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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.