Gotcha

Someone in our house has an impending 40th birthday. Yah....not me, I am not that old yet. I have often complained about how difficult it is to have a birthday on New Year's. Not just for me wanting to plan a special day but for my husband who has to share his day with the New Year's celebration. I know it is not the worst thing that can happen in life. But think of his Mother who was going to have a party on New Year's and went into labor. And yes his Dad is an accountant and loved the tax write-off.

I was very stumped as to what to do. Do I wait until after Christmas or try to plan something before Christmas? I wanted to surprise him with something but wasn't sure what. I went through a lot of possibilities before deciding on having a party at a restaurant with some of his friends.

The harder part was finding a restaurant. I inquired from one of our favorite restaurants which seemed ok until I heard what the minimums were for their private areas. Yikes! I thought about an Italian restaurant that I have been too with some friends. I inquired and determined they had a private room on the 3rd floor that I could have with no minimums. I didn't even have to do a fixed menu. I decided that a Sunday evening would work best. It is the holiday season and a busy time for most.

Now how to get him there. I schemed with my neighbor. The plan was that she would call me on Saturday with a story of how their plans fell through for Sunday, they had a sitter and wondered if we would like to go out to dinner. I casually asked the husband and he said ok. Part one down. On Sunday, my neighbor called me to tell me that her sitter got sick, no she never had a sitter lined up. We had planned on my niece watching all the kids.

The husband and I discussed where we would like to go, he suggested Italian (after he suggested our favorite steakhouse). So I suggested going to this Italian Restaurant. It was close and it was after all a school night.

What I failed to plan was what to say when we got there. So my friend and I went up to the hostess and didn't know what to say. They were going to take us to table 251. I said no we would like to go to the third floor. The hostess said they had a private party and luckily my friend said we are the party. So what does the hostess do, she yells out take them to the third floor. At that point my husband knew something was going on. Yes, he was surprised!

He ended up putting things together. Like the text I received from one of the people saying they could now make it and was it ok as I quickly got out of the message. The babysitter story.

Dinner was really good. We had 8 other couples celebrate with us. One couple could not make it.

Then comes the cake. I picked up the cake on Friday. As I went to put the cake in my car I dropped it. So I quickly picked up the box to get the cake to go back into the correct spot but ended up messing the side of the cake also. And just for the record the cake tasted great.

I brought my camera and forgot about it....so I didn't get one picture. I am very bummed. Happy 40th birthday....early. I love you and hope you had a great celebration!

It can't be December 12th

Wow, hard to believe that Christmas is 13 days away. I am in no way ready and I am not sure where the first 12 days of December went. Well, actually I do know what we have been doing but just seems like it is going too fast.

Basketball season has started. The boys have one practice and one game a week. The games are held on Saturday morning. The boys are playing on a 7/8 league so they are the older and much taller boys on the team. This past Saturday both E and Jay made most of the baskets. They have played very well this year.

We did manage to get our tree and decorate for Christmas this first weekend of the month. We got a beautiful tree around 9 ft tall for a really good price. Pictures will follow. I think it would be fun to go to a farm to cut our own tree but we just didn't have time this year and the weather may have played a little part in our decision.

The weather here has been so incredibly cold. It is actually the wind that is so brutal. And it has been windy here.

Every year our church holds a walk to Bethlehem and this is the first year we attended. We have been to something like this before but it in no way compares. The event was really nice and walked us through the story of the birth of Jesus. It was amazing and really cold since part of it was outside.

That evening we went out to dinner with some friends. I met the Mom a few times at different places before I actually put it all together. I met her at the elementary school right before school started at a function. I then met her again at the preschool. So she has a boy in 3rd grade and a girl in preschool with Tee and she also has an older daughter. They are such a nice family and we hope to be able to hang out with them more often.

I am finally done with one of the fundraisers and I am still working on wrapping up another. I will be glad to have all of this behind me.

I am gearing up for yet another busy week!

Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving week started much like it did last year. Our friends from Georgia stopped by for a night on their way to Connecticut. It is always such a nice visit but way too short. It is always an awkward few minutes before the kids interact. Once it is over it is like they have been friends forever.


