I’m up and getting ready to work…ok, I was going to start working at 8 but then I started playing a game that Tim beat yesterday and I wanted to finish it too…and I did, so now I have to start working.

But it’s quiet…no kids as they are still at their dads and the dogs are napping and here I sit, listening to Christmas music and enjoying the last day of the festive holiday tunes for another 11 months.

I’m looking at all that stuff out there in the living room and I didn’t even begin to touch upon what we all got yesterday…sure I hit the highlights, but there is some REALLY cool stuff under there!

I popped popcorn last night (twice!) and it’s so cool…used my new can opener too! AND the book cover/case that I got from my friend Paula is very cool. You can see them here… I’ve ordered 2 more…one for my big hardback books and one for my paperback books. I’ve definately found a gift for all the readers in my life in the future!

My feet are roasty toasty in my new slippers..I almost wore them to the movie store last night! Molly and Patrick got me a very nice Pumpkin Spice candle…so I just brought that into the office here and lit it. It makes the house smell like I’m cooking something wonderful…and if you know me at all, you know that I can NEVER make the house smell like this!

I think Tim was pleased with his gifts from Santa…the golf ball display case and the new Phillies and Mark Martin golf balls to go in it. He better get collecting! He’s got 77 more holes to fill!

Of course, Matthew was happy with his things. I don’t know what he liked best. I don’t think he was dissappointed with anything. Not even the gloves, slippers, PJs or underwear! He was very excited about all of them. Odd for my son! He got 2 science kits which thrilled him! He even broke into one of them yesterday and distilled water! I’m dying to put the lego’s together, but I guess I’m going to have to wait. We played Pictionary yesterday and Tim’s going to fix his door so the new door alarm works. Only Matthew and I have a key! There’s one way to keep your sister out. He’s tickled with his new stereo. Like I said, I don’t think there was anything that he was dissappointed with.

Samara showed the most excitement over Madagascar…my brother got it for her. But she loved everything else as well. She’s played with Balloon Lagoon and Princess Alexa (I’m babysitting while she’s at her dad’s). She LOVED her blue fuzzy slippers…and every thing else that she got.

There are still presents for Regan under the tree…so we get to go through all of this again next week, but for now…we’ve got a lot to keep us busy. Nana got us a pretzel making kit, so we’re going to do that one day this week…adn Matthew has lots of new recipies to try out. Tim told him not to tell anyone he got a cook book for Christmas, but you know what? The kid loves to cook…so we can keep it our little secret…but I bet the woman he finds when he gets older will appreciate it! (Of course, if I display that picture of him with the goggles yesterday, he might not find a woman!!!)

Yes, it was a good day….

Now it’s back to reality and back to work while I still have some peace and quiet in the house!

Until next time…

H

We lucked out….Samara was up at midnight, but luckily Santa had already come and gone…

Matthew and I were up at 5am…so we watched some TV (well he watched TV, I went back to sleep) until 7…Matthew made us coffee, and as usual, we had to wake Sam up! Here’s a snapshot of the living room this morning!

Those aren’t all the presents…Sam’s and Regan’s aren’t in that picture! Where did all that stuff come from????? (more…)

For me, it’s about being a kid.

Once I get all the shopping done, have all the presents wrapped, and am able to step back for a moment, I can reflect on why I love Christmas so much.

Every year I stress about what to get people, if I’ve forgotten someone, or if I get the presents in the mail to late. I talked to my mother last night, and although the United States Postal Service SWORE that they would arrive by Wednesday or Thursday, they still hadn’t arrived. Mom is on her way to Florida to see my brother, so she won’t open her presents until after Christmas.

This bothers me. The main reason? Mom was always the one with the littlest pile under the tree. Gifts she would receive from friends at work would be placed under the tree so that she could open them Christmas morning. It was important to me that she have them to open Christmas morning. I guess the main reason it was so important to me is that now I’m in her shoes. I am the one with the littlest pile under the tree. It doesn’t bother me and I’m sure it didn’t bother mom or maybe it did…I don’t know. It’s funny how I used to think my mom got crazy around the holidays and now I do the same thing. As a kid, you kind of just show up for Christmas…don’t really have to do much except make your list and then be good so Santa comes. Being Santa and planning Christmas is hard work!

This year something happened. I was late getting the gifts, the cards, and to be honest, I just finished my shopping yesterday. I’m normally done by Thanksgiving so I don’t have to deal with any stress for a month. Samara wrapped the presents that had to be mailed and got them boxed up for me. She put the return address labels on the cards and help me stuff them. I ran out of time. Christmas snuck up on me.

