Elvis the Elf

The Elf on the Shelf has arrived in our house! He magically appeared upstairs in the boys' room while all of us were downstairs. The kids were pleasantly surprised and a little freaked out. They kept asking if I bought him I told them no that I had just noticed him as I walking past the boys room. We decided that Santa must have sent Elvis special delivery this morning. The kids decided on Elvis by themselves. My mom loved Elvis. So I am going to keep you up to date on Elvis whereabouts. I think his report tonight to the big guy will be pretty good. The kids were rather well behaved, with the exception of Nick stalling by every means possible to not go to bed.

Poor little guy must have had a rough flight from the North Pole. He needed to lean up against a bear for support. 

Let the snow battles begin!

Yes, you read that right. Here in the wonderful Midwest, the first snow fall of December has fallen and it is wet and heavy. The perfect type to make snow forts, snowballs and snowmen. The kids are itching to go out and play and I have to admit I am too. LOL The battle I am speaking of does not mean snow ball fights, nope it is the fight over the shoveling of the common sidewalk. You see, I am in a condo but we are set up more like townhouses where we each have our own separate doors. If I shovel, I shovel all of the common sidewalk and I even go past my house and right up to the neighbor's door, since that is the neighborly thing to do. Right? Well, apparently my neighbor doesn't share my views on this subject. You see every year they shovel from their door, on the common sidewalk up until my stoop.  So, they walk on a nice shoveled path until they get to my stoop, then they have to walk through snow. Makes a whole lot of sense. Yes we have snow removal people but they usually don't get here until the snow is super high or almost melted. Yeah, don't get me started on that.  So I went out this morning and low and behold, they have shoveled up to my stoop. Fine, you want to play it like that, bring it on.  I proceeded to shovel off my stoop, my other neighbor's stoop( a nice one), the common sidewalk from my stoop, past the nice neighbor and into the parking lot. I then shoveled a path tho my car and the nice neighbor's car. I would have been nice and shoveled to their car, but now they can bite me.   I took some pictures so you can see how it is

  

 

I am running away and you can't stop me.

The chaos and fighting at my house between the children has reached epic proportions. It has been a long time since I dreaded the time they got out of school everyday.  I dread mornings and  basically anytime #1 & 2 are home. Sad I know, but that is my reality. This morning for example I am awoken by my kids fighting with each other and then arguing with me because they aren't allowed candy from today's Advent calender. Yes folks, I am a horrible mommy for not letting them have one piece of candy at 6:30am before they have even had breakfast. Someone call the cops.  So I explain that the candy can be eaten after school. Guess what #2 did? Pulled the piece out, started putting it toward his mouth all the while repeating that he is going to eat it because it is already out. He finally puts it back after much yelling on my part and arguing on his. I finally told him the whole thing would be garbage if he ate the candy.  I seriously would have tossed them. What the heck, I hadn't even had coffee! That right there is a crime, maybe I should have called the cops. Hmm, being locked in a cell by myself for a while doesn't seem too bad right now.   They don't even care that Christmas is just weeks away, because as #2 put it this morning, "Go ahead and call Santa, he sees what we are doing all the time anyway and will still bring us something!"

You know what, the little monkey is right. I can't not give my children something for Christmas as much as I would like to. *sigh*   A certain Elf should be arriving in a few days and I hear he reports back to Santa on behavior every night. Perhaps, he will bring a letter back to the kids from the big man. 

So, if any of you parents out there have any advice for me, that is besides running away or ducting taping them all to the wall, I would love to hear it.  

Card #3

I still have 30 minutes left of Tuesday. Here you go, Card # 3 Create a World

Together Forever tuesdays Card #2

This week's card is to Go Away!  I am going to scan the cards so you can see exactly what it says to do.

So, when was the last time you went away? I know for myself and my husband we have never gone away together alone since we have had kids. We have no one that is willing to take the four kids for us even for an overnight. I guess I can see why. It is too bad I can't cash in the credits I have definitely saved up babysitting for my nieces and nephews. LOL It would be nice though, next year is our 10 year Anniversary. Hopefully we can at least go to dinner and perhaps a movie. Who am I kidding? It will probably be Chinese take out after he has worked a 11 hour day. ☺

Together Forever Tuesdays

So I am going to start something new. I recently came across a box of cards and it was labeled 52 Ways to Stay in Love Forever  By: Lynn Gordon.  I was just going to toss them in the Goodwill bag when I decided to hang on to them. So every Tuesday I will write about one of the ways to stay in love forever. We must have gotten these for our wedding shower and I don't recall buying them and I know Andrew would never have bought them.

