Santa's visit, etc.

Okay, time to backtrack a little. Now that we're done with Christmas and the birthdays of this month I have some time to go back.
First, I have a photo of our Christmas tree complete with wrapped presents surrounding it. Next is picture of the snacks we left for Santa on Christmas Eve. Both the boys had questions for him, so they left notes. In the past when Santa visits, he has left a letter for them. One year he had to explain to Justin that some pieces of one of his gifts were missing. Santa was pretty sure they fell off the sleigh in Ohio! Anyway, Santa took the notes from Justin and Kyle and left his letter answering their questions. Justin wanted to know if the elves are adults or children. Santa said both. He said he gets a lot of good toy ideas from the child elves, of course! Kyle wanted to know what state Santa goes to last. The letter stated that Santa starts in Maine and moves towards California. That's Justin and Kyle amongst the toys they received from Santa on Christmas morning. And of course, they started assembling some Lego sets that morning at the kitchen table.
The boys are looking forward to ringing in the new year in a couple days. They don't usually stay up til midnight, so it's a big deal for them. I don't stay up that late either and don't care to just because a new year is starting. I still have to get up early on January 1st to tend to my pets, so I need my sleep.
Starting this blog was one of my accomplishments in 2008. I'm glad I did it! It's been fun and I hope my family and friends enjoy it as much as I do. I plan to keep posting in 2009, so keep checking in!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JASON!!!

I'm sure he wishes I would just forget it was his 38th birthday, but I can't. I understand his reasoning, but he's my husband and we have to celebrate. I mentioned before that I met Jason when he was 19. (We started dating a year after we met.) I've known him about half his life! And even though a lot of his hair is gone, he still manages to be like a kid in some ways. For instance, for Christmas and his birthday, he received two video games and gift cards to his favorite video game store. Not to mention the fun he's been having helping the boys assemble their Lego sets the last few days (and there are still boxes that aren't open yet!).
Since Jason had to work today, we gave him his gifts last night and went to the restaurant of his choice. He chose Famous Dave's where he ordered a slab of ribs. He and Justin sat on one side of the booth together eating their rib dinners. Like father, like son. Next month he and I will have another birthday celebration with Jason's family. We'll all be going to brunch when the holiday chaos is over.

I'll try to get a picture of Jason blowing out his candles later, but for now... Happy birthday, Jason! I love you!

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas isn't until tomorrow, but it'll be a busy day for us and I doubt I'll have time to post. There are many presents under our tree and snow on the ground outside. We know what we're leaving out for Santa to eat and have oatmeal ready for the reindeer. As we wait for Christmas to start, there are two excited, hyperactive boys in my house!! It's fun to be reminded of the anticipation you feel when you're a child. They'll be tired at bedtime, but won't be able to fall asleep tonight.
We are fortunate to be with spending time with our families tonight and all day tomorrow. This is the first Christmas that my grandma isn't here with us. She is in our thoughts, and I'm sure we'll speak of memories we have of her and my grandpa.

Merry Christmas to all of you!!! I hope you have a happy, healthy holiday!!!

Dashing through the snow...

Or standing in the snow like Henry is doing here. This is where he usually stands when he's done doing his outside duties. He looks so handsome in the snow until he comes in and I have the chore of getting the snow out of his hairy feet.
So we have the pretty snowfall in the Chicagoland area today. I haven't been outside yet, but it should feel warm compared to the last two days. Today's high is supposed to be in the 20's. Heatwave!

Only two more days til Christmas!

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY, KYLE!!!!

It just might be the coldest day EVER today, but these are some pictures of a VERY happy 7-year old boy! Kyle woke up hyper today. Jason had arranged to work a half day today so that we could all go to the aquarium together. But that meant we had to wait until noon to drive downtown. It probably seemed like forever to Kyle!
Once we arrived at Shedd Aquarium, Kyle said he was about to cry because he was SO happy to be there. (He can be quite dramatic!) It really was perfect for him to be there on his birthday. Not only did he love being amongst the fish, but we raided the gift shop. He wound up with a small hammerhead shark stuffed animal, a penguin snow globe, a magnet, and two shirts.
So now my little Kyle is seven. I can't be sad because he's such a great kid. I wouldn't change a thing about him. He's smart, funny, sweet, respectful, and kind (to name a few). He makes me proud everyday. He does well in school, has friends at the nursing home where my grandma lived, has a tremendous love for animals, and will just randomly come over to me to give me a hug. And just look at the that cute face of his along with his curly red hair! That's my Kyle. I love him so much and wish him a very happy birthday, which I know he had.

