Saturday, December 25, 2004

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I still have half an hour left of the day so I can still say it. :o) We had a great 24+ hrs!

Yesterday morning I finished up wrapping before everyone woke up. The navy blue fleece in the closet worked great for the spiderman blanket. I ended up sewing it right sides together, flipped it so it was right and topstitched it about 3/4 an inch from the side. My machine started acting up after I started topstitching the 3rd side. GRRRR! I also had to get to the grocery store so I'd have enough time to cook food for BIL's house. So took a break and went shopping. BIL suggested I not make BBQ pork but chicken wings or baked chicken drumsticks that were on sale at Price Chopper. On the way to Price Chopper I decided the amount of hassle fighting shopping traffic would be and gas money...I'd be better off going to Save a Lot. What a LOT of time it saved me! I lucked out and found a reduced sale on chicken thighs and bought 7pkgs of it...over 28lbs. I baked them till crispy with 4 different sauces (BBQ, Teriyaki, Buffalo Wing, and Lemon Pepper). They were a huge hit. I also brought....pasta salad, green salad and a veggie and dip tray. We ended up having some leftovers to bring home. Salads are gone...snacks and breakfast. Chicken will be used tomorrow.

It was great to see B and M and their families. It's rare that all 10 of my BIL's kids are home at the same time. One of the disadvantages of them growing up *sniff sniff*. BIL's house seemed a bit too small. Funny how years ago it was just fine! LOL A few of us mentioned it might be time to either change things around or rent somewhere for the evening. It's only going to get worse as the kids start getting married and having families. I know that eventually it'll have to change, dynamicwise...but I don't think many of us are ready for it yet.

We got home about 11:30. Everyone had a snack and went to bed. It didn't take Tom and I long to get everything out and arranged. We sat at the kitchen table for a while and talked. We climbed into bed about 2am. I woke up about 6:30. For the first time I can remember I woke up and was ready to go before the 7am timeframe we set for coming down to start. Tom wouldn't get up with me because he still had half an hour to sleep. LOL I went upstairs and woke up Eileen and Olivia (only 2 kids not awake). Olivia took forever to wake up, even though I was talking right into her ear and really bugging her. At 7 the kids came down and got their christmas bags (never found all the stockings). By the time they dug through them...Tom was up. It took the kids about an hour to rip through all the packages. After all the gifts were opened I realized that Luke's Harry Potter DVD set was never opened. I tore my room apart and was about to give up when I had a slight memory of putting something into the hutch in a section that's never used. I pulled open the door and out fell the HP set. PHEW!

Olivia was hilarious. She opened presents, played for a bit then climbed up on the couch with some special toys and promptly fell asleep for a few hours...amongst the chaos. After passing out presents I got my sewing machine to stop having fits and whipped up the last 2 sides of topstitching on the fleece blanket in no time.

Our van's battery is majorly dead and won't take a charge, so we had to take 2 cars. It's fine to squeeze an extra kid (12 people...11 seatbelts) in for a 2.5 mile ride to BIL's on Friday. But I was NOT comfy driving the 30miles to my parents! Although that's what we did. :o(

I hooked up the computer I bought off ebay for my parents and managed to update Windows. It took a while but it's done! DSL is a wonderful thing for that. There were 39 updates to do, it would have taken me FOREVER to do it here on my dialup. I'll be so happy if on Wed I find out we DO live within the DSL service area! Of course my dad is claiming he has NO idea what he's doing and I need to come in and teach him about it. I'm not sure if he'd say he understood even if I did give him lessons. He has a habit of not listening too well and exploring on his own instead. Yet he's afraid to do it when I'm not there trying to tell him things. LOL

I had mentioned to my mom that Tom and I would really like a foam bedtopper...and she got it for us!!!! Woohoooo! My sister bought us 2 sets of flannel sheets. The first thing I did after getting home tonight was to make up my new bed. I can't wait to go to bed now! I just had to come and update before Christmas was truly over.

Tomorrow we're having a day at home. I have a bunch of snacks for the day and am planning a nice ham dinner. I think my parents may come out. I told my sister she could come out too and the girls could spend the night. I feel sorry for them having to stay home alone on vacation. Of course they were all asking for a sleepover before the end of the night tonight anyways. My sister refused to talk about it seeing as last year her having my girls come home with them on Christmas, ended with Carrie in the hospital with meningitis. LOL Carrie started complaining her elbow/tricep was hurting and she was favoring it. I'm afraid it's a relapse of her muscle problems she had in Jan/Feb after her meningitis. I'll be taking her in to the dr if it's not better on Monday. :o(

The kids have been put on notice that we're picking up and wiping down first thing in the morning. I'm sure they're happy about that! LOL It really shouldn't take too long (although my kitchen will need quite a bit of work as usual), things are looking better then normal. I asked Tom if he could run to Lowe's tomorrow morning and buy a new door for the bathroom. It finally fell out of the wall and it is in no way, shape or form repairable.

