Power Ball

I had the most interesting conversation with my Gram on the way to work today. She informed me that she had bought her Power Ball ticket and then entertained me with her decision of what to do with the millions once she wins.

HER PLAN: Use the money to pay off every family members mortgage, car payments, credit card bills and student loans. Then, she plans to put money aside for Seth and Leah's college and graduate school. She plans to take everyone on a big trip and pay for Justin's year in Europe. She also plans to take everyone on a vacation and let us all buy new houses or fix up existing ones. The leftover money can be divided up among her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

I love this idea and love that she thinks of other people than herself. Now if she wins, what an amazing life we will all have. If she doesn't we will still have an amazing life knowing someone cares about us all this much.

Over the River and Through the Woods + Wrap Up Vacation

 We made our annual trek into the woods last Saturday and we had the  most amazing time. The weather was perfect, we all found wonderful trees and we even got to go on a horse drawn sleigh ride. It was holiday bliss at its finest.

 Sunday was not so blissful. On our way home from Syracuse after a successful day of shopping we hit nasty weather and it took us an hour and forty five minutes to get home. Thankfully it was still light out, but it was our welcome to winter.

 Needless to say it was a fun filled and busy vacation so by Sunday this is how we felt...exhausted.

Friendship

My bestest friend from high school came home for a visit and we were able to secure a sitter and go out to dinner with him on Friday night. It was so great to sit and talk for hours and hours. It is wonderful to have friends that you can go months and months without talking to yet pick up right where you left off when you see them again.

Gobble Gobble

 It was the BEST Thanksgiving that I can ever remember. We started out by walking in The Turkey Run followed by a relaxing afternoon of food and family and ended with a wonderful evening walk and some Christmas movies. Everyone was in great moods and it was the best.

 We are so fortunate to have my grandparents come down and spend the holiday with us when they are 85 and 87 years old. We are truly lucky.

 The men carving the bird.

Dessert

TGIF

The month of November is dedicated to "thankful thoughts" on facebook, but I don't often get into it on there so here are my "Thankful Friday" thoughts...
* catching mice
* a cozy warm house
* a great though stressful at times, secure job
* clean slates
* upcoming holiday food and family gathering
* Uncle J's arrival
* sun shiny days
* a jump start to holiday shopping
* friends celebrating special anniversaries
* a special friend becoming a surrogate
* fountain soda Friday with a friend
* wonderful and hard working students
* upcoming vacations
* family trips to SYR
* finding time to read on my kindle cozied up under the covers
* watching my kids play make believe together
* we are so proud of our little elfette
* Seth brought his new holiday music home to practice for his concert and it ROCKS
* people who help us when we can't do it all ourselves
* Seth and Leah's patient teachers
* family near and far
* hugs and smiles on tough days
* unexpected kind texts
* online holiday shopping
* fabulous family pictures
* playing hair salon with Leah (priceless)
* Movie night with the hubs tonight
* a dear high school friend coming into town next week
* holiday decorating approaching
* kick butt true friends who love to have fun

I could probably go on forever, but you would get pretty bored so here are a few for this week. Have a great weekend everyone.

Bum Award

The official BUM Award for the month of November goes to...my husband Roland! You might wonder what is he getting this prestigious award for? Let me tell you a little bedtime story.

On November 13th I was awoken at 4:30am by Roland who was in a serious panic. He tells me that someone is in our house. I'm up, but not awake. I jump to my feet, shut off the fans so I can hear better. I hear nothing, but I'm still pretty much dead asleep after a long day of conferences. I turn the light on, grab the phone and listen in a panic. Roland grabs a flashlight and the bat from under our bed and waits at the top of the stairs, listening. He hears noises again. At this point he is scared, scared enough to tell me to call 911. Holy crap I've never had to call 911 before. Within 5 minutes there are officers outside our house searching the premises. Then they come in and search the entire downstairs. They find nothing, but are happy to have checked it over for us. Better to be safe then sorry.
Fast forward 3 hours and I get a call on my cell phone from Ro. He thinks he figured out what the noise was that sounded like someone breaking into our house...a mouse fighting for his life.

Side story: Ever since we put on the addition out back we have had a mouse problem from time to time because it was built without a full basement under it. Last Friday night while Ro and I watched a DVRed episode of Glee we see a tiny little mouse run across the carpet (gasp). To make a long story short we trap the mouse behind the entertainment center and set traps. He gets away so we set traps in all the cold air returns. We catch one Monday night and then last night apparently a new mouse gets caught and fights for his life trying to get out of the trap causing enough noise to wake up Roland who then thought we had a burglar. Who knew a disgusting mouse could cause so much drama?

Main Idea of the story...I'm flipping tired today since I've been awake since 4:30am.
2 mice dead, don't mess with us!
Don't try to break into our house either. We have a bat and 911 on speed dial.

Catching Up

 The germs are slowly fading and our house is starting to get back to normal. Thank goodness because our good friend Jen Voss turned 35 last week so we needed to get together to celebrate the occasion. We had a full meal of her choosing, the kids had a blast together and we had tons of laughs. We even rented Just Dance 4 and got our groove on.

 You would hardly believe that it was November this weekend with record highs of 68 degrees outside. We took complete and total advantage of the wonderful weather and got outside as much as possible.

