This Is It

364/365

(ok... i'm off on my numbers. today should be 365/365. guess i need to go figure out where i went wrong.)

i got up around 7-ish and got ready. then went and picked up a dozen winchell's donuts for new year's eve day donuts. (this is the third year for this tradition, i believe)

later, me, max and madi went to costco to pick up some prints. a new valentine's one for the 1825 blog. was supposed to head over to chuck e cheese to meet up with jodie, but darric remembered his golf clubs were in the back of my car still. so i quickly ran those home to him and headed back to chuck e cheese, where i still ended up waiting for our other guests to get there. jodie, janie and their kiddos. we ordered pizza. the kids played until all of their tokens were gone. we have the 2 tokens at a time rule, so we get to see them a lot while we're there. they cashed in their tickets and each got a little something and we headed out.

kenzie was at home with another earache. she finished all of her antibiotics and was feeling fine and last night it started bugging her again. she kept texting me asking when we were coming home. and letting me know that she wanted a smoothie. we stopped for gas and then grabbed starbuck's drinks instead. she was happy with a strawberries and cream frappucino. 

we just hung out at home and cleaned up a little while we waited for darric to return from golfing. it was pretty chilly out today, but he said it wasn't too bad on the golf course. he didn't golf a whole lot. i think three holes and he was done. ;)

dave, christi and tyler came over at 7:00. i made some more of the cheese dip and had a couple other dips too. kenzie came and laid on the couch while the other kids (max, madi, tyler, dave and darric) started a nerf gun fight. me and christi ended up joining them until we were all a little worn out. we played a game of loaded questions, one round of scribblish and apples to apples. and then we had about 20 minutes to sit and watch the news until it was midnight. darric checked the weather and it was actually colder here than it was in new york. glad i was inside.

kenzie and madi both made it til midnight. max had fallen asleep around 9:30. he was bummed the next morning that he didn't get to do any poppers. (that would be darric's fault since he thought it was funny to do all of them... in my ear)

12.31.10 (friday) good-bye 2010

363/365

dancing to madi's wii game. quincy had to put her boots on to dance because the girl in the game had boots on.

i've been sleeping in a little later every day. it's been pretty nice. max and i ran to albertsons to get stuff for tomorrow night. i used my new shopping list thing for the tab. p.s. darric gave me his beloved galaxy tab. he cut the umbilical cord and passed it on to me. i guess his new phone that he got from work does everything he needs (except books, but he'll use my tab for that).

jodie and the kiddos came over. jodie ran to the store and then brought us back some cafe rio. the kids got to play, but it's never long enough according to them.

i worked on some more blog stuff after they left. it was chilly out today. like, really chilly. to the bone. glad we were mostly inside. 

we had lasagna for dinner. the oven managed to stay on the entire time. i don't know why i keep buying these. easy? yes. good? no. 

we played at least 6 games of chutes and ladders. i still find myself heading in the wrong direction sometimes because i don't pay attention to the numbers. and i'm still teaching max and madi about good sportsmanship. kenzie's ear started hurting her a little bit and she went to bed really early. let's hope it's all better by the morning.

12.30.10 (thursday)

362/365

these photos are from dec. 26th. the boys put up the basketball game. darric showed max how to properly shoot the ball into the hoop. then max went for the dunk. he did pretty good. now i just have to clean a few scuff marks off the door.

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we hung out at home today and i got a lot of stuff done. mostly stuff for the blog, but that counts. the house was cleaned, we passed off jesse's gifts that were left here, we made a run to the bank and sonic for drinks, madi played lps and just dance.

we had goulash for dinner. and hopefully madi didn't have dance, because we totally forgot about it.

12.29.10 (wednesday)

361/365

 
i didn't have a photo for today, so i'm sharing my christmas card tree. the one i got at pier one.

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once our chores were done, we went over to jodie's. all of us, jen, jacob and grace and jodie and her kids. the kids played/teased each other. us girls had a "meeting". we did get a bit done today. in between lunch, tattle telling and feeding piper more mini melt away mints. 

we left around 3:00. surprise, surprise, max was not happy to leave. he fell asleep on our way to the neighborhood wal-mart to get stuff for dinner tonight and the next 2 nights.

we had a dinner from the microwave. lloyd's bbq pork sandwiches and mashed potatoes. ick. it was kinda gross. the potatoes weren't too bad. but, darric saying they smelled like dog food didn't really help.

i left the house at 5:30 and sat in traffic for 25 minutes and then finally made it to the starbucks to meet up with millisa and see baby joel for the first time. it was nice to sit and catch up for awhile. :)

12.28.10 (tuesday)

360/365

  his dad's ipod, his kid-friendly earphones, his bed head relaxing on his grappling dummy.

