Dinner With the Hubby's Fam

Hubby's Grandmother came down from NY this past weekend. Always a joy to see her. We had everyone up on Sunday for an early Christmas dinner complete with a honey baked ham and all the trimings. Yum!

Here is Anna with her great grandmother. Anna's middle name, Eileen, is this Grandmother's middle name too and from what I understand it's a middle name going back several generations. We were honored to give it to Anna as well to keep the tradition.

Here's hubby, his grandma, 3 of his 4 siblings, his dad, and our 3 kids. 4 generations!

Cookie Cousins

We had the cousins over on Thursday last week for cookie decorating!

I LOVE this baby!

Can I just say again how much I LOVE this baby? I love her laugh! I love her chubby rolls! I love her hugs! She's such a dream! So incredibly snuggly! And you can just look at her and she'll give you a huge smile and a belly-busting giggle! I'm so glad we had a third! Here are a few pics of our 5 month old princess

Holiday Greetings!

Got this from my hubby's grandmother and loved it!

To All My Democratic Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed,
color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.

To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2010.

Future

Okay - I'm totally going to put myself out there today. Hubby and I have been talking a great deal about the future for us. The way it seems, and as hard as it will be, most likely we will just have one more kid. Personally, I am not comfortable with having more than 3 csections, so if the next one is another csection, that will be it. It really kills me to think about being done having kids. I see larger families and just admire them and want to have more. But, realistically, I don't believe I want more than 3 csections. It too risky after that in my opinion. I know there are plenty of women that have had multiple csections and are fine, but I personally know a couple that have almost died or had horrible complications after more than 3. Being so young and knowing I only may have 1 more baby just really has been bothering me. I know we can and probably will adopt or foster, but there something different about having your own.

Another thing that I've been thinking about it when the kids get a little bit older, I may go back to work. No, not full time work or anything. I've got such a passion for trying to help women not end up in my shoes of traumatic births that hubby and I were talking last night of maybe me becoming a doula. I have an online friend who went through training and such and I really think that would be something I'm interested in. It wouldn't be full time at all, just an occasional thing. For those of you that might not know what a doula is, a doula is someone who supports the mom during births. Basically a paid best friend - you are there to give support and help encourage the mom to stay strong and help explain things that the doctors may not fully explain. I can't even describe my passion for trying to prevent the pain that I've been through. This would be the perfect way for me to be able to help others.

Anyways, there it is - my thoughts that have been hanging over my head the past few weeks, for what it's worth.

HELP!!!

Okay - so my husband has never been in an office type setting where they actually exchange christmas gifts and such. Now that he's working at the courthouse, it seems like everyone does. What in the world do you give when you have to give multiple (like 15) gifts???? Obviously something cheap... any ideas of anything cheap but cute? What do you do? I also got to figure out something to give to the Sheriff. EEK!

Homeschooling 2009 Update

Well, as most of you know, we aren't using Christian Light for homeschooling anymore. That was great for last year. This year, not so much. I'm not sure what the switch was, but Gracie just wasn't learning well with it and was starting to really dislike her school work. Obviously, it was time for a change. Since I'd already bought the Christian Light stuff, I really didn't want to fork over more cash for something else. I sold the Christian Light on ebay and then started looking for something else that was cheap.

Since Gracie goes to Masters on Thursday afternoons for fine arts and history, I don't have to worry about those subjects.

I am using this *FREE* website for spelling, creative writing, and other extras. It's called Super Teacher Worksheets. I love this site and I REALLY love that it has great stuff for FREE.

For math, we are now using Math Mammoth. Gracie seems to really enjoy this math and since she's reading very well, she can guide herself through the math work.

Language Arts, we're using Explode the Code, which is an online computer program. It's really neat in the fact that I can login and see where she is struggling or what her strengths are. It's a learning computer game, so of course Gracie loves it.

Other than that, lots of hands on learning. This year is going much more smoothly since we've switched from Christian Light. I'm sure next year, we'll have to find something else that works best. That's the joy of homeschooling - we can pick and choose what works for our children instead of the "one size fits most" that the public school offers.

Before Church....

Here are my cuties before church yesterday:

Om Nom Nom

Anna is now an eating baby! She loved trying new foods. Here's Anna meeting Applesauce for the first time!

One Done!

