Happy Holidays and Bah Humbug!

This picture was right before Trevor threw himself on the ground

Trevor finally warmed up to Santa and let him be held by him

Shakin handss with Santa

All three with Santa - wasn't it good that I had my camera with me to capture it??

Now , I must go and do some laundry, write out more Christmas cards and finish my mom’s 60th photo album (oh this is taking forever and her birthday was almost 2 weeks ago – but I am trying to not get too stressed about it). I know I am way off my from getting things off my to do list for the day!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS and Bah Humbug!

Breeakfast with Santa

We had Breakfast with Santa - (kind of!).

Each year Mike's company has a year end "breakfast with Santa". Its a great family event. There is a ton of food - as adults, Mike and I really look forward to the food (we don't get out much, so a free meal where we don't have to cook and no mess to clean up is always great!)

Not only is there a nice breakfast buffet (muffins, doughnuts, bagels, scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, sausage, bacon, french toast sticks, and fresh fruit, plus juices and coffee and other beverages), but they also have carrollers come and sing, and Santa brings every kid a gift!

After we eat, we enjoy the carollers (they sing in the lobby as everyone enters, and then sings on stage once everyone is busy with breakfast). The kids go up and get to sing a long on stage. I can never get Stephen up there. He is shy and doesn't want to be up on stage. Ryan gets up there, but usually forgets to sing, and then there is Trevor who kinda freaks out at all the noise and people if we get close to the stage. This year however, I got up by the corner of the stage and got Trevor to sit with me so we could join in the festivities. (This is great considering his Sensory issues!)

Then, Santa enters and comes around and shakes hands and such. After much hand shaking, the gift giving starts. The company is great - they have the parents go out and buy their kids a gift up to 30.00 worth. The parent wraps it and brings it to work a couple of days before the event. It is stored and then brought to the banquet hall to be given out at the event. The best part is the company reimburses the worker for up to 30.00 (when you bring in a receipt).

So, the boys love the gift getting! The employess are called to go pick up the presents santa brought for their kids and the wrapping paper explosion begins. My boys got some great things. Ryan was a little worried that Santa would not bring him a gift as he thought he'd been bad (he has been having a tough time at school lately). But Santa brought him a MP3 player - one for his age that is indestructable. Stephen got a mini remote control helicopter and Trevor got a Elmo learning laptop toy. The boys seemed to be happy with their gifts.

Next, we get to have the boys take their picture with Santa. Of course Trevor wasn't too keen on this, but we did get one picture before the crying started in earnest.

So Sunday was a nice family day and will help get us warmed up for the real thing coming in a couple of weeks

Anybody into scrapbooking?

Just a quick shout out to everyone.

Its Sunday evening and the kids have been home from school since Wednesday - that is 5 WHOLE DAYS!! 5 days with 3 boys, 3 cats, + 1 messy house + big christmas present shopping detail + major birthday project to complete ASAP= crabby mom.

It looks like a bomb went off in my house. I've been working on my mom's scrap book for a surprise gift. Did I mention I've never scrapbooked before? Imagine that with all the pictures I take and how fastidious I try to be about recording all the "firsts of the the kids" and always have my camera at most friend and family functions. I had been very good about putting pictures in photo albums till I got my digital camera. Now it's too easy to take too many pictures and then too expensive to have them all printed. I am only about 2 years behind in getting pictures in albums, not too bad, right? Anyhow, as I mentioned I keep photo ablums, and I keep up the baby books and little photo albums for each of the boys (little one for them for when they are older, big one for me), and I faithfully take them to the portrait studio to get updated pictures and try to get them in frames within a reasonable amount of time. Yet, I had never tried scrapbooking. I am an avid genealogist, avid picture taker, like crafty things, so it would seem scrapbooking would be right up my alley, but I guess somehow the scrapbooking bug jst never got me. . . . . . . . .

That is until yesterday! It seemed like fate as I dropped off my disk to get prints from the photo department of Meijer and happened past the "Craft section" of Meijer along the way and as I looked down the aisl,e I noticed all these 50% off signs. So naturally I decided the photo ablum I was going to do was now going to become scrapbooked. Now I am planning on sending it tomorrow - another little snag in my plan, but I will plunge forward with my grand idea and give it a go.
I have put together some pages, not terribly intricate or anything, but I guess slightly better than plain. Of course I still have 100's more pictures to go through and put in the album. Its become apparant that there is no way I can use all of the pictures unless I make it an album with over 50 pages, so now I must make tough decisions.

I truly did not think scrapbooking would be stressful. I guess it wouldn't be if I didn'thave such a time constraint and no knowledge of this craft. I've spent lots of money - you wave a 50% off sign in front of me and sometimes I can go overboard! I got plenty of stuff to hopefully do baby books for the boys and maybe one for vacation and one for mike and I - of course this totally is in violation of my soon to be New Years Resolution of not bringing more into the house till my house is organized and cleared away. (Amvets is coming in 2 weeks, and that is just not soon enough for me!)

So, any scrapbookers out there?? I may need some pointers!!