Well now I'm off to try out my new bed! Hope everyone's holiday was a great one too!

Friday, December 24, 2004

Early morning musings

I'm happy to report that things are moving along nicely! I'm at this unheard of hour because I went to bed early again last night. LOL I grabbed a few kids and laid down with them for a few minutes at about 9:30 or 10pm. I knew I wouldn't get back up again but figured it was ok. Going to bed early leaves means I get up early. So here I am! I originally got up at 3:30, puttered around, made a grocery list, threw in laundry, and ate a bowl of veggies and vinegarette.

After updating yesterday I got to work on another blanket. By the time I was almost done Drew and Pat were ready to go shopping. Drew was nice enough to think of taking Olivia out with them. It was good for her to get out and gave me a huge hunk of time to do things without her knowing. So instead of working on the rest of the blankets...I wrapped. I wrapped from noon until 3 when the first trip kids got off the bus. I only have about a grocery bag full of dollar store filler to do!!!!! Woohooo! After the kids got home we started working on the stuff for BIL's house. I'm hoping to finish ALL of it up after I get off here. :oD

I'd been so busy I kept putting off grabbing something to eat, I know not good. So by the time everyone was home I was STARVING!!! I threw some hotdogs on the griddle and Carrie cooked them. I'm not a hotdog fan but they were good! (sweet relish and mustard) OK, maaaaybe it was just the fact that I hadn't eaten in about 9 hrs. We straightened up the livingroom and I got to work on another blanket. I had it done by 7:30 or 8. Only one more to go...the dreaded too small piece of fleece. I laid it out and discovered that the cutter SHORTED me! I'm not saying I paid for more then I bought...although I could have. I'm saying I asked her to cut the varigated piece the same size as the spiderman piece. It's about 3 inches too short. When you're working on not enough...3 inches is a HUGE amount to lose. I played around with scraps of fleece on my machine and decided I didn't really want to sew the edges together. I ended up going to bed with it on my mind and it's what I woke up with too.

While brainstorming this morning I remembered I already had a yard or so of navy blue fleece in my closet. So I grabbed it out and am washing it now. I'm thinking I might sew some borders along the sides then quilt the backing to it. Although thinking about it now I could just fringe the border. Naaaa it's probably look funny. I was also thinking of buying a huge throw pillow and making him a pillow cover out of it...but we'll see. I have a few more hours to think about it. It just bugs me that I could have gotten them all done last night and been relaxing with just a bit of wrapping to do.

I got a pleasant surprise this AM. Drew had cleaned and rearranged the livingroom while I was sleeping. The way we had it before, the tree was pretty crowded. It looks pretty good now! And it's one less thing I have to be on the kids about. I believe the girls were all cleaning their rooms when I went to bed too. So hopefully the majority of the house is already clean! Woohooo!

Well off to wrap presents, wrestle with this fleece, clean up the kitchen and then mess it up again...cooking food for tonight!

BTW...I counted up how many people will be at BIL's tonight. There are 66 or 67 people expected!!! Our family with Allison, Tom's parents, 6 sibs...4 spouses, 33 nieces and nephews...2 spouses...3 or 4 longtime boy/girlfriends, a great niece and 2 great nephews.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Running in for a quick update...

I was going to skip wrapping Tues night and go to bed at a half way decent time. I left chat with the intention of taking a shower and going to bed. I ended up...doing laundry, deboning turkey and making gravy, wrapping presents until 2am! LOL

Wed morning Olivia slept in which she hasn't been doing in a while. So I kept grabbing bags and wrapping. I put a pretty good dent into it!! I may have some to do Friday night but the chances are better that I won't. After Olivia woke up I started working on the blankets again. I managed to get 2 of them done and they look pretty cool if I do say so myself. Only 4 more to go although I'll probably end up sewing one of the blankets on my machine. It's my nephew's spiderman fleece. The pattern I wanted was the end of the roll and is less then the 1.5 yds I've been using for everyone else's. I don't really have 10 inches to make fringe with. It'll be fine though because I'm giving his sister a tweety comforter that came with a $10 toddler bed in a bag set I found at Big Lots. I'd give her the whole set but she has a full or queen size bed, so useless to them. I just wanted to give her a little blanket she could drag around the house and it's the perfect size for that.

The kids are at their last day of school. It's a bogus day but at least it's fun for them. The Elementary Christmas concert was very nice! I have to say I often find their music teacher to be lacking in musical skills (listening to her piano playing hurts my ears). The chorus programs also tend to be the same from year to year. This year was new and the kids actually sounded great! So great that I hardly noticed the teacher's piano playing LOL!

