Happy New Year's Eve - we're all sick and it sucks!

Yeah, so we have been passing this virus around for the past week. It sucks and it kind of ticks me off. We are sick because someone didn't keep their sick kid home. Ugh.

That also means that we didn't get to go a friend's house like we were supposed to. I'm so bummed out. We had so many plans that have just gotten destroyed this week.

Ugh. So 2007 is ending with a whimper over here.

We got some fireworks for the kids to do in the backyard. Here they are:



Yeah, they looked just thrilled, don't they? We stopped after just a few minutes because they wanted to go in and finish the fireworks another day. How sad is that? They are too sick to watch fireworks.

Ugh.

Anyway, I got some pictures because well, it's what I do now, take pictures of everything and make my husband crazy (I almost asked him to move the trash around them, but he already thinks I'm completely crazy).



Happy Freaking New Year.

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Jamie's Basketball Eval

Basketball Eval
Originally uploaded by CandyTX

I love the YMCA. We all know Jamie tries really hard, but well... he has insisted he wants to play basketball this year, so we signed him up. But we also signed him for the 2 day "basketball camp" that they had this week. He got himself an evaluation. Now, I didn't see him play, but I thought the eval was cute. His technical skills were okay, but his people skills were up there. Too funny! He also cam home telling me, in detail, the "right" way to shoot.

Haircut time

Wild Hairs (or lack there of)

Yeah..so I got a wild hair...I realized that I had never been shaved bald and not had a beard and stache....sooooo



Hmm...kids sure are gonna be surprised in the morning muwahahahaha

Don't forget to skip over to...

If You Give A Kid A Camera - it's a blog project that I keep doing in hopes it will take off one day. The premise is you give your kid a camera once per month (or more) and then post what they take... it's pretty funny (and amazing) what kids can do!

Check us out over at http://ifyougiveakidacamera.blogspot.com/

Wanna join us? Email me (link at the right) and I'll add you!

One day I'll make it all pretty, but well... not today ;)

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Christmas Night & The Day After

We had dinner at home on Christmas. Tom made a honey spiraled ham that was absolutely to die for. We also had twice baked potatoes casserole and broccoli puff. And we had some "red" and "white" sparkling grape juice (Jamie's idea) so we let the kids drink out of wine glasses. They thought they were so big. We even set the table all nice:



The kids played some more, I took a nap and Tom let me sleep (thank goodness, I was dead) and then Tom and I got to play the Wii. I'm not very good at the point and click games (not on the PC either), but in the sports, I can kick his butt! We played boxing (KO baby!) and bowling and baseball. :) I beat him in all 3. *laugh*

I got up this morning and Cassie looked HORRIBLE and was running around a 102 degree fever. So I dosed her with Tylenol and got her an appointment this afternoon at the doctor. She took a 3 hour nap (those that know Cassie are as freaked out as I am, Cassie does NOT nap) and woke up burning up again so I dosed her with Motrin. She stayed in her room in bed all day. Tom took her to the doctor at 2:30 and she came home all happy. What? How does THAT work? She still sounds kind of yucky, but she looks a lot better.

The doctor didn't give her anything, it's viral, like I thought (but that fever scared me!). She did say there's some bug going around. It's not the flu, thank goodness, but it's a 3-5 day deal.

Anyway, so she's doing a little better. She asked for McDonald's for dinner so we sucked it up and got McDonald's (I don't really like Mickey Ds). Let's hope she keeps it down and has a good day tomorrow. Ugh. I hate it when they are sick. Especially her. Jamie will tell us what hurts and what will make him feel better. Cassie just wants to be left alone.

Poor baby.

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Christmas Morning...

I think I mentioned in my last post that Cassie was sick. Okay, let me post this general rule to family members, friends, and the public as a whole... do NOT bring your sick children to gatherings. Keep them home. Give them medicine. Get them well. Someone brought their sick kid to a family gathering. I didn't realize the kid was sick otherwise I would have asked her mother to quarantine her. Seriously. Everytime someone comes sick to a family gathering, someone in my family gets sick. Ugh. So while their child is probably fine now, mine is sick on Christmas Day and that's not fair to her. I would have rather my kids missed a family gathering than be sick on Santa Day!

