Favorite Quote of Halloween

Halloween night, Corey and I snuck off to the local "Haunted Hotel".

Why I keep going to Haunted Houses, I just don't know.


Corey: "Why do I feel like you are using me as a human shield?"

Me: (thinking to myself) "Duh!"



Ahem...

Happy Halloween!

Friday night we took the kids down to the church for the annual "Trunk or Treat". We figured that if they got enough candy they wouldn't feel ripped off when we didn't take them Saturday night.

Whoever scheduled the local college game should seriously be smacked for scheduling it at 5pm on Halloween night. Not cool people...not cool.

But, because we were sick of the whining and pouting and we wanted more candy for ourselves we were feeling nice, we threw on some costumes on the kids only because it was halftime and took them out until halftime was over for a little bit.

We had a new record high number of trick or treaters that came to our door. Over 180 kids came because we give out full size candy bars to talk to the gracious hostess and admire the decor.

Spook, our 15 year old black cat, put on a good show as usual, greeting all the kids. I am so going to miss my favorite, interactive Halloween prop cat when he is gone.

Halloween...the best day of the whole year!!!



Tim went to school dressed up as an FBI agent

Hannah as Little Red Riding Hood

Matthew aka Luke Skywalker

Levi, our knight in shining armor

Us at the Halloween party Friday night.

Even though all that green face paint sure did make my teeth look white, it's not a look I could pull off everyday. I could almost feel the chemicals leeching into my skin.

And you should have seen how long it took me to get it off. Yikes!

Happy Halloween!!!

Got Halloween?

In case you were wondering...

I love Halloween!

Every year we decorate...big time. Big enough for one of the local TV stations to call and ask to feature our house. We politely declined...for now.

I am holding out I can find me a hearse to go along with the crypt that I want to build.

Seriously.

In the meantime, please enjoy a little slice of my Halloween heaven.

Just ignore the lack of siding on the house.

After all, we do...

Happy Halloween!

We Got "The" Call!!!

Our attorney just called to say...

Levi's adoption is FINAL!!!!!

We are feeling overjoyed...and truly blessed!

Life is good!

Halloween Party 2009

Due to the fact that I am a Halloween whore love Halloween more then anything else in the whole wide world ok, maybe it is a tie with my love of shoes. And I should probably mention that I love my kiddos that much too, lest I look like a bad mother we decided to throw a Halloween bash to share the Halloween love spirit with our friends.

We had a bunch of our favorite people over to traumatize play games, eat yummy food and socialize.

It was so much fun that we will be doing this every year!

Eagle Scouts

The twins had their Eagle Scout Board of Review last night and they passed!

So...

They are officially Eagle Scouts!

Congrats you guys!

Now I get to start planning a Court of Honor for them. what do ya want to bet that there will be cheesecake involved?




Two down...Four to go!

Homecoming Dance, Take Two

The twins attended their second homecoming dance this month when they were invited to a neighboring high school's homecoming dance.

Good thing that they already own suits...

Matthew's first soccer game

Matthew is 5.

Soccer is very important and serious to a five year old.

My rear end is going numb just thinking about how many games I will watch for this boy.

Fun times!


Matthew with his soccer mama!
This is Matthew's victory stance.

He had me in hysterics and laughing so hard that I was seriously regretting drinking that entire diet pepsi before the game.

Ok, and is it just me or do the door handles look like little golden wings? it's just me? Fine then...be that way.

I love my soccer playing kiddos!

Adventures at the Local Farm

The three teenagers stayed at home because they were too cool to tag along but the younger six had a great time!


Horse-drawn wagon ride through the orchard

Balloons for all

Enjoying cobbler and ice cream

That is the stuff that memories are made of!

Why you don't take a hungry toddler to the pumpkin patch

Awwww...she's just so stinkin' cute posing with her pumpkin

Let's give her a little one to hold too...

That's not food Lil!

You are obviously up for Parent of the Year when you take a picture of your child trying to eat a dirty pumpkin instead of taking it away from them.

Ahem...

Friends, cheesecake and shoes

It doesn't get any better than that!

And maybe my friends will forgive me for taking pictures of the cheesecake and the shoes that I bought and not taking any picture of them!

Ahem...

Homecoming 2009

The twins had their very first homecoming dance this year.

