What's new here.....

I am going to go backwards on what has happened since my last post... so bear with me! Yesterday was Agriculture Appreciation Day - which hosted all the students in 3rd grade from around the Valley to learn about all the "ag" related products produced here! I decided to tag along with Miss O... just for fun - well... and to see a few more of the boys in Little J's class to figure out which ones he needs to be seperated from in 4th grade... there were so many - it is going to be hard to choose! haha! At Ag Day - they brought in different kinds of livestock... Miss O is here talking to a Holstein mama-cow... she enjoyed it! She also loved seeing the Baby cow and the chickens... funny - since she sees those every day at our house!

At one of the inside stations, Little J is attempting to plant a bean in a baggie... hmmm.. Miss O had to get in on the action and watch as well! They also had a wagon ride - that we went on, all the kids loved that! Unfortunately, the only bad thing was the weather... snow and cold! Oh well... it was a fun 2 hours!

Over the weekend, Uncle Jim and Aunt Erica came over to help with the calves... both "boys" got their horns pasted to help them fall off.. (we don't need any horny cows here - we have other problems!) And they also got "banded"... I decided for their privacy to not show the pictures of that! Basically, its a simpler method of castrating... Aunt Erica is really good at this... I'll give her credit! You have to get all their "goods" together, then a special rubber band is placed at the base... apparently in a few weeks, they will have two less body parts! We made the boys help and watch the process... with a warning to never mess with Aunt Erica!! :)

Above picture is Cuddles donning his freshly pasted horns... Below is Brownie - who was not very cooperative with the whole thing... can you blame him????

Miss O has been working on what she likes to call "homework".. which we practice saying her letters and tracing them... she seems to think that she is more than qualified to grade Big Al's homework!!

And take a look at the picture below and see if you can figure out what is missing and altered??? Poor Lyger is a long-haired cat.. occasionally we have to clip under his arms/legs to keep the mats of hair from getting too big... apparently, I screwed up and left the clippers on the bed.... a certain someone FOUND the clippers, and since Lyger is so gentle when he is sleeping... well... he woke up with a "new do"! He is minus his eye-whiskers and his whiskers around his nose are well... cropped close! Poor thing has not wanted to go outside at night to hunt!! Miss O apparently wants to study cosmotology when she gets older!!

I hope that everyone is having a great week so far!!

I'd like to thank..........

My friend, Debbie, gave me this lovely award! Sort of the making lemonade out of lemons theme! Debbie is currently in Ukraine - TRYING to finish her adoption of her adorable 15 year old daughter who just so happens to have the same name as my little O! Debbie is "nearly" done and my heart goes out to her as she has probably had more small delays than she should have.. She will have been in Ukraine for almost two months by the time she returns home! She has also so graciously offered to meet up with my friend George to help purchase a cell phone for Sergey, our boys brother... she is an angel!!

So - on with the awards!!
Here are the rules...
Put the logo on your blog or post.
Nominate at least 5 blogs that show attitude and/or gratitude.
Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
Let them know they have received this award by commenting on a post.
Nominate your favorites and link to this blog.

Christine - Though I know Debbie already gave this to you... consider it your second award of the day!!

Charlene - Charlene and John are still in Ukraine and almost done with their adoption as well... they have had a really long and stressful trip! Their new son is ADORABLE!! You're almost done my friends!

Meredith - Wonderful Meredith always amazes me... she deserves way more than blog awards!! Four adorable children and one more on the way... AND she continues to do wonderful advocacy for those children left behind... truly inspiring!

Jennifer - Miss Jenn only updates her blog when I force her - haha! She is such a great person - and I am keeping my fingers crossed for her on her next adoption!

Erica - Erica and her family have had a tough year... they have lost a loved family member, a failed adoption trip to Ukraine, and now they just are wait-wait-waiting for their daughter to be ready for them in Ethiopia! Her blog is great - and she has more patience for things to happen than I ever would!! Hugs my friend!!

Enjoy your awards! Be sure to pass it on!!

News from the homefront!

