the jolly fat man in red

The jolly, fat man was good to my kids this year. They are spoiled, that is a fact no one can deny. They received presents from us (obviously), their Aunt Jackie and cousin Jason, from Grandma and Papa, Aunt Peggy and from their Great-Grammy and Grampy.

We were awoken by Anthony hitting Tom and telling him, "It's Christmas!" We told them to run and brush their teeth so we could wake up the sick child we call Alex. We all came downstairs and the boys jumped right into sorting presents and tearing into them. We set up the video camera and recorded the tree, which we hope that the boys were in front of for the majority of the time it was on. I haven't played it back yet, so I'm not sure how much good video we got. I took a picture of the tree this morning, but none of the boys opening their presents. I meant to, but about halfway through the present opening ceremony, Alex laid on me with his DS in hand and new DS game. So, I didn't move for a good 20 minutes or so.

It's been a lazy day, almost doesn't feel like Christmas since there isn't anyone to visit or talk to but who's here. Tom's Great Aunt S wanted us to come over today, but we just wanted to be able to stay in our pajamas all day and let the boys play with their new toys. It's cold and rainy too, I'd much rather stay indoors. We are supposed to go over and see her tomorrow.

It's about that time to start all the side dishes for dinner. I have to make a list later of what the boys got and from whom so we can send Thank You cards since we aren't there to thank anyone. Tom is busy playing CoD4, someone from his mom's house is supposed to get on to play with one of the boys. So we'll see how long he hogs the controller. lol

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

craziness of the season

I can't believe that it's been 9 days since I posted last. Where has the time gone?

Hubby arrived home a few days earlier than planned, although he did get stuck there overnight. The driver that was supposed to arrive to get them wasn't allowed through because of a road closure (or the fact that he didn't have chains on his tires, I can't remember). He did get home on Tuesday though, which made us all really happy. Now, if the people at work would give him the same benefits as the other 2 guys that went with him he might have actually been able to be at both boys holiday events at school. Maybe next time.

Our Christmas shopping is done. Well, with the slight exception of some stocking stuffers. Our gifts for family back in MI have been wrapped, packed and shipped out. Now I just cross my fingers and hope that UPS gets them there sometime before Wednesday. Tonight the hubby and I sat in our room and wrapped gifts for the boys. We are all done with what we bought for them. There is still a stack of things to wrap that my grandma had shipped directly to our house though. Our Christmas cards were mailed out as well.

Nothing at all intriguing has happened though. Just waking up to the same stuff day in and day out. The boys are out of school for the holidays though, I'm hoping to take them to the San Diego Zoo. Our landlords gave us free passes and they expire at the end of the month. I bet when the day comes to go the boys won't want to. lol They didn't want to do anything on our drive out to CA. Wish me luck. lol

I did have a chance to get a couple layouts done. I want to try to get some of the big events of this past year scrapped before I forget the details. I suppose if I don't get a chance I should get a journal and write it all out.

Our trip out to AZ.

Anthony playing in the snow in MI.

Anthony's 5th birthday.

Thanksgiving 2008.

Holiday Fun

I've been on a quest to find a few fun (and inexpensive) things to do with the kids for Christmas. I found some cute food things to make, but how many different kinds of cookies, cupcakes and other sugary goodness does one family need? Though I think we will be trying these cupcakes and maybe these marshmallows.

If I'm brave enough maybe these snowmen cupcakes and chocolate cookies too. They all look sooo good!

I want to make sure that we have things planned to do because normally we go back to MI for the holidays and we have plenty of places to go and things to do. This year, since we just moved and finances are tight we just couldn't swing flying to MI. So we'll be here in SoCal on our own for the first Christmas since Tom and I have been married.

I think Christmas Eve will be our biggest struggle because normally we spend all evening at Tom's uncle's house with his Dad's side of the family. The kids play with their cousin they only see at Christmas, we eat, catch-up with everyone, Santa comes and everyone gets something small from Santa and then more presents from the drawing. It's so much fun and I really wish we could be there for that. I'm not so worried about Christmas day since after presents we'll make some lunch and the kids can play with their new toys. I want to make the few days they have off before Christmas fun and not leave them to be entertained by video games or tv all day.

So I'm stressed to say the least. I know in the end it will all work out.

dirty dishes talk to me

Damned short term memory problem...I had a blip earlier in the day where I nearly had this whole post written out (in my messed up mind it was all written up), and now....nothing. A big.fat.nothing. Except that I know I had my sudden bout of fabulous blog entry dream seconds after I glanced around my ever-so-dirty kitchen and saw the mounting pile of dirty dishes. They were mocking me. They were talking under their breaths to each other when they saw the sweat beading on my forehead with the thought of getting them all cleaned. They thought they were so smart, the clean cookie sheets jumping into the sink to hang out with the dirty pizza pan. The quesadilla maker resting nonchalantly next to the sink after it had just dumped all of my clean forks into the saucepan with remnants of Prego mushroom pasta sauce in the bottom.

It's all I could do to control myself and not take a sledgehammer to the whole mess. Then that would have meant a bigger mess, and not to mention an explanation to the hubby and the landlord. So that destructive thought slowly drifted out of my head and the wonderful blog entry about it entered. Unfortunately the above mentioned nonsense was not the fabulous post I had envisioned.

I don't know what we're yelling about....

Anchorman....funny.

Hearing the line from the movie that hubby has as his ringtone...funnier.

Watching everyone look up and look around for hubby when we hear it....priceless.

lol

I finished and ordered our Christmas cards from VistaPrint earlier this week. This is what our card will look like...

The basic design is one of the free cards Michelle Coleman had available from Memory Makers. All I did was change it to fit in VistaPrint's 4x8 template. So, one more holiday preparation I can check off of my rather lengthy to-do list.

Thankfully my list of presents that I still need to buy is slowly getting shorter. For the boxes to our families I just need to get some pictures printed for the cd calendars that I am refilling for my grandparents & a gift card for my brother. Maybe too a 5x7 and 8x10 picture for my grandma & mom, maybe I'll have my grandma pick up a couple of frames so that I don't have to risk having photo frames in a box and getting broken. What a nice Christmas morning, huh? Tag with warning of possible broken glass.

Ah, well it's almost bedtime for the kiddos. I have cookies in the oven that smell wonderful. Too bad I didn't actually mix up the batter myself lol. The Wii Fit is calling my name once the big boys are settled down in bed for the night. Need to keep up with excersizing for a change.

