HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I spent all of last night up with a sour stomach that even Pepto couldn't ease...... and then the porcelain throne welcomed my offerings at about 6:30am this morning.  

What?

You didn't think you'd ever read a Thanksgiving post that started out like that?   Well...  it happens.

So I went back to bed after that - slept only a couple hours and then was up with the kids because DB had gone to my Mom's to start cooking crazy early before the roosters were even up  (we're talking like 5am) ...

My mom came to pick up the kids and I after 10am.... we were eating around noon (that was the plan, we ended up eating more around 1) ...  and then play things by ear...... but .. my mom wanted to hit Toys R Us by 5pm.... when the opened.  Pretty much everything on the kids wish list was on sale!

So...... here are the food offerings ....  DB cooked this year which he was crazy excited about.  He said to me "I've been waiting three years for your mom to let me cook" ....  yep, she got up to cook, he showed up, so she played the role of drill sargent... ha ha ... and looked at Black Friday ads ....

Meanwhile - while he was cooking....... I was in the "kids" room watching all the rugrats.  Yeah - sure, all but two were mine, but who's counting?  

Papa got them all a puzzle to do ........ this is the picture........

This is NOT a kid friendly puzzle...... it had crazy pieces with ten sides!

So all the kids took off to play outside - except Nathan and Noah who would come and go.  Nathan was having a day ... he was stimming a lot ...... so I pulled out his head phones and leap pad and he settled right down....

 Noah was just complaining he was hurting ...

And so I just kept working on the puzzle........... by........ my......... self...........   My mom comes in at some point and I am missing two pieces for the border ...   she says "That's all you got done?"   I was like "yeah, this puzzle really isn't for kids" ....   took me at least 2 hours just to get the border ...

She found the two missing pieces easy ....... (sigh) ....

At this point, the migraine I had been fighting for days came back full blast, and no one was really interested in it...  so I just put it all away keeping as much of the border together as I could.......

(edit) ...  My Mom and Step Dad worked ALL AFTERNOON ON IT (Nov 29) and finished it tonight ...

She was shocked and kept saying it was a lot harder than it looked........ ha ha....... what did I say?

Everyone ate and I didn't - I went to and my stomach just lurched....... so ..... yeah...

I ended up hanging out with Nathan a lot ...

He spent a lot of time like this  too........

So ... the kids played outside a lot... Cal had made a new friend with one of Papa's friends fiancee's son (did you follow that?)

 (below) Calahan, Noah, Baby & Jake

Oh and Kaedyn broke his glasses!

It got to the point where Nathan and Kaedyn were just DONE .....  so we went home.   Forgot the fact we didn't have Nathan's carseat in the car, so Nana drove me and the Littles home, and Dad took Cal and Noah.   Once home - we unloaded - got things taken care of - and left Cal with the kids to go to Toys R Us...

I love our views :)

There was a crazy line that ended up wrapping around the building.   We got there shortly after 4 and just decided to stay in the van until they opened - instead of waiting out in the cold.   Well, they opened (this pic is when they opened) ... and we went to the end of the line that was still wrapped around the building....  

This is what our cart looked like.

They had the check out line wrapped in and out of the game isles and half way down the store in and out of the isles .. up one isle, down the next, like a zig-zaggy road....  well when we went to check out .... we asked where the line was and when to where we thought the end of the line was (there was a break in the line) ... so we got in line.......

........... turned out that we were only about 6 isles down the chain gang line....... and it was like 20 isles long...... um... whoops.   But there was a huge break in the line .....  we didn't see the guy all the way down there with the huge ass pole with a sign on top that said "END OF LINE" ........ until.... we claimed our spot, and we weren't going to admit it....   well, Mom wasn't going to admit it.  

Then we get up to the cash register and this poor tiny little girl is checking us out, and she's clearly shaking a little from nervousness, apologizing left and right and CLEARLY it was the poor girls first experience with the craziness that is the "Black Friday Weekend" ... I kept wanting to say to her...  "take a deep breath, it's okay to take your time."  

She was traumatized for life, I know it.....

No one was trampled and no one died.....

Want to WATCH Santa feed his Reindeer ...

 click here --->   REINDEER CAM  <---- click here 

(or on the above graphic) 

So one of my family members tagged me in this when she shared it.......   it's a 24/7 Live Webcam broadcast ....  but at certain times of the day, Santa will come out and feed the reindeer himself!  

This is super fun! Watch Santa feed the reindeer LIVE!! 

