A Boy and His Chocolate Pudding

Hmmm... I wonder what this is?

I like it, I like it, I like it!

Uh oh, caught brown handed!

So sorry, but could you please clean me up?

Some days when you catch them in the act, all you can do is just stand there and take pictures...

The Day the Music Died

I love music. All kinds of music. If you grabbed the ipod that I just got for Christmas you would probably be stunned at the variety of stuff that is on there. A little country, lots of showtunes, power ballads from the 80's, some early 90's alternative, a little rap, and of course the oldies but goodies.

You see, my dad loves music. He has so much Christmas music he has to put all the other stuff away just to make room for it during the holidays. He started sharing this love of music with me at a very young age. There are countless home videos of me standing on a table belting out whatever record was playing in the background. Though I credit him with exposing me to all types of music, I have to give special credit for my love of the oldies to him. Elvis, The Beach Boys, Ricky Nelson, Patsy Cline, these are just a few of the artists my dad helped me fall in love with. When I was younger he signed me up for a Time Life series that ranges from 1954-1968, with countless "extras" in-between. I still have all of them. I love to get in my car and crank up the local oldies station and sing along.

This week I will do just that. Because this week music fans everywhere will stop to remember the day the music died. Fifty years ago on February 2, 1959 a plane went down in Clear Lake, Iowa carrying three of music's legends. Only they weren't legends at the time. Back then they were just a few young guys trying to get their start in the world of rock-n-roll. They were certainly on their way. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson each put their own mark on the music industry. Because of the crash, they were forever immortalized and now serve as the benchmark for what music was in America before the British invasion. In 1971, Don McLean wrote the song American Pie, dubbing the event the day the music died. It has been known as that ever since.

This year in Clear Lake people will flock to the Surf Ballroom, where the three played their last show. Fifty years after the fact, the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame is designating the Surf Ballroom as it's ninth national landmark. Amazingly it is still the same place it was back in 1959, and young artists still come there to play and sign the wall behind the stage where so many have come before them. I wish I could be there to see it. Maybe I'll get there someday. In the meantime I will continue to pass the love of music that my dad gave me, onto my kids. Then maybe when they are all grown up they can look back and smile at their crazy mommy who sang showtunes and oldies on the way to school. That'll be the day.

* I temporarily added some music on the sidebar... Hope everyone enjoys it.

Bob the Builder

A week and a half ago, our family braved the bad weather and drove south. Okay, so it was only about 45 miles south but still. It was in the negative teen temperatures, and they were calling for a snowstorm. But, my mother and father-in-law had bought us all tickets to see Bob the Builder live and we didn't want to miss the show. Let me just say that it was worth it. Now my kiddos are not big fans of the show, but their faces just lit up when the characters came on stage. I had to ask Reagan what the scarecrow's name was because I had no clue! By the way his name is Spud. I was amazed at how they brought all of the characters to life, including the machinery which I am guessing was just like a big remote controlled car. The show was very well done and it even managed to teach the kids a little bit about recycling. We even splurged and bought the kids those $15 spinning things which were broken by the next day. I would do it all over again though just to see the joy in their faces!

Here is the curtain before the show started

Watching intently...

Reagan and Dee Dee enjoying their spinners

Jack, smiling as always

Dee Dee and cousin Austin

Jack with Uncle Miah... (Miah says go Steelers)

Reagan enjoying intermission

Cousin Riley showing off his new gear

All the characters on stage (sorry for the poor picture quality)

Catholic Schools Week

Hello there blog world! I realize I haven't been around lately, I am sorry. I have so many things to share with you, including pictures from Bob the Builder! However, I wanted to take the time today to share with all of you that today is the beginning of Catholic Schools week.

