How Does Santa Do It?????

 Even though I got Jesse his Christmas present weeks ago, the kids still didn't have their gifts to him.  I wanted to do more than just have them go to the store and buy a gift.  I decided to let the kids pick out presents for Jesse, but then also decided to take pictures of the kids as well (I will be throwing my favorites of the pictures in here).  Sound like the perfect recipe for disaster, it was!!  First off today was the only day that I had mostly off so today had to be the day I took the pictures.  Jesse was supposed to be at work so he wouldn't see me get all dolled up or get the kids all dolled up and then wonder why!  He ended up taking the day off so I had to be very clever (yes this is a surprise for him, but he hardly ever reads my posts on facebook and I'm sure doesn't even realize that I have a blog!!) so he wouldn't see us.  My first and only lucky break of today is that Jesse was sick and slept most of the morning.  I simply told him that I got called into work and that I had to go buy presents for my niece and nephew. 

So first off even though I had today off I still had to do pick up for my work.  I pick up a kid from Bloomington Hills Elementary.  On my way to pick him up I forgot to pick him up!!  I just kept driving to work instead of going to the school first!!!  So I had to flip around and get on the freeway!  While on the freeway I ended up stuck behind a dump truck, with an uncovered load!!  A huge rock flew out and hit the windshield of my car!!  I back way off and was way far behind him and then it happened again!!! Great, now on top of everything else I was juggling I now had to go get my windshield fixed too!!  So I pick up the kid and get the usual eye rolls and death glares from the schools office staff (they don't like how late I am everyday to pick him up, but I have to pick up my son too!).

I then get to work and my boss gives me my Christmas present!  I was so excited because there was a gift card for Target in it!!!  Since that is were I was going to go shopping I thought that was my second stroke of luck for the day, it wasn't!  You will learn about this later!  After talking to my boss for about twenty minutes I finally make it back out to the car and head over to Jones Paint and Glass to have them look at my newly chipped windshield.  I get there and they send one of their tech guys out to look at my windshield only to find out that what I thought were rock chips were simply rock residue left on my windshield!  AWESOME!!!  Now I look like a total idiot because I was freaking out about rock residue!! 

I finally make it to Target and get out of the car.  I realize I totally left my purse at home, but on the silver lining side my wallet was in the car (??? don't know why my purse was in the house but my wallet ended up in the car, but I'm not going to question this small stroke of luck!).  I then go to grab my gift card and it is no where to be found!!  Somewhere between my work, Jones, and Target I managed to loose it!!  No I haven't found it yet either and I am sad :(. 

The kids pick out great presents for Jesse all by themselves and even did great picking out gifts for Lyla and Gage!!  We then headed over to Micheals.  I needed to get things for the rest of Lyla and Gage's Christmas presents and things for the pictures of the kids I wanted to take.  I had the hardest time finding fake snow!!!  Not the blanket or cotton type, but the bag of stuff that you can put in your tree to make it look, well snowy!!  I finally spotted a bag in an old ladies cart and asked her where she found it.  She told me that she actually decided she didn't need it and just gave it to me (ok starting to realize this day was actually pretty great!). 

I go to leave the store to find that it is now RAINING!!  It doesn't take a photographer to know that rain + expensive camera that I 'borrowed' from my husband = NOT GOOD!!  It was then I realized that I should have taken photos first shopped later!!  I had no choice but to go ahead and try to find a way to do the pictures anyway and I would just have to find a covered place to do them instead of where I had planned to do them!

As I was driving towards the park by our house as my only thought of were was covered that I could still attempt to take pictures I noticed the church by our house.  It was a very pretty brick and had a small amount of covering.  It wasn't the best, but it would do and I must say the pictures turned out great!!!  (On a side note, I figured out that backing into a rose bush HURTS!)

So the moral of my story is:  A simple Christmas gift isn't always so simple!!  I didn't even think that my day could end up so crazy, but in the end be so worth it!!  The pictures turned out so awesome and I am very proud of myself for the fact that I took them!!  The kids loved taking pictures for Papa (for those who don't know, that is what Jesse prefers to be called).  They thought it was so much fun and want to do it again!

Over all a perfect day!!  Santa is one lucky guy!  He gets to bring this kind of joy to millions of kids.  Even with all of the crazy I loved this day!

Home Sweet Home.................Well almost!

We have been officially living in our new house for a little over a week now.  I am slowly getting the rooms in the house set up.  Kyah's room was the first to be set up, which is really strange because she never really had a real room in the other house.  The next room I tackled was the kitchen/dinning room/living room area.  This room was actually kind of fun to do.  I don't know why, but I LOVE setting up kitchens.  I love the fact that I now have upper cabinets and that two of them have glass doors.  I put the dishes in one of them and food in the other.  Not only does it look cool, but it is total motivation to keep the dishes all washed and to keep the food cabinet organized!!  The next room I took on was Traiden's room.  If any of you know my son or my history with this room you know what a challenge that was!  It took working on it two different days and just really having the motivation to let toys go.  Even though I did get rid of some toys that he does like, I was basically done with most of them.  I can't forget the ducky bathroom!  The kids are so thrilled to have there own bathroom and won't even let Jesse or I use it. 

Here are the things I love about this house:
1-  Being able to microwave for more than 25 seconds at a time (no we couldn't do that at the old place)
2-  Having a dishwasher that isn't me and a garbage disposal
3-  The fact that two people can pee at the same time or shower at the same time
4-  Not having to park on the street
5-  Not living near crazy insane people who hand paint signs and nail them to trees and flip out on us saying we are stealing there internet and crashing their hard drives (if you think I am kidding, I am SO not!)

Here are the things I am not loving so much:
1-  The stairs down to the house are a little scary and impossible to see at night (we just got solar lights)
2-  There are 3 west facing windows so the house gets very hot during the day (bought insulated curtains)
3-  Natural gas stove! I have heard people love these, but man I die of heat while cooking!
4-  Tile tile every where, I first loved it! Not loving trying to keep it clean!
5-  The fact that I REALLY love this house and we are just renting and have to move again in a year!

I'm in BIG trouble!!

Traiden has now been in kindergarten for a total of three days.  I thought I was safe considering his class had mostly boys in it.  I was SO wrong!!  In the three days he has gone to school now he has came home with and told me about 3 different girl friends he has had.  The first day it was a girl with freckles all over her face, the second day it was a girl with glasses and allergies, and now today the girl with glasses wasn't at school so Traiden tried to get back together with the girl with freckles.  She didn't want to get back together with him so now his girlfriend is a girl with pigtails and a flower backpack!!  If this is how he is in kindergarten then I am dreading the middle school and high school years!  I am thinking I am going to have to find an all boys school or create one myself. 

Our life so far

Jesse and I recently moved to a new place.  It is a very nice house.  We upgraded from a two bedroom that we rigged to be a three bedroom one bath to a 3 bedroom 2 bath.  The new house has several things that we didn't have before.  First off we can park in a driveway and in 6 months we get the garage, a dishwasher, and beautiful tile throughout the house.  The neighborhood we live in is very nice.  We also live just a few houses away from the Shadow Mountain park.  Traiden is going to kindergarten at Sunset Elementary and started on Wednesday.  When I went to drop him off on the first day all of the other kids were a little nervous and asking their parents to go in with them.  I looked at Traiden and asked him if he needed me to go in with him.  He just looked at me and said 'Mommy you can go now!'  I know I should have been a little hurt about it, but really I was happy!  After all of the fits, crying, screaming, and yelling of dropping him off at preschool last year, I was more than happy that he was okay with going in himself.