Thursday, September 28, 2006

Happy Birthday to Me!





That's me at 39. The tired looking one on the right not the beautiful, fresh looking one on the left. It was actually the nicest birthday I've had in a really long time thanks to some great great friends and a wonderful family. Jim and I took the boys out to dinner at Chili's. Dinner out is an adventure because we never know how the kids are going to act. Trust me, if it wasn't for my insistence, we would never go out to dinner with the kids. Jim gets that deer in the headlights look everytime I suggest it. And since it was MY birthday, I decided to take advantage of that and say I wanted dinner out. In a RESTAURANT. Where I would get served. And surprisingly, the kids were great. With the exception of Gavin spitting water on the floor once, they were really good. It was nice to get out as a family and the kids had fun too.
Today was a different story. Awhile back a friend of ours gave the boys this cool dinosaur game. It's like Operation but it's a dinosaur's body. Cool right? It was until Gavin snuck it out of my room and decided to give himself a home perm by sticking the tweezers into a light socket. Oh sure, the sockets are covered but these kids are shifty, they know how to pull them off. So here I am working away and all of a sudden big hum and everything in my bedroom goes off. And then I hear Gavin crying and realize immediately what this kid did. Luckily he was ok just scared. In the meantime, I have no electricity in half of my house because he blew a circuit. Soooooo, I get to venture out to the garage, search for the circuit breaker and reset everything. This takes 40 minutes because my garage is like an obstacle course right now. Now I sit here, grateful that he's ok but rattled nonetheless. Another medical emergency diverted. The key here is NO GAMES THAT INVOLVE TWEEZERS AND ELECTRICITY. I never liked Operation as a kid. What kind of sadistic game is that anyway? You get SHOCKED if you screw up???? Nice.
This weekend we are going to venture out to the city. I've been wanting to take the kids to the zoo for awhile and also to the beach. I figure if we leave early enough we can do both. Good photo ops! Looking forward to a day in SF especially since it's been so long since we've been there. The kids will get a kick out of it too.
So that's my crazy week so far. Crossing my fingers we have no more mishaps with electricity or broken bones or blood. Have I told you lately how fun it is to have boys????

THis is them freakin' out because they couldn't go inside Nancie's with me. Ain't it great to be loved????

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Good food, good friends, great movie



These are two of the five amazing women I had the pleasure of having dinner with last night. Nancie, Corinne, Katherine, Laura, Daniela and I all went to dinner to celebrate September birthdays (Corinne, Daniela & I). We ate at Tahoe Joe's and it was super yummy. Nothing I love better than a good steak. And fantastic cheesecake. After dinner, Nancie, Corinne, Katherine and I went to see 'Little Miss Sunshine' which was an amazing movie. Definitely one of those feel good ones. Laughed like I haven't laughed in a long time and it was so much fun to share it with these ladies that bring so much joy to my life. If you haven't seen the movie, go see it. Definitely worth my money. Just ask Nance, she's seen it FOUR TIMES!!!
Happy to report the twins are doing very well. Had another sonogram on Friday and the doctor says all looks well. And I still feel great aside from being sleepy. Lately I've been going to bed at 8:30. I feel like a little kid but I am just so wiped out that as soon as the kids are in bed, I am too. That means lucky Jim can watch all the boring man shows he likes without me complaining. So we're both happy, he gets to watch television in peace and I get a little more sleep.
Now that we're in the swing of things with school life is getting back to normal. It seems like the first 3 weeks are a whirlwind of activities, PTA, open house, ugh. But looks like this week begins the calming, less activities and maybe I can be home for dinner a few times this week. And maybe even have time for doing more scrapbooking and completing projects like this:

And this

Loves that football.......

Monday, September 11, 2006

Never Forget




I can't believe it's been 5 years. It flew by. 5 years since I woke up with my 2 month old son next to me, turned on the television and realized something horrible happened. 5 years since my brother called me and said point blank, 'we're at war now'. It's mind numbing to believe how quickly things changed in these 5 years. Not just for me but for every American, every person, living in America. We were now targets. Our children, our families, our country. Anyone who knows me knows I am extremely patriotic. I've always been proud to call myself an American and proud of the opportunities this country provides for not only it's citizens but people who come from other countries and want to call America home. That day, I sat glued to the television, intermittently crying and waiting. Waiting to hear it was all a mistake. This couldn't have happened here. Not in the U.S. Who would have the nerve to do this? Like many other Americans, I had grown comfortable, thinking no one would have the gall to attack us, one of the strongest if not THE strongest nation in the world. Now, 5 years later, I realize we are not invulnerable. If someone wants to get to us, they will do their damnedest. So we have to be prepared for the worst and just pray it never happens again. We keep our children a little closer, tell our families we love them more often. My brother is in Iraq and will be for the next year. He's been in the Army for 18 years and the thought of ever losing him to a war never crossed my mind. Now the thought is there. Lurking there in the back of mind though I try to ignore it. I pray more often, I'm more cautious out in public. I avoid going to San Francisco especially on major holidays. What better time to strike than when there's people gathered to celebrate?
So on this, the 5 year anniversary of 9/11, I am still grateful and immensely proud to be an American. I pray that this war will be over soon and ALL of our service men and women will come home safe and sound. And that they will be honored as the heroes they are. That we will never forget why we are there. I pray that we will never forget what happened on that awful day 5 years ago. And that we will always remember that it is because our men and women volunteer to serve our country that we remain free and safe.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

I HATE HP

For those of you who know the horror story with my HP digital camera, you know that I am none to pleased with their company. However, I did have a few remaining HP products including my lovely printer. So today when I finally go to start my circle journal, I go to print what I need and get this stupid error message. I go to the HP website, do everything it tells me to do and still get the message. So I break down and get a tech online and after doing the same thing the troubleshooting guide tells me to do, the tech tells me, well your printer is past warranty but we can offer you an upgrade at a discount. Yeah HP, you can bite my discount. I'm switching to Epson. So now I'm shopping for another stinkin' printer. Oh the joys of computers.
Had a wonderful weekend. It all started on Friday when we finally got the confirmation that it's twins! We are all thrilled and things have been good so far. Hopefully the entire pregnancy will go smoothly and I'll give birth to 2 healthy babies. And they are so lucky because their daddies are such awesome guys. It has been truly a joy getting to know them and see how excited they are about becoming parents.
Saturday I had a pretty easy shoot in Campbell. Then came home and spent some time with the family, ran some errands. And then the guys came by last night to meet the kids. They were typical boys, wrestling, showing off and basically being goofy.
Today we just relaxed and had a nice family day, hanging out and just being lazy. Tomorrow we might take a drive out to Donner Lake just to get away for the day. It's been a couple of years since we drove out there and the kids will love it.
Well, my Little House on the Prairie marathon is on so I'm going to kick back a little longer and enjoy that. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend. And if you get a chance, say a quick prayer for all of our brave men and women serving around the world. Let them all be safe and come home soon.