Are You Kidding Me????????

Quote of the day

2009-12-24T14:35:00.002-05:00

"I can feel my ovaries starting to clog from eating all those eggs."--Alex

Update: Alex wants to make sure everyone knows that he was just kidding, he does know it is arteries, not ovaries!

Teenage Drama Update

2009-12-23T15:13:00.002-05:00

The one with the attitude and the one who had the cell phone taken away for the turn in violation are both cleaning their rooms, without being told! One came down with four bags of trash (Walmart size, not trash size!) and the other came down for a bucket of soapy water to wash the bedroom floor! Yay!

The one who needs the dermatologist is still looking in the mirror and now "needs a frickin' haircut soooooooooooooo badly"!

Oh, by the way, none of the teenagers have any problem eating all the Christmas goodies I have been slaving over!

More teenage drama

2009-12-23T15:09:00.003-05:00

Two confiscated cell phones. One taken away for not turning it in at 8:00 pm, as required. One taken away for wearing brother's jeans without permission and then lying about it. Caught in the act when the jean pockets were checked and an excused absence slip from the school office, complete with the date and the name!

Add one who refuses to do his household chores before he goes to work, one who thinks I am a maid service, and one who has an attitude about everything. How I love being the mother of five teenagers!

The drama of teenagers

2009-12-23T15:06:00.002-05:00

"I need a frickin' dermatologist!"
"I thought you were cleaning the bathroom, where does the dermatologist come in?"
"There is a mirror in there and I can't stop looking at myself!"

Baking Day

2009-12-21T07:45:00.003-05:00

I was exhausted last night. I spent about 12 hours baking. I made 11 loaves of Portuguese Sweet Bread, 6 dozen hand-dipped truffles, two batches of cream cheese pastry, and two batches of refrigerator cookies and 5 pounds of fudge. When I write it out like this, it seems like so little, yet it was so much work and so time consuming! I actually made the fudge and refrigerator cookies on Saturday.

It was so much work, but also fun and worth the effort because the goodies are such an important part of the traditions that my kids love so much. They really hate it when anything changes about the holidays. There is no such thing; in my eyes, as saying, if I don't have time or money, I just won't bake this year. It is too special to my kids and makes them so happy, I just won't compromise on that. I've seen how much deviation from the norm upsets them. Last year, my mom stopped her annual tradition of giving each kid a personalized Christmas ornament on Thanksgiving. My kids were devastated! They were upset again this year, although not as upset as last year, since they had been hoping she only took one year off, but no such luck. I remember how much I loved the holiday traditions when I was a kid, like getting a Life Saver's Christmas Book every year. I guess since the kids of this generation are being raised in such a scary and tumultuous world, keeping things the same is more important than ever.

Last Weekend

2009-12-21T07:41:00.002-05:00

Last weekend, Hannah, Shauna and I went up to Northern VA for Mike's work Christmas party. We had a great time! The party was so much fun and the food was delicious. I've never had upscale catering before and it was wonderful. I'm used to pulled pork, fried chicken and beef sandwiches! Not that those aren't all delicious, this was just a bit different for a change.

We spent the weekend there, doing a little shopping and a fun tacky Christmas light tour. We saw some really pretty houses. The girls and I left on Sunday afternoon and Mike just stayed, since driving home that night and driving right back Monday morning would have been silly!

Reece's Rainbow Angel Tree

2009-12-13T13:35:00.002-05:00

There are still SEVEN children with no sponsors! Please, if you can, sponsor one of them. It would be great to see all of the children have at least one sponsor. I believe that THIRTY kids have found new homes, since this year's Angel Tree started! Yay!

http://www.reecesrainbow.com/angeltree2009sponsorpage.html

Please put this on your blog

2009-12-07T11:27:00.003-05:00

You might have noticed the new button on my blog. We are helping to raise money to save four year old Tonya from going to a mental institution in her country. Please put this button on your blog and help pass the word!

Thank you!

Socks

2009-12-03T16:34:00.002-05:00

I just had to search through our 'sock crate'. This is actually one side of a huge coffee table/trunk that opens for storage. It is full to the brim with unmatched socks. I was looking for Hannah's choir stockings. Luckily for me, they are black. I searched through a sea of mostly white socks. Still could not find both of them. I found a fork.

*Update: Found the other one on attempt two! I was hoping for a spoon, as well.

Birthday Central

2009-12-01T13:08:00.002-05:00

Six out of nine of us have birthdays between September 29th and December 1st. Today is the last one. Yay! It gets expensive and time consuming, with a lot of baking going on. CUP's is September 29th, Shauna's is October 13th. Then we have three in November, Hannah on the 11th, me on the 25th and Drew on the 30th. Alex was thoughtful enough to be born 5 hours into December, so I wouldn't have three November birthstones on my Mother's necklace!