Presenting one of Anna's presents! I love how it turned out. Far from perfect of course, but great for the first time making it.

My 3 Sweet Elves!

Something I've always wanted to do, but never had the time to, was make the kids Christmas hats. Since I've taken the holidays off, I DID IT!! Enjoy the pics of my little elves!

Gracie and her pet pig, Tinkerbell

Miss Tinkerbell - 6 months old

Sweet Anna Banana

My other kid! Oh... wait... that's the Hubby!

Merry Christmas All!

Homemade Christmas

This year, since we went to Disney, we have decided to try and do a homemade Christmas. This has been rather challenging. I may break down and get them 1 thing from the store, but everything else has to be handmade. I think I've finally figured out what I'm making. Chris is going to attempt at making wooden blocks and possibly a puppet theatre. Some long nights await me, but at least it will be for my precious kiddos instead of someone elses.

For Gracie, I'm looking at crocheting her a tea set and making these cupcakes. I think she'll be very surprised.

For Paul, I'm still undecided. I found a cool pattern for a crocheted snake. He'd like that. I'm also thinking about making this fish game.

Anna will be easy peasy - look how incredibly awesome this toy is!!!

As far as hubby... I'll be enough of a present! HAHA!

Spoke Too Soon!

Obviously, I spoke too soon. Gracie spiked a 102 yesterday afternoon and coughed all night. Definately a turn for the worse. I spoke to her pediatrician, who advised me to give her tylenol and watch her closely. This AM, she seemed better (no fever), but something just said to take her to the doctor. So I did. And she has pneumonia! There is so sort of mucas or something in her lung that was causing her to spike the fever from the pneumonia. I'm still confused about everything the doctor was explaining to me. But, she's on Zithromax for a couple days and then she should be fine. He went ahead and checked Paul - he was fine. And Anna's lungs sounded clear as well. So that's great news. Anyways, we'd appreciate a couple extra prayers, but I have confidence that G will be fine :-)

Lots of excitings this coming weekend and week. Chickfila kids club on Saturday, Sunday, the kids babysitter, our pet sitter, and friend, is turning 16 so we're going to her party. Can't believe it!

Thursday of next week I hope to have my 2 nephews over and decorate cookies, then Friday we're going to be going to a play that my sister n laws and father n law are in - The Christmas Carol. And Hubby's Grandma will be down from NY! Woo hoo! Lots of fun times coming! This is my favorite time of the year!

Praises

Many praises to God, for my family pulling through the flu. Some of you knew we were sick. We weren't just sick, we were SICK. Full fledged flu. We have been house bound since Tuesday of last week. Can you imagine being stuck completely indoors for a week with my kids???? Yikes. We managed to not kill each other, but barely! Not to mention what a disaster it becomes with Mommy gets sick. I highly do not recommend getting sick if you have 3 kids that are also sick.

We never went to the doctor to get tested, but due to the symptoms and such, I would not be surprised if it was the H1N1. We still aren't back to our full strengths, but getting pretty close. Chris never got sick, but the rest of the family did.

Whew... hope this is officially behind us!

Supermom?

I have had quite a few chuckles recently. A few friends that I haven't seen in a while made the comment that I "must be supermom" since I take care of 3 kids, homeschool, maintain a house, spoil my husband, and run my own business. Supermom! Me? You've got to be kidding.

Frankly, I KNOW I'm not supermom. I'm simply a mom trying my hardest. I try to model my life after the Proverbs 31 woman. Of course there are times I fail. Like right now. I'm sitting looking at a huge pile of clean laundry, needing to be folded and put away. I break down just like everybody else and have moments when I lose my mind.

I have too many flaws to name. I'm very opinionated and am very passionate about my opinions. It's a blessing and a curse, but it's me. It's one of the things my husband loves about me.

This made me think.... if THESE people think little ole me is Supermom, who do I think is supermom? 2 people come to mind that I admire as being Supermoms. I'm sure if I told them that, they'd have the same response I did. They'd probably laugh at me! It's intriguing as a mother, who we choose to put on a pedestol, but in real life, we're all equals. We're all moms doing our best. We're all Supermoms.

From Gracie

Gracie wanted me to post this.... so... here ya go!

Look Who's Sitting!

Yes, my little darling is becoming a big girl!

Drama!

Here's my poor baby - she's sick today! But she still looks so darn cute!