Happy Anniversary to me!

Today is my 8th anniversary!

I had plans of putting together a slide show to music to play today, but life got extremely busy over the weekend, so you'll just have to enjoy a few pics and you can imagine the music in your head (sound good? LOL)

It's hard to believe it's been 8 years since we got married, and 11 years since we first started dating. We've come a long way in those 8 and 11 years. I'm a lucky girl, I tell ya!







Rain ended up being predicted for the weekend of our wedding, so my mom rushed out and bought a golf umbrella that coordinated with our wedding colors, and a friend of hers decorated it with lavendar ribbons to dress it up


The limo never showed up, so this is how you arrive at your own reception in that circumstance...LOL


My mom has this picture framed up on her wall, along with pictures of her and my dad cutting their cake, and my grandparents cutting THEIR cake. It's really neat!


Danny, I love you! Thank you for 8 wonderful years so far...

My little "fighterfighter" boys

On a recent trip to a somewhat local children's museum, the boys had a grand time playing "fighterfighter" (as Jared calls it) and driving the pretend fire truck.

Quote of the Week

If you fall down ten times, stand up ten times.

~unknown~

Another one bites the dust!

Another bites the dust! And other one gone, and another gone, another one bites the dust...


That makes three teeth in a month, in case anyone's counting (and another one is midly wiggly at this point)

I beg to differ!

Emily informed me last weekend that she didn't sleep one single bit because Jared snores too loud (we let them sleep in a blow up bed together on the weekends for something fun). I beg to differ!

You thought I didn't get a good one, didn't you?

Minus being a little too posed and there being a BOAT in the background of one of them (for goodness sakes, who put THAT there?), I did end up with two pictures worthy enough for printing and sending along with my FIL




And, YES, I agree that Jared is hilarious in his Superman costume. It was on his body at the time I decided everyone was in a decent enough mood to attempt a three-kid picture, and he rebelled at the idea of having to take it off and I picked my battles on that one. He was mad enough I had to take his lightening McQueen boots off because there was DOG POOP on the bottom of one of them. I figured the costume only added to the charm of the picture. LOL (he wears it all the time, so it's a true representation of him, at least)

PUNKS!

My FIL recently flew back to PA to see his family and to help celebrate his parent's 60th anniversary. He asked me to take some pictures of all three kids together so he could give some to his family and to some of his friends over there he planned to visit. I'm not sure he's ever attempted to take pictures of three small children at the same time, where they're all looking, happy, and cooperative. I don't think he would have asked me attempt it (with about four days notice) if he had.













Excuse me while I wipe away a few remaining tears from laughing so hard...

Hello Gorgeous!

In case I haven't mentioned it, Connor has turned into quite the little mimic lately. It was rather cute and hilarious, all at the same time, the night we were watching Alvin and the Chipmunks and Connor was mimicing different lines from the movie...

Good Ol' Toby

A few weeks ago, I took the kids to the public library and let them each grab up a few books to check out. We read a few each day, and one day, got to the book Toby, Who Are You? Connor LOVED IT. Made us read it over and over and over again. He wandered around the house with it, hunted it down if he couldn't find it, chattered non-stop about TOBY TOBY TOBY. A week before it was due, I got the brilliant idea to get onto Amazon.com to try to find the book. I found a new copy for $6 something or other and then s&h, but it only came to $10 something or other for a brand new, hardback book, and Connor is in HEAVEN.



Interestingly enough, in my search for the Toby book, I discovered there are two other Toby books as well (Toby, What Are You? and Toby, Where Are You?). I ordered them as well thinking I was going to be mom of the year in my child's eyes. Um...well...he's happy perusing the pages of the other two books HIMSELF, but don't bother trying to read them to him. He walks off, or gets mad and takes the book away from you. But read the original one? I think he'd sit for hours. EVERY NIGHT, when it's time to read books before bed, "Toby book? Toby!" And no, we don't read Toby every night. And yes, Toby has found himself hidden a few times thus far...LOL

And if anyone can research what kind of animal Toby is in the book, I'd greatly appreciate it, because at the moment, just about any furry creature we see on TV or in books, or even in real life, gets dubbed, "Toby!" And we have no idea what to tell him Toby really is (my best guess is a monkey/lemur something or other?).

