The Zoo

We got a family pass to the Cincinnati Zoo this year and have already used it quite a few times. I've only gotten to go once, though. Jeff and Conor have been the ones getting the most use out of it since the girls were in school and I had to work. We all finally got to go the week after school let out. The very first thing we did came up to was the merry-go-round. Conor begged to ride it, he didn't want to wait until later, so he talked the girls into riding it with him. Allie, Ceara, and Caitlyn all got on and chose their animal to ride. Conor got on one, and then chickened out and got off. He said he might ride it later, but that he didn't want to rid it anymore. So the girls rode it around by themselves.

Doesn't Allie look thrilled?

We got tickets to see the Spongebob 4D movie that was starting not long after we got there. There was a bird show right around the corner, so we went to watch it while we waited. It was a hot day - can you tell by Conor's red face? We had only been there about 30ish minutes when this was taken.

After the movie, we rode the train to the elephant area and got off and walked around. The elephants were outside the building so we stopped to look at them for a few minutes before moving on. Conor left his water bottle where the elephants were and insisted that he had to go back to get it. Jeff took him while the girls and I waited.

Allie refused to get her picture taken with the baby elephant. Apparently she doesn't like elephants very much.

The reptile house offered a bit of a break from the sun and I, personally, love to go in and look at the snakes. I've always had a fascination for snakes. My mom wouldn't let me have one when I was a teenager, though. :(

Posing with the gorilla statue wasn't a problem with Allie, apparently she likes them and mentioned staying there to live with the monkeys. They wouldn't let her though.

After a few hours of walking around in the hot sun, we decided to call it a day and leave.

But not before Conor made his transformation...

Into a Mime.

Errrr.. wait. That's not a Mime.

A Mime with a black eye!

Oooops - a puppy!

A thirsty puppy by the looks of it.

Sly dog. He took the role to heart and even barked and growled for us while he had a puppy face.

And apparently dogs aren't afraid of the merry-go-round. Go figure.

**Note: I have many, many pictures of the animals at the Zoo. I've even posted some before. So I chose not to take any animal pictures this time and just get the kids. :)

I Believe

I was sent this in an email, and since I agree with every part of it, I thought I would post it here.

A Birth Certificate shows that we were born
A Death Certificate shows that we died
Pictures show that we lived!

I Believe...

That just because two people argue,
it doesn't mean they don't love each other.
And just because they don't argue,
it doesn't mean they do love each other.

I Believe...

That we don't have to change friends,
if we understand that friends change.

I Believe...

That no matter how good a friend is,
they're going to hurt you every once in a while
and you must forgive them for that.

I Believe...

That true friendship continues to grow,
even over the longest distance.
Same goes for true love.

I Believe...

That you can do something in an instant
that will give you heartache for life.

I Believe...

That it's taking me a long time
to become the person I want to be.

I Believe...

That you should always leave loved ones with loving words.
It may be the last time you see them.

I Believe...

That you can keep going long after you think you can't.

I Believe...

That we are responsible for what we do,
no matter how we feel.

I Believe...

That either you control your attitude or it controls you.

I Believe...

That heroes are the people who do what has to be done
when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

I Believe...

That money is a lousy way of keeping score.

I Believe...

That my best friend and I, can do anything,
or nothing, and have the best time.

I Believe...

That sometimes the people you expect to kick you
when you're down, will be the ones to help you get back up.

I Believe...

That sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry,
but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.

I Believe...

That maturity has more to do with what types
of experiences you've had and what you've
learned from them and less to do with how
many birthdays you've celebrated.

I Believe...

That it isn't always enough, to be forgiven by others,
sometimes, you have to learn to forgive yourself..

I Believe...

That no matter how bad your heart is broken,
the world doesn't stop for your grief.

I Believe...

That our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are,
but we are responsible for who we become.

I Believe...

That you shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret.
It could change your life Forever.

I Believe...

Two people can look at the exact same thing
and see something totally different..

I Believe...

That your life can be changed in a matter of
hours by people who don't even know you.

I Believe...

That even when you think you have no more to give,
when a friend cries out to you - you will find the strength to help.

I Believe...

That credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

I Believe...

That the people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon.

'The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything;
they just make the most of everything.'

