Got Power?

Mom doesn't have power but I do so she's staying with us until her power is back on. Right now the estimate is Saturday for the return of power to Lancaster. Today is Thursday. I lost power for like 3 whole minutes and it came back on so we got lucky. My grandpa in Manchester doesn't have power and neither does my dad. So I'm guessing all my other family in West Union and southern Ohio don't have power either. My dad has a generator and he said he put his food from the freezer outside in the snow and ice...CLEVER! And he put his fridge stuff in the garage. Genious idea! Too bad we didn't think of that when we picked up my mom yesterday. The roads are just so icy and impassable. Richard couldn't even go to work yesterday. And then just about an hour ago Brenden slipped on the driveway trying to shovel it and couldn't put pressure on his leg, so I carried all 76 pounds of him in the house. Can you say heavy! But he's ok now so no broken bones. Our school system is already over their snow days limit by 2 days. I don't know if they'll have school tomorrow or not. It's hard to tell right now because the roads are still crap and we are still a Level 2 emergency. It took Richard 2 hours to get to work this morning. That drive on a normal day is 35 minutes. Clearly he took my car and not his camaro, he'd like to keep that for a while and that car is not made for icy roads. Ok, well, everyone stay warm!

Ah-Choo!

I've been sick since last week and I'm finally starting to feel better. The only thing lingering is the stuffy nose. I had a horrible cough and runny nose and sneezing for the last part of last week and felt horrible. I hate being sick. I got nothing done around the house on Thursday and Friday and I'm now catching up on laundry today that should have been done last week.

We got a little bit of snow yesterday and Brenden got to earn $5 to shovel the driveway. He did a good job too. We thought he'd be sore today but he never complained before school of hurting. And after shoveling, he stayed outside and went sledding too. Spencer played outside with him for all of 10 minutes before coming in and Cassidy stayed in. No way was I gonna go play when I've been feeling like crap. It looks like we may be getting anothe 2-4" over tonight and tomorrow. There is an awesome hill at the football field Brenden's football games were at that the boys are waiting to go sledding at. Maybe we'll be able to do that this week.

Ok, have a great week everyone. Have fun in the snow!

Calgon...take me away!

The boys are fighting like crazy today. We have a snow day and all I hear from them is yelling at each other because each of them wants to do something different and blah, blah, blah boy stuff! It is too cold to let them go outside and play and they've already played the Wii for a while this morning until I said to give it a break for a while. I told Brenden he can't go to his friends house until later because he needs to stay and play with Spencer for a while. Spencer gets so hurt because Brenden is always going to a friends house and never playing with him. AARRGGHH! I'm just having one of those days!

Re: Spencer

I took Spencer to the Doctor earlier this week because for the past month he's been complaining of a stomach ache very often and it brings him to tears. Turns out he may be lactose intolerant and he's off of cheese and milk right now and drinking lactaid milk, which he likes, so that's good.
He also may just have the stomach flu virus still in his system and all the cheese he's had lately from Christmas time platters and his daily milk may have just irritated him so I have to keep a food diary on him and then re-introduce dairy back into his diet in a few weeks and see if he's better. He had the same reaction as a baby and had internal bleeding due to too much milk protein from the milk and dairy I was having, rememeber I'm a breastfeeding mama, and I had to wean him at 5 1/2 months. But when he turned one and started regular milk he never had a problem, so I'm hoping it was too much at one time and his body needs a break from it for a bit. So I'm hoping for the best here.

Julie's Top 10 Memories from 2008

Here is my top ten list of memories, good and bad, from 2008.

10.) The Blizzard. It came on Cassidy's second birthday forcing us to reschedule her birthday party. We let her open a few presents that day anyway since it was her birthday and got her some cupcakes.

09.) My mom moved to Lancaster. It has been nice to have her close by to see the kids more often, to have dinner weekly with us, and to watch the kids for date night!

08.) Richard was "downsized" from MacTools. We were very fortunate to have a nice severence package though. He essentially had a teachers summer since he didn't fiind another job until mid August.

07.) Family vacation at OBX. We always enjoy our vacation in the OuterBanks and this year my dad joined us for a few days. it was nice to have my dad join us. I hadn't been on a vacation with my dad since junior high school. The kids enjoyed hunting for crabs with papaw.

06.) The fence painting. Man that took forever. We painted, and by we I mean Richard, the fence white this summer and it looks great but took 2-3 weeks to get done with the heat. The kids and I did help with the inside of the fence.

05.) Put a hold on selling the house. Pretty much everyone knew we were looking to move to South Carolina or North Carolina. We love the beach so much and wanted to be within a few hours drive to the coast. Losing the job pretty much halted that! So then we decided to stick around here and the market goes down the crapper! We will wait it out and try again in 12-18 months, sooner hopefully, depending on the economy. I really, really, really am ready to move.

04.) Spencer started Kindergarten. And it was all day kindergarten at that. I didn't know how I'd make it through all day without my Spencer home with me. The first week was stange and sad. But I'm cool now. And Spencer loves school and has a best friend named Zack.

03.) My mommy and me days. I had a fun time with Cassidy at the Wiggles concert, Spencer at Chuck E Cheese and Brenden at the Jonas Brothers concert. It is nice to have a day alone with each kid separately.

02.) Cassidy is potty trained. Enough said.

01.) The Blackout of 2008. Who can forget that one. We had hurricane force winds that left lots of my neighbors with missing siding, shingles, limbs from trees and entire trees and of course without power for days and some even weeks. We were lucky and only lost power for about 6 hours and had no damage to our house or property. My mom lost her power for 3 days and other parts of Lancaster lived 1 or 2 weeks without power. Schools were closed for 3 days using calamity days that I hope they don't need this winter.

So there you have it. I hope you all have a happy New Year and achieve everything you want to achieve in the new year. I wish you all good health, prosperity and love!

Cassidy is a "big girl" now

No more pullups! Cassidy is officially potty trained. She stays dry at night too. I'll still keep some pull ups around for Brenden's game days and long car trips right now as a "just in case" so she doesn't have an accident at the game or in the car. But she's telling me she has to go or just going on in to the bathroom when she has to go and she's telling me at the store too. I'm so proud of her.

We're almost done with Christmas shopping. We are going out this weekend to get a few more things for the kids. We go to Pam's (Richard's sister) house on Saturday night to celebrate Christmas with her and her family. This is the first year we aren't going to her house on Christmas morning ever. Melinda and Jason are going to Montana to visit Jason's family this year for Christmas. We have a game at 5 and have to go to Pam's right after that. Busy night.

Picture with Santa

Not the greatest quality picture I know. I took my old camera with me since it is small forgetting that the reason I got a new camera is because the old one was not performing so well anymore and pictures were turning out blurry, as seen above! So hopefully the picture that the lady took will be better. I can pick them up today after 4pm. Here's hoping she got a good one. I know she took one of Cassidy sticking her tongue out because she commented that she had to get that one because it was so cute. But while it may be cute, that's not the picture this mom wants! If it's crap, I'll take them to the mall. This was done at WalMart where they were giving you free picutres with Santa. And being the penny pincher that I am, I couldn't pass up a free picture.