New year, new me!

If you know me, you know how technologically UN-savvy I am. (I dread getting a new cell phone because it means I have to relearn how to work the darn thing.) I am what I believe they call a late adapter. I come around to new gadgets, it just takes me awhile. This Christmas I am launching into a new era for myself via the help of my lovely family. I received a Kindle (not the fire, again, think basic), a i pod (shuffle, as few buttons to work as possible), and the family got a Wii!! So. Fun! And you know what? I worked with the Kindle for awhile tonight...it wasn't so bad! I bought a book from Amazon (for 2.99. If you know me, you also know I'm a big ol' cheapo) and checked one out from my local library. New toys are nice!

And the Christmas season is over, which is always a little sad. The tree is out in the yard, the decor is down, the goodies are getting eaten up. However, there's always the fun of starting fresh in the new year, coming up with resolutions (finally run that 10k?) and creating a whole new set of memories. I love holidays with the kids, and I don't just mean Christmas. Soon it will be Valentine's day. Then we'll be doing Easter egg hunts. Going to Fireworks for the fourth. Eating watermelon at the school. Not to mention a few birthdays and an anniversary in there. :) So much to look forward to.

Happy New Year!

Note to self.

As you can tell from the title, this post really is to me, from me. It's been a long day. Grady has been a really poor listener. I don't know how many times either Josh or myself would repeat the same thing 5-6 times before Grady would obey. Soooo frustrating. He had a few time outs and was sent to his room at least twice. After dinner, Josh pulled the cars out of the garage so the kids could go out and run around and burn off some energy. Great in theory, but as it turns out, they just fought over toys. Ugh! I finally told Grady (around 6:15) that the next time he did something naughty, it would be inside for him. I think he made it around 4 minutes before he made his sister cry again. I ordered him in, stripped him down, and put him in the bath upstairs. And not two minutes later we went from tears and whining to singing and laughing.

Sometimes I'm such an idiot.

When kids (at least mine, I'm no parenting expert) are acting up, they are bored/attention seeking. I think we all know this intuitively. However, I react in the opposite way of what I should. I tell them to play in the living room or watch TV because I'm busy. It never works, and we all end up good and mad. I'm going to do a little experiment and see if I can nip this in the bud next time. When Grady is in that state, I'm going to stop what I have going on and sit down and give him 20 minutes of solid attention. (We probably won't starve if dinner is a little late.) It's very optimistic. And I have a very short memory. Hence the blog post.

Last Christmas celebration tomorrow, should be a good day. :)

After the holiday update.

Well, I didn't get a kitten for Christmas. (But we still have Josh's family to celebrate with, so it could still happen....?) I DID however, get an awesome cat print apron! So I guess that kind of counts. (And no litter box to empty, a win-win.) Christmas thus far (again, we have another Fri) has been awesome. The kids did a great job taking turns opening presents and have gotten some really fun, thoughtful gifts. Their favorites seem to be Noah's Ark and a doctor kit (both Kingsley) and Superhero stuff for Grady...Batman and Superman action figures, a Superman pillow, and two super hero shirts. (He's really into the Superheros, if you couldn't tell.) He also got a backpack to take his things I got Josh a remote start for his truck and he got me a necklace. (Which he said that I could return if I wanted, haha. I really want a leather jacket, so if I find one, that might have to happen!)

Today we had TWO play dates! Could we BE more popular? This morning we had friends to our house. Maybe not the best idea as Josh was fixing the upstairs toilet and we sprung a little leak in the dining room. It happens. Nothing like yelling at kids, "No! Don't stick that baby in the pot! It has toilet water in it!" :) It was fun though.

This afternoon was another play date, which we were late to due to an emergency Blaines then Menards run. Again, it happens. :) But sooooo fun to catch up with a friend from high school that I haven't seen in years! She and her three little ones are beeeuuuttiiiful and it was fun to see them after a lot of Facebook and blog following. And she is my hair bow hookup (and makes the cutest little girl bows) so I literally made her crack open her purse for some I could buy off her! :) (They may have been her little girls....sorry, Tori.) :)

Right now Josh and I are hanging out, watching TV. (He has the week off work.) We found a show on Netflix called "Till Death" and if you have Netflix, I highly recommend you check it out. It compares a newly married couple to their neighbors, who have been married 20 years. Josh and I are going on eight, but boy do some of those fights sound familiar!!! :)

I'm sure I won't be on here again till January, so Happy New Year!