FED UP

I am FED UP with my Internet Provider and/or my computer. For MONTHS now, I have dealt with spotty Internet service (often can't load pages I need, I frequently get booted off pages I'm navigating, etc), my Instant Messanger signs itself out so frequently, I've pretty much just stopped signing into it in the first place, and I VERY frequently can't send/receive emails. I've called my Internet provider multiple times and spent upwards of 30-45 minutes starting/restarting my computer, unplugging my DSL modem and restarting the computer, logging into test sites to test my connection, restarting my computer, checking settings, rechecking settings, restarting my computer, ETC, only to be told my Internet service is just fine and dandy and it must be something with my computer. I've had my computer serviced TWICE this summer, to the tune of close to $100, and it would have been much higher, except I was given a family discount since my MIL works with the computer tech who serviced my computer. HE says it's clearly an Internet issue.

I spent close to 6 hours last night without the ability to SEND emails. I tried an online help chat thingy provided on my Internet Provider's website, but the man HONEST TO GOODNESS must have been typing one-handed, because it took 3-5 minutes on average to get his SHORT typed replies to my questions and comments, and to offer his suggestions. And then he said he didn't know how to further help me with that particular problem, but was there anything else he could help me with? I replied, "apparently not" and clicked off. Then I called the 24/7 help-line and spent 15 minutes on the phone with a nice gentleman who finally informed me that the error number I was receiving with the unsent emails is a specific code to a Microsoft problem and I would need to contact THEM about my problem. Went to the microsoft.com and searched the error code to see if there were downloads (the guy I spoke to on the phone said it was a missing file in my email program and there would probably be a download to repair it). While perusing miles of help chat feeds, I discovered that there is some all-powerful company that can flag your outgoing mail as spam, which will then, in turn, block ever other email in our outbox. So I had to go delete all the emails in my outbox and try them all again.

They actually went through at about 10pm.

Unfortunately, that doesn't explain why I also very often can't RECEIVE email either, and doesn't explain my spotty Internet service, or the IM that signs on and off over and over and over again. So I called the Internet provider 24/7 help line again and was told things seem to be running fine, but that he'd send out a technician to check the outside lines tomorrow between 8 and 9am. If I'm still having problems at 5:30pm tomorrow night, I'm supposed to call back and check the status of the visit and hear the results and figure out a plan of action from there.

I'm furious that I've spent this much money to have DSL, to then have it not even function properly for the last AT LEAST six months. Then the money I've spent having the computer serviced, and the TIME I've spent on the phone being given the run-around.

I should have married Bill Gates. I'll bet HIS wife never has to deal with stupid Internet issues and unhelpful help-line employees...

Oh, and something is blocking my computer's ability to automatically download updates at shutdown, and no one has the slightest clue how to help me with THAT problem either.

Any computer "nerds" out there who want to take pity on a poor computer illiterate, FED UP girl and give her a heads up on what the heck I need to do here???

Jared FINALLY got to start school again!

Jared has been chomping at the bit all summer to get back to school. One day, we drove past his teacher on the road, and I mentioned to him, "Hey! There's Teacher Terrie!" I thought he'd get excited and try waving. NOPE! The child FLIPPED OUT and started hollering for me to turn around because I was driving the wrong way to school and Teacher Terrie was going to start class without him. I managed to calm him down and correct him that it was summer vacation and school wouldn't start for awhile longer. But then Emily started school earlier in September, and after sending Emily off on the bus, I loaded the boys in the car to run some errands. I make a right turn at a certain point in the road, and he FLIPPED OUT again, yelling, "MOM!!!!!! YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY, MY SCHOOL IS THE OTHER WAY!!!!!" (blah blah blah drama blah blah more drama). Sorry buddy, school for you doesn't start until the middle of the month. WELL, Monday was FINALLY the first day of school and Jared could NOT have happier. He was up and out of bed, dressed, teeth brushed, inhaled his breakfast, and has his shoes on in NO TIME FLAT. Unfortunately, school didn't start until 12:30am and it was only about 8:30am at this point. So for the rest of the morning, every other word out of his mouth was something along the lines of, "Is it time for school yet?" "Can we go to school now?" "Are you sure we're not late?"


