Rhonda's book and other Christmas facts.

So sorry that I never even mentioned Christmas yet! Hopefully you all had a wonderful holiday and enjoyed your families!! Colby and Cadynce had full and speedy recoveries from the flu (but Colby has a sinus infection now.) I finished Rhonda's scrapbook!! That was the most important thing for me on my to-do list. Even though there are some pictures from people that I didn't get yet, I did finish ALL the pictures that I had that I really wanted to get into the album. So it's sort of like the gift that keeps on giving I guess. I can just keep adding pages as I get the pictures to me. Maybe someday I'll get back to my own books as well...as pleasing as it was to finish hers, I did sort of have this regret knowing that I could have done that many of my OWN pages, but the outcome was worth it. Here's a few of the pages, sorry the pictures are bad...I think the protective pages they are in reflects the light in a bad way for photos, but I didn't feel like taking them back out.



I don't have a lot of photos from Christmas yet, a few from my camera...but I will post some pictures when I get some from the rest of the family!

Caught "red handed"

Here I am trying to finish getting out some emails while Camden is playing around on the ground with toys...rattles, blocks, a really loud toy telephone. Eventually, you start to tune out those toy noises; but, when you stop hearing them it makes you stop and look around. As I look down to see if he's eating dog hair or pulling on some cord he's not supposed to or even found a marking pen, oooh no, not my son. He's found his dad's magazine. Mmhmmm, yep, caught red handed.

It keeps going and going

Colby and Cadynce started out building a snow fort, all the snow that fell made it pretty tall. When I went out with Cadynce to play we turned it into a snow heart. Take that Daddy! Colby also couldn't get her to make a snow angel - once again mommy prevails!! Our poor back deck really took a beating with all this heavy wet snow. As you can see we got quite a lot of snow. Thankfully we had no structural damage done on our house. Today when I was vacuuming up the tree remnants we did however lose the vacuum. Awww well, we've had it for five years - is that a good life for a vacuum?

da snow da snow

This is from our slider on Wednesday night, Colby had scraped off the entire back porch only an hour before because the snow was so heavy. It was accumulating so fast, we loved it!! Our dish didn't like it so much - Colby made a trip out to wipe the snow off of it, woo hoo we were back in business! Lord knows we can't go without our t.v.. Speaking of t.v. anyone else out there have dish network? We lost channel 4 due to some contract disagreement, they better get it figured out before the next new episode of Grey's or they are going to have some maaad people!

snow days

This was just the beginning of our snow. As you can see, she spent more time eating it off her gloves then she did playing in it. I warned her about the yellow snow, although I don't think there actually is any in our front yard unless there is a wandering neighbor dog. YUCK! Colby and her built a fort and scraped all the snow from the yard to make it. Little did we know we would be getting plenty more snow to make a fort and a snow man too. Unfortunately the day the snow really dumped on us, Colby was recuperating from a bout of the stomach flu and Cadynce had just caught it. They played out the next few days though instead. We still have lots of snow around our house and we set a record low last night for Arlington at -2. Big December storm is supposedly on its way tonight as well....we shall see!!!

The Kiddos

Real eyelashes.

I'm gonna eatcha.

Grandma told me she could see her name in lights from the time she was born.

Yes, he's very mobile now and has lots of teeth too!

Gingerbread House

I'm so far behind, I totally forgot to share with everyone our gingerbread house. It was a first time ever for Cadynce, and mostly a lot of fun. Minus the fact that she was so excited when we started she refused to stop and go to the bathroom; which, yes, resulted in a puddle of pee on my chair. Lovely. After getting that whole situation cleaned up we resumed our gingerbread house decorating. No, we didn't actually bake the gingerbread; we bought it in this great kit at Costco. We used to make them at work every year so it was fun to share that with Caca. We ended up with a masterpiece of a house...had a lot of fun...and a house that still smells like gingerbread. YUM!

Caca's side. Not too bad huh?

Big Girl Bed

Cadynce's new "big girl" bed.

