Jack O Lanterns!

The girls had a great time with pumpkins again this year. I was a bit disappointed that our pumpkins had very little pulp and seeds. The best part of pumpkin carving is roasting the seeds!!! O-Well. I thought Miss Jenna Mae would not want to do the messy stuff, but as soon as she saw Jillian dive in, she was there!

"Do the Mash"... "Do the Monster Mash"

Our PTO hosts a Halloween dance for the kids. It is called the Monster Mash Bash. The kids get to dress up and dance and it is a great time. We went on Friday night and the kids had a blast! Jillian was a dancing fool! Look close, she's doing the hokey pokey and the locomotion. I knew that she had to have a little bit of her mom in her! I'm also thrilled that the kids had another opportunity to wear those halloween costumes! Once Jenna got past her "issues" even she had a great time!

GREASE is the word...

Hey have you heard about the next NBC reality show? It is called "The One that I (or We) Want"....they are looking for two people to play the lead in the next broadway production of Grease and so NBC is actually making it a show where people try out and stuff....CRAZY...but you know I'll be watching (Not that anyone even can compare to my baby, JOHN TRAVOLTA)...I really wanted Nate to be named Jon Joseph after him, but Bud wasn't too thrilled with the idea -hey, I was going to spell it differently ;-) Anyway, watch for it come January...for more info, check out NBC.COM.

grrrr...I tried to post a pic of the man himself, but the blogger images doesn't seem to be in a happy place...I've been trying all night to post some new pics with no luck!!!!

I know, I know....OBSESSED!!

From the inspiration of another on 2peas (a scrapbooking site), I extended my scrapbooking obsession into Halloween in a whole new way. YES...those are real pumpkins and YES... they are covered with scrapbook paper. Every year our school hosts a pumpkin raffle for the kids and the staff is asked to decorate pumpkins...well, I ended up doing four (The Tiger Fan was actually Shelly's pumpkin, but I ended up doing it while she entertained the kids). Anyway, two of the four ended up expressing my obsession. You gotta admit...pretty cool, huh?

Another FIRST for Jillian

When our kids are babies we document every "first"...the first time they smiled, their first tooth, the first time they walked, the first word they spoke. It seems like as they get older, those firsts come less frequently, and so when they come..they are a BIG deal...Well, we have another first with my dearest eldest child...She's lost her first tooth. She only just noticed two days ago that it was loose and today it was out! She lost it while at school. She didn't even tell her teacher; she just slipped it into her book bag, but knew enough to stick it between the pages of her library book so it wouldn't get lost! We are writing a letter to the tooth fairy asking her not to take Jillian's tooth, so that her mom can include it in her scrapbook (of course!). If you look real close, you can see the other tooth. It was actually coming up behind the baby tooth....I wouldn't be surprised if braces are in this kid's future!

A glimmer of hope!

Well, we heard from our realtor today, and the couple who looked at the house is considering ours. They have a few concerns, but have been looking for 3 weeks without much luck. They wish we had a basement (duh---so do we...we probably wouldn't need to move if we had one), and they are a bit concerned about the school being behind us. I found this weird...I find that to be a HUGE perk! I love that no one lives behind us! I guess they are worried that the district might develop the property...umm, no...it is our playground! They also need appliances, which I offered them because we are supposed to get some with the house we're getting. The best thing in my mind is that they currently live in an apartment, which means we wouldn't have to wait on them to sell something! Anyway, we are holding out hope...keep crossing those fingers!

WE stopped by "our" house....they've done nothing... in fact they are building the one next to it now. My realtor says that they are slowing things down for us...hoping to buy us time to sell so that way we can make some decisions about the building of it...sorry, wish i had some pics to post....not today ;-)

YEAH!!! FINALLY!

After two months we finally had another showing tonight!!!! I was stressing because I was told that they were coming at 7:30 - 8:00PM and they still hadn't shown at 8:20PM. I called my realtor and she said they were supposed to come at 7:00!!! So I shut down all the lights, started getting the kids ready for bed and then they showed up!!!! They were SUPER positive and commented several times that our house showed great..... KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED!!!!! I needed this good news after having such a crappy week.

VENT

IF anyone close to you ever tells you that they are thinking about becoming a teacher, encourage them to REALLY think about it carefully... I've had a rough week (and it is only Wednesday)...END OF VENT :-)

My BUTT heads

We have been trying like crazy to convince Jenna that she is too big to use diapers, so I have been keeping her undies around to help...(it's not working)...you can see, though that the girls found a good use for them.

By the way....no news on the house...looks like they've added some of the duct work inside of the new...still no lookers at ours :-(

A VISIT TO THE PUMPKIN PATCH

Get Your Own! | View Slideshow

Ok...not a slide show....but there will be one eventually!

OK....a friend of mine showed me this site to do slide shows...I put only the one picture on to test and now I am hooked...now you all (the two of you I KNOW who actually look here) have more to look forward to! See---I may not be able to scrap, but dag nab it...I'm going to get my creative release somehow!

I created a Slide Show! Check it out!

Get Your Own! | View Slideshow

Got a roof now....

Another drive-by today.....house has a roof and they've painted the wood trim around the roof and windows. They are also building the house next door, so changes seem a bit more slow now. Still no one looking at our current house. We're having an open house tomorrow....wish us luck! Our realtor presented an offer to the builder....get this-she asked HIM to buy our house and sell us his new one....I guess he owns his own real estate office and it potentially would be easier to unload a $170,000 house versus a $300,000. Sounds great to me....we haven't heard if it is going to fly...maybe in the next day or so. IT would be great though....no pressure to get stuff out until the other house is ready. They could go as fast or slow as need be......I'll keep you updated....(who ever it is out there lurking)

More house updates

Still no sale....had an open house, but the realty forgot to put the ad in the paper, so no one showed...pissed us off, considering we have been cleaning the house from top to bottom three times over and dumped some of our crap at our families' homes for the past several days....well, the house looks great (for now anyway). We are going to try again next weekend, then I give. We stopped by our "dream" house....it now has windows.

more NICU reunion pics

NICU Reunion

Saturday was the reunion for the "graduates" of the NICU at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. It has hard to believe that it has almost been a year since that wonderful, yet terrible day in November. To look at Nathan now, no one would have guessed that he was so dangerously close to death. To honor all the special miracles, Henry Ford invites back the children who had to stay in the NICU. It was great seeing the people who helped (and who I thank everyday) for saving my beautiful little boy. The girls enjoyed it too. They had face painting, train rides, a Science Magic Show, food and a DJ. We sat with Chad, Carmen and Joel (another NICU miracle!) It still is astonishing to me that not only did I have a baby so close to danger, but so did one our dear friends! Nate and Joel will have that one bond for the rest of their lives! Nate is pictured here with one of the nurse practitioners that was part of his care, but was also one of the most comforting people to me in the NICU those first uncertain days with Nate. He is also here with Dr. Kumar, one of the neonatalogists who cared for him during his last 10 or so days.