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today pretty much consisted of...

laundry... at least 6 loads of it.
just dance II... madi's new wii game
vacuuming all the rooms
lunch from sonic... i wanted a drink
a game of toy story chutes and ladders
bubble blowing in the backyard... first max got the bubbles down, but madi joined him
potato soup in the crock pot... with some of jude's leftover rolls
thinking i lost all of the pictures on my computer
darric finding all of my pictures... after rebooting the computer
crackers and cheeseball... darric made a special trip to walgreens for the ritz crackers
the long movie robin hood... with russell crowe eye candy :) 

12.27.10 (monday)

359/365

darric and the kids got up and cleaned the house for me while i continued to lie in bed with my eyes closed sleep. the house seriously looked like a tornado had gone through it, pulling things from the fridge and cupboards. i even made the kids lock their bedroom doors last night and it still managed to get trashed. i was not looking forward to cleaning it and was so glad to hear the fam doing it for me. even if there was a little bit of arguing in the living room between madi and max.

i got up and got ready and went to sonic for drinks and lunch. i just wanted a drink since i was planning on snacking on the rolls and goodies all day. madi painted her bobble head. she was almost done and got some blue paint on the chicks face and couldn't get it off, so that made her mad. 

i was hitting my bag without water in the bottom and knocked it over, into the ledge which knocked over my card tree and ornaments and snowman music box thing. there was glass shattered all over the place because it fell in the kitchen on the tile floor. oops. that got cleaned up and then i kept cleaning and put away all of the christmas decorations. including the tree. i was done with christmas. until next year.

while i cleaned up madi and max's rooms, darric took the kids to albertsons so kenzie could get some cake mix and frosting to try out her new gift. that's what she worked on the rest of the afternoon. cupcakes with fancy frosting on the top.

darric put together max's basketball thing and the two of them practiced shooting the ball into the little basket. madi opened up her just dance II wii game and played for a little while. darric showed me how to jab, right, hook... with water in the bottom of the heavy bag to hold it down. 

that night, we all gathered into the living room to watch despicable me. (max's gift)

12.26.10 (sunday)

357/365

christmas eve day was pretty blah. i started to clean up the house, but when i got to swiffering my bathroom floor, i raged out a bit because it does not work good. so... i was done cleaning. even though the floors needed to be vacuumed and the kids bathroom needed swiffering too. oh well. 

darric had to go run a call. even though he wasn't on call. i put together some nacho cheese dip in the crock pot to take to the sedillo's. it was pretty easy and really good (thank goodness).

we left our house a little after 4:00. we swung by cvs for some tp and tylenol for kenzie. then headed to the sedillo's. darric was nice enough to stop at sonic for me. they had half price drinks all day. we had dinner. traditional christmas eve mexican food. steve brought his regular cheese enchiladas and some new chicken enchiladas. they were good. jen also made her chicken enchiladas. and there were taquitos and my dip and jen's salsa (which i'm very glad she decided to make). 

when we finished eating, jen got out the search and find books. those kept the kids busy for a little while.

the talent show was next. since kenzie was still under the weather, we had to replace her as the announcer. cade, gladly filled the position. he went first with his christmas jokes. then mason was next with his jokes. he was a little annoyed by madi when she answered them. 

 

mackenzie was able to play jingle bells for us on her viola, madi played jolly old saint nicholas on her recorder, gracie sang two songs for us (and we got to jingle bells for one of them), quincy did some dancing and so did beckam (along with some ironman moves). max refused to do his at first, but then finally came out into the middle of the room and did a quick kick and punch for all of us. coda finally told us his knock knock joke... it went jokes, jokes, jokes (as he pointed to the palm of his hand each time). the melton family surprised us with their talent. jodie played a few notes on the keyboard, while matt sang and the kiddos danced. jen did the splits and grandma did a halfway headstand. i skipped the moonwalk because i was without socks and sweaty feet don't move too smoothly.

