Fondue New Year's Eve Party...for the Diaperheads & friends

We had a little party for the kids and they invited two of their friends over. They had such a great time. I had from corn dogs to popcorn chicken to marshmellows and pretzels with cheese and chocolate to dip in. What caught me by surprise is that I figured they would dig into the chocolate but instead they went for the cheese. At midnight we had sparkling grape juice as a special toast to the new year. We pulled out the mattresses and they all camped out in the livingroom. The playstation 2 has never been played with so much in one night as last night!
I was ready for bed at 7pm but was up till 2:30am...where do these kids get their energy...WITHOUT chocolate! Anyway...here are a few pics...not many my batteries were dying.



Found this really funny clip today skipping through the blog world. Thought I would share it now before the holidays leave us...


BTW Happy New Year! Hope your 2010 is fruitful and thriving!

What's up here...

SO I haven't actually been doing much writing here or on my other blog mainly because I just haven't had much to say. Just been thinking alot to myself and haven't wanted to share anything yet. Every year at the beginning of the new year people make resolutions. Well one of mine for as long as I can remember has been, to exercise and lose weight. I would love to be able to say I accomplished that last year! But as you all know last year was a tough year physically with my knee surgeries. In fact today as I was walking home from taking the twins to school I was thinking wow, in just under two weeks it will be a year from when I had the first major knee surgery that basically put a halt to everything for about 6 months of the year. That is a long time to be stuck and honestly I feel like last year was a year of stretching, pulling and fighting. Yes fighting, fighting for everything! God has really been teaching me a lot of things and eventually I will sit down and write out everything I have learned through last year.

It pretty much has not be a quiet new year for us. Sean lost his job in Dec. and praise God started his new one yesterday. It brings with it a very changed schedule for our family. I am not sure how we will adjust. But I am sure we will do fine. We started the New Year with 23 youth at the Rockin Lockin at church. That was a lot of fun, but I realize just how old I am when I was ready to hit the sack and I still had kiddos up and wanting to play games. I sat with 4 boys 6-13 yrs old (none of my boys) playing Uno for about an hour. Ya know something, play Uno with a bunch of boys of that age and you learn a lot about what they are going through and and they open up faster than if you just wanted them to sit and talk to you! So as a hint to those parents or youth leaders out there, get yourself a pack of Uno cards play a game. You may be surprised at how the kids open up!

Since then I have been nonstop thinking about children's church and the change that 2009 brings. I am switching the theme and transforming the room into a tropical rain forest! Yep a tropical rain forest. Why? Well when you wake up in the middle of the night and all you have on your mind is rain forest and can envision exactly what the room would look like then you know you have either lost it or God has shown you what He wants you to do. I believe that later of the two cause personally I know I lost it a long time ago! LOL!

Our best friends, Mike and Marty came to visit us. It was so much fun! We had free bowling passes so we blessed their kids and we took all 6 kids (total) bowling. They had so much fun! We have been friends with them since 1994! We were in or part of their wedding and they were in ours. They have two autistic children and we have our Kris. Kris and Jay are buddies. It is so neat to see them get excited about seeing each other, its like they have no worries cause they get each other! Seeing them is like a breath of fresh air! We leave off like we have never been apart. They were the ones that invited us to go on vacation with them to Gaitlinburg TN this past July. That was so much fun! Would love to do that again sometime!

On Jan 4th Sean and I celebrated 12 years of wedded bliss. Well we should have been celebrating but we had church all day plus we had promised to take the kids bowling. Plus there was some miss communication and well it wasn't so happy. But things were better by the nights end, just we were apart . . . he was at work. But I am happy that we have been able to celebrate 12 years and we have been able to say no matter what; rich/poor, sickness/health, we have weather many different storms and we have made it through another tough one. We are so looking forward to this year being better and different!

So that is what has been going on here. I am so glad to have put my Christmas decor away, but have kept the snowmen out. Being that we have an actual winter compared to when we lived in Florida, I get to enjoy my snowmen all the way till March. This year I may take them down at the end of Feb. We are heading south this year for spring break. The kids haven't seen my family in a year or my parents who they are very attached to. We are hoping to take another trip in the summer to visit Sean's family in NY. We wanted to head to NY but we all voted for somewhere warmer...plus since we will be there during Sean's birthday, we are heading to Disney...if you go on your birthday you get in free! So we are going to go on his special day to save some money . . . hey $60 is $60 but then again it could be more than that. This is all happening as long as we get a nice tax refund this year! Last year we did so we are hoping to again this year! We'll see . . . what ever God wants for our family and the plans we have made are really in His hands. We can plan but we have to let Him control the rudder!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!

My prayer for all of you is that God would richly and

abundantly bless you and yours with good health,

strength and a harvest too big to contain,

may your barns be full of provision for you so that

your overflow may bless a multitude of others!

Our New Year's Eve Party...

Basically the kids and I made homemade pizzas tonight and they watched a smorgage board of movies ranging from "Cars" to cartoons of "The Hulk". Sean spent time praying at the church when we were making dinner and I spent time searching for more info on my impending knee surgery.

Let me tell you something about this impending knee surgery...I am a little uneasy to be honest. I found a great site called http://www.kneeguru.co.uk/KNEEtalk/index.php
it has message boards and general info. I love the message boards because there are real people sharing their experiences with the surgery and post-op about the same surgery I am having. There are so many different experiences. Some leave the same day of the surgery and others leave 3 days after. Some are able to have weight bearing and others not for 6wks to 6 mo. All have said the first 2-3 weeks are the worse for pain and mobility and I do not look forward to that! Thankfully my parents will be here the first week and Sean has asked for the next two weeks off. He may end up using all of his sick time and vacation time up just to help me and that bothers me. We have been hoping and planning to take a week vacation to NY in the spring and a week to Florida late summer/early fall. This may put a bit of a damper on our plans. The surgery and my thoughts are worth a blog of their own....

Later close to midnight eastern time, Sara and I could be found in her room cleaning and rearranging. She did more playing and rearranging her doll house furniture while I did most of the cleaning and rearranging of her furniture and toy houses. The boys could be heard playing super heroes in the living room. All waiting for midnight here Southern Illinois. Right now all of them are watching Santa Clause 3 for the umpteenth time while I am trying to get my knee to relax as I type this. Sean is working. Although we are grateful that he is working it is the first time in 12 years that we are not together on New Years Eve. (Sean you own me a dance and a kiss! ~ Love you honey!)

I do hope you all are having a safe and happy new year's celebration! I also hope that one your your resolutions this year is to draw closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
Be blessed!