I Survived!

I survived another school dance and slumber party! It was alot of fun. It's kind of a tradition since elementary school that Bianca has a sleepover after the school dance. In elementary they have a sock hop every year and now in intermediate they have a Halloween Costume Social. Bianca was a ladybug this year, she looked really cute. Most of the girls met at our house and I walked them over to the school and then walked them back home. I could not chaperone this year because Jerry had school and didnt have anywhere for Matthew to go. So Matthew and I hung out at the house getting everything ready for the Spooktakular Sleepover. We went over to the school early and watched from the cafeteria windows. It is so funny to watch 5th and 6th graders at a dance. After the dance I took 12 crazy pre-teen girls home with me for a slumber party. How crazy and I? I guess very crazy. I had so much food including Pizza, popcorn, cupcakes, carmel apples and buckets full of candy. It was ALL gone this morning! I could not believe they ate everything!!! I went to bed around Midnight and they were all up screaming their heads off, playing dance dance revolution on the Wii and the Music blasting! I woke up at 4AM and half were asleep, they other half NEVER went to sleep!?? I went back to bed for another hour, then got up went and got donuts and sausage rolls. They ate ALL of that too! The final girl left around 1PM. I'm tired but now I have to clean up my house because it is a disaster!

September Fun

I've been slacking lately, I know. September was really busy for us. Jerry traveled quite bit this month which left me to busy with work, school and the kids.

Matthew started T-ball and he loves it. He definitely likes it much better than soccer. He is the youngest on the team though which makes it difficult. He is already more immature than most kids his age and then you put him with 6 years olds and you can really see the difference. But he loves going to practices and games which ends of being 3 nights a week, yikes!



On that same note, we decided to pull Matthew out of public kindergarten and send him to private about 3 weeks into the school year. He was not handling it very well and the whole half day kindergarten didn't help. I should have trusted my instincts from the beginning and not sent him since he was a summer baby. I will keep him in private for the rest of year and then decide what to do about next year. He loves his new school and going full day is working out good for him. Although one day the teacher told he me fell asleep on the floor during story time, LOL :-) He loves his naps! I do think I'm going to have him repeat kindergarten and then send him to public in first grade.

The rest of the month we spent going to birthday parties. I think we have had 1-2 every weekend! Here are some pics of a little cowboy party we went to in Dallas which was so much fun. There was petting zoo, pony rides and miniature golf. The kids had a blast!




October is jammed packed for us as well. I spent the last 2 weekends decorating the house and yard for Halloween. I'm hoping the weather cools down soon. I really want to go to pumpkin patch but it just does not feel like fall when it's 90 degrees outside! We'll also go to Boo at Zoo later this month. I'm also still trying to squeeze in the State Fair one weekend too!

Bianca has her costume social dance at school on the 23rd and she will have her annual Spooktakular Sleepover with about 10 girls afterward! Then she has another costume party and sleepover the next night and then on 25th Jerry and I have a Halloween Party to go to at the Stevenson's! I have not yet decided what we will go as so I've got to get moving on that!

New Layout

OK, I know it is very busy! I had to find a background that matched my header because I cannot change my header right now because I dont have photoshop any longer. I need to purchase it because my trial membership ran out. So as soon as I can do that and create a new header with new pictures this will have to do. It was fun though playing with the different backgrounds. Can you believe people get paid big bucks to custom design blog layouts? I wish I was talented like that but I can barely do the basics in Photoshop. Here are some sites that have some cool free layouts:

http://leeloublogs.blogspot.com
http://thecutestblogontheblock.com

This one is not free but her layouts are amazing, but no way am I paying that kind of money. I'd have to come up with a really good reason to Jerry as to why I had to spend $100 on a blog layout!

http://blogsbydanielle.blogspot.com


I think I need to take a Photoshop class...

3 Day Weekends

Oh how I love 3 day weekends. I think every weekend should be 3 days :-) No really, 2 days is just not enough but 3 is just perfect.

We survived the first week of school. It went well and so far so good with teachers, classes etc. But we have not started our extra activities yet so that will put another layer of stress. Bianca will start tennis this next week. Matthew still has a couple weeks before T-ball begins, but I have no idea what the schedule will be yet. I have a 1 activity rule per kid. Anything more becomes too stressfull with work, school, homework, etc.

The weekend was nice. Friday for my birthday Jerry took me to Ferraris for some good Italian food, creme brulee, and pina colada martinis. Saturday I went Birthday shopping while Jerry was glued to the couch watching college football. That is how most of our Saturdays will be for the next couple of months, LOL :-) I took Bianca and 2 of her friends with me to the mall. We had dinner and good 4 hours of non stop shopping. It was a lot of fun!

Sunday my parent's and Granny came over for dinner. I made Pioneer Woman's Best Lasagna Ever and Best Ever Chocolate Sheet Cake! YUMMY!