Mon-Fri at 11am, 6pm, & 9pm EST. (which is 8am, 3pm, & 6pm for use West Coasters) Weekends at 6pm only (3pm PST). Let your friends know about this, it's fun for kids of all ages!

When does Santa feed the reindeer?

Santa and friends will appear at the following times beginning November 1st:

Monday through Friday:

PST (Pacific) – 8AM, 3PM & 6PM
MST (Mountain) – 9AM, 4PM & 7PM
CST (Central) – 10AM, 5PM & 8PM
EST (Eastern) – 11AM, 6PM & 9PM
GMT UTC – 4PM, 11PM, 2AM

Saturday and Sunday:

PST (Pacific) – 3PM
MST (Mountain) – 4PM
CST (Central) – 5PM
EST (Eastern) – 6PM
GMT UTC – 11PM

You can even write Santa a letter and get on the NICE LIST that scrolls!!  (You can also get on the NICE LIST two other ways (on is by donations!), check out the FAQ's to find out how and the address to send the letters to!)

Here are some of the pictures of the kids watching Santa feeding the reindeer ....

I have an alarm set on my phone for the latest time because the kids are home from school then.

Jingle your BALLS .......

So this weekend my phone rings......... and I answer it - caller ID says its from my mom, and like my cell phone ring tone for her says .... "Yo Momma calling, you better pick up, I know where you live....."

So she says "Are you watching the new Hallmark movie" ....  I'm thinking she wants to discuss....

But my Sunday nights are TV DVR recording overdrive...  so I tell her no but I have it taping when it airs next (I grab my remote and start searching) and I tell her I'm not taping it until next Saturday (in a few days) ...

So she say "Oh well, you won't see the commercial than" and she says "YOU HAVE TO SEE IT .... " and she gives me enough info that I pop it into google, and then just go to Youtube.......

So I find one...... Joe Boxer Christmas commercial...  and it's an old one.... NOT the one she's talking about ....



This one (above) is several years old and said to be the inspiration to a certain Justin Timberlake Saturday Night Live song entitled "Di*k in a Box"  (It's funny shiznit! Youtube it when you have no little ones around you if you haven't seen it...  PS the Di*k is a word for the male private... incase you couldn't figure it out) 

So I changed my wording a little bit -and found it .....



Um..........  Yep.

My mom is cracking up, and she keeps saying "WAIT TO THE END WAIT TO THE END!" ... and I'm thinking ........ WOW........ I can't believe they played that on the Hallmark Channel ..... LOL....

On Monday - I saw this on the side bar (Ad Area) of my Facebook........

And then on Tuesday ........

A friend of mine, Amber, over at Airing My Dirty Laundry, One Sock at a Time ..... shared a picture of her daughter after watching the video, and her daughter said (and I quote for her FB) ...  "These men are making music with their panties!"

This just CRACKED ME UP  .... because I can just hear her doing it in her high pitched fake video voice she does....  LOL...

So - I stole the idea and I made my kids watch it.......

I actually made Calahan watch it right away Sunday night because I had to show SOMEONE and Dennis was sleeping.........

Calahan wouldn't watch - period ........ he's like "NO, JUST NO"

Noah was horrified .....

Nathan was amused .....

Kaedyn watched, and then immediately started to try to Jingle his BALLS ...... and was upset he couldn't get them to jiggle like the guys on the computer!!

Yep...... that sums up my kids ........

And then on Wednesday ..... every where else was starting to pick it up ...... like the TODAY SHOW ...

HA HA HA ........ totally worth the share!!  It's shocking but so amusing...

DEAR PYREX .........

Dear Pyrex ........ do you know what kind of day I've had? I woke up - feel like I'm dying all over again (obviously need to go back to the DR) ... have a busy morning, then when I wake up from a nap and put the Littles in the bath, I get the pleasantry of my ceiling leaking (upstairs toilet over flowed) ... and flooding my bathroom ... ... IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH ..... your "unbreakable" 9x9 cake pan we made brownies in fell on the floor and shattered into a million pieces. OF COURSE two little boy want to rush into the kitchen to investigate .... and you put a total of at least 5 pieces of glass into the feet of the "men of the house" ... thank you for taking THAT opportunity of falling on my floor to prove that anything labeled unsinkable or unbreakable is a crock of $#*! .....

Thank you for listening....... now send me a new pan ....

Prematurity Awareness Day

Today is World Prematurity Day. November is Prematurity Awareness Month.

I am the mom to two preemies. I have had two different and unique experiences. I just shared both Noah's story and Nathan's story on my Facebook ... trust me, they are edited short versions, but you get the jist.

