Wednesday December 23rd

It might take me a little while to catch up but I want to make sure I start at the beginning. This has been such a wonderful week and holiday. CJ only worked Monday and Tuesday this week and it has been SO nice having him home. He'll have 5 whole days! Wow, I can't even remember the last time that happened. Anyway, Dave and Jan arrived on Tuesday afternoon only to have me warn them that Tanner was throwing up. Yah, yuck. He was better pretty quick though and no one else got it so I guess lucky us.

Wednesday I was minding my own business when Tanner comes in and says "Mom, can I open a present early?" Of course not, we don't do that. "Please if you let me open one I'll let you open one." (Puzzled look on my face) What's going on? "Just come here Mom." So I go out to the living room and there is Dave and CJ and Grace and Tanner with a present for me. Why are you wanting me to open my present early? We don't do that. "Just do it." Hmmm. As I took one swipe of the wrapping paper off tears came streaming down my face. A Canon Rebel XSi. More tears running down my face. CJ says, "I wanted you to have it before we went to the park tonight. I hope you can figure out how to use it before we go." :0) I'm speechless, still bawling my eyes out when I realize that Grace it looking at me mortified because she has no idea why I'm crying. I explain to her "happy tears" and she is better. My sweet girl. I immediately start putting it together and begin to read the instruction manual. Most shots for Christmas are just done on full auto but I did take time on several different occasions to take the same shot on like every setting on the camera just to see what the difference was. I have a lot to learn but I'm excited! I took these shots of the house before we left. For the first shot I think I must need a different lens or I just don't know how to adjust my settings to make it right. I tried it on every setting on my dial and this was the best photo, clearly I'm missing something because....
I really liked this shot from closer in.

We all piled in my truck and went to the park in Granbury just north of the City Hall. It's beautiful this time of year. Well it's beautiful all year long with the river channel running through it, the fountains, trees, bridges and walk paths. Each year at Christmas they wrap every tree and every handrail in the park and put out TONS of christmas lights, figurines, and such. We love to go and take pictures there.

So, from our house to yours we hope you have a safe and wonderful holiday. There will be Christmas Eve and Christmas day pictures coming soon!

Hi Dad and Angel, it's me Staci.

I can't believe it's been almost 3 month since I last blogged. I've had a lot to say just not enough time to say it. I must be better. So sorry.
Well, this past weekend I had a "Christmas Card Completion Day" with friends and it was so much fun! I may have to make it an annual event. I put together a Stampin' Up! kit to make 30 cards for some and others just brought their own stuff and their ideas and created away. We talked and ate and laughed and ate, haha. Thanks to everyone for making it such a wonderful day.
Sunday was a lazy day for CJ and I and we deserved it! Relaxed, watched football, played games with the kids. After they went to bed we got all the presents that I have purchased so far down so we could make a mental inventory of what we still need and I believe that we're done. Except for stocking stuffers of course. Yup, I said it. I'm done. WooHoo!

We have a pretty calm week this week. Nothing planned for the weekend either. Weird huh? What will we do? I'm sure we'll find something.

Tanner was so proud last week - he came home from school with his first chapter book from the library. For those of you who may not know at the beginning of the year they tested him and he only tested at a 1.4 (which means first grade 4th month) so his teacher nominated him for a mentoring program at school. I'm so glad she did. He has come a long way baby in only 3 1/2 months. So to be able to get a chapter book was a really big deal!

Well, I have to get back to work, but I'll try to do more updates soon! Love and hugs!

My busy day

Kids were up at 6:30am, off to school by 7:15. Pick them up from school at 2:45, GymKats from 3:30-5:30pm, baseball practice for Tanner from 6-7:30 and bedtime is supposed to be 8ish. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to squeeze dinner, homework, and showers in there somewhere. Hmmmm.