So, last night, we are at Tom's mother's house and Cassie's nose gets a little runny - no biggie because we've all been suffering with allergies lately, but I notice her eyes are a little glassy and she feels warm. My SIL has a thermometer in her purse (of course *laugh*) and Cassie is running a nearly 100 degree fever. Crap, so we book it out of there and stop on the way to get her a cold Sprite. Get home, do the reindeer food thing, drug her up and she starts coughing up a storm. We ended up moving her into our bed, but she was awake when Santa came and basically just threw stuff in piles - he didn't get to open as many things as he would have liked to, but she was coughing and I needed to get to bed with her.

She woke up a few times in the night coughing and I had to prop her up on my shoulder so she was half sitting up. She sounded horrible. Ugh. She got up this morning at 8:30 and was kind of dragging - she did insist I get up so we could go see what Santa brought (we are mean and make them wait until we get up too... LOL). She then woke up Daddy and Jamie, but you could tell she was still sick. Anyway...

Last night, Santa nearly got busted so many times. Jamie was tossing and turning because Cassie was awake and coughing up a lung. The funniest was the bird though. Everytime we moved it it screeched "Hello" or started singing "Hot Hot Hot". Tom finally grabbed it and was out in the garage for about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to turn the thing off. Every now and then I'd hear it say "Hello" or "Hot Hot Hot" or whatever faintly through the door. I just knew he was going to take a hacksaw to the thing and fix it for good. *laugh*

Busted:


The loot. The Wii pile (and gaming chairs) is the family gift, Jamie's pile is next, the next is a "to share pile" and the next is Cassie's pile - what you cannot see is Julie's little pile. She got a new bed, toys and treats:


Here's the kiddos walking in...


Jamie checks his stuff out:


Here's Cassie with Pinkie Pie (that's name of an annoying My Little Pony - this particular dances and sings and must die immediately):


We were starting to wonder when Jamie was going to notice the Wii. He had originally asked for a Wii, but then changed his mind to Battleground. The Wii was our family gift this year. Anyway, he had walked by it and even glanced that way, but he was so into the Battleground thing, he didn't even really notice it... and then he did:


Cassie noticed the gaming chairs and they decided to open their stockings (which had movies and junk in them) while on the chairs:


We had breakfast (Tom made breakfast tacos!), Cassie puked (just how I wanted to spend my Christmas morning, thanks again for bringing your sick kid - not that I'm bitter or anything) *laugh*, so Jamie set up his Battleground game while Tom went to the store to get some more meds for Cassie:


Cassie laid down and watched some movies and got a little rest:


And then got up so they could both zone in front of the Wii for a while:


Tom and I are both exhausted. He's making a ham, potato casserole and brocolli puff... and the new oven just went on the fritz saying to call the service center and won't heat anything up.

Hey, at least I didn't bust the sink again! *laugh*

(Don't Ask)

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Christmas Eve stuff...

So, for the past nine years, I keep saying I'm going to take Spam Musubi (Click to see recipe) to one of the family gatherings, but honestly I've been worried that no one would eat it. I mean, it's spam sushi basically *laugh*. But this year, Tom convinced me to make it and take it. Everyone seemed to really like it! Yay! They ate all of it! I took 15 little ones and they ate 'em!



Yummmm...

A slideshow from Christmas Eve at Tom's Mother's house...


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Cassie started running a fever. One of the cousins brought a sick kid to the grandmother's celebration on Saturday. So, now Cassie is sick. Poor thing, sick on Christmas Day :( I was up a few times in the night with her coughing. She's pretty miserable. Tom and I aren't feeling well, but I don't know if that's from the lack of sleep or what.

I have Christmas pics, which I'll post later tonight or tomorrow... I gotta go check on Cassie girl.