We unfortunately missed the volleyball game. I just can't win! I finally get out the door to make it to a game and they play 3 games as quick as possible. They were DONE when we got there!!!! The game was originally set for 6pm so we could only see half an hour before needing to be at the middle school auditorium. When the kids got home they told me the game was moved to 4:15. So I thought I'd be smart and feed everyone dinner, get them dressed for the concert and then go to the game. Games usually last 1.5-2hrs. This one lasted an hour tops! We got there about 5:20. Val played a lot too! :o( We all ended up turning around, walking back out the door and going back home for about 45mins. Oh well, at least I relaxed for a little bit.

Wed night the kids were taking their time going to sleep and I was crampy for some reason. (AF isn't due until next week). So I decided to get some sleep while I could. I grabbed Olivia and went to bed by 11pm. Not needing tons of sleep I was wide awake at 4am. I tossed and turned for a while, thinking about everythign I needed to do and decided to just get up and DO IT! I threw in a load of laundry, and worked on Allison's blanket. That way when she's here today I won't have to worry about her seeing it or putting it off until she's NOT here. I finished it just in time to start our regular morning routine. So now only 3 blankets to go. Olivia is wrapping presents for BIL's house as I do this and then I'm going to kick her off my floor area to work on the other blankets. I'm hoping to have them done by 2.

I've kind of given up on making cookies right now. I've come to the conclusion that Christmas cookies taste just as good AFTER Christmas as they do before. So Tom can bring in a tray of things to work for New Year's. ;o) Tonight after the kids get home we'll be picking up the house and then wrapping presents for BIL's house. I need to run to Walmart for food for his house so I'll either do it this afternoon (putting the blanket making back a bit) or during the night (putting wrapping back a bit). Then I'll have a marathon wrapping session and hopefully finish with everything. I'd be great if I didn't have anything to do ALL day Friday (well except prepare food and get people ready to go).

Off to start on my huge todo list! Let's see if I can get to sleep before I've been up for 24hrs. (4am tonight) If I don't get back here to update before then....

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Scorecard for the day so far....

It didn't seem like I did too much today but a lot of it was organizing. I had to figure out what was going to whom. Then I was trying to decide if I was going to do no sew blankets or quilt them together on my machine. I decided to go with the no sew based on the boy's opinion of the two samples. I worked on the first blanket for about an hour and am almost a halfway done with it. I'm sure the others will go much faster now that I know what I'm doing and am more experienced with tying the fringe.

I managed to wrap 7 presents before Drew and Pat had to leave this afternoon (they watched Olivia) Only a bazillion more to go!!! I think I might be in trouble in that department. I was hoping to get it all done before we have to go to BILs. Last year was the first year I went there without a pile of wrapping waiting for me at home at 11PM. Going to bed at 4 or 5am on Christmas morning has been a common occurrance. So I'll work on avoiding it although I'll have to stay up late the other nights to do it.

The girls and I did go shopping tonight and they are now done. I think Drew and Pat have some to do and will try to finish it tomorrow. At least they don't need me to drive or give them cash in order to finish it. Although I'm sure they'd be happy if I did give them cash! LOL

On the way home I decided I should probably do some baking tomorrow. Tom brought home a gift for the family from a guy at work. Granted it's the guy that Tom worked on his house every free hour he had. But still it would be nice if he could give him something too. There's also Tom's friend at work who works on our cars for cheap and whenever we need him to. He's a single dad to a couple of kids, I'm sure they'd appreciate some baked goods. So that may be on the top of my list tomorrow, although the blankets are up there to...oh what to do! what to do!

OOPS!!!

Seems I forgot a two important things when planning out things this week. School Christmas concerts! UGH! One was last night so Tom and I were a little pressed for time. I was so excited that we could just take our time and shop. It seems everytime I go to the store I'm working against a deadline!! Why don't people just stop doing stuff so I can do what I want!?!?! We had lunch at noon at Pizza Hut's lunch buffet. I had a buy one get one free coupon. :o) Tom was laughing when I pulled out the money to pay for it. He said...I haven't been on a date in a looong time, much less have someone else PAY for it! LOL

We did manage to finish ALL the shopping!!!! Woohooo! Even Tom finished up his family which is a miracle. He's usually running out the day before to figure things out. He's weird to shop for. I'm at the point where if I have an idea....I just get it and say I'm done! He's not used to spending money and doesn't really care to. (although he's not miserly) So when we were looking for something that cost $10 for his dad he was balking, saying he could look for it at the thrift store. I told him to GRAB it and it's a little too late to depend on the thrift store for things. Of course his dad not wanting anyone to spend money on him also plays a part in it. The amount of time we had was just long enough for Tom. He hates crowds and stores. He's used to working outside and always dresses too warm to shop and gets uncomfortable too. I could see that he was getting impatient near the end. Seeing the hours he had to work to earn the money that was flying out of his pocket might have played a factor in it too. Poor guy!!!

