Okay so I'm a bad blogger

Oh, so infrequent in my blog entries! November completely was off the wall for me. I had two serious medical problems and was in the hospital on and off for a month! Nearly losing your pancreas and liver is very scary. I'm completely okay now and very grateful for a healthy body and a great family. I missed the kids terribly since the hospital didn't allow visits at first!

My oldest is going to be 14 at the end of January. I'm too young for this. Mentally speaking I think! Blake is 9 years old and as energetic as ever. My dd Vi will be 4 at the end of April. Kristen, 13 is getting her Confirmation in May. They grow up so fast!

My mother started in real estate and had her first closing! She has another one set to close and has her first listing! I'm so incredibly proud of her! My mom is so quiet and reserved that I wasn't sure if this was a fit for her. However, she is really proving herself. She stuck with it even when she didn't succeed at first.

I got out of public accounting. I now work 40 hours a week instead of 80 and got a bump in salary. My coworkers are friendly. Imagine that! The cool thing is that I work 3 minutes from my sister's house so I've stopped by for lunch sometimes!

Up early. Why????

My coffee is brewing and let me just tell you that night of the living dead Patti needs it. I had to drive Kiki to school today because she had two pans of brownies for orchestra, her violin and backpack. Orchestra just has to be at 7am! Coffee still isn't done. No I'm not impatient.

Last night Kiki went to her dance classes and she was one of 3 children there! The students who attended the infected Jr. High stayed home. Imagine that? I have renewed faith in society. Parents who follow rules and have common sense. It was nice that she got some individualized instruction. Apparently, the instructor for dance is smart too. She began each class asking if any of the students went to the infected school. If they did, she was going to suggest that she call the parents and they be given an opportunity to go home instead of participating to follow the directions of the department of health. Instructor told me, when I picked Kiki up, that apparently the director of dance, who I spoke to, decided that it was a very good idea to ask the students to follow the suggestion of the department of public health. I was floored that they listened.

Coffee ready. Ah! Okay, got some of that into my bones!

I got my act together and have some pictures of Blake's First Communion from last Sunday! He's so handsome and was the only one wearing a beige tweed suit. Every other boy had navy or black. I thought Blake looked handsome! Okay, the most handsome but I'm his Mom and I'm allowed to say that. :)

On the way to the church, Vi was her usual, 3-year old self. She had a fit about something, scratched Blake's cheek with her fingernail and covered her eyes the rest of the trip to the church.

Here's the cross at the front of the church. Love that carving.

Here are Vi, Blake, and Kiki outside before Communion. We were early since I lied to Warren about the time we had to be there. LOL

Now this is not a sign from St. Stephen that all is right with the world but rather glare on my camera lens despite my UV filter and hood. I had to laugh when reviewing my photos from that day because it almost looks like St. Stephen is glowing!

Here is Blake with my sister who is Blake's Godmother!




Here is Blake with all of us outside the church.

The next two pictures are from inside the church. No pictures or video are allowed during Mass but we were allowed to take pictures of the children entering the church and they gave us an opportunity at the end to take pictures of the group. I told Blake that I thought his marching partner was lovely. Blake said, "yes, I got to march with the prettiest girl in my class and she is nice too." LOL

Last, a picture of just Blake on his special day.

Well that is all for this morning. Just wanted to share our photos and our special day.

Great! Swine Flu is here.

As if we needed anything else. There is a probable case of swine flu at the other Jr. High in our district. That school is closed until Friday. The Jr. High that Kiki goes to is still open and so is Blake's school. Students at the infected school are not to congregate in public places. So what do they do? Go to the mall, dance lessons at the park district, etc. Grrr! The park district will not refuse the students from the infected school entry to the park district programs.

So the plan is to take Kiki to her dance classes tonight, and see if the two students in her dance class who attend Algonquin school show up. If they do, I'm handing the parents a copy of the press release from the district superintendent with the relevant language highlighted. If the parents don't take their kids home, I'm talking Kiki home. I just don't get why people are so irresponsible! I'm hoping I don't see these children at dance class.

So now I am unemployed

Yes, just a little scary but we are okay. So glad we live well below our means! I wound up getting a new job that has a nice salary hike. I've also been able to spend time with my children and husband so the way I see it, I won out in a way. My new job is business professional and is a corporation. No more tax seasons for me! My children and husband will definitely appreciate that!

Dh was feeling energetic and he turned all the soil in my garden. I then kidnapped Kiki and dragged her first to the dress shop to find a dress for tomorrow. Would you believe my 13-year old does not own even one dress? Well now she does. It's really cute on her. Kiki said she likes it because it's green and because it makes her look like she has boobs. lol Shocked the heck out of me!

So after dress shopping, we went to the gardening store and bought my garden plants: peppers and tomatoes. We also bought 2 flats of annual flowers. One each of pink snapdragons
and purple and white pansies. My pansies are like the photo but they have the edges lined in white.
We also got some bulbs for the front. The way I feel about gardening, is that it is okay for me to bend over and dig in the dirt in my private backyard. However, I don't want to have to fuss each year to make my front yard look nice. The neighbors don't need to see me bend over and dig in my garden. So the bulbs will mean that I don't have to replant my front yard each year but have it look nice year after year with pretty flowers. Right now I have hyacinths which are blooming in the front of my garden. They smell heavenly and are right outside my living room window. I've also got some lavendar growing in the back part of my garden by the window. The smell together is really nice! Also, some yellow tulips. I'm guessing everyone knows what tulips look like.

