And the Angiogram results are.....

NO BLOCKAGES!!!! YAY!!! Thanks so much everyone for all your prayers and good thoughts, they really helped! Jeremiah had his Angiogram done this morning and everything looked great with his heart. This is a HUGE relief for everyone. Now we just have to do some other tests to find out why he is having the chest pain but the biggest thing has been ruled out. YAY!! Happy dance.....

Christmas Present Insanity!!

Well here we are, another Christmas and another year that mom and I seriously over buy. Honestly, as you'll see, my Christmas tree is almost dwarfed by the amount of presents crowding around it and my family room is cut in half. One of these years, as we're wrapping the insane amount of boxes, when we say "they won't get this much next year" we will actually mean it. Although, I doubt it. lol. Here is proof of that....

Christmas Eve

Hi Everyone! I hope your all having a great Christmas Eve. Today has been a pretty busy day here. We have made cookies for Santa and my mom came over since she's spending the night with us for a couple of days and we made Deviled Eggs. YUM!! Then we ate dinner and the kids opened presents that they had bought for each other at school (we need the room under the tree..lol). We made sure that we kept a good eye on on where Santa was with Santa Tracker so that we knew when he was getting close then it was time for bed. Sorry there aren't any pictures yet. I have a really bad cold and am just generally feeling like crud but I promise that I will take and post some of everything that happens tomorrow. Well, as soon as I am sure that everyone is tucked away sleeping in their beds, mom and I have a LOT of wrapping to do.

Have a wonderful Christmas!!!!

Love,
Melissa, Jeremiah, Sharon, Lindsay, Kara, Austin, Kaylee and Jenna

11 yr old Blackmail.....

Kara told me I needed post a picture of the things she just made on the blog "Or Else"....so here you go. Introducing, Fred and Snow Manny.

Craft Time...

You know how when kids are too quiet you start to wonder what's going on? Well, that's exacly what just happened. With 5 kids around usually it sounds like WW3 around here, so when they are quiet I get nervous. Well, I walked into the kitchen and apparently it was craft time. How cute. They were all in there making snow flakes. Awww....

Ok, who ordered the snow?!?

Earlier yesterday they said there was a storm coming, then they said we might get a dusting, now I look out my front windows and see this!! And I just got a call from Jenna's school that she will have all day kindergarten today because they are not letting buses run right now for her to come home. lol. I bet she loved that. ;-)

You can't see it very well but it's snowing really hard in this picture....

Please say a prayer for us....

I have a small request, please say a prayer for us. Jeremiah has been having chest pains for a little over a year, early in January I actually had to call 911 for him because he thought he was having a heart attack. He had a stress test done at that time and everything turned out okay with it except for his cholesterol, which he has brought down significantly. Fast forward to now and he has been having pretty bad chest pains again the last couple of months, his cardiologist put him on a new medicine for a month to see if that would help and it didn't. I called them on Friday to let them know and they made an appointment for him to be seen yesterday, what they decided was that he needed to have an Angiogram done on Dec.30Th to rule out any blockages in his heart. PLEASE pray for us that everything turns out okay and that they don't find anything. He is acting like its not a big deal but I am seriously about to have a nervous breakdown with everything that has happened lately.

Christmas Shopping

Jeremiah and I went and did a little Christmas shopping over the weekend. Lindsay and Kara have known about Santa for a couple of years, where the little ones still believe, as they should, so Lindsay stayed home and babysat and we took Kara with us (partially beause she causes the most problems when we're gone) and went to get some of it done. I always forget how CRAZY the mall and the toy stores get during Christmas time. People were insane!! Now I remember why I do most of my shopping online!! We did manage to get a good bit done although there is a little left. But now we only have 10 shopping days left!!! I did take a few pics of Kara, (she refused to look at me because she knew what I was doing), making Build-a-Bears Holly and Hal , for Kaylee and Jenna, check them out, they are moose and have lightup antlers and collars, they are so cute!!

Nothing New....

Sometimes I feel bad because I really don't have something to post everyday. Our lives our pretty boring in that we have a routine and do the same things everyday, school, work, homework, dinner, bed and then get up and do it all over again. So most of the time I only post when we do something different. I feel bad thinking that people are checking here and thinking "Nothing new, again!", lol, But honestly, no there's nothing new going on. ;-) I hope everyone one of you out there is having a great day though. And if not a great one, then better than the last. We are thinking of you too. ;-)

Scuba Santa

Yesterday we all went to the Newport Aquarium to see Scuba Santa. Its a really cute thing that Aquarium does where they tell you a story about how on Christmas Eve the reindeer's didn't realize that Santa wasn't in the sleigh and accidentally took off without him. So Santa dove into the ocean and used sea horses to get him where he needed to be. ;-) Sounds kind of silly but it really is very cute. If you live in the area I definitely recommend going. We love Aquariums, so we have a season pass. My kids had tons of fun, even the older ones, since it isn't everyday that you see an underwater Santa, especially one with sharks and rays swimming past him. The last picture I had to get a shot of, it was hilarious to me to see that big shark hanging from the ceiling wearing a Santa hat with a Christmas wreath hanging out of it's mouth ;-)