 I took Leah and the boys to the track and they had so much fun. Seth is fully obsessed with football so he was in his glory.

 Leah was happy wandering around taking care of her baby.

We also had Seth's first play rehearsal last night and he was smiles from ear to ear.

TGIF

 It has been a long week filled with germs, movies, neb treatments, laundry, doc trips, wiping tears, playing Uno, sleepless nights worrying, cleaning, playing Beyblades, quality time with our little boy and THEN he turned the corner and we think he is on the mend now. After staying home for 6 days I think the germs are on their way out. It could have been much worse, but we made it through with lots of team work. We are grateful that he is on the mend and we are ready for a much more active and fun weekend ahead. While I was home this week I had time between loads of laundry to get on Pinterest (a guilty pleasure). I found some more fun quotes that I fell for.

My students at school and my children at home know that when a song comes on that I LOVE I break out in song and dance. It might not be pretty, but boy does it make you feel good. Music is key.

Truth

Have a fabulous weekend. We plan to celebrate someone turning 35 years YOUNG, spending time as a family and seeing some friends from out of town. Yay for the weekend.

Lazy Sunday's

 Both of my boys were pretty spent this Sunday. Seth has been battling bronchitis so the coughing has been tiring him out tremendously and Ro had a few too many beers at his aunts 70th birthday party so he was tuckered out too. It was a quiet afternoon for this mom.

Sickies

 This kiddo is SO over being sick. He has been to the doctor three times in a week and missed three days of school. The cough makes him so tired, but what a trooper he has been.

Probably not a smart parent move, but Seth had his heart set on going to his audition for The Littlest Elf last night and he mustered up enough energy to get dressed and sing his song to the director. We will know later this week if he made it. If so there will be show details to follow. For today we are home and heading back to the doctor to get him checked over.

Get out an vote today too! I got that text from my brother in Florida bright and early this morning.

Happy Birthday Ben and Charlie!

 On Saturday afternoon Leah and I left Gram and Gramp and headed to Castorland for Ben and Charlie's birthday party. It was at this new place called Time Out and it was so much fun. It was the perfect place for kids to run and play off some energy. They had a mini trampoline, gigantic bounce house, zip line and all sorts of other toys and games.

 The party was pirate themed and they even had a scavenger hunt for the kids to find all of their pirate gear. They all looked so stinking cute in their outfits.

 Arrrgh!A pirate for a day.

I have to say that the zip line was super fun. I was under the weight limit so I was able to try it. If you don't mind the short drive this was a fantastic place for a party. Google Time Out in Castorland, NY and try it.

Sleepover with Gram

 Seth has been battling bronchitis for almost a week so by Friday Leah and I decided to head to Gram's for a sleepover to get her out of the house and away from the germs. She had a birthday party in Castorland the following day so it was perfect timing. We read books, got in our jammies and just relaxed.

 On Saturday morning Leah decided to pick on Gramp. She untied his slippers and messed up his hair. She thought she was just too funny.

I'm so happy that I am able to share these sleepover memories with my kids. I have such wonderful memories of my childhood with my grandparents.

Happy Halloween

 Poor Seth has been battling an ailment all week long. He has been to the doctor twice and although he wasn't feeling 100% he pushed through and was able to celebrate Halloween a bit. While the meds were working he had surges of energy and then when they wore off he was exhausted. He didn't even stay for his Halloween party. Once the parade was over he wanted to come home.

 In the evening the kids bulked up to stay warm and were evenly excited to hand out candy as to receive it. We got all of the Frankie's out of the attic to scare the trick or treater's too!

 The tradition continued and The Castana's came down to trick or treat with the kids. Nana Mary and Papa Drew were even in town visiting so we got to spend some time with them as well.

At the end of the night Seth was thrilled with all of his new treats and then ended up totally crashing because he was so exhausted.

If you can't already tell I'm a little obsessed with using photo collage with my pictures. It's the best AP ever. Last weekend we finally got some of our crew together for an adult night out. An hour in the car plus a bottle of wine and a four course meal plus more drinkies and it made for a pretty funny evening. We topped it off with a haunted house in Cicero. It was such a blast being with everyone. We missed The Voss' and Dickinson's though. I would highly recommend going to The Melting Pot. It was my third time and it gets better every time. What a fun way to eat, fondue is the way to go!

Thrilled

Seth and Leah got some pretty interesting little gifties in the mail this week from Aunt Sheryl. Leah loves stickers plain and simple, but Seth is obsessed with football right now so this collectors sticker book made his whole year. He takes it everywhere with him and even convinced Roland to take him to Target to get more packs of cards yesterday. Thank you Aunt Sheryl, it is a perfect gift and both kids love them.

Mantra

I stole this quote from my sister-in-law Sheryl's Pinterest page and I just love it. It is my new mantra! Life certainly has its ups and downs and the people who are there to support you and stick by you are the people who are meant to be in your life. You just have to try and be the best person you can and be happy with yourself. The rest you just have to let go sometimes. Life certainly is a challenge.

Growing Up

My Beaner finally has hair long enough to fit into a pony tail. She asked me to put it up last Saturday and I was thrilled to oblige. She looked so stinking cute I could hardly stand it. Stop growing up Beans!