This is Cadynce's Christmas present from her Nana and Papa (Colby's parents). She got it early because she was quickly outgrowing her little toddler bed. We never in a million years imagined that this was the kind of bed she would get, but it was special ordered in by a lady who changed her mind about it I guess. So they got a screaming deal. The bedding was also a gift, picked out by nana; I think she did a great job. Funny thing about it, she got the bedding at LNT, same place I got her curtains and they are the same brand and completely match. (the hot pink sheets and hot pink curtains). Anyways, just wanted to get some pictures up of the super cool new bed that I am totally envious of and that I have mentioned before. We are so thankful to Mike and Rhonda for this gift...she loves it. Not to mention it will carry her through for, well, forever almost.


p.s. the ladder is hiding so she doesn't keep climbing up and try to jump off. We don't need anymore owies around our house just yet.

Wipe That Smile Off Your Face

Kids do the darndest things. Cadynce, after throwing a very uncommon large fit, went to bed. Typically, for her, shortly after going to bed she yells for either Colby or me and has to tell us a few things. Or tell us a "secret." It was my night. "Mom" - brief pause - "MOM" she says it short and to the point, it's not a drawn out mommmmy, just mom. Off I go, "What?" I needed to tell you a secret.....so she tells me a secret, already I have forgotten; then we have to talk about all the things we have to do tomorrow. Okay, back to "sleep" and I'm back to doing last minute chores before I fall into a deeeep sleeeep (hopefully). "MOM" ugh, again! So here I go down the hall and Colby is laughing at her short, terse, "MOM." Again, I open the door and go in, "what?" Now Cadynce tells me a little about her day at Tina's ( daycare ) and says next time she doesn't want Gavin to shoot her (great, okay thanks for sharing) and that she hurts here, here, here and here. And her tummy hurts. I'm thinking okay great, does this mean she's getting sick (she's had a cold) or is it just another excuse to talk or possibly get out of bed. Fine, I ask, "do you need to go poop?" She perks right up, and of course she does, with a sly smile on her face. I tell her to wipe that smile off her face right now, this is not a game, and she better get in the bathroom and go. Immediately she sits up and puts her hand on her lips and wipes ( the smile get it?) no more smile and off she goes to the bathroom. I turn on the light and she stands there, I tell her to sit on the toilet and hurry up. So she sits on the toilet (pants on lid down) SERIOUSLY?! seriously. "Cadynce, quit screwing around." Okay mommy. So anyways, she goes number one, not two; gets back in bed all tucked in. I havn't heard another word since.... I'm telling you it was all just a ploy to get out of bed.

Being Thankful.

These past few years I have realized there are so many things to be thankful for, so many little things that we typically take for granted. Modern medicine for one: it has given Rhonda an additional 8 years (so far) and more to come I'm sure. Tiffany delivered a healthy baby girl on Thanksgiving despite having high blood pressure. My son has had a cold, been teething, and had a fever for a few days, Tylenol has helped keep it down. While it doesn't always work in ways we want it to and sometimes it does fail us, more often than not it's almost like witnessing a miracle. I'm thankful for the time I have at home with my children even when the little one is sick and clingy and Cadynce is running rampant through the house yelling "com'ere monkey moo, come on." I'm thankful for my dvr so I don't have to watch commercials during shows and I don't have to stay up late to see Grey's.
My friends, I'm thankful for them in more ways then I can even begin to explain. My family, I'm so grateful for them...and I do mean Colby's family in there as well because they are mine too. There are times when things are trying; for example my mother (lulu) she drives me craaazy. More so than my kids and in a completely different way. She is so frustrating and I just wish that she could grow up, however I know that is not ever going to change, she is who she is. Oops, got sidetracked, sorry, she called the day before Thanksgiving and wanted to know when we were coming over. She knows I wont take my kids to her house (its a pig pen) and it was the day before for heaven sakes. After explaining to her we have plans she is of course, upset, and nothing I can say or do will change this. Anyways, I'm thankful that somewhere along the way I have learned right from wrong and that I know that there are things out of my control, circumstances that I can not change, and things that are not my fault. Sometimes I just wish that other people could see that side too.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got to enjoy their families!

One of THOSE days.