For the front parts of our garden, we got anemone bulbs. It's a mix and the flowers are white, red, purple and fushia. It's for the front part of the garden because they only grow about a foot high.

Then comes the middle part of the garden beds. I have some perenial plants in already but they are early to late spring flowers. So, to add something to the summer season I got liatris, which is a purple spiky looking thing.

We also got tigridia, which needs a photo because it is very unique looking flower.


Then for the back part of the garden in the front yard. The idea is to plant the tall plants in back, the mid height in the middle and the low in the front. Kind of like chorus where the tall ones have to stand in the back and the short, cute girls get to stand in the front. :rock :snicker (Yes, I was the gangly looking tall girl relegated to the back row!)

I got a mix of oriental lillies, which include the stargazer lillies that I like so much.


There are some white and light pink lillies that are also oriental lillies. Oriental lillies grow from a bulb and tend to not spread and go all over the place like daylillies often do. However, the bulbs often will grow little babies over many years and if you dig them up and separate the babies from the parent and replant every 5 years or so, you'll get more.

I also got some tiger lilies. They bloom earlier than the oriental lilies which should help to keep my garden interesting.

Both the lilies that I got will get to about 3.5 to 4 feet tall. That's why they go in back.

Then I got sone dinnerplate dahlias. I got lavendar ones and pink ones. They grow about 3.5 to 4 feet tall and the blooms are the size of a dinnerplate!


This next picture shows how big they get! Bigger than a child's face. Amazing, huh?

To finish off the plants in back, I got some red and yellow cannas. They get up to 5 feet tall. Here's a picture of some red ones.

I haven't planted my bulbs yet but we did everything in the back yard, except for some of my large round pots. I actually ran out of flowers for those so I'll go back and get a few more flats early next week. I'm planning to do the bulbs in the front yard Monday. Vi was great today helping me plant my veggies and annual flowers. :awe When we were all done, she cried and cried. Poor baby!

Now I am off to tailor Blake's pants for tomorrow. My boy is making his first holy communion!

First post of the year

Yes, I'm a bad blogger. *hides under desk* But we finished out the summer, had a fun time with autumn, and the holiday season. My husband is being moved to this crazy work schedule 2am to 10am. Crazy!

I'm been trying not to make a big deal out of my headaches but they are getting bad again which is pretty annoying. I spent nearly a week in the hospital with a migraine last fall which wasn't great but luckily, I found a daily medicine that seems to help. Except the past two days. It is such a relief when the pain is gone that I'm reminded what is important and try not to take the good things in life for granted. It is weird how I can still function when I get a migraine. A few years ago I would have called my more mild migraines debilitating but they are somewhat tolerable. Sometimes they get very bad and that sucks.

I try not to worry because the doc does an MRI every year to make sure nothing is seriously wrong because of these headaches. I worry that something will happen to me and then Warren will have to take care of everything himself.

Life has been crazy

I took the trip with the ladies to DC and New York and we really had a blast. My plane was delayed a whole day because of really bad whether at the airport. When I finally arrived in DC, my friends and I went to an awesome Italian restaurant and we had some great wine, awesome food and wonderful conversation.

One of the first things I noticed was that I got to walk and talk without someone asking me for something. That's a new one and a nice treat for a mom with 3 children. I got to see the Korean war memorial at night which was pretty spooky.

Here is a pic of the Korean war memorial.

Then we saw the Lincoln Memorial and looked across to the Washington memorial. Very cool! Last time I was in DC, I saw the Washington memorial with my husband and Kristen she was only 2 years old!

So two of the ladies and I took a Bolt bus from DC to NYC. It took maybe 3.5 hours but they said it could take likely 4 hours. We were ahead of schedule and no one was complaining about that!

So finally in NYC. We checked in at the hotel and checked our bags with the clerk and we were off for some lunch at a NY deli. No tomatoes because of the tomato scare but we found some decent burgers and sandwiches to eat. Hung out for awhile and gabbed and finally it was time to check out our room. My friend Jenn told me it was a two bedroom and it was also a two bathroom. That was pretty cool. Three ladies and one bathroom is doable but three ladies and two bathrooms was awesome. Our hotel was old and the hair dryer would only work in one of the bathrooms without blowing a fuse. However, the location was ideal and the room was clean and spacious, especially for NYC.

We walked around and checked out NYC. Stopped for some NY pizza for dinner. I loved it. Even being a Chicagoan, I can appreciate other pizza. (We do have the best pizza in Chicago - shamless plug.) All of the sudden, there was this really strong wind. All of us had dirt on our faces and grit in our eyes. Stopped by Footlocked to check out some shoes and when we got out, there was a monsoon or something and a guy selling umbrellas. So all three of us got umbrellas and walked for a bit until we saw the theatre and saw Sex in the City, the movie. Of course we saw it. What a great movie. I wasn't really even a big fan of the show and I loved it and am now watching reruns. Anyway, the storm was over by the time the movie ended and we walked back to our hotel.

