So much snow...

It has snowed so much this winter. It doesn't bother me that much really, it's winter, we live in michigan, what did you expect... sun???? (And God's even granted us glimpses of that occasionally). I'm not saying I would turn spring away if it made an early arrival, but I'm trying to make the best of it! We seem to get dumped on and then get a thaw, dumped on, thaw..., this weekend we had a thaw, tonight we are getting inches and inches of snow again. BSF was actually cancelled tonight, in the 6 years I've been going to BSF we've only been cancelled twice that I can remember (possibly three times though). I'm thankful to have a little family break, but I will miss having a new lesson to do to, it keeps me accountable. Bailey was going to start again tonight too so that will have to wait another week. She is actually really excited to start again so we'll see how that goes. I'm hoping for, but not counting on, a snow day tomorow. I would love to sleep in just a little bit! The snow is still falling so we'll have to wait & see!

Me again...

Q:What do you get when you put 4 fourth grade boys, two girls (1st & 2nd grade), a 17 month old and myself in a small house with no basement?

A: A strong motivation to SELL THIS HOUSE!!!!! (and get one with a basement that the boys can throw balls in and play football and tackle each other without the chance of breaking something)

Getting better

Elliot actually woke up looking normal again yesterday and was only a little big cranky all day, which was such a blessing b/c I was the one that was sick. Terribly sick. I did manage to make myself go out to dinner though, after being cooped up in the house for so long I couldn't think of anything better to do, no matter how sick I was. We met Sarah & Ryan at Buffalo Wild Wings, one of my fav restaurants. We were hoping to go to the mall afterwards but I was not feeling up to it so we hit walgreens instead and stocked up on lot's of different meds! I went to bed almost immediately after getting home and it felt so good to get some sleep! (Not that I slept great, but it was sleep none the less). I feel a lot better today, still quite sick, but much better than yesterday!

The kids both had games again this morning! Bailey won her game and Landon tied again. That's 4 tied games and one loss, so much better than last year! After the games the kids both had friends come over and Matt headed to St Joe again. The friends will probably leave in a few hours so then we get to decide what we will do all night. Probably nothing again! Maybe pizza & a movie, the norm!

Happy Valentines Day!

Hopefully you have a wonderful day celebrating those that you love and that love you!

A few things I love (keeping in the holiday spirit)... God, Matt, Landon, Bailey, Elliot, our extended family, my friends, my dog (most of the time...), good food (both yummy and healthy), Fuze, my camera, my computer, kind people (both those I know and those I don't know). Speaking of kind people, let's all try to "commit" a random act of kindness, whether it be big or small this week. Something as small as letting a car in in front of you to as big as you want! That's a challenge... or a dare... or whatever it is that motivates you! See this post for one of teh most generous random acts of kindness I ever received... it is something I will never forget.

So.... enjoy your day!

Good Intentions

I always have good intentions, and they always start about 3 weeks before necesary, but I ALWAYS end up waitint til the last minute and screwing things up royally. Valentines were no exception this year. I was going to make cute little treat toppers (could have bought them, but decided to make my own, silly me!) I bought the candy weeks ago at Sams Club so that's been sitting around just waiting to bagged. All I had to do was create the toppers, which I started a while ago, then forgot about, then finished last night, they were all cute... but they were the wrong size for the bags I bought. Lovely. So I bought new ones today at meijers... and then still created new tags for the bags b/c it was in my head that the ones I got didn't fit. So I did that quick (and lost all creativity in the process, they are so cut and dry, plain & simple.) and instead of one topper on a 4x6 picture size I made tags with three on one 4x6, but still printed one 4x6 for each bag that I had purchased (75) when I really only needed 25. Again, lovely! So... we got the bags filled (Bailey & I worked on that today), the tags printed and tied on... but with many mix ups on the way. Needless to say I have PLENTY of extra tags if anyone wants to get ambitious in the next day. Seriously. You can go my 365 blog to see finished product!