All I Want for Christmas...

Besides peace on earth and good will toward men. It's a kitten!! I have been bitten by the kitten bug.

Like this one......














Or...maybe this guy...


Or this one?

Ok, I can't get the labels to post BY the pictures, but you get the idea....

Now. Who is gonna tell my husband and make it happen? I will take it in a nice white box (with air holes) and a red ribbon, under my Christmas tree.......:)

And I'm down a body part.

Just a quick note to update you on yesterday's surgery. Other theme of the post...guys are JERKS!! The surgery was at 9:30. I was of course nervous about it but it went fine. I remember going into the OR and the anesthesiologist telling me that I would soon be "feeling groovy." :) I remember thinking to myself that I didn't know what that even meant. As it turned out, I was not up to partying with that guy because I passed out about 3 seconds later. (They later told me that I was out from the relaxant, not the anesthetic, haha.)

I got back to the room around 11, and don't remember much from before that. Things went well, but I was nauseous from the pain meds (and nothing in the tummy to balance them out) and the blood running down the back of my throat. Yuck. So I'm pretty out of it and doing my best not to barf cause i know that would kill my throat. Also, I'm not really able to talk. This is when we get to point two of my post....guys are jerks. Josh is normally very considerate.....let me just say that yesterday was a bad day for an off day. Josh waits until I laid down and then says he's taking off to get some lunch. Ummmm....ok. I simply assumed it would be somewhere in the hospital...he's gone for over an hour (ran some errands, and no, he wasn't getting me flowers) then proceeded to bring lunch back in with him. That's fine...except it was a sub and a bag of chips. Gaaaaaawd. I asked him not to eat the chips, at least not 4 inches from my head, and he told me to "Just relax." Every time I lift my head, my heart races and I have the puke thing again, so I'm back to focusing on not puking after that...........as he eats his chips, watches videos on youtube and snorts with laughter every minute or two. I block it out. the next thing i know, my whole bed is shaking every time he laughs.

He has his #$&( feet up! At that point, I tell him to get his feet down and that he's welcome to leave. He tells me that i need to sit up and start eating or we're never gonna get out of there. it was like 2! They said we wouldn't leave until 5 or 6 AT BEST. He later told me i shouldn't even BE sleeping (I think because that meant i wouldn't be able to sleep at night?). The afternoon was filled with comments like that. (And comments about how the chair wasn't comfortable and how he was getting sore from sitting there...that took me back to when I had our kids and "all the standing around was making his legs so TIRED!!! Lol...it's funny now, not so much then.)

The night got worse before it got better, but I won't subject you to that part. All's well that end's well...I got discharged around 7:30 and then we went to the pharmacy and got home around 8 or so. I was out again. Just woke up this morning at 5:45 and am feeling MUCH better. :) And ready for visits and sherbert. :)

Pictures to come...

I love Christmas. I always have. Who doesn't love getting up on Christmas morning and hanging out with family while opening stacks of presents?? However, it's only the last couple of years that i've been getting into the spirit of the season. I don't remember having many Christmas traditions growing up...we went to my grandma's Christmas eve, then usually a church service, and stayed at home Christmas day. Season start to finish = two days.

So it used to drive me nuts when Josh would start listening to Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. I saw decorations as clutter. And when he talked about making gingerbread houses, all I could think of was the sticky mess it would make. (Ok, that wasn't all I could think about. I'm not a TOTAL grinch.........but it was a consideration.) And, to be fair, it hasn't been all that long since I've been out of school as a student and I'm still there as an instructor. So often, I think to myself, "Once the semester is over, then I'll begin to think about the holidays."