We stopped at the grocery store and grabbed some fried haddock for dinner. YUM!!!! We haven't had it in so long but it was delicious! We even have leftovers for my lunch. I always think of fried seafood as being expensive but it cost us less for 6lbs of fish and rolls then it does for 100 chicken wings. The fish sandwiches are much more filling too. So much for buying SO much food on Saturday. We ended up grabbing more things while waiting for the fish to be fried. I've been wanting a turkey. We only had one before Thanksgiving and none after because we ate at my parent's house. So now we have the fixings for a turkey dinner, which may be eaten tonight.

I didn't start wrapping last night like I thought I would but that's ok. I was checking my email when I awoke with a start....I was falling out of my computer chair. So I went to bed at 11:30 instead of staying up wrapping. I'll put a dent into it tonight. If not, maybe I'll lock Allison into a room to do it for me. LOL I am happy to report that all school presents are now wrapped and on their way to school. Now to just worry about snacks for everyone to bring. Problem is...I never wrote down who's class is when and I'm not sure what day they're suppose to bring things in. Oh well, I think if I send it all in tomorrow I'll be ok...except maybe with Eileen who's opening their presents to the class today...not sure if they're having their party too. Oh well, I'm sure the kids will survive without my delicious cookies.

So today is doing some cleaning, working on the blankets and taking Liz, Val and Michelle out to finish up their shopping. Should be a quick trip to the dollar store and maybe Walmart. I'll pick up food for BIL's house. That is IF I can figure out WHAT I'm going to bring!!!!! I know I'm bringing salad but Tom will pick up that stuff on Thurs so it doesn't get all soggy sitting in the fridge. Just have to think of an entree to bring. If no one is bringing a ham it'll be that. Otherwise I'll have to rack my brains! (kids are pushing for a sidedish of pasta salad)

So now my schedule looks like this....

Tuesday
Snacks for school for 5 kids
Work on blankets
Clean
Wrap
Go shopping with Liz, Val and Michelle

Wednesday
Finish blankets
Clean
Bake
Wrap
Christmas Concert
Volleyball Game

Thursday
Finish up anything that needs to be done
Bake
Clean
Wrap

Friday
Finish up anything that didn't get finished on Thurs
Make food for BIL's house
BIL's house
Set up our house afterwards

Saturday
CHRISTMAS!!!
Go to my parent's house in the afternoon

Sunday
RELAX!!!!!



Monday, December 20, 2004

BRRRRRRR!

We are like most of the country, griped in a artic freeze. In the morning they are expecting REALLY cold windchill temps. I'm hoping it means at least a delay in school. It'd be great if it was cancelled all together. I'm always looking for a snowday!

Yesterday went well although my house at the moment doesn't look like we spent all day working on it. It's stuff that can be cleaned quickly with a group pickup effort. I made Liz's snack for her girl's party/sleepover at church. Then I took Luke on down to the dollarstore to go shopping for Christmas. The kids begged to do secret santas again this year. As a twist we decided that everyone would pick TWO names to buy for. I put the limit at 1 present each. I also let them pick which cousins they wanted to buy a special gift for. No one in their age group/gender were left without though. We have almost all of them covered. :o) I was laughing at myself becuase I was throwing in....one of each color of something I thought was cool. Or 3 of these, 3 of that (3 seems to be my self imposed buying limit when I need one). Tonight I went through and figured out which of my neices and nephews would get what. I did pretty good! Out of 42 "kids" to buy for (some aren't kids anymore!) I only have the newest addition...D's baby to buy for. I just forgot to grab something special for him.

After the dollar store we ran to Save-a-Lot. The cashier was amazed at all the stuff I bought and asked if I was stocking up for the month. I told her, no it was only the week. I let her know I only had half my kids with me and that in a few days they'd all be whining that there was noting to eat. She informed me that that was a kid's JOB! LOL

I was putting bags in my room and came across Olivia sitting on my bed wrapping the gifts she'd just bought. We'd only been home about 2 mins literally. I really have to put her to work on my pile. She doesn't do too bad of a job either.

I made dessert for the Christmas feast and worked on the rolls at the same time. It only took a few hours and it went quickly. (made about 180 of them) At first I felt like I was behind in the shaping of the bread so stopped the dough making at 4 batches. I wish I'd finished the other 2. It would have saved me over an hour of rising time after all the first rolls were made. A lot of people liked them.

I never did get any baking for presents done so I ran into my room and grabbed boxes of chocolate fortune cookies I'd bought, taped the ornaments on them and tagged them. I started having Val wrap things this AM but Tom grabbed the wrong bag for her to do and she ended up wrapping candy for their stockings. oops! She wasn't happy when she found out. As we were leaving to go to church Carrie fell down the porch stairs pretty hard. I thought we were headed to the ER to have a foot x-rayed. She had dropped a small (luckily!) tray of desserts (sugar cookie tarts with cherry pie filling) and had cherry pie filling from the top of her hair down to her soles. We had to find her new clothes and a coat. Luckily everyone mingled for a while so we didn't miss anything by being late.

