Archive for the ‘family’ Category

So yeah, I took a year hiatus from blogging. No warning, I was terrible at it anyway. Figured if I walked away from it for awile the novelty would come back again. I’ve continued to read those that I follow so that I was still up-to-date. I k now my year off probably cost me some readers and it’ll take awhile for anyone to gain confindence in me that they’ll come to my blog and see a new post. Considering in 2010 I made all of three posts. But I’m refreshed, confident and in reading my favorite blogs, realized I missed it and needed to really concentrate on building mine back up again.

So, what happened here at the shack over the last 12 months? Well I’ll try and recap in the most minimal way possible.

April 2010

After the trip to my sisters in the last post, really all you have to do is scroll back to the last post and you’ll see where we were last year. But I digress. So after that trip we began to enjoy the Spring. Got the kids outside. And after spending much of our entire tax return on mortgage payments and repairs over 2 months time, we put our rental house out there to be rented once again. And my best friend had her 2nd child, a boy. Nathan. He is adorable.

May 2010

May was a good month. We found a tenant for our rental house, no more double mortgage payments. Weather was beautiful, I love how gorgeous my azalia bush is when it blooms. Mother’s day always has me showered with lots of love from my boys and my husband. I also helped chaperone Gavin’s class field trip to the Detroit Zoo.

June 2010

June was a special time for me. I was able to attend my birthson’s graduation commencements. I was very proud and happy to be there.

July 2010

July, more specifically, July 4th, is when we take our family summer vacation. This was probably my favorite yet over the years. My cousin had a mini-family reunion at his cabin in up north Michigan. It was so much fun. Picnicking, bonfires, smores, fireworks, swimming at the lake, camping, pitching tents, star gazing, walking in the open fields. Everyone had so much fun. From there we went to Boyne Mountain where we stayed at Avalanche Bay Waterpark.

July was also Blake & Brady’s 3rd birthday. We had a big backyard carnival and celebrated with lots of close family and friends.

August 2010

August included our end of the summer, “last hurrah” trip to my sisters. It’s the final trip out to see her until the following Spring (which for 2011 is just before Easter). Gavin also started the new hockey season. And we just ejoyed the final lazy days of summer.

September 2010

Had a fun visit with my birthson and his family where Blake & Brady had their first boat ride. Gavin started the 3rd grade. And Dave and I had a date night with his dad and wife to celebrate Dave’s final birthday in his 30’s.

October 2010

I had a reunion with some old friends from high school. These gals were my best friends and it was the first time in over 20 years that the four of us were together in one place again. We had a few trips to the local cider mill. Spent an afternoon at Henry Ford Estate where we took our family Christmas card photo. And then of course there’s Halloween.

November 2010

We took a little weekend get-away, just the 5 of us. We went to Splash Village in Frankenmuth. Gavin and I went to a Detroit Red Wings game with his hockey team. Thanksgiving was nice at my in-laws, and we put up our Christmas Tree.

December 2010

Highlights of December of course being all the Christmas activities and gatherings. Gingerbread houses. Christmas parties. Cookie baking. Santa, and finally New Years Eve. There was also the Big Chill at the Big House. Mighigan vs. Michigan State hockey. Dave refereed a couple high school games in the days leading up the the big game. He took Gavin with him to experience what truly is a spectical in what is called “The Big House.”

January 2011

My oldest son turned 23. Gavin attended a goalie school clinic. And Blake & Brady finally got real boy haircuts. I hated cutting their long hair, but it was about time.

February 2011

The worst winter happened all in one month. Too much snow. I heard somewhere that at one point, 49 states had some form of snow. Gavin turned 8yrs old. He and I went to his school dance. He looked so handsome. We also took a Winter weekend get-away. Went to Splash Bay in Maumee, OH for a couple nights.

