Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas today!

Brooke decided to share her flu with us and Matt and I were both half dead yesterday. =P Thankfully we're both feeling a bit better today and should be able to survive the chaos. Our house on the other hand looks like a bomb has gone off!

The kids were up at 6:30am! Drew was so excited that Santa actually came... I think he was a bit worried he might get a bunch of coal since he's a little monster. ;) He quickly opened all his gifts and then ran to go play with all of his old toys. haha Hannah's favorite gift was her new Ipod and she's been uploading new tunes on it most the morning. Brooke loves her new DS and the new American Girl doll stuff.

Tomorrow I will have to hit the after Christmas sales... just doing my part to stimulate the economy. ;)

0

That's how much money I have left after shopping all month...I kid, I kid!

That's the current temperature here. And with the windchill it's -18! OH. MY. HELL!

Even the dog thinks it's too cold... he pisses on the deck and runs right back in. =P

Would anyone like to buy a nice big house in the middle of hell? I think I'm going to go pitch a tent on the beach. ;)

21,000

No that's not how much I've spent shopping this year. lol

That's how many texts Hannah had for the month of November! 21,000 texts! Now keep in mind that for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week she can't even have the phone on. And then she sleeps approx. 8 hours a night! So in those other 8 hours a day she manages to rack up 21,000 texts! THANK GOD for unlimited texting or this little girl would be in a whole heap of trouble! =P

Yes... this is the same kid that has atleast a 100% in all of her classes. She's obviously figured out how to text up to 700 times a day and get her homework and studying done... so no need to interfere at this point.

I guess I should be thankful that she's not gabbing on our phone ALL the time like I always was at this age. It's a good thing my parents couldn't keep track of the minutes I was on the phone... I'm afraid it would be a similar number. And my grades weren't quite near 100%... okay maybe in gym class. lol

Twas the week before Christmas...

and as always I have TONS to do! I said I was going to cut back this year. Each of the kids have coughcoughatleast20giftscoughcough! Um yea... I went a little over board... AGAIN! I just can't help it. The stores keep sending me all these personal invitations to come shop...you know the ones... Dear Jenny, please enjoy 20% off for being one of our top customers! And you know me... I just can't turn down an invitation.. that would be rude! So I just.keep.shopping! But here's where I've gotten myself into trouble.... the kids are done and I just keep adding crap... but I still have another 6 people on my list that I haven't bought for yet. And all of those gifts have to be given on Friday! And you would think by now, that living in Ohio my whole freakin life, that I would know that there's a possibility that we may get bad weather and might be stuck for a few days. But noo.. I've never learned my lesson. So here I am... 2 days before I need these gifts... and we're getting an ice storm! Now typically I don't freak about the weather ( I just bitch about it because.. well I hate Ohio). I know that Clifford ( Matt's HUGE truck ) will get us through a blizzard! But when it comes to ice... Clifford will just go slamming into the tree faster than the others cars. =P I do have the option of crawling over to the Esther Price candy store and getting boxes of that crap if I get desperate enough.

This morning was Drew's Christmas party at preschool. Parents were invited to attend as well. I must say that this was the best preschool Christmas party I've ever been to! Well it's also the only preschool Christmas party I've ever been to because the girls went to the Jewish Center for preschool... poor things thought they were jewish for years! haha Anyways.. they had about 15 different activities set up for the kids. From snowman bingo to making gingerbread houses. Lots of creativity going on! And since they did it all... I now don't feel the need to make the mess at my house. ;) Some of the parents were complaining a little about how chaotic it was in there with so much going on. But I really thought it was quite calm. This tells me something about myself... I must live in complete chaos. lol I apologize to any past or future house guests... you probably think my house is pure nuts. =P Santa was there as well and each kid got to sit on his lap and ask him for something. All the kids asked for something very specific ( transformers, pokemon, polly pockets, etc.). Drew is the youngest by far in the class and simply asked for toys. Santa asked what kind of toys? Drew's response... the kind you play with. Um yea... my 3 year old is a smart ass. I wonder where that comes from?! hehe

I'm hoping to get the girls over to meet Bennett on Thursday. I've tried 3 times now to get over there and every time he's napping. Poor kid is all screwed up with the different time zone here. But he's adjusting well over all so far and is just adorable! He kept smiling at Drew when I took him over there. The girls were at school and are furious that they didn't get to go yet! But between all we have going on with their schedules I can't just hop over there.