Well, it's official

if you need me at any time over the next three months I'll be at the baseball field. Tanner practices Mondays and Thursdays, Grace practices Tuesdays and Fridays, and games are scheduled on Saturdays and Mondays. Whew! I'm really not complaining, really. It makes for a very busy life, but I feel like I've been waiting for this my whole life. To be the parent of kids in school. I always had envisoned myself as room mom, president of the PTA, proud booster club parent, working in the conscession stand, and what ever else I could get involved in. It hasn't actually worked out for me that well yet. Honestly, I haven't even gotten to be a room mom yet. Always having little one's at home puts a kink in that, but my day is coming. And I'm looking forward to it.

Also, we've established that even though he reacts very severly to ant bites Morgan is apparently not allergic to bees. At Tanner's baseball practice Tuesday night Morgan was playing in the bleachers and there was a large hornet/wasp (i don't know the difference) nest under the seat and Morgan got stung 4-5 times on the side of his face and around his ear. Poor buddy. It was crazy but he seems to be fine. Nothing that I would consider more than a normal welt from the stings.

And, last but not least, I am offically a new Stampin' Up! demonstrator! Woo Hoo! So if you need any Stampin' Up! stuff or are interested in workshops just let me know!

Check out this fish tale...

CJ and Tanner got to go fishing for about 3-4 hours on saturday morning. They had a great time and caught like 10 or 12 fish including this beauty which CJ says is about a 4 1/2 pounder. Woo Hoo Tanner!

It's only day 3...

and already I'm not allowed to go in with the kids. Tanner says "Mom, can you just drop us off in the front." To which I responded that I still wanted to go in with Grace until she's comfortable with where to meet her teacher and stuff. After a few seconds I hear a tiny little girl voice say, "Mommy, I'm comfortable. I know where to go." Well, OK then.

Here are a few pictures from this past week. Enjoy!

What to do?

Short of duck taping Morgan to the toilet every morning until he goes, I don't know what else to do to make that child poo in the toilet! I have tried everything and I am at a total loss. Aaargh!

By the way, this clearly must be payback for me opening my mouth because just recently I told someone that I never had a problem getting my kids to poo in the toilet and it was hard for me to understand why some people have that issue. This is what I get right?

A whole month really?

I guess it has been that long since I blogged. I'll admit that the immediate gratification from facebook kind of makes me neglect my blog a little bit, but in a couple years when I'm scrapbooking this part of my life I'm going to think "what was going on?" I can't remember and there's nothing written. We have been so busy and yet there's not anything of consequence really. The business is pretty busy right now so that's good. We're finally getting our vehicles to quit breaking down - thank the Lord. My truck is in the shop right now but hopefully this will be the last repair for a while. We just bought a whole bunch of new mowers so hopefully that will save us time and money in the long run - right now I'm just hoping we can afford to make the payments on them! Tanner and Grace are getting excited about going back to school. I'm hoping to finalize our back to school shopping next week. I've decided to try and keep Tanner in GymKats during the fall baseball season. I know - I'm crazy. But he loves it and he's doing so good. All three of the kids are in gymnastics now and I got them enrolled in a class right after school so it won't interfere with baseball practice (I hope) and we won't be out until 8 at night on a school night. I'll cross my fingers it works out. And, we should be putting our house on the market in 6-8 weeks. Whew! I hope it sells quickly. We REALLY need for it to. That's all for now.

On the mend...

after 48 hours and benadryl every 4 hours around the clock (yes, I set my alarm and got up to dose him in the middle of the night - every 4 hours on the nose) the swelling is finally starting to go down. His foot looks so much better than it did just 12 hours ago. His toe isn't purple anymore and his skin doesn't look like it's going to just burst and split everywhere. Can you believe this? From fire ant bites. Really?! Not a whole nest or anything, just 5 or 6. He's got 3 bites on his big toe, two bites between his third and fourth toes, one on the arch of his foot, and one up by his ankle. I'm just so amazed. It's hard for me to believe that he reacts this way. I've got a half dozen bites on my foot too and it's nothing more than an annoying itch. I guess it's no different than someone being allergic to bee stings. For most of us it's just annoying and painful for a little bit, for some it can be life threatening. This is certainly not life threatening, it's never been more than an extreme localized reaction but still. Wow.
And how miserable for me and him to battle over shoes all the time now! I insist he have them on, he yells and screams because he doesn't want them on. *sigh* what a bummer.

