Thanksgiving Week

Wow, what a week we just had!! Busy, busy, busy. And now I can finally sit down and write about it. We had my parents over for Thanksgiving and Nicholas flew in to be with us too. Everyone got here on Tuesday and stayed until this morning!! I'm tired, but I love having family here so it's worth it. Let's see if I can remember everything we did. First of all, I have to brag a bit about my sweet Raquel. I went to her parent/teacher conference on Tuesday and she is doing so well. Turning out to be quite the artist and with her flair for the dramatics, well, let's just say I hear the drama department calling and she's only in the first grade. She got rave reviews from her teacher and is excelling in every subject. I'm so proud of her. Not afraid to do anything that one. Very confident.

So, let's see, Wednesday during the day we just stayed home while Todd worked and raked all the leaves in the back yard. We have a pretty big back yard so it was quite the task, but my kids had fun "helping" Grandpa and I with the work. Wednesday evening we went out to eat at Old Country Buffet. It's kind of turning into a tradition when my parents are here. Raquel wanted to see if she could out eat Nick. Are you laughing yet? I swear that boy eats me out of house and home when he's here. No joke, he was on his third plate by the time the rest of us were done with one. Sometimes we ask him if he actually tastes the food or just breathe it down!! Needless to say, Nick won. Raquel tried, but he smoked all of us!! Later that evening my mom, Todd, Nick and I abandoned my poor father to babysit while we went and saw Twilight - again!! It was the second time for everyone but Todd, his first. He really liked it and may I just say - even BETTER the second time around. It is such a good movie and it makes me want to read the books again. I think I'll start after the holidays. Thursday we prepared our Thanksgiving meal and played games all day. Shocker, I know. That's what we do, we play games. And I especially love it when Nick is here because we gang up on Todd and he loses like every game we play. Good bonding for me and the Nickster. The best part of the day came when I was taking Marcus downstairs to bed. I was holding him in my arms facing towards me and at the bottom of the stairs he vomited - ALL OVER ME!! Three times. Apparently, all he had had to eat that afternoon was chocolate milk and hershey's kisses because I was covered in them. Aahh, I love being a mom.

After we cleaned up the "chocolate", I went to bed early because I LOVE to shop on Black Friday. I know, it's strange, but I get such an adrenaline rush and I just love to watch grown adults act like complete idiots!! I got up around 3:30 am and was at good old WalMart at 4:30. I must say, the Chehalis WalMart does things so much better and more organized than the one here. For starters, they actually let you in the warm store. Here, we were standing in lines outside and it is frickin' cold here!! At Chehalis, they give you a map of where everything is that is on sale. Here, you just wander around aimlessly until you stumble upon the dvd player that is on the floor behind the check out counter in electronics and then accidentally find the dvd's on sale in the dairy section. Strange, I know!! From there I hit Lowe's, Kohl's, Old Navy, Linens-N-Things, Walgreen's and finally Target. And believe it or not I was home before noon. Usually I'm gone all day, but I went by myself this year and I must say I got in and out and done a lot faster. The rest of Friday we played more games. Saturday Todd and my dad replaced a part on my new sweet ride while I took Marcus to his first birthday party at a friend's house. So cute!! And then, you guessed it, we played more games. I know, we're dorks. Saturday night Todd and I had a date night with Kim & Freddie and Allie & Todd. It was a blast. We ate out at Chili's and had dessert at Dairy Queen with a whole lotta nonsense inbetween. We've become good friends with them and we always have great fun when we're together!!

Sunday I think I was running out of steam because I didn't feel well so I stayed home with my babies while everyone went to church. Afterwards we did it again - we played some more games. Man, I feel like a broken record!! Nick flew home Sunday night and my parents drove home this morning. It was a hectic week but so worth it because I got to spend it with my family. Now, I must go finish putting up my Christmas decorations while listening to Christmas music. Goodbye Thanksgiving - Hello Christmas!!

TWILIGHT!!

I can't believe it finally came!! I was so giddy with anticipation that I barely slept on Thursday night!! Which wasn't so great considering that I had to drive to the Tri-Cities and back on Friday to attend the private screening of Twilight that my girl Kate had arranged for us to go to. I told my husband I was just as excited as I was the night before our wedding. So, relying on pure adrenalin and caffeine, I loaded up my kids into my awesome minivan (ugh) and drove three hours with all three of my kids to Kate's house. I dropped my kids with Kate's daughter Rachel and off we went to the movies. It was awesome!! Our "ticket" to get into our private screening was this lanyard we wore around our necks.