So here it goes,
Make out. According to the card, it claims it is never too late to start making out. So there you go, make out with your significant other more often and perhaps you will stay in love forever. 


BTW, tomorrow will be a  week since I have gone off Facebook. The jitters and shakes are gone and I have long since stopped frothing at the mouth. I will probably make my way over there at some point tomorrow, but I doubt I will stay long.

I went to Facebook!

I have to say, it was not my fault. I had clicked on a link on a fellow blogger's site and it took me there. However, as soon as I saw where I was I closed the window even though I noticed that I had 2 friend requests waiting for me. I wonder who they could be? I guess I will find out tomorrow. The worst time trying to stay away was the weekend, but I did it. I realize that I was FB as a distraction for the stresses in life. While that is not a bad thing, I also need to pull on my big girl panties and face them head on.

We have been doing some small renovations in our place the last month. First, I decided to paint the hallway, after all I bought the paint back in June. Then I decided that I hated the carpet on the stairs and hall. Seriously, the stuff was disgusting! It was old, worn down berber. So I ripped that up much to the chagrin of hubby. Then the banister looked cruddy so that got a fresh coat of paint. We also got new carpet for the stairs and hall. Yesterday hubby installed new exterior doors. I am pretty excited because the storm door is the one the screen rolls up into and the interior door has the blind in between the glass panes.  I start think about what project to embark on next, but then stop. LOL  It is just so much work. I would like to repaint my kitchen and living room, but I think I will hold off until the summer. Then again, who knows?

It has been 24 hours

and so far so good. Not that I haven't been tempted, but I was able to stay away. LOL The hardest time was early this morning when Lauren decided that I should be up at 3 am. There is not a whole lot to do at that time, instead I watched a couple of shows I had on my DVR. Rather than play on FB yesterday, I watched a bit of TV with the kids, took them on a bike ride, and we ended the night playing a game on the Wii and watching an episode of Billy the Exterminator. All in all, it was a fun day. Today they are all (thankfully) healthy and back to school. I went to the store, not to buy, just to walk around and enjoy getting out of my confinement. You can bet I washed mine and Lauren's hands thoroughly after. LOL We'll see what today has in store. It is a beautiful spring like day here in the Midwest, normally it would be in the 50s, today a nice sunny 70. Perhaps a walk and a visit to the park is in order.

An experiment

of sorts you can say. So, I love Facebook, I do. I can go on catch up with my friends and their lives, live in a make believe world where I am a farmer, frontier woman and even live in an old civilization. I can look through pictures of friends and family, get my horoscope, and even post what is on my mind. So I am going to see how it is to go without FB for a week starting now, 11-10-10 @ 11:21am CST. I  think I can do it. I know I have crops that will go bad and my Frontier will get over run with grass and skulls, but who cares? It is just a game after all and even though it is a ton of fun, it doesn't take the place of living life. So I am going to connect with people through the phone and email this week. I am going to tackle those odd jobs around the house that FB has been so gracious to help me ignore. Who knows, maybe I will never go back........

Stomach Virus 2010 has arrived

Yippee! Actually, it is my husband's fault and I completely blame him for it's descent into our home. After all he jinxed us. I don't know what he was thinking the day he uttered the words "the kids have been pretty healthy so far this school year." Even as I was trying to shush him, I knew that we were doomed. After all, any well seasoned parent knows that you should not utter such phrases, just like you shouldn't wake a sleeping baby.  It started just a few short days after those words were spoken. It began with me, then Nick about four days later, then Lauren a few days after that. It was then Alex's turn and now today it is Allison and Andrew's turn. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I was lucky enough to get it a second time. In between Alex & the last two. I was actually sick the same time as Alex. Andrew had to call off to stay home to take care of us and now the poor guy has it. I feel his pain and I completely sympathize, but after all, he did have it coming. LOL Just kidding (kind of). So today will be spent taking care of my sickies and disinfecting the house. I have my fingers crossed that this is it for the school year.

BTW, those aren't my fingers, just some random ones I found on Google.