Kindergarten

I really don't like that word. I have to think too much about it to spell it. It should be spelled kindergarden - why does it have to be a T? There is no t sound in the word when you say it. BAH!

Anyway, Conor is now officially signed up to begin kindergarten in the fall when school starts. We had registration Thursday - which used to include testing as well, so I scheduled the day off. Then I found out that there wasn't going to be any testing - new thing this year is that they do that right before school starts in August some time. So... Conor didn't even have to go.

I could have worked anyway because the registration lasted until like 7 or 7:30PM - but I chose to keep the day off. Just because I wanted to. Conor ended up going to Cindy's (his baby sitter's house) because he just HAD to - he had bought a ring for Carly and he HAD to give it to her.

I took him to drop him off at Cindy's and he gave Carly her ring and all the other kids immediately said, "What did you bring for me?"

Ashley, who calls Conor her boyfriend, asked where hers was, so Conor explained that it cost a whole $.25 and he couldn't afford more than the one he got for Carly. So then he sat down next to Carly and Ashley asked to sit on his lap. Ahhh the girls.

So I left at that point and went home to be a bum. Jeff and I took him to the school to register him later in the day. Even though he didn't have to be there, we wanted him to go to see what the school was like.

When we got there Conor was excited and wondered if Carly would be at the same school. It seems he doesn't understand that she goes to school in a different district. We went in and filled out the paperwork and afterwards went to see what the classrooms looked like. They were all locked, so we could only look through the doors until the janitor walked by and let us go in and look around in one.

The classroom was full of color and fun - beanbag chairs, a wall of computers, the alphabet on puppets, little mail slots for their papers, a small aquarium with cocoons turning into butterflies. Conor loved it. He is very excited to start school.

We also saw a flyer for soccer on one of the walls, so we are going to be signing him up to play soccer in the fall.

My baby boy is going to school soon. I hope he loves it and does well.

May 14th, 2008

Today would have been Charlie's 23rd birthday. There is not a day that passes that I do not think about him. I'm not much into sharing my feelings on here, but I could not let the day pass without acknowledging him and remembering him on my blog.


I still have the Peace Lily plant that was given to me when Charlie died. I think of him when I see it. I think of some of the times when I would pick him up from his mom's and bring him to dad's house. I worked close to him so it was easy for me to do.


I think of the time when I was upset and he did Jim Carrey impressions to make me laugh.


I think of all the conversations I had with him about Dad's reactions to certain things - like his ear being pierced and his tattoo he got. We had some laughs when trying to guess what he would say.


I think about his tourettes and the tics he had and how much I ignored them when I noticed them.


I think of him when I saw him at Brett's funeral - how I hugged him and cried and told him I didn't see enough of him now that he was older.


I think of his snake he had when he was little.


Every time I see a skate board I think of him - hanging out at the skate boarding place where I picked him up from sometimes. Or the DVD I made of the VHS tapes that he made of himself. In those tapes, it shows him trying different moves over and over and over again until he gets it right. He didn't give up, he just kept on trying until he got it right.


I think of him when I think about painting my house - because he was supposed to help me.


I can't very well go over every thought I have in this post, but the point is I DO think about him. Every day. And I am glad that I do. I don't ever want to forget him.

Happy Birthday, Charlie. I love you very much.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms out there!!

Posing

Being typical teenage girls (uhhh, wait. I don't remember doing any of this when I was a teenager! oh, yeah, no digital cameras then...), Allie and Ceara like to take pictures of themselves. Either via a mirror reflection, or holding the camera at arms length to take the shot.

And now they've started to include Conor. He loves to take pictures and will get my camera and take various strange pictures of things and people. I usually just delete them though - thank goodness for digital cameras!

And oh, my... Gage too. Sheesh. Peace, dude.

Any thoughts on what he could possibly be thinking?

This totally cracks me up.

Ceara looks to me like she is about to roll her eyes at Allie and Chrissy - but I know better. She poses too. I just don't have those downloaded to my computer yet!