The kids had a nice time playing.

It was nice having the husband home for the week. On Wednesday, he took the boys out to lunch and then to a movie. The boys enjoyed a day out with Dad and I enjoyed the time at home alone. I was able to get most of my baking/cooking done for Thanksgiving.

We have not traveled at Thanksgiving for a very long time. In the past, my husband has not taken off of work and typically had to work on the Friday after. So we have celebrated Thanksgiving on our own or with friends for a very long time.

Last year, we were thrilled that the husband's Mom was able to join us. This year we were joined by some of my family. My brother, his wife, his youngest son and his oldest daughter and her family joined us. We had a lovely day.


I am not sure what Tee was doing in the front!

We have made it our annual tradition to go to a Festival in our area. Our first stop was to visit Santa in the big children's room.

Here is Santa!

Here is Santa asking if the boys have behaved. The first response was yes. Santa said, let me ask this again, have you behaved. Then the boys came clean. He told them to make sure they were nice to each other and that they helped Mom around the house. I had a good laugh.

The boys enjoy watching the trains that are set up in one of the rooms. They get to sit here and I get to walk around a bit to look at the craft booths.

On Thanksgiving day, the boys started a puzzle we had. We all worked on the puzzle during a 4 day period. The puzzle was finally finished on Sunday evening.

In which she rambles

It seems like all the boys are getting invited to party after party. Tee has had 2 invitations within the last few weeks. One of them was this past weekend. He had a great time at this gymnastics place. I am thinking of having his party there. They do it all. I may just book it so that it is taken care of. I ended up declining an invite for Jay. He isn't friends with the boys and I just had to draw the line. Lots of present purchasing.

The husband is on vacation this week. It has been nice having him home. He gets to work on house projects. He installed a new closet organizer in Tee's room on Sunday. This would be the 3rd one he has done. Last year he put in nice organizers in the other boys' rooms. The closets just had a shelf above the bar to hang clothes, just not practical for our needs. There is still more to do.

We had conferences with the boys' teachers yesterday. The boys did great on their report cards. We are very proud of them. The teachers had such wonderful things to say about our boys. I have to admit it is great hearing such nice comments from others who have interactions with your children.

The school would like to test Jay for the gifted and talented program early next year. I haven't researched it in great detail but I believe he will do 2 years of math in 1 year. He currently is doing 4th grade math.

E is on grade level, which is where he is supposed to be, in both math and language arts. He is actually above grade level in spelling. He needs to work on a few areas and he could be classified as above grade level.

E has a great love of reading. I purchased a few books for him at the school book fair, ok more than just a few....it was 6 split between both boys. E has read all 6 between yesterday afternoon and tonight. It is crazy. I guess we will need to hit the library tomorrow or I think I may end up with more books than Scholastics.

A funny thing happened this week. I volunteered at the school book fair on Monday so the husband was responsible for getting Tee from preschool. As soon as he left the classroom, the teacher called me to make sure it was ok that Dad picked him up. In all fairness, he typically stays for lunch. She needed to check with me because she didn't know what to do. But even funnier was that he had already left with Tee. Even though E and Jay do not have school tomorrow Tee still does. I will make sure that she knows Dad will be there once again to pick him up.

Tee's preschool did a thankful tree. The children were asked what they were thankful for and it was put on a hand. I finally found Tee's hand. He is thankful for the pool. Yep....we have lots to help him understand.

What would you do?

I found out recently that one of my gym instructor's (I will call her Jill) husband was convicted of embezzling money from his company. I googled his name and found out the specifics of the charges and noticed he had been sentenced to 1 year in prison. I wondered where he had gone as he used to do the class many Mondays.

I know someone who is an acquaintance of Jill's and Jill almost broke down to her today. She didn't give her specifics but more about what is happening today. Apparently, he had a terrible gambling problem. She had no idea and I assume he was in trouble which is why he stole the money. He is now in town and is at a half way house. My guess is that he got his prison time reduced for time in the half way house. He has a job waiting for him once he is freed, which is surprising to me.