I should have known better.

Morgan has reacted badly before, clearly this is now something that has to be watched. This is also why CJ rides my butt about the kids playing outside in flip flops and not "real" shoes. But come on, they were playing on the slip n slide and in the baby pools. You really can't make them do that in tennis shoes or boots. And all the rest of the kids were outside in no shoes or flip flops. Clearly Morgan is not 'the other kids'. The second picture is kind of blurry and doesn't come close to doing it justice but I'm sure you get the picture.
This is 12 hours post (5-6) ant bites.
This is 36 hrs post ant bites: I'm not sure you can clearly see where his skin split on the side of his big toe from the swelling, all the blisters he has where the bites are, and all the nasty oozing gunk. I'm pretty sure he's going to loose almost all skin from his big toe because it is just one giant blister.
Ask me what kind of piece o' crap mom I feel like.

Two posts in less than 12 hours

Don't pass out. Explanations will be short and sweet while I try to catch up but here goes...

Grace's birthday party was a success. We went to Chuck E Cheese. Here's a funny story for ya: I finished Grace's cake (which was decorated according to her specifications "stripes and flowers please", OK) put it in the box, taped the box shut, placed it in the middle of the kitchen table and went to finish the kids goodie bags. I'm almost done, 5 minutes until we leave and I hear screaming from the living room "MOM! MOM! MORGAN'S EATING THE CAKE!"
WHAT?! As I run to the kitchen to find my two year old who had gotten a fork, climbed on top of the kitchen table, ripped open the box and has proceeded to eat the cake with a fork. Now mind you not just a little bit. Apparently the bigger kids did not notice this until he had been at it for several minutes. I freak out, Grace starts crying, I then gather myself and try to assure her it will be OK, everyone will understand, Morgan is only two, yadda yadda yadda. I semi-fixed it (remember it was only 5 minutes until we were supposed to leave) and it's a funny story for the scrapbook. Here's the cake before Morgan got a hold of it:
And Grace enjoying herself at Chuck E Cheese

Just three days later I made this cake for our friend Hayden who is Grace's age, exactly. They have the same birthday. I met Nonya at a Mom's Club playgroup. Grace and Hayden were jumping on a trampoline together and we discovered that they have exactly the same birthday and that we were both pregnant again and due within a week of each other again. We've been bonded ever since. Love you guys!

We have been snake central lately. I actually forgot about this little guy. CJ found him in the yard about two weeks ago. He's actually a nonvenomous checkered garter snake but he was trying really hard to pretend to be ferocious. See how he was trying to flatten out his head....it was all for show. No fangs there. We just scooped him up and took him over to the woods and let him go.

The copperhead we killed outside our back door just two days ago, definately venomous, definately a copperhead. We chopped his head off and buried it and threw his little body away. After CJ inspected it and was amazed and awed by his fangs. Sorry about his luck.

My sweet baby is now a boy. Before the buzz....

after the buzz...

That'll have to do for now. I'll make no promises about when more pics and info will arrive. Now I must go pick green beans before it's 100 degrees.

Something smells refreshing...

This is how Morgan decided to entertain himself this evening while I cooked dinner. Need I say more?

We've made it!

To summer break. I thought May was going to kill us, but we survived. Last week was a VERY busy week for us and a very exciting week for Grace. It started on Tuesday with her Preschool graduation.