He charged in, got his hands washed and got down to business of reconnecting with old friends from last year, and making new friends. He was friendly, he was out-going, he was FULL OF ENERGY. I couldn't help but grin the entire time (his preschool is a cooperative preschool so parents volunteer their time to help run the classroom and I worked his first day of school). I'm not sure there's much in life I tackle with that much gusto. He was so much fun to watch.

I wonder how long the enthusiasm will last once Teacher Terrie makes him pick up the dreaded pencil and WRITE???? muh ha haha haaha!!! I can't wait. If anyone can get him to do it, it will be Teacher Terrie (and lucky for our class, we actually get two teachers this year, so between Teacher Terrie and Teacher Becky, we should be GOLDEN).

Enjoy the school year, Jare-bear!


(he's such a goof!)


PS He totally picked out that shirt on his own! The gal at the grocery store asked him where he was headed to all dressed up and fancy and he put his hand on his hip and informed her (rather sassily), "It's my first day of school and you're supposed to dress nice on the first day, you know!" He's so CUTE!!!

PPS Here he is last year starting the 3's class!

Emily isn't the only one with a tale to tell

I should have mentioned how at Connor's two-year-old well-child appt, the doctor asked him about a rug burn he had on his neck (he ran across the room, dove at Dan, who was laying on the ground, did a weird roll right over the top of Dan and landed in a skidding heap on the floor on the other side) and Connor informed the doctor that a dog bit him. Which isn't AT ALL true, but was is obsession for about two weeks. He'd walk in, first thing in the morning, and inform me one of three things: 1) dog bit me. 2) dog eat me. 3) dog hurt me. He'd say it very pathetically and sadly, and the area of the "wound" was always some place different. So he informs our DOCTOR that the dog bit him (and the child has NEVER been bitten by a dog, nipped at, snapped at, NOTHING). So I, of course, decide that I must document this phrase to share with him later on in life, and figured I may as well share with you all as well!


I also have him on video saying his dad beat him, which, oddly enough, was recorded about two weeks before the incident with Emily informing her entire first grade class that she lost her tooth because her dad beat her. GEEZ! People are gonna start thinking it's true (and it's soooooooooooooo not true!)

LOVELY!

So the other weekend, after a day of fun and excitement, I was heading to bed when my knee suddenly felt really weird. It almost felt like my pajama pants were sticking to my knee, like they'd gotten wet or something. But when I reached down to feel, I felt a large lump on my knee instead. It was entirely disgusting and horrifying, and I stopped dead in my tracks, sure the next step was going to hurt REALLY bad (because, of course, I was positive I'd seriously dislocated something). Dan came back to our bedroom about 30 seconds later and discovered me and carried me to bed and convinced me try bending it. It didn't hurt, but it was strangely halfway numb to the touch, and kind of squishy, but firm at the same time (I liken it to a ripe peach). We iced it and wrapped it, and figured if it didn't hurt, it couldn't be too bad, and left it for the morning. It was much better BY FAR the next morning, but took a good two days before it was NORMAL. I can't be a good blogger and not have taken pictures to share, so you here go! Wasn't it lovely? (gag!)


I don't even think the pictures do it justice. It was a good 1 inch (at least) high and about 2.5 inces long by about one inch wide.


I have no clue what it was, and I desperately pray it never come back!

Wipe Out!

Connor is the type of kid where not much slows him down. Falls down and scrapes his knees? Cries for less than a minute and moves on. Walks into the edge of the dining table and nearly takes his eye out? Cries for less than a minute and moves on. Rides his bike down the driveway a little fast, turns a little too sharply and falls off? Yells "WOAH!" then laughs and gets back on and takes off. (don't forget to pause the play list in the right-hand sidebar first)


Backs his bike off the ONE step we have in our house and crashes head first into a bunch of toys in the playroom? Not a single peep! (sorry, it's pretty dark)

Out of the mouths of babes

So remember how I mentioned about Emily's incident with the teeter totter a few days ago? Well shortly after we got her calmed down, Emily started expressing concern over what people would think about her fat lips. Being funny (for my benefit more than Emily's), Dan joked that she should tell people that mommy beats her. My reply was something along the lines of, "Yeah right! You're the one that launched her off the teeter totter!" We both proceeded to inform Emily that it was NOT okay to joke around about being beat and then that was the end of it. OR SO WE THOUGHT.