I feel bad for Jill, she is such a nice person. She has two young children and it seems like it all is wearing them down.

I told my husband about the situation. Jill seems to be standing by her man. I told him that I don't know that I could do the same. I think I would resent him terribly for turning our world upside down for a very stupid act. Everything would change. I would have to go back to work to support the family and our living status would change drastically.

My husband called me shallow. He could not believe I would not stand by him. He asked me if I would leave him if he cheated and my answer was probably. He could not understand why I would definitely leave if he stole but would "probably" leave if he cheated.

He couldn't leave it at that. What if he made a mistake at work, got fired and caused him to be unmarketable. I don't think they are comparable.

The answer is very simple, just don't mess up!

A funeral, a date and some other stuff

What to start with. Well, I guess I will start with the other stuff. Saturday evening we decided to have takeout from a well know chain. We got the kids meals set up first. I ordered a salad as did my husband. I opened my salad and saw a bug crawling on the lid of my dressing. My husband got rid of the bug as I sit there wondering what to do. He sits down and opens his salad. What does he find? A hair in his salad. Definitely not our night and no we did not pay for any of our meal.

We had to make up for our bad meal on Saturday so the husband and I had a date night on Sunday. We had a fabulous meal at PF Changs. We had not been there in a very long time. It is nice to be able to go out and not have to get a child's menu.

We get home and gave E a hard time for leaving his bedroom light on. He has a very bad habit of leaving lights on. The penalty, sentence writing. I have gotten very tired of repeating myself, so instead I give sentences to write. The bathroom light was on also and we decided it was Tee that left it on. So I told Tee that he was getting 10 sentences. He looks at me and says "Mom do I look like I am 8". You just never know what is going to come out of his mouth.

I guess I end with a sad story. My neighbor's father passed away on Friday. He had gotten a kidney transplant last year and seemed to do well for a while until he was diagnosed with cancer. The last few weeks have been really difficult for him. My neighbors are Indian. My friend and I next door decided to attend the funeral. We thought we would make an appearance. That is not how things are done.

As we entered the funeral home we stood in a line that we found out was to sign the guest book. As we approached the entrance we noticed that there were so many people there. We ended up tucking ourselves into a corner on the other side and had to stand. And there we stood for one and a half hours. The first part was ceremonious. Then our neighbor and his sister gave a eulogy. Then there were about 7 or 8 others who went up to speak about him. Interesting that the family of the person giving the eulogy stood up at the podium also.

Once the eulogy was done it was time to pay your respect to the dead by placing a rose bud in the casket and then walking around the casket. We decided we were going to make our way out of there and pay our respects to the family. Definitely an interesting experience.

Space Derby

The husband and the boys, well mainly the husband, have been working on rockets for the scouts space derby. It was held this past Friday. We have had so many busy weekends prior to this past Friday that he had to start early.

The husband shaped the rockets and the boys painted them. Prior to Friday, I tried to get as much information as I could regarding the specifics. I ended up panicking a little and telling my husband that he still had work to do to complete. Yes, I doubted him and he assured me he had it all taken care of like usual.

We spent a lot of time getting the rockets ready to go and ended up being very disappointed in the event. I didn't even get any pictures of the rockets or the rockets being raced. The guts ended up being taken out of the rockets. We did not get to wind our rockets, someone else did. Some rockets were wound more than others, so some went fast and furious and others at a turtle's pace. There was only one race for each rocket. Very unfair to the children.

The kids were shuttled from one area to another until it was their time to race.


The boys received a few advancement badges earned, a few belt loops and their whittling chip.


We were asked to bring in items for the kids to put together bags to send to the men and women overseas who protect our country.

There is a Pinewood Derby held in January and we are hoping they rethink how to arrange the schedule so that it is a little more organized. But the kids had fun.

Not much to report!

After having 2 days off last week and being gone this past weekend, we are getting back into the swing of things. Although, in two weeks the boys will have2 days where they go for 1/2 days and then off the rest of Thanksgiving week. The husband has the week off which will be nice. We will also have conferences with their teachers. It is hard to believe that Christmas is right around the corner. Time to start planning.