Today Cadynce got to go to her first ever, movie at the theatre; with of course, her papa. Mike also took Alex, Cadynce's cousin, as it's her birthday coming up and they saw Bolt. Evidently, Cadynce liked it okay, but Mike thought it was a bit over her head and has decided he will need to take her to see Madagascar 2 now ( a bit more her level). However, as a result, my 3 year old who desperately needs naps, did not get one. Also, cousin Ava (Kira's youngest daughter) is here to spend the night as well. I am totally and utterly exhausted as its 8:53 pm, the girls have been in bed for 20 minutes and we have had to make 2 bathroom trips already. I forgot to take pictures and tell you all about Cadynce's new AWESOME bed, so that will have to wait for another day, but for understanding the story, its a full size bed on the bottom (Caca sleeps here) and a bunk across the top (Ava is up there). Lately, there has been so much talk of a third child from everyone around us. Last weekend we had Blair (our godson who is 2) for the day, and now Ava (who is sooo easy mind you) but its beginning to make me think we may stick to our guns about 2 being enough. Wow, I must be tired, since I have completely lost track of my story...I found a perfect quote out of my "Momisms" book which about sums up my evening as far as Cadynce is concerned. "Look at me when I'm talking to you." {Moms do not like to be ignored, especially when delivering a long, impassionate diatribe on a child's bad behavior. Maintaining eye contact is the only way a mom can tell if her message is getting through, even if the eyes in question seems to be glazing over into a zombielike state.}
p.s. scratch the 2 trips, we are now up to 4 and it is 9:11 pm. I'm going to bed before I lose my mind. Good Night Sleep Tight, Don't Let The Bed Bugs Bite.

Mi Vida Loca

I swear, someday I am going to have a chance to sit down again. SOMEDAY! As of last week Camden is crawling and pulling himself up to standing. He has 5 teeth. It happened so fast it's crazy. I go to help Cadynce with one thing and turn around to find him tangled in Colby's video game cords. Actually, not so much tangled but chewing on them and pulling down everything he can get his chubby little fingers on!
Now that Cadynce is 3 1/2 she has completely gotten the hang of the Christmas season as well. EVERY single commercial/advertisement that comes on t.v. for some kind of toy that we have managed not to fit into our little house - she "needs it" or "wants it" or would "really like to have that" for "Halloween." I say, don't you mean Christmas? Oh yeah, that's what I meant Momma. I'm hoping that later today, or just sometime this weekend I will get a chance to sit down and write something more than just this short blurp of me whining.... Until then:

Closing thoughts

For today, I leave you with this:
Look closely at the hair UNDER her shades. I love my girl!

Tiff's shower.

It seems like things are never spread out, it's all or nothing ya know? I seem to have so much going on at once, but that's okay. A good friend, Tiffany, has a baby girl due in December - fairly certain she's going to come sooner! Anyhoo, just wanted to share a few photos from the baby shower that Sarah D helped me put on for her. We had so much fun and didn't really play any games. We did get to design our own onesies for the baby though.... check them out!

I made this one for her, don't ask, it's just totally Tiffany! It was fun to get together with everyone, and to see all the great gifts that she got..it almost makes me want one. Then there's this:
Which is still to fresh in my memory and I'm still trying to lose all the baby weight, so I think not!

Halloween (the REAL deal)

He lives! Proof that Colby really did come home! On the night of actual Halloween, we had Camden the cow and Cadynce a fairy Dora this time. She was able to change things up thanks to her new Dora dress up trunk.




Camden below in his "cowmooflouge" get it, cowmooflouge. Haha, I crack myself up!

We decided we can get away with one more year of just taking Cadynce to see all the important people. No door to doors yet. We went to Napa and saw nana and papa. 2 of Caca's most favorite people. We also went and saw the other G's, Aunt Sandie, the farm and to John and Lauren's house last. The kids were exhausted by the end of the night, but it was all in good fun!

As you can see the real Cadynce came out at John and Lauren's!

Catching up Part 2

I think it's easier to just do these as seperate blogs rather than one biiiiig long one, so sorry that you'll be reading it all backwards I guess. Maybe I will learn to be a "professional" blogger and correct all my errors. ha, yeah right!

Downtown trick or treating was really fun too. Sarah A (another saving grace) came with us for that. Downtown trick-or-treating consists of getting the kids all dressed up ahead of halloween but allowes them to get candy in a safe way, boosts some local business and is just an all around fun day! This is just a part of our big gang; we have from the back left to right, Rhonda holding Camden(the cow) and Conner(the monkey) held by momma Jessie. Katie in the front, then Cadynce( dancing Dora) cousin Alex (the witch) and Cole. A whole slew of us marched off through town, oh Camden on my back mind you.

