I need to vent a little. I was going to share some of my resolutions with you, but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Today's post is totally dedicated to a certain toy store that for this post we will call Joys R Puss. My kids each received $20 gift cards from JRP from my husband's work during the annual kids party.

After much finagling, and after losing one gift card for more than 48 hours, we convinced the kids to wait till after Christmas to spend their dough.

Today was the big day. The long awaited trip to Joys R Puss. Three kids 9 and under. It's like taking an alcoholic to the liquor store and saying just pick one small thing.

We were there not even five minutes when everyone, including me, realized that we had to pee. So we all went to the bathroom and we found the dreaded AUTOMATIC TOILET. Nothing strikes fear in my toilet-trained children more than the automatic toilet.

I have dreams that include meeting the inventor of the automatic toilet and forcing him/her to take my children to the bathroom. Seriously.

My oldest and my youngest took turns covering the sensor so they could go to the bathroom. My middle daughter, who is by far our most stubborn child, was absolutely terrified and continued to refuse to go to the bathroom.

I was forced to use the dreaded ultimatum.."Either you go while I hold this sensor or we all leave and come back some other time to use our gift cards. Your decision."

Well you can guess what happened and we were finally free from the bathroom. Total time: 25 minutes. No kidding.

Next it was off to the baby doll isle, which is middle daughter's addiction. I told her to pick something other than a doll because for Christmas she received five new members of her ever growing doll family. She could not decide. Total time: 15 minutes.

My son now informs me that he has to go to the bathroom again...No. 2. No kidding.

Total additional time in the bathroom: 15 minutes.

Now we are headed to the Nerf gun section. My son is looking for a gun "Not hard to shoot."
On the way to the Nerf guns, youngest sees a motorized jeep and decides he's going to get that instead of a gun. Not a remote controlled jeep. The big one, that you ride in your yard. He proceeds to have a melt down when I tell him it cost $500 and that he only has $20. "It's not fair, all the boys toys cost $500 and the girls toys are only $20. I hate girls."

He caves and decides he wants a "Nerf-like" dart gun nearly the same size as him with "rapid fire action". None of these words sound good to me, but I've already been in the store for over an hour and really just want to leave.

Oldest wants a DS game. Joys R Puss is having a sale on DS games and apparently you needed to be there when they opened to find any. After, trying to barter an additional $10 out of me for more than 20 minutes, Oldest finally found a $19.99 detective game. The same game I tried to show her 19 1/2 minutes ago.

The electronics department has it's own cashiers so we have to check out the DS game there, but they won't ring up the gun. I have to put $1 something on my debit card.

Now it's back to the baby doll section. UGH. After unsuccessfully finding a doll with hair that you can take in the tub that is not a Barbie, Polly Pockets came to the rescue!

Mommy is now skipping towards the check out. Total time at Joys R Puss: 1 hour 40 minutes. Most of which was spent in the bathroom.

After all of that we returned home to find out that son's gun doesn't work. Are you kidding me? Am I being punked? No it really doesn't work.

Thankfully, dear husband agreed to take it back to the store and to help youngest pick out something else, cause I was about to lose it.

Number one New Year's resolution: To avoid purchasing anything from Joys R Puss for the remainder of my life.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and a perfect time to reflect over some of the highs and lows of 2008.

My oldest daughter turned 9. Sometimes it is hard for me to believe that in a few short months I'll have been a parent for an entire decade. This year's party didn't go as planned. We had to reschedule it because of illness and then most of the family couldn't come to the rescheduled event. It was a little overwhelming without the help I was used to and the girls seemed to bicker a lot, but daughter seemed to be oblivious to it all.

Beach weekends are better than therapy. I had the opportunity to spend two glorious weekends with my sister and a dozen of our friends "scrapbooking at the beach" which is really code for hopeless drunk.

One Wedding, two funerals. We witnessed our long time friend, and sometimes roommate, marry his soul mate; we said goodbye suddenly to my cousin, Michelle's husband, "Tiny", who died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident and we said good-bye to Baby Ike.