$100 Target Gift Card Giveaway

I know alot of us could put a $100 gift card to good use. You can find out more information at Give Away Today on how to enter. If you are so inclined - please add me as your referring friend (Kelly Bommarito). Thanks!

photo contest

So, while not doing anything productive (while the overflowing dishes are calling my name, as well as all the folded laundry chillin' on my bed) this evening I ran across a post on Mommy Always Wins about a photo contest. So, I went on to read how to enter. I'm In Culture Shock says to post a portrait shot that I took, a fairly recent one - hope October is recent enough to be qualified. I'm sure many other way more talented peeps will enter, but I figured what the hell, let's do it!

So, here it is...

So, yeah...that's all for today...

That figures....and Thanksgiving re-cap

DH is going "out-of-town" for 2 and a half weeks. He's been at work for two weeks today. He was also slotted to go to some Master Gunner school in the beginning of the year. Now they are screwing with him about switching his company. The end of the work week last week someone told him not to worry about switching companies and that he'll stay where he is for a while - not according to someone else today. So, we'll see what happens when he gets back - both the companies that he might go to are deploying at some point next year, so hopefully we'll find out what is going on soon so that we can start to prepare.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone as quickly as it snuck up on me. Kathy and her family came down to hang out for the long weekend. They arrived on Wednesday and left on Saturday morning. It was so neat to have us all in the same place. The kids got along like they've known each other forever. We ate a lot of good food, played some games and attempted to take some pictures.

How about some pictures...

The Thanksgiving Day spread.

Another one of the food.

Some yummy sweet potatoes.

The delicious turkey that Kathy slaved over.

All 9 of us.

The best picture of the 4 of them.

Jacob.

Ashely.

Alex had to get in on the action too.

Awww, aren't they cute?!

The only good shot of my boys out of 80.

holiday ideas

The holidays are rapidly approaching and I've been racking my poor mind trying to think of great gifts for everyone. It's been a bit more difficult this year considering I also have to factor in the shipping. We don't want to only send gift cards though. So, I've been on the look-out for some great, inexpensive gifts.

Something Blue Studios has some great magnets, magnet calendars and even some jewelry that they will add your pictures or art to. The prices seem fair, though I have never ordered from them before, so I can't say how their quality or service is. I'm thinking of ordering some of these flair buttons for our fridge to slip in everyone's stocking.

I've also been thinking about our Christmas cards for this year. I would like to send out photo Christmas cards this year since we won't be able to make it to MI to see everyone. Memory Makers has 3 card sets from Michelle Coleman, so far these are probably my favorite set. Though the ones from Traci Reed are keeping me from making a decision. lol

like i need anymore projects

I have three boys, you'd think that would be enough to keep me busy. And it is, please don't think that I'm not busy. lol

This past Friday as we went to Wal-Mart for more diapers for the littlest man I decided that I was going to look for some knitting needles and a how-to book. So, off to the craft department we went. Then DH reminded me about my hopeful endeavor of making the boys some sleep pants for Christmas. So, quick stop at the fabric before hitting the yarn and needles. Found some inexpensive but nice enough fabric to try to make one pair of pants. Then it's off to find the pattern I bought because I can't remember how much fabric I needed. Figures.

Long line at the cutting table means there's time to look for the how-to book, yarn and knitting needles. So, 2 sets of needes, 2 skeins of yarn, 1 promising how-to book and 2 2/3 yard of candy cane fabric and we were finally ready to exit the craft department.

Did I mention that I've NEVER knitted before? I've also never followed a sewing pattern before. The closest to sewing I've ever gotten is piecing some blocks together to attempt to make a quilt. I can fix a button, and do a half-assed job at hemming some pj pants for Tommy, but that is the extent of my sewing skills. So, probably after Thanksgiving I am going to attempt to sew together a pair of sleep pants for my oldest. Hopefully they'll resemble something like sleep pants so that I won't be too embarrassed. lol

Of course there's also my hopeful photography business, taking care of the house, the digital scrapbooking, and the medical transcription school. The last isn't going very well, I don't know what I had envisioned when I signed up for it, I knew it wouldn't be a piece of cake by any means, but I think I convinced myself that there was enough time in the day for everything. I really should call and see about possibly getting a refund. It's just too much and I don't think I would be successful in finding a job, I think there are probably way more qualified people out there.

The kids are off school for the week, so I'm off to be mommy. Today we are going to learn how to clean the bathrooms! Yay!!!

Just need to talk to myself for a moment

I haven't had my allotted chit-chat time today (insert sarcastic tone here - I was on the phone for over an hour with dear Kathy earlier this morning) so I feel the need for a totally incoherent blog post today. *big smile* So, don't mind me, I'm just going to ramble on, maybe talk over some of my other thoughts, and maybe I'll break out into song. Just go about your business, don't mind the crazy lady.

Tommy and Anthony have this thing about bouncing around while they are playing games. No matter what game they are playing, we have to constantly tell them to sit still. When they begin playing the game they are sitting at least 10+ feet from the tv on the couch. As they play and they begin their routine hop-fest they get closer, and closer to the tv. It's not like they can't see the tv, 56" of screen is pretty hard to miss. At this very moment, Tommy is sitting no more than 2 feet away from the tv.

I must've misheard the doctors when my children were born, because I could have sworn that they all told me that the new little being was a boy. They sure look like boys, most of the time they act like boys, but man-o-man, do they ever scream like little girls.

Alex is just a little jabbermouth now. Each day I am amazed at how much better he is getting at communicating what he wants. His vocabulary has probably doubled from 6 months ago. I find it just amazing that I am having what resembles a conversation with the little man.

Kathy asked me to take her family photos when they come for Thanksgiving. Did I mention that she's draggin her husband & two children down here for a long weekend? It was kind of up in the air until the other day, I might've forgotten. I can't wait to have one of my friends come to visit. Usually it's always Tom's friends, or my SIL. We're going to make a ton of food for Thanksgiving, run off taking pictures and maybe head out in the wee hours of the morning on Black Friday to try to catch a good deal or two. Not sure what the deals are looking like this year, so we haven't committed to anything yet.