March 2011

For an early Mother’s Day gift, my adorable husband purchased for me the digital SLR camera that I have been wanting for so long. I literally about cried when he said, “you deserve it, make it happen.” I’m loving it! Still learning the ropes, but I’ll catch on fast. Most recently I got to spend St. Patrick’s Day afternoon with one of my best friends enjoying some green beer and Irish fun.

There you have it. The last 12 months.

Visiting my sister in Indiana. We left home yesterday way later than I had planned. Seems whenever I am planning a trip, I can never get any preparation done until the final hours. We had originally planned on coming today, but my sister insisted that we come a day earlier. I knew it would be near impossible, what with all the daily things I have to do to keep my organized chaos, well.. more organized. That on top of the fact that it was Easter weekend. This, of course, being the year that when I call my mother-in-law up to ask her what I could bring, she throws green bean casserole my way. I don’t even eat the green bean casserole. But wonderful mother-in-law that she is, she bought all the ingredients, jotted down the recipe and even threw in a disposable casserole tin. Even the least of domestic goddesss couldn’t mess that one up. I had no excuse.

So back to my sister. She wants us to come a day earlier. The day after Easter. Did I mention I have a million and one things on my daily to do list, not to mention the fact that Friday we had a birthday party to go to for my husbands neice. Saturday, Gavin had hockey practice in the morning. Of which, Dave was working Saturday, so I had to throw the twins in the van to take to the rink with us. At least they weren’t wearing their pajamas. When, in all of this, was I going to make earlier preperations to drive out to Indiana? Oh, and did I mention, I also had to pick up our other 2 neices and bring them along. This meant I had to play musical carseats in my minivan in order to make seating accomodations for 2 adults, 2 toddlers, 1 first grader and 2 teenagers.

I don’t know how I did it. But I did. My mother came over early to help, and Dave was off work to help so that we could be on the road by Monday afternoon, early evening. It think its being a mom of twins that gives me this ability. So often I’ll get asked. “How do you do it?” You just do.

So I’m happy we’re here. Happy that we got here yesterday instead of just a few hours ago. My neices are all having fun. My boys are enjoying themselves. And tomorrow is sisters night out. We’ll be here till Saturday. It’s going to go by so fast.

Thought I’d share my favorite picture from the holidays. It’s really just something to post while I finalize my big move.
Enjoy…

Apple iPhone – $299
Apple iPod Touch – $150
Pocket Solitaire Game – $15
Spending quality time with the family over the holidays – Priceless!

During the past week I’d been getting ready for a big Mom-to-Mom sale. Since the twins are the last children I’ll have, as they grow out of things I can get rid of them not thinking “I should probably keep this in case we have another baby.” I tend to be a hoarder with stuff like that. I come about it honestly. My mother was always one of those “we might need that one day” kind of people. But since becoming a mom of multiples, it means multiples of stuff. Stuff everywhere. We still have boxes of stuff from our move 19 months ago that haven’t even been opened. I often wonder, if I haven’t missed it in 19 months, would I ever miss it at all?

One thing I do miss, that I can never have back, is my babies. Today, while packing up for the sale, I picked up a tiny tiny pair of little baby booties. One of them could literally just fit over my thumb. I actually began to well up inside. My babies are gone. Those little tiny beings that use to curl up in a little ball on my chest are now running through the house and talking and trying to escape every saftey obstacle I put in their way.

I knew the twins would be my last. And I swear I’ve tried to cherrish every single moment. I try hard to not miss a thing. I’ve relished every milestone. And even though I know there’s so much more of them yet to come. I still miss their infancy. And oh.. oh.. oh.. that smell!!!!

They’re on-the-constant-go toddlers now. Forever investigating every little thing. They’re imitating real life things now. One of their favorite things is to help me clean. They won’t let me craddle them anymore. But they will sit on a lap for a story couple pages from a book.

I can’t help remembering how tiny and helpless they were just 19 months ago. And as I sold their baby stuff in the sale today, every article that exchanged hands, I relived the memories that went with it.

Thank you Laura for this great idea. You should go check out her Year in Pictures too.

