Happy Birthday Hubby

Today is my hubby's birthday!
Too bad he had to work all day!
However, once he came home, I had supper ready and his parents were here!

Shortly after supper, we had cake and ice cream...

Look at all those candles!

Whew...

Got all of them blown out (took 2 breaths though)!

The girls eating ice cream....

and cake! It was so yummy!

The girls...

and Grandpa J.

Sammy...

eating cake... and later on ice cream!

I missed getting pics of Grandma J and Annie... they were here too to help JC celebrate too!

JC said it was a great birthday... that is what every wife LOVES to hear!

Special Thank you to Grandma J and Grandpa J for helping with the girls while I got everything together!

A whole Scrapbook in ONE day!

My dear friend Julie, who is a Stampin' UP! demonstrator, showed me her scrapbook that she did in ONE day!
It was absolutely the coolest scrapbook I had ever seen. So, I asked her if she could hold her class in our grade school to help all of us learn how to do a scrapbook in a day. She gladly obliged and we had a wonderful day!
We had a great number of people and I really look forward to doing more of these in the future!

The scrapbookers....

hard at work.

Aunt Cindy, Jill and Aunt Carol...

busy making pages.

Jen...


mastering the Big Shot!

Aunt Cindy, Jill and my mom...

working away!

Julie...

concentrating as she works to seal our covers!

Our albums...

as they are stood up to dry.

What a neat collection...

of many different albums.

A closer look...

of our creativity!

Some unique designs...

and how beautiful they are!

Jen...

stressing and obsessing over the perfect pages!

Joyce and Karen...

were making great progress!

Aunt Cindy...

taking pictures of Annie and Sammy!

Thank you to everyone who came and scrapbooked with us! I had a blast and I hope you did as well! I LOVE the book I created and I look forward to making many, many more!

Valentine's Weekend Recap

Friday, the kids got out of school early. Jen and I decided to take our crew over to Peoria to have their pictures taken. It was pure chaos... but we loved every minute of it!

All of the kids...

Jonah, Annie, Hannah, Jeffrey and Sammy
Courtney, Emma and Cadie

My crew...

Jonah, Annie, Jeffrey, Sammy, Courtney and Cadie

The 3 amigo's....

Courtney, Emma, and Cadie

This was to be the twins 2 yr pic...

Courtney... Cadie wouldn't cooperate and sit on the blocks with her sister!


Cadie...

Finally got her to smile!

Courtney...

this is her 2yr picture

Cadie...


pouting!!!

We had so much fun... of course trying to get the twins to cooperate is always a challenge!

Friday Foto Fiesta

Friday Foto Fiesta!

My pic for today...

Sammy!

This picture was taken the night we went out to eat with my parents for my birthday. Sammy has been wearing his glasses proudly! I love this picture of him and I think he looks great in his new glasses!

Hop over to Candid Carrie and play along!

Way Back When- sday

Time for Way Back When- sday!

I thought I would use this photo. It is one of my favorites from 2004:

this was taken in Nov. We actually had quite a bit of snow and the kids were having lots of fun playing in it! Sammy had just thrown a snowball and it went flying by Annie who was trying to duck from it!

It isn't often that the little brother ends up the top dog... but he got her this time!

to play along in the fun, visit Twinfatuation!

Two for Two-sday

So every Tuesday, Deanna at Eight is Great hosts a Two for Two-sday!

My two-fer this week is...

Annie and Sammy... playing UNO while watching Pee Wee's big adventure*.

As you can tell, they were more interested in the movie than playing UNO! However, once the movie was over, they shut off the TV and we had a wonderful game of UNO! I am loving that my big kids are old enough to play games with me! I love to play games, esp. card games and I am loving taking at least 1 noc a week to play a game!

(*Oh, in case you are wondering WHY an educated person such as myself would let their child watch Pee Wee's Big Adventure... well, it wasn't my idea! Apparently, my husband watched this as a kid and frequently quotes parts of the movie?! Its lost on me as I wasn't ever a fan! The kids enjoyed it though, so I guess I am the one who is missing out now! LOL)

Join in the fun... visit Eight is Great and show off your twosome!

Skating Party

Annie and Sammy both have birthdays in December.

They turned 11 and 8 this year. They are both old enough where they are wanting to have parties with their friends.

Last year we went to the YMCA.

Annie's friends....

Lucas, Annie, Madison, Nick, and Whitney

Sammy's friends...

Dustin, Shawn, Nickolas, Jonathan, Sammy and Skyler

This year, the kids decided to go skating.

Sammy's group of friends....

Makayla, Hannah, Sammy, Jonathan and Nickolas (there but not pictured is Aidan) and it isn't the best pic of the girls.

Annie's friends...

Madison, Skylar, Annie and Junie

We also had a girl named Larissa and Hannah P. there as well.

It was great fun at Skateland and my sister-in-law, Jannea, watched the twins, made chili and a cake and did all my dishes for me while I was gone!

My best friend Jen took Sammy to the skate rink for me and greeted the parents as I ran Annie home to finish getting ready for her party.

I am sure thankful for the friends and family that I have that help me out so much! I know I couldn't do it without them!

Some random pics from the party....

JC putting on skates

Hannah...

the air hockey pro!