I've been debating on whether or not it would help if I got a job. That's right, I said it, a j-o-b. It scares the crap out of me to think about going back to work. I haven't worked since March 8th, 2001. I don't have a degree or any training that would make me a good candidate for anything other than customer service in some form or another. I did work at a bank and credit union before having Tommy, I'm not sure though if a 9-5 is something I want to do though. What I would much prefer is to get my photography business moving and take clients on the weekends. I need to get all the info on starting a business in SoCal first. I'm not sure the cost or how much time and paperwork it'll take, first things first.

So, now that you are happier knowing the rambling thoughts that are posessing my mind at the current moment I am going to sit back and wait for the hubs to come home with our food.

I loathe minimum days

The boys school calls their short, or half, days minimum days. Every Wednesday is a minimum day. Basically all that means is that Tommy gets out of school at 1:13pm instead of 3:22pm. Not a problem for one day a week. We are on day 2 of the minimum days this week due to parent/teacher conferences and it's swiftly kicking my butt.

Here was my schedule yesterday:
8:45am - take Tommy to school
11:45am - take Anthony to school
1:13pm - pick up Tommy from school (walk - so need to leave about 20 min early)
3:22pm - pick up Anthony from school

This morning we need to leave a few minutes early since Anthony's parent/teacher conference is at 8:40am. I'm just hoping that we can find a decent parking spot. It's really a long shot with the parking situation at the school. It's probably the biggest frustration of my day getting the kids to & from school. I loved them taking the school bus.

Just wait until I tell you about the 1st Wednesday of the month's schedule. You want me to go ahead and just tell you now? Ok, if you insist. The first Wednesday of every month the PM kindergarteners go to AM kindergarten. So, on these Wednesdays at least I can say that I'm not at the school 4 times a day like I am for 3 days of this week. I'm cross-eyed just thinking about it.

So, I need to go get the littlest man up & decent for the trip to the school. I should probably take the time to make myself look presentable also. Don't want the teacher to think I just roll out of bed to drop my kids off at school in the morning. What ever would she think?!

{budget}

I have to shamefully admit that budgeting has never been my forte. Though, all of our bills are paid, in full and on time and we always have what we need. Sometimes we are also able to get ourselves things we want also.

My hardest thing to come to terms with is shopping at places like Target and Wal-Mart. There's just such a variety of "stuff" there that it's easy to become tempted to let it slide into your cart. I also have this inability to say "no" to the hubby. I feel like I've let him down somehow if I tell him that we can't buy something that he wants. It's his paycheck. Especially if it's the new movie of the week, we can surely swing $16 to make him happy. We've cut our movie spending down greatly. I've been struggling with all of this for a few months now, especially knowing that our rent in CA is slightly higher than our housing allowance, and our utility cost will more than likely be higher due to the rates out here.

I have commited myself to thoroughly diving into our finances and making a plan to implement come January 1st. I need time to get it all sorted through, then to present it to the hubby. He has no idea how much we pay for things or how much his paycheck it and I'm irritated when he seems to think that there is always money in the account.

Anyway, I should end this post considering it's almost 5pm on Saturday and I started this around 11pm on Friday. This is my second goal for the new year; the first is to quit smoking, again.

playing catch up & some pictures

I hate playing catch up from being out of town.

The mountain of dirty clothing that was lurking in my laundry room is almost all gone. I have a working dishwasher now. Alex's room no longer looks to be in limbo, the stacks of clothing have disappeared, the bed resembles a place one could sleep and random things won't fall out of the closet when you slide open the doors. Our living room is also in a much better state now. It no longer resembles a war zone of cardboard and packing paper.

My garage still resembles a storage unit unfortunately. The reason the house still looks like we just received our stuff is because my dear Tom likes to sit and play Saints Row 2 and while he wastes his time away playing video games, I sit on my ever expanding butt and surf the 'net. I find interesting sites here and there, open a new tab...continue surfing and find some great blogs, bookmark...and on and on.

Ah, well....I'll post a few pictures from the weekend. Then I'm removing myself from the couch and hoping that there isn't an imprint from my butt in the cushion when I finally stand up. lol

Alright, that took longer than I anticipated. I wish more of the photos had turned out, oh well, I was having much more fun watching everyone have a good time and having a good time myself to dwell on making sure all my shots were great. I still wonder about this whole professional photographer thing - I really want to do it, I just don't think I can put myself out there enough to do that. Besides my editing skills are really lacking as is any idea of how to go about getting a business started. Wonder if I can run a business out of my house?

Dancing Machine Alex

This past Thursday we headed out of town to Phoenix for Tom's cousin's wedding. It was nice to see DH's family again. Things were a bit disorganized as far as who was going where, when, but it all worked out in the end. The wedding was so beautiful, Jason and Amy looked so happy. Alex did his job as ring bearer as best as a 2 year old could do.

At the reception Alex really was the star of the night. He danced and danced. He had such a good time and was the last one standing on the dance floor. Jason spun him around on his butt on the dance floor and that was when Alex was introduced to the art of break-dancing. lol It was so cute to watch him spin around. He even ran from off the dance floor, onto the floor and slid on his knees. The whole night I wished I had thought to bring our video camera. Though, in my defense, I really thought I would end up bringing a cranky 2 year old back up to the hotel room around 8pm.

The older two didn't have nearly as good of a time, but all they wanted to do was sit at the table. So many different people drug them onto the dance floor to try to get them to entertain the idea of dancing, but they weren't having it.

I have a lot to catch up on since we were away for the weekend. I've got CT requirements that need to be met, an extra-ordinary amount of laundry lurking in my laundry room and more boxes that still need to be unpacked. I also have the best of intentions of writing out the gritty details of our drive from VA to CA. I know that soon I will forget some of them, so I want to get them written down somewhere before I forget the experience.

I really should run, our trusty Home Depot appliance delivery guy is here. This is his third trip to our house, and hopefully his last. The dishwasher is being installed as well as our new, energy efficent washing machine. So now I have to list the washer & dryer set on Craigs List to try to help offset the cost of our new set. Oh the joys of moving!

1st Day of school in CA

Tommy and Anthony had their first day of class at their new school today. We arrived early to find their classrooms and talk with Tommy's teacher. I knew he'd be ok, he's pretty resilient. I was worried about Anthony. His first year of school, going from all day to half day and the fact that he was just getting over being upset in the mornings as he got on the bus. He keeps hoping that there will be a bus #85 for him at his new school. lol

Tommy went to school just before 9. The 4 of us headed home for some building time. The boys have a new-to-them bunk bed set, courtesy of my good friend Tiff. It went up with no problems and now their room looks like a room instead of it resembling a home with squatters. lmao At about 11:35 Anthony and I made the drive to school. He said he was going to miss me (awwww!) and I reminded him that he would be gone 1/2 the amount of time he was used to. He reluctantly gave me a hug once his teacher explained the outside play rules and went off to play.