Personally Catholic schools are near and dear to my heart. I grew up going to a Catholic school and my girls are currently attending the same elementary school Chris and I both went to. My MIL teaches at the school and I love that my kids will get to have her for a teacher. Yes, sending them to a Catholic school can be a financial sacrifice for us, but it is not as hard as I would have thought. It is very much worth it. I feel like I was shaped by the education I received. By the time I went into the public school system in 7th grade I was very naive. But, I knew who I was and what my values were. I think it helped me get through High School in one piece and not make some of the same mistakes that others made. I hope it does the same for my kids.

So, if there is a Catholic school in you area, please consider supporting it. Many schools will do fundraisers this week in order to help supplement tuition costs and to help those families who are not able to afford tuition. As for me, I promise to be back soon with updates on the kids and pictures to share!

Snow, Snow, Snow!

Well, it seems as though I have been so busy this week that I haven't even had time to breathe, let alone post anything. But now, we are in the middle of a major snow storm and it is literally 0 degrees outside! So this morning I am slowing down and finally posting some pictures from the weekend. On Sunday it was actually warm enough to go outside, so that is what we did. I think it took longer to bundle the kiddos up than the amount of time we were out, but oh well! Poor Jack was so bundled he could hardly walk! The snow was too fluffy to make a snowman, but they still had fun.

Here's Jack with his first handful of snow

Reagan and Dee Dee laying in the snow attempting to make snow angels

Jack steadying himself on the tree

Reagan's face after she ate the snow

They had a great time and afterwards we came in and drank hot chocolate. As for playing in the snow that is falling today, I think it might be just a little too cold outside! I am amazed that they didn't cancel school! I happy though because as long as my hubby thinks he can still drive, we are headed out tonight. Not for date night... no that would never actually happen. We are taking the kids to see Bob the Builder LIVE. Hopefully if all goes well I will have great pictures to post from the show! It is about an hour away, so please pray for safe travel for us!

Our Happy Holidays

We had a very enjoyable holiday here at our house. So much so that I had a very hard time narrowing down which pictures to share. I finally decided on my favorites and here they are, along with a little back story. Not to bore you with all of the little details, but here is the basic outline of what our Christmas looked like. Christmas Eve was spent at my in-laws, where we ate a huge meal and then played games and such until about 11:30 when we let the kids open gifts. The adults always wait until midnight before opening gifts. It was nice to have much of my husband's extended family on his mom's side there to join us. Apparently if we followed their old traditions, dinner would not start until midnight and then they opened presents. But, now that there are so many little ones I guess that is too impractical. Around 1:15 we headed home and set out cookies for Santa before putting the kids to bed. Then, because he had been up since 5 the morning before for work, Chris went to bed and I stayed up getting everything ready until 3. We woke the kids up at 9 so that we would have time to have our own Christmas together before heading over to my mom and dad's for breakfast at 11. We ate pancakes and biscuits and gravy and then unwrapped presents. The rest of Christmas day was spent being lazy and opening new toys. We headed over to Tim and Lili's ( my in-laws) for dinner (leftovers) and then spent the next day recovering and putting away gifts. Let me just say that there were a ton of gifts. Every year I think that amount of "stuff" will get toned down and every year it doesn't. But, I am very grateful for grandparents who keep our kids in nice clothes and the coolest new toys! I am also very grateful for all of the clothes Chris got, they were much needed, as well as my new purse, ipod, and new sheets! I know, I know, I shouldn't have asked for sheets for Christmas but I really did need them and I didn't want to buy them myself.

Chris had most of the week off and we spent lots of time at home with the kids watching movies and playing Hungry Hungry Hippos. Then on New Year's Eve we got a babysitter and went out with some friends. Chris recently joined the local Moose Lodge and so that was where we went. Dinner and all you can drink for $25! I must say even though it wouldn't have been my first choice, the food was good, and it was much cheaper than anywhere else we could have gone. Plus, around 10:30 they brought out a whole table full of hors' dourves and munchies to soak up all of the alcohol. We rang in the new year together and then went home! Our babysitter ended up spending the night, even though she could have driven herself home. I felt much better about her staying though. Even though I am sure she is a very capable driver, I don't trust all those drunk drivers on New Year's Eve. (FYI, we didn't drive. My friend who is still nursing and didn't drink drove us home.)