As you can see Camden was not so interesting in the trick-or-treating and preferred a nap. What a sweet cow! We ended up with more candy then we need without even going on the actual "halloween" night yet. Oh well, I'll just take it to work and feed it to the guys. The afternoon of walking up and down mainstreet certainly wore out Cadynce too! Hooray for naps!

let's catch up

Wow, so we have a lot of catching up to do! So I'll back up quite a bit; all the way back to when Colby was gone hunting. Beings he's always gone the week before Halloween that always leaves a few things up to me. 1)the pumpkin patch. 2)halloween costumes and 3)downtown trick or treating. Lauren (my saving grace) came with us to the punkin patch, she did last year too! I think secretly she really likes to do it - I know I do. Last year we learned the hard way that you need to wear boots to the punkin patch, Cadynce definetly wore boots this year! We went to Smokey Point Plant Farm again, it's a great place for kids. They do hay rides and a train ride, have bouncy houses and their pumpkins are all picked and layed out so you can thoroughly inspect them before lugging them up into a wheelbarrow and paying for them. Here's us on the hay ride!

Cadynce sittin on a punkin! And, Lauren and Cadynce being silly! Thankfully it was a beautiful day. Last year it had rained so much it was just sort of yucky and Cadynce wouldn't have any part of the hay ride or train ride, she's 3 now though, so ya know...

He's coming home today!

Colby is getting home this afternoon, he better be anyhow, and after he's home I will post lots of pictures and blogs about our week. We did a lot - it's possible I should earn some sort of badge or award for being supermom. We went to the punkin patch, a football game, downtown trick-or-treating and lots more. Of course, I have wonderful friends who helped me do much of this, but still. Baths, bedtimes, early mornings and let us not forget poopy diapers were all mine. He owes me big!

get-togethers

As of last Thursday I am batching it (do girls batch it?) until the 25th or 26th, whenever the boys decide to come home from hunting. My cousin got married on Friday night; Kira and Lex came down and spent a few nights, helped me out with the kids and were my dates to the wedding. Left the babies at home with a friend. Thank God for friends! Anyhoo, it was a great wedding. Lovely lovely lady that our cousin Jeremy married. Never met her before, but Kira and I both knew right away she was great.

This is Jeremy and Jessica with Grandma. Okay, get on with it right?! Kira and I both had such a great time and really enjoyed seeing all the family. It has been so long since we have seen most of them. Years. Most of them not since my wedding (5 years ago). It was funny because we would turn to each other and say, "okay, are you ready? i'm ready." Then before we knew it - it had been another 45 minutes. We couldn't pull ourselves away, we just didn't want it to end. Didn't want it to be another 5 years before we saw some of them again. For Jeremy it had been so long since he had seen Grandma and I felt bad for him, she has gotten so old recently. She is going to be 94 ( i think). We visited a lot and laughed even more...eventually I decided that I was going to do a family reunion. The response was great. Everyone was so excited and volunteered to help in any way they could. We thought next summer would be good...I changed my mind. Grandma's birthday is in January and then no one has an excuse not to come. :) ha! So, I'm planning a family reunion/birthday party! I'm so excited! I know it will be a lot of work, but if I don't do it who will? I don't want to wait for another wedding or funeral to see everyone. Although I wont say it and no one else will either, we all know it probably wont be a wedding...

Little Moments

My MIL, Rhonda, as most of you know has been fighting breast cancer for many years. Going on 8 actually. I've decided to make her a scrapbook for Christmas of all the things that she has gotten to do/see/experience since she's been doing treatment. Something that will remind her of all the good that has come out of all her miserable days. Quality of life has always been so important to her...and lately, she has had more bad days than good. I'm selfish and I'm not ready for her to give up yet, so I think if I make this for her, when she is having a bad day she will get it out and look at it and decide that she should keep fighting. I know I'm late in getting started so I am going to do as many pages as I can and then give it to her, and as I finish more pages I will just add them to it. I'm trying to come up with something crafty for the first page, a title page so to speak. Something about life, and the things she has gotten out of the last 8 years. (any ideas for that page would be greatly appreciated!) I'm not only going to put in the good stuff, she lost her father a few years back and that will be in there too. It's only fair to have it all in there, I mean life isn't always a bowl of cherries, right? I'm so excited to do this there have been so many great things to note....Aunt Sandie has walked in the 3 day the last two years, some friends and I walked in the Susan G Komen 5k walk this year. Rhonda is our inspiration! She is amazing.....and to quote Sandie, "We walk because we can!"

