Thanksgiving is the start...

to BLACK FRIDAY! Oh yes, you better beleive my butt was at the store at 3:45am waiting to get, well, I'm not sure exactly what I was going after this year really. I just had to go! I was able to start my christmas shopping and slowly I will finish it all by the time christmas comes. Nothing is better then the larger ticketed items kids request as they get older...joy! Atleast the 3 younger kids are easy to please still :)

BTW...walmart was still a mad house!! At one point I asked myself WHY I was even there! It's amazing to me how many adults will act like such immature children over stupid $10 toys. I mean really, I'm seriously thinking the $5 I save on that same $10 black friday toy..isn't worth practially loosing a limb or getting the back of my heels bloody. Don't get me wrong, I consider myself to be a Black Friday Pro Shopper...but I'm certainly not vicious; unless I'm forced! After last year when someone stole, YES I SAID STOLE the wii out of my cart...I'm a little bitter :)

Tylers Funnies Part 2

Our conversation last night at dinner:

Alexa: mom, tyler has a girlfriend

Me: What?

Tyler: Well mom, there is this girl at school...she has had a crush on me and I've had a crush on her...so we decided we'de just get together

Me: What do you mean "get together"

Tyler: ya' know...we're going out now mom! (almost with like a DUH mom attitude)

Paige: Well make sure you don't kiss her tyler

Tyler: Oh we can't Paige, we aren't allowed to make out at school anymore!

Me: SPEECHLESS!

Trading Tuesday

CUBAN CHICKEN~~

Chicken leg quarters (or breasts if you prefer) I made 10 pounds..

Mojo Marinade ...Goya brand

1/2cup diced white/yellow onion

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

2 limes, sliced in wedges

Marinate the chicken in the mojo marinade for atleast 4 hours. We did ours overnight. Chop onion & parsley and place in a bowl together and refridgerate for an hour so the flavors can mary. Place all the chicken on a baking sheet sprayed with PAM, bake for 45-55 minutes at 350; or until cooked through and has roasted color to it. The legs take much longer to cook then the breasted chicken. Once chicken is done, squeeze with 2 limes and cover with your parsley/onion mixture.

We served ours with pan roasted/carmelized veggies & couscous with parmesean & pine nuts.

CousCous: make according to directions on the box~I make 2 servings which is 2.5 cups chicken stock with 2 cups couscous. I add an assortment of seasinings, just depends on what I am making. This particular one I added garlic powder, kosher salt,pepper, toasted pinenuts. Once the couscous is cooked I added the parm cheese, fresh parsley, green onions and some olive oil until the mixture was no longer clumpy. The kids like it.

1st Place Champions!

So it is, they have won their division. She played 10 games while being completly un-defeated. Talk about something to be proud of! These girls did an amazing job and their teamwork with each other is what brought them to the 1st place trophy. I'm so proud of her & her team!!

The last game was probably the best game they have ever played. The other team played very well and made our girls really work hard. The majority of the game I was at the edge of my seat, while screaming! (I think I will be out of a voice tomarrow) Ofcourse, I was screaming nothing but goodness to my kyky...lol. :)

I have to say that Girls are the most aggressive soccer players I have yet to see, and also the most compassionate. Kyla has played in this league for several years and is friends with many of the girls on her opposing teams...
When kyla came up to me after the end of the game, I was immediately praising her and giving her many of hugs and she turned to me and said that she felt really bad for winning because the other girls were so upset & she had seen one girl crying. At that moment, I realized how much MORE then soccer kyla has learned from her years in sports. She knows what it feels like to be on both sides of the fence, she knows when to gloat and when to be compassionate. I'm so proud of her for GREAT SPORTSMANSHIP!

**but she is still excited about collecting that 1st place trophy on tuesday** By the way, kyla is trying out for the traveling soccer team on tuesday night, which would allow her to keep playing into early spring. I'll keep ya posted

Paige's Orthodontist Visit

Today Paige went into the Orthoditist and had her consult. The Dr was so nice and made her feel so comfortable about her upcoming procedures she will have to get.