Pretty creative, huh?! And as we were walking into the theater our hosts had put up all these pictures from the movie and quotes from the books all along the walls. Before the movie started they handed out prizes for all these different Twilight things, like who had read it the most and who had "converted" the most people to the books. I of course came all decked out in my Twilight gear - Twilight t-shirt, check - Twilight bag, check - Twilight keychain, check. I left my poster and calendar at home because well, how could I justify bringing those to a theater!! And then, finally at 10:00 am our private screening of Twilight began!! And of course, I LOVED IT!! Obviously it wasn't as good as the book, but then what movie ever has been bettter than the book? I was so happy just to see this book that I love up on the big screen. I don't even want to hear anything critical about this movie!! I am a TRUE fan and I can't wait to see it again. Plus, hi it made like 70 million bucks so now I can't wait for New Moon!! After the movie we went out to eat at Olive Garden and then I grabbed my kids and headed back on the road for another three hour drive. Needless to say I was exhausted by the time I got home, but it was worth it. Thanks so much to my miss Kate for arranging our private showing and to my dear Clarissa it just wasn't the same without you!! I love Twilight!! Thank you Stephenie Meyer!!

Decorating

Just been doing some more decorating in our duplex (I know, we've lived here since July and I haven't got everything on the walls yet!) and I really liked how this grouping turned out so I thought I would share. I get awfully proud of myself when my decorating comes together and I really love to decorate!! This is above our bed in the master bedroom and I think it turned out too cute. Tell me what you think!!

From Motorcycle to Minivan

I have to give some special attention to my amazing husband in this post. Because, you see, he sold this:

So that he could buy me this:

And I'm pretty sure that he got the raw end of the deal on this one. You see, my husband LOVES his bike. That's what he does. He works and supports our family and when he needs some time to himself he takes his bike out and drives at speeds that I don't even want to think about. He is so a bike person and it actually gives me a great deal of guilt that he gave up his passion so that I could have a bigger car. In our other car our kids were all crammed together in the backseat, wall-to-wall car seats. Now, they are all spread out and we actually have extra room!! In fact, when Nick comes to visit for Thanksgiving we can all ride somewhere together in one car instead of having to drive two!! So, I am thankful so much for my husband's sacrifice of his "baby" so that I can officially be a minivan mom (ugh!). We'll miss you Suzuki!!

Slip-N-Slide

The duplex we are renting is an older home and we've realized that the stairs are just a bit narrower than our old house and they're carpeted as well. Since we've moved in we've all actually slipped on a stair and fallen on our bums and had a good laugh. Last Sunday we were running around as usual trying to get ready for church and be on time. I was trucking it downstairs and I slipped off the second step and took the last four on my back. Ouch! Of course I threw my arms out to try and catch myself, but that didn't work either. I hit my arm so hard on the wall going down that I was sure I had broken it. Thank goodness it wasn't. Just this nasty bruise and holy crap was I sore. I'm not old by any means, but I sure felt this a lot more than I did when I was younger. Everything hurt!! And, no TH, I am not whining, I am just sharing with everyone what a clutz I am so no mean comments!! Enjoy my pain!!

Laundry Man

I know there are bound to be a few of you out there who are going to sympathize with this story. For those of you who don't know me so well I will admit to having a little OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and for those of you who do know me, well, you know. I like things a certain way. Yes, my movies are all alphabetized as well as my cd's and of course my books. My clothes are all hung in the closet a certain way and so on and so forth. I know, I know, but I seriously can't help it. I have gotten better since having kids because so many things are just out of my control right now. Well, I also like to clean and do laundry in my anal way and I usually don't let anyone help me, because, well, they might do it wrong!! Ha-Ha!! So, last week my husband wanted some laundry done and I couldn't get to it at that moment so he decided he would "help" me and run a few loads through. He of course, did it wrong, bless his heart and didn't check pockets and I think the picture tells the rest of the story. . . .



Yup, those are mostly my white clothes that were trapped in laundry hell with something red and came out pink. Thanks for all your help sweetie!!

Happy Halloween

I just had the best Halloween I think I have ever had in my life. Growing up Halloween was never a big deal because my mom hates Halloween and the month of October in general. In fact, I was actually due in October and my mom willed me to stay inside of her until November rolled around!! Thanks Mom!! So, we never made a big deal about the holiday. This year though my kids are older and they were all excited about it and for once we actually live in a city where you can walk around trick-or-treating. I will admit at first I was dragging my feet about even taking them out, but they were just so excited - even sweet little Marcus was walking around the house practicing his "Trick-or-Treat"!! We drove over two streets to where all the "rich" people live and met up with my girlfriends Allie and Kim and we all went out together. It's hard to describe it, but the reason I had such a good time was simply watching my kids. This was literally the first time either of them had been trick-or-treating door to door and they were SO excited!! Just watching them run up to strangers doors and yell trick-or-treat and run back to me so happy about just getting a piece of candy was so fun. My little Marcus running just as fast as he could to keep up with his much faster big sister - oh, it makes me smile just thinking about it. The neighborhood was really great too with tons of decorations, fog machines and even a haunted backyard. I didn't realize it at the time, but we were out there for two hours!! And my sweet babies were running from house to house for most of that time. Needless to say they passed out when we got home. What a great night with my kids and I must say, definitely my most favorite Halloween yet. (Raigan, we'll get you next year sweetie - you slept through the whole night at home with Daddy!!)