So, happy birthday, Alex! I can't believe he is 15 already. Drew was hanging out with friends for most of the day on his birthday, so his birthday dinner & dessert is scheduled for Wednesday. I will have to try to find some baby pictures to post!

Now that the birthdays are almost over, I can start concentrating on Christmas. Alex already decorated for me, with some help from Shauna. We have two small trees, instead of one large, because our cats climb the large ones and wreck them. The small ones can be put in the sun room at night, so they can't get at them. Last year, I just put the small green tree with blue lights in the sunroom, fully decorated. Now we just have to remember to bring it out every day! This year we put the white tree on top of my computer desk. For some reason, the cats never go up there and so far they haven't bothered it. Last year we folded it up and put it away in the box, but left the ornaments on. It still needs to be fluffed and I would like to get some garland for it, but it is almost ready to go. We are having some issues with the electricity where my computer is, so I now have a lovely orange extension cord running across the floor between the family room and kitchen. Mike fixed it a few days ago, but apparently putting in a new outlet wasn't enough because it went out again yesterday. We now have no light or ceiling fan above the kitchen table. Our outside outlets in the front and back stopped working several years ago. Our house really seems to be a lemon!

Quote of the day

2009-11-28T22:30:00.001-05:00

"Alex, you have man-legs."--Hannah

"That's because I'm a man."--Alex

"You're a boy. You're not a man until you get your period."--Shauna

Quote of the day

2009-11-27T19:41:00.001-05:00

"They should make a candle called Italian Dinner."--Alex

Hannah's Field Hockey Picture

2009-11-24T19:44:00.002-05:00

Quote of the day

2009-11-24T17:12:00.002-05:00

Me: "What about sweet potatoes?"

My sister: "Oh, I forgot about those. I have some regular potatoes, but I don't know if we can use them to make sweet potatoes."

Me: (Laughing hysterically!) "Um, that is like saying you have a box of macaroni and cheese mix and you are going to make brownies with it!"

Ahhh, the joys of the holidays!!!!

14 orphans have found families! Yay!

2009-11-23T13:04:00.003-05:00

Or should I say 14 families have found their orphans? This is from Andrea at Reece's Rainbow.

"Incredible response this year, 14 children from our Angel Tree have already found families with the help of your donations! Please continue sharing, we still have a full 7 weeks to go!"

Tonya

2009-11-20T23:41:00.004-05:00

I meant to mention this yesterday and just forgot. Thank you, Denise, for commenting on it and reminding me! Tonya is now featured on the home page of Reece's Rainbow! You are right, Denise, she is really cute and I bet she does have a great personality! Here are a couple of pictures of her that have been posted on the site in the past.

Roses

2009-11-20T20:59:00.002-05:00

This is one of the things that makes me love Virginia so much! Roses blooming in November! When I think back to how cold and even snowy it could be in November in Chicago, I can't believe how lucky I am to now live in a place with such beautiful weather. We have had a couple of chilly days, but I could count them on one hand. Mostly it has been in the 60's & 70's every day. Of course, we had that huge nor'easter/tropical storm last week, but even though it rained for 4 days straight, it was warm.

Hannah has gotten over being sick. She came home from school on Monday with a low grade fever and ran a fever all day on Tuesday. By Wednesday, she was fever free and she returned to school on Thursday. It is hard to tell what she had, but it might have been H1N1. It is always hard to tell with Hannah because she doesn't get sick like typical people. When everyone else in the house has a high fever, cough, sore throat, body aches for a week or ten days, she will have a medium fever and body aches for a couple of days. That is just the way she is. Same things with colds, she will be sick for a day or two and then she's fine. Weird. She went back to school just in time to get her H1N1 vaccination on Thursday! The school finally got them in. Alex and Luke get theirs next Monday.

Alex had his first performance as Daddy Warbucks today. He was awesome! It was a really cute show. He will have another one tomorrow and then one more in December. I will try to post some video, but I didn't take any tonight.

I've been keeping a secret!

2009-11-16T16:42:00.003-05:00

Yep, I have been keeping a secret, since last February, February 18, 2009, to be exact. On that day, I came across a website called Reece's Rainbow. Reece's Rainbow is a non-profit adoption ministry. They help find homes for orphans with Down syndrome and some with other disabilities. Most of the orphans are in Eastern European countries. In those countries, children with Down syndrome are routinely placed in orphanages, as there are no services available to their families. At the age of 5, or thereabouts, they are transferred from their "baby house" to a mental institution. Most of the children die within the first year of their transfer. They receive little or no medical care, attention, or love and are often strapped to their beds. In the United States, children with Down syndrome are treasured and there is a long waiting list of families who want to adopt the few that become available. With the many services and medical treatments available in the U.S., these kids can grow up to be happy, productive members of society. Many even learn to drive, get married, and live independently.