For some reason - this post took me forever to get on here! Last weekend we took the boys to the first wrestling tournament of the season in Yakima. This was Little J's very first tournament! He had loads of anxiety.. there was a lot of nervous crying (something he is very proficient in!) and lots of stress for him....
Big Al was ready - there were no big issues for him! The only challenge he faced was that he had to wrestle a GIRL right off the bat! That threw him for a loop! He ended up beating her without too many problems.
It turned out that Big Al and Little J were in the same weight class - something that we were concerned about... they are about a pound apart in weight. The first match - Jason had to wrestle - he did end up losing 7-2... at least he scored points! The second match, he wrestled the same girl that Alex beat... It was Jason's first win... though it was stressful for him - he was very relieved!

Here is a very bleary picture of Little J starting his first match (he lost to the same guy that beat Alex - who did end up winning the weight class)

Here is Little J down in the referees position....

Big Al starting off the match he ended up losing to the same boy who beat his brother.

It was an extremely loooooong day! I felt better knowing that Little J had won at least one match - so he was not discouraged enough to quit! Big Al ended up the day taking 4th place in the weight class... Little J took 5th... not bad out of 8 kids!

Saturday will be yet another match - this time a little further away in Wenatchee... hopefully - we will have some good news and better pictures to post!

The video is of Little J winning his match... the look of relief on his face in the end is classic!!

Swagbucks - I'm hooked!

I normally don't send mass emails to people when I sign up for a program or shop online.. but this one, well... In the month I have been signed up, I have earned $20 in gift cards by basically searching online (instead of google).
I don't get alot of emails from them - its easy and I get something back - something that I can use!

Give it a try - signing up is super easy - and when you sign up, I get a little bonus as well! :)

Click here to go to Swagbucks!

Mission completed and dancing with girls!

Big Al, who is in 5th grade has been working on a project for the last two months called Celebration of Cultures. It has been ALOT of work! He has had to not only do research on his own, do alot of writing and creative projects (neither are his strengths!), he has had to learn some new songs, put together a board about Ukraine, make a Legacy book, and learn to dance with girls!

The entire 5th grade sang many cultural songs from all over the world... I have to say that they sounded SO much better than any other concert! (maybe because its the last one I have to attend for him!)

Miss O escorted me to the event... she wanted to dress up, since she saw all the older girls dressed in skirts and dresses.. or at least I "think" that is why she wanted to dress up... maybe she just wanted to get into the box of clothes from Allie!

Big Al danced with his little sister after we watched the kids all do their jazz dancing!

Alex put together his country board... he has been studying Ukraine... he actually learned a few things and was able to put to use alot of the things we purchased on the last trip (2006). He was only one of a small handful of kids that were the only person in their group. Considering he has a really hard time with homework - this was a major feat for him... his teacher was amazed that he was able to pull it together! (so were we!)

Here is the video of his 5th grade class doing their dances (Big Al is in the blue shirt with khaki pants!) The best part was watching the facial expressions of the kids when they had to ask each other to dance... classic! Apparently - lots of cooties were exchanged!! hehe

Molly - feel free to high-jack the video!!

Our newest additions....

It's a bird... it's a plane.....???? Nope... its.......

BABY COWS!

Last Tuesday, I did something I was not sure I really ever wanted to do... but, its done! The kids and I picked out 2 calves to raise! Since we have handled the "eating the pig" thing from last year, we figured that this would be a good time! We have two adorable little Jersey bull-calves! One is about 37 days old, and the other around 45 days old. We are currently bottle-feeding them twice a day.. fun! Actually, it is sort of an arm workout - as they get a little pushy when really hungry! At this age, they are super cute! Hard to believe in 18 months they will be on the grill! We have yet to name them.

This one cow is a little more "friendly" than Miss O appreciated! He is a little "flirty"! He will need part of his "man-hood" taken care of shortly!

Little J was in charge of bottle feeding last night

Big Al did bottle feeding this morning

I hope that all the kiddos will enjoy this experience! The calves will be living in the pig pen for the next few weeks, until we get a seperate pasture set up - so the horses don't make kicking targets out of them! Next critter project will be our baby chicks that we will have at the end of March! What fun! (quick - someone do a sanity check on me!)