Watching these boys grow up - through all their struggles .. not just from prematurity but from their medical issues that have nothing to do with them being early .... it has made me appreciate and view things so differently.

I have to say - that having a premature baby, and being in the NICU - is something ONLY ANOTHER PARENT who has been through it can truly understand.

So if you know someone who has a baby too soon, be a support. Do whatever you can do to help them out. Don't stress them out because - trust me - being there with your child is stressful enough. You feel - a lot of the time - like it's not even your child.

Imagine.... you have to ask permission to touch your child. You have to ask permission or be supervised to do a diaper change. Your baby is fed through a tube instead of at the breast or with a bottle. You are told you cannot hold your baby because their fragile little bodies can't handle it. When you do hold your child, there are so many tubes and wires connected to them then Frankenstein's monster himself. You are there alone. No one visits, sometimes due to NICU rules no one can. When you do get visitors, it's like a holiday.... actual people you know! You make friends with the nurses, and you miss them when you leave... it's like Stockholm syndrome. And you are grateful beyond measure to what they have done for your child and for you.

Having a preemie is hard.

So to all the parents out there who have had a preemie, {{HUGS}}. We are an elite group.

Nathan's Story ...... World Prematurity Day

18 weeks pregnant on the day Dennis and I got married 

In 2006 I was pregnant with Nathan. We were told - via amnio - that Nathan was genetically healthy - as far as they could tell. However, his pregnancy mimicked Noah's greatly and it gave me great pause. I felt as if something was wrong, but there was no proof. At our 20 week ultrasound we found out that Nathan had a two vessel cord (normally there are three vessels ... two going in, one going out ... Nathan's case there was one going in and one going out. So Nathan was getting half the nutrients any other baby would.) ... So in addition to that - they found out that I had Fibroid tumors in my uterus, pretty big ones from what I understood, which also restricted things, and Nathan had a "cyst in his brain" ....

Valentines Day 2007

But there was NO WAY to know what the future held.

To be safe, I was given steroid shots around 33 weeks. At that point, things were taken week by week, but they didn't want to let me go past 36 weeks.

We hit 35 weeks, Noah developed an ear infection. So he went on some antibiotics. However, over that weekend - he started to get really sick. He was complaining that his right side hurt, he was feverish, vomiting - we took him into the local ER and got brushed off "It's just a virus" ... but in my gut, I felt it was more. The next day, he actually seemed to get a little better, so I thought - well, maybe I'm wrong. But the following morning, the day I needed to go to the hospital - the same hospital Noah was born at, 2 hours away - where Nathan would also be born.... for an appointment to determine when Nathan was coming, Noah was so sick that I was torn about even going to the appointment. He had a 104 temp, he was lethargic, vomiting, and I couldn't leave him. So Dennis and I packed him up, took him the 2 hours away to the hospital - to have him seen in urgent care there.

What does that have to do with anything? Well ... Noah was so sick he was hospitalized. Noah almost died that week. I was told if we hadn't gotten him in - it wouldn't have been long. Regardless, I had to go from Noah's hospital room, down a floor, on April 19th 2007, to give birth to Nathan.

Thankfully - Noah got better... 

It was a planned c-section - wasn't life or death - like it was with Noah. But it was time. And I had a very very hard time because of the Noah's birth was traumatizing for me. I told Dennis, I made him promise, NOT to leave the baby.

During Nathan's birth - they did pause a moment so we could see him, Dennis was taken to the room off to the side of the OR where they took the babies prior to taking them into the NICU...

He was 3lbs 4oz and 15 3/4 inches long. He was born at 36 weeks. He was put in the EXACT same spot in the NICU that Noah had been in.... and the nurses kept saying "You are a pro, you take care of him, you know how to do it..." LOL... since it was Dennis' first experience in the NICU, I let him do a lot of the firsts when it came to Nathan. I walked him through a lot, and told him how to do stuff and what to expect. I hope that my experience with Noah helped me make his experience with Nathan less traumatizing as a parent.

Later we learned that Nathan's lack of growth is due to him having a rare type of Primordial Dwarfism (primordial meaning he's proportionate, and dwarfism meaning he is expected to grow under a certain height) ... called Russell Silver Syndrome. He was born with a cleft palate that was repaired May 2012, among a lot of other things. He also has Autism. I hate to say he's non-verbal because he tries so hard.

He is 6 years old, the size of a 2 or 3 year old, he is 27-28 lbs and about 33-34 inches. He is my hero!