The boys start basketball practice this week. They were unable to make their evaluations but luckily the coordinator has coached our boys before and knows their ability. Practices will be on Thursdays and games begin in December. We are hoping the boys will become a little more aggressive on the court.

Recently, Jay has become a list person. He keeps his notebook handy and writes himself notes. Oh like mother like son. I love me a list or two. Jay has also typed out a Christmas list. He sits at the PC with the big toy edition from ToysRus and I think has listed almost every toy in the book. E on the other hand is good with just writing his items on a piece of paper. He originally had 6 items on his list but added additional items that he then crossed off. Yes, I love their differences.

I am now working on the Fundraiser for Tee's preschool. They are selling a coupon book, a really good one for this area. I spent a good 6 hours getting it all ready and delivered to school. Hopefully, this will go smooth because their are not too many families. The older boys school fundraiser will be completed in December with the delivery of cookie dough, but I have some work to do prior to then. We have not raised enough money so we are looking into some different ways to generate some funds.

The weather has been really nice here. The weatherman said that this would probably be our last warm spell for a while. Tee has soccer tomorrow and after that we will head to the park to have lunch and play for a while. When I reminded Tee about soccer tomorrow, he was so excited and said I will go and be the star of the league. That cracks me up....where would he have gotten that.

Cousins

It has been a very long time since we have visited the husband's hometown. It has been over 8 years. Now through this time we have seen his family but have not seen his sister's and their children in a long time. Grandma visits us a couple of times a year.

The boys had last Friday off so we decided to take the long weekend for a visit. The boys were excited to see where their Grandma lived and see their cousins.

We pulled the boys out of school early on Thursday to catch our flight early afternoon. Tee sat near his Dad. As the plane was taking off, he looks at his Dad and says "I don't like this we need to land now". But he ended up doing fine as did the boys.

It was a weekend of revolving houses. The first night we were at Grandma's house and everybody came over for dinner. The second and third night were at his sister's houses. It was a weekend filled of yummy food and fun.

The boys loved playing with their cousins. E and Jay got two of their older cousins to play football with them. They were in heaven.

My boys stayed up late most nights and they were all exhausted each night.


Grandma with all of her grandchildren! What a great looking group of kids.

All of us. Thank goodness for the timer on the camera.

Funny enough, many years ago we had a picture taken of all the adults sitting on each other. Grandma decided she needed another one because we were missing a husband. The kids decided they wanted to have the same picture taken.

Mom and her kids!

Siblings!

Tee's cousin Ryan buddied up for the weekend. Everyone came over to Grandma's for lunch on Saturday. Tee went over to his aunt and asked where Ryan was. He was so good with him.

Sunday morning we were waiting for our flight home. All was going well. Our flight was there waiting for us. At take off time the pilot came on and says we are waiting for about 15 people who were coming from another flight. So we took off about 30 minutes late.

The only part of traveling with the 5 of us was getting through security at the airport. It gets very hectic to get all of your belongs in the bucket, shoes and all. Then walk through one at a time and get all of your stuff from the buckets.

I am really glad the boys got to spend time with their cousins. It is so nice to see.

Let's try Soccer

Tee has said that he would like to play soccer among many other sports. He definitely wants to play t-ball but he mentioned soccer a lot. I thought it would be nice for him to try soccer. It is something different from what his brothers play and would give him his own sport.

Soccer is held indoors at a place close to our house. At this age it is just basics, how to kick the ball. No games. We go on Thursday mornings for 1 hour.

Tee got to kick the ball around.


And learn how to stop the ball.

He had such a great time. The best part was that Dad had Thursday off and was able to come watch. At the end of lesson, he came up to his Dad and said that he was the star of the league. That made us crack up and I am not sure where he got that from.

Halloween

It seems as though the boys have more of a social life than I do. They were invited to a Halloween party the Friday prior to Halloween. They had a nice time although I think they were there a little too long. It was a long day for them with too many festivities and candy.