On the way home from the bus stop the other day, she starts giggling like crazy and tells me that she wrote in Writer's Workshop about losing her tooth because daddy beat her. I ran home and called the school and left a message for her teacher explaining the real story and asking her to please call me if she had any further questions. Her teacher calls back laughing and said that Emily had shared the real story earlier in the day, so she wasn't concerned. HOWEVER, not only did Emily write "I lost my tooth because daddy beat me" on her paper, she READ IT TO THE CLASS!!! Her teacher asked her to please write the real story on a second page.

I called Dan and told him he'd better not joke around about that sort of thing anymore because that could have been really bad!!! aughhhh!!!

What a day!

We recently took our kids to a fair that is happening somewhat near us. We met up with two other families and spent HOURS letting the kids ride rides. They all had such a good time! As much as having a large group slowed things down a bit, it worked out SO WELL having extra adults to help load/unload the kids from the rides, to keep track of all the kids, and it allowed us to split up here and there so the two girls could ride some of the bigger rides, and the four boys could ride the rides they wanted to do. Everyone had a VERY good time. Such a good time, in fact, that we kept them all out WAY past bedtime. It was 11pm before we ended up at home (and it was a school night!!). We're such responsible parents... LOL

Here are Lily, Emily, Connor, EJ, Jared, and David

I've been tagged!

Clancy tagged me for a "Getting to know you" meme. This is gonna be a little tough since I just spilled some little-known facts about myself HERE.

Here are the rules:
1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write 6 random things about yourself.
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let the person know you tagged them on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when you've posted.

Okay, so six random things about myself:

1. I mentioned this one before, but I didn't share a picture last time, so it counts as a new random thing (because I say so!)...The toes next to my pinky toes are crooked


2. My house is a DISASTER right now. We've been busy and away from the house for the bulk of each day for one reason or another, and we seem to come home just long enough to dirty dishes and floors and pull out toys, and then we're gone again, so not much has been cleaned up. We're hoping to rectify that soon...

3. I often wish that we could figure out selling our HOUSE, but keeping the property and putting a new house in place of the current one. 8 years after buying it, it still doesn't really feel like MINE, and I'm overwhelmed at the amount of updating/repairing there is to do, and we don't know where to start or how to fund it, so then we end up doing NOTHING. For 8 years.

4. I love having house plants around my home, but ever since having kids, I've had the worst luck EVER keeping them alive. I guess I spend too much time keeping my kids alive instead... LOL Right now I'm noticing a very dead plant on the windowsill. It was one of two still alive, and was nine years old in July. So now I officially have one remaining living plant, and it needs a bigger pot and some Miracle Grow. Or SOMETHING. Probably a whole new house/care-giver.

5. My Junior year of high school, we had to do a big paper and then give an 8-12 minute speech. It had to be about someone in history. My history teacher had recently been teaching us about Eleanor Roosevelt and I was fascinated by all that she did, so I chose her for my paper and speech. We spent the year doing research, which included needing to find excerpts from writings that person had done, incorporating it into our paper and speech, etc etc etc. The week before our papers and speeches were due, the teachers did a lottery to see what order everyone would go. My name was drawn to go SECOND out of 60+ students. I was horrified at first, but then after I was done, I got to spend the next two weeks doing absolutely NOTHING for that class, but watching speeches being presented. LOL It was a combined history and literature class (so we had two teachers and one taught for the first period of class, then we stayed in the same classroom and the other teacher taught for the second period of class), so we were graded not only on the content of our papers, but also on the grammer, puncuation, etc. Lastly, we were graded on the length of our speech, how clearly we spoke, our eye contact with the audience, our use of hand gestures, etc. We were allowed ONE notecard for prompt notes during our speech. I was terrified my prompt notes weren't going to prompt me well enough in my nervousness about having to give the speech, so I finished my paper earlier than I needed to, then spent hours each evening MEMORIZING IT WORD FOR WORD. All 8 minutes and 32 seconds of it. I gave my speech, could feel my chin quivering like crazy, could feel my stomach churning and my hands shaking. My eyes were glued to one girl in the front of the room for about 80% of my speech, and I honestly couldn't tell you if I used hand gestures or not. After all of the speeches were completed, the teachers started passing out the graded papers/speeches. I waited anxiously for mine and watched just about everyone else receive their grades, but mine never came. Suddenly, my history teacher announced to the class that he had six people he needed to have a serious conversation with about their papers and speeches. I was sure that meant I must have messed up somehow and failed and was probably very near tears at that point. However, he continued on by saying that only six people out of 60+ students in that class had gotten an A on both their speech AND their paper, then called all six of us by name to stand in front of the class for recognition. I have no idea how I pulled it off, because I honestly thought I messed up the presentation portion of things. So anyway, to sum up that long story, I totally rocked that assignment, and I still can't figure out how I passed the speech (and I STILL feel sick when I have to give any sort of presentation/speech).