But last night, when I had wrapped the last of the presents, realized that I had what they REALLY wanted, and knew that everything was going to be alright, the kid came out in me.

I bounded up this morning at 8am. There are no kids here so I didn’t have to get up. The first thing I did was turn the computer on so that I could see where Santa was. I do it every year. When I worked in an office, I would track him and tell the rest of the office where he was. It’s just a fun little thing that I like to do. Last time I checked, he was in Japan, and I’ve been sitting here refreshing my screen because I know that it’s about time for a new video.

I’m all smiles. It’s not because I’m dying to know what I’m getting for Christmas. I know most of the things, although I’m sure there will be a few surprises. There’s a gift under the tree for me from a friend online. I haven’t opened it. I’m waiting for tomorrow morning.

I’m smiling because the Christmas spirit has hit. It’s Christmas Eve. It took this long to get here, but it’s here. I’m tracking Santa, I’m imagining the looks on the faces of Tim, Matthew, and Samara when they open their gifts tomorrow morning. I smiling because tonight, we get to read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas…the same pop-up book that my dad read to John and I as a kid. The pop-up stuff doesn’t work anymore and the book marks it’s 28th year this December, but it’s a tradition in our house. I’m smiling because we can read the story of Jesus in the Bible, put out our cookies and milk and wait for Santa and his reindeer to arrive. Those are the joys that I have with Christmas. These are the reasons that I love it so much!

And tomorrow morning, I will be the first one up. I always am. Matthew will wake shortly after me and then we’ll have to wake Samara up. Although Matthew knows that I am Santa, I’m still expecting a look on his face when he sees the packages under the tree. Samara’s belief in St. Nick will make her eyes as big as saucers when she walks into the living room. She still very much believes…and I do too.

There’s a magic about Christmas. You can’t conjure it up when you want to. I’ve tried. I’ve been trying since Thanksgiving. I’ve had the Christmas tunes blaring, we had the decorations out and it just wasn’t there. I got upset because the tree looks retarded, with ornaments only on the top front of the tree, but when you step back and think about it, who cares? We have a tree. There are presents under that tree. We have a roof over our head and food on the table. We have family and friends to enjoy the holidays with and we are very, very blessed.

The magic is here now. I’m excited. Santa’s in Indonesia and he’s making his way here. We know that when he hits Iceland it’s time for bed…

From our house to yours…Merry Christmas…

Until next time…

Heather

The audio service that I subscribe to has a Video Beta test out so I thought I would try it out. Here are Sam’s cheer leading videos from October.

Until next time…

Heather

Today is Pajama Day at Green Valley. It’s also the last day of school and the beginning of Christmas break. One would think that today would be the easiest day of the year to get children dressed…but you know, you have to have the *perfect* pj’s to wear to school. Well, if you’re Samara you do…

Don’t know what I’ll do with them home for so long. They’ve never spent Christmas break at home…they’ve got a chore list (I’ve needed someone to match all the socks in the odd sock pile…) and they’ll play with their friends and then I guess after Sunday, they’ll play with all the new goodies that Santa left under the tree.

Until next time…

Heather

Today, Rhoda turns 2.

The kids want to have a party, but I’m thinking that we’ll pass on that. We might stick the birthday hat on her and take a picture, but that’s about it.

Happy Birthday Rhoda…don’t know why someone disposed of you the way that they did almost 2 years ago, but I’m glad they did. You’re a wonderful addition to our family!

Unitl next time…

Heather

My mom made the girls Christmas dresses so they posed for pictures this afternoon…

You can see more December pictures in the gallery…

Thanks Mom!!!

Until next time…

Heather

A friend gave us free passes to the zoo, but they had to be used by the end of the year, so we bundled up and headed to the top of the mountain and went to see the animals.

There were 2 benefits to going in December…the first being we had the zoo to ourselves…the second being that we were able to see the animals that like the cold weather in action…like the red pandas (my favorite) and the snow leopards!

Here is a picture of the kids…

You can see more pictures in the gallery….

Until next time…

Heather

If you were looking for the site earlier and couldn’t get to it, I apologize. I switched hosts today so that I could begin hosting my own pictures.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with web hosting or WordPress, I had a cheapy host and wasn’t able to host my own pictures. So I was hosting them at Photo Bucket. Basically I had to resize all the images, upload them to Photo Bucket and then paste the html code into WordPress for them to show up. And, you know how I am with pictures….I take many of them and the pages just seemed to go on and on and on.

