our REAL tree!

for the last few years, i've been talking about buying a new [fake] tree after christmas, when they go on sale. it still has not happened. so as i was putting up our old tree, i thought "WHEN are we going to get a new one?!" before we decorated it, we went to the park with the kids, and while we were out, we got a text from a friend letting us know about a great deal on christmas trees. russ and i thought, let's do it -- let's get a REAL one! so on our way home we stopped and picked one up for $30! and we are so happy we did!

our old tree:

our house smells so festive and the branches are so soft and pretty! i think i might be allergic to the tree, but i'll be able to live with it for the next month :) i don't know if we'll be getting a real tree next year but at least we were able to experience our first real tree as a family this one time!

natalie's tooth

it's been loose for 2 weeks now, and some time yesterday, it finally came out. we think she might have eaten it!

this is her first tooth to come out. such a bittersweet moment for me. my baby's growing up.

tonight she will learn all about the tooth fairy :)

random pics

blessing their thanksgiving breakfast while watching the macy's parade

posing at grandma's house, thanksgiving day

at the park today

russell, natalie (and daddy) on the trail
*silly faces*

playing catch-up

since my weekend away at the rachel's retreat (about 2 wks ago) i have seriously been slacking on my blog reports. my apologies to those of you who look forward to them! i will try to be better.

in the mean time, here is a quick summary of what's been going on.

last weekend it was natalie's turn to take home her class pet "rudy". he had quite an adventure with us! natalie and him spent the night at titi celena's house, after our friday night dinner at brooklyn's pizza.

the next day, we went to the ballpark to watch ryan play his last game. the kids and rudy had a blast playing with their cousins.

on sunday, we got together with good friends of ours for a cookout and of course, rudy came along too! we were all sad when rudy had to be returned to class that monday morning but i was very proud of natalie for being such a good dog sitter!

one bit of BIG news to report -- NATALIE IS READING! well, she is starting :) all thanks to the classic Dick & Jane story book that a friend of mine gave me. Ever since school started she has been really good about sounding out words, add that to her incredible word memory and she can just about read that book from front to back! (and it is a very large book).

This weekend we spent relaxing and enjoying the start of the holidays! i spent a long friday cleaning out, purging and ORGANIZING the kids' toys and clothes. it inspired me to finally get their room re-painted since it has been something russ and i have been talking about for a while now. russ painted all day today and i'm so happy with the color! i'll be posting pics soon.

on friday i was also able to put out all of my christmas decorations. the kids and i had a lot of fun working together and listening to christmas music! their favorite song is jingle bells by the barenaked ladies. which reminds me, i need to update my music player below with some of my favorite christmas songs for you all to enjoy :)

my christmas shopping is almost done, so now i can try to relax and enjoy the season for what it's meant to be! we have lots of events coming up and we can't wait!

we're going to be working on putting up the tree tonight and tomorrow. pics to come!

hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving!

natalie's happy dance

in the following video, natalie will provide her explanation of what the "happy dance" is. to help clarify, i will provide my own quick summary: when every one in her pre-k class behaves and no one's name gets moved to the "sad cloud," the entire class celebrates at the end of the day with a "Happy Dance." (This event is a rare ocassion)

i recorded this a few days ago but am just now finally getting around to posting this!

2000

2000-piece puzzle, that is!


one of my birthday gifts that russ got me was this beautiful puzzle. we started on it the other night, only to get about 50 peices put together. it is not easy and will probably take us a few months! i'm not one to frame or display puzzles, but this one might just be going up when we're done.


i'll keep you guys posted!

happy sick

Despite feeling under the weather these past few days, today actually being the worst, I am having a GOOD DAY! So good, in fact, that I am taking the time to care about proper grammar! (I'm sure many of you have noticed how I hate to capitalize...) Anyway, let me tell you why I'm so happy.

To start off, as I was pulling out of the driveway to take Natalie to school, there was a UPS truck parked in front of my house. I knew exactly what it was -- my Victoria's Secret order! With the help of my birthday gift cards, along with some online coupon codes, I was able to purchase some much-needed essentials for FREE!