I never went to the adult get together tonight. It was too cold and had been snowing quite a bit. I didn't feel like driving in it by myself. I also never got a cup of coffee and have a bit of a caffeine headache.

I feel like I have a little more breathing room now that the Christmas feast is over. This week I hope to finish shopping tomorrow, start serious wrapping tomorrow night, work on blankets on Tues, baking and cleaning on Wed and Thurs. Hopefully it'll follow the plan somewhat and I'm not trying to do it all on Friday!

So now my list looks like....

Monday
Finish shopping!!!

Tuesday
Make blankets
Take Val and Michelle shopping

Thursday
For school...
Boy present for Jake
Girl present for Carrie
Class present for Eileen
Boy present for Luke
Snacks for each class including Liz

Friday
Presents for Christmas Eve (Tom's family)...already have 39 presents, need...
ONE nephew present
1 couple present (nephew)
FIL...bought a few small things, not done
MIL...have something from thrift store, not done
2 single brothers...have a few small things, not done
Not sure if we're doing married sibs or not....bought for SIL "D"
EATS for the party!

Saturday
My Parent's house on Christmas afternoon...
Sister's 3 girls...bought fleece, need to make blankets, need one 2nd present
Brother's Daughter...need to make her blanket
My dad...bought a few small things, not done
My mom
My Brother
My Sister
I have to make my nephew's blanket

Need to make blankets for Jess and Allison
Need to buy one more combo thing for Luke and Jake
Need to hit the dollar store for wrapping supplies, stocking stuffers and filler

Friday, December 17, 2004

I love when things start falling....

into place. I wish I could tell you about everything I've bought and/or has arrived here. It's so EXCITING! Unfortunately I'm not sure who reads this so I'll keep it to myself for the time being.

My parent's present came. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep it for our house or give it to them. It depended on the condition of it. It's good enough to give away and now I'm jealous I didn't get a second one. Oh well guess I can watch for more auctions on them. The person I bought Liz's present from emailed me and told me she's sending it priority so I'll be sure to get it in time for Christmas. WOOOHOOO!

I'm hoping to get my Christmas present from the kids tomorrow morning. I told them that all I wanted was a clean house!!! That means this weekend is the only time they'll a decent sized timeframe to work on it. Some don't even have that as they have parties and activities to go to. If they can help get it done it'll ease up a lot of my time next week! :o) We've already put a good dent into tonight. My kitchen floor is ready to be mopped and my hallway is empty of laundry! Yep you read that right, there is less then a load of clothes in the hampers. If I finish tonight they might all be empty before I get to bed! It helps that I bought 3 rubbermaid hampers at WM last night. I finally decided I needed some order in the hall. I used to think hampers in the hall would be hard to walk around but there's almost always a laundry basket there anyways. They're actually thinner then a laundry basket. So far so good, as long as everyone leaves them where they are it should continue to work out well. I could get bummed if I thought too much though. There's still a lot of laundry to do around here. I have coats, snowpants, gloves and bedding to do. After that there are plenty of stored clothes that need some attention. Of course after the kids clean their rooms tomorrow it all might go down the drain when I find out I'm buried up to my neck in everyday clothes being discovered and needing to be washed! LOL

Let's all hope that plans actually get followed here!

3 stores and 7 hrs later....

I have put a bigger dent into my christmas shopping list. YEAH!!! If I don't finish before then, I should finish on Monday. Tom has the day off and we have our annual Christmas shopping date. Hopefully it'll be quick and we can just enjoy the time together and having lunch. I find myself falling into...that doesn't look like very much...I think I need to buy more for X. I've decided that I won't go any further and just deal with the chips as they may fall on Christmas morning. I usually make sure everything is really fair either in money (for the older kids) or in number of presents (for the little ones). So this may be interesting. Olivia doesn't have too much yet (might hit the toy store on Monday) but I think she'd be happy to open all the family DVDs I have.

I hit ebay again and now have Liz's present bought. Whether it gets here or not is another story (it hasn't been shipped out yet) At least she's old enough to understand and be patient.

We went to EBgames, Big Lots and Walmart. I was ticked when the alarm went off as we were leaving the store and they had us wait like we'd done something wrong. I spent a LOT of money, was exhausted (was after 1am), my feet were swollen and then I have to deal with that!?!?! NOT RIGHT! To top it off we had quite the car packing experience in the middle of the blowing icy snow. I'm happy to report that my record of never having to leave a package or kid behind is still intact! :o) Liz did her best to whine for all of us the whole time. I KNEW Liz wouldn't get up for school, no matter what she kept saying...I was right.

So now my list looks like....