As I browsed through the children's pictures, I fell in love with a little girl named Tonya. I really felt that we would be a wonderful family for her, even though we hadn't planned on adopting any more children. I kept it to myself for a couple of months, thinking that the feeling would pass. It didn't. More and more, I felt that I had been directed to the website and Tonya's picture for a reason. I talked to Mike about it, and while he wasn't against actually adopting her, he expressed a lot of concern about the financial aspects. I don't blame him for that, it isn't like I hadn't thought of that, a lot. I guess where we differ, though, is that I feel very strongly that we would find a way to come up with the adoption and travel fees, if we committed to Tonya and put our minds to it. Mike doesn't quite have the faith that I do, however.

Adoptions in Tonya's country cost about $24,000, which includes travel costs and lodging. Since it doesn't seem to be an option for us (although, I have to admit that I am still hoping and praying that it will work out, somehow!), I have committed to helping raise money for Tonya to be adopted. Even though it would break my heart to find out that another family had decided to adopt her, I would be incredibly happy that she was going to be getting a family and her life will not be lost or damaged forever in a mental institution.

We had a garage sale last spring, which I blogged about, and we raised a bit of money from that. Since our hockey rink was closed, we decided to disband our non-profit hockey organization. Since we had a 501-(3)c status, one of the requirements for disbanding is that we must donate any remaining bank balance to another non-profit organization. A few months ago, I approached the rest of the board with the idea of donating it to Reece's Rainbow. They voted, unanimously, to do it and that money is now a part of her adoption grant. While it is still only a drop in the bucket, if you go here, to the Reece's Rainbow Blog, you can see that Tonya's grant is beginning to grow.

I am blogging about this now because I would like to spread the word about Tonya and the other beautiful children at Reece's Rainbow. They all deserve homes and loving families. There are a lot of families out there, like mine, who would be willing to take them in and love them, but cannot because they just don't have enough money for the adoption expenses. Please take a few minutes to look at these children and see if you can find a way to help them with a financial donation or by becoming a prayer warrior. Right now, they have an Angel Tree and if you send a $35 donation, they will send you a porcelain Christmas ornament with a picture of your sponsored child. Just click on the ornament on the side of my blog for more information.

Quote of the day

2009-11-10T19:18:00.001-05:00

"Mom, you should get a job. You don't know what it's like to work. All you do is a half hour of cleaning a day. You have no idea about working."--Steven

On my way...

2009-10-22T07:27:00.001-04:00

On my way to Las Vegas! Hannah scored a goal in field hockey yesterday. She has only been playing for a month. Yay, Hannah!

How's that for a blog entry???

Bargain weekend

2009-10-11T18:37:00.002-04:00

I got ten 4 ounce Wheat Thins for only 25 cents, total! I also got 4 dozen eggs for only 7 cents, total! I love a good bargain.

I just finished making apple spice muffins and chocolate chip muffins for school this week and I'm off to make pizza. This is taking WAY longer than I planned. Blogging probably made it take a little longer!

No major news this weekend.

Is this still good?

2009-10-09T18:41:00.002-04:00

Luke found this coupon in a rarely used kitchen drawer. It expired on September 30, 2000. I guess I should throw it away!

Quickie

2009-09-28T17:53:00.001-04:00

Jack's car almost fixed.
Front porch and stairs, spotless. Only took two days of pressure washing. I'm sore.
Recent emails still not answered.
Blog entry on my awesome weekend, now two weekends ago, still not done.

Strawberries

2009-09-26T11:19:00.002-04:00

My wonderful husband brought me a treat from Las Vegas today! He surprised me with some chocolate covered strawberries. Two are dipped in white chocolate and dark chocolate and two are covered in chocolate and toffee pieces. Yummy!

Chocolate yogurt recipe

2009-09-24T23:05:00.002-04:00

Chocolate Yogurt or Drinkable Chocolate Yogurt

2 cups plain fat free yogurt (You can get 32 oz. for only $1.57 at Walmart)
4T Cocoa Powder
sweetener to taste, I use half sugar and half splenda
1 tsp. vanilla

No milk or a Tablespoon or so of milk for consistency if you are making regular yogurt. If you want drinkable yogurt, add about a cup of milk or as much as you need to make it a chocolate milk consistency.

We mix this in the blender, but you can probably mix it by hand, as well, as long as you can get the cocoa powder to dissolve completely.

I'm going to try adding a little flax seed next time and see if anyone notices! I added it to my homemade granola bars tonight and they taste exactly the same, so I'm sure the kids won't even know.

Jen, we also flavor this plain fat free yogurt with dry jello mix and a little sweetener. It is so much cheaper than the little cups of flavored yogurt and delicious with some homemade granola.