Soooo...just for you mom, here's the update. She has impacted vampire teeth that are criss crossed up in her gums. The Dr is hopeful they are not infused to the bone, but says they may be very hard to get down, like about 6-9 months. She will have to go to the dentist and get her baby vamp's pulled out, they will then have to cut a small hole into her upper gums (the back side) to try to get to the vampire adult teeth and they will attach a bracket and wire. THEN, the orthodontist will put her braces on and slowly try to get those vamp teeth down. It will be a LOONG procedure but the outcome will be so beneficial for paige. In the event the vamps are fused to the bone (the x-rays are very hard to tell) they will have to be surgically removed. The ortho dr. said he can move other teeth to be in place of the vamps if thats the case.

The dentist is trying to see if our carry -over dental coverage will cover the pulling of her 3 baby teeth they need to have pulled before they can put the braces on. If insurance covers this, which we arent sure because it is VERY limited insurance, it will save us $360. She should have the braces on by January and the payments are very reasonable. I'm just so grateful we are able to do this for paige since she is very self concious about her teeth. The overall outcome: A Happier more confident Paige!!!

Veterans Day Program

Our school does a Veterans Day Program every year for all the local vet's, active armed forces,
and all of our local police & firemen. The program was SO AWESOME and the kids obviously all worked so hard on their songs. I was amazed at how many veterans showed up to be a part of this event...the veteran sitting behind me even had tears in his eyes.

The had all the flags of all the armed forces, gave all the service men handmade cards and sang them a big thank you song! It literally brought a tear to my eye to see all the old vet's in their uniforms who came to watch our kids. Ty said it was the best school program he has ever been too. Our only regret, is that we didn't invite Grandpa Bill to join in on the Veterans day tribute...he would have loved it! I was so proud of the kids!! (And the teachers who put so much thought into such an overlooked holiday)

The first video is of my niece's class (Annalese) you probably can't see her but she is at the very top sorta left of the middle.

The last video is the twins' classes. Alexa is on the bottom row in the middle (red shirt) and Tyler is on the very top row all the way to the right in a blue shirt (good luck finding him). Sorry for the shakiness....parents were walking all around us it was hard to keep the camera still.

Thanks to Britt!

I was inspired by a friend of mine, Brittney, who recently started going back to the public library after several years. Inspired by my love of reading, and my memories of my 'old library' days, I figured I would give it a shot and go back.

Can you beleive I was in there for over 2 hours!? Our newly built library is a bit out of the ordinary, but I was having quite a good time looking for books. Not only did I get many cookbooks (which I don't have to buy now) but I also got movies, and Paige got CD's and movies too. Paige was even able to type up her essay while she was waiting for me to finish..how GREAT is that!!!!

How funny that Paige ran in to so many of her friends from school in the library too. (guess it's the hangout spot...LOL, not when I was a kid, LOL) Once the twins and kyla heard wind that we went to the library, they are dying to go tomarrow and get their share...lol. How sweet!

So for tonight....Ty went to get pizza and we're veggin' out to a movie night (thanks to the library) in our living room. Thanks for the Inspiration Britt!! What a way to save some money...Love Ya Girl!

The Season Of Giving

As you can see, I am so excited about the upcoming holidays that I have already changed my blog layout again,lol. ThanksGiving is not my most favorite holiday, but I love when it gets here because it means we are almost to Christmas. The Christmas season in our home starts right around a week before thanksgiving, I know, crazy right?

I'm not sure what it is about the season..whether it be the smells of baking, the christmas music in the stores, the old movies played on tv, the excitement my children get waiting for santa or just the fact that I get to drive around and see christmas decorations and trees & lights. Whatever it may be, this type of year is my favorite because it makes me feel so GOOD! I love to give to people, I love to see people smile because of something I have done for them, and I just LOVE how other people feel the exact same way!! This sounds corny, but people are just more beautiful around christmas...don't you think? The joy of giving to others is by far the best feeling I could ever have. We are going to try to instill this again into our kids this season and let them each donate gifts to other kids in need. We were going to try to adopt a family, but due to our finanical situation we are unable to this year...however,I heard today that you can also donate time to your local churches (even if your not members) and you can help wrap presents and put together the food/christmas boxes...what a great way for our family to help someone elses.
That's what it's all about!!