New Quilt

My mom has this quilt that I fell in love with as soon as I saw it. There is just something about it that I love, but she was not willing to part with it. We went to IKEA and bought a new bed. After we had it all together and didn't have a big enough blanket / comforter for it, my mom surprised me by giving it to me. It made my day. :)



If you look a little closer, it is a quilt of the 1900s. It has the decades in it - 1910 through 1990 - with pictures surrounding it of things from that decade (I assume, I have not actually checked...). Below is 1970s.

And the 1940s. No, don't ask me what the pictures mean. I just love it. For the colors and the theme.

So, thanks, Mom. I really do love this quilt. :)

Two months without posting!

Yes, I know I've been a slacker. Each time I have opened my blog in an attempt to post something, I have been distracted. By what? The blogs I have linked on my side bar to the right. The newest edition - Pioneer Woman - has me addicted. I still haven't read all her entries, but I'm trying to! If you have NOT read her site, I suggest you go on over right now and check her out. Funny, interesting stories. Contests (with prizes). Photography (at some point I will reload Photoshop on my computer and try all this out!). Cooking. Home and garden. Even if you know how to cook, her cooking site is excellent. The pictures of what she is doing step by step are amazing.

I also had some computer problems and had to re-image my computer. Thus losing all my pictures (I did, however, back them up) and all my programs (Photoshop, Office) and I have yet to reload them.

I did take some time last night and uploaded some pictures that I have taken recently and will be posting all of them below this post (several posts). So, scroll down. If you don't see any new pictures, then you've come too soon and I'm still working on it! I do have to do some work as well ya know. :)

OH! And *ahem* I will be back dating them so it will appear that I didn't skip two months of posting. HEY! It's my blog and I can do that. So, ha!

Like my nephew's birthday party on 03/29/08. It will look like I actually posted the pictures on that day! heehee

Jumping

Just some pictures of Conor jumping on the trampoline at Molly's house.

The one above looks like he is standing in mid air. He looks so stiff. lol

I was going for some action shots - didn't do too badly. :)

Grandma's Birthday

March 29th is also my Grandma's birthday. You can read more about her here and here. And once again, I gave her lottery tickets for her birthday. :)

Happy Birthday, Grandma! (only belated on the blog, I did wish her one in person on her actual birthday!)

I did however, forget to take my camera to her house for her cake and ice cream.

Gage's Birthday

My nephew, Gage, just turned 6 on March 29th. I think I have made all of his birthday cakes / cookies in the past, but not this time. Although I made the icing, my sister did all of the decorating. She did a great job.

Molly had the party at her house, mostly just family and friends. I found a balloon making kit thing when I went to the store, so we blew up balloons and I did my best to twist them into something fun. :) I didn't get a picture of the dogs I did, but they didn't turn out too bad!

The boys wanted hats and swords, though. Oh, and a bow and arrow (below) that had invisible arrows. Didn't stop Conor from shooting me with it.

Gage starting to open his presents while his dad is saying something... hard telling what. And uh, I don't remember.

Austin trying to get the bunny ears on Gage was not fast enough. And his mom said, "Stop it!" with that mean mom look, but I took the picture before he could move away.

Blowing out the candles, so we could all dig into the cookie. Every single little boy wanted a part of Scooby Doo.

Lucy got to come and visit as well. She was totally worn out from all the excitement. Allie let her lay in her lap while she was watching something on TV.

And she passed out on the floor as well.

Meet Lucy

My mom got herself a Shitzu puppy. Meet Lucy Liu. Or it could be Lucy Lou. Either way she is mostly called just Lucy.

Her black eyes blend in with her fur around her face, but we can still see them! Just look really close. She is the sweetest little puppy. She gets so excited to meet new people.

When I go to my mom's house and pick her up, she snuggles her face in my neck. She is soooo cute. She loves to play - throw a ball or toy and she will go get it and bring it back.

She also pounces like a cat - kinda like the picture above (even though in the one above I believe she is just resting), she gets in that position and jumps on your feet. It is hilarious. She is such a sweet and lovable dog. The kids adore her, as do I. (Oh, and I do believe she has my mom wrapped around her little, uh.. paw.)

New Blogs To Read

Like I need another blog to read to distract me from work... errr to read in my spare time at home. However, I came across this blog via the Waiter Rant site (if any of you read it, you might have as well), and it is great! It was voted the best written blog for 2008 and I can see why. She is funny, takes awesome pictures, and I haven't even read it all. I read her story about how she met her husband and I was hooked. She also had a food blogs where she shares recipes with picture directions. Wow is all I can say.