So, that is what I have been doing around here. Nothing much but enjoying my family, and trying to live in the moments. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, I have been spending some time trying to catch up with all of you! I am sorry if I haven't left comments. SO, without further ado, here are some of my favorite pictures from my Christmas break...

Here are the five of us on Christmas Eve

Dee Dee

Reagan

Jack

My three kiddos in their jammies

Cookies for Santa

Me and my hubby on New Year's Eve

I'm Back... and a CONTEST!

Hello everyone out in blogland! Okay, I must apologize first for not informing everyone of my intention to take a bloggy break. It was a last minute decision, right before Christmas. I am back now and so excited to catch up with all of you! I am working on a big post about all of our holiday adventures. Because seriously, even though I knew I wouldn't be blogging them right away I took a ton of pictures over the holidays. I spent some much needed quality time with my family and my hubby who actually had a lot of time off from work. So, in the meantime while I get my post together, I need some help from all of you. See this gorgeous picture of my second born...

This is Dee Dee, way back in June before she cut off all of her beautiful hair. The picture was taken by my wonderfully talented IRL friend Leah from Leah Hoskins Photography. She is having a photo contest over at her blog, and Dee Dee is one of the finalists! She picked her 30 favorite photos of 2008 and has opened up the voting to determine the best one. If Dee Dee's photo is chosen I could win a mounted 11x14 wall portrait of this image, printed on metallic paper. Sounds cool huh? So, if you feel like helping me out, go on ever there and vote for Dee Dee, she is photo #5. You have to have a Google account but I promise that takes less than a minute to create. If you can't or don't want to vote, please, at least go visit and stare in awe at what an amazing photographer my friend is! I'll be back tonight or tomorrow with updates and pictures from all of our holiday adventures! Happy Voting!!!

Christamas Memories and Old Friends

I LOVE this blog! Of all of the things it has done for me personally one of the best things has been being able to connect with people. I have met new people and I have reconnected with others. One of the people I am most happy to have reconnected with is Toni. I am using her real name here, because I just can't think of her as anything else. Toni is an old family friend who used to babysit my brother and I when we were little. Then I babysat for her kids and a few weeks ago her daughter came to babysit for my kids. There is something so wonderful about that! But, even though I call her a babysitter I can honestly say she was so much more than that. Nothing reminds of that more than the holidays. When I was little, Toni used to take Shawn and I over to her house every year to decorate Christmas cookies. It is one of my most vivid Christmas memories, baking cookies, listening to Twisted Christmas, and watching Santa Claus (with Dudley Moore). I e-mailed her this year to get her buckeye recipe, because I have yet to taste a buckeye in my adult life that was as good as Toni's. A few weeks ago I made them with the kids and they were every bit as good as I remembered!

The other reason Toni is such a big part of my childhood Christmas memories, is because every Christmas Eve she would come over to our house. I remember being so irritated at my parents because they said they were going out for drinks with friends. In reality they were really going to their friends house to pick up our present stash. What a task that must have been staying behind and trying to get two overly excited to go to bed on Christmas Eve. Looking back I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. I thank God for bringing Toni back into my life. Especially during the holidays. Toni, I am so glad you are here!

This song always makes me think of you!

Baby, it's Cold Outside!

Well we certainly got that ice storm and boy was it a doozie! My power has been sporadic for the past few days and the temperature yesterday was -6 degrees. Not to mention that with the windchill it feels even colder! The ice was so beautiful but also very destructive. Remember the tree that got hit by lightning? Well, it isn't a very lucky tree because it lost three more big branches to the ice. I think when spring rolls around, we will probably have to cut it down. I pretty much holed up inside the house on Friday and Saturday only venturing out to take pictures.