Now, I know you [ladies] are thinking, what could possibly make me happier than recieving a package from VS??? Well, I'll tell you: I got the new cell phone I wanted for FREE!

My old phone started acting up about a month ago. Sometimes I couldn't receive calls and other times I couldn't even make calls. Then as of yesterday it completely shut down. It was very strange driving around town without a working phone. I even drove across town to make a special "Santa" trip to Toys R Us without it. I kept thinking that surely something was going to go wrong just because I was--God-forbid-- WITHOUT A CELL PHONE. The horror! But of course, I was fine. So after doing some research on phones this past week (and I totally recommend googling reviews on products before making a purchase, particularly electronics), I narrowed my options down to about 3 phones. First, I went to T-Mobile where after waiting some time for some one to even acknowldege me, I was WAY overpriced on my options. So, I wrote down the facts I was given and left. Next, I went to RadioShack where they were running a sale on the phone I wanted. Before I went in, I prepared myself for a letdown. I just figured there was some small print that I was missing when I read their sales flyer. But apparently, it was correct! So, I "purchased" my free phone and walked out of there a very happy girl. (Now, I just hope that it meets my expectations before my 2 week trial period is up.)

As an update, Natalie and Russell both caught some sort of sickness last week. Natalie's didn't last long but when Russell got it, it was worse. He is now on the mend but can't shake these cough attacks so his doctor precribed a stronger cough medicine than the one he was already on. In the meantime, we have been staying low key and trying to remain indoors, which has been rough on both him and I. To make matters worse, I seemed to have caught a touch of what the kids had. Today I am feeling chills and weakness, along with chest/throat pain which is how it began a couple of days ago for me. I will be away from home this upcoming weekend, helping on another Rachel's retreat, but I'm asking for your prayers that we ALL get better soon! I won't be much help on the retreat if I'm sick; and Russ will have a hard time dealing with sick kids by himself.

I hope everyone else is doing a better job than we are keeping away from the cold/flu. It is definitely that time of the year :(


OFF TO PICK UP NATALIE ---

yesterday started off as a typical monday. our morning routine was moving along well up until i drove to natalie's school to drop her off and [OOPS!] realized it was CLOSED. and the sad thing was i knew about this ahead of time! i just FORGOT. the story of my life. so as every monday goes, i had to take russell straight to speech therapy after dropping natalie off, but this time of course, she accompanied us.

it was a special session for russell because he was going to meet his NEW speech therapist. that's right, the THIRD one. not that we didn't like the second one or anything, but we just weren't really attached to her, so it wasn't as hard of a change as it was the first time we switched. anyway, the new therapist's name is Miss Natalie :) and russell seemed to like her a lot. she used some different techniques and i was pleased with the session. i look forward to this change being a GOOD one, and hope that russell will continue to improve, maybe a little faster now...

so, the little cold that natalie started off with yesterday turned out to be a little viral infection. she had to miss school today because of it. she has been running a low fever since last night and since she didn't have much improvement today, i am probably keeping her home tomorrow as well. despite the congestion, coughing and fever, she is acting fairly normal. stiiiiiiill talking my ear off, so i know she can't be THAT sick. (lol) i just pray that she feels better soon. she really HATES missing school :(

our monster bash

as i mentioned before, last month russ thought it would be a good idea to have a little halloween party for the kids. then we decided to keep it small and just invite their friends from playdates; otherwise things could get out of hand. of course, things DID get a little out of hand, and i can't imagine how stressed i would have been if i had invited more than the 5 kids that came, but it was so worth the time and effort put into planning the party because the kids had a blast!

here are some pics from the night. all the good pictures are from the ever so fabulous brittani.