Need I say more?

Our Halloween Pictures

We hosted Halloween this year at our home and all I can say are 5 words...KIDS KIDS & MORE KIDS!!! We had our kids, our family's kids and the neighbor kids. It was less then calm to say the least, but very very fun!

Halloween has become one of my new favorite holidays to celebrate, it's really one of the only holidays (next to christmas) that our kids look forward too. What I love about halloween is that it's a time when you can decorate, party, dressup and have lots of fun; and it doesn't involve me buying them tons of presents. I mean seriously, what a great holiday!!

Ty missed out on halloween this year since he was deer hunting with billy :(. I meant to take more pictures but with all the kids I didn't have much time before half of them were out the door. Me, Ty's Mom & his 3 sisters took all 13 kids trick or treating!! YES, I said THIRTEEN kids!!! Brave women we are, huh? lol. But we ended up not losing any little tricker treaters so I guess we did good...

I'm was such a flustered mom that night that I forgot to snap a picture of kyla (sorry sis) but I swear I will steal the picture that Hayley snapped and post it on my blog, otherwise I will make her re-wear her costume..LOL!! HEY, a moms gotta do whatta moms gotta do in order to capture her memories, right!?

I ended the night sitting up with my daughter Paige and her friend and we just talked and hung out for a couple of hours until the wee hours of the morning while everyone else was crashed....it was so cool to hang out with Paigers like that.....great times! (well I'm sure she didn't think it was so great the next morning when I made her and her friend go pick up the pumpkin goop from the 3 punkins they smashed the night before, little turds...they didn't think I would find out!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Markel in his scary mask~ (chelseys son)

Tyler as his scary vampire...

Little Allianna..I couldn't get her to smile not ONCE!

(Hayley's Daughter)

Halloween Pizza's the kids made...how cute!

Cute little Punkin!!!!

Kyla's friend stayed the night, she's SO CUTE!

Alexa's Pumpkin she carved {notice the dimples she did}

Tyler's Pumpkin

Awww...what a bunch of happy little pumpkins

Dominique dressed as a genie...what a pretty color on her

(Chelsey's daughter)

Annalese dressed as a sorceress (hayleys daughter)

There's Hayleys little punkin...

Brenton, I can't remember what he was (chelseys son)

There's my scary little sweet vampire again (tyler) I LOVE the black locks!!

Here's my little witch (no pun intended) Alexa

so cute....

Paige and her Friend~ this girl is such a sweetie. They looked adorable & had a blast!

This is Mishon, Nick and Paige. This picture was so funny because when asked if nick wanted to get in the picture he said 'YA' and he jumped right smackdab in the middle of these two beautiful girls, we were all laughing our butts off. He's a sweet kid!

It just blowsmy mind how grown up my daughter is getting, she's so beautiful.

After trick~or~treating kyla and kiki played a game of checkers before hittin' the sack

The boys patiently waiting to play their game of checkers..

Atlast! They finally got to play their game of checkers before they too headed off to bed. These two boys get along SO GREAT!

Let's Go 'Wheels'...

Kyla is rockin' her soccer this year! She is doing exceptionally well, her effort alone this season is better then I have ever seen her play in the years past. She is learning which positions she is good at & her coach this year has given her the ability to man those positions to allow her to keep learning & excelling. A couple of the parents told me that they named her "Wheels" because of her speed and footwork. They said she has the best footwork they've seen. (Proud Mommy Moment)

They are still undefeated; 8-0. Saturday was her first of three tournament games (which they won) if they win 2 more they will take 1st place. Even if they don't make it to 1st place, I am so proud of her for her dedication to her team this year!! Like I've said before, there is no better feeling then watching your kid out there doing something that they are good at and they love! (Another Proud Mommy Momment!)