However, I've changed lately! I don't know if it's having kids that appreciate the season and the fun things we do, or if Josh's enthusiam for the holidays is slowly wearing me down. :) We've started doing some (hopefully) memorable things with the kids to celebrate and get into the Christmas spirit. We found and cut down our own Christmas tree. Very fun even in spite of the freezing cold temps! (And if you know me, you know I HATE to be cold.) We made and decorated sugar cookies....made the dough from scratch, cut out shapes, baked them, made our own frosting, dyed it different colors, and decorated. Messy. Delish.) We have the book Elf on a Shelf and have read that and begun to have Max the Elf (Grady named him) show up in different places. The kids got letters from Santa (via a lady from Bertch), and got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. And on Christmas eve, we will go around and look at Christmas lights. (Last year we found a neighborhood where every street had a theme, and a few houses even had music sychronized to the light display! It was amazing!!) We will also read both The Night Before Christmas and the Christmas story (in the kid's Bible) and hit up a Christmas church service. Most important of all? Just about everything listed above is done to a soundtrack of Josh's beloved Christmas music. :)

When the kids are a little bit older, there are other traditions I want to implement. For instance, I really want to do the Adopt a Family program, and have them learn about the importance of giving. I would love to see them in Christmas plays at church. And we have two healthy children...but many are not. I would love to see them do something to volunteer at the local hosptial...take toys to sick kids? I'm not sure how that would work but seems like it would be great to check into.

Pictures of some of the fun to come. What are your special holiday traditions??

Whew!

What a weekend! I realize it's only Saturday night, but I'm afraid if I don't make a blog entry today I won't have the energy tomorrow. :) Here's what we've been up to...

Josh and I had a date night Friday night. We went to see the UNI Varsity Men's Glee Club Concert. Soooo nice. I have fond memories of going when I was in high school and my brother was in it. I didn't think it was as good last night....maybe because my brother has long since graduated. Maybe because the long term director Bob Burns is no longer there. Anyway, it was still good and I had 8 past and present students in the show, so it was fun to pick them out and watch them. :) Anyway, it still was nice to dress up and sit in the dark next to my husband and enjoy some fun and Christmas music. Gets you all feeling festive, you know? :)

Today was also busy. Saturday mornings are always a blur of getting up, getting the kids a bath, and making breakfast (you know, as opposed to opening a breakfast, toasting a breakfast, pouring milk on their breakfast....you get the idea.). This morning I did cheesy eggs, sliced bananas, and toast. In case you are wondering. No, nothing fancy. But different. Anyway. After breakfast I ran into town, picked up some more Christmas presents, and came back home just in time to make lunch. (Here is where I use the make loosely. I just warmed up some pizza pasta I made last night.) :) A workout during nap/rest time, and then the four of us headed in to a UNI football playoff game. SO FUN! It was Grady and Kingsley's first UNI game, and they did so good! They loved it! I wish I had a picture of all of us in our gear... I still did not get to fulfill my life long dream of getting on the Jumbotron. Someday. Sigh. :)

One other thing I've been up to...I'm beginning to meal plan by week. I know, lots of people have been doing this for a long time. Not me. I go to the grocery store, buy a million things, and then come home with 2-3 meals planned out and then just go from there. Yep. I make a lot of runs back to the store when I'm in town or to Kwik Star. (My little sweet town does not have it's own grocery store.) This is a different, refreshing approach....I know what we're going to have each night and I know I have the stuff to make it. However, I am lacking on the other stuff...lunch stuff. Snack stuff. People that meal plan/grocery shop like this....do you have every meal planned out? How do you account for the other food needed? Any tips that you have for me would be greatly appreciated! :)

Have a fabulous weekend, y'all.

Update to the Christmas letter...

I sent a copy of our letter to Josh last night at work. His reply back? "Looks good, babe, but we are kind of boring..." Shoot! That's right! I forgot to talk about our trip to the Cayman Islands, bungee jumping this summer, our recent lottery winnings, the three nights Josh spent in jail....haha oh wait, that's right...we ARE boring!! :-D (And I'm ok with that....)