On Saturday, we went in and picked up pumpkins. I, of course, thought E and Jay would carve their own pumpkins. But after they emptied the pumpkin they were done. Each of them picked their own design and their Dad carved them all. Tee doesn't really like to get his hands dirty but he did clean out his pumpkin a little and then came in and washed his hands.
Dad did a great job on them and got a lot of compliments.

On Halloween, we had some neighbors over for dinner before heading out to trick or treat. The boys were very excited.


E was the zombie, Tee was Spiderman and Jay was a scary skeleton.

They did a lot of the neighborhood. Tee kept up pretty well but pooped out after a while. He came home and helped me pass out candy. They got a ton of candy. We sorted when they got home and they kept only a small portion.

The plan was to take the candy to the Dentist's office to sell it but the week was so busy. I think the only buy back date was on Thursday and we were not here. So now I need to find out what to do with all of the extra candy we have.

He decided it was time

Our twins are different in so many ways. This was evident from the time they were born. And they remain very different. Of course, we love them and their differences.

The boys have always had different sleep patterns from very early on. E had no problems where as Jay had issues going to sleep and staying asleep. These have remained the same even now.

Why am I talking about sleep habits? Well, once Jay was potty trained he immediately was able to make it through the night dry. E not so much.

I brought the issue up every year with his Dr. and I got the same answer every time. He is a hard sleeper, his bladder had not matured yet and it would happen eventually. This is very common.

I didn't like this answer because I wanted him to be dry. E didn't care much about having to wear a pull-up to bed. So about a year ago I purchased a bed wetting alarm. I read the book and we went through the exercises. We tried the alarm for maybe 4 or 5 nights. Each night I had to get up to this really loud annoying alarm to make a bed. He gave it up, I didn't push and that was that.

This past July, E asked me if he could try the alarm again or as he called it that thing in which I had to ask many questions to find out what he was talking about. So I got the alarm out, purchased new batteries and he tried it again.

The first night the alarm went off and we got up to change the sheets and pajamas. The following night he was ready to give it up. He was tired. We encouraged him to give it another try. One night was not a try. The next nights were better. The alarm would wake him up in time for him to make it to the bathroom. No more sheets being changed and many nights I did not hear him. He was able to do it all on his own. It happened very quickly. Yes, now and then we may have an accident but that is ok.

I am very proud of him. He set out to do this and he did it own. It happened just like they said it would, when he was ready. And I am saving the alarm for Tee who shows absolutely no desire to be dry at night.

Now my excuse of no sleepovers (because of pull-up wearing) is no longer valid. I better think of something good quick.

Wonderland

Our October calendar was very full. I don't know that we had a free weekend. Last spring, we bid (at the school auction) and won tickets to Dutch Wonderland. It is an amusement park about an hour away from us. It is a little smaller on scale and good for younger children. The tickets expired mid-October so we felt that we had to use them.

We left early one Saturday morning and spent the entire day at the park. As luck would have it my camera ran out of battery life so my pictures were limited.


A little fun with Tee while waiting for his brothers to get off of a ride.


Mom and boys on the train ride!

Tee was not sure about the train ride at first but loved it.

The husband had to do bumper cars 3 times, one time with each child. Tee liked the ride but he was very scared.

The husband took all the boys down the flume ride. We ended up having to buy the picture of their flume coming down the hill. E was in front and doing fine, Jay looked like he was going to barf and Tee looked like he was holding on for dear life.

It is nice that the park is not large because we did a lot of walking around. We played games, we saw a Thomas show and did many rides. E loves the swings. Jay is not much of a ride goer. I guess he takes after his Mom.

The park had a "guess the pumpkin" contest. All the boys entered the contest. I ended up getting a phone call a few weeks ago letting me know that Josh won the contest. He was one pound off. The husband gave the weights to each of the kids. We were so excited. I wasn't really sure what we won as my cell phone was cutting out.

Well, I got the letter in the mail and we received 4 complimentary tickets to go back. Nice right? Yes, but the tickets expire in December of 2010. Come on Dutch Wonderland....really......you couldn't splurge and have the tickets expire sometime in 2011. The park is only open from 3 to 9 on the weekends at this point. So we should drive up there 1 hour to get there at 3 to stay for a few hours and the drive home would be another hour. We have young children who go to bed early. I thought that Dutch Wonderland could really do better than that.

