Let's Be Honest-the blog is the last thing on my mind

I have to be honest. Updating my blog is the last thing on my mind! Our household seems to be in slight disarray lately. A week ago Daryn and I decided to finally paint the family room and move all our living room stuff into there and use THAT room as our main gathering room. It has sat basically empty for a year because we didn't have the furniture to put in there...anyway, the wallpaper scraping took longer than we had expected and the weekend job quickly turned into a week long job.

Little did we know our poor sweet daughter would be sent home from school Tuesday morning for vomiting. And not just any vomiting. The poor child threw up in the auditorium in front of her whole class and 2 other 1st grade classes who were coming in for Christmas musical practice. When I got there to pick her up, I almost busted into tears for her as they told me she'd spilled her breakfast while all the little boys yelled, "ew, gross!!!". Poor thing. (And now I advertise it on the blog for everyone to read).

Then, 14 hours later Luke started. I'm sure you don't all want a play by play of my family's vomiting so I'll move on. I will end the vomiting stories by saying we ended up in the Emergency Room with Luke for 3 hours last night after he woke up from a nap with shooting pains in his abdomen and a swollen 'right lower quadrant'...basically they thought his appendix was getting ready to burst when I called the after hours clinic and they asked us to rush him into the ER. I ended up at a hospital that was out of our network and had to reload him into the car and drive to a different hospital. (Actually the one Daryn's brother works at in the ER but he wasn't working-the nurses had a great time teasing Luke for being related to Uncle Derek, though!). Lo and behold....the swelling and pain were gone by the time we reached the doctor and they wrote it off as gas due to vomiting. GREAT. Better safe then sorry, I guess, right? One nice thing about spending 3 hours in the ER and getting your sick child to bed at 11pm is that we got an anti-vomiting med prescribed and the entire family can use it if it spreads to us!

So, today Grace went back to school and while it took a little coaxing to convince her that the entire class was not going to make fun of her (I desperately broke out a new cute top from her favorite overpriced girl clothing store, "justice", to give her a little confidence boost and acted like we'd got it for her special for her Christmas program today), she went to school looking confident and ready for her Christmas program!

So, I'm going to try to finish painting our family room...I don't want to...the job is now turning into a 2 week job...I have to finish it-the inards of the room are spread all over the house, mixed with palates of blankets and pillows in front of the TV the sick kids have used...I also have to wash the 7 loads of laundry I've ignored (not including the 3 loads I've done b/c they were pukey), finish Christmas shopping, wrapping, and disinfect our house so Anteneh and his busy parents (us) don't get the pukey stuff.

If you've been reading by blog for a year or so you'll remember me saying that we were convinced we'd be in the ER with Anteneh soon with the way he takes risks and is so impulsive...well, isn't it ironic that both Luke and Grace have been to the St. Mary's ER and Anteneh never has? Haha-Go figure. (Grace was there when she was 18 months)

All I want for Christmas is for my family room to be done being painted and for nobody else in this house to start throwing up!!! Oh, and for the cat to stop knocking over the Christmas tree :)

Is He Seriously Making a Snow Angel?!

It started snowing today! What a great day...I picked the boys up from preschool and they were so excited they immediately started running around the yard, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues...and Anteneh had an idea...watch the video...
Then when Grace got home we decorated a gingerbread house and drank hot chocolate while Daryn unloaded firewood he'd been cutting all afternoon with his dad and brother. Sounds like it's officially winter!Yes, that is the kitten in the napkin basket...he just crawled in there. And Luke is not growing a real mustache-that's his hot chocolate mustache!

When the Cat's Away

Grace and I spent the afternoon Christmas shopping at Target and came home to find this: This is not a posed picture. They were all three snoozing away in a big pile. And the cutest part is that on Luke's lap was a pile full of Chuck E Cheese coupons he'd just cut out before falling asleep. The perfect Sunday afternoon for the girls: shopping at Target. The perfect Sunday afternoon for the boys: falling asleep on the couch while watching the Colts game!

Homemade Pizza

We made homemade pizzas last night...so much fun! Our WyldLife leader friend, Alex, came over and enjoyed them with us...Anteneh is sick so he looks a little lethargic. Haha. I love stuff like this. I love that we have to eat anyway...why not make it fun?! Nevermind that the kids' pizzas looked really weird and not very appetizing...haha...they loved them!

Fall!

I love this picture...it's the perfect snapshot of fall..Grace tossing leaves in the air, the boys in their hanes T's climbing the tree in the front yard...Shadow making sure everyone is playing nicely...And how handsome is my son? I caught him watching the commotion from the tree.

Anteneh's Birthday

Well, I posted Halloween without posting anything about Anteneh's Birthday! Here are some pictures...this first one is one of my favorite pictures of him. It captures his personality just perfectly-a mischievious smile. It was taken while we were all singing Happy Birthday to him...I love how unposed it is...it's just Anteneh's personality-fun loving. This next shot is Anteneh just posing with the 'grown up' cake! I made low sugar vanilla minicupcakes with sprinkles for the kids and a black forest cake for the adults...This last picture is of Grace and her teammates after their last soccer game this year...she had such a great time playing and really improved over the season! Her team was called the Rowdies...and they won all their games this season except one!Grace is in the middle...the tallest one, of course! The girl on the far left-well, her dad is 7feet tall and Grace is taller than HER! I have no clue where Grace gets her height.

Halloween Fun

We had a great time trick or treating yesterday!
I love our great Halloween tradition...
After all the cousins trick or treat around their own houses, we all meet at 6pm at Daryn's mom's house and eat chili, hot dogs, fruit and veggies and dip and a pumpkin shaped cake....and all the cousins answer the doorbell every time a group of trick or treaters comes by! It's a noisy affair with 10 dressed up cousins, all the aunts and uncles, Grandma Darlene, Papa Richard, and actually a few second cousins, but it's so much fun!

As you can probably guess, Luke was Anikan Skywalker (the boys are very in to Star Wars lately-a blast from my past! Haha), Grace was a black cat (I DO NOT recomend spraying your child's hair black- it was so disgusting, got everywhere, and I had to soap it up 3 times to get the black nastiness out!), and Anteneh was a Red Power Ranger...
Jocelyn went trick or treating with us for a while...she was TinkerbellGrace and I, hissing...are you scared? Haha