Saturday
Liz....gift for youth girl's party...bought a small thing, need to get more
Snack for party and something for breakfast (they're spending the night)

Sunday
Church presents...2 families already taken care of, need....
9 family presents...ornament and cookie tray probably
4 single men presents...chocolates or such
2 single women....personal things probably
Rolls for 100 people
Nice Dessert
Snack for evening Couples get together

Thursday
For school...
Boy present for Jake
Girl present for Carrie
Class present for Eileen
Snacks for each class including Liz

Friday
Presents for Christmas Eve (Tom's family)...already have 17 presents, need...
12 nieces/grandnieces presents...found something for most in my closet for most I might use.
8 nephew/grandnephew presents
1 couple present (nephew)
FIL...bought a few small things, not done
MIL...have something from thrift store, not done
2 single brothers...have a few small things, not done
Not sure if we're doing married sibs or not....bought for SIL "D"
EATS for the party!

Saturday
My Parent's house on Christmas afternoon...
Sister's 3 girls...bought fleece, need to make blankets, need one 2nd present
Brother's Daughter...need to make her blanket
My dad...bought a few small things, not done
My mom
My Brother
My Sister
I have to make my nephew's blanket

Need to make blankets for Jess and Allison
Need to buy one more combo thing for Luke and Jake
Need to hit the dollar store for wrapping supplies, stocking stuffers and filler

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Checking my list

I finally inventoried my closet and was surprised. It's the opposite of how it usually is. The boys have lots of things, the girls hardly anything. I usually find more clearance things for the girls throughout the year but I haven't been shopping too much (in the name of saving money). We have tons of barbies so I've held back on buying them when they are really cheap. As of now Eileen only has TWO things on her list...both of which I bought at the thrift store. LOL Her main thing is going to be a leap pad that I bought for $3. It didn't have any books with it. I've bought 5 books so far on ebay and on clearance. So actually I could make it so she has 7 things. :o) The only good thing about Eileen and Olivia being low on presents are...they are EASY to buy for! The main problem is getting to the store and doing the buying.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found something in the bottom of a bag that I'd forgotten about. It was what Drew had told me Allison could use. So she's done!! Yeah! Pat mentioned that Jess would like a carebear fleece so that's a thought. I found 50x60 in fleece blankets for $4 at The Christmas Shop. Figuring I'm paying over $6 a yard (60in wide) I'll consider it a deal. I'll use them to back any quilts or fleece blankets I make. If I don't get to it...then they'll just get the blankets (think I bought 5 of them) LOL

So stress has been averted for the time being. I did accomplish something last night while shopping. Although I see a few more shopping trips in my future. I'm thinking of running out tonight after dinner or as they kids go to bed (what did we do before stores stayed open 24hrs?) Today I'm hoping to work in the kitchen and get some dough made. I don't really have any airtight containers to keep the cookies in so don't want to make them too far ahead of time. I figure if I mix up the dough and have it in the fridge, then Saturday I can bake up a bunch. Guess my oven will be busy between cooking those, the rolls and dessert for Sunday. I forgot that we might have an adults get together Sunday night so I may have to add, fixing a dish for that to my list. Until I know for sure though, it looks like this....

Thursday
Snack for Liz for school

Saturday
Liz....gift for youth girl's party...bought a small thing, need to get more
Snack for party and something for breakfast (they're spending the night)

Sunday
Church presents...2 families already taken care of, need....
9 family presents...ornament and cookie tray probably
4 single men presents...chocolates or such
2 single women....personal things probably
Rolls for 100 people
Nice Dessert

Thursday
For school...
Boy present for Jake
Girl present for Carrie
Class present for Eileen
Snacks for each class including Liz

Friday
Presents for Christmas Eve (Tom's family)...already have 17 presents, need...
12 nieces/grandnieces presents...found something for most in my closet for most I might use.
8 nephew/grandnephew presents
1 couple present (nephew)
FIL...bought a few small things, not done
MIL
2 single brothers
Not sure if we're doing married sibs or not
EATS for the party!

Saturday
My Parent's house on Christmas afternoon...
Sister's 3 girls
Brother's Daughter
My dad...bought a few small things, not done
Not sure if we're buying for my brother and sister
I have to make my nephew's blanket and may be making quilts/blankets for the others

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Little of this, little of that...

First let me say....WELCOME to the world Miles Emerson!! Congratulations to Chris and her family on their new addition!!

My life... My life has been a boring fast moving blur lately. There's really nothing much to report but we're all living so that's good!

Pat's last day of finals/class was Monday, Drew is taking his last final today. So now I have babysitters here most of the time. :o) I'm starting to get serious about shopping for Christmas. Ebay has been hogging up my blogging time. I bought my parents and Pat something on ebay this week. I'm watching something for Liz now. If I get the thing I want for Liz then I only have Carrie's big thing to buy (hmmm...maybe I need to buy Eileen's main thing too). After I'm done here I'm definitely going to go into my room and take inventory. My SIL "D" and I are going out shopping tonight. I need to KNOW what and who I need to buy for. There's no more..."Oh this is nice, I'll get it and figure out for who later" type of thing.