6. I finally boughy myself some name-brand shoes, pretty much for the first time EVER in my life. My husband has been bugging me and bugging me to spend some money and buy "real" shoes (as he says it), because normally I buy Payless or Target shoes and then wear them until there's nothing left before I'm willing to spend money on myself again to buy new shoes. So I went to Famous Footwear, found a cute pair of shoes on sale for $20 off regular price and am now the proud owner of a "real" pair of shoes. I thought he would be mad because they aren't as sturdy of a shoe as I knew he was thinking about, but when I showed him the shoes and assured them they were a real brand, he said, "THANK GOD! Did you buy more?" I just can't bring myself to spend big money on shoes! Clearly, I'm not a shoe, clothing, SHOPPING person when it comes to MYSELF. For the kids? Different story... LOL
(sorry for the weird angle, I should have just taken them off to photograph them! LOL)

Those shoes are soooooo comfy!!! And CUTE!

I tag Jodi, Cheryl, Cattigan, Shellie, Betsy, and Kristina (and I'm not linking because after typing up all of the above info, I'm DONE typing for now, thank you very much! Adding the code is just too much for me right now)

I LOVE THIS BOOK!

I have ordered all three kids the book My Very Own Name from http://www.iseeme.com/. They weren't cheap purchases, but I fell in love with the idea and couldn't resist. Emily got hers for her first Christmas, Jared got his for his first birthday, and Connor got his pretty much right at birth. Not too long after Emily got hers, they came out with My Very Own Fairytale, which I would have gotten her in heartbeat, but couldn't justify after already owning My Very Own Name. Either way, we're thrilled with the books. The illustrations are very nice, the rhyming phrases that go along with each letter as it builds the child's name are fun/funny/creative. All three kids get a kick out of their books.

I get email updates from time to time from the company, alerting me to new products or sale prices, whatever the case may be. A few days ago, I got an email alerting me to their newest product, The World According To (insert your child's name here). Basically, it includes your child's own illustrations throughout the book, as well as THEIR own wording answering different questions. What a fantastic and fun keepsake of your child at that age!!! View a sample book HERE. Tell me that's not the most adorable idea!!! And it's all nicely bound and professional looking, complete with an "about the author" page, and a place for mom and dad (or whoever) to include a little something to say about the child. SERIOUSLY ADORABLE!

I'm gonna have to save some money and see about getting Emily one right away. I think 6 years old would be a fun age to do it. She's detailed enough in her drawings, thoughtful enough in her answers, etc. I'd have fun letting Jared do one now as well, except I wouldn't have one from Emily at age 4 and it would be more fun to have them all be from the same age for comparison sake. So then one just has to hope that in two and four years they're still offering the product so I can have the boys do one at six years old as well. I'm sure it will be awhile before I can justify a purchase like this (except the email came with a $10 off code), but I'm determined! I just think it's such a CUTE idea!!

Holy fat lip and missing tooth Batman!