So, B is on her way back to school in the morning! She was perfectly fine all day, but can't return to school til she's been w/o a fever for 24 hours. We had a good day spending time together. Makes me think that I should take her out of school once in a while to hang out with her. E on the other hand was miserable all day, making me miserable too! I had a headache til the moment he went to bed when it miraculously disappeared. I felt so bad for him, he looked terrible all day, the poor guy! Let's hope for a better day tomorow!

So, Bailey is on day five of her fever, Landon's fever is gone, but the cough persists, Elliot's fever is gone but the crabbies persist! I took B to the doctor this afternoon and found out that she has... nothing more than a virus. She seriously looks close to death right now, I feel so bad for her. She took a three hour nap and then went to bed at 8:30, poor little baby girl! She isn't going to school tomorow but Landon is, and lucky me I get to spend the day with Elliot too! Hopefully he wakes up (but not til at least 7am) in a much better mood!

Offer:

Cucumber with either Pear or Melon (not sure anymore) 3 wick candle. I burned the thing probably one time and since I now can't stand the smell of anything Partylite (if you didn't know I sold it when I became pregnant with E and too much of a good thing when Im prego makes it a bad bad bad thing)I'm offering it to YOU! If you want it let me know... I may possibly have another one hiding somewhere too... if I find it I'll post it later!

Cutest thing ever...

So, I was checking my e-mail and E disappeared upstairs AGAIN, but I just let him go b/c normally he is just fine playing in his room for a bit adn won't even attempt to come back down the stairs by himself. Eventually I decided I should go check on him and I couldn't find him in my room so I checked my room... sure enough he was in my room with Landon (who slept with me last night b/c Matt was gone and is still watching cartoons in my bed), in bed, cuddling right up to him! Like he just may go back to sleep... so sweet! That is just who my Landon is... so sweet & loving & caring, especially for his baby brother & kid sister!

Amazed...

I woke up and thought Bailey had kicked her fever, she looked good and seemed to be acting fine. But E had a low grade fever. We went to Landon's game anyway (which they lost unfortunately) and all was well. Then we returned home and E's fever was gone (the wonders of Motrin), but Landon couldn't even talk, his voice was gone and is throat was scratchy. I swear he was fine before his game. But by the afternoon (after we all took a 2 hour nap and E took a 3 hour nap (1.5 hours more than normal)) both Landon & Bailey both had fevers. Baileys was up to 103+ and Landons was lower at 101.3. Motrin took care of it right away luckily! E still didn't have a fever this evening but he definately wasn't himself. He actually laid his head down on the floor adn just laid there for probably 10 minutes! Soooooo terribly unlike him! I put him to bed at 7 (again, so unlike him).

The older kids & are are watching "Game Plan" right now from On Demand. They are just AMAZED at this whole On Demand thing, "Well, can we pause the movie?" "Are there commercials?", "Do we have to send it back?". Funny how something so simple can amaze them!

Matt is on his way home (or will be soon) from St Joe in the wonderful snow storm, so if your reading this tonight yet please say a quick prayer for a safe drive home. I need him home safely! UPDATE: HE ISN'T COMING HOME TONIGHT,THEY ARE STAYING AT MY GRANDMA'S HOUSE, BUT PRAYERS FOR A SAFE RETURN TOMOROW WOULD BE GREAT! AND THAT E SLEEPS ALL NIGHT!

Sick Day...

Yesterday afternoon Bailey came down with a fever. It started as a really low grade, and kinda disappeared on it's own at one point, but before bed it was up to 103.98 and she had a really deep cough. I know she's been exposed to lot's of stuff recently (there have been at least 4-5 kids sick in her class all week) so I was a litle worried but was able to get the fever back down a few times in the night (as soon as the meds wore off it was right back up to almost 104) and her cough wasn't terrible through the night. I called the dr office this morning just to check, with the weekend coming I didn't want to have to go to the ER room if they wanted to see her. Basically the guy I talked to read me a whole speal adn they don't want to see her, which is totally fine by me! But she's home today adn we missed "Donuts with your Valentine" at her school so on the way to take Landon to school this morning we had our own Donuts with your Valentine at the bakery. They LOVED that! I have the day off b/c of her being sick so that is at least a little nice. Although E is a bit more needy! Oh well, good snuggle/play day!