I need to buy things for the kids to take to school. Eileen's teacher (1st grade) was kind of a grinch and said no gift exchange...only class gifts. It would be fine IF Eileen didn't have other siblings coming home with gift exchange gifts. I always feel sorry for kids whose teacher does that. I did take inventory of presents needed for people who don't live in the house. It looks like a ton but a lot of it will probably be bought at the dollar store (same item for each girl type thing). Wish I had more time to go to the thrift store. Maybe one more trip.

So I need(bear with me please, helps to have it written somewhere that won't be misplaced lol)....

Snack for Liz for school tomorrow

Liz....gift for youth girl's party on Saturday
Snack for party and something for breakfast (they're spending the night)

Church presents for Sunday...2 families already taken care of, need....
9 family presents...ornament and cookie tray probably
4 single men presents...chocolates or such
2 single women....personal things probably
Rolls for 100 people
Nice Dessert

For school next Thursday
Boy present for Jake
Girl present for Carrie
Class present for Eileen
Snacks for each class including Liz


Presents for Christmas Eve (Tom's family)...already have 17 presents, need...
12 nieces/grandnieces presents
8 nephew/grandnephew presents
1 couple present (nephew)
FIL
MIL
2 single brothers
Not sure if we're doing married sibs or not
EATS for the party!

My Parent's house on Christmas afternoon...
Sister's 3 girls
Brother's Daughter
My dad
Not sure if we're buying for my brother and sister
I have to make my nephew's blanket and may be making quilts/blankets for the others

While taking inventory for Christmas Eve and church Tom heard me talking to myself while I wrote out my lists. He half asked....we still have a lot to buy for? ROFL! If he only knew! I told him it's not too bad and I'm ahead of the game compared to other years. It hit me...even if I buy 10 presents for each of my kids (easy to do when you figure in stockings and dollar store stuff) that's 100!!!! things to buy and wrap! YIKES! LOL Oh well I'm not stressing. Ask me again tomorrow though. If I don't do too well tonight I might start stressing just a bit!

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Busy with little to report

I've been really busy lately but not sure what I've accomplished. Definitely nothing worth running here and announcing.

Val played in her first volleyball game on Tues and hopefully will be playing tonight. They lost Tues game but it's ok because the team they played is first in the league and almost went to states last year.

Drew and Pat are finishing up classes this week and next. Then they'll be home all day long. Think I might be able to get them to do some work around here??? We'll see.

I've accomplished the undoable! I cleaned off the corner of my kitchen counter! It was stacked with tons of rarely used things and I finally got sick of looking at it. Let's just say that there are a lot more trash bags ready for the dump this week. I get to the point that I just start ditching things. You'd think with all the bags down there that there'd be nothing left up here...but it's not true. There's still a huge mess on my floors. Laundry pile is at it's smallest in a while too with the washer going as we speak. If I keep at it I might even finish the main stuff tonight!!!! Bedding and outerwear tomorrow.

I need to work on some Christmas presents. I'm not stressing about it right now because there are a whole 2.5wks left! I feel like I have more done this year then most...especially compared to last year when we had lice, strep, and the flu between Mid Nov and the weekend before Christmas.

Things I'm hoping to work on this weekend is...Needle tatting some ornaments for church family presents, to give them at our Christmas Feast on the 18th. The problem with this project is that I either have my needle and thread or the instructions and thread. Right now the needle is bound to turn up seeing as I misplaced the instructions last night when I removed them from their plastic sleeve to scan them for an online friend!!!! (didn't even get them scanned!) I also want to do some baking for cookie trays for them also.

I need to get the no sew fleece blanket done for my nephew and start a plain block quilt for his sister. I might also make her a princess costume too. Not sure what I'm doing for my sister's 3 girls. Maybe no sew blankets and a small gift. Hmmmm....maybe I do need to start stressing! LOL

Shoppingwise I don't feel very behind. That might change once I start looking at everything all together. Then again I always feel like I need to buy more. One of the trappings of Christmas. I talked to Tom tonight and I think I'll be ordering a new computer! Woooohooooo! We're using a 926mhz with 64mb of Ram. I think I'm getting a 2.6ghz with 512mb of Ram! VaavaaaVoooom! We could use 2 computers anyways (well 3 with Drew's but he keeps it mostly to himself). We're considering getting DSL too, although I'm not entirely sure if we live in the service area yet. I'd pay the same I am now but we'd be down to one phone which I'm mulling over. Kids often use the computer phone line for personal calls.

LOL For having little to report I've managed to go on and on. If I could only transfer some of the writing energy into working energy. We'd all benefit here. Gee, I'm starting to sound like a parent in my head....if you worked as hard as you talked, this place would be spotless! Wonder where THAT came from?!?

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Flashback

I HATE when this happens! It just sneaks up on me and BAM! It's happened twice this month alone. I get this terrible feeling and relive when Carrie was really sick. Sometimes it's for her MDS and BMT. Lately it's been her fight with meningitis last Christmas.

