Sorry, it's been awhile

I know I haven't written in awhile. Sorry. The last entry was Thanksgiving, and as you may have read we visited Grampa Cecil and Thank God that we did. I am so thankful that we did. We lost our Grampa Cecil on Christmas day. The sweetest man any of us knew. He meant so much to so many and will be and is being severely missed. So Christmas had a bit of a different tone this year.

The kids continue to grow and make me laugh every single day. Mirenda and John went to a father-daughter dance that was adorable, we went to Samantha's baby shower that was the most beautiful shower ever(that's what the picture of Marja and Mirenda is from).

We celebrated Easter here, on a gorgeous day. Over spring break as a family we planted a vegetable garden. I did all of the shoveling (ouch, my back) John did the fencing, and the kids, well they kinda just supervised and picked out what we should grow. Gavin loves broccoli, so that is planted now for him. Mirenda loves peas so that is planted now for her. The tomatoes and everything else has to wait until it gets warmer and I think it is a nice project for us as a family to do.

Still waiting for the warm weather, and in just a couple weeks little Miss Mirenda turns 7!!!!!

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving has now past and on to the rush to Christmas. We had a great thanksgving! We went to NYC, we stayed in a great hotel and went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. It was definately an experience and we will all remember it. We had many laughs made many memories. We ate our Thanksgiving feast at Aunt Anelle's and Uncle Johnny's and it was yummmmmmmy! We left with full bellies and went to visit Grampa Cecil who is in the hospital, we brought him some yummy turkey. This mind you was all in a matter of 2 days!! The kids were soooo good, they hung in there like troopers. We got home Friday night around 8:30pm and crashed.

So now I feel like the pressure is on for Christmas, my gosh, I have this giant room to decorate, we need a giant tree, we need a thousand lights we need food we need drinks we need everything and presents and wrapping and bows and cookies and goodies and christmas music and a clean house, AHAHAHAHAHA!!! But secretly, I LOVE IT!!! What is wrong with me? I love being up at night when everyone is sleeping and I am up baking or wrapping, I just like to do that, why? I do not know. But, just as we are getting into the swing of things, my little angels got sick, Mirenda was sent home on Monday with a fever, and I had to keep her home Tuesday, and now she has half days for the rest of the week (not so thrilled about that) Last night my little guy threw up all over his bed and had a fever of 103.4, yeah! Not good, so I am tending to him, and had to keep him home today, (Wednesday) This week will not be too productive, but I could get some cleaning done.

But what am I doing, I am on the computer writing this blog. Here is a Santa video my friend did and I did it for Gavin and when I showed him he was in shock, check it out. You may have to copy and paste to your browser.

http://family.go.com/santas-list/video/20849-gavsmom/

Being Thankful!!

Halloween was pretty fun and it is over so quickly. Mirenda and Gavin had a nice time, Gavin's little school party was cute and trick or treating turned out to be a cough fest. Gavin must have caught some kind of cold and coughed all night long, do you think that would slow him down from getting candy.......NOT a chance!!! He is only 4 I forget sometimes, that he may not remember what we did last year so he kept saying after each house, can we go to another house and I would say, "ummm, I guess so" John wanted to kill Marja and I, (this was Marjie's 1st halloween home in 10 years!!!) beacuse at each house we'd yell to the kids "say trick or treat" then a couple seconds would go by and then we'd yell "say thank you" and we of course did not notice we did it at every house!! John finally says to the kids "PLEASE, say trick or treat before I loose it on you mother and aunt" He was very paitent, as he always is with us (that is a joke)

John has had to adjust to my sister moving home too!! My sister and I have always been close and always laughed and had fun and really the 10 years that she was gone seem like forever when she was gone, but now that she is back, I feel like she never left. John, however, is just catching up. (hehehehe) Poor John. On almost every Friday we have "pizza" night, this is were mom, dad, gigi, marj, john, the kids, and I eat pizza here together, the kids and I look forward to it all week, we can't wait for it, we sometimes play games, we laugh, we always have stuff to take about. The kids love it. Gigi, always brings coupons for everyone and articles for everyone to read and some sort of craft for the kids to do (how does she do it?) On Sunday's we do the Sunday thing, some time in the afternoon, we all end up at Marja's house it used to me my mom and dad's but not anymore. My sister and I have taken over the cooking. The men watch football, the women cook, the kids play, Gigi shows up with coupons, articles, and crafts for the children (again, i don't know how she comes up with these things?) We eat, we talk, we laugh, I just love it and live for it. How I got off on this I don't know, maybe because I am thankful.