Drew is actually sleeping so I think I'm going to sneak to the basement to wrap a bit. Matt and I wrapped for 5 HOURS on Sunday and STILL didn't finish! Like I said... I was cutting back. ;)

Introducing baby Alex

Drew holding Alex




He's only a couple hours old here


I knew that we would be officially welcoming my newest nephew Bennett into the family on December 4th. But I thought we would have a few more weeks before Alex arrived. Apparently he had different plans. :)

Michelle's water broke around 8am December 4th ( Thurs. morning). She went to the hospital and I got up there later that day. I stayed with her throughout the entire labor and delivery. Amazing experience! I must admit though I'm glad I already had my kids... not so sure I would be willing to do it 3 times if I had actually watched when they were being born. lol

He was born at 12:37pm Friday ( Dec. 5th). He weighed 5 lbs. 14 oz. and was 19 inches long. She was only 35 weeks so a nice size baby for that early. Heck my kids were full term and none of them were 19 inches. I have runts though. ;) The dr. said had she gone full term she would've been looking at a 10 pound baby. Ouch!

He's just adorable! Had tons of black hair, blue eyes ( for now anyways). Michelle's chubby cheeks and nose. Ryan's mouth and lips... and obviously his height because that's a pretty long baby for 35 weeks! I put a preemie outfit on him today and he's almost too long for it.

I'll be going to pick them up at the hospital tomorrow to bring them home. I have plenty of room to bring everything home in the van. And of course I 'm volunteering to do just about anything at this point because then maybe I can sneak another holding session in. ;) I just LOVE babies! It's a good thing I had rotten pregnancies and deliveries or I would have 10 kids! of course they grow up and turn in to little monsters though. ;)

Julie and Chris are hoping to maybe get home a little bit earlier this week. I can't wait to meet Bennett for the first time and I just know Drew is going to teach him lots of bad habits. haha And I'm looking forward to Christmas this year to see how much damage he does to everyone's trees. It will be nice to have another kid to blame things on. hehe

I now have an equal amount of nieces and nephews.... 4 of each. It's fun to be an auntie. Spoil them rotten, get them all wound up and then leave! ;)

Lots to catch up on

I was soo busy shopping, decorating and not getting any sleep over the weekend that I never had time to post.

We did a TON of shopping this weekend. Enough that my big walk in closet is now covered in bags. We buy for alot of people so getting out there and getting some great deals was worth not getting ANY sleep Thursday night! Drew had a cold and combined with the fact that he was missing his beloved paci as well... he didn't feel the need to go to sleep until 2 am! Since I had to get up at 2:45 I just gave up going to sleep. We hit Walmart first and it was mass chaos! So much so that I really didn't think risking my 9 year old was worth getting a good deal. So we hardly bought anything. Then I woke Julie up and she came and joined me at Target. I figured if I would've called Michelle she would've thrown me across the room. haha Michelle just doesn't share my enthuiasm for shopping. ;) I did a lot of damage at Target and more at Meijer than I came home. Matt and I alternated between shopping and decorating for Christmas the rest of the day. I was soo ready to go to bed by 6pm but Hannah was having a bunch of friends over that night... ahh yes... a bunch of obnoxious 8th graders was just what I was looking forward to. =P

Saturday was MORE shopping. I really needed to put my house back in order after putting up my 3 big trees plus all my other Christmas crap... but the sales were calling me instead ;)

Sunday I finally have to face my wreck of a house! I got my new advent calendar out. It's a cute little wooden house with 25 doors. I put candy behind each door and apparently "someone" was watching me. Guess who that someone was?! That little shit ate ALL the candy in there. Guess he'll just have to open empty doors now. haha

Now I'm just sitting here anxiously awaiting the arrival of my 2 newest nephews! Julie and Chris are in Vietnam right now and will be meeting Bennett tomorrow! It's really warm and sunny there... soo not fair! =P Drew is fascinated that he's actually going to get to meet this little guy. He hasn't quite understood why he's only seen him in pictures and why there's an adorable room for him but he's not there yet. And I'm betting that baby Alex will be making his arrival by Christmas! By the looks of Michelle's belly... I'm fairly certain she's having a toddler! I've already volunteered to take some night shifts... I'm up anyways with Drew so why not add another one. =P