On Sunday we were supposed to have our Holiday Game Exchange, but we ended up moving it to a friends house because of the unreliable electricity. It was a blast, even though I couldn't find my camera and don't have any pics to show for it. We came home with Scrabble and a fun game called True Colors. I really hope this becomes a yearly tradition and I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did!

Today I spent most of the day organizing the basement playroom. For those of you who don't know, that's all our basement is, a big playroom. It can get pretty messy, pretty fast. So, I wanted to clean up and "organize" before all of the Christmas toys come flooding in. By organize I mean throw away the broken toys or ones with missing pieces and designate some toys to give away. My younger brother J.C. came over to help me and we knocked it all out in about three hours.

Okay, I crack myself up. I promise you I had no pun intended when I said we knocked it out. But, it just so happens that J.C. did kinda knock Reagan out in another sense of the word. He was putting something away in the unfinished part of the basement for me, when he accidentally hit Reagan with the door. He was trying to shut it behind him without realizing she was trying to follow him in there. She must just be the exact right height because the doorknob hit her smack in the eye. It is all black and blue, and I imagine by Christmas Eve it is going to look pretty bad.

Doesn't she just look miserable. The poor thing! I am just dreading all of those Christmas photos with her black and blue eye. Oh, and you gotta love the fact that she wearing a bathing suit when it is FREEZING outside! I've heard of Christmas in July, but July @ Christmas? I don't know about that one!

It's begining to feel a lot like Christmas!

I must apologize for not posting anything too significant in awhile. There are a few reasons for this. One, is that I am completely wrapped up in the Twilight series. A good friend let me borrow the second and third books and I am almost finished with them. I cannot stress to you how addictive they are, if you have not read them please I beg you jump on this bandwagon! You won't regret it! Another thing I have been busy doing is Christmas shopping. I have been trying to do a little bit each day and I am finally almost finished, two maybe three more gifts to buy and I am done! My other reason for staying away from the blog is that my husband says I spend too much time doing it. He is probably right, but rest assured I am still faithfully reading what all of you write, I just haven't been as generous with the comment love.

Now that I have explained myself, I wanted to share a little bit of what has been going on @ our house. It is the Holiday season and we have been busy! On top of my parents move, we have had four Christmas parties, a school program (video below), and I did a cookie exchange with my MOPS group! I feel like I have a few days to breathe right now and then we are hosting a holiday game night/game exchange @ our house on Sunday night. If you live close by or are going to be in the area please feel free to come and bring a game to exchange, the more the merrier!

Wednesday was Reagan's last day of school before Christmas break and she came home with a gift from her teachers that she just couldn't wait to open. It was a snowman book and this little snowman in a box. Too cute right?

We have had a ton of snow this week and the girls just couldn't wait to build a little snowman. But, Jack was napping, so I couldn't exactly bundle everyone up and go outside. I did however throw my coat on and scoop up some snow with a big mixing bowl and bring it back inside. We then made this cute little snowman together.

The girls were so enthralled with him, as you can see...

But, they were worried because he was melting very fast. So, we stuck him back outside in the snow.

As cold as it is I imagine he will probably be there for a few days. I would love it if the snow stuck around for Christmas. Nothing excites me more than a white Christmas! I hope the weather they are calling for doesn't spoil it though. We are supposed to be getting an ice storm overnight, and I am worried. The last really bad ice storm we had was before Reagan was born and our power was out for two weeks! We had to move in with my in-laws to keep from freezing. So, the thought of being trapped in my house with no power and three kids scares me. Let's just pray that it doesn't get as bad as they say it will! Anyway, on a lighter note, here is a video I shot on Monday night at the girls Christmas program. Dee Dee is on the far left in the front row, in the pink fur coat. Her teacher insisted that they wear their coats so that it looked like they were caroling. She must have been so hot under those lights! Reagan is in the middle row, the fifth in from the left. She just cracked me up, and this video is just from the rehearsal! I tired to tape the program but I was too far back and my zoom just made it all fuzzy. I hope you enjoy! And I promise I will be back again soon, barring a major power outage!

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