Fast forward through our pretty dull afternoon to 2:45 and we set out for an afternoon walk to get the boys from school. Thankfully it only took us 15 minutes even with allowing Alex to walk at his own pace for the first few minutes. Once he went into his stroller and Tom started playing games with it he had a blast. The walk back took a little longer, obviously, but it was nice.

'Til tomorrow...

Settling In...

We've been busy the past few days making arrangements for things, finding furniture, finding appliances and getting the boys enrolled in school. We've had some down time, but we find ourselves needing to entertain the boys shortly after we think it's time to relax.

To help entertain them we brought our Monopoly Here & Now game with us. We are able to set it up on the island and we can usually play for 15 minutes or so. Tommy could play for hours and we feel horrible every time we want to take a break. While checking out the Wal-Mart near our house Tom spotted the Pictureka! game on a shelf. The boys had seen a commercial for this before we moved and we said that we would consider purchasing it after we arrived in CA. That is exactly what we did. We broke it open (and Tommy literally broke the top to the box by jumping on the couch lol) last night and played a couple of rounds. It's a good game for kids their age. What's especially nice about it is if you have a few younger players who aren't able to read (or understand the mission cards) you can just do the blue cards where everyone can play every turn. The first person to 6 cards wins! Of course you can adjust the number of cards to win if needed. The hardest part was keeping the dice away from Alex and keep him from messing with the game tiles. lol

Our stuff arrives tomorrow though! I am so excited and can't wait to see if this place feels more like home than the last. Our gas dryer arrives on Friday and I'm stoked. lmao It's silly I know, but after going to the laundry mat we spotted on our excursion to Target the other day I cherish having the convience of having a washer and dryer at my own home.

I need to get dinner started though, so I'm off for the night. I've got some pictures from the trip and the house loaded up. I'll link up or post tomorrow...hopefully.

We have arrived!

Wanted to update fast. Here's a bit I posted on the family blog yesterday.

I am aiming to update with day-by-day action here soon.

On the move..

Don't have time to re-write a whole post at the moment. I'm so tired I could have been sleeping 2 hours ago.

Find out how things are going here.

Digi-Dare #104

I was finally able to do a layout for the digi-dares. You can find this weeks challenge here.

Getting down to the last details of the move. Of course, as luck would have it, I have a horrible runny nose and have been sneezing up a storm. I'm not sure whether it's allergies or a cold, either way I'm miserable.

Last Sunday in VA

So, it's our last weekend in VA. I had wanted to be able to go out and do something fun, but in the end our procrastination got the best of us and we spent alot of time sorting, organizing and cleaning. The house is by no means ready, but alot of it will have to be done after the house is packed up. It's weird to know that by this time next week we'll be on the road but everything we own is still sitting out like we'll be here in a month.

We have some errands to do tomorrow and hopefully we won't have to run out for anything else. Tomorrow we are also going to take down all the curtains upstairs. I need to finish up (or rather keep up with) the laundry. Alex has a bag all packed up. Tom has his dress clothes and Alpha's ready to go, I have my dress clothes packed. After we run out tomorrow I think I'm going to be able to pack up most of my bag.

Ah, nonsense to all of you I'm sure. It's all just randomness that is running through my mind right now. I did get a layout done today, will try to get the preview saved tomorrow and get it posted. It's the first one I've done in about 2 weeks. Tom and I have been organizing our music and making up playlists for the car ride. We asked the boys if they wanted to go to Graceland and they said they didn't know who Elvis was! So we went on a YouTube search for Elvis clips and finding songs in iTunes.

Well, it's about time I remove my butt from the couch and finish cleaning off my bed so that I can drag my tired butt in there later.

Less than one week

That's right, less than ONE week until we move. As I look around my house I see nothing but chaos. The older boys are getting impatient that we keep putting off doing things with them because there's still just so much left to do. Tomorrow we have promised time after lunch to sit and play a board game or cards with them.

The window on the truck broke again, so Tom spent an hour or so fixing it. The boys helped me clear out the 3 rooms in the basement. Most of the stuff that was in there is still in the main area of the basement, but some of it made its way upstairs. We have to figure out how much stuff we are going to be able to fit in Tom's car so we can fine tune our list of things we are bringing with us. Now it's just down to the little details, cleaning, organizing (what we can without fear of the packers destroying our progress) and throwing away/donating what we don't need.

There was a going-away party for Tom today at Chili's. We walked in and I thought it was just 3-4 tables...I was wrong. There were guys at every table up and down one whole side of the restaurant. Our table had a big bunch of balloons wrapped around a special present from Mark, a handle of Southern Comfort. They also gave him a plaque with an alligator head on it, all the guys signed the back. It was neat to read some of the things that were written to him. I hope that Tom will work with some of these guys again, others can stay here. lol

Ok, it's late and if I'm going to get up and moving in the morning I should head to bed.

If it's not one thing, it's a broken truck window...

So, the title should tell it all. To make a semi-long story short, we just saved ourselves $489 today. Our rear, passenger window stopped working yesterday on our way back from the store. We spent a couple hours outside trying to see what the problem was, in the end we figured it needed to be looked at by professionals.

This morning Tom dropped off the truck & AA came back to him with a quote of $575 plus $40 for the diagnostic fee. It was a bit much, but we figured it needed to be done and that was fine. I sent my brother, Kyle, a message letting him know what was going on. He wrote back telling us we were being screwed. Thanks. lol So, he suggested calling around for prices on the parts. So we did and found that we could get the motor for $135 from the Ford dealership when AA was charging us $210 or more. Then we called 4 or 5 salvage yards and one of them had the parts we were looking for and it would only cost us $125.

So we jumped into the truck to buy it. After we got there Tom saw that they also offered a military discount. So, we got almost the parts we needed, including a door handle and a 6x9 speaker for $111. Tom was going to take the truck to work tomorrow because we don't have a star screwdriver. So we took care of sorting through some clothes and closets and made some phone calls. Tom called Eric to offer him some clothes and he said he would come by to pick them up. He came by and brought his star screwdriver set and offered to help Tom try to get the motor in the door.