Through the years of Kyle, part 2

As I promised, here are the more recent years of Kyle's life. In the one of him wrapped up in the blanket we refer to him as "the sausage". He used to come downstairs in the morning and sit on the couch like that. The most recent one from May of this year was at Tony and Natalie's wedding dinner. He just loved dressing up in that vest and tie! (He really did!)
Tomorrow is his birthday and we're off to the aquarium, so I'll post more then. That is if we don't freeze on our walk from the car to the aquarium. The predicted high for tomorrow is around 8 degrees! Brrrrrr.

Through the years of Kyle, part 1

I better get started on this tribute to my baby since his birthday is only three days away! Kyle was quite chubby when he was younger. He's grown so fast, but still has the same sweet face.
That picture of him sleeping was his first day at home, 12/23/01. He's lying in the oak cradle that my grandpa made when Justin was born. The one in the plaid outfit was one of the first days he walked on his own (1/03). And the one of him lying on his bed was a couple days before his 2nd birthday. We had just gotten his bed and he LOVED it!
I'll be posting part 2 in the next day or two. We'll remember years 3 through 6.

It's a girl!!!

That's what my mom and dad were announcing on this day 35 -years ago! Yes, today is my 35th birthday. My only consolation is that people tell me that I don't look that old. Not only that, but I can honestly say that I am happy with my life. I have a husband who loves me to grow old with, two sons that make me SO proud, a nice home full of pets, and many other family and friends that enrich my life.
These pictures were taken when my mom and I got home from the hospital. Back in the old days they made you stay there for a week! (I'm glad that was changed!) So I came home for the first time just before Christmas. That's my 25-year old dad holding me. Look at that bottle!
I think this is the coldest weather I've had on my birthday. The temperature right now is like 7 degrees and below zero with the wind chill! So now I'm going to grab a cup of coffee and sit in my nice warm house by the Christmas tree. And be 35.

Kyle's birthday party

Kyle's birthday isn't until next week, but we celebrated today. Since his birthday is only four days before Christmas, I like to have his party a little early. An incident occurred that I don't care to discuss, but Kyle had a good time running around, opening his gifts, and eating his chocolate cake from Portillo's.
He also found out that on his actual birthday Jason and I are taking him to the Shedd Aquarium. Jason printed out a "certificate" that he read aloud at his party to announce that we'll be going. We've taken him before, but it's been about two years. Since it costs a small fortune to go there I figured we would make that his gift.
So in a week my baby will be turning seven. Since I can't prevent it, I'll celebrate it by having a countdown as a tribute to him. Stay tuned.

My cute kids

Henry meets Santa

Henry had his first encounter with Santa Claus yesterday. Santa Claus was actually my boss! A couple of my co-workers coordinated pet pictures with Santa combined with an open house at our clinic. They put a lot of time and effort into it, and fortunately we had a really good turn out. We asked for a minimum $10 donation for the picture with Santa to help out a couple of local shelters. We also had educational things set up in most of the rooms in the clinic for the pet owners to see what goes on "behind the scenes". There were refreshments and a raffle as well. The Santa room was constantly busy and our visitors seemed very interested and entertained. It appeared to be well organized even though we had never done anything like this before!
Santa wound up placing Henry on his lap. Since Henry is large and not usually in that position, he was a little stressed. The photographer still got some pretty good shots.

Tis the season

Well, here we are in December. I really don't know where the time goes! It feels as though the boys just started their summer break and now they're almost half-way through the school year. Until I invent a way to slow time down, I guess I just have to go with the flow.
With the holidays on the way, this month is a busy time for most people. In our house, busy is an understatement! Not only do we have to prepare for the holidays, but we have three birthdays to celebrate as well! Yes, three out of the four people in our house were born this month. I'm first. I'll be turning the big 3-5 on the 16th!!! My baby will be seven years old on the 21st (sniff, sniff). Again, I don't know how this happened so quickly. Then, on the 28th, Jason will be 38. He was only 19 when I met him, and I recall his 20th birthday (that was the winter before we started dating.) I'm pretty sure that Kyle is the only one that's looking forward to his birthday. And we have some big plans that he doesn't know about.
We did our Christmas decorating this past weekend. The boys knew we'd be putting the tree up on Saturday night, so they were extra hyper that day! We didn't even bother to tell them to calm down because we knew they couldn't. Our tree is beautifully decorated with ornaments that are all different from each other. Every year, Jason and I buy an ornament for each of the boys. They get to pick out the one they want. That's why we have things like a shark, a lobster, a penguin, an ice cream sundae, school buses, and a BBQ grill on our tree! We also have all the ornaments the boys have made over the years. Lots of things with their school pictures on them. I just love those. To top it off we got a couple inches of snow yesterday which made our decorating complete.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I was greeted this morning by Kyle shortly after I woke up. He came up to me and whispered "Happy Thanksgiving" (we were upstairs and Jason and Justin were still sleeping). When I was his age, I wouldn't have remembered so quickly that it was a holiday, and I would've been in bed til at least noon.
I started out the Thanksgiving weekend by watching one of my favorite holiday movies last night: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It stars Steve Martin and the late John Candy. I believe it came out in 1987. If you haven't seen it, please do! It's one of the funniest damn movies you'll ever see, but it has a touching moment at the end, too.
Later today, we'll be going to my sister-in-law's house for dinner with Jason's family. Justin cannot wait for his turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy! He's skinny, but he LOVES his food! I'm the only one in our house that has anywhere to go tomorrow. I have to work, but at least I won't be tempted to go out shopping. We'll continue our weekend festivities on Saturday when we do our Christmas decorating. Justin and Kyle are really looking forward to putting the ornaments on the tree. It's so much fun to see all the ornaments they've made over the years. I'm thankful that we invested in a prelit tree a couple years ago. All we have to do is find all the plugs instead of me trying to evenly distribute the lights. That means we can move on to the fun parts more quickly!
Anyway, I have a lot to be thankful for, not just today, but everyday. I want to wish all my family and friends a happy Thanksgiving! To those I will not be with today, I will be thinking of you. That includes my family that will be celebrating in other places and those that aren't "here" with us anymore.