"Bob" got a stay of execution. After waiting months for an appointment with a plastic surgeon to look at my middle daughter's "odd mole", I realized that even if this particular PS was the only PS in my county, I wouldn't let him touch any of my children. Rude. Ignorant. Bastard. Also, after finding out my middle daughter named her mole Bob it seemed rude to have him cut off. We decided to use the less evasive approach of monitoring his growth pattern and making sure he uses sun screen. So far he has not changed in nearly a year.

Camping and Dutchwonderland. We took the kids tent camping for five nights and I realized that is about 2 days too long for me. We also had the opportunity to spend a full day at Dutchwonderland, an amusement park not far from our house. The kids (and the grown ups) had a wonderful time.

A 7 year old's baby shower. Not really, but I did buy baby shower decorations for my middle daughter's birthday party. She wanted to have a baby doll party and believe it or not this isn't a popular party. Her guests and their babies all seemed to have a blast. Now as long as we don't revisit this theme in 10 years all will be right with the world.

ALS walk. For the third year, I attended the ALS walk in memory of my Aunt who died nearly three years ago to this date of this dreaded disease.

Scrapbook convention. My mom and I attended the CK scrapbook convention again this year. Unfortunately, because of work obligations my sister couldn't come this year. It wasn't the same without her, but we still had loads of fun. Pretty soon my mom will be coming to the"dark side" and scrappin' with us too. LOL

REBA and Kelly. My mom and I had the opportunity to see this concert and it was fantabulous! I never laughed so hard when "Barbara Jean" did the opening. Great memories for us both.

Zoinks! What a great party. My son had a Scooby Doo party, complete with a masked bandit that stole the Scooby treats. I'll never forget his reaction when he saw daddy in a Frankenstein mask trying to get away with the treats.

A houseful for Thanksgiving. We were blessed to have a houseful of guest for Thanksgiving, including my dad and step mom, my in laws and my sister and her family. We had dinner and then my sister and I got to shop on black Friday. It doesn't get much better than that!

Blessed. Going into 2009, I feel very blessed. My nephew is out of the hospital and according to my sister his blood sugar levels have remained stable. All of my children are healthy, though I'm a little under the weather. We still have three more days of vacation and we are waiting to hear word about weather a shelter dog will be joining our family. **more about that tomorrow**

Here's hoping that 2009 brings more laughter than tears to you and yours.

We've been celebrating Christmas since the middle of the month starting with my dad's extended family and then celebrating with my mom and her husband last weekend, we topped things off by spending three days at my husband's parents house.

Here's a picture of me, the kids and my grandma. I just got my hair chopped off and can't decide if I like it or not. Below is a picture of my family with my dad and his wife.

Here's hoping Santa brought this much excitement to your house! He sure brought a lot of excitement to ours. We will be traveling over the next few days. I'll try to post, but I'm not sure I'll be able to tolerate my in-laws dial up.

I'm happy to report that my nephew was released from the hospital this afternoon. Now the real challenge begins. My sister and her family will need to learn how to deal with this and how to administer insulin and all the challenges that go along with that.

Please pray that she and her husband can keep their sanity and be there for each other. Right now there is a lot of stressors between them, which are only coupled by the timing of all of this.

Thank you for your concerns and Merry Christmas to all of you!

Here are some photo's from this weekend. We celebrated Christmas at my mother's house in Virginia. Thankfully, the weather cooperated. Here is a picture of me with my new Webkinz, Mistletoe the hippo. LOL



Here's my husband, who hates getting his picture taken. Shhhh, don't tell him that I posted this one. His hair is looking a little count dracula-ish...

Dear Santa,

In five days, seeing as I don't have a chimney or a fireplace, you will be breaking into my house. To commemorate the occasion I thought I'd shoot you a list. Since we are in a recession and all, I thought I'd do my best to keep the cost down, so here is my grown up Christmas list.

First, can you help me to convince my five year old that the childcare center at the gym is fun. He has been picked on there repeatedly by one little brat in particular and Mommy is close to finding out just how much free weight little Timmy the bully can hold without a spotter. In your honest opinion, is it wrong to teach little G how to throw a left hook?

Speaking of bullies, there are a few mean girls my daughter has run into as of late and they too need a lesson. I'm secretly hoping that you will replace their shampoo with Elmer's glue. I know it is wrong, but they did give my sweet daughter a dog biscuit and tell her it was a graham cracker. I've always been a strong believer in what goes around, comes around. Don't you agree, Santa.