Wow - where has the time gone???

This last week has been really trying! So many things have been going on and we've been trying to keep some sort of "normalcy". (That IS funny - is there such a thing??)
With the hubby working in Seattle four days a week, that means 3+ of those days I am pretty much a single parent.... and the boys are starting to really figure out that my tolerance level is getting really low!! It makes me really thankful when the clock reads 7:45pm - because that means that it is brush your teeth and get ready for bed! Gotta love that! Unfortunately, #1 boy is still finding ways to make bed time a real challenge... though we are working on it... it makes things stressful! Boy #2 has real challenges the next day if he does not get his full amount of "beauty" sleep... which easily translates to my day becoming a real - not-so-beauty-ful day!

Here are some of our weekend activities!
Sunday afternoon - we had this really weird snow system move through... the flakes were truly the size of a CD... you can't see if very well in the picture... it was insane! Big Al was running around catching them - since he tends to get wrapped up in his activities - he only ran into one of the trees once! Little J and Miss O both enjoyed running around with this crazy snow! I have never seen such huge flakes!

Sunday morning, we went to the park and the kids rode their bikes on the access road... it was cold, but good for them to get out and burn more energy! Here is all three.

This was Miss O's very first biking outing! We thought that she would get tired after about 15 minutes - but no - she went the full hour with no complaining! She can really get going on her bike! She is very competitive when it comes to keeping up/beating her brothers!

Have a great Monday!

The last few days have been.....

I guess the word to describe the last couple of days has been... interesting. I could use alot of different words, but that one word sums it up!
Thursday night, I got the joy of taking Big Al to the ER, yet again! After talking to the pediatrician, it was highly advised to take him into the ER... and you are probably wondering "WHY?"... well... if your child had pee the color of purple grape juice, you'd be a bit concerned as well! Arghhhh! To sum up the four hour ER experience, it took the threat of pumping his stomach to get the necessary answer out of what caused the purple pee... that would be large quantities of CRAYONS. Lovely - another $800 for a visit to the ER... No real pain for him - but with his other issues, anytime we get something weird like that - it usually is an ER visit - since it is always conveniently happening after the dr's usual business hours! Another ARGH!
Friday - the boys have early release days at school, so they are home a bit earlier - which has its pro's and cons! Miss O does NOT get early release days - so she rides the bus home on those days. Of course, both boys had Valentines Parties at school... I think that they both gorged themselves on all the candy they could eat on the way home... as they are smart enough to know that I always take it from them when they get home and dole it out over a few days!
The hubby was nice enough to bring me flowers - something he rarely buys me... a nice Valentines present!
Today - The Hubby was in charge of Valentines for the kids - he did good as usual! I got a heart-shaped box of candy... which was nice! Call me petty - but I am REALLY choosy when it comes to candy - and these will probably get eaten by the kids!
Little J had a birthday party to go to at the pool... and there must be something in the water - because after each party he feels sick! I secretly think that he is drinking the pool water - enough to upset his stomach, that and all the candy from the last two days, cupcakes and probably an extreme overkill of sugar......Oh well - no one asked me - I'm the Mom! haha!
We'll see what tomorrow brings!

Happy Valentines Day!

My family.... by Miss O

Miss O created a family portrait... since she is only able to write her name and Papa's - the rest of us are creatively shaped! HA!

Pajama Day at Preschool!

Today, Miss O had Pajama Day at her school! She has been really excited about this for DAYS! She got to take her favorite critter as well! They served pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse - so she was in Heaven!

More birthday fun!

This year we were a little belated in getting out the bithday invites from Little J's party... but never the less - he was happy! He had a few friends from school and family show up to his pool party on Saturday... it turned out pretty well - with the exception of the melting cupcakes! hehe!
Little J and his buddies from school - all three he has been in classes with since kindergarten!

A quick pic before the fun in the pool begins!

He got a pump up rocket/plane thing (Papa did the shopping this year!) and of course he had to try it out when there was no wind!