I'll leave you with some pics from last night - they left reindeer food out for the reindeer (oatmeal with green/red sprinkles) :-)





And a quick pic of the moon last night, just cuz :)

Heard From The Backseat

Jamie: I saw Santa in his sleigh out the car window. I saw Battleground and Peppy The Birdy in his sleigh!! (these are their 2 most wished for gifts) .

Nice Siblings: Playing Heroscape

Tom has this game called Heroscape. I have no idea how you play it or whatever. The kids don't either, but Tom keeps it on a high shelf in his office and the kids are only allowed to play with it every so often, so it's very very special. They've been in Jamie's room for almost TWO hours. As far as I can tell, they just move the little characters around the board in different positions. Anyway, it let me get some last minute work caught up and Tom is able to start getting the truffles done. (don't ask).

They are so cute sometimes together. Seriously, we are SO lucky that they get along so well (most of the time anyway). Awww...





It does make me wonder what my own mother did wrong though. My middle sister and I rarely got along like my kids do. *laugh* - Love you mom (and even you, Ginger).

Yes, my sister's name is Ginger. My name is Candy - sugar and spice, get it? My poor 3rd sister came "this close" to being named Cookie.

I'm not kidding.

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Xmas Gifts From Each Other...

In the never-ending days of gifts, they opened their gifts from each other this afternoon (after I made them clean their rooms and help with the rest of the house).

Cassie got Jamie snakes. She was determined that is what she wanted to give him snakes, so she bought this little bag of snakes from the dollar store and then we ordered a big stuffed from Amazon. He was so cute and she was so proud of herself!

Jamie got Cassie a Diego backpack full of games they can play. Cassie was more excited about putting the backpack on because, well, that's what Cassie does - wears stuff. But they went in her room and played a few games and I think the snakes had a fight with the Barbie dolls or something. ;)







Oh, and since Heather doesn't read the comments... my camera is a Canon Rebel xti and my flash is the Canon Speedlite 430ex :) I've been using the kit lens as my everyday lens. I also have a 70-300mm and a 50mm fixed.

Xmas at Great Granny's House

We had Christmas at Tom's grandmother's house today... it was actually kind of nice. Sometimes it's so chaotic that I feel so overwhelmed that I am not able to relax, but either I'm getting used to it (lol - finally) or everyone was calmer, not sure which one ;)

We had shrimp and so many side dishes and pies I lost count and Tom and I brought the chocolate fountain. We bought it a year ago on sale and never used it. Let me tell you that if you want to have one of those whisper fights with your spouse at a family function, decide to set up a chocolate fountain together for the first time. *laugh*. First, the chocolate wasn't melted enough, then he cooked it, then we didn't add enough oil, then I had globs of it all over the table. Oh man, it was CRAZY. Luckily we quickly realized we were arguing over a stupid chocolate thing, read the directions again and realized we didn't put enough oil in the stupid thing and we didn't turn it off to let the bubbles settle so it would "sheet" down in a fountain-like way.

Eureka. We have also decided this thing will only come out on special occasions ;)



Here's Jamie playing with the tinker toys he got...





Cassie was in one of her moods about pictures today, so we didn't get many of her, but here's one of her playing with her Daddy :)



And one of "baby" Jack, playing with a ball, with a little editing help from Auntie Candy...

First Xmas Gifts Opened!

Tom and I took pity on ourselves and let the kids open their gifts from us tonight - they are already bored and we needed a break. And Santa came a little early and gave me an external flash for my camera... so I got to play... I'm proud of quite a few of them! And it's like having a whole new camera... that flash makes a HUGE difference in indoor photography!

Anyway... here's some of my faves from tonight - see my flikr for more (that annoying thing to the right) ;)

I love this one of Cassie... it's kind of backlit... and yes, I actually did this on purpose!



Can you say bounce flash? Yeah, baby, yeah! Aside from that, Jamie has the most soulful eyes... I love taking pictures of him like this.



Here they are showing us what they got. Cassie got some new BearyTales stories and a few gameboy movies/games. Jamie got some new gameboy games. (Thank you, GameSpy, sorry you went out of business, but we SCORED!)

