Happy New Year

We will be ringing in the New Year at the Fallons, well if we make it to midnight ;)

My big plans for tomorrow and Friday include my family, a fire and cozy clothes. Ryan heads back to work on Saturday night, the kids to school on Monday, so I am planning to cram in the most quality time I can.

I hope the New Year is a good one. There will be many changes, and I hope they are for the good. The usual suspects, health and money are key concerns, and under health I list sanity!

Happy New Year all, may 2009 be filled with joy and happiness.

Family fun times 2

So we realized that a certain store the girlies have gift cards for is going out of business while at the mall, with no gift cards. Em and her girls are coming over, she is leaving Declan here with Ryan and Gray and we are heading down to do the girl thing. Being that the options are limited, and everything is 50% off, all four girls should get a ton of junk for the 70 bucks in gift cards.

Super duper family fun day

Yes that is right, the whole tribe is venturing out into the big world for a day of family fun....if we can get ourselves motivated :)

We will eat lunch at home I think, then off to the bank (OK that is only fun for the grownups), then we will go to Friendly's for ice cream to give us energy, then to the mall so Grayson can use his Build a Bear gift card and the girls can use their Claire's gift cards, I think Ryan will use his Teavana gift card his lovely wifey got him too! Then a nice drive to the farm to gather our milk, then home to play the Wii and watch movies and hang about. Super fun, if only everyone would get dressed!

What a nice afternoon

The whole family did some cleaning and we have had a really nice afternoon. Not having work or school, I have actually taken some time to relax. I could get used to this!

Breath

We are trying to clean up the aftermath of Christmas and a week of company, and the tribe is revolting. I just want to make a dent, heavy duty work will happen next week when they are back at school and I am still off work. For today, I need to finish the cleaning and start undecorating which is so depressing. I also need to fold a million loads of laundry, bleck.

On the positive side, I hope to get granola made today if I have enough honey and I am making a nice dinner of pork roast, some of our canned apples, potatoes, veggies and popovers...mmm. Tomorrow I promised the kiddos that we could go to the mall so they can spend some of the gift certificates that are burning holes in their pockets. We are also running to the farm, so if I am out of honey I guess I can get some there.

If only I could inspire them to get moving.

An empty house

All the company left, and I am more than relieved! A full week of people is just too much and makes me tired and crabby! I am not sure what will happen when MIL is here full time, but having to be on good behavior is draining and depressing.

For now, I will sit here at 4 am and wish my husband would stop snoring and that we all will make it to church in the morning. I really want to go there, maybe get lunch out as a family, come home and veg for the day. The cleaning up of the house can begin Monday, along with the undecorating and packing up of Christmas goodies. For tomorrow, church, my family and rest, that is all I want.

New Year's resolutions

We are getting close to that infamous time a year when everyone makes goals and promises that they cannot meet or keep. Me,I try to make changes at odd times of the year, there is a lot less pressure. However, we are gearing up for some mega changes here in our tribe, so I feel there are some goals I need to work on.

The first is patience, and I need a wagon full of it! I have a lot going on, and sometimes I skim over the positive and only see the negative, or I don't even stop to process it all. I really need to work on this, and I am really trying...I practiced all day yesterday on my mother in law!

Letting things go. OK, so I cannot let much go since most days are jam packed, and the chosen thing to let go is usually laundry. I need to let go not of tasks, but of feelings and events. I think there will be a purge post coming soon and then I will need to put all those bad feelings to bed.

More local, more organic, more from scratch. We were doing so very well, and then fall hit and Haven was going through her diagnosis, and things just never settled into a comfortable routine. I need to cook more from scratch, it should be seven days a week and we are only at about five. I need to depend more on my stockpile and work to add to it even during the winter months. Ryan and I will be planning the garden next week, so once that is together I will share. Again we will only grow organically, and I am hoping for a bigger success this year.

I need to source new farms and suppliers. There is more we can get locally, such as grains, and I need to locate a source! I also need to bake more bread, I am hoping once the company leaves that I can get back in the habit of baking 2 loaves a week. It is just so much better for everyone. We also need to make more granola so the kids have that as a choice instead of boxed cereal!

So those are some of my plans. Ryan and I want to do chickens, however I am not sure this is the year to start...more info on why coming soon.

New blog

OK, since I fear I will have a lot to say once my mother in law moves in, I created a new location to purge my thoughts:

http://survivingmymil.blogspot.com/

Visit at your own risk, it ain't pretty.

They were very excited this morning

Can you tell?????





Merry Christmas from our tribe!

Its 2am on Christmas

and no the kids don't have me up :)

I have been sleeping so badly lately, so when I woke up, I just came downstairs so I won't bother anyone. Also, the wacky weather is making my poor skin dry and I am a bit scratchy. Ah well, maybe I will doze down here, or I will be taking a very long nap tomorrow :)

Here is to hoping there is a pile of prezzies under the tree and a glorious Christmas morning for all!