Almost 4 hours later and it's done! It's fixed and after a little WD-40, opening and closing just fine. What's odd is that the cable inside was all chewed up, so I wonder how it got that way, did something shift in the motor? Anyway, it doesn't matter much as it's fixed now and will hopefully stay that way.

Also, someone from the moving (or packing company) called tonight to schedule a walk-through tomorrow at 10am. So it looks like our pack up and move out days are good. We sold our elliptical on Saturday, now we need to get rid of the entertainment armoire in the boys room, 2 gamecubes, a box full of VHS tapes, and the infant seat and stroller combo. It's a start and before we know it, we'll probably end up having to just set the stuff at the curb or drop it off to Goodwill.

{Jackpot!}

Funny how a little bit of shopping can make me feel a bit better. lol I probably shouldn't have, but I took advantage of Shabby Pickle's $1 day today. Kits, alphas, elements, 4 pages worth of goodies for $1 each. I limited myself there to just a couple dollars. Then The Lily-Pad put out their BYOC for the month of October. There are so many new things, so I went a bit overboard there. I figure I'll even out for the month when I don't have consistent internet access for a couple of weeks. lol

Now, if only I could get motivated to get the rest of my lengthy to-do list completed. It's 2 weeks from today and our house will all be packed into boxes and onto a moving truck. 2 weeks from today the boys will say good-bye to their teachers and classmates. I'm having a hard time figuring out what I need to pack ourselves and bring in the car. I'm really trying to limit it to a few things for entertainment for the kids, our pictures and scrapbooks, and of course, some clothes. Then I remember the teapot of my great-grandmother's, the crystal glasses from my other great-grandmother, and various other sentimental items that can't be replaced. I think we'll be ok to let the movers pack the crystal and the teapot, but I think I might try to get it in the car if there's room. Like it's going to be that necessary to have those when we move and are without everything else, at least we'll have a pretty teapot and some crystal glasses! lmao

Almost dinner time so I should get something started. I'm hoping to get the desktop cleaned up and backed up this weekend. Then I can stash away the external hard drives. Any little thing to keep it moving, right?

Happy October!

So, it's October 1st already. Why does it seem that there is still so much left to do before we move? More than likely that nagging, suspicious fear of things left undone is because there is still more than enough left to do. Almost enough to say that it would be fair to assume that I shouldn't be spending any time sitting in front of the computer today until it's completed.

Funny how I'm still here..... :)

I did make a hotel reservation for Oct 17th. Tom also picked up the 2 new DS games for the trip to CA. I began our shopping list of things we need for the drive and something new seems to crop up every 5 minutes or so.

Another problem I'm having is the ever-growing list/pile of items I feel necessary to bring with us. I am so paranoid that the movers will damage or lose something that I want to bring everything that means something. Right after this anxiety attack I put things in perspective and remember that us all being together is much more important than anything I think necessary to cram into the truck with us. Ah, but don't mistake my sudden wake up call for letting go of control of it all...There are definite dealbreakers. While I would love to bring all of our framed photos I know that is just not possibe, neither is bringing all of our shot glasses. Funny, funny, I know. I remember how upset we both were when Tom's gold-leaf shot glass from New Orleans fell from it's shelf and shattered just after Hurricane Katrina. He was down there during Mardi Gras in 2002 and had a great time. I wish I could say that the memories will live forever, but for my dear husband, it's hit or miss. He probably couldn't tell you when he went or for how long if anyone asked him. He'll remember almost missing curfew and being stuck in the bathroom because he was puking. lol

Off to waste time searching for new songs for our road trip...Maybe a new song for my myspace, check on our Amazon order. Yeah, I know I should be placing online orders so close to the move...but hubby needed a new bluetooth headeset and Amazon was a lot cheaper than Best Buy and we get free 2-day shipping. Then I ordered a new wireless remote for my camera and 2 4gb memory cards. The price shocked me because I hadn't intended on purchasing new memory cards, but they have a $45 mail-in rebate. Check it out at Adorama...they have a deal on 8gb CF cards and one on a SD card also.

Ok, ok....I'm outta here --

Countdown...19 days

That's right, we will be moving in 19 days.

Today I spent most of the morning making phone calls having utilities turned on and off. All I have left is to call Verizon and have them cancel our service. Tom has to call U-Haul back and reserve a car hauler since that is what we finally decided on (until tomorrow). We even have a California phone number scheduled to be turned on on the 24th!

The ceiling fan in the master bedroom decided that it wanted to be a PITA, on Saturday morning. By PITA I mean popping noises, sparks and suddenly ceasing to turn. So we had to run to Home Depot today to get a new one, we also cut a new piece out of the wall from upstairs, because why would the "white" paint in the house all match? Crazy talk I tell ya. Nothing can be easy for us at this point. lol

We have quite a few small details to work out still about the move. I wish the small details didn't matter, but they do. For instance, finding a hotel in the area for the night of the 17th that accepts pets. Luckily so far I've found 2 and will check the hotel on base tomorrow. Hopefully things will start to fall into place and we can start to feel a little better. As of right now we still aren't sure if TMO is going to change our pack up and move out dates, we won't know until the end of the week. *note to self -- add to to-do list* Such a process. Hopefully things will go fairly smoothly for us soon. We've dealt with enough for a while I think, can we have a break, please?

Infectious Laughter

Alex has the best laugh. I wish I could capture it on video or sound recording each and every time he busts out with a giggle. Sometimes it's an honest-to-goodness laugh, other times it's a fake laugh that leads to a real laugh because he's so amused with himself.

He just did this as I got him a cup with a straw and proceeded to pour him milk. He said no as I started pouring it into his cup. So I asked him if he wanted chocolate and what kid would deny chocolate milk? lol He happily said yes, and as I pour the chocolate syrup into his cup he squealed and giggled. The look on his face was sheer joy and I wish I had had my camera or the video camera to capture the delight on his face and in his laugh.

He also finds it highly amusing when I "blow out" the gameboy advance games. Sometimes when we put them into the DS they aren't always recognized right away, so we have to take it out and blow out any dirt that might be in there. He laughs at me each and everytime I do that.

If only he was this cute & adorable all the time. ;)

Autumn Blossoms

A new collab from Amanda Heimann & Pineapple Plantation Designs is available at The Digi Chick today and it's 20% off today only! For good measure, here's my latest layout using Autumn Blossoms (plus a few other things), click for full credits.

