To celebrate or not to celebrate...

that is the question.

Valentine's Day - that's a tough one in our house. B's birthday is the 13th. He's not a big celebrator of the birthday thing. He'd rather it just go on like any other day, where I'm the one who wants to shout it from the rooftops. He believes Valentine's day is a "Hallmark Holiday". While part of me agrees with him, the other part wants to be girly and celebrate it with flowers, candy, nice dinner....you get the picture.

I don't think I'm going to get him to budge (I asked if he wanted to celebrate it this year and his response was, "If you want to" - not exactly what I was looking for...). So, I think I'm going to just have fun at home and we can celebrate as a family! If B flakes on me, at least I'll have the big boys here to hang with me :)

I think I'll make a nice dinner - Jake (my 5 year old sous chef who even has his very own apron!) and I will plan a fabulous menu that will even include a yummy dessert. I'll even grab some sparkling cider for the boys and a bottle o' wine for me or maybe even a chocolate hazelnut martini. One word - YUMMY!

Then, the boys will go to bed without arguing with me (wishful thinking here) and B and I will spend some good, quality time together.

Do YOU celebrate Valentine's Day or do you have a fuddy dud (is that a word?) in your house like I do?

There's an awesome giveaway going on over at Mom Generations. Go check it out!

I wish you a....

blessed Christmas and happy new year :)

My little gang is heading back home for Christmas this afternoon - 10 hours on the road is so NOT fun, but I'll be doing my best to enjoy it! At least the drive will be a nice time to reconnect with my husband :)

I will have VERY limited internet access while we're gone, so I'm wishing you all a blessed Christmas and happy new year now!

I hope the true reason for the season is remembered and I hope you all enjoy your time with family and friends, if that's how you choose to spend your time.

I shall return on January 2nd - pray that I still have all of my hair when I return (my family makes me want to yank it out) and pray that it remains the beautiful brown that it is and doesn't turn gray ;)

See y'all on the flipside!

Santa :)

I hope I'm allowed to show these - they're professional pictures, so I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post them on the internet. They're pictures of pictures (my scanner has PMS and has been VERY moody). I only purchased 1 picture, but I want to show my friends!!

This is my FAVORITE picture of Henry....EVER. Henry fell madly in love with Santa's beard and I had to pull him off. The poor man's beard was real...lol



Will was SO excited to see Santa - no fear at all! Jake was a bit unsure, but warmed up pretty quickly :)

Trick or treat!

God came through yet again this Halloween - it was a balmy 67 degrees at ToT time! I remember as a child, having to bundle up under a coat when I went ToT and no one even saw my costume. How much fun is that?




There never seems to be a definite start and stop time to ToT here. We ate dinner early, so the boys would be ready to head out around 6 p.m. They were dressed and ready to go at 5:45 and I got Henry ready soon after that. I got the pictures taken and the big boys were itching to get movin' - the sugar was calling their names!



They were out for about an hour - Henry started crying about 5 minutes before they got home. He was out like a light by 7:45, but the big boys still had quite a bit of energy left. I had set up camp in the driveway, with our pumpkins lit and handed out candy there (our front porch is hidden behind some trees - it's VERY secluded and I would have been lonely ;) They ditched their costumes and handed out candy for me and rode their bikes in between trick or treaters. A firetruck came down our street and handed out candy to the kids - I looked out my bedroom window after putting Henry down and noticed my boys running into the street and firemen throwing candy to them - they LOVED it!



We had candy left over (we ran out last year!), so I split it up between the 2 big boys and we forced them into bed. It was a great night!