January

Solid foods officially become a part of Blake & Brady’s daily routine, time to move up into the high chairs.

February

Gavin turned 5.  Two days after this picture we had a huge party with friends and family at his favorite place, Pump It Up.

Blake & Brady are 6 months old.  In an attempt to save some money, I took their 6 month photo myself.  They were very cooperative and had fun sitting in the basket.

March

I think this was the last time the boys all laid still long enough for me to get a decent shot of the 3 of them.  After this, their newfound mobility would not allow them to sit still for more than a few second.

Both Blake and Brady cut all four top teeth at once. That’s 8 teeth! Ugh, we were all miserable that week.

April

Blake and Brady are officially hooked on Baby Einstein videos.

May

Blake and Brady are introduced to Jungle Java for the first time and they have an absolute ball! 

Gavin graduates from preschool and we have a fun picnic at the park with his class & teachers.

June

Gavin goes to work with Dave.

Dave drives Niklas Kronwall in Detroits Stanley Cup Parade.

We attend a Stanley Cup party at Dave’s work.

July

Blake and Brady turn one year old.

August

My dad visits from Texas. The last time he was in Michigan was for my wedding in Sept 2003. It was so wonderful having him here.

We take our 2nd road trip to my sister, Renee’s in Indiana. This is as we were pulling out of the drive way to head back home.

September

Gavin starts kindergarten.

Gavin joins the mini-mites hockey team.  This was his first day.  Three weeks later, he was skating like he was born to skate.

The Stanley Cup comes to our house for a visit.

October

We all enjoy a family day at the park.

Blake and Brady are introduced to Great Wolf Lodge for the first time.

Gavin is the Incredible Hulk for Halloween, his most favorite holiday ever.

November

My great aunt passed away and Gavin & I go to Northern Michigan for her funeral.  This was taken at the Mackinaw Bridge before heading home.

I reach that 40th 29th milestone birthday.

December

We attend Dave’s company Christmas party downtown. Gavin had fun skating on the home ice of the Detroit Red Wings.

Our Christmas family photo.

Hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season. Happy New Year!

Ahhh yes, my least favorite time of the year.  Am I ready? Hardly. Here it is after 2am and I’m still addressing my Christmas cards.  It seems I get them out later and later each year.  The past couple years I find myself rushing to the 24hour post office in the middle of the night so that folks can get my cards by Christmas Eve.  Needless to say, I’ll be hitting the 24hour post office tomorrow night.

My sister is coming in town on Christmas day. Am I ready? Hardly. I have to rewash the sheets in the spare bedroom because the boys like to go in there and jump on the bed. Suppose I could just wash the pillow cases since that’s all that is exposed to the endless amounts of drool that pour from my childrens mouths. I’ve never known toddlers that drool so much. And at almost 17 months. When is it going to end?

November, as I mentioned, was a crazy month. My great aunt passed away and we went out of town for her funeral.  The stomach flu also made a visit to our house in November.  First Gavin, then the twins, then Dave. Luckily for me, I did not come down with it. I was washing my hands so much while cleaning up buckets of vomit and diarreah.  I was determined to NOT get it.  Just goes to show you how frequent hand washing is a huge defense against these kinds of things.  I’m now an even bigger fan of hand washing.

Well, for now, I’ll leave you with this. Every year we make a gingerbread house. This years was quite a turn out. Gavin is very proud. Now if I can only keep the twins from pulling the candy off.

I’m going to have to start walking around with a pad of paper strung around my neck.  All weekend long funny or quirky moments would happen and in the back of my mind I’d think “I’ve got to blog this.”  But when the keyboard is beneath my fingers, nothing. I can’t remember a darn thing.