So I’ve come up with a nifty new way to share pictures. I’ll put the best ones, or the highlights here still, however…you can see all of our images in our new photo gallery. There are numerous albums there and I’m just about done naming the pictures to something other than their “camera” name and putting in some comments.

I’ve also uploaded some older pictures so you can see how much the kids have grown!

With the new host, I have tons of room. I no longer have to resize them and it’s a one click process to get them from the camera to the website and it going to save me a boat load of time!

I simply installed Gallery2 on my server and off we go!

I hope you enjoy perusing the pictures. I’ve had fun looking back at them and there will be more to come!!!

Now, I’ve had entirely too much coffee tonight…Tim’s out doing some free lance shoveling and made the coffee for him and I indulged as well….BIG MISTAKE!!!! But I made a huge dent in the pictures!!!!

Enjoy!

Until next time…

Heather

I was worried about Samara and Napolean because she’s not a big dog fan…I’m thinking I don’t really have to worry anymore…

Until next time…
Heather

This is the 3 snow day of the season for us…very unusual for us to get this much snow/ice this early in the season. I wonder what the rest of the winter will bring?

Last Monday we were supposed to get 4-10 inches, but ended up getting 2 at most. Then Thursday nigth we got hit with an ice storm…and that ice was still left over when this system moved in early this morning. There was nothing at 4am when I got up for the gazillionth time to separate the dogs (thay have GOT to learn that we play from the hours of 7am to 11pm) and at 6:15 when I got up to start my day it was white.

The kids are out of school…again. It’s a catch 22 with how I feel about that. On one hand, it’s very hard for me to work when they are here, however, if I was still working outside of the home, I had all of 30 minutes to find some place to take them, or pay through the nose at the drop in day care center and THEN have to worry about braving the roads with all the nuts out there! I think I’ll take having them home with me.

Today will prove to be interesting…Napolean and Rhoda are still in the getting to know you phase. Every time you tell Napolean to “go lay down” he jumps on the couch and lays down. This is humorous for 2 reasons…the first being that he didn’t get on the furniture at his previous owner’s home…didn’t take him long to break that habit…

the second being that Samara is laying on the couch, and Napolean just jumps up there and lays on her!

I was somewhat worried about Samara and Napolean. She doesn’t do much with Rhoda because Rhoda is bigger than her and continues to knock her over where as Matthew has formed a bond with Rhoda and plays with her and wrestles with her, but so far, Samara seems to love the addition of Napolean and doesn’t mind being knocked over by him. We’ll see how that all goes…

So, I guess I’ll begin my day. It will prove to be interesting with all I have going on…but I’m just greatful that I don’t have to go out and drive and I can sit here in my nice warm home and work…

Until next time…

Heather

Meet Napolean!

Napolean is a 7 month old great dane and he’s ours…all 90 pounds of him! Yes, 90 lbs. Tim says he will get to be about 150lbs. We’re nuts! Yes, I know!

Here’s another picture of him…

Now on to other things…I’m way late in posting some of these pictures, so here goes…enjoy!!

This would be me working…Weezer got a hold of the camera…as you can tell from the next few pictures…

Samara and the block Santa she made…yes, she took this of herself!

Rhoda…who absolutely LOVES her new brother!

Here is our tree…don’t mind the missing wall in the back…it was either that or a big confederate flag (that was Tim’s idea) and now that Napolean is here, there are no ornaments on the bottom half. The tail just makes them fly!

The girls preparing the ornaments for the tree last weekend…

Samara in her uniform…

Samara’s squad…

That’s all for now from the crew…I have dogs to referee…

Until next time…
Heather

Been busy and haven’t updated as much as I would like to have! We’ve got the tree up, the shopping is coming along…I think! I still have so much that I need to get for people…but the best thing that I’ve gotten is Matthew’s interim report.

Now, I didn’t post this, but his report card ranged from As to Ds 9 weeks ago. The D was in spelling! Most all of the grades were Cs and Ds and we’ve really been working to bring those grades up!

I got his interim report and I’m pleased to announce that he’s got all Bs (even in Spelling!) and one C (reading…poor kid…if it’s not an audio book or a book that he picks out, he HATES to read!)

So there’s my smile for the day…now if he can just keep it up until the report cards come out we’ll be golden!!!