Emily was outside with Dan over the weekend while her brothers were sleeping. She wanted to teeter totter, but Dan was way too big to be her teetering partner, so he was using his foot to make his end go up and down. Emily was having great fun bouncing up into the air when Dan would push his end down, but at one point, she bounced too hard, lost her balance and fell forward, face first, into the bar. She had two FAT lips and a knocked out front tooth (which, thankfully, had already been very loose). Lots of blood, lots of tears... We got her cleaned up and calmed down relatively quickly and I took her picture so she could remember her fat lips. Of course, I never went back to look at the pictures until just now to realize that they really DO NOT do justice to the upper lip. Her lower lip was pretty well back to normal by bedtime, but the upper lip, on her left side, was HUGE. Very thick from inside to outside, and was the whole length of that half of her mouth. When she smiled, it never even moved. A few days later, it's still visibly puffy, but TONS better than before!

This was taken about 15 minutes after she got hurt


This one was taken about a half hour later (she looked so sweet sitting there snuggling her Lambie), and you can see her bottom lip is already looking smaller, and the top lip is starting to get bigger


And this is her just a few minutes ago. You can see the discoloration where it bruised a bit, and you can see how it makes her upper lip lopsided because it's still pretty thick and doesn't move as well as it should.

I have great friends

There was a day a few weeks back where everything just seemed to go very VERY wrong. The kids were at their very WORST, and it was all three kids at once. Time-outs weren't working, loss of priveleges wasn't working, and a mom at her witts end shouting LOUDLY wasn't working either. This mom found herself in tears several times throughout the day. It was a combination of frustration, anger, and some MAJOR self-doubt of my role as mother and teacher, etc to my children. When I had all three kids in time-outs, and all four of us were tearful and angry and frustrated, I started to assume it truly must be something I was doing wrong, and not them at all. Thankfully for me, (unfortunately for HER), my friend Beth happened to be over here for the brunt of it, and assured me many times over that it wasn't just me being irritable and short-tempered, and that my kids were behaving as neither of us had ever seen before. Lots of sassing, stomping, shouting, ignoring requests/demands, etc. Just an overall very bad day. I slept very fitfully that night, and spent more time in tears feeling very regretful of how the day had gone, how it had ended, and desperately trying to analyze everything to figure out a way to make sure the following day went far FAR better. I'm still unsure what the issue was that day, but the next day was better. However, that bad day still lingers in my mind and bothers me greatly. Not only because I had no idea my kids could truly behave that badly, but also because I have never felt more overwhelmed or out of control of a situation, and because of how I went to bed feeling, for the very first time, like I had completely failed my children, like I had not handled the situation throughout the day as well as I should have, and because I fear I have somehow probably scarred my children for life with my angry shouting when I finally lost my temper. Those of you who know me well, know my flaws, you know my hopes and my dreams, and you know my fears. Those of you who know me well, know how much being a mother has ALWAYS meant to me, even before having children. It's all I have ever wanted to be. So that day really rocked the foundation I stood on as a mother, and who I knew myself to be as a mother.

My dear friend Beth offered encouragement and support and a kind shoulder to lean on, and assured me that all moms have days like this and that I truly am a good mom. Her words fell on mostly deaf ears, as I was feeling very low, and I think she sensed it. So after some time passed, she sent me a card:


I hope she doesn't mind that I am sharing what she wrote, but the words meant so much to me at the time I got to read them, and I need to brag that I'm very lucky to have such a caring and considerate and uplifting friend:

"I also wanted to tell you what an awesome mom and friend you are. My heart went out to you when I saw that you were discouraged. When you feel that way, try to remember you are a great mom with great kids. But even great kids push the envelope from time to time!"

My friend Cattigan also recently told me that I'm very intimidating sometimes because I come off as such a perfect mom. I think I nearly choked to death on my laughter, because although the day I mentioned was the worst day BY FAR that I've been a part of, there have been plenty other days where I know I wasn't at my best. But it was encouraging to hear that my overall appearance to the world is pretty good, and that my kids do well enough overall to set a good tone in people's minds. So even though it's FAR from true (and she knows it!), it boosted me up a little. I think our conversation continued with us swapping stories of our children's less-than-glorious moments in life and having a good laugh.

Sometimes laughter really is the best medicine, and sometimes a good cry really does help. And sometimes the nicely-timed words in a card from a good friend can make all the difference as well.

To all my friends, thank you for laughing with me through the good and bad stuff, encouraging me when I'm down, supporting and guiding me when I'm lost, and loving me no matter what. I love you all and appreciate you very much.