Austin Trail of Lights 2007

We ventured down to Zilker and walked the Trail of Lights last night. We hadn't done it since 2004, so it was a lot of fun. The kids behaved and I got to practice taking photos. ;)

Our friend and her kid went with us. She had a scarf and each kid grabbed a section. It worked great. We didn't have to hold their hands the whole way but we couldn't lose them, they were grouped together. They did really well considering they don't open it until 7pm and bedtime is 7:15 here!

Here's a slideshow... it was SO neat this year.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

My favorite was Where The Wild Things Are - and I think my photo turned out pretty good on that one. The dinosaur around the tree was REALLY neat as well. It was a great time. We hope to try to do this every year :)

Oh, and yes, we twirled under the tree. I think you have to. :-)

Heard From the Backseat

Cassie: You know why I like you? Cuz your the best brother in the whole world

Jamie: Thanks, Cassie, you are the best sister.

Everyone now.... "Awwwwww....."

Another Wedding

Congrats to Mike and Jen... To those family members that are unmarried pls elope ... Enough weddings already

New Appliance For Tom...

When we moved into the house from the apartment, we lost our microwave over the stove. I loved that thing, but alas, it belonged to the apartment. We had a great little microwave, but it still took up counterspace. Then it started dying. We wanted to get another over the range ones, but couldn't afford it right then, so we got a little cheap one. OMG. Do not EVER buy a little cheap microwave. It sucked so bad... but finally, we have a new microwave.

Oh wait. I didn't tell you why it was so expensive. Tom cooks, we all know that. He cooks a lot and he's always wanted 2 stoves. But there not enough room for a wall oven or anything, so we found these convection/microwave range hoods. We ended up going for the speedcook, which is kind of the same thing, you have to use microwave safe stuff in it, but it can grill, brown, fry eggs, all kinds of stuff.

They installed it late last night.

Tom, being the manly man with a new kitchen appliance that he is... is currently grilling steak. In the kitchen. In his range hood thing-a-bob.

Here's what it looks like installed over the stove:


See the steak in there?


Oh, but to make the geek in him sing, it also has a LCD touchscreen. Seriously!


Yes, my microwave is smarter than I am.

Great.

Update: Yeah, apparently we have too much electricity in this house or something, someone printed to the printer, which is on the same circuit as the new microwave and we tripped a breaker. Nice. Tom's gonna move some stuff around.

The View From My Desk

NOTE: If you are here looking for the tree topper saga that one of my so-called friends told you about (LOL)... it's here

My desk looks out over a window. I have a gap area where the edge of the wall and the computer monitor don't meet from my point of view. It's great because I can see the kids on the swings while I work and there's also this beautiful old tree that I can see the edge of. Several times per day, I see squirrels running up and down the tree with acorns they find on the ground. I've tried to get pictures before, but if I try to sneak outside they catch me and disappear... so today, I grabbed the camera, zoomed in close and took pictures! Not too bad consider that window is dirty. I can NOT believe I got the one sitting on the branch. It was in a deep shadow. I have no idea how I did that, but gift horse, mouth, etc etc...

So, here's one of my little buddies...



You can see on the left the dark area there is actually the edge of the window frame, it was a tight fit!


He's a little out of focus, but at least you can see him up there... he perches there to store his loot and stare around waiting for a blade of grass to move so he can scurry away. Jittery little guys!


I'm not even going to complain that we had the A/C on earlier today. Nor will I complain that we even HAVE squirrels around in DECEMBER. It got cold tonight. For a while. Who knows how long. I'm moving back to Hawaii, I swear it! Watch me! Ummm... okay, maybe not. But geez!

Jamie's last soccer game this season and ramblings

First the pictures... Jamie's last game of the season was on Saturday and I took some pictures:

I think this is the first time Jamie actually got to throw in!


He spent, what I think, is a lot of time on the bench. I know he isn't the most athletic, but it's the YMCA, where they don't keep score and everyone plays. I dunno. I'm going to see how next year goes for him (he says he wants to play basketball this Winter). Anyway, he and this one little girl were almost ALWAYS on the bench together. I think they are looking for bugs here:


I took this one for my photo class, but I still think it's a cool shot of him running. That's his coach in the background:


He lost his shoe during the game... poor coach - Jamie's feet REEK.