Henry being one of the boys

I think this is so cute.
Justin and Kyle dumped out their bin of miscellaneous Legos this morning. I guess when they haven't gotten a new set for a few weeks they have to satisfy their urge to build. Henry had gone outside and eaten his breakfast. Then he grabbed his rawhide bone and plopped himself down as close as possible to the boys. Our family room is a pretty decent size room. He could easily go somewhere else. He doesn't bother either of them or the Legos, he just concentrates on his chewing. The three of them play like crazy with each other throughout the day, but Hen knew that this wasn't the right time for that. He's pretty good about that stuff. He also won't settle down with a rawhide unless someone is sitting in the family room with him. He's a real family oriented dog. Every single night, when he knows I'm getting ready to go up to bed, he waits for me at the bottom of the stairs and won't start going up until I tell him to. Then we go up the stairs together and he lies down on his bed in our room next to my side of the bed. This is the tremendous loyalty of a dog. Especially a collie. (I couldn't stop myself from throwing that in. After all this is MY blog.)

We iz twinz

I hope everyone knows I don't use grammar like that. I couldn't resist titling this post that way with these pictures. Let me explain...
Just this evening I was looking at a website that I think is hilarious. It's www.icanhascheezburger.com. You've probably received e-mails with pictures from it. The ones I like are the LOL cats. That's where my Wilfred Brimley diabeetus cat is from (at the bottom of my blog). They crack me up! Anyway, when I saw Emma and Yoda lying next to each other like this, I thought of a caption that was cheezburger worthy.
I've found these two in some crazy positions over the years. They're now 12 years old and spend about 22 hours a day on mine and Jason's bed. In fact, Yoda has a bed on our bed. She spends a lot of time on that corner and I got tired of removing her hair from our comforter. Many nights I can't straighten my legs out because both of them are on that corner on my side of the bed. And that's just fine, since I know that when they're "gone" I'll wish they were there.

Addition to last post

I went to the parent-teacher conferences tonight for both Justin and Kyle. They both went really well. Their teachers love them! I knew there wouldn't be any problems. Justin's teacher talked to me about that Principal's Award that I mentioned in my post about their report cards. It turns out that he received that award because he, Justin, my son, had the best grades in his class!!! I think I might be the proudest mom on earth tonight!

Report cards

Justin and Kyle brought home their report cards for the first quarter last week. Now that all that Halloween stuff is over I have time to talk, I mean, brag about them.
I need to start by explaining that our school district, in my opinion, ruined report cards a few years ago. They began using a different grading system for K thru 3rd grades. Instead of the traditional letters that we're all used to, they started using E for Exceeds the grade level, M for Meets the grade level, B for Below the grade level, and W for Warning. Although Justin and Kyle would have E's and M's on their report cards, Jason and I found it hard to judge how well our kids were really doing in school. Would they have gotten straight A's or not? The traditional letters are the ones that mean something to us!
Now I can move on to the good news... Justin is in 4th grade this year. That means he now gets a REAL report card. I tend to worry a LOT, so I was concerned that we might find out that Justin isn't the smart student that we've thought he is! How awful would that be after all these years? Well, worry no more - Justin got STRAIGHT A's this quarter!!!!! Not only that but all A1's, meaning outstanding effort as well! We know that Justin is smart and a model student as we've been told by all of his teachers, but as a parent, it's so awesome to see straight A's on that paper! He also received a Principal's Award for his outstanding achievement in all subjects.
And Kyle did really well too! He had four E's and four M's on his report card. His reading level is a 20, but the benchmark for this quarter was a 4, at the end of the year they should have a 16. He's obviously way above average in reading (just like his brother). His teacher also wrote a really nice comment about him: "Kyle is an excellent, independent worker. He takes great pride in a job well done. Kyle gets along well with the other students in the class and is a good participant during class discussions." Kyle received an award as well. His was for outstanding achievement in reading.
Parent-teacher conferences are tomorrow night. I don't foresee any problems. Conferences continue on Tuesday, so the boys have a day off. I'll be rewarding them by going up to Woodfield Mall to have lunch and spend some time at the Lego store!