Are you wearing the same

thing you had on yesterday?????

Was what was heard in my house this morning, not once, but twice.

lol Anthony fell asleep on the couch last night after eating dinner so I threw him in bed in what he was wearing. He came downstairs in the exact same thing he wore all day yesterday. Then I took a closer look at Tommy. I knew he was wearing the same shorts, kind of hard to disguise the blue plaid shorts. A second and third glance at his shirt told me he was wearing the exact same thing as yesterday also! lol I tried to be nice about it, but Tommy had hurt feelings over it.

I meant to get my camera this morning when I woke them up, I was contemplating doing a layout about our morning routine. Maybe stealing the idea from this layout by Ali Edwards. Plus I need to get my camera out more often, it's just awkward with the dog and Alex never wants to cooperate. lol I'm trying to research getting a new P&S camera for the trip to CA. I don't really want to spend the money, but there are times that I wished that I didn't have to lug around my big camera.

I ordered two calendars this morning for Christmas presents, it cost me a bit more than I wanted, but I was able to pull it altogether through iPhoto and it looked nice. I was able to put 7 photos on a page, some pages had less. Total cost after shipping/fees for one 13 x 10.4" calendar was $25.98. I had to place 2 orders since I add more photos that include J in the one for my MIL. I hope they turn out nice. Then all I have to finish working on is the cd calendars for my Grandma & Grandpa. I'd like to get a photo calendar for my house, but I think I'm going to do my fav photos from the year so maybe I'll order one in December.

On a roll though...if only getting the car situation figured out was this easy, or cleaning my house. hahaha

Monday ramblings

Cute altered notebook idea here on The DigiChick's blog.

A cute sweater that I have my eye on from AE. They are also buy one get one 50% off. Tempting, although I really don't need to be spending $50 on a sweater right now.

Looking for quotes on shipping DH's car to CA has been a headache. I lost the email quote that one company sent me a few weeks ago that was by far the cheapest, but I need to find out if that included taxes & fees. It would figure that is disappeared. DH's been emailing me quotes on & off throughout the afternoon.

I called our bank to see about a personal loan if we end up needing to sell DH's car and we, of course, owe more than it's worth. The countdown to moving is going faster so we need to finalize alot of the little details before we have no internet service and all our stuff is packed up. I need to make a list of things to call on and get set-up for disconnection.

Rambling...again...lol One thing off my mind is that I was able to get through to the new school for the boys & the lady Stephaine was so nice and helpful. I have a list of things we need and thankfully the only thing we have to go out of our way to get is a copy of Anthony's physical. He's already had one though, so it's just a matter of getting a copy. It looks like Anthony will be going to half day kindergarten once we move. I do need to call and double check on when they are due for their next teeth cleaning, I want to get that done before we move.

Ok, ok...going to go now. Start making me some lists.

Thinking ahead to the holidays

I'm amazed at how quickly the holiday season is creeping up on me. I know that it's still a few months away, but with a big move in a month it's really putting a kink in my shopping. I was hoping to have some things taken care of before we move, but I can't justify getting anything right now and having it get "lost" in the move.

This will be our first Christmas away from family. I'm not sure what we are going to do yet. Tom's cousin J lives within 6 hours of us, but I kind of want to have it at our house for a change and take a break from driving all over. We haven't really talked about it, so we'll see when it gets closer.

For Thanksgiving I think we will be having the Lewis' over for the day. Kathy is going to cook a turkey because she doesn't like my idea of crockpotting a couple of roaster turkeys. lol I'm hoping to have some money to go shopping with the day after Thanksgiving. There are plenty of places to go shopping at in Temecula so I'm hoping to be able to knock everything out in one day. Minus the calendars that I'm hoping to have at least designed up before we move. I think there will be quite a few gift cards purchased this Christmas to reduce the postage cost.

I don't know why I got all wrapped up in the holiday thinking this morning, I must've heard/read something online about Christmas. Just got me thinking about our move and the holidays.

More landlord woes

I am really grateful that our move to CA will enable us to not have to deal with Mr. Landlord anymore. I am beyond ready to be done with all the crap that comes along with renting from him. I'm hoping that our new landord is better and has had some prior experience renting out his property before. Although, his cashing of the post-dated check makes me wonder, he's lucky the money was there. That's beside the point, back to the current Landlord troubles. He scheduled a company to come clean out the duct work yesterday. Their window was 9-11 and it was supposed to take hours, up to 5. Well, no one showed. Mr Landlord called to double check someone showed around 10:30 or so. Then at about 12:30 he called to tell us they were about 10 minutes out. Great, by this time their 5 hour timeframe was going to push them into the beginning of Tommy's soccer practice. They showed, sat in the driveway, and continued to sit. I hate when people do that, I'm usually here by myself with one or more of the kids and it just gives me an eery feeling. Then Mr Landlord calls to tell us that the company told the service people only to clean the outside unit, so they can't do the duct cleaning, they didn't have what they needed. Wonderful.

It didn't help any that when I took the kids outside that morning to wait for the bus that I suddenly had a nausea attack and my stomach felt like someone had punched me multiple times. I thought it would pass, unfortunately it didn't and I ended up puking into the bushes. Thankfully the boys bus driver is the best, so when the boys just waited at the end of the driveway instead of their normal stop at the corner, she stopped to get them anyway. Tom ended up coming home because of the duct cleaning, so that I could not deal with it since I didn't feel well. I slept on and off throughout the day, but the appointment wasn't held.

They re-scheduled for Friday, let's hope the service people get the right instructions and bring the appropriate equipment this time. I'm really tired of waiting for people to show up.

On a better note, Tuesday when Anthony came home he had a note from his teacher. It was notifying us that they had nominated him for Student of the Month for September. They are having a breakfast for them on Sept 26th. Hopefully Tom won't have any issue getting off work to go. They only allow adults to attend and I don't know anyone who will watch Alex for me. It's a treat for Dad to be able to show up when he can, so he'll go this time.

A nice little visit

Sam and her kids stopped by overnight last night. They are headed from her parents house in NY to NC. Chris comes home in another month or so and they are having a house built so she is anxiously awaiting getting her hot little hands on those keys. lol I wouldn't blame her at all, it's nice to have a place to call your own.

