wordless wednesday

phones

I finally gave in and gave my two oldest daughters cell phones for Christmas. They have been hounding me for almost 2 years and I kept telling them they had to wait until they were teenagers. After they would tell me "only a year", I would politely remind them that they were still teenagers at age 19. That sure earned me the "mooooom" with an eye roll.

I got my first phone when I was just out of high school. Maybe I was still a senior. And it was a bag phone. The phone stayed in my truck and couldn't come out or it didn't work. It was huge I might add. Plus, I had to wait until I could pay for my phone myself. (I paid for my truck and insurance too!)

But times have changed and cell phones have become almost a necessity. I say that carefully because we obviously don't need cell phones to live, but the convenience of them and the security of having a way to communicate with the world with you at all times is what has become a necessity.

Therefore, my two 12 year olds got phones. It was quite the ordeal getting them. With Alltel switching to AT&T in the new year, it made the process much more complicated. To make a very long story shorter, there were no phones with rebates, so I would have paid full price for the phones, plus the girls would have been stuck in a 2 year contract. I ended up bringing in 2 old phones and having those lines activated. By doing this, the girls are out of contract and will still be able to pick out new phones next week. Come February we will all receive our new AT&T phones.

Now the kicker to this whole story is what one of my daughter's friends said to her. When I dropped her off at basketball practice the other girl wanted to see her phone. Right away she looked at it and said, "that's a piece of crap". My daughter didn't tell me this until she got home.

I know kids can be cruel and can say stupid things. I'm thinking kids should be thankful to have a phone that texts and can be used for calls and if it works, then who cares? But I guess that 12 year old has a better phone than my daughter. All the power to her. I just tell my girls that they'll be picking out brand new phones this week and will get them in February.

Christmas

Christmas was here before I knew it and now it's gone. Before long, in about 364 days, it will be here again and next year I hope to be better prepared and in a better Christmas spirit. I don't know what was up with my this year, but I was not feeling the season.

The kids had a blast opening presents and were so patient at every gathering, just waiting for that fun time of ripping into them. Let me tell you, my kids are pros at ripping into presents. In fact, they even opened presents so fast tonight, they didn't realize what they had got.

Shaylee and Shawndra finally got phones for Christmas. They were very excited. The boys got quite a few Lego's and had them put together in no time. One set was leveled at 7-14 years of age and they had that together within an hour. Crazy!

I didn't take any pictures this year at Christmas time and I'm kind of kicking myself for that now. Instead, I used my camcorder because I don't use that often. But ya, zero pictures were taken at Christmas.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.

Any guesses to what we did tonight?

doctor

The last couple of nights I've had troubles breathing. Last night I could feel this crap move into my sinus's more and I started getting congested. I decided after waking up this morning that I wasn't going to continue on this road of waiting to see if I get better on my own, so I made an appointment and went in. I actually had a fever when I went in which was quite surprising to me because I didn't feel like I did. I have a bad sinus infection and am currently on antibiotics, so hopefully it kicks in and starts helping!

the last minute

Well, my sickness hasn't progressed to anything more than a hoarse voice in the mornings and evenings. Although this morning when I woke up I had a hard time breathing, almost as if my throat was swollen. That was a little scary. Hopefully this kicks out of my system soon, as things are getting busy with the upcoming holidays!

Tonight is Shawndra and Shaylee's concert at school. Shaylee has to wear all black so they look like an ensemble. That was quite the challenge finding something black to go with her pants. I guess it wouldn't have been so bad had I not waited until the last minute, but I did.

This weekend will be our first Christmas gathering of the year. I still need to prepare for the white elephant exchange. I need 4 gifts that are $20 and under for the adults and 4 gifts that are $5 and under for the kids. I'm hoping to buzz to Sioux Falls either Friday or Saturday to finish up on Christmas shopping as well. Nothing like waiting til the last minute again.

you know

You know that feeling you get before you get a bad cold. You know, the one where your throat is a bit scratchy or sore and you are really tired. You know, the cute little cough that annoys you and the mildly runny nose? You know, the one where you feel like a mack truck is staring you in the face, just waiting to roll over you?

Ya, that's how I feel tonight.

today

The weather outside is frightful and I'm so in love with it. Seriously! I love a good blizzard, snow that slides in horizontally instead of vertically, wind, drifts, and snow stuck to my windows that looks like cotton balls. As long as I'm inside that is. I really hate having to outside when conditions are like this, so I will be staying inside today. Good thing I ran to the store last night!

I had a dream last night that was so real I woke up in a panic. It was all about trying to get to the airport on time to catch a flight to a conference for work, except I scheduled one last home visit before the trip, forgot to pack, and had to take a child with me. In the end I missed my flight, had no daycare at the conference and ended up staying in a hotel that wasn't in the same location as my conference. It really was truly realistic. I guess it was the nightmare version of the dream trip to Washington DC I went on last summer.

It's December 11th and I still don't have my Christmas tree up and I don't feel like putting it up. My living room upstairs is smaller than downstairs, but I want it to be in front of the big picture window, ya know? Is that bad that it's not up yet?!

I'm also a bit tired today because of having a dryer that takes about 4 hours to dry a load of clothes, I was setting my alarm throughout the night to keep the washer and dryer going, or I'll never catch up. Kind of like having a newborn, except it's a dryer! Ha!

Vikings game

I'm a bit late posting this and I have no excuses other than I've been busy and I have six kids who have been having birthdays like crazy this week. Ok, so maybe I'm just lazy and didn't feel like posting quite yet. But alas, here it is. We drove up to the cities on really crappy roads that were solid ice for over 2 hours. We stayed with my sister in law and brother in law.

Here is one of my infamous self portraits...which might I add, is very hard to take with a big camera!

The view from our seats. We were in the end zone, row 19.
The Viking who came out on his motorcycle. He was quite the actor.

The rest of the team coming out.

Praying before the game.

Favre being assisted off the field after the first or second play. I was pretty bummed that he didn't play any more of the game.

Time out on the field.

It was a fun experience being in that environment. The Vikings kicked butt with a score of 38-14.

heading out

Tomorrow we are heading out to the cities. The kids are all healthy and doing great. It has been one of the most stressful weeks I have had in a long time. I don't know if I mentioned this before, and I don't feel like checking, but Mike and I haven't gone out of town over night without the kids in over 5 years. So when I won those Vikings tickets several months ago, I was so excited to hear we were going on a trip! You may be thinking, wow...what a trip (insert sarcasm). For us, being without 6 kids, going to a free Vikings game, means I couldn't be more excited.

Tomorrow we will likely go to the Burnsville mall or the Mall of America. Crazy I know. But I'm a people watcher and being there this close to Christmas would be a perfect place to do that. And my husband, he's great...he's along for the ride with no complaints.

So now that the kids are back in school, going to practice, doing chores, it's time to get the house picked up, do a little laundry, get some sleep and head out! I look forward to posting some pictures when I get home.

Until then...stay warm and enjoy this snow!

another one

Dalton came home from school today with a 101 temp. Shawndra and Devin both still had fevers
this morning and Devin puked one more time, but Shawndra hasn't. Joseph had no fever and went to school today.

God please help Mike and I that we don't get this so we can go on our weekend trip to the cities. I'm so stressed out about this!