Congrats to my sons on a job well done!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2008

Today was the big day! One of the most exciting days of the year for kids. Justin and Kyle are allowed to have candy whenever they want. But there's nothing like putting on a costume that you love and having a huge pile of candy to sort through at the end of the night. Not to mention deciding what to eat first!
I guess this is the first year that Justin was kinda scary. Maybe not scary, but freaky. He just loves the new Joker from the Dark Knight, even though he hasn't seen the movie. His costume came with an awful plastic mask, so we decided it would look better if he had a wig and I did his make-up. I sat him down in front of our computer, found a picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker, and copied that look onto Justin's cute little face. He really liked how I made him look! Justin carried a joker playing card around to use like a business card.
Kyle went with Darth Vader. Being that I'm sort of a Star Wars geek, I was happy about that. I think he was the skinniest Darth out there. It was nice that the weather was so warm today so Kyle didn't have to have pants under his costume. (In the picture above, Kyle is using the force to choke someone with his hand, just like in the movies.)
My first blog countdown is now over. I had a lot of fun posting everyday and remembering the past NINE years. I'll have to think of something else to countdown. Until then, I hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween!

Countdown to Halloween, day six

Here we are on the last day of the countdown. This is last Halloween. Justin chose to be an army man and Kyle was an alien. The mask of that alien costume had a huge face. They decided how to pose for these pictures.

Please check in for the grand finale tomorrow!

Countdown to Halloween, day five

Well, no more costumes made by Grandma, but these are cute ones. This is Halloween 2006 - wow, two years ago already! Kyle was (and is to this day) still obsessed with sea animals, so we bought this shark costume that we found. It's actually Lenny from the movie Sharktale, but that's not why we bought it. He insisted on having his mouth wide open for most of the pictures to look more like a real shark! Justin is dressed as the Avatar. Not many people were familiar with his costume. Avatar is a very interesting cartoon on Nickelodeon. Needless to say, it was one of Justin's favorites. I think it still is.

Countdown to Halloween, day four

In today's post we go back to Halloween 2005. Justin was a pirate that year. Kyle had begun his obsession with sea life, so he wanted to be a fish. This was the last year that my mom made their costumes (unfortunately). I happen to know that this fish costume was the hardest costume she had ever made. I'm not sure how many times she told me that, but it was for Kyle so she got it done. And it turned out GREAT!!! Justin made a good pirate in his satiny clothes. As you may have noticed, their costumes no longer coordinate with each other. I'm sure I tried.

I've been posting a lot lately, so if you haven't checked my blog in a couple days, keep scrolling down please. I'll also be adding Halloweens 2005, 2006, and 2007 in the next couple day. And of course on Friday the 31st you'll get to see this year's costumes! Thanks for checking in!

Countdown to Halloween, day three

Today's picture is from 2004. I think this one is my favorite. We have Justin the dog and Kyle the cat (both made by my mom). Before taking them out to trick-or-treat, we took pictures in our living room. I had them act like a dog and a cat for this one. It's hard to see, but Kyle had a little white spot at the end of his tail. Whenever someone was putting candy in his bag, he would show it to them and say "I have a white spot on my tail. See?" He wasn't even three years old at the time! And I don't think he let go of that tail the whole time he had his costume on. It was pretty cute.

Kyle lost his first tooth!

It finally happened! Kyle has had three loose teeth for awhile now. He says he forgets to shake them. We've been working on the loosest one for the past couple days now. I was finally able to yank it out tonight. I guess the tooth fairy will have to stop by our house on this chilly evening!

Yay, Kyle!!!

Countdown to Halloween, day two

Today we have the pumpkins and the clowns. As long as I could get away with it, I had the boys wear matching or coordinating costumes. These are some of the cutest! I wished Kyle could've been a smaller pumpkin, but it didn't work out that way. On his first Halloween, he was 10 months old. Justin was three and a half. Kyle didn't even go trick-or-treating that year because it was so cold and windy.
Have you ever seen such cute little clowns? Kyle was close to two years old, so he was walking around. The fall of 2003 was a rough one for my family. My grandma had just suffered from a couple strokes and had gone into the nursing home. Even worse than that, my grandpa passed away that year on October 8th. Somehow, my mom found the time and energy to make these colorful costumes for her grandsons. Justin just loved that wig!