The garage guy actually made it by today. We were told not to open the garage door anymore because of where it's rotting is where all the springs and pressure it. The guy said basically we were in the worst situation to be in. It's going to cost $650 for a new panel. He suggested buying a new door, but obviously it's up to Mr Landlord. So, this ought to be interesting to see what he's going to do. Oh and tomorrow the people to clean out the ducts will be here from 9-12 for 5 hours! He didn't even ask if it was ok with my schedule. Which is funny, because tomorrow was the one day I was going to head to the store. Alex and I haven't had the privilege of a store trip by ourselves yet, so I thought we would run to Target and pick up the baby gift for M & M.

That's all from me today, I'm feeling lazy so after lunch I think it'd be a good time for a movie.

FOB2Y 9/11

For the blog challenge at SSD this week. I'm a few days late for it, but at least I remembered this week. :)

You Are 70% Real

You know who you are, and you're pretty darn comfortable with yourself. Like everyone, you struggle with the parts of yourself that aren't so great... But you're good at accepting who you are and not dwelling on your faults. As a result, you're confident, optimistic, and very real.

How Real Are You?

Paint, Soccer and other misc things

So, after trying a handful of times to blindly buy paint to cover up Alex's lovely artwork we gave up. Tom grabbed a box cutter after Mr Landlord wouldn't give us any suggestions or guidance about what color paint to buy and cut out a part of the wall. That was interesting.

Tommy had soccer pictures this morning. I felt bad but I didn't buy individual photos, I did get him a copy of their team picture. I told him that I would take some pictures of him and then we'll email them off and later when we have some extra cash we'll get some prints done. After his pictures we stopped at Wal-Mart to grab some stuff, then off to his soccer game. After the game we had to stop by Lowe's to get paint and spackle. Unfortunately, the employees at the paint counter weren't interested in helping us, when they finally acknowledged that we were breathing & waiting for some help the little color matching machine didn't want to work.

So, off to Home Depot we went, Tom was in and out of there with a matched gallon of paint, spackle, and sandpaper in much less time than we were in Lowe's. A quick stop by Giant for some groceries and then we came home. We arrived home to see that Mr Landlord left our garage door totally open while he left and ran to Home Depot. Tom has thousands of dollars worth of gear in the garage; I was beyond pissed.

Thankfully the paint matches and we are set for the weekend. Tom just got back from a quick run to the gas station on base for some more Peach Schnapps and orange juice for my yummy calypso coolers that I have fallen in love with.

So, I'm off to enjoy the cooler air and thunder and a nice refreshing drink. Here are a couple of pictures from our week.

Anthony watching the soccer game

Alex asleep on the couch with the gameboy

Tommy at his game during a break on Sat.

what a {bad} morning

Ugh, I hate mornings like this. The ones where you wake up in a panic, don't know what exactly is going on, but know that something is wrong. That was my morning.

Normally we wake up at 7:10 for school. Well I was awoken by Anthony at about 8:35 telling me that Mr Landlord was here. What?! I flew out of bed, grabbed my sweater because of course I had been sleeping, so I had my sleep shorts on and a tank top with no bra. lol I flew downstairs as the phone starts ringing. I get the alarm turned off and open the door to Mr Landlord standing there, I must've looked absolutely freaking awesome. He wanted to know if it was ok that the a/c guy was ok to come out in a half hour rather than the time frame of 10-2 that they gave us yesterday. I tell him that's fine. I run inside & immediately get on the boys cases about why they didn't wake me up. I checked my cell phone to see why I didn't wake up to my alarm, well, it was probably because my phone died in the middle of the night. Wonderful.

So, it's almost 1 and I'm really feeling overwhelmed and edgy since I had a bad start to my morning. The a/c guy said that the whole system really needs to be replaced due to the age and efficiency of it. It'll cost $1300 to get the system replaced or $600 for him to come out again and clean what he can. I knew there was something wrong with the system, there just had to be. Now Mr Landlord is saying the guy told him he adjusted it so it'd be working better, etc and to let him know how it is. Of course it's a nice, coolish day today with no real need for the a/c to be running.

This is so our luck.

Rain, rain

Tommy's soccer game was canceled due to all the rain we got from Hanna. His playdate with L was also canceled, I guess she had wanted to have a picnic, so they will try next weekend.

We ran out to the store today and of course the commissary was super busy, doesn't help that they were running the case lot sale this weekend. Thankfully we only needed a handful of things and got done fairly quickly; going there give me a panic attack.

We've successfully sold our large Fisher-Price toybox and Hummer Power Wheel on Craigslist in the past week. Now for the stroller & car seat. I also have a few things that I need to get listed on ebay, a couple of I Love Lucy barbies, my old iPod and some video games.

I finished this layout yesterday. It took a while to figure out the look I wanted, I changed the layouts to black and white, but struggled with out to set it up on the page. Then I came across Nikki's Stripped template and I immediately knew that was it. So, using Amanda & Melissa's Autumn Pop kit and a few other goodies, I have another cute layout of my favorite middle man. :)

I'm also a guest for Karah Fredricks this month. I love her stuff, I have an overflowing folder full of her stuff. I wish I had some motivation to scrap though! lol The layout I just did took me all day to get the way I wanted it - and I used a template! lol Maybe tomorrow. I've got to knock some things out though...near the end of the month I'll be busier and might not get a chance to just sit & scrap.

mommy...mommy...mommy!

So, this is what I hear alot from Alex lately. I don't know where he picked up the Mommy part of it, I usually refer to myself as Mom to the boys. The boys have never called me anything but Mom. I'm trying to figure out how well he likes being the only one at home, but I think the change is still too new or him. I was hoping to be close to a routine by the end of the week, but it's not happening. I was soo tired this morning that I went back to bed til I hear a little voice coming up the stairs yelling, "Mommy! Mommy!" lol

I looked at Tommy's soccer schedule yesterday when Tom got home and realized that he has games 2x a week for 2-3 weeks along with practices 2x a week. There is a week or two at the end of the month that there isn't even a game on Saturday. It's really odd how they have done the game schedule. Tomorrow is his first game and I forgot to ask his coach which jersey he's supposed to wear. lol

Well, I need to go get started on the mess in the toy room. I have a horrible mess waiting for me in the computer room. It almost makes me sick each time I see it. lol

And just for kicks, a video of Alex...He didn't like it when I tried to give him the lightning bug. It's a video from my SIL's cell phone, so it's not great quality.