Joseph took a date, a really nice girl that we like a lot.

Michael choose to go stag.


Awww...brotherly love!

I love these boys and am so proud of them!

Homecoming Float Freshman Class Work Party

Because the twins are both Freshman class officers, they were in charge of planning the homecoming float.

They had to come up with a trailer, find someone to pull the float, plan the float layout, purchase materials and put it all together. They also were expected to find a nice car for the Freshman homecoming princess to ride in.

The freshman ended up not having a class advisor at school and most of the kids involved had never seen a homecoming float.

The float ended up being really well thought out, well put together and in this mother's humble yet biased opinion really well done.

And without much adult help at all.

They had it on display two different nights, the first being "Riot Night" and the second was during halftime of the homecoming game.

The only "after" pix I have is permanently on my phone only because I don't am tech challenged have the necessary mental capabilities at the present time to extract it and with how easily all that official sounding BS just rolled off my tongue, I should look for a government job!

I'm so proud of these guys!

Lily and the Seizures, Part Two

Yesterday, Lily woke up from her nap her normal, spunky, feisty self.

Corey loaded her and the seven other kids (Michael was already at practice) and took off for the half-hour drive to Joseph's swim practice.

Lily was fine.

Two hours later she had suddenly become hot and feverish.

Corey took off her shoes, socks and sweater.

30 minutes later she had a seizure.

This time, Corey was the one to witness it.

And it frightened him to the core.

Seeing your child limp and unresponsive is not something that any parent should have to see.

He called me and I met him at the ER.

My parents came and picked up the rest of the kids and took them home.

At this point they are blaming the seizure on her having a sudden fever.

They gave her some meds to bring down her fever and ran some tests.

She was drowsy and weak.

She took a short nap and then she was back to normal. Yelling "no" at the nurses. Which was actually really nice to see.

Because she has done this before we will be taking her in to have her checked out by her regular doctor.

At this point everything points to her having another febrile seizure.

Mostly harmless for the child but horrifying for the parents.

I just pray that this was the last one...

School kiddos

School has been back in full swing for about six weeks now and we have settled into a comfortable routine.

Still, two kids in high school, two in middle school and two in the elementary school makes for some interesting mornings.

Liz's first day of 4th grade.
Matthew's first day of Kindergarten and he couldn't have been any more excited.
Matthew's first bus ride!

My elementary kiddos.

My middle school kiddos.

And the twins are freshman and wouldn't hold still long enough for a pix.

Crazy!

Surgery

***Warning. This is a TMI post about women issues. Read at your own risk. Also be aware that I have typed out this post while under the influence of drugs.***

Sometimes, being a woman is not fun.

The whole childbirth thing, body-destroying pregnancies, monthly periods...you get the point, right?

Well, I've been having some "girlie" issues for awhile now. And I'm not just talking about the childbirth and pregnancy stuff.

After a series of tests, it was determined that I had some growths in my uterus that were causing excessive bleeding. Fun, huh?

Because the women in my dad's side of the family usually die from cancer, and often times of the girlie bits, that was obviously a concern.

Thankfully, two tests later have shown that the growths are 99% NOT cancer. Whew... Still, waiting for the test results made for a couple of really stressful days.

As far as the growths are concerned, I had several options:

Option #1- Do nothing.

Say What? I suppose I could just ignore the three weeks of bleeding each month and the anemia that follows but I just don't feel like it.

So, no thanks to option #1.

Option #2- D & C with an ablation. Which means, in simple people terms that I could understand having my uterus scraped out and then the lining burned. Kinda makes you cringe just thinking about it, huh?

How did they know that I would love this option? I wake up each morning wishing that I could start my day by having my uterus scraped out and burned. Fun times...

Option #3- Hysterectomy.

Yikes! Do you know what kind of down time this kind of surgery requires? I have nine kids! Nine kids does NOT = downtime. And as much as not having any more periods is extremely appealing, I just don't have the time to do that kind of surgery. Plus, I can't see myself going on artificial hormones at this time in my life.

Option #4- Wait, what? No option #4?

I was expecting something like two weeks vacation in Hawaii, shopping for shoes and drinking fruity little drinks with fun little umbrellas.

Fine. What kind of a person made up this multiple choice thing anyway? a man most likely

So, in the end, I decided on option #2.