It was very cute. They brought the kids into the sanctuary. They said the Pledge of Allegiance, had a prayer, sang 4 or 5 songs and then did their diplomas. With the diplomas the teachers did a "Most likely to..." certificate for each child. Grace's was "Most likely to be the new face for Little Debbie snack cakes" -- too cute!! I told CJ about it and he said, "Awesome! I hope it happens soon we could use the money." HA!

After the ceremony everyone went back to the classroom for refreshments. It was very nice. Morgan made himself right at home with a cupcake and a seat at the table. I guess he thought he was graduating too.

Then in the afternoon when I picked her up we stayed at Tanner's school and got her signed up for Kindergarten!! I can't hardly believe it, but she is SO excited.
Tuesday evening we had baseball and gymkats. Wednesday I spent baking cakes and decorating cupcakes for Grace's birthday (tomorrow) and we had baseball practice.

Birthday pics coming soon....check back tomorrow.

I cannot keep up with my life.

Where does the time go. I seriously have lots to say but I cannot find five minutes to log on and post it. We made an emergency trip to Indy over Mother's Day weekend. CJ's grandfather gave us quite a scare. I'm happy to say he is recovering well though. I got to spend Mother's Day with my mom which was cool. It was an exhausting 5 days but SO worth it. I also got to see my DF Karyn. I love her and I miss her so much. Here's a couple of pics taken on the trip.....

Grace with her crawdad....
Tanner, CJ, Grace, and Papa Dave fishing on the lake behind Dave and Jan's house....

Us on Mother's Day (taken at my uncle's house in Noblesville)...

My whole immediate family...(left to right: (top row) Evan, Evan Jr, Sarah, Blas, Me, CJ; (bottom row) Natalie, Dad, Robbie, Cody, Morgan, Mom, Grace, and Tanner.)

There will be more to come (hopefully before a month from now).

What a weekend!

It was busy and tiring, but productive. It started friday night when Clinton brought CJ's truck back. Then we stayed up til 3am talking and the kids were up at 6:42am on saturday morning. Ugh! Tanner had two baseball games saturday and we won both of them. He is making steady improvments. He hit the ball really well and is actually starting to try and make the play instead of just standing in his position watching everyone else. yah! His usual positions are catcher and right field, but we were so far ahead in the second game that the coach put him in at 2nd base and he was SO excited. It was cool to watch him.
In between games we got our flower beds weeded. That's great because they needed it bad.
On sunday we relaxed in the morning. Got to sleep until 8am - yippee! But then we got to work. CJ got the grass mowed. I got several loads of laundry done. We worked together and pulled weeds from the garden. CJ did a landscape job last week and had a few leftover plants so we put those in the flower beds and of course we watched the race. All in all a wonderful weekend. Hope you enjoyed yours!

What a great weekend!

It started out saturday with a dual birthday party/Easter celebration with our friends. Happy 6th Birthday to Eric and 7th Birthday to Sarah! I made race car cakes for each of them (at their request of course). Sarah got a hot pink Hot Wheel car and Eric wanted a camo #88 Dale Jr National Guard car. I forgot my camera but my friends took pictures. I'll have to post them later. In addition to the birthday celebration we did an Easter egg hunt and played, and played, and played.
We enjoyed a very nice day together as a family on sunday. The Easter Bunny did not disappoint! New swim suits, beach towels, and flip flops to go along with entirely too much candy! CJ took Tanner fishing and Tanner caught two fish to CJ's one. Go Tanner! All in all a great, relaxing, wonderful family day. We needed it. HAPPY EASTER!

Wants to throw up, but instead I'll blog.