Oozing Cuteness!

In light of the recent wedding talk on my blog, my Auntie dug out her wedding photos and loaned me some pictures of when I was the flower girl in her wedding! I was two months away from being five. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but how adorable are these pictures???

This is me with my cousin Tyler (the ring bearer):


The glowing glasses in the background is my mom, with my Aunt Cheryl to the right, and I'm pretty positive the two men sitting down are my dad and my Uncle Scotty, and the two little boys to the farthest right are my brother and my cousin Christopher.




Ahhhhh, I love weddings. The only real thing I remember about my Auntie's wedding is walking down the aisle (I feel like I remember Tyler and I making it a big deal that we had our same legs forward as we went, but I could be making that up! LOL), and then sitting on my grandpa's lap in the front row while the rest of the ceremony happened. I wish I remembered more of the reception, because clearly I enjoyed myself!!

Sign

Emily and our friend/neighbor, Lily, recently made this sign with the intent to keep Jared, Connor, and Lily's brother, EJ, out of Lily's bedroom


(no boys allowed except dads and moms) Since when are moms boys anyway? Us adults got a good laugh out of that!!

Here are the dear, sweet little girls responsible for the sign

Good friends and neighbors

We have neighbors that moved into our neighborhood last November and we've become good friends with them over the last almost year. They are a VERY friendly, generous, FUN (etc!!) family and we're so thrilled to have them as friends and neighbors.

They recently invited us down to dinner, which they've done MANY times before. Jason has severe pet allergies and we have a cat, so we're unable to ever invite them HERE, so I've been asking them to allow me to provide the meal one of these times. They finally agreed, and I took the Deceptively Delicious lasagna and it was a hit!

Here are Jason and Michelle


Jason and Michelle are wine drinkers and KNOW their wine. Dan and I don't know a darn thing about wine, but figure we'll eventually learn! LOL After we finished dinner, we started discussing the different wineries they've been to over the years and they started showing us some of the bottles they've saved and telling the stories of what event went along with each bottle. Somehow it came up that Jason could fit an entire bottle of wine into his wine glass. I will admit it appeared to be a large wine glass, but I was skeptical.

Do you think he could do it?


The answer is YES, he most certainly CAN fit an entire bottle of wine into that wine glass!


Talk about having a GLASS OF WINE!! ha ha ha! He didn't actually drink all that himself, though, he poured it into other glasses for everyone else (except me, because I've found I prefer white wine over red).

I'm thinking that bottle is worthy of saving after the night of fun and laughter and PROVING ME WRONG! Years from now he can pull it out and say, "Remember when you wouldn't believe me that I could pour this whole bottle of wine into my wine glass, and even though we'd had plenty of wine already, I cracked open the bottle and proved you wrong?"

CHEERS!

PS Honest to goodness people, get out and buy Deceptively Delicious and make that lasagna!! And then come on over and comment about how grateful you are to me for bringing it's amazing goodness to your attention. And then invite some friends and/or family over to enjoy it with you. And maybe even crack open a bottle of wine and create your own stories to share over the empty bottle years from now.

1st day of school

Emily started 1st grade yesterday. Hard to believe my baby girl is a FIRST GRADER. I'd like to know where the time goes, quite frankly!


She spent most of the summer ENJOYING summer, yet anxiously awaiting the beginning first grade and being able to see her friends on a more regular basis. She knows it's a big deal that she's not one of the "little kids" of the school anymore now that she's graduated Kindergarten, and it's been an exciting thing for her. She spent many days of her summer discussing what teacher she wanted, who she hoped would be in her class, what she thought first grade would be like, etc...

On meet the teacher day, she was thrilled to discover she got one of the two teachers we were hoping for. Doubly excited that her new teacher is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to her old teacher, so she can pop in and say hello any ol' time she wants. HOWEVER, she and I were both very disappointed to find out that not only are none of her FRIENDS in class with her, neither are any of her acquaintances from last year!!! She went from being VERY excited about school, to being very apprehensive about school. It was frustating to see such a drastic change in my child literally from one second to the next. Makes me wonder how they go about choosing what child goes into what class that they don't take into consideration that it's helpful for a little girl to have SOMEONE familiar to lean on a bit in the first few days...