Monday my entire family came over for a fish fry. My Brother-in-law caught a ton of fish at my parent's lake house a few weeks ago so we fried it up with french fries and hush puppies.

My wonderful husband got up early and drove to Dallas to buy me Sprinkle Cupcakes since we were celebrating my birthday with the family today. I was actually expecting him to bring them home on Friday for my birthday?. He only works about 2 minutes from there. He said the thought never crossed his mind, LOL. I do not think he will forget next year :-) He bought a variety of flavors, some I have not had yet. I cannot wait to try them.

This weekend and been nonstop food fest. Tomorrow it's back to the diet!

The rest of today we will spend getting ready for the week. Luckily its a short week with the holiday. I'll be counting the days until next weekend :-)

First Day of School!

Where did the summer go? It is so quiet here in my house it is scary; however, I only have 2 more hours until I have to pick Matthew up from his first day of Kindergarten.

Both kids had "Meet The Teacher" nights last week. Bianca's 3 teacher team is ok, she would have like to have another "team" but only time will tell how this year will go. She was actually excited to go back. I think the summer was a bit long for her. She couldnt sleep last night though!, LOL. She is in 6th and they are the "seniors" of the intermediate school so she did not even care. Next year will be whole different story with middle school.

I think Matthew was oblivious to the whole "kindergarten" thing. He was in preschool and I really think he thought he was going back there, LOL. He was so excited this morning, put on his backpack, took pictures,etc. We got to school and all the kids had to go to the gym an line up by class. It was the moment we entered the gym that I think he finally understood. He had a look of terror on his face and was holding my hand so tight. I made him sit with his class. He looked straight ahead and did not crack a smile for about 5 minutes. He was like a deer in headlights. Then the little boy in front him started to talk to him and he loosened up some. They then took them to their class. It was so hard to hold back the tears but I did not want him to see me cry because it would make him more anxious.

So hear I am sitting in the quiet house, drinking my coffee. I cannot believe both kids are in school now. My Birthday is this Friday and I will be over the mid-thirty hump and it's a little depressing but nothing that night out with the girls won't cure :-)

Counting My Blessings!

It's been a very emotional and exhausting week. My grandfather who is 90 years old was in the hospital. He has cancer and some other things wrong. He will be having some surgery in the next couple weeks. So I decided I needed to go see him in Northern Pennsylvania. My parents left last Monday and drove and Tommy and I flew out on Saturday morning. Then we had news that my cousin passed away. He was only 45 years old. He had 3 boys, one leaving for college in 2 weeks. They live in the same town my grandfather so Tommy and I got to go to the funeral and see aunts, unlces, and cousins we had not seen in almost 20 years. We also met quite few 2nd cousins and 1 third cousin! It was just so sad to see a family's life turned upside down in a blink of an eye and made me appreciate so much more what I have and how blessed we are.

While we were up there we decided to drive to Buffalo to see my Godparents. They are both in their 80's now and I had not seen them in almost 5 years. They are the sweetest people and have the best childhood memories of them.

It was just so emotional with the funeral, my sick grandfather and seeing my Godparents. I just pray this will not be the last time I see them but the reality is that it just might be.


We took tons of pictures, BUT I forgot my digital camera so had to go buy a disposable so now I have to go get them developed! How did we ever live without digital cameras, LOL :-)

Then all heck broke lose at work this week while I was gone and we were acquired by another company. We pretty much knew it was coming but nobody knew when or who. So I missed the 2 days of meetings!

On a lighter note, we only have 10 days of summer vacation left. It is bittersweet. I love summer but it will be good to get back to a normal schedule again. I'm not looking forward to the busy schedules though. Jerry and I are both in school, matthew will be doing T-ball and Bianca will be doing Basketball. Not to mention that work is going to get a little chaotic with the acquistion. It should be a busy few months leading up to Christmas. I do plan to do a couple fun things next week before school starts. Most likely visit the waterpark one more time and go to the IMAX theatre in Fort Worth that just reopened last week!

I've got most of the kids stuff ready for school. Bianca and I did her clothes, school/locker supplies before I left. Matthew, I just need to go find construction paper. Everybody was sold out! I'll use next week to get all laundry done and the family household schedule created in Excel and posted (yeah I'm a bit anal) but I have to have everything organized before school starts or I will feel out of control. I think I may need a therapy session, LOL :-)

Happy Birthday to Matthew!

I know a little late but we celebrated the entire month of July :-)

His actual Birthday was July 8 but most of my family was out of town so we did not have his actual birthday party until much later in July.

On July 8th we ate at Chili's, his favorite restaurant, for lunch and then we headed to NRH20 meet up with my sister and his cousins. He had a blast and he was exhausted.







Later in July we had his party at Incredible Pizza. He wanted a dinosaur theme. It was a lot of fun and Matthew is still talking about it, LOL :-)