Happy New Year!

Christmas was wonderful, but boy am I happy for it to be over. Tonight we'll be ringing in the New Year with good friends, but I thought I'd post some pictures from Christmas while I've got a few free minutes.

.

Christmas Eve at Bret's Dad's house...

Christmas morning at home....

Mack, who continues to grow at an alarmingly fast pace. I took him in for his last round of boosters today and the vet says he's going to be a very big boy. I'm told that there is a dog that comes into the clinic that looked exactly like Mack as a puppy and that he's a German Shepherd/St. Bernard mix. He's also 130 pounds. Yes, I got a little light headed upon hearing this. Only time will tell, but he's already found a place into our hearts so we'll accept him whether he's Daisy sized or Monster sized.

Late Christmas morning we hit the road and made the drive to my mom's house to celebrate Christmas with my family.

Wiped out, Cubbies style!

Attention: Long Lost Blogger Found

It's been awhile. I realize that. Things have been so crazy around here since we got this puppy. It almost feels like we brought home an overly hyper and curious toddler last weekend. Things actually got pretty stressful around these parts.

Mack came home last weekend and by Monday morning he was running a 104 fever and very lethargic. I took him to (a very expensive) vet appointment to find out that his kennel cough had progressed into a secondary bacterial infection. He's been taking antibiotics (which are *so* fun to shove down his throat twice a day) and he seems to be almost over it. His cold like symptoms are still around but I think he's at the tail end of it.

Daisy got sick, too. The same day I took Mack to the vet I brought home some Nylabones for the dogs to chew on. Daisy chewed hers up into chunks and was throwing them up by 4:30am the following morning. We were getting pretty worried about her, praying that she didn't have a blockage. Two days of vomiting later, she had gotten over it.

Mack is doing awesome in the house training department. He's had no accidents in the house over the past 4 days and is the sweetest thing. Daisy seems to be tolerating him for the most part, but when Mack tries to initiate her in play, Daisy goes ballistic on him. We have no idea how to handle that. I know we have to let her assert herself as dominant dog, but my gut tells me that we should only be letting her "respond" to him to a certain aggressive level. We were given the number of a animal behaviorist when we adopted Mack and I'll be calling her tomorrow. Those times stress us out a lot and we really need to figure out how to deal with it if we want Mack to work out.

Last, but not least - we all have horrible head colds. For the last few days I've thought that maybe Ashley and I were fighting allergies, but Bret and Ryan both started getting the whole sneezing, head congestion, stuffy nose thing today. I'm hoping we're over it by Christmas later this week.

Three days until Christmas Eve. How the heck did that happen? It seemed like it was so far away and now all of a sudden it's about to be here and gone. The kids are starting to get really excited. We caved and opened up gifts between each other tonight which made the kids really happy to get a gift each ahead of Christmas.

Thankfully, we're ready for Christmas to come. We're anticipating that it may be a little sad and hard at times since this will be our first Christmas without Bret's mom, but we've worked hard to make sure it's a good one.

If I don't get back here before - Have a Merry, Merry Christmas!

Grand View Drive 2008

Yesterday afternoon, we took the kids up to Grandview Drive here in Peoria to take some fall pictures on our own. Grandview Drive is home to some of the biggest homes ever seen and even has a castle with a moat, but most importantly, has the most beautiful views of the bluffs around the Illinois river. Here are some of the best pictures we took. We're actually going back up there again today to take more with Bret's brother and family.

Halloween 2008

Once upon a spooky Halloween, there was a stay at home mom (SAHM) who dreamed of becoming a princess mom. She wished upon a star for her fairy godmother to appear when her witchy friend from work/school showed up and POOF went the fairy godmother!

The SAHM made it through 2 hours of small children asking "What are you supposed to be for Halloween?" and then cruised across town in her minivan to her son's school and watched the annual Halloween Parade.

Clearly facing the wrong way in line, but oh so cute heroic looking.

Cuteness onstage for all to see.

School obligations completed and SAHM is happy to be home and out of those itchy velcro rollers. Could really use that fairy godmother to do something with this mop.


Still way too big, but camera does not show the full extent of bigness, thank goodness.


The kids got home from school and we headed outside to take pictures. Ryan is a brave Army Sargeant, Ashley is dressed up as Bacon (her friend whom she is going trick or treating with is the other half of her costume, Eggs. Bret thinks he's 10 again and makes a pretty sweet Viking.