It hit mewhen Olivia and Jake were in for well child checkups earilier this month. The room they used to take their vitals was the one where they worked over Carrie when she had the postinfectious arthritis and couldn't walk. It's not a room they normally use for general things but the main vital room was full. I just had this awful feeling of...we're getting admitted again...I KNOW IT! Heavy chested and about to cry. It was a really weird appt.

Last time was last night. Carrie has been complaining of a headache on and off for the last few days. Last night she was crying that it hurt really bad. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen. I had that feeling again....OH NO! NOT AGAIN! I was afraid to send her up to bed. This morning I actually had the fleeting thought...please let her be alive when I go upstairs. UGH! UGH! UGH!! I have no idea why last night bothered more then the other nights she's complained of a headache. Maybe it's the time of year?

I'm happy to report that since I started writing this Carrie has gotten up and is feeling much better!!! I didn't even bother trying to get her to go to school today because it was a half day. She's actually been pestering me and driving me crazy. No sign of a heachache that I can see. :oD

Monday, December 06, 2004

Let's try this again....

I had a long rambling post typed out yesterday and then my page crashed. So I gave up!

I'm happy to say that the bazaar and the birthday feast are over and were a success! I ended up getting about an hour of sleep on Fri/Sat so was dragging near the end of the bazaar (it's also my normal low time of the day) I ended up selling all my candy mugs, 4 out of 6 glass plates and quite a few windowclings with the school name in school colors on them. Most other things didn't tend to go too well, the gag gifts didn't move like I thought but that's ok...it was just table filler and didn't cost much to make. I would have sold all the plates if not more of them if I'd had christmas patterns. Unfortunately the wrapping paper idea I had didn't work and I didn't have any Christmas fabric available. I'm hoping to be able to pick some up on clearance after Christmas.

Every year I think I'm going to do this again and I'm going to work ALL year long on it. I've yet to accomplish this but there's always hope that this year will be the year. LOL I almost gave my table up this year but I'm glad I didn't. The one table for the church wouldn't have been big enough for everything. We're talking about trying to do more then one show next year. It's a lot of work for just the small bazaar that the school has. People could say...why not just give the church the money but I think it's a great fellowship builder. Even if we took out the cost of supplies instead of donating them there'd be some profit...just not a lot. It's also fun to be out in the community like that.

The birthday feast was nice! All the kids cooperated and it was enjoyed by all. We had quite a few out of town guests attend, including Brother and Sister Woerlen (Marc's parents). I wanted to talk to them but was apprehensive about what to do or say. I finally walked up to Sister Woerlen and said...I just want to give you a hug! Boy!!! Did I get a HUGE hug too! :oD I'm sure she was more comforting to me then I was to her. It was nice to talk to her for a while and hear how things are going up their way.

I got home last night and was like....PHEW! I have NO appointments (although I need to make one or two still) or dire commitments from now until the week of Christmas when school concerts hit big time all week. Just everyday normal life. I'm getting excited about baking and decorating finally. Our tree now has lights on it and we may even start decorating it tonight. I bought Tom some blue lights for his main tree outside and he put them on yesterday, they look very nice. We don't really do too much decorating outside, just around the windows from the inside mostly. I'm hoping to get some lighted garland around the porch railings and maybe the door too.

I still haven't taken full inventory of my prize closet. After I do that I then have to really brainstorm and figure out how much I'm spending and on what I'm spending it on. Then I'll have to try and fight the mobs of shoppers to find it. UGH!

My idea to hit the house hard today and clean it hasn't gotten too far. I think having almost all the kids home from school with various complaints (headaches, sore throats, new colds, just plain upset and crying) hasn't helped. I need to get them to work!!! Usually this time of year I find deep cleaning easier. I think it has to do with how I was raised. We always had a huge deep cleaning spree between Thanksgiving and Christmas so the house would be ready for company. I don't really remember cleaning too much beyond that (well we did have chores, but just surface stuff). I'm half afraid my house is beyond saving right now though. It seems like I'll never get it spic and span, much less ALL of it at once! Guess actually attempting to do it would help a great deal toward accomplishing it. *whines* Do I HAVE to!?!?! And I wonder where the kids come up with those attitudes. hmmmmmm

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATRICK!!!

It's almost over but Pat is now 19yo! He's still dealing with his headaches and missed classes again today. :o( If I were him I'd think it was a pretty crappy birthday but he's an easy going guy and said it's ok. Me, I was crying my eyes out because I couldn't do what I wanted to do for his birthday today. Things are super super tight until payday on Friday thanks to Christmas shopping. I'll have to think of something nice to do for him. Not exactly sure when though as this weekend is busier then the week. LOL Who said weekends were for relaxin?

I worked on my candy bouquets today and made 7 of them with enough candy to make 2 more. Last night I made 4 snowman soup mugs and a dozen roses out of Hershey kisses. I have a LOT of other things I want to do but not sure if I'll have the time...TOOPID CLOCK!!! STOP!!!!!!!!