PS - Despite the kids getting restless on days 4 and 5, its been a pretty nice Thanksgiving week.
hope you (whoever you are that reads my blog) had a great Thanksgiving too.

Wish me luck!

Thankfulness; to be or not to be? HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I had intended to start out a post about being thankful and hopefully after I get this vent out of my system I will get to that. However I am feeling a bit grumpy after last night and not feeling at all thankful, even feeling a bit let down by the clothing manufacturers, buyers/designers or whoever is in charge of what goes into the retail stores..

On my to do list for a couple of days is making sure I have turtlenecks for the boys. I still hadn't gotten to that yesterday and knew time was running out. I did want yesterday to be a fun family day since the boys were off, so we decided to go to the movies (bowling was out-voted by the movies, imagine that!). So by the time we picked a movie, it was nap time for Trevor, so Trev and I stayed home. So much for my "family fun day". In a way, I was "Thankful" for that as I did get some laundry done and got to continue on my mom's birthday present (a video montage and photo album for her 60th).

Later we went to Applebee's for dinner. A bit of a treat as we are trying to cut back on eating out and haven't been there in ages. (And I was very thankful for the gift card we had to use there)/

Evening is approaching and I realize I still don't have turtlenecks for the boys' Thanksgiving outfits yet. I had been to Walmart and Target earlier this week and did not find them there.
So this is where my vent begins. Do the clothing designers and manufacturers/buyers not know that if they sell boys vests they also need something under them? Yes, button down shirts are nice, (and I did order some shirts for one of the outfits) but I am pretty practical and need turtlenecks for the other outfit. How hard can it be to find creme turtle necks for boys. Sounds easy, right? I mean come on I ordered sweater vests and dress shirts from Gymboree (red with creme trim) and I ordered sweater vests and cords from The Children's Place (brown with some light brown and creme argyle-ish type design). So, I needed creme turtlenecks! I checked online and one of them (forget which one) had them online, so I figured the store should have them right? Wrong again. They did have them in the baby sizes - thank goodness Trevor fits in 18 mos. Most stores do not have any boys turtlenecks and at other stores they did not have any creme. they had girls turtlenecks with little hearts or a little something to make them girls, but not any boys! Some had red or white or navy. (or some silly colors like bright yellow and bright blue). What do the clothing people have against turtlenecks. They are versatile, go with most things and are a great shirt for sweater vests. I started off my journey at Gymboree and got one baby sized turtleneck. They did not have any for toddlers or boys at all. next I went to The Children's Place - no creme to be found and barely much of a selection at all. the Gap was my next spot - no boy turtlenecks at all. Next it was on to Penneys (I saw a brown one and picked it up thinking it would match - nope!) Penney's had no creme. on to Sears and Lands End - nope and nope on the creme. Lands End did have some funky colored ones for boys (what boy wears bright yellow? Not many). now I am starting to feel a blister as I go from store to store to store.

Did I give up, no! I've been out shopping and looking for turtlenecks for 2 hours and no I did not even stop to look at anything else as tempting as it was with the Pre-thanksgiving sales! Next I went to the Gap driving away from the mall. I did find a boys turtleneck in the "toddler boys" section. So hopefully Ryan will fit in a size 5T - A 5-6 in boys would have been better, but I was taking what I could get. I did get an almost off white long sleeve crew neck that I hoped I might be able to use as last resort(when I got home I realized it was really white and not even a bit off white). My journey continues to Kohl's. Again no creme. this is where I picked up a brown one but it is definitely the wrong shade of brown.

I know this seems so silly to post about, but I was so dejected and exasperated (you know I am stressed when I start using big words!). So maybe now that I blogged about it, I can move on with my life. OK, I know that is overly dramatic, but hey I was on a role.

Fast Forward to today, this AM.
I am looking at the outfits, still not knowing what I'll put together, but its technically Thanksgiving so time to give Thanks.

I am thankful for the extra exercise I got last night. I really needed to work off the food from Applebees and I would probably not have done much exercise had it not been for my trip to the mall and everywhere else.

I am thankful for my kids as always. They are always a strong presence around here, and Can't imagine it ever being quiet enough to sleep in with their boyish and rambunctious play.

I am thankful that our family is relatively healthy for this holiday. We tend to be sick most holidays (Pneumonia, bronchitis, severe flu have been Thanksgiving, Christmases, Easter and Halloween over the years). Ryan and Trevor may have some mild colds, but they seem in fine spirits.

I am thankful that I am not cooking today. my MIL is cooking and will give me left overs, so I can enjoy my favorite for a couple of days (and hopefully not cook much in the next couple of days)

I am thankful for my new camera that I got this summer. It was a bit of a splurge, but I love knowing I will have it to capture Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

I am thankful for my husband (of course). He may not like changing diapers and doing homework with kids and making Trevor do his listening therapy and help with lunch and breakfast on weekends, but he does it any way.

I am thankful for my family. Some (maybe most??) of my family members are a rather disfunctional and quirky group of people, but hey, family is family and I would rather have them in my life than not!

I am thankful for my wonderful friends. Some have stuck around despite me getting crabbier in my old age. And, some I have become re-aqinted with and reconnected with because of my school reunion and Facebook (THANKS FACEBOOK!!)