Another item on my list is a house elf. I'm really in need of someone to help out around here and it seems as if my family members can't be relied upon for anything other than complaints. Not a complimentor in the group.

Since you seem to have a plethora of elves, I thought there might be one up there that might not be the best toy maker but loves to clean toilets and make dinner. It wouldn't cost you a dime and I promise to take good care of him or her.

That about sums up my list. Feel free to slip some chocolate into the stocking.

Jingle all the way,

Me

Okay. I'm going to say it. I'm. Not. Very. Good. With. A. Glue. Gun. Wow, it feels good to get that off my chest, though it' still feels like I'm admitting some crafting failure. Every time I use one I burn my fingers and my thumbs. I'm not sure why, but my hands seemed drawn to the bubble concoction that come oozing from the gun.

My kids had a half day of school today.

Not because of the weather, just because of the constant need for teacher in service days. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for continuing your education. But this is the fourth or fifth in service day they have had in the last month. Seems a bit excessive.

But I digress.

Here is what they did when they got home. Couldn't resist posting them. They are just too cute!

This show is getting on my nerves. I'm trying to watch the season finale but I'm being bombarded by commercials.

Maybe it's not the show that is getting on my nerves, maybe it is NBC. "This episode is only about 45 minutes long," said the NBC executive. "Any chance we can put an hour and 15 minutes worth of commercials throughout it."

"How about a commercial after each contestant weighs in," says the other suit in the room, "People will just love the suspense."

What I didn't want was Heba or Ed to win and it is looking like they both might win. One as the eliminated contestant and one as the overall winner. UGH

Last year's contestants were so much more likable. Here's hoping that the new season which starts in January will offer more ...

Go Michelle!

Last night was my middle daughter's holiday concert. It was very cute and included the 2nd and 3rd grade. In the above picture, G is first from the right. The background was painted by the art teacher at the school. She is very talented and has the waist size of a 10 year old. Every time I see her I want to offer her a donut.

This is a picture from the grand finale; I'm pretty sure this is one of G's favorite songs. She appears to be singing quite loudly. LOL

Mama Kat's assignment this week was to write about your worst experience at the dentist. Just thinking about it makes my face hurt.

If you take anything from this story, take this: The difference between having a root canal performed by a dentist vs. having a root canal performed by an endodontist is hard to put into words. It's the difference between drinking an ice tea or drinking a Long Island ice tea.

Simple terms. Dentist + root canal = torture!

Our story begins with incredible pain, the ability to chew limited and anything colder than the inside of your mouth intolerable.

Seeking immediate help, I call off work and go to the dentist. Knowing that I'm in pain, the first thing the dentist does is tap on the tooth in question.

Why do they do this?

I learn that I'm going to need a root canal and a crown. This also means I may need a bank loan.

For those of you who have never had a cavity (I'm talking to my husband) or have never had the pleasure of a root canal, let me elaborate.

First, there is a lot of Novocaine involved. A lot.

Second, there is an incredible amount of drilling. A tooth being drilled smells odd. The tooth becomes a little tiny nub, just big enough to glue on your fake molar.

Then there are these little wires that get shoved down into the root. I mean aren't you just cringing thinking about it.

Finally, after hours of torture you get measured for a permanent crown and fitted with a temporary crown and sent home to become un numb and to find out just how bad this all really hurts.

Imagine my dismay when I came to realize that my tooth still hurt.

How? You ask.

"Looks like we root canaled the wrong tooth. They must have both been affected by the abscess. I don't think you are going to feel better until we get this other one taken care of," said the Dentist.

This is how I came to know an endodontist, simply because he has never uttered the above sentence.

I just love this Santa Claus stamp. I got it this weekend at the world's largest craft show held at the a local farm complex. There were massive amounts of crafts there and, of course, I was drawn to the two booth offering supplies. LOL



These are stamped on regular bathroom/kitchen tile available at home depot with Staz-on ink and then I hand painted them with paint pens. Gotta love the paint pens.

For all of the women in my inner circle and for all the women in yours. You won't regret spending five minutes with this women.

Today I felt like Ms. Turtle. I seem to have trouble telling people "no". I really need to get better at it because nothing is worse than feeling like you've been taken advantage of.