DOUBLE TROUBLE:

ashton, isaac, isabella and natalie

my table BEFORE the food:

some of our spooky snacks

baby lauren, logan and natalie:

make our monster craft:

playing a game of Pin the Eye on Mike

(russ painted this poster for us):

the ladies of the night:

boy talk

two beautiful mermaids:

we also had fun making "spider crackers" and dancing to some halloween jams. here is a video clip of the kids cutting loose:

halloween fun

the morning after our monster bash, we had to wake up early to go to a special halloween class at my gym. even though natalie no longer attends the weekly class, she is still a member, so she was able to join in on the fun with her brother.

here's natalie telling everyone about her costume:

later that day, i volunteered to help out with the halloween party in natalie's class. russell stayed with his grandpa as he was too little to come.

i had so much fun helping the kids with their crafts, and of course, getting to see natalie in her element. 4 year olds are so much fun!

natalie just finished icing and taking a bite of her cupcake when i asked her to say cheese!

the little girl next to her is her best friend in her class

she was SO excited that i showed up and i was more than happy to make her day!

my birth DAY

and now, i will talk about my actual birth day. monday, october 26.

after much stress, unresolved issues and staying up really late all from my job the night before, i woke up feeling really crappy. to add to that, the whole "I'M 30" matter was already taking it's toll. it was weird watching the clock the night before change from 11:59 to 12:00 and know that, just like that, i was getting old. so when i went to bed, i was feeling pretty sorry for myself. i climbed in and got mad that my sleeping husband didn't wake up to wish me a happy birthday. yeah, i know, pretty lame. but sadly, it gets worse. when i woke up and realized there were no cards or presents from russ and the kids, again i got upset. of course, my wonderful husband tried to explain that had planned to give me my gifts and celebrate after he got home from work that night, like we ALWAYS do with our birthdays every year. i don't know what i expected -- a party in my bed, music, dancing, fireworks, i'm not sure. but obviously i was feeling a little down on myself. i had my first meltdown of my 30's that morning.

during the day, no one really called to say happy birthday which of course made me feel even more sorry for myself. i know that since we celebrated my birthday at my party that saturday before, everyone probably forgot about my actual birthday, which is completely understandable. but again, WOE IS ME, i just wasn't feeling special enough. on top of that the issues with my job just escalated and became major drama. (how is it that i work from home at night on an "as-needed" basis and STILL have to deal with work drama!)

other than natalie going to school, we had no other plans for the day. so i just hung out with my little russell.

now here comes the HAPPY part. (finally, right? -- i was starting to feel depressed just typing that out)

knowing how bad of a day i had, russ tried extra hard to make me feel better. he suggested that we eat out for dinner so i didn't have to cook. (sounds good to me!) he got home from work with a bouquet of sunflowers to brighten my day. and then he and the kids presented me with my gifts, which he picked out so perfectly for me. after we ate our delicious dinner at bucca di beppo, we went to the mall to pick up the cookie cake that russ had ordered for me -- my FAVORITE!

do i have a wonderful husband, or what?!




by the end of the day, i had received numerous e-mails, messages and phonecalls, even a couple of birthday song serenades, and i was feeling pretty darn special! how silly of me to think that no one thinks i'm special when all around me i am reminded of all the love i have in my life. i have everything i could possibly want; all i need to do is OPEN MY EYES!

thanks again for all the birthday love, everyone.
and thank you to the best husband in the world for putting up with my bad attitude and for literally turning my frown upside down :)
i'm deeply touched and humbled by all the love i recieved and it truly meant a lot to me.

pumpkins!!!

here are some pictures from the 1st pumpkin patch we went to about 2 weeks ago, although it seems like an eternity ago!

***

3rd Trip to the Pumpkin Patch:

so, yes, our crazy family went to the pumpkin patch 3 times, 3 days in a row!! but this last time was also a playdate with heather and the kids, as you will see. it was less crowded that day, and the kids had a blast!

logan and russell:natalie and lauren:
trying to get all 4 in one pic...

***

Painting Pumpkins:

the kids had fun with this craft, as they LOVE to paint

***
Carving our Pumpkin:

daddy and the kids picked out a monster template to go with our monster-themed party. both years prior daddy, being the artist of the family, free-handed the picture for our jack-o-lanterns but this time he decided to go with the template. however, he couldn't believe how long it took to do it the "easy" way.

here are pics of the kids de-gutting the pumpkin. natalie had to use a glove, but still didn't last long because, as she said, it was "yucky!" russell, on the other hand, had a blast getting down and dirty -- the more guts the better!

a video clip of russell going at it:

p.s. i totally forgot to take a picture of our monster jack-o-lantern! i think the florida heat over the last 3 days might have killed it by now, but i will say, it came out great!