Before the kids head out with friends tonight, we took them to trick or treat at Bret's Dad's house as well as a couple of his mom's close friends' houses.

Bret is now out with Ryan and Ashley caught up with her other half (eggs) and I'm left here to answer the door with two big overly excited dogs.

Just a little note to the hoodlums that came and wiped out our bowl of candy sitting on the porch while I was taking Ashley to her friend's house, RIGHT after my husband filled it - My witchy friend is coming for YOU!

Update: Oh my freaking hilarious! I was not expecting this when the door bell rang! This would be Bret and our neighbor Scott.

School Pictures 2008

It seems we missed getting together with Bret's brother and family this year for our pictures up on Grand View Drive due to bad weather and busy schedules, but the kids did bring home some cute ones from school instead.

.

My grown up 7th grader...

My little man, the 2nd grader...

I even got my picture taken now that I work in one of the schools, but hell will have to freeze over before I share that one.

Week In Review

I apologize for disappearing this week, but things are now finally starting to slow down. Ashley's softball season is officially over. Her last game of the season was Wednesday night. Watching her games has been a lot of fun, but I'm ready for it to be over.

.

Homework has been out of control now that school is back in full swing. It seems like once we're all home and done with dinner, we're spending the rest of our nights buried in homework. Ashley is doing excellent in school. No problems there. Ryan is struggling a little, but we expected that. While he has made tremendous progress - I'll never get tired of him reading a book to us - he still has some more catching up to his peers to do. Five years of undiagnosed hearing loss plus a possible learning disability will do that to you. We just have to stay patient, work with him and keep on top of the school.

.

Homework time.

Earlier this week, Ryan brought home a short story that he wrote himself with no help. I was very proud and promptly hung it on our fridge. It had some spelling errors, but it showed promise. Being able to write an actual sentence was a challenge for him last year.

Also this week, I got my highlights redone and my hair cut. It's still very blonde right now, but it'll tone down in a week or so. I went for more layers this time around because I'm so tired of my hair just hanging there, doing absolutely nothing. I was amazed at how many of the little kids at school the next day noticed my hair.

The weather here has been horrible and depressing for the last couple of days. It has rained nonstop. Despite the constant rain, we went to the high school football game tonight. We made it through the first half and ended up leaving during halftime because of Ryan's boredom (his friends decided not to brave the rain), the obnoxiously loud parent behind us and because we looked and felt like drowned rats.

Ryan is ready for the football game.

Brings back memories of the good old days.

I didn't get any pictures of Ashley tonight. Once we walked through the gates, she was swallowed up by a group of her friends and gone. Seems to be becoming the norm these days. Sigh.

Payday

At the rate the kids are going, it's a good thing I took on a part time job at school. They each made $4.25 this week. Once they had to pay up their first and second quarters, they caught on pretty quickly. It actually served as a good little math lesson for Ryan. He did pretty well with counting out the quarters, exchanging them in for dollar bills and then counting out how much he had altogether in paper money. Now the kid wants to go spend it all! Go figure.

Enough Already

I'm tired of hanging up forgotten bath towels, cleaning up puddles around the toilet, finding dirty laundry on the floor IN FRONT of the hamper, tripping over toys and cell phone texting during homework time. It's time to train them.

Starting today, both kids wills start the week with $5 in quarters. Each time the kids break a rule, fail to listen, or don't take care of their belongings they have to pay me a quarter. At the end of the week, whatever is left in their cups is their's to keep. (I'm even going to be nice and cash them into dollar bills so I don't have to keep running to the bank for quarters.)

Unless they surprise me, there probably won't be much left in there by this time next week.

Family Day

It turned out to be a gorgeous day today, so we took the kids to a Peoria Chief's baseball game this afternoon. The Chief's are a Minor League team owned by the Chicago Cubs, are managed by Ryne Sandberg and located right here in Peoria.

Still has a big gaping hole in his mouth!

There's Ryne Sandberg.

Ryan was fascinated by the mascot.

After the game (sadly, the Chief's lost) we went out for dinner and then stopped at a nearby park. We walked down to the little lake and fed the fish some bread and then let the kids play on the playground.

Almost home.