There is some good news here, though, because one of the little boys she went to preschool with for two years is in her class, and although they have never really been good friends, he's at least a familiar face (and I adore his mother!). There's also ONE boy from her last years' class, and according to her, he was the nicest boy in class last year, even if he IS a little naughty (her words!! and he's a bit of a class clown, so that's the naughty stuff she's talking about). AND one of her friends from dance class is in her 1st grade class. The girls are friendly in dance, but there's not the same social time at dance as one would have in class and at recess, so they don't know each all that well, but I'm THRILLED they'll have that chance to get to know each other better this year (and I really like HER mom as well!).

I spent the days since Meet the Teacher Day hyping Emily up about the three faces she knows in her class, and how much fun it will be to make NEW friends, and how she'll still get to see her old friends at recess and in the hallway, and some of them even ride her bus (and one of them lives in our neighborhood!). By the time we actually got to the first day of school, she was pretty excited to be going. Especially because it meant FINALLY getting to wear her new school clothes and shoes!!!

Her first day yesterday seems to have been a great success, and hopefully the trend continues throughout the year!

Before you go, look at what a teeny lil' munchkin she was on her first day of preschool in the 3-year-old program!


And then starting the 4-year-old programe:


1st day of Kindergarten:


And I'll add in this year's pic again so they're all in a row for you (LOL!):


And clearly we were taking that picture in a hurry because the door looks all funky and crooked (except, unless I'm totally crazy, Emily looks pretty straight!)

Her Fairytale

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little princess named Emily. One fine (rainy) summer day, she was given the chance to participate in a royal wedding as the flower girl (in case you didn't see the pictures before, you can view them here). She enjoyed her duties so greatly, she's been unable to stop reinacting the event. Princess Emily has since been spotted wandering through the castle with her flower girl basket filled with shredded bits of paper, which she was carefully tossing by small handfulls down the hallway. When the evil Queen quickly put a stop to THAT little game, Princess Emily found her way outside, where she proceeded to strip the rose bushes of their petals in order to fill her flower girl basket with something she assumed would be more acceptable.

The evil Queen was FINE with the stripping of the rose bushes, so long as the petals did not find their way onto the floor of the castle. Princess Emily grudgingly abided by the rules set upon her, but has cherished her little basket of scented petals, hiding it behind the evil Queen's bedroom door so as to protect it from the destructive hands of the two little princes dwelling within the castle walls. The evil Queen could not help but smile at the antics of the little princess, and chose to leave the little petal-filled basket where it hides, until Princess Emily finds herself in need of it again.

The evil Queen is also secretly very impressed with the creativity and eagerness of the little princess to excell in her flower girl duties, and figures it must be good practice for when her royal Uncle Marc gets married next June!

At least Jared has some common sense!

Jared is the only one of our children who HASN'T gotten his head stuck in the railing that runs along a portion of the livingroom (playroom) that separates it from the diningroom.

Emily got stuck when she was 3.5


At first, it was pretty funny, but then five minutes later, I still hadn't managed to get her out. Then another five minutes later and she STILL wasn't out, and it had stopped being funny at all. She was in hysterics, bawling something along the lines of being stuck there forever and dying; I was tearfully calling Dan at work asking if I should call 911 because NOTHING was working. The poor kid had DEEP purple marks on the sides of her head where I was trying to shove her head back through. I turned her head this way and that, got some butter from the fridge and greased her up...NOTHING WORKED. In the end, I went outside and got the pruning sheers and cut one of the railings out, and out she came!! Unfortunately, the railing has never been the same and almost 3 years later, we still haven't figured out replacing that slat, or building a half wall around the railing. I told the story on an online mommy group I was a part of at the time, and one of the ladies politely informed me that I probably should have just pulled her the rest of the way through instead of trying to shove her back the way she went in.

Lucky for me, I remembered that helpful tidbit, so when Connor got HIS head stuck a few days ago, I knew just what to do! (so no further damage to the railing!!)


I turned his shoulders so they'd fit through and slipped him the rest of the way through.

It still blows my mind that a kid can slide their head through, but not be able to pull it back out!!