Here's another layout I did yesterday...
Made with these super brackets by Amy Wolff

Matt will be out of town again tonight and we are just going to be hanging out, maybe watch a movie or something, who knows! Tomorow is basketball & soccer (although we may end up skipping soccer) then Matt will be gone AGAIN all night! Sounds like a GREAT weekend huh???

And, about Elliot's talking... in the last two or three days his vocabulary has probably quadrupled. He repeats a ton and had all of a sudden started saying words all the time! I'll show you later... stay tuned!

Absolutely Divine...

I thought the last one was good, but you have to check this one out!!!!!

Layouts...

Well it's been a while since I showed off any layouts, so I'm gonna show you my latest three favs... you can see more by going to my gallery(s), link on the right!

I just made the BEST soup... Savory Mushroom Barley Soup. Seriously YUMMY! And not to fattening/unhealthy either! Lot's of vegetables, broth, tomato paste. I did add beef pieces too! Soooo good! We're having it for dinner too!

I got two new backdrops today! I still have all the lights up, it's causing a little congestion in the entry of the house b/c I had to rearrange some furniture, but I've taken some great pics too! I got a white backdrop & a blue one today, can't wait to check them out! E isn't much of a model so I may have to wait for bailey to get home from school!

We will have to do her hair first though! She for some reason though thinks it's CUTE to wear only half of her hair back in a ponytail with the sides hanging down. It looks absolutely rediculous and I all but told her so this morning (I did feel a little bad, it obviously hurt her feelings a little), I told her that we were going to redo her hair and that brought tears. You never want me to do my hair the way I want. So WHATEVER... DO YOUR HAIR HOW YOU WANT! Just to show her how silly it looked I also did mine that way, thinking she would then see the light. Nope... not so much! I said "Don't I look NICE???" and she responded with "Yeah... I like it mom". It was VERY VERY VERY hard for me not to laugh! What's up with that? Why does she think that's cute????? So anyway, she went to school looking like that and when I was at school at 9 she still had her hair "up" like that. Rediculous I tell ya. It's very hard for me to see her like that, I really want it to be done "right".

That girl drives me crazy... good thing I love her so very very much!

NY Giants win!!!! & email issues

OK, so Landon is PUMPED that the Giants won! I'm excited for him he's so excited!

More importantly, my email is NOT working... at all, not sure what's up with that but I can't receive ANY mail, I'm hoping I get them all from today tomorow or something! In the meantime if you need to email me for something you can use this post or the traditional and a bit "old fashioned" phone!

Sports Day

Friday was supposed to be a snow day... the roads were terrible when it was time to take the kids to school, but I got them there and it quit snowing by the time it was time to come home so all was good!

I had a dr appt with a dermatologist on Friday to get a mole looked at/removed, so Matt came home to watch the boys so I could go, I drove on the rotten roads to the office, checked in (long story not worth explaining with that too), and then the receptionist informed me that they don't participate with my insurance... so I left. Nice that I had to go all the way there to find that out. So now I need to find someone that participates with my insurance... just one more thing to do!

This morning Landon had a basketball game... he did sooooo well (although he was exhausted from being up til 1:30am), and they tied again. That's 3 tie games so far. Matt's mom, Matt's dad and Sarah, Cobe & Brooks all came to watch, he just loves it when people watch him play! Bailey had a soccer game immediately after Landon's game... she did well too! She actually ran after the ball and kicked it multiple times. I think last year we offered to pay her to kick the ball so this was big stuff!

This afternoon Matt's dad helped me set up his old studio lights and figure that out a little. I was able to get some fun pictures of the kids tonight too... see the 365 blog (link on right) to see them!

Matt is in St Joe, he left right after the games and I'm just sitting here waiting for him to return... should be any minute now though!

OK, that's been all over the place... hope you could keep up! :)