Today, my middle daughter was supposed to have a friend over for about an hour and 1/2 while her mom went to the gym.

This turned into almost two hours and her five year old brother became part of the package. He was not invited, and he is not my son's friend.

I had to work tonight, I had to feed my family and because I couldn't say no, I got stuck with all these kids. As you know, I have three of my own. I mean, seriously, who shows up with both their kids, (when the dad is at home I might add) and proceeds to tell the five year old to ask me if he's allowed to stay too.

Seriously, who does that?

Here's a fact you may or may not have known about me.

I love the television show Boston Legal. Tonight, in about five minutes, is the series finale!

I'm curling up with my blanket and a cup a tea and savoring every moment.

My post will close today with a quote from William Shatner's character, Denny Crane. "One thing you sometimes forget is, no matter how hard your day, no matter how tough your choices, how complex your ethical decisions, you always get to choose what you have for lunch."

My kids have their own birthday books. These pages are for my oldest daughters book. I'm trying to get caught up before her 10th birthday, which will be in February.

This book is only 8 x 8; so not many pictures fit per page. For her party my daughter had a Hannah Montana theme.

These pictures are of my daughter decorating her cake. She got sick for her party that day and we ended up having to move her party a week. Because of that we had to make another cake. LOL




Here are pictures of the guests and of my daughter blowing out her candles. Because we had to move the party, no family could attend and some of the guest couldn't make it either. It was still fun, but so much more work without help.




In these photos the girls are making photo frames. They were wooden 5 x7 frames that each of them painted and added some bling to.

Mama at Mama's Losin It had a unique assignment this week it was as follows:

I made three of these cards today and it saddens me that I must mail them all.

My step dad's mother passed away last week. She had been suffering for awhile, so in the long run her passing will be a blessing. Still my mom and step dad will miss her terribly, as will her husband. It is always harder when the woman dies first.

My dear friend Kate lost her sister the day before Thanksgiving. Apparently she died of an undetected blood clot. Sudden and unexpectedly at the age of 40.

Also, I was surprised to learn that my neighbor lost her father the day before Thanksgiving. Though he was recently diagnosed with lung cancer, his death was also very unexpected.

As 2008 comes to a close, remember all of your loved ones. We truly do not know how many days we have and we shouldn't put off for tomorrow what needs to be said today.

Love you guys!

Today in Pennsylvania is the first day of antler deer and it, literally, is a holiday.

Andy at Wild ARS Chase posted some oddities about himself on his blog this week and challenged his readers to come up with some of their own.

• I do not like sauerkraut. In fact, the smell of it makes me a little nauseated. As I type this my husband is cooking sauerkraut.
• I prefer to sleep with my feet uncovered. This really seems to annoy my husband for some reason. I think I feel trapped if my feet are under the blanket.
• When I was a little girl, I was chased down by a big red dog. Even though he didn't hurt me, I still don't really like dogs.
• I am terrible at mathematics.
• When I swim, I hold my nose with my lip. I bet you are dying to see how I do that.
• I can raise one eyebrow without raising the other.
• There is a birthmark on my head that no hair grows from.

If you want to play along, post something odd about you in the comments or link me to to you blog post. I'd love to find out something odd about you.

1. My sister: "I'll just sleep for five more minutes."
5. "This sales item isn't coming up the sale price. I'm going to have to have a manager override this." Register light begins to flash. 28 people behind us begin to glare.

6. "Doesn't Toys R Us know we are going through a recession? Why isn't everything in this store on sale?"

7. "Do yous want the buffet or are yous ready to order?"

8. At Target, the man on the intercom kept continually announcing that the line started in the "intimates" near the associate dressed like the Cat in the Hat. What part of that sentence doesn't belong?

9. "I think I need another Red Bull."

10. "I'm about to fall out on this here couch and drool on myself," my sister about five minutes ago.

Here's hoping you had an equally "enjoyable" time.

We were expecting quite a crowd for Thanksgiving this year, but due to weather and some other unexpected events, we had a few cancellations. My sister and her family were able to make it up from North Carolina. Here she is below with my daughter teacher her table manners.


Here is the kids table. My girls pretending to like each other and my nephew cheesin' up for the camera.