Christmas Band Concert

Tuesday night was the girls Christmas band concert. All 3 girls (Lindsay, Kara and Emily)played their instruments really well. In fact Emily had duel roles because she was singing in the choir at the same concert. It was a fun time. ;-)

Thanksgiving 2008

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get the Thanksgiving pictures up. We went shopping all day yesterday for Black Friday (got LOTS of deals) and this is the first chance that I've had to sit down at the computer. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. As you all know this one was a hrad one for us as its the first one without my dad. But overall I think we did ok. This is the first year for as long as I can remember that it wasn't at my parents house, but my mom was understandably leery about having it there this year so I had it at my house. And obviously this my my first year doing Thanksgiving EVER, and its the first year we've had a house big enough to hold everyone. lol. But I think we did pretty well. We cooked for 2 days straight and had a TON of food, as you will see by the pictures we made 2 turkys, one from the oven and one deep fried. If you haven't had deep fried to turkey I HIGHLY recommend it because it is awesome!! So we all fed ourselves to the point of popping and before we knew it Thanksgiving 08' was over.:-)

Poor Santa...They Overwhelmed Him!

Last Sunday we went to one of the kids (and Jeremiah's) favorite places to go, The Pro Bass Store. They just love to see that big fish tank and watch the fish being fed. While we were there they had one part of the store all decked out for Christmas with a "Santa's Village", a picture with Santa and ornament making. Needless to say they had to sit on Santa's lap and get their picture taken. The little one's were the ones really wanting to do this but I make Lindsay and Kara do it as well (insert evil laugh here)and they really enjoyed themselves. I managed to grab a couple of pictures but as usual, mine leave little to be desired. And I was trying to take them after the "professionals" were already done and waiting for me before they could move on to the next person in line. Oh, and I think all of them really overwhelmed this poor Santa. He is probably used to one, maybe two kids at a time and I swear this man literally 3 shades of white when 5 kids bounded up to him at once. It was hilarious! HA!!

Toy Prices and Doll Crazyness...

Can I just say that the price of toys is insane! My kids have a TON of toys too so I can't wait for "Santa" to bring them more. ;-P And Kara is now into American Girl Dolls, has anyone seen the prices of these dolls? They are $90, thats right, it's not a typo I said $90!! For a doll! Check it out...www.americangirl.com... They are cute but it's crazy.....

Here it is....

Well, I went ahead and did it. I put my Christmas Tree up. It does look nice from the outside with the lights shining through the window. Here it is....

With the lights off..




With the lights on...

Too early for the Christmas Tree???

Christmas is usually one of my favorite holidays. I am practically chomping at the bit every year to get my tree up and my house decorated. And I honestly go a little overboard with the decorations every year since I put lights on every square inch of my house and I own half a dozen of the infltatables, including a 12 ft Santa. But this year, I'm just not into it. I really have no feeling for the holidays at all and would just prefer to skip it. But I'm trying to get into it for my kids sake though, and it just seems that everywhere we go this year people have their christmas stuff already put up. We've seen lights on houses and tress in windows. So, I was thinking about putting my tree and decorations up tomorrow to try and get myself into the christmas mood. My question is, do you think it's too early??

New(ish) Car....

For those who read my earlier post about trying to find a used car, we did actually find one. We got a 1992 Jeep Cherokee. Jeremiah (who it was for) really likes it. I just think it's ok. ;-) We may not have it that long before I convince him to sell it for something better but for now he's happy since he's always wanted a "truck" of his own. And, its paid for, so how can you go wrong. lol.

Mmmmm.....Pizza

Its probably not a surprise to most that pizza in our house is a food group. If you don't like it, you will most likely starve around here. We eat it at least 3 times a week (probably more). So yesterday for lunch we went to one of our favorites, Deweys Pizza. They are sooooo good. And like the crazy person that I am I snapped a couple of pics, people probably thought I was nuts taking pictures of my lunch. ;

I wonder how many people actually read this??

I was commenting on something on Jennifer's blog (Chateau Kaufman) about posting everyday and it got me to thinking. I wonder how many people actually read this? I mean, its not a big deal really as I like doing it, but how many of you are out there? One, two?? Just a curious....

My mom was on TV!!

She was on channel 9 talking about working from home and she was great! YAY MOM!!

Hello, my name is Jenna and I am addicted to coloring.....

I'm not kidding she really is. She comes home from school, does her homework and then this is what you see for the rest of the night. Is there a 12 step for coloring addiction??





