Let the Holidays Begin!

Sorry it's been a while since I updated, just the crazy season! Shawn was in town for Thanksgiving and it was great to see her. The kids had a great time having her here and she got the luxury of sleeping in the bottom bunk with McKenna. I'm not sure she got much sleep!

It was also Rich's Birthday on the 28th so we celebrated that on Thanksgiving while Rich's Mom was with us. We had a great weekend, lots of shopping and food and family. Here are some pix of the kids hanging ornaments and being silly, a picture from Rich's bday and some random shots...McKenna made the party hats...they were too cute...and Aidan doesn't wear glasses, those are his great grandfather's wire frames with no glass, he SWEARS he can see better with them on...enjoy!

We are not heading North for the Holidays this year, but will be going to NC for a few days after Christmas to see family. I'm sure I will be heading back to Ohio at some point early next year.

King Tut

We were lucky enough to get invited to the King Tut Opening Gala last Friday night. It was a very cool event with VIP treatment and was made possible by David Mauk and John Norman. Thank you! Here are a few pix of the night. With us is David and Brenda Mauk - they wrote the music for the entire exhibit! For those of you who have known me for a while - David and John were in the band Champion that I used to follow!

Trick or Treat

Hope you all had fun trick or treating. We did! What a busy night for our street. At times I had to have help handing out candy because I couldn't handle the volume of kids at the house. So it was nice to have a few friends over to help out. Thanks to Rachel, Ben and Pedro. And a stray kitty showed up just in time to be a trick for some kids. We offered to drop the kitty in their trick or treat bags to take home - since it was stray and needed a home. Very cute little orange kitty we named Boo. No takers, and he was gone the next morning so we are hoping he already had a home! Here are few pix of the kids - McKenna was a Cat and Aidan was a "plain ol Jedi". Those were his exact words. And Rich's Mom, Donna, was dressed as an Egyptian princess! Rich went as a caring Dad, me as a caring Step Mom. Aren't we creative!

The witch crashing into the tree was a big hit and many families took the opportunity to take pix of their kids in front of it. And it even scared a few kids so much they wouldn't come up the sidewalk for candy. Ben told one girl to "watch out, she's still moving" and a poor frightened teenage girl ran away screaming. It was priceless I must say!

The Button Incident

Hi All,
We had quite a fun evening at The Emory ER last night. Apparently McKenna stuck a button up her nose about 3pm - trying to hide it from Aidan - and the adventure began. After several attempts at blowing it out, there was no button. So Rich packed up the kids and after Aidan's karate class, they went to an Urgent Care which was on the second floor of a shopping center. But, when Rich went in, the Dr. wouldn't even look at McKenna. So Rich was pretty upset and they left. On the way down the stairs, Aidan fell about six steps on his face. His tooth went through his lip and that's when I showed up. I saw Rich carrying Aidan back up to the Urgent Care - and they wouldn't even look at him!!! So really mad, we left and went to Children's ER at Emory which was probably a good thing. After the ER long wait, they couldn't find the button in McKenna's nose, but Aidan had to get three stitches! Here are a few pictures to share and smile at now, since everyone is OK.

And today, Rich went out to the Jeep to search and did find a brown button that fits the description right next to McKenna's car seat...HHHMMMMMMMM. We are hoping that is it! And of course the Tooth Fairy had to make an appearance last night, as well. Was a very exciting day!

UPDATE: Rich took the button to school to ask McKenna if it was the button that was in her nose. She said "yes!" and he gave her one last chance to confess that maybe the button wasn't ever in her nose. But, she stuck to her story. He asked her when she thinks the button might have fallen out, and she said this...."Daddy, I think it fell out when you hit the curve with your truck!" So, apparently it flew out...no, I'm thinking it didn't. She did fall asleep in the car from the house to Karate, so maybe when she relaxed while sleeping it came out somehow. That's the only conclusion we have. We will never really know...

Halloween

I have to admit I have never decorated for Halloween and have turned my light off in the past to ward off Trick or Treaters, but now with Aidan and McKenna around, I'm inspired to decorate. Here is the first addition to our decorating...we are very proud of her!! Will send update pix as we finish the yard for the season...so far it's been so much fun. And Aidan keeps looking at the witch and saying "That's so crazy!!"

St. Louis or Bust!

Hi Everyone,

Last weekend Rich and I flew to Buffalo, NY and drove my Mom to St. Louis where she will be spending the next year or two helping Giftbats get up and running. She's back into the baseball bat business and is very happy. She moved to a little down outside St. Louis called Defiance - very much like the terrain in Western NY. Funny how we drove 17 hours, got out of the car and not much changed! We had two vehicles, a horse trailer and two dogs. And glad we all made it safely. Here are some pix of us on the trip and her quaint new home! Also, we don't know how Duke could curl up into such a small ball in the backseat and woke up to check things out every couple hours to then circle and sleep again.

Quick Trip to Ohio

Last weekend I took a whirlwind trip to Ohio to visit my friends Cheryl & Heath and their two kids Liam and Finn. They had an end of year cookout to get us all together. Thank you Heath and Cheryl - that was great! Here are some pix from that day. I'm sorry I don't get a chance to see everyone when I am in Ohio, hard to fit it all in. I did manage to see Mary Helen Wright, my long term friend and we had a great night chatting and catching up on everyone and everything. Then I spent some time with my sister, Shawn. We shopped a little too much, but had fun! And thank you Emily for the pictures!

House - Before Pix

Just so you can get a reference to what we actually renovated at our new house, here are some before pix.

House Pix - Finally!

Here are some pix of the house. It's a very open floor plan and basically the kitchen, LR, DR and Office are all one big room. There are 2 bedrooms and 1 bath - so it's a tight fit. But we love it! the LR needs a little work, we are trying to get a groovy piece of art above the fireplace, but can't seem to find it. Might end up being a blown up photo from our Paris trip last year. Something meaningful. enjoy! And I am going to re-paint the kids room yellow - that grey is just too dulle.