One of the crafty signs we made for the 3day!





My team!
A few weeks ago, we took this picture while Rhonda stopped by to visit for a few minutes. I hope we have a lot more moments like these.
More than half of the time I have known Rhonda she has been doing treatment of some kind. Crazy, huh? When I first met Colby she was doing treatment. And then right after I had Cadynce she started treatment again and did so for a few years. Then she had about 3 short months where we thought she had bought some time. She's been doing chemotherapy again since Camden was born among other awful surgeries due to complications of a failing body. I am so thankful that she keeps on fighting...

Is it Just My Kids?

Recently, Camden has been started on solids. Ahhh, it's so lovely, the thought of no more bottles! Isn't it funny how we wish for silly things like that, and then before we know it they are three and driving us crazy and we wish that they were small and dependent on us for a bottle?

Sorry I got a little off track -- anyhoo, Camden loves food. Suprise suprise. Cadynce did too. I will never forget one weekend Kira was watching Cadynce and she pointed out something that I had never picked up on. We get home and she asks if Caca has always put her thumb in her mouth after every bite (she is a thumbsucker) and after thinking about it, I answer yes, I just never really paid any attention to it. She cracked up thinking it was so cute, like she was pushing the food further into her mouth. I think it was for fear she might starve to death. HAHA!

Okay so here she has 2 fingers in her mouth, but you get the point right? I have always wondered if my second one would suck his thumb and yada yada, wondering how kids pick up the certain habits that they do. Low and behold, he does the same thing when he's eating. Cadynce is three, so it's not like she taught him how to do it. So where'd he learn it? Do all kids do that?

You get the jist with these pictures, it's just so funny to me.

I've been trying to write down things like these in their baby books. I'm not sure if they will find it as cute or humorous as I do, but atleast that way they have the option to.
p.s. what color do you think Cam's eyes will be?

Vegas Oct 3-5

So, we arrived in Vegas around 2ish and headed straight for my favorite place, Margaritaville. We enjoyed lunch and margaritas (okay, a few of those) and headed back to the hotel to get ready for our cocktail reception. Friday nights festivities included an open bar (woohooo) at the Caramel (see sign below) pretty fancy stuff if you ask me. I'm not too big on getting all dressed up and wearing heels as most of you know, so a few hours each night of that has pretty much given me my fill for the year.

We did so much walking around while we were there by the time we started home on Sunday my calves were sooo tight. Great feeling though, and it was nice to be out in the sunshine. We've been to Vegas before, but there is so much to see and do its impossible to have seen/done it all in one trip.

These chocolate waterfalls at the Bellagio ! Yummmmy! Makes my mouth water. The Bellagio is sooo fancy! What a great experience getting to stay there. We had chocolate croissants for breakfast one morning and an amazing chocolate dessert another night. (pictures will come of that as well)
The fountain show at the Bellagio is a grand sight to see too. It goes during the afternoon and evening, however, given the option you should definetly see it at night! Much more amazing!









We got to on this trip because one of Colby's accounts pulled the lucky ticket to be put into a drawing and out of thousands of people he was one of 9 who won the trip. He got to bring a guest and Colby and I got to go too! There were two drawings for 20,000 dollars for the 9 finalists. Broken down into 2 groups. So they had a 1 in 9 chance of coming home with 20 grand without even gambling away any money. I was jealous. Ha ha. A kid from Burlington won the 20 grand out of our group and I was glad to see it go to him. He's a single father and is going to use it for a down payment on a house. When we went to Vegas 4 or 5 years ago we didn't get to see the Treasure Island show because they were remodeling it. Much to my dissapointment we didnt' get to see it again. The winds were really strong every night and it got canceled the whole time we were there. Saturday night we even tried for the 11:30 show and that got canceled too. So we walked through the Venetian instead and got all turned around where we were and headed the opposite direction of the Bellagio. It started to pour down rain....we finally figured out we were headed the wrong direction and started back. Even though it was raining it was still very warm, not like in Washington. It was sad to leave the sunshine and come back to rain. We were only gone 3 days, but by the time we were headed home I couldnt' wait to see my kids! Funny how that works. Colby will be headed hunting for ten days on the 16th and I know by the time he gets home I will be ready to kill them, but after only 3 days I couldn't wait to see them. It's funny how those things work out...