{soccer mom}

So tonight I took Tommy to his first soccer practice. Since the bus was running a little late I had him change right away when he got home and we ran out to run a couple errands beforehand. We ran into a slight snag trying to find the soccer field; note to coaches, if the practice field is at an elementary school, say so - not everyone might know what B means. lol Tommy had a good first practice, his first game is scheduled for Saturday.

Anthony and Alex played on the playground equipment and got really dirty. It was great for Alex though, he got to be outside and play. Once we got home it was a quick dinner of quesadillas and then upstairs to get cleaned up and pj's on. Now it's 10pm and I am ready to hop in the shower and get to bed. Alex has other plans though.

Here are a couple pics from this evening, it was a bit of a pain to try to take pictures and chase after Alex.

Action shot

Alex was really dirty

1st day of '08-'09 school year

My boys left a little under an hour ago to go to their first day of school. They'll be gone until just about 4pm. The littlest man of the house is still sleeping. I took some pictures, they aren't great, maybe tomorrow morning we'll try again. Tom stayed home to see them off on the bus, it was weird to see the 2 of them get on the bus. Anthony didn't seem bothered one bit this morning which is a relief for me. I was really afraid that he would go into a meltdown while getting dressed, putting his shoes on or getting on the bus. No meltdowns this morning, which makes me happy.

1st day of 2nd grade

1st day of Kindergarten

1st day of 08-09 school year

Walking to the bus stop

Waiting at the bus stop

After the boys left for school and Tom left for work I got my pretty, new, inscribed iPod and got on the elliptical. Baby steps, I did 1/2 mile in just under 12 minutes. By the end of the week I'm hoping to be up to 3/4 mile. I am determined to try to take off 5-10 pounds by the time we move. Hopefully the hubby will be helpful in my quest, usually he makes all sorts of promises of helping, or working out together, only to sit on the couch and watch me run around taking care of the house. lol

Well, the littlest man is up now, so I should start to get some things done and get into a routine.

September, already?

I can't believe it's September already. I don't have anything specific to write about today, so I'm just going to point out some highlights of my weekend.

I found out that My Pic Tales is offering a single page printing service now.

They are also offering 20% off until today (though I read somewhere they extended it to Sept 7th). I just got some prints done through scrapbookpictures.com in July. I'm thinking about getting a couple prints done if the shipping isn't too much for just a handful of prints. Maybe I will get a couple extra to put in the 12x12 scrapbook frames I've been wanting to purchase.

I listed some things on Craigs List yesterday & today, there are still some other things that I'd like to get listed. The games I listed on ebay for the boys ended yesterday, we didn't get as much as I'd hope for them, but we will be free of them.

The boys start school tomorrow. I'm excited for them, it's going to open up so many doors for Anthony. Tom is going in late to see them off on the bus the first day. Tommy has his first (the team's 2nd) soccer practice on Wednesday evening.

I've got to go on a digital supply spending freeze for the next few months. I've done good in August & July, not buying too much, though I did buy stuff that I probably didn't need to. I would like to still allow myself $10 each payday, but every penny we can scrape together will help. We have alot of money going out in October, and not nearly enough money coming in. Ah, the joys of moving!

boys are back

My boys are back home! They arrived Wednesday night with Aunt J and cousin J. I thought Aunt J would want to go do stuff with them, but we just sat around Thursday during the day. Thursday evening we took Tommy and Anthony to school to meet their teachers and find their classrooms. Tommy has the same teacher as he did last year, so he had no issues. Anthony's teacher seemed ok, she wasn't particularly easy to talk to, but I'm hoping it was because of all the chaos with it being an open house.

We told both teachers about our upcoming move and Tommy's teacher said she'd be glad to help with whatever we can. Anthony's teacher just seemed bothered that he would only be there for a month and a half.

J & J decided to stay and hang out with us on Friday. So, we went to eat at Moe's Southwestern Grill, we'd never been there before. They had really good burritos, I'm happy we finally tried it. Afterwards, we went to the soccer store to find Tommy's soccer uniform. $65 later and he had 2 jerseys, a pair of shorts, 2 pairs of socks and new cleats. The cleats were $40, so when we went to Target later I tried to convince him that the $18 ones were nice too. He preferred the ones from the soccer store, so to compromise, he didn't get his shiny orange and blue soccer ball that was more expensive than the plain black and white ones. lol

Today we went to the dreaded commisarry, I almost had a panic attack the moment we walked in there. We walked out spending too much, as is normal, and came home. So we are done for the day it is uncomfortably hot outside and I have a daunting pile of laundry waiting for me. So, we are going to hang out today and play games and watch movies.

we have a CA address!!!

I am so relieved that the rental realtor finally got in touch with us today to let us know that they accepted our application to rent the house. It is such a weight off my shoulders to know that my family will have a place to live when we get there. We will be able to get the school situation figured out and do as much as we can from here so that the kids can get back into school quickly.

The lovely silver car in the driveway was our rental when we were out there. I wanted to take pics inside, but didn't bring my camera into any of the houses we saw. I meant to, but I also thought that we would be able to check out the house one more time before we left town, we just didn't want to go back and get our hopes all up for something that might fall through. So, we will try to remember what this house looked like on the inside. It's hard to differentiate the houses though, we saw so many. lol This one does have a large kitchen with white cabinets and a 3 car garage, also a loft area upstairs with a built-in desk area on one wall.

The kiddos are back. It was so nice and quiet until they got here! lol We've been trying to not push ourselves on them because they are having so much fun. I don't know what their plans are tomorrow, but I need to try to run to Wal-Mart to pick up a kindermat for Anthony and 5 composition books for Tommy. We haven't been able to find any comp books anywhere, I might have to order them online and hope they arrive in time for the first few days of school. I also need to finish cleaning up my room & start in on the computer room, it's been a dumping ground for all sorts of things lately.

August layouts

I've been meaning to post them for a while, but you know, life gets in the way ;) lol

So, the one with the tree isn't quite one I love, but I'm glad I scrapped it. I can always re-do it if & when the mood strikes. I love the Awards one though, of these 4 it's my fav of the bunch. These are all the pages I've done this month, pretty good considering we've been gone & so busy.

So, that's all for today...I'm a bit tired from cleaning out the garage today. I hope that the mice won't come back, we had to scrub, wash & throw out so much stuff that they had gotten into. Gross.