I cannot believe how use to the kids going to school I have gotten... but I am definetely ready for them to go back to school!!!! I have enjoyed having them home for Christmas and have enjoyed being with them... but they are starting to get bored, which means torturing one another and ME!! We have been getting things done around the house, the kids have cleaned out their rooms, I have been throwing stuff away left and right and its really starting to make a difference. We are getting some couches this weekend so I am going to put the old one downstairs for the kids when they are down there. I have been taking down all the Christmas stuff and deep cleaning, and its been quite a chore!
Tomorrow is mine and hubby's 9th anniversary. We are planning on dinner, and who knows what else. It will be the first time that we have been out alone in a long time, the time alone will be good for us. Then we will go to my parent's for New Years Eve. Nothing special planned, just getting together with them. It will be nice once the kids get older and we can do things kid free for New Year's. But for now, we will keep it a family thing and include the kids and enjoy it with them. Then the kids go back to school on the 3rd!!! WHOHOOOOO!!!!! I think they are ready too. They enjoy the time with their friends and the structure of being in school. Plus, its back to activities for them! My older daughter has been missing her basketball and cannot wait for practices and games.
My older daughter has been to the chiropractor 6 times now, and I think we are slowly starting to see a change in her as far as her headaches go. She still has them, but has taken no meds in quite some time. We took her off her prescription drug a few months back and she was still pretty bad. Once in a while she would get some tylenol but now that she has been seeing the chiropractor she is barely taking that at all. She is still keeping a journal of her headaches, but I am seeing her writing in it less and less. So maybe we will not have to go to the Mayo Clinic after all. Its still over a month away, so we will see. We also have not altered her diet like the chiropractor has wanted us to, but we want to talk to a dietician first. It seems taking all milk products out of her diet is not good, but we will see. I am next on the list to see the chiropractor... that should be interesting! :o)
I hope that everyone has an excellent New Year. I hope that 2007 is much better than 2006 and that it is a healthy, happy one for all!!!

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas! Ours was really nice. No real drama, so I put that in the successful category. On Christmas Eve we went to the church where my grandparents were members. It was the candlelight service and it was very nice. Then on Christmas morning my parents came over and we opened all the gifts. The kids loved all their presents. We got the older 3 their own ipods so now I have 3 singing kids... luckily we cannot hear the music, just them singing. I am not sure which is better... hearing the Cheetah Girls sing.. or my daughters singing along to them... Oh, well. They are happy and that is all that counts. The youngest loves his workbench and has been pounding away at it. After all the present opening we had a big breakfast. My mom had gone to New Hampshire for a business trip and had a few stops along the way. One of them was in Washington. D.C. and so she got the kids some D.C. shirts and the other was in New York so she got me a New York shirt and hubby got a NYPD shirt. We got some of the kids presents untangled from their packages and then by the time we got through some of it we had to get ready to go to my Aunt's. Not all of my family was there, but we still made the most of it. It was a really bland day without my grandparents and hurt that much more without them. All the events were to start at 2 and we got there about 2:15. My other aunt did not get there til about 3:30. So some of us started the party out early and my uncle was pouring shots of Metaxa. I had a couple and a few beers, so by the time my other aunt got there, I was pretty well to the not caring stage and just basically ignored her existence along with her husband and my cousin. It was the first time I have had Metaxa and I have to say it hit pretty hard. It is one of my uncle's favorites and he was sharing the love :o) We did not stay very long. The kids were antsy and wanted to get back home to their presents and hubby was not in the mood to listen to them whine. The kids opened their presents from the family and then the adults played rob your neighbor. I had bought a really neat glass beer mug for the guy gift and I bought a bath and body thing for the girl gift. I ended up with a couple of mugs and hubby ended up with a Civil War DVD. There was not too much stealing going on so it went pretty fast. After that we stuck around and talked for a little while and then we left.