See! He does actually kick the ball now and then!



I finished the final weeks photos for my photography class tonight. Just showing off what I learned:

Shutter speeds:


Fill Flash:


Lit / Buildings:


Macro (I need better lights)


Tom is gonna build me a little in-garage studio! Stay tuned for even better photos of him constructing stuff!

Oohh.. I cannot wait! That's always a fun time!

Jamie's last game

celebration at Moonies

We saw Santa!!!

For the first year ever, both kids agreed to visit with Santa. Even Cassie! I wasn't too sure because she and I went to the mall earlier and passed by Santa and she was dragging me away screaming (yes, quite the scene, and we didn't even go NEAR him). But Jamie must have given her some courage, because she walked right up. She was VERY nervous, but told him she wanted a "Peppy the Birdie" and Jamie told him he wanted Battleground. They were so cute!

Here they are at home getting ready for the big event:


Jamie is waiting his turn (I love love love this photo of him, he looks so big!):


Cassie walking up:


Jamie telling him IN DETAIL what Battleground is (he was a little nervous too):


... and eureka! We got 'em both this year! Yay!

Welcome Home, Uncle Mike!

I guess it's actually cousin, but that just sounds too weird, so I make my kids call Tom's cousins aunts and uncles - okay, seriously, my kids are already constantly confused, what's one more thing. Actually, they don't call all of them aunt and uncle, just some. Okay, hmmm... talk about random I guess. Whatever.

So, Tom's cousin, Mike, came home today from Iraq and Aunt Donny had everyone over for breakfast (at dinner). My kids were so thrilled. It's BREAKFAST, but at DINNER - get it? It was ultra exciting, trust me.

So, here's some pics to share and some commentary...

Mike is getting married in a couple of weeks, here he is with the latest victim in our family, Jen. Okay, seriously, was I this annoyingly sweet and lovey dovey all those years ago?

Whatever did this toy do to Tom? Here he is "fixing" the Rock Em Sock Em Robots - circa ice age

Jamie trying to pretend he doesn't see me and is super annoyed with me and my camera.

Cousin Olivia being all cute and stuff

This is Tom's Grandma P:

I have a 50mm fixed lens coming to me in the next few days... I hope it's better for indoor photos. Not loving my camera for indoor shots. Hmm... maybe an external flash... *glances to see if Tom is looking before going to Amazon* Or maybe a macro lens (okay, I just WANT that)...

Seeing a play with Jamie

Soccer Cake, Chocolate Calendars, and Photo Class

Cassie's Fall soccer season is over. She had the BEST time, and she's quite a little player too! She will be doing indoor soccer in January. We had a little celebration afterwards with the team and we made a soccer cake. I took pictures of each of the kids, cut them out, glued them on sticks and here ya go... (Tom did most of the work, he rocks):



Tom and I have a running joke about CVS. He goes to CVS like every 2-3 days. He's addicted to CVS. And he can never remember what he bought. I don't go there often, but I went in for something and came home. I finally realized what it is about that place he likes. It has an amazing amount of crap. Just random crap. Everywhere. It's all just craptacular "stuff".

The kids have been asking me about their advent calendars. Every years, we get them each one of those calendars with the nasty chocolate pieces, they open a door each day until Christmas. Anyway... cannot find them, we have looked everywhere. I get a text from Tom "HEB is out, World Market is out, but luckily they must fall under the category of crap" *laugh* Thank you, CVS.

Some shots from my photo class. We did framing and shutter priority modes. The weather sucked and I was in a hurry, but I like the spin on the ball and my kids are already cute, so I'm showing them off too :-)

Here's Your Sign

The order taker lady seriously asked me if I wanted cheese on the kid's cheeseburger. I said yes... Its a cheeseburger... But she asked like 10 times... Dude, it's been a long day... But not THAT long of a day.

helping mom shop at mall

Girl after my own heart