So, last week we put an ad in the Hood Co paper looking for two new crew members. CJ had a different guy with him each day last week only to decide at the end of the week that he was probably going to quit Cheldan Homes because they owe us a TON of money and we haven't gotten a significant check in over a month. So, if we're not going to mow Cheldan any more then we definately don't need two new guys.
Also, last week a new property management team took over at the townhomes we do in Weatherford. Seemed like everything was OK. The new manager called to introduce herself to us last Thursday then today I get an e-mail, an E-MAIL, saying that they no longer require our services and since no formal contract was signed no 30 day notice is required. We're done. Today.
(vomit) Well, you know what I got to say. It may not be required but it sure would have been NICE and I'm sorry you just let the most honest, hard-working, consciencious, and truly concerned for YOU businessman go for no apparent reason! You'll never find someone who'll take as good of care of that property as us. So there!

Lots to say, not enough time to blog it.

It's been 3 weeks and that's unacceptable but honestly I am covered up with stuff to do. I get to blog now because I am tethered to my computer taking a driver safety course and you are required to spend a certain amount of time on each page. I guess I'm a speedy reader so I'll blog while I wait on the time to expire. :-)
The bad thing is it's been so long since I blogged I can't remember half the stuff that I wanted to blog!
Tanner started baseball a couple weeks ago. It's going pretty well. His biggest challenge right now is learning not to swing at every pitch. I imagine that's hard to learn for a kid. We have our first game on saturday at 4:30.
Grace is hysterical! You already knew that, but she says the funniest stuff. I really must start a journal of all the funny Grace sayings so I can have them all conveniently in one place. Two weekends ago Tanner and Grace were up at the crack of dawn. CJ and I finally had to get up to quiet them down so that Morgan could sleep in a little. After several reminders to "find their quiet voices" CJ sent them to their rooms for a while. A few minutes later we go down the hallway to check on them and Grace is laying on her bed, on her stomach, with her arms crossed, her chin resting on her hands, and the saddest pouty face you have ever seen. CJ says "what's wrong with you" and her reply "I just can't find my quiet voice!" (in the cutest 4 year old voice you can hear). I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
Morgan has a perpetual knot on his head. It's a good thing his noggin is made of steel or we would have had major trouble by now. A couple of weeks ago he was sitting on the arm of the CJ's chair and fell off. Hit his head on something, either the sidetable or the floor and had one of the biggest goose eggs I've ever seen. His head just started to look normal a couple days ago and then yesterday we're going into the bank and he decides to run around me as I'm opening the door and, CRACK, right in the head again with the edge of the door. Another cut, another bump and bruise. If they ever x-ray his head CPS is going to come looking for me.
Everything with me and CJ is normal, and good. Business is picking up - yeah. Baseball ruined CJ's planned fishing trip for this weekend. Bummer. I'm trying to figure out how I can scrapbook around baseball for the next two months. It'll work out. Anyway, I'm going to upload a couple of pictures so you can enjoy and hopefully it won't be three weeks before I update again.

Uploading this picture made me remember that I braided Grace's hair for the first time! Yeah! It makes me happy. I wore mine up all the time for cheerleading and I can still braid my own hair. It was fun to do hers.

Pretty Normal.

Things have been pretty quiet on the homefront thise week. I've been trying to think of something to post for a couple of days now but really it's just the same ol' same ol'.
Tanner started baseball practice this week. He's the smallest kid on the team. I know he's a little guy but I never really realize it until he's matched up against other kids his age. The next shortest kid on the team has him by a good 3-4 inches. :-( He's not doing too bad in most areas though. This is our first season in coach pitch and the coach pitching was the most difficult part for him. Literally the coach can't pitch it low enough to actually be in his strike zone. Everything was coming in at or above his shoulders. You could see it was frustrating the coach too.
After practice he proclaimed he didn't really like to play baseball which broke CJ's heart. I think he was just sad because he didn't have a very good batting practice, and because I pulled him out of GymKats for the season. He really loves GymKats too, but baseball is already 3-4 nights/wk and I think anything more than that is just too much right now. I promised him when baseball season is over he could go back to GymKats.
Grace is Grace. She's got a thing for dresses and skirts right now and would wear one every single day if I'd let her. She loves going to school. I think it's more social for her than anything because every day when I ask her what she learned she says, "oh nothing. But Lacey and I...."
And Morgan, well, he's 2. Very, very 2. I never really had much terrible two's with Tanner or Grace but Morgan is about to drive me mad! Screamin' fits when he doesn't get his way, he hits, he cries (seems like constantly). I just want to beat my head into the wall. Some days it's really hard to remain calm. I'm managing though.
Poor CJ has strep. Don't ask me how but he does. He's dying. He's been feeling bad since Tuesday. He went to an urgent care place yesterday and they gave him an antibiotic shot, an antibiotic prescription, and a pain killer.
I'm fine nothing crazy. Going scrapbooking tomorrow which I am very excited about. Got 28 pages done last weekend at the retreat - woohoo!
Well, gotta scoot - time to take Tanner to school.

