Happy New Years Eve!!

Happy New Years Eve! This past weekend we celebrated Christmas after the fact with some friends. We did a traveling party where we started at the Bowling's came to our house then on to the Wang's and finished up at the Tabler's. The kids had a great time playing Guitar Hero World Tour from house to house.

Tonight Conner and I are back to the Wang's for a New Year celebration. Brian has gone to New York for a few days to visit with his family and Caitlin left this morning for Puerto Rico for her Christmas training trip.

So now that the year has come to and end....we hope that the new year brings lots of wonderful and exciting adventures and memories for everyone.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Merry Christmas to you!

Merry Christmas blog reader! We all had a very nice Christmas...mellow and uneventful. Just the way I like it. :) We went to Christmas Mass last night at 4:00 and afterwards met the Wangs for dinner at Texas Road House. I bought the kids each a movie for them to open last night and we spent the evening watching The Dark Knight and Hairspray.

We awoke this morning when Conner decided it was time to get up...around 7:30. The kid never wakes up at 7:30 unless he has too. We went down and opened presents, and I think the kids were pleased with their gifts. Conner and Caitlin played his new Xbox World Tour game then Caitlin took a nap. We had dinner around 5:00 and afterwards we watched The Women. Conner has been on the Xbox all day....Caitlin is in her usual position on the couch....and Brian's gone to bed since he has to go into work for a little tomorrow.

See...pretty mellow and uneventful! We hope that you and your loved ones had a fantastic day and that the new year will bring all kinds of great and wonderful opportunities. Merry Christmas!

Is my nose bleeding?

A few weeks ago, Diana asked me if my family would like to go to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert with them on the 22nd. Of course we would love to go, I told her. TSO was coming to Indy and we thought it would be a great Christmas show. So Diana ordered the tickets on line and last night we headed up to Indy for the show. We (my family) arrived and parked in the huge parking garage with about 15,000 other people. We walked into Conseco Field House and headed up to the second level. I knew the seats were on the upper balcony since we were a little late in ordering them....and we all wanted to sit together. We walked out into the stadium and I was instantly dizzy from the height. We turn to find our row and seats. We start walking UP the stairs....and we walked....and we walked....and we walked. I could not bring myself to look behind me for fear that I would fall to my death. Finally, row 23. Just a note.....there was no row 24! We were seated at the VERY TOP of the stadium! Caitlin and I parked our butts down and refused to move. If someone was to get around us they would just have to climb over us....we WERE NOT standing up!

Other than the nose bleed I was worried would come at any minute, the show was quite spectacular. The music was phenomenal, the light show was amazing and the seats were....well, they were seats. We had a great time and truly enjoyed the show. I highly recommend to anyone that has the chance to see it....just order your tickets early!

Happy Birthday Rachel!

We have another happy birthday shout out..... this time it's going to Rachel! Happy Birthday Rachel, sorry I didn't get this posted on your birthday. Rachel is Caitlin's good friend that also swims for the Illini. I secretly think she could be my daughter....she scrapbooks, her favorite movie is "P.S. I Love You" and she makes up her own words. For instance, this weekend her "hip fell off" and they had to do the "rolly-polly" on her (hehe). Rachel we hope you had a wonderful birthday and we know that this next year will be full of wonderful and exciting adventures!! Happy Birthday kid!

Spell Check!!

Last week Brian and I painted the our bedroom and moved the furniture around. I framed some photos of the kids and thought it would be nice to have some of those new rub on "wall words" to add to the collage I made. I went on eBay and found "I love you Forever" and thought these words were appropriate since I tell my kids all the time that no one will ever love them more than me. So I got the words in the mail this week, and tonight while Caitlin was lying on my bed watching T.V. I thought I would put them up. Does anyone notice anything funny about these words?????
I Love You FORVEVER....FORVEVER??? I believe spell check would have been appropriate here!

P.S. The walls are not yellow they are a soft camel color. I had to take the photo with Caitlin's cell phone since I left my camera at the Wang's.

Thanksgiving Week......

Last Friday night Diana came over and we "crafted". It took Diana a little bit to warm up to it but once we got going it was fun. I find it very relaxing and she found it a bit stressful! She'll get the hang of it when we get to working on our high school scrapbooks for the boys!

Conner had his first high school swim meet Tuesday. I think he may have been a bit nervous but he did a great job. It's the first time since we've lived here that the boys team is larger than the girls team. They used to have to scrimp and scrape to get one relay for each relay race and now they had three teams for each relay race. I'm excited for him and hope that he has a great season and lots of fun.

Caitlin came home on Sunday afternoon. She was able to watch Conner's meet which was nice. And today after practice they have "fun relays" with all the kids. It's always fun for the kids to swim and very fun for the parents to watch. They swim crazy things like freestyle with one foot out of the water or flippers on your hands while swimming feet first.

Later one we will be going to the Wang's for Thanksgiving Dinner. Dining with us will be the Jarrard's and the Freudenthaler's along with Diana's sister and her children. We are thankful that we have such wonderful friends to share the holiday with. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, have a wonderful day!!

Mangy Dog

For the past two weeks we've notice that Waffle's eyes have been changing. We thought because she was a rescue pup, her mom must have mated with a raccoon. That's what her eyes were looking like. This past week we notice that she had a red spot. At first we thought she head-butted Barcleigh (she is a bull in a china shop). Then Wednesday both her eyes looked a little red. I thought maybe she was trying to get out of her kennel when I was at work. By Friday we realized that she was scratching the snot out of her eyes. So today we went to the Vet. Ole' Waffle has Mange! OMG what the heck is that???? Hello....she sleeps on my bed, is it contagious? Will our other dog get it?? Well, the good news is that the type she has is NOT contagious and it is curable. The bad news is that they have to take a skin sample from the area and now she really looks bad. Poor baby, she just breaks my heart. So we now have 8-12 weeks of treatments and bi-weekly trips back to the vet for continued testing to be sure she's getting better.

FYI....The Mange is a mite that lives on all dogs in their hair follicle's. In dogs with low immune systems or dogs that have stress, the mites go wild and their bodies can't control them like a normal dog. They start to lose their hair and scratch around their eyes, mouth and legs. So we figured that since Waffle is a rescue dog that was dropped off with her brothers and sister the day she was born (with the umbilical cord still attached) she didn't get a lot of the antibodies her mom would have given to her. Top that off with the fact that she is a skittish dog and is afraid of noises....we now have a mangy dog!

P.S.....they may say it's not contagious, but I sure am itchy now!