Hannah...

beating her mommy!

the girls playing Hoop FEVER...

Hannah P., Lari, Annie and Skylar

The girls...

had a blast playing in the cake instead of eating much of it!

Sammy and his friends...

Jonathan and Aidan

Monday MeMe- Pictures of Christmas's past

Every Monday I host a MeMe.... just for fun!
Play along if you like, leave me a comment and I will add a link to your blog!
Up this week is pictures of past Christmas'.

Christmas 1974:

Mike, Me and Penny

Christmas 1994:

JM (21mo)

Christmas 1997:

JM (4) & Annie (1 day)

Christmas 2004:

Annie (7), Sammy (4) and JM (11)

Christmas 2007:

Annie (10) holding Cadie (11mo), Jonah (4), Sammy (7) holding Courtney (11mo)

Hope every has a very Merry Christmas and a blessed Holiday season!

Playing along this week...

Jen

Up next week:
12-29: New Year's Resolutions

Sammy and the saga of his ears continues...

Sammy had an appt with Dr. Stivers today. Dr. Stivers is the doctor who put the tubes in Sammy's ears in May. Well, last month, Sammy's regular doctor (Dr. Chamberlin) told me that Sammy's tube was out of his ear. So, we got in to see Dr. Stivers and BOTH tubes are out. That is less than 6mo since he had them placed! This was the 2nd set of tubes he has had. His 1st set placed when he was 10mo... was out in less than a year and now this set is out 6mo from the time they were placed!

In order to decide what our next option is.... we had a hearing test done. Plus, Dr. Stivers did some other tests to assess where we are at with this ear situation. Sammy never gets ear infections and doesn't ever run a fever or complain about pain. When he was an infant, we would discover he had fluid in his ears when we went in for regular visits. Now that he only goes to the doctor when something has happened, our visits are few and far imbetween. The only reason he was seen this time is b/c he wasn't able to pass a hearing test and they figured out that his ears were full of fluid.

Today, he has a pin hole in the right eardrum. This is good. This allows for fluid to not build up. The left ear, has noteable decrease in frequency... so he isn't able to hear as well with his left. We go back in February to see what the hearing test says at that time. He may have to have a tube or tubes placed again. I am not anxious to have this done and neither is Sammy. However, I do not want permenant hearing loss due to fluid build up!

Way Back When-sday

Ok, so I am a little behind on things...

I should have posted on Monday that my "baby" turned 8!
(I know that I have had 2 more babies since the last baby... but if you ever met Sammy... he is definately "THE baby")! Speaking of...

Sammy... December 15, 2000

He has went from this sweet baby to this....

Sammy... December 15, 2008

Please check out Twinfatuation and play along with Way Back When-sday!!

Way Back When-sday

Its my favorite day of the week! Way Back When-sday!

Sammy and Annie...

2002

I don't know that I could get them to sit on Santa's lap anymore, but I loved this picture from the days they would still sit on Santa's lap!

Hop on over to Twinfatuation to play along in Way Back When-sday!

The Tree is UP!

Ok. I think next year... the weekend after Thanksgiving I will be putting up our tree! I feel like Ole St. Nick is knocking at my door and I am not even close to being ready!

Anyway, the kids and I had lots of fun decorating our tree. Normally, I am one of those people who has perfect placement of ornaments on the tree (think of Monica from Friends). However, this year, there wasn't any stopping, organizing or doing much more than just sit back and watch in wonder...

Sammy hanging up his decorations.

Jason and Cadie...

...this is just after we pulled Cadie out of the tree! I had used a step-stool to reach the top of the tree when stringing lights and Cadie found it quite handy when hanging ornaments, however, she misjudged a step and fell over INTO the tree! Amazingly, it didn't knock it over! Daddy just had to console her a little and she was right back at hanging ornaments!

Courtney...

...was slow and determined at her attempts to hang ornaments. Cadie would hang 2 or 3 to 1 of Courtney's!

Cadie...

... back on the footstool. She would occasionally look back and double check that she was indeed hanging the ornament in the correct position!

Courtney...

... a little backwards on her ornament hanging, though is getting the hang of it!

JM...

...even as the oldest, he had fun helping the babies, and made sure to hang his ornaments the highest on the tree!

Anna...

...got the important job of stringing the garland!

BEHOLD....

OUR CHRISTMAS TREE!


For those who wonder how I keep the tree in one piece and standing...

YEP... those are 2 gates!
I also took all the glass ornaments and set them aside. I think maybe 3 ended up on the tree, but the majority never made it out of their box for this year!

Actually, my bright idea was to move the one gate (the stretchy evenflo gate) out of the doorway by the front entry. This left this doorway open, but as long as the 2 other gates were closed, there wasn't anyway the girls could get to the Christmas tree or go up the stairs. However, last noc, I quickly learned that the girls have figured out how to break down the stretchy gate!

*sigh*

Since I had a "spare" gate in the garage (bought it for the stairwell, but it was too small), I had my FIL drag it out of the garage, I cleaned it up and that will be my husband's project tonoc. Put up the metal gate, they won't be able to climb it or knock it over! The stretchy gate will go back to its home over the entry way doorway (as seen below)!


I am hopeful that maybe next Christmas... we will be able to have our house opened back up! I think I have a gate in almost every doorway now!