Maybe we will go back.....or maybe not. I am still trying to decide whether to write a letter and let them know my thoughts or not.

A trip to the petting farm

Tee's class went to the petting farm this past Friday. It was required that at least 10 parent chaperones on this field trip. The preschool hired a bus company to take the 3 and 4 year old classes.

Tee has had recurring nightmares about buses. So as you can imagine when I found that they would be taking a bus that I HAD to be able to chaperone this field trip. Luckily, I got my name on the list early enough.

We boarded the bus and Tee was still doing fine. I had one of his friends also. Tee sat next to me on the bus. As we took off, Tee grabbed on to me and didn't let go until we arrived at the farm. But I think he enjoyed the trip.

Tee on the bus, still not sure at this point.

Tee did not want to pet or feed many of the animals. He fed the sheep and that was that. He immediately wanted to wash his hands afterwards. He definitely has issues with clean hands.

I did manage to get him to pet one of the animals brought out.

Once we were done with the animals, we were taken on a hay ride. The kids were able to eat their snack along the way. The hayride dropped us off at a pumpkin patch and each child was able to pick one of their own.

Tee picked out a greenish looking pumpkin and he was very proud of it. We have it displayed on our front stoop.

Golden Shoe

Last week the boys had their Golden shoe race. The race is held by class. The students run a mile and their time and place is recorded as they enter the finish line. Points are somehow assigned (basically you want the kids in your class to come in first) and the class with the least amount of points are allowed to brag and hold onto the golden shoe for the year.

I had the boys practice a little running before the race, but they have so many sports that it was a bit hard to schedule.

It was a little hard to keep track of the kids as they were running. They both ran by me and I didn't realize it until it was too late. But I did manage to get a few pictures.

E came in 13th of the 125 kids in his class. I have to say I was shocked to see how fast he was running. He just kept going and going. I saw him stop once just to catch his breath for a moment.

Jay came in 21st. He did very well also and I believe he only stopped once for a few seconds.

The boys waiting patiently for the results. Neither of the boys' class won, but E's was a close second.

E has really taken to running. On Saturday, he went out for a run with his Dad. Maybe he will keep it up. Maybe I will get him to run a 5K sometime soon. Well, maybe we will wait until the weather warms back up.

Camping at Camp Rodney

This past weekend, the boys had a camping day with the scouts. The camp site was located a little over an hour north of where we live. The husband decided he would camp with the two older boys. Tee and I drove up separately but spent the morning with the boys.


This was the view from the tent that we put up. The site was located on the Chesapeake. Could not ask for a better view, but that wind was blowing up pretty good for the majority of the day.

The den leader took the boys to do a marble game. The marbles were really balls for a pool table. I got there late and could not understand the object of the game. But they all enjoyed playing and they earned a belt loop for it.


After the marble game which took a long time we decided it was time for lunch. Hot dogs and chips! Tee is wearing E's jacket because it was so cold.

Jay

E.

I didn't realize how many different sports they would be able to do at the camp. The boys started off with shooting a BB gun.


Dad had to get in to help!

Jay needing help.


More shooting.

The rest of the pictures are a bit out of order but they got to do so much.


Candle making.

E doing Archery.


Jay doing archery.

E excelled at archery. He looks like a pro.

Jay needed a little help.

E. bouldering.

Jay Bouldering

Jay slingshot.

E. slingshot

Even Tee got to try the slingshot

I was very happy to not be present to see this creature.


Jay and his friend standing near the tent. It is a nice size tent, sleep six.

The boys had to earn the bobcat badge by learning the motto, pledge etc., which we completed prior to this event. The boys were presented with their badge at the campfire with the pack. Unfortunately, the pictures did not turn out well as they are all very dark. My friend got some that I hope she will share with me.

The boys had a great time camping overnight. Jay woke up once during the night and then was up for the morning at 5am. But they can't wait until the next trip.

The boys got home early Sunday morning with enough time to get ready for their baseball game. Needless to say they were exhausted on Sunday.