I may need a new blog

So my mother in law is here and she is making me crazy. How am I supposed to survive when she lives here? I like doing my own thing, having space and running the house my way. She isn't bad, just throws a wrench in everything. I am just ready to cry and I think I will be starting another blog to give me a place to bitch and moan.

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Today is my husband's 32nd birthday!

He is a super dad and husband, and we are so lucky to have him in our lives. Happy birthday honey, we all love you loads and loads and loads!!!!

UPDATE

We JUST walked in the door. I left here with the kids at 2:30 and the ride to the airport should have taken about and hour and a half, it took three. The ride home also took three plus a stop for the poor kids to pee. I deserve a medal.

Update, the eye is over

My Mother in Law (yes the one moving in) is such a mess that she MISSED her flight here. Yes she MISSED the flight that we paid for and booked and the airport is only 15 minutes from her house! My poor husband, who works overnight, stayed late at work to pick her up at 1 and I just had to call and tell him she won't land until 4. The airport is an hour and a half from our house and he works tonight and leaves at 9 pm....so when is he supposed to sleep?

So I told him to come home and sleep, I am waiting for the Comcast guy who will hopefully be here well before 3 when I will need to leave. I will need to pack all three kids into the car to drive an hour and a half north to pick up MIL to turn around and drive home in rush hour traffic. Sounds like a blast huh. Can we say annoyed?

We are sitting in the eye of the storm....

My parents left an hour ago, and my mother in law will be here in about 3 hours.The kids and I are enjoying the relative calm and quiet, they are playing, I have gotten some cleaning done and the Comcast guy is coming to make my new HD TV in my room work (thanks Mom and Dad!!!)

We are lounging in our jammies, enjoying a nice fire and just playing and relaxing. Tomorrow is my husband's birthday, so we will have a special dinner for him and then go to church. The following day is Christmas of course, and my brother in law and Kristien will be here that evening. They will be here a few days, and hubby is off work until January 3rd!!!

I guess I should put clothes on, the Comcast guy probably doesn't want to hang with me in my PJs. I am also going to start the soup for dinner, it should be smelling great in here soon!

The holidays are well underway

We have had my parents here since Saturday, and my sister was here that day as well. The kids have been having so much fun playing with Nana and Papa and I know they will be a little sad when they leave tomorrow, but no worries...Grandma comes in the afternoon! Then on Christmas Uncle Matt and Kristen come and we will have the Fallon's over with the whole crew on the 26th. A full week of Christmas and Hanukkah fun!

It must be almost Christmas

because Grayson is sick! This is the third year in a row, and while last year took the cake with the hospitalization a week before Christmas, he still couldn't give me the year off! The kids all have had bad coughs for a week, so I didn't think too much of it. This morning he began having the coughing fits with deep wheezy inhalations...nice. So I gave him a breathing treatment, and after his treatment, he laid on the couch for an hour straight...hmmmm,not like my crazy busy four year old. He was all bundled up and I could see the blazing red ears, fever. He is now on Advil and feeling a bit better, but we will be on twice a day breathing treatments and looking for symptoms of severe asthma just to be safe.

Merry Christmas :)

Let the craziness begin

today begins our week O'Christmas. Everyone should be here around 3, so we still have a lot to do. Someone needs to go get the girlies who slept at Emily's and stop at the store for the four things I forgot yesterday. The whole downstairs needed a once over and a good vacuum. The upstairs needs a once over. I need to get cracking on the cooking, and then around 1,I will get everything set up on the pretty platters and all. Merry Christmas!

Need to really feel something?

Go on over to Casey's blog and watch the video. It is very moving and I am thankful that she shared. Hug everyone you love a bit tighter.

The worst thing that can happen

when you are motivated to scrub the house from top to bottom, is for the power to go out! We lost power this morning as I was just getting into the groove, and it has thrown me way off. I don't want anyone to misunderstand, I think I keep a clean home, sometimes a little more cluttered than I would like (thanks hubby and three kids for that) but albeit clean. Yet when my mother comes, we need a new level of clean, it needs to be sterilized and perfect. We live in our house, someone is always here, so there is always stuff about. Cleaning and organizing, while they fill my heart with joy, do not do the same for the rest of the tribe. They are not so helpful and have been known to mess up the very room I just cleaned.

Anyway, I have scrubbed the kitchen, and now have a mass of stuff to put away. I also have my oven cleaning, I hate my stove and am coveting a new one, but for this Christmas, I still have old unpredictable. Still on the list, to do some grading for FT school, do laundry, organize the extra stuff from the kitchen, vacuum both levels, clean the kid's bathroom, steam clean, clean up the mudroom and mop. Hopefully husband will jump on board and help out soon.