Back to the grindstone.

After a very fun and relaxing weekend it's back to reality. I definately have too many things on my To Do list for today. *sigh*

My new ride.

I feel so special. Each time I walked into the garage today it surprised me and when I went to pick up Tanner from school I was feeling pretty special. That may seem dumb to those of you who have new cars but to me it's pretty cool. It's not new, as a matter of fact it's the same year as my previous car, but it's new to me and I feel toooooo cool.

My crafty kids.

My kids have been on a kick lately making pictures and wrapping them in paper and making surprises for everyone. Yesterday was no different. Grace was busy making surprises for everyone when she comes to me and says,
"Mommy, I made a surprise for ME, but I can't say it out loud because then I'll know what it is."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! My beautiful, sweet, funny, hysterically blonde little girl.

The last week...

has been eventful and just flew by. My mom and dad came down from Indiana for a visit. I wish I could go back and play it in slow motion. They were here for a week and it seems like it vanished in an instant. They arrived on friday the 13th. On saturday we had a few friends over to celebrate Tanner's birthday (a little late due to sickness). Thanks to everyone who took time out of their Valentine's Day to celebrate with us. It really meant a lot to Tanner and we all had a blast!

After everyone left, Mom and Dad volunteered to watch the kids so CJ and I could go out. It's been such a long time, and we had a lot of fun. Our friends Clinton and Jenny went with us. We had dinner at our favorite local mexican restraunt and then we went bowling. Too fun!! I suck at bowling but it was still loads of fun.
Sunday was a lazy day filled with food, naps, and of course - THE DAYTONA 500!!
Monday I took mom to a local scrapbook store to buy gifts for pokeno. She was totally overwhelmed. I remember feeling that way when I started scrapbooking. We went back home and mom made dinner and I made Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie - it was CJ's birthday.
Tuesday I was gone about half the day running errands and buying a new vehicle. :-) I don't have it in my possession yet, but when I do you'll get pictures. It's an old vehicle but it's new to me and I'm excited. It runs, which my car was about to not do any longer, and it has more room - yeah for Tanner who is always squished between the two car seats in the back. Then Tuesday night I drug Mom to pokeno with me. We had a good time, and I'm glad some of my friends got to meet my mom.
Wednesday was Morgan's birthday. We went to the Granbury town square and did some window shopping. Stopped at Rinky Tinks for lunch and headed back home. Because the previous few days had been so busy I was not really in party mode. I did manage to bake a small cake and we celebrated at home with just mom and dad.

Happy Birthday Morgan!

In keeping with the tradition Morgan got his first 4-wheeler for his second birthday. He's still learning to like it. I'm sure it won't take long before he's wheeling all over the place.

