Sleddin' Party

A family sledding party was a ton of fun last Sunday afternoon. We were behind my parent's house at the pond. "Lake Lemrise" some affectionately refer to it.

We enjoyed a cozy fire on the dock and roasted hot dogs and such.

It was so much fun we plan on doing it again this weekend and extending the invitation to anyone who might like to join us.

Our Christmas 2008....

It was a nice Christmas, considering we all had a very nasty stomach flu. All were well by Christmas Eve, except Molly who still struggles to keep anything down. The Dr says it'll need to run it's course and has hit her harder for her age and size. My poor baby. But she seems better every day. Here's some of our Christmas...

Most of the Fam stopped by Christmas eve to exchange gifts and enjoy a few drinks and treats....

Then Santa came and I took a picture of the tree in the night after he left....

Christmas morning came (at 4:30 am for Frankie) and we eventually (at about 6:30 am) started to enjoy the wonderful things Santa brought us...

Just when we thought it was over, as we began ripping toys from their boxes and fighting the wires that threaten our sanity to get a small plastic pony toy from a cardboard form... someone noticed Santa had made a special stop in our basement...

Mary and Frankie in their astonishment as they lay their eyes on Santa's big surprise...

The Nintendo Wii

and another couple presents for each of them....

Frankie was happy to say the least...

Mary enjoys it as well.

Molly is content with her Little People House. Not interested in Wii. At least one of us isn't fighting for their turn on the Guitar Hero. The oath Mary Claire and Frankie took to "on my honor , never fight over the Wii" lasted about 2 hours.

So even with the stomach flu, Christmas still came for little "Molly Lou Who"

"Happy Candy Day"

Halloween 2008 was a grand time! The weather was perfect and the kids looked great. We went to Aunt Bernadettes as we traditionally do. She served wonderful food for everyone, it's always a good time but the weather permitted more freedom this year and the kid's got to play in the back yard and everyone ate on the deck before trick-or-treat.


Frankie: Optimus Prime
Nellie: Leprechaun
Mary Claire: High School Musical Cheerleader
Molly: The "Pumpkin Fairy"

You did not have to tell Molly she was pretty she knew, telling everyone... "is peetee" and "peetee shoo" (she has a huge thing for shoes and I didn't give her the new orange shoes until costume time and she was very thrilled with the shoes). She caught on to "chickercheet" very well and was pronouncing it with perfection by the 4th or 5th house. She was also very good with her "Thank You". It was very much fun.

Here's the kids in action. Jess got some great shots of them begging at

various door-steps.

Posing in someones yard. I LOVE this picture.

Below we have Molly and Gabe, who was a scarecrow (who didn't like his hat), and not feeling well. But he too, caught on to the free candy and had a grand time.

I'll probably add more pictures as I get them from other sources. There were many cameras flashing and I'm sure to have more great shots.

HAPPY DAY!

Miss Molly is 2 !!!!

We had a little party at our house with ice cream cake and the fam.

Ma is holding Jake's baby Liam, and sitting close by is Jake's baby Gabe (he had his birthday 10 days before Molly)
PRESENTS!!

We were late with her birthday as she was very super sick on the 1st. So we had a little party the following weekend. Yes, I'm VERY late in posting. Molly LOVES the Happy Birthday song and we sing it often. She also associates any cake, cupcake, and sometimes cookies with "HAPPY DAY". So if she sees a cake-like dessert, she not only yells "HAPPY DAY" but we then sing, and she blows out invisible candles. It's pretty damn cute.

The Oprah Winfrey Show

So OMG, I know all about being an audience member at the Oprah show now! Me & Ma attended a taping yesterday. Here's the basics:

1. do your homework on public parking west of the loop. IT'S NOT PRETTY! In fact, do yourself a favor and just take the train, cab, etc.

2. get there early. Like stand in line with the "crazy people" for an hour before the appointed "arrival time". You'll have to stand a total of about 3 hours, in line, and then in the "holding cell" before being seated for the show. But the people who stood in line early, got the limited number of chairs available in the holding cell, and were first (among a few hundred) to be seated in the studio.

3. wear comfy shoes, for the reasons listed above.

Oprah is exactly like she looks on TV. Not too fat, not too thin. VERY pretty for her age, and yes, full of make-up but not that she looks any different than on TV. But my favorite part was when she came out and she was like... right...there ...wow! She's real and she's funny and she comes out barefoot and only puts her shoes on when she's in position to start the show, making jokes and telling the camera men to be sure to get a shot of these super cute shoes that hurt so band and stuff. That part was fun.

The studio is actually BIGGER than you think. I went in thinking it would seem small, and there would not be as many people as it seems on TV. But actually, it was rather big and there were like 360 people (they said the number at some point). She was closer to the audience on her sofa than it seems on tv, but we decided, depending on topic, she probably gets closer, or moves back. Being a rather "intimate and dramatic" topic, she was all cozy with the audience.

We were in the "balcony" area, but centered in the studio. Very good seats. (kinda by one of the tunnel-ways she comes out of, we were actually on the end of our section, if she had come out of that particular tunnel thing, we could have hi-fived her! Even though the studio is bigger than I expected, you were still very close to Oprah regardless of your seat.

The staff, all very fun and friendly and attractive, start the show with some direction and "do's", mostly "dont's". Like don't chew gum, dont sit down until your finished speaking (if you called on to speak) stuff like that. Then another rather attractive fun guy come out and starts getting us all psyched and "on-topic" before Oprah comes out. We dont yet meet the main character of the drama we're about to witness, but audience members are chosen to speak about their overwhelmedness (assuming thats a word?). Some were definitely overwhelmed, some just wanted to talk.

So the topic was "Overwhelmed Moms" but should have been called "The Worst Thing That Can Happen To A Busy Mom When She Changed Her Daily Routine" So yea, we cried. It was a terrible story of an accident that killed a 2 yr old girl. I hate ruining the show for you, but she was one of those toddlers, accidentally left in a hot car ALL DAY LONG, by a very GOOD and NORMAL and CUTE mom. It was not an easy thing to hear. Then some chatter about how we (as moms) often feel overwhelmed and not thinking clearly as a result of making our position harder than it needs to be. I could defiantly relate to some of the chatter. Even the how this could even happen to someone. I can see it.

She told her story so we might all slow down a little, and take a breath. Ask for help and always always know where everyone is.

So here's what I took from it: O M G . I wanna hug my babies and pay more attention, and be "checked-in" to THIS second and not the next one and the one after that one, and try to not sweat the small stuff, and who cares if I'm late for something, or if I'm not a "perfect mom", cause theres worse things than pushing yourself to be perfect cause you forget your goal in the first place and if this lady keeps on talking about this, I might puke, cause she's right there and I'm right here and she's a good person and something awful happened, an awful terrible accident and her 2 yr old baby girl died and I have a 2 yr old baby girl and I just cannot even imagine the guilt, the horror, the absolute destruction of oneself that this woman is trying to get across. THEN to make it worse, you hear the 911, you hear descriptions and horrible details, and they show some of the police interrogation, where she's moaning that she just wants to die. It was all because this was a TRAGIC accident, it was a horrible nightmare. I'm not even sure if I really enjoyed myself, given the grief we had to witness.

They could not give us a definite air date, just told us to watch the website for topic air dates.

So besides for the aching feet, sweating in the heat, thirst, hunger and despair, going to the Oprah show was kinda cool I guess.