So the next day we had theater tickets to see Gypsy. Before the show we ate at this place that had these awesome salads and stews and then the men would come out with the meats on sticks and slice them for you! There was sauce to put on the meat and it was heavenly. So glad I'm a carnivore! We finally surrendered our discs so they would know we were done and we saw our show. Awesome show. After the show, we stopped for cheese cake at Junior's and that was awesome! I had fresh strawberries on mine and it was perfect.

That's it for this post. I'll post more of our trip in my next post.

Off on a Jet Plane

Well this Sunday I'm off on a jet plane with the girls. Yes, I'm 35 years old and never have been away on vacation without my family. Married for 10 years too! I'm going to DC and NYC and I'm very excited. I've been to DC before but never NYC.

My dh turned 45 today. I love him very much but this morning he was snoring. Why is it that a friend can snore and it is not a big deal but your husband snores and it is annoying? I have a gift for him. A new gym bag and a pair of racing swim speedos. (He wanted this!) I suppose that gift counts as a gift for a man in a midlife crisis. How very cute.

Kiki has her dance recitals today and tomorrow. Each day there is an afternoon show and an evening show. I'll catch the evening show today and the afternoon show tomorrow before I catch my evening flight. They finally made the hip hop costume fit correctly. Some saintly mother is also a seamstress and she sewed a brand new costume for Kiki. It is the correct size. Still an ugly costume but at least she looks appropriate.

Violet, my darling two year old is so wonderfully two. Do you want X, Vi? No. How about Y? No. How about Z? No. I want X!!!!! Yes, welcome to my world!

While I am gone my dh has the week off work. Vi is going to daycare and the older kids are going to day camp. Dh is going to build a wall of shelving and storage in our living room. Just one computer armoire is not enough for the family paperwork and various items. I'll also have room to display my art scultures and stuff. I've never had that before. He is also getting some work done on the front of the house. That will be a neat treat to return to something new without having to agonize over the installation of it.

Cold from Hell and Life goes on

I have the cold from hell. My nose it stuffed up so bad and it hurts to breathe. I've been dealing with this since Wednesday. Today, I took Alka-Seltzer Cold and Sinus but it was the night time formula. Seems that everything I've been doing is in slow motion. Well, I'm in slow motion. LOL

Anyway, I thought I'd post some pics of my family, just because I can think enough to do that.

This is us at the indoor Conservatory.

Darling daugher Kiki.

Daddy and Vi the day before Mother's day.

Vi eating an apple.

Oh yes, and Vi screaming about her ball.

Vi getting into the craziest things. Dr. Pepper giant drink and sitting on top of the couch, peeking out our window.

Preteen clothing

Last night Kiki and I went with her friend to shop for some clothes. Kiki has been complaining about her clothing and apparently, I have old woman taste in clothes. Hey, it was bound to happen some time. It turned out good. We went to some trendy stores but the prices were pretty reasonable and her friend was pretty helpful. I think it was the mother-friend balance that really helped. Kind of like two extremes balancing each other out. I spent just over $200 but Kristen really needed stuff. I didn't know about the fingertip rule with shorts at her school. The shorts need to come down to at least her fingertips and hers are too short. Kiki's got my long arms and legs I think! Many of her shirts aren't long enough or she thinks they are babyish. So we bought her some more. Also a couple pairs of skinny jeans and capris. Not too skinny though! My baby is a size 1. This is our first foray into junior sizes. Kiki looks cute and her clothing is appropriate - not trashy like I feared.

Awesome morning

Isn't it funny how you expect a day to really be pretty crappy but then it turns out okay? Had the talk with Kiki's dance instructor about the costumes. Luckily, another student had a child's XL and let Kiki try it on. Fit her perfectly and did not make her look like a hoochie mama. Kiki had been given a child's medium. Another child was given a small and she tried on Kiki's medium and it fit her perfectly. Then there was N's daughter who got an adult small but really needed an adult medium top. So they really only need to buy one child XL and an adult medium top and all the girls will look okay. Thank goodness hoochie mama gate is over.

So on the way out, Kiki and Vi and I stopped by the boy scout car wash, made a donation to the troop and got my very dirty car washed. I had a nice talk with the people and I found out there is a boy scout troop at Blake's school. Didn't know that. Yeah, I'll get this mom of a son thing sooner or later I guess.

On the way home, I stopped by a garage sale and wound up having a great discussion with some people who are members of the photography club in my town. I didn't know we had a photography club. They meet a couple of times a month and I'm eager to get some feedback on some of my photos. I'm even more eager to get some ideas for shots.

We came home and my husband is putting up our ceiling fan finally. He bought it a month ago and I've been bugging him about a fan for 4 years. I hated the light that was up there before. A definite 1970s chandalier that I have hit my head on 10 times at least! Maybe that's why he kept it up there. LOL I can't wait until it is done. I just want to open all my windows and enjoy the nice weather we are having.