Enjoy this video of Gavin playing freeze dance at the gym Halloween party.

A quick catch up

I know it has been some time since my last entry, sorry. I need some time to recover.

Here we go, Connie's Wedding was great, it went off without a hitch, everything was beautiful, the only complaint I had was My dress, yea my dress, for some reason the lady who did the alterations for some reason altered the top of my dress which did not need to be altered, long story short, to was WAY TOO BIG, I was not prepared for this to happen, yadda, yadda yadda, I ended up having to stuff an entire box of tissues in my chest, OH YEA, it was pretty. Mirenda and Gavin did a great job and look great!! The pictures you can see how great everyone looked, the picture of me is so you can see how far out my top stuck out and that is after I tied the top and taped it saftey pinned it and everything, what a riot!!!

Then we had John's cousin's wedding Kati, gorgeous!! She looked like a cake topper!! We had a blast.

John turned 40 and now we are coming up to halloween.
more to come

The Wedding Is Almost Here!!!!!!!!!

So the bachorlorette party that we didn't think would happen did. I'm so glad too, it was a blast. For those who did not know, Connie had surgery on her neck and I'm talking like major surgery, so we thought the whole "party" thing was out of the question. But we thought lets go out to dinner, kind of a last minute thing but, it worked. Here is how the day went. 1st I had to go to a viewing, thanks to Marja I could go, she took my kids (brave girl) 2nd got Mirenda brought her back to my house to John, so she could have "daddy time" she was feeling left out after being at school all week, and she was going to have a playdate with her cousin Delaney. 3rd go back and pick up Gavin from Marja's house, she is now cleaning and waiting for various people to show up for various reasons. 4th meet Connie and Connies mom at the bridal shop for her final fitting and bring gavin (poor kid) 5th go to Connies and warm up the wax and wax Connie, Connies mom and part of Tom, 6th go home to get ready to go back to Connies for the bacholorette party, a little time here, breathe, shower off, dress, 7th back to pick up Connie 8th go to the dj for the wedding Connie had to go over some last minute details with them (kinda fun stuff) 9th arrive at ANGELOS and the finally 10th ending up at BOOGIE NIGHTS!!! YEA BABY

So needless to say it was a long day but all the while I was not thinking that, we had a great dinner, Kim, Cricket, Marja, Connie and myself laughed and had a perfect time. We went to Boogie Nights and I danced all night, and when I say all night, ask anyone ALL NIGHT. The music in this place is awesome its all 70's and 80's. All kinds of people showed up and what a blast. Trust me when I tell you we all have blisters to prove it. I came home and downloaded the entire thriller album. That's right people thriller, try it. It's great. So now I have a couple minutes, I picked up Gavins tuxedo today and I cannot even put into word how this boy looks.
He is just amazing. I am going to straighten up now, start dinner tonight is back to school night. Tomorrow Gavin and I have hair appointments, he will take a couple minutes, I may take a couple hours. I'll get my nails done tomorrow morning and this way we'll be set so on Thursday, we will be ready to the rehearsal.
You'd think I was getting married. I just have to work on my speech!!!!!!!!!!!!

FINALLY, the first day of first grade!!

After a very fun summer, school is finally here. My little Miss. Mirenda was already to go, pencils sharpened, new bookbag and lunch box (both Hannah Montana) Of course the night before the big day she was a little nervous, this is normal. In the morning she woke up so happy, I'm not used to her being happy, I thought for sure the tears would make an appearance at some point. They didnt'!!!! the tears actually came from Gavin! He wanted to go to school too!