I am thankful that in today's economy, my husband has a good job and we have a nice home and are able to put gas in our cars and keep food on the table and our children decently clothed (even in matching sweater vests at times!).

Those are just some of the things I am thankful for.

I wish you and your family a wonderful Thanksgiving!

STAY TUNED, I PLAN TO POST PICTURES OF THE MUCH TALKED ABOUT SWEATER VESTS!

One month till Christmas

Today is Tuesday - 2 days before thanksgiving. I am feeling awfully anxious. I don't know why, thanksgiving is not at my house. I am not bringing anything but pie ( and its store bought). But just knowing that Thursday is right aroudn the corner, then comes black friday and then a week after that is my mom's birthday - well its just too close to Christmas and my to-do list is just not shrinking!

I am happy to report that I am about 80-85% done with Christmas shopping. I even started on my Christmas newsletter. I had the boys picture taken for a Christmas pic for the wallets to put in with the Christmas newsletter. I have purchased 2 sets of outfits to be worn for the holiday season (at Mike's work party the kids see Santa, so they need to look nice and I hate to dress them up 4 times in the same outfit for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Santa's party etc so I try to buy 2 nice outfits and then try make due with their clothes for the other parties and outings - My boys don't have a lot of stuff that doesn't have a stain or rip or something on it somewhere.)

I have emailed out my kids Christmas list to fam and friends (I set it up at Toys R Us online - i hope all that time is worth the effort and we don't have lots of duplicates this year!!).

I have even decided on my new years resolution (ok, so my resolutions generally are the same most years, but this year, I'm gonna really go for it! - Exercise, lose 4 lbs, get organized, stay in touch with friends better, get organized (yes, I already mentioned it, but this one is a biggy here!).

I've decided I'm going to keep my Christmas cookie baking to a minimum (gotta make some rum balls and some mint choc chip and maybe one or two others!).

I'm even considering cancelling book club for Dec. I doubt if very many people will come to Dec's book club and it would be one less thing on my list if I didn't have to read a book for it!

I'm planning on skipping a lot of the black Friday shopping that I usually tend to do. I did pick up some side gifts for the boys at a PTA resale back in October and have made the most of sales and coupons through now to get most of my shopping done (yahoo!). So, unless there are just some "too good to pass up" things out there, I may not even go out at all on Friday!

So, I guess I am not in terrible shape for the upcoming holidays. I have tons to wrap, and lots of Xmas newsletters mail (after I finish it), and my Halloween decorations are still up outside, and I still have to pass out my scout's popcorn. (And, I am still working on my mom's photo album and slide show for her 60th birthday (which is just 1 week away - I think that may be late, ut oh!! - My family have been rather slow in getting me some of the pictures I've requested!!)

I'm curious, for those of you who read my blog and might post back, how are you getting on your holiday to-do list? I really am just trying to get myself into more of a holiday spirit of goodwill instead of the holiday spirit of being totally frazzled!! So give me some words of encouragement!

I want to wish you a laid back Thanksgiving week. The kids are off tomorrow and I am going to try really hard to make it a family day without a bunch of "mom jobs" to get done before we have our fun time. Wish me luck on that one!

Count down to Christmas has begun

Hey, another post from me already!

the picture above is from last year's christmas now I know we still have Halloween to get through this week and then Thanksgiving, but did you realize that Christmas is less than 2 months away? what happened to Sept and October - oh yeah, thats right. I was busy with my reunion, co-hosting a baby shower, co-chairing red ribbon week, spending time with my friend who just had a baby, up to my eyeballs in therapy for Trevor and homework for Ryan and keeping up with my Tupperware. So although I am usually more ahead of the game and usually have more presents already bought, I am more excited about Christmas than usual (plus Christmas eve is not at my house this year!!!)

As I said, I am very excited about this year. Trevor will be almost 2 1/2 - one of my most favorite ages for kids at christmas. They are so excited and there are so many cool toys at this age. I also want to really enjoy this one as I know my 9 1/2 year old may not believe in Santa anymore. Last year I had just started worrying that he might figureout (or be told by kids that he hangs out with that are 2-4 years older than he is) who Santa is.

It will also be so neat because I will have a new nephew and neice who will have thier first Christmas (I hope I will get the chance to see them during the holiday season!)

So anyone have any cool ideas for a 9 1/2 year old, 6 year old and a 2 year old? I'm sure it will be a lot of WII games and such for Stephen, but I don't have too many ideas as yet!

My mom and I did do a little bit of christmas shopping while she was here this past week, so at least I did start. I haven't even thought about a newsletter (some relatives give me a hard time about this telling me they don't need to know all that is going on in my life - you can guess they are not blog followers - probably don't even know what a blog is!) I have to go online and see if I can get some matching outfits! Its hard when you have a 9 year, 6 year and 2 year old - most clothes only come in two of those sizes! Hopefully Stephen hasn't outgrown the size cutoff at Gymboree or The Children's place. they had such cute sweater vests and shirts last year. didn't they look cute?!?