Thursday and Friday we just kind of hung out, which was nice. CJ left friday afternoon for Shreveport to stalk the professional fishermen during the BASSMASTER Classic. For those of you who know nothing about fishing the Classic is like the Superbowl of bass fishing. I've talked to him several times and he's having a blast. We took the kids to Granbury City park to play for a little while then we went to Logan's for dinner. Dad and Tanner had a blast throwing peanut shells at each other.
Saturday Mom and Dad left before the chickens woke up. I took Tanner to his baseball tryouts. He did really good. We'll get a call sometime this week to find out what team we're on and when we start practicing.
After that we went to Southlake to the Lego Education Center for Johnny's birthday party. We had a really great time and I did the cake:

That made for a pretty tiring week and I'm enjoying resting today. Have a great sunday everyone!

Do I even need words?

Probably not, but I'll give you a few anyway....WOOHOO! WOW! YIPPEE! FINALLY! HALLELUJAH!

**sigh**

It's been a bummer of a week. Tanner ran a fever for a full 5 days, Morgan did for two days, CJ's sick in bed now and has been since 8:30pm last night, and I'm not so sure Grace isn't coming down with something. She's not feverish yet (I've checked her several times today) but she looks awful and she says she's "soooo tired" - great.
Needless to say Tanner did not get to participate in his 1st grade program on Tuesday night (which brought tears), he did not get to go to GymKats last night (which brought more tears) and we've postponed his birthday party that was scheduled for tonight (you guessed it). I'm exhausted and I feel really bad for him although he's doing well now.
Maybe it'll turn around over the weekend.

What did I do last week?

Well, I made a graduation cake for a friend. I've never done a graduation cake before but I think it turned out pretty cute. Simple design. She used his real tassel on the cap.
Last Tuesday/Wednesday we had ice so wednesday morning the kids had to get out and play in it. It's so funny to me to see them so excited about a little ice, but they've never seen REAL ice and snow. By the time that we got outside to play (about 10am it was already warming up enough to start to melt the ice so the fun was short lived but CJ took the top of the sandbox (turtle shell) and turned it upside down and hooked it to one of the commercial mowers (because they go really fast!) and took the kids for a ride. They had fun and that's all that matters.

The first grade program is tomorrow night. Tanner is super excited. I hope he's well enough to go to school and participate in the program. Today he's home with a fever. Yuck.

Thursday we have gymkats and friday is Tanner's birthday. We should have a pretty full week. There will be pictures and stories to come. Have a good one!

Snot

My house is one big blob of oozing snot. Was that TMI? It started with Tanner last tuesday, fever and runny nose. Then Morgan on Friday and Grace yesterday. The fever only lasts about 48 hours but we've gone through several boxes of Kleenexes in the last week and it still goes on. Yuck.
CJ was able to go to work a little late today and take Tanner to school so I wouldn't have to drage Grace and her fever out into the freezing cold. Yeah! Most kids are out of school today due to ice, us, not. They'll probably be calling at noon wanting us to come pick up the kids and I'm going to be mad.
For now I shall do laundry and piddle on Snapfish deciding which pictures to print and scrapbook next!
Have a safe and cozy day!

Yuck!

The boys are both sick. Tanner was home from school yesterday with a low-grade fever, snotty nose and cough. CJ wanted to keep him home today too but Tanner insisted on going. The fever is gone so he went. Morgan woke up at 3am with a fever too. I knew it was coming he was snotty and horse yesterday afternoon. Bummer. Grace is good for now. We'll see. She always gets it eventually.
Nothing else really going on. Just the norm. Enjoy the day - it's going to be almost 80 degrees here so I'm sure I will!

Christmas Morning

ROCKS! We actually got to sleep until almost 6am (which I was very thankful for! I remember trying to wake my parents up between 3 and 4 am some years). I was really proud of the kids too. They waited patiently for CJ and I to get up, pour a cup of coffee, and for me to take a couple of pics before diving into their stash!
Tanner with his giant remote controlled dune buggy...

Grace with one of her MANY new pink princess toys....

We let Morgan sleep until he woke up (about 8am) because he was feeling crummy with a cold the night before....

The Pit - after all the gifts were open (I had to get a shot before I started straightening up)...

Ridiculous huh? But oh what fun!