Check her out - Confessions of a Pioneer Woman and The Pioneer Woman Cooks

I will be adding them both to my list on the side, as soon as I remember how. :)

Now I have go to the grocery so that I can make some of her recipes!

Blurb

After getting dismissed from work early due to the weather (snow), I arrived home to find Jeff and the kids eating lunch. Hamburgers and french fries. Noticing Conor did not have any ketchup for his french fries, I told him I would get him some. He responded, "I don't like ketchup."


OMG! How can anyone not like ketchup, let alone my offspring?!?!

So I looked at him and said, "Who are you, and how are you related to me?"

He giggled and ignored the question. But seriously. How can any offspring of mine not like ketchup? I'm shocked. I think I'm still in shock 10 hours later...

This coming only a couple of days after my declaration of love for ketchup.

Phone numbers

Well, as Conor gets older and smarter, he is learning how to use the phone - much to his sisters' dismay. They get phone calls and he picks up the other line and talks to their friends while they beg him to hang up the phone and I laugh. muwahhahahahahaha

However. He has also memorized a few phone numbers of people he likes to visit. Like Grand-dad. He will get the phone and call him at all times during the day and ask him to come over or ask if he can come over there. Without talking to either of his parents first! Jim is so patient with him, he has not complained yet.

He also knows our phone number. And he seems to like talking on the phone. When he is at Grand-dad's house, he will call us over and over and over again. He still doesn't have the concept of one phone number belonging to all of us, though. He will ask me what my phone number is and when I tell him he says, "No, that's Dad's phone number. What is yours?" Or if I answer the phone he will ask, "Why are you answering Dad's phone number?"

He also will call to talk to Teddy. Our dog. heehee And has been known to put Teddy on the phone to talk to other people as well. So, be careful giving out your phone number to Conor. You might think he will not remember it, but you will think wrong.

Ketchup and Random Stuff

Yes, I have been quite lazy with this blog lately, I'm sorry. I've not really felt like writing anything. Lots of happenings should have been posted, just for the laughs.

Jeff's company shut down on January 11th, so he has been without a job since then. Since he is not working, he has been concentrating on his school work and he keeps Conor at home with him during the day while I work.

He has also taken on the household duties, for the most part. Grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, cooking, and such. Yes, I do help out some as well, but he does the majority. We have all also been passing around the winter sickness everyone seems to have.

Since Jeff is doing the grocery shopping, there have been some odd occurrences in our house. Like we ran out of ketchup. Not just any ketchup, mind you. Heinz. It's the only ketchup I will use. Upon discovering that there was no ketchup, I called him a slacker. Uh, hello? This didn't happen when I did the grocery shopping!

There are still some things that I do the shopping for - the Sam's Club items. Which is still a mistake, although I have not come home with 3000 straws lately. Probably because we still have a lot left. :) I still go during my lunch hour at work. Last week, I went armed with a list, again. I had 6 items on my list and I left with 19 items. Ketchup was one of them. I cannot live in a house with no ketchup, so I am not chancing that again!

If I go to some one's house for dinner or a cook out or whatever and they have another brand of ketchup (sometimes called catsup by those generic brand people!), I will either eat my food plain, or not at all. I have also been known to bring my own bottle of ketchup to the houses of people who I know do not use Heinz (my Dad... sheesh!).

This month there are a few happenings in my world. We have Easter (which, I know, happens in a lot of other people's worlds!), and Jeff's birthday falls on Easter day. Which hardly ever happens since Easter usually falls in April. The girls are also on Spring break in March this year because of it.

Then my grandma's and Gage's birthdays are both on the 29th of March - which falls on a Saturday this year. So that will be a weekend of parties.

My computer crashed last night and I am bummed because I will lose a lot of my picture when I re-image it. I know that I put some of my pictures on a disc, but not all of them. And it has been a while since I did the back up as well. :( I'm not looking forward to the re-imaging because it will be very time consuming to get everything back on there.

OK, so that is all for now. I will try to do better with posts, but I'm not promising anything!