Was an uneventful weekend. Saturday Gavin got to go to a pool party with his grandma. That left Dave, the twins and I. Most of the day was pretty lazy. Not that I can really have a lazy day with twin toddlers running around. Sunday was a bit more productive. Finally got a second crib up in the babies room.  Not that either crib is being used, but they’re there. Eventually I’ll muster up the courage to transistion the twins from co-bedding with me on a mattress on the floor. Oh I’m sure that will be a good blogging week. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, check out this cute video of my neice I just posted on my YouTube channel.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpEetBccVzc]

Indiana trip was fun. What would normally be an easy 3.5 hour drive turns into about 6 or 7 with the twins. We left early Thursday afternoon at naptime. Blake and Brady were asleep with in 15 minutes and remained sleeping for nearly 2.5 hours.  During that time we managed to travel across the state of Michigan from Detroit area to Benton Harbor before the boys woke up.  Once in Benton Harbor, we stopped for lunch, dinner, “lunner.”  We did some more stretching by walking around the local Wal-Mart.  It was over 2 hours before we hit the road again. Arrived at my sisters around 7:30pm. We gained an hour since she lives in central timezone.  It was a fun visit. The boys had a blast. No problems (last time Brady got sick and we had to take him to emergency).  Renee and I got out Friday night. Went to see the new movie Mirrors, it was pretty scary. Had both of us watching it through her sweater.

On another note. I was going through some old boxes and came across an old cell phone I used to have.  It comes from the early days of consumer cell phones.  My husband thought it was one of Gavin’s play phones. He was shocked to discover that this thing actually worked. And I thought I was cool when I had it, as cell phones weren’t nearly as popular back then as they are now.  I remember purposely calling people so that I could be seen using it. LOL  I wish I remember what the ringer sounded like. I remember when it would ring, I’d look around to see if anyone noticed. Like “yep, that’s me, that’s my cell phone, I’m cool, I’m important.”  The darn thing about took up my whole purse.

The twins birthday was quite a hit. My guest list was over 50, including kids, and that’s about what we had and then some. We had a Luau theme. Our 30in. deep pop-up pool was packed with kids. We even borrowed my brother-in-laws moonwalk. The kids had a blast, the adults had a blast. The twins? I suppose they had a good time. They were miserable for part of the day though. They were so off routine and they do not do well when they are off routine. My sister was in town for a few days so the craziness continued. It took a couple days to get them back on routine. Even now, a couple weeks later, we aren’t still quite right. Seems we’re still running about 90 minutes behind.

I can’t believe it’s been a year already. I actually survived. I’m still breathing, though barely, and more importantly, Blake and Brady are still breathing. I’m still amazed some days that I have two babies, who are now officially toddlers. They’ve been walking since about 11 months. They both weighed about 22lbs at their one yr well-baby visit. We’re still breastfeeding. Though night weaning is well at hand and is going rather well, however they still wake a couple times at night for comfort even though “Mom’s Diner” is no longer a 24 hour establishment.

Just when things seemed normal again, then it was time for my dad to visit. Last time he was here was for my wedding back in September of 2003. He lives in the Houston area and drove up last Friday. It was so nice having him here for four days. I don’t get to see much of him and with every visit it seems I get closer and closer. I really missed him after he left.

Going to Indiana later this week. Mom took the train out there to my sisters and she needs a ride home. So I get to spend a few days with my sister again. Looking forward to “getting out of dodge.”

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=0cVlTeIATBs]
That is what it’s like around here. And I’m not talking about the babies. I’m talking about their big brother. He makes that sound over.and.over.and.over.all.day.long.it.never.ends. I know it’s probably for attention. And maybe he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. I’ll look him in the eye and say, “I see you, will you please stop making that noise?” or I’ll just come out and ask him “why.why must you make that noise?”  He and I went on a date tonight. It was nice to take him out. We went to the community college and participated in the Build-a-Book event that was taking place. We had a lot of fun. Gavin’s book was about none other than Superman. We still have a couple pages to finish.

In other news. Today, my first born turns twenty. It was twenty years ago today that he made me a mommie for the first time. As quickly as it went, it still somehow seems like a lifetime ago. It was a different era in time for me back then. I’m so proud of him though. Very very proud. So Happy 20th Birthday Ray!!! I love you very very much!