we sang some christmas songs and slowly lost all of the kids to something more interesting in the other rooms. ;) 

we passed out everyone's new pajamas. they opened them up and went to put them on. then we passed out the cousin gift exchange gifts. and they each took a turn opening their gifts. max got two sets of lincoln logs, madison got scented press-on nails, a latchhook wall art and a ceramic bobble head cheerleader to paint. kenzie got a cover for her kindle and a $15 itunes giftcard. i think this is the first year we've done the gift exchange on christmas eve.

grandma dee set out a large selection of books for the kids to choose from. she let them each pick two. sandy gave each of us older girls a gift (calendar, mini meltaway mints and a great harvest gift card). we gathered a couple leftovers and all of our stuff and headed home. 

me, madi and max sprinkled some of the *reindeer food over the front yard and came inside to get everyone to bed. of course, max was the last one. he eventually fell asleep in the living room watching some christmas show.

santa got to work putting together the girls' big gifts, as i finished wrapping presents and filling stockings. that's my favorite part. we were probably in bed by midnight.

*the reindeer food was loved by the pigeons

12.24.10 (friday)

356/365

      

we had sun this morning. and scattered white clouds in a bright blue sky. beautiful!! (they eventually turned into grey clouds in a blue-ish sky.)

mackenzie had been in pain all morning. even with the tylenol. i called and made her an appointment and then ran to get our holiday groceries from albertsons, leaving the three of them at home to get ready. 

her appointment was at 11:30 with desimone. the wait wasn't too bad. but, trying to keep max and madi from fighting with each other, is another story. the doctor came in and looked at her ear. she said it was really red and swollen. she wrote up two prescriptions, an antibiotic and an ear drop, and we were on our way. we just went down durango and over the 2-15 to the cvs there. dropped off the rx, picked up lunch next door and picked up the rx's at the drive-thru. only $20. cheaper than the doctor's office co-pay.

we came home, gave mackenzie a dose of both medications and she went to sleep. we turned on the classic christmas movies while we ate. i tried to make martha's salted caramel chocolate bars.

darric got home with a christmas present from work. a work phone. which kept him busy for quite awhile. i made tacos for dinner. max isn't the best dinner date these days. he doesn't want to eat anything and he gets mad and usually leaves the table a few times. something needs to change.

madi and max kinda-sorta watched the santa clause with me. they were bouncing all over the place. madi is still trying to figure out her talent for tomorrow's talent show. she's been thinking about it all day. max... i don't know what's going on with him. every time he gets cranky and we threaten him with the whole santa won't bring you any toys, he lets us know that he doesn't care and that he will punch santa in the face. but, once he's in a good mood again, he's all excited for christmas. and a big believer in santa and his elf charlie, who has been staying with us this past month.

i can't believe tomorrow is christmas eve. it totally does NOT feel like it and i'm a bit bummed. it's all going to be over so soon. hopefully my attitude changes before tomorrow night's festivities. 

12.23.10 (thursday)

christmas card 2010

355/365

the big rain puddle... puzzle and elf

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we got up and got ready. kenzie was feeling a little better. she was just annoyed that it felt like there was something in her ear. luckily she was able to help me with the caramel popcorn. then i didn't have to look up the ingredients. we packed up the popcorn and went to pick up christi and chase. 

 

it had been raining almost all night and still hadn't stopped. we went out to the cheap theater in henderson to see tangled. we got drinks and went and found some seats. we had to split our group down the middle. the theater only sat 6 on each side. grandma, jen, mason, grace, beckam and quincy all met us there too. the movie was so cute. and almost made me cry like a baby 3 or 4 times. 

it was still raining when we came out. a little bit harder than before. we were almost home, coming down serene and right in front of walmart, a car pulled out in front of us. i pushed on my brakes and we slowly continued to slide towards the car (thanks to the slick roads). i quickly decided to turn to the right to miss hitting the car. thank goodness nobody was right next to us. it took a couple seconds for the fear to finally hit me and my heart started pounding.

max wasn't aware of what had just happened. he continued to fight and argue with everyone and anyone. he wanted me to just drop christi and chase off on the corner (leaving them with an umbrella, of course). little butthead. we dropped them off at home, in one piece and mostly dry... then went and picked up el pollo loco. we came home and turned on elf. madi worked on the new puzzle and kenzie slept... after i put some more ear drop stuff in her ear.

it was a free for all at dinner time. kenzie's ear felt worse as the night went on. we tried the blow dryer, gum, tylenol, ear drops, heat pad. nothing did the trick. hopefully tomorrow is better.

12.22.10 (wednesday)