That was pretty much it as far as our Christmas went. The Saturday before Christmas I finally used my gift certificate from my hubby to one of the beauty salon's and got a 1 hour massage and then a pedicure and manicure. It was a nice relaxing time. 4 hours by myself enjoying peace and quiet is always nice! It was almost 3 hours of getting pampered and though I do not care too much for the froo froo stuff, I have to say I really do enjoy it when I do take the time out to get it done. Saturday night the guys got together to play poker and watch movies and play xbox. It was fun for all. The guys had a great time, one of my brothers friends got to playing with my phone and put his picture as my wallpaper and added his # to my phonebook, so I have 2 of my brothers friends phone #'s in my phone, which is quite weird. I did manage to get his picture OFF my wallpaper and back to my Rams logo but not without quite a bit of cussing and fighting with the damn thing. But the #'s are staying, in case there is a day I cannot find my brother and he happens to be with either of those guys... not that I think that will ever happen, but not a bad thing to have all the same.
Congrats to Geoffery over at Dog Snot on his new addition to the family! Your puppy is beautiful! If you ever want a good read I suggest him. He is always up to no good and has a very opinionated mind. He is always the first blog I go to when I get a few moments of time. Ok, well I am off to take care of kids... Lucky me, they are off til the 2nd!!!

I have not felt like posting in quite a while. I have thought about it a few times but have neglected the thought just as easily. Ever since my grandma passed away I have been PISSY. I grieved for her, but at the same time have just flat out been a bitch. I cried and cried and cried with my grandpa, but with my grandma I have cried and been pissed. I am not sure WHY I have been so pissed, but it has been the attitude that I have taken on. I am doing much better now but still have my pissy moments.
Our Christmas shopping is all done. The kids are getting a lot of the things that they want for Christmas and they are already wrapped and under the tree. It took a few outings to get all that we had on our lists but I think overall it went well. The kids had their WINTER party on Friday so I went up there and split my time between the 3 classes to get pictures of them all. My youngest stayed with his great-grandma for a few hours and enjoyed the time with her. My younger daughter made a gingerbread house, the other 2 made ornaments. My youngest will get to see Santa on Thursday at his school so I am going to go up to his school for that.
The school decided to test our younger daughter for the gifted program. She did not qualify this time but they plan on watching her and most likely test her again. She scored high on 3 of the 4 tests that they took on her. I am not sure what all was involved but I am sure that once she gets a little more learning in she will probably qualify next time.
Our older daughter had her first basketball game 2 weeks ago. They lost 34-0, which in our eyes was not too bad considering the girls had only had 1 practice before their first game and that first practice they did not have any basketballs. The other kids had 4 or 5 practices before the first game, we were just unlucky to have Thanksgiving, an ice storm and a Winter program get in the way of all our practices. This past Saturday they had a game and only lost 12-0, which is amazingly better! They finally had a practice ( with basketballs) last Thursday. Their next game is not til January so we will be able to get a few more practices in and hopefully win a game!
Also with out older daughter we have decided to take her to a chiropractor, she had her first apoointment yesterday and we will go back today to see if there is anything the chiropractor can do for her headaches. We have a few friends that have had problems with headaches and have gone to chiropractors and now get them very infrequently so we are hoping that this will work for our daughter. She is also scheduled to go to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota in February. They have a pediatric unit up there and at this point we are willing to do whatever we can to help our daughter with her headaches.
Our oldest is still struggling with school and had a really bad time after my grandma died. He is starting to pull himself back on track but we have decided that we are going to start him on the ADHD meds to see if we can improve things. We struggled for the longest time on whether this is something that we want and have finally decided that we can give it a shot and if we do not like the results will take him off the meds. But at this point we really need to worry about him and his learning.
Our youngest is loving school. He has been there for a little over a month now and is really starting to show improvement in his speech. I am sure by the end of the year we will see a great change with him and he will be ready for kindergarten next year!! At that point I think that I am really going to get involved in their school activities and will be spending time up at the school volunteering.
I hope that everyone has a great Christmas. Only 6 days away!!!