Jeff

Walking on Stilts

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo BooksEdit: Just to clarify, yes, I did say I wanted to get it on tape if she fell... but I in no way, shape, or form was referring to a fall that would seriously hurt her... just the little ones that are funny. I would never want to see my only daughter injured.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

A few pictures from the holidays

Since blogger now limits the amount of pictures you can put on your blog by the amount of space they take, I decided to upload smaller pictures.

From our family gathering:

The Santa bag is searched for the toys to hand out, Conor and Gage wait a little impatiently. :)

Everyone is watching something that is on the TV - I don't remember if this was the movie, or the football game..

Below, on the left, is Pete - the instigator.

Below are pictures from our Christmas Eve at my Mom's house.

Conor and Gage opening their gifts:

Allie and Ceara - they are never usually very far from the other. I am really glad they are such good friends.

Molly making bunny ears behind the boy's heads, but her fingers kinda blend in with the curtains behind her.

Molly and her two boys, Austin and Gage:

The grand kids (note in the background our senior pictures... Molly so had the "big hair" going on):

My assistant chefs when we were baking:

They were so helpful!

Christmas

The days leading up to Christmas were filled with lots of baking at my house. The kids and I were in the kitchen for the majority of the day, for two days in a row. We made an assortment of goodies which we packaged up and gave out to our family and friends. Jeff helped a little, but was not in the kitchen anywhere near as long as the rest of us.

We made:

M&M cookies, Chocolate Nut Balls, Nut rolls, Cream Cheese cookies, One Good Thing After Another bars, Chocolate Toffee bars, White Chocolate covered snack mix and.. I think that was all. It's been a while, so I don't remember exactly. A few of those took the two days to do because the dough had to sit for 12-24 hours, or I was too tired to do them at the end of the first day. My kitchen was a tornado - make one thing, clean up the mess to make another. It all went rather well, though, with the kids helping.

On Christmas Eve we went to my Mom's house for dinner - a ham dinner that was wonderful. As we were getting ready to leave to go to mom's house, my sister called and told Allie that they had already opened their presents and that we were late. In fact, they were just early, the time agreed upon was 6PM and it was about 5:40 when she called. So, we had been rushing around, trying to get everything and everyone ready, and upon hearing that they were done already - I figured why rush?

When we got to Mom's we found that they actually hadn't started without us, that was Molly's way of making us hurry up. Too bad for her that it back fired and it actually made us take our time.. :)

We ate dinner, did a gift exchange, then just talked while the kids played. When we started to leave, we found out that Jack had made stilts for all the kids for Christmas and they were out in the garage. Allie was the only one who would actually get on and try them, and she tried over and over again while we all stood and laughed, err.. watched and encouraged her.

I did take a video of her walking on them - she did finally get it down and was doing very well on it. I will put it up later in another post.

We got home and Jeff took the kids to church, while I stayed behind to find where I hid their gifts, wrap them, and re-hide them. Somehow Jeff got out of all the buying and wrapping of gifts this year. I finished with about 10 minutes to spare before they got home.

The kids got ready for bed, and Jeff went to bed as well. Santa came to visit us, ate the cookie that Conor left for him on the tree, and left some goodies for the kids as well. :)

Conor woke us up on Christmas morning, excited that there was a bike that was clearly for him next to the tree. Although Jeff did try to stake a claim for it, Conor pointed out that it was too little for Daddy. We woke the girls up and the kids opened their gifts. We then had to get ready for breakfast - which I have made every year for a very long time. It somehow have become a tradition for me to cook breakfast on Christmas morning.

This was the first year that Molly did not come to breakfast because she wasn't feeling well, so I ended up with a lot of food left. So we had Jeff's parents (Barb and Jim), Naomi, Jerry, my Mom, Jack, and my Dad stopped by later. Bernie didn't make it because they were having issues with their shower and she didn't want to come over and stink up our house.. ;)

We had sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits, gravy, waffles, and my mom brought hash brown casserole.

After breakfast we did our gift exchange with Jeff's family and then it was time to play with the new toys. Conor, Jeff, Jerry, and Naomi tried to put the new Lego castle together that Conor had gotten. I cleaned up the kitchen and watched from there.

It was a nice, relaxing, fun day.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas as well!