And this is what Lindsay has looked like for almost 2 days in row. She has been home sick from school and has barely moved from this spot. Comfy couch, 60 inch tv, mother to wait on her hand and foot, what more could a sick girl ask for??

We must lead boring lives...

I have decided that we must lead boring lives right now. We check Jennifer's site pretty much everyday and there is always something new and exciting going on at the Chateau Kaufman, but here....not so much. I try and think of things to post about alot of the time but today , I just couldn't think of anything, so we get this post...about nothing. lol...carry on.

Rant of the moment....

We are looking for a used car and I have been checking on Craigslist to see what is listed. And I have come to the conclusion that people are insane. How can you start your sentence off with "car runs great" and end it with "oh, by the way, it doesn't have an engine or it needs a new transmission" Um HELLO, these are major things to be wrong with the car and should be at the VERY TOP that it needs them. Not buried in your creative wording. AAAAAHHHHH!!!! Okay, Rant over. :-P

Ouch!

I live about 5 seconds from Kroger, I mean literally you see it outside my front door. So we walk there all the time to get odds and ends instead of driving, plus we could all use the exercise. ;-) Anyway, the kids were running down the sidewalk and all excited and Austin felt Jenna was running just a little to slow for his liking and decided to give her a little shove to make her run a little faster....only she went face down in the pavement. Blood running down her face and everything. She is ok but ended up with a sad looking little face. Here are some pics of it. Oh and please ignore me pic in the one pic, I only added that one because it shows the scrapes really well. ;-)

President Barack Obama == YAY!!!

Politics is a tricky subject to discuss with people so I think the subject line says it all. ;-)

4 weeks ago today, our lives changed...

Its really hard for me to believe that its been 4 weeks since my dad died. Some days it feels like it was yesterday and others it feels like it happened so long ago. But now that it's November I am actually dreading all of those "holidays" that are coming up and anyone who knows me knows that I am a holidays girl, I usually *love* Thanksgiving and decorating for Christmas, don't get me started. I have to use all kinds of willpower to wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving before I start putting my tree up and putting out the dozen inflatables that I own. But, this year I just don't feel ready for them and wish I could stop them from coming. I know that I have to have them because it wouldn't be fair to the kids not too but it just feels like theres not a whole lot to be thankful for right now. Okay, I'm going to stop now. Sorry I used the blog as a form of therapy and got all deep on you. ;-)

Here they are...Halloween 2008

Okay, I'm a little late but here are some promised pictures from Halloween. But you will notice that there are several kids missing. That is because they have now become wise as to where I put the pictures after I take them. lol. I could only get one of Lindsay (who looks thrilled) and Jenna (who is a camera hog). Everyone else was like "NO WAY". So, I see I will have to take spy pics of them so noone knows. ;-) Anyway, Lindsay costume was a last minute thing, she couldn't figure out what she wanted to be so I was looking for some ideas online and found this one. She is a "Pop Princess" I stuck a bunch of pop cans and bottles all over her and made her a pop crown that said "pop princess", this literally took me 5 minutes and people talked about it all night! Everywhere we went they commented on how cute is was, what a good idea or how inventive. I could not get over that something that was so simple got so many compliments!! Oh and if your keeping track, this is Jenna's 3RD costume, this time she's Hannah Montana. ;-)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Just wanted to pop in and wish everyone a safe and happy halloween. We will be going trick or treating later tonight and I will post pics of the kids in their costumes sometime this weekend. Have a great day!!

Look I'm a Bat!! and Gummy Eyeballs....

Yesterday we took the kids to the YMCA for their Fall Festival, they all got flyers about it at school and the way it was described in them it looked like it was going to be a big, neat thing. So I had pretty much hyped this thing up to them for days telling them how much fun it was going to be and that at the end there was going to be this thing we had never heard of before called "Trunk-or-Treating" where you go trick or treating from car to car. Yay, right? It was supposed to run from 2-5, so we get there just before 2, all excited, and this thing is SUCH a disappointment! It's like 5 booths set in the parking lost with lame little games that you need to buy tickets for and the trunk-or-treating doesn't even start until 4! There was no way these 5 little games was going to take us 2 hours to do. So needless to say we ended up leaving, disappointed. BUT, there is another one on Tuesday that we go every year that the city of Florence throws at the Government Center and it is always fun with LOTS of candy and games. So I will have more pics then. But for now I have pics of Jenna in one of her Halloween costumes. She picked this one to wear way before we left so I snapped a few pics. We have a large bucket FULL of Halloween costumes and Austin and Kaylee were waffling back and forth on which one they wanted right up until we left so I didn't end up getting any pictures of them but I will on Tuesday, promise. Oh and I thought I threw in a picture of my Halloween decoration that is in the middle of the kids table, they said its freaky to eat with eyes staring at them. lol.!!!