I had the surgery Friday at a local surgery center.

I was checked in, had my IV inserted and was then escorted back to the OR.

Talk about some fast acting drugs! One minute I was standing up next to the table, noticing that something cold was going through my IV. The next minute I was asked to lie down and my head started feeling a little fuzzy.

The next thing I knew, someone was patting me on the shoulder and asking me to wake up but I just couldn't quite peel my eyelids open. Weird.

Just a little side note-I hated my c/sections. I loathed them. The pain after coming out of surgery was the worst thing that I have ever endured. Some people don't have a hard time. I am not one of those people. I am the kind of person that pushes the morphine drip button 57 times in the first half-hour. Ahem...

I was told that most people don't have a hard time after having an ablation. That they don't even need the vicodin. That they are up and around right after. I knew that I would be one of those people.

I was wrong.

After arriving home, I experienced the same bone-numbing, sweating, screaming obscenities into the pillow, puking, crying, writhing pain that I had with the c/sections.

Except without the morphine.

Even the Vicodin didn't touch the pain.

Five hours of that kind of pain will make you want to take your own life.

Trust me on this.

Corey who was beginning to wonder if I was possessed by some kind of demon finally called the doctor's office and demanded asked nicely for something stronger for deranged lil ol moi.

They prescribed Percocet. Because this is a controlled substance, a trip to the doctor's office to pick up the prescription in person was required.

Because I couldn't stand myself anymore to be at home, waiting, I choose to go with him.

I waited in the parking lot while he picked up the prescription and went into the nearby pharmacy to have it filled.

To the hottie that got out of a neighboring car, spied me sitting there since when is a dying woman cute anyway? and flashed me the darling little grin, twice? He is lucky that I didn't erupt out of the LandCruiser and strangle him...just because.

Anywhoo, there I go, off subject again.

The sight of Corey running across the parking lot 10 hours later with my prescription bag in hand was the most beautiful sight that I have ever seen.

It was a huge testament of my willpower not to throw up the two percocet that I swallowed. And I discovered that one can frantically swallow continuously while praying desperately at the same time Ha! Say that 10 times fast!

Thankfully Mr. Percocet worked for me. I loved him so much that I wanted to marry him and make little baby Percocet with him. Except, I can't have any more babies. And after Friday, that is for sure...for sure. Tied tubes and a burned out uterus? It doesn't get any more final than that.

So, I will just enjoy Mr. Percocet for now. And be grateful that this surgery is behind me.

Thank goodness.

Levi

We love this kid. Absolutely adore him.

He is the hardest 3-year old that we've ever had. And at this point in our parenting career...that's saying a lot.

He works us over...

Every. Day.

He is super smart, extremely athletic and very, very handsome.

We are so proud of him.

And can't wait till he is "officially" ours.

Because he has always been ours.

He has a big noggin'. His big nog is in the 95% percentile. We claim that his big nog is holding his big brain and his big brain makes him really smart.

That makes sense, right?

It does to us.

See his shirt?

It says "100% Good. 10% of the time."

We think the 10% is a high estimate.

But we still love him completely.

Even though he is already super competitive.

He says things like, "I finished my yogurt first!"

And (to Hannah) "My p**** is bigger than yours."

Sigh...

Ummm...Levi? She's a girl. She doesn't have one.

But we still adore him.

This last summer he took swim lessons. He was in the beginner 3-4 year old class.

After a couple of weeks, they moved him up to the 5 year old class.

He not only passed the 5 year old class and was jumping off the diving board...they had him jumping off the lifeguard stand too.

We are in for it with this little guy.

But to us...that's a good thing.

We are the lucky ones.



And no one could love him more than we do.



Promise.

What can $70 buy you?

At the local discount bread store?

70 loaves of bread, bagels, hamburger buns, english muffins and dinner rolls!

All 100% whole wheat!



I love it!

Family Outing...Crater Lake

Another beautiful day.

In August, at one of our many gorgeous national parks.

I just don't think that it gets any better than this.

Seriously.

Corey and I...still sane or pretending to be for the benefit of those around us.



Picture perfect views!



Nature at it's finest.

I love this crew!

My kids desperately wanted to take this guy home and make him part of the family.

I think not.

This was just one of those days to treasure...soak in the memories.

Perfect.

Life is good.