He did everything Mirenda did, he had his clothes laid out the night before, bookbag was packed with ninja turtles, he was set. We walked to the bus stop to meet Emma and Tommy, it was Tommy's first day of kindergarten and Gavin likes to do whatever Tommy does, so this didn't help. However, I did not think it was a big deal. Anyway, the bus comes, the kids cross the street and Gavin tells John "Im getting on that bus!" John says "OK" John took him on there for a minute and got off of the bus, then the tears came, he was so heartbroken. I tried to explain, it didn't help.
I tried to change the subject, this didn't help either. I took him to the bakery to get a cupcake for Mirenda, maybe this helped a little.

When Mirenda came home she said she liked her teacher and she was happy. I love how you wait for them to come home, its a little emotional, you wonder all day what they are doing and you finally get them home all to yourself and you say "tell me everything, what was your day like?" and they say "it was good" THATS IT? That's all I get after all this, "GOOD" come on!!! Give me details, like what does the teacher look like, what is your classroom like, did you make any new friends, did you see any old friends? It doesn't matter the answer is always the same it's either "good or fine" I'm learning.

Gavin starts school on the 29th, this poor kid, I can't even get into it but he is finally going to a great preschool 3 days a week, OH yea baby, 3 days 9-12:30 He'll eat lunch there, they do kids yoga, swimming lessons once a month, I hit the jackpot with this one (THANK YOU TRISH) I am anxious to see how it feels to have both children in school, last year really didn't count, he was there 2 days 9:15-11:15 not so great and they didn't start until later in October and had to end the year early, it was a bummer all the way around.

What will I do, clean the house, go to the gym, go food shopping, or maybe I'll sit and do nothing!!!!!!!!!!!! We shall see.

I still haven't planned anything for John's 40th, we have Connie's wedding in 12 days!!! Then Katie's wedding October 4th. Connie's birthday on October 5th. Marja's house is pretty much done, so things are moving right along. We'll see what happens, perhaps a small gathering for him, I better get moving.

A Pirate, Tubes, Adnodes & Roxie

Gavin's pirate party was a success!! We did the treasure hunt, we did relay races, we did the pinata and cupcakes, it was hotter than hot. The day couldn't have been more perfect. The only thing I would have changed would have been the location of the tent we set up. It was sooooo hot that the kids feet were burning. Besides that all was great.

Gavin got spoiled with all kinds of cool toys. Of course on his "real" birthday we asked him where he'd like to go for dinner and he said "the buck" So after a day at the AC beach (practice day for the air show, so great). We came home showered and got ready, and went to dinner. Now this was also the night before Mirenda had to go have her adnodes out and tubes put in her ears. She was a little nervous, but not too bad.

The next morning we went to the hospital @ 5:30am, she was the first patient (Thank God) Everything was good until she had to wake up. In recovery she had a little trouble, crying and just uncomfortable. We got home and the girl did not sleep at all!!! I was exhausted and ready for a nap, not her!!! She was ready to watch movies and just chill. So that's what we did.

Now we are just waiting to school to begin and Aunt Connie and Tom's wedding. We can't wait. Gavin got measured for his tux. I have to pick up Mirenda's dress get her shoes and go get my dress altered! I think I'm going with silver shoes, is that OK?

Marja's house is almost done, it has gone very quickly and now is getting very exciting. I have to go take some pics, I haven't been there in a week and now the kitchen cabinets are in, appliances are coming floors are almost done, stairs are done, all in a week's work!! WOW!

Sadly, Roxie (my parents dog) went to doggie heaven on Gavin's birthday. We will all miss her sweet little face, her always wagging tail, and adorable ways. She is resting peacefully now and she deserves it. She was and will always be a loved little sweet dog.

The pictures are from the party, and the last one is of Mirenda the day after her surgery, and NO THAT IS NOT ROXIE, that is monte and mirenda playing. That would be just wrong....