Little J enjoyed opening presents at home and of course the cards! Miss O had to be in EVERY picture - I think that she just loves birthdays in general -regardless of who is having the birthday!

And of course - we had our traditional Mexican dinner out on his actual birthday - had to wear the sombero and have fried ice cream! Happy 9th Birthday!!

The Birthday Boy!

Congratulations Little J!

Today marks his 9th Birthday! Hard to believe that this little bundle of joy used to weigh only 16 pounds and wore size 6 month clothes until he was almost 20 months old! He is 4 foot one and 58 pounds... It is amazing how things change! He is excited to have a family dinner at the traditional Mexican restaurant tonight and to have a birthday party at the pool on Saturday... He has had a pretty good year - so it is all well deserved! Happy Birthday to our little Dink!

We love you!

Wrestle-Mania.. starring Miss O

Little J has been able to attend the same wrestling practice that Big Al is at... good thing for me - that's one less day a week to taxi them both around! Miss O enjoys watching the practices - and seems to think that she has a future in wrestling too... take a look at the short video!

Spring - for now!

The last two days have been NICE... if you like waking up to 20's in the morning and highs of about 40-45 during the day! But, the sun has been shining - NO WIND.. and it is really nice to hang out outside and enjoy the fresh air!

The doggies have been frolicking more than usual in the sun!

Miss O has been enjoying playing some basketball with her brothers

Little J likes to show off some of his b-ball form! He can play b-ball for HOURS if you let him!

Big Al has been busy breaking the last of the Christmas toys he received!

Someone on a cute bright pink Barbie bike has been tearing up and down the asphalt on a regular basis!

Our bird feeder has remained really full of birdseed... I wonder WHY that would be??????

I hope that we have a few more days of this... it is a nice change!

The Groundhog

First of all... let me say how disappointed I am that when I checked on the computer this morning that there was not ONE thing said about the stupid furry critter that supposedly can predict weather! Since we are 3 hours behind when the ground hog does his thing.. you would think that we would have the news pronto - not at noon!
Honestly - the poor thing is probably poked and prodded until he does SOMETHING!


Oh well... regardless - spring won't be here until March - so I'm not worried about it anyhoo!

Wow - end of the month...already????

I realized today that I had started a bunch of posts, and then became too busy to finish them.. So, I'll put it all in one big nutshell!!

Big Al : We started up regular wrestling in the last week.. unfortunately - he has already missed two practices due to behavior issues. :( He has a large project in school... Celebration of Cultures, that he is "supposed" to be working on studying family history, information about his heritage, etc... lets just say that his understanding of what his assignments given are not working out too well. And, Mama is holding him accountable for this - and he is not happy! We also discovered this week that Big Al has been the lucky "purchaser" of lots of candy on the playground at school... over $50 worth.... this is NOT good. I should not say "lots" more like a few handfuls and 5 or so dum-dum suckers... yes - $50+.... Let's just say that he has not had a good last week and a half!

Little J : Little J has been working on learning about Japan at school for the last few weeks... and for the life of him - he keeps calling everything "Chinese"! He has been enjoying his Japanese name in school of "Kenji" and loves the origami - today is his Japanese festival - so that should be fun! Little J also started wrestling - its his very first time - I am not a big supporter of this sport for him because he is well.... the best word I can use would be "less-determined"... He had his first practice - which he enjoyed. I, on the other hand did NOT enjoy it when I saw WHO they had paired him up with. His "partner in crime" from second grade! I will call him "Cody". I will quickly say that this boy was 80% of the reason that Little J had a horrible year in second grade.... I knew that trouble would be happening if he spent any more time with this kid.... I went thru alot of pain getting Little J seperated and distanced from "Cody" this year... and all my hard work was quickly ripped away the day after wrestling practice when he hung out with "Cody" during lunch and got in trouble. Let's say that it took a few hours for my blood pressure to go down! ARGH... So, if his coaches won't agree to keep "Cody" away from Little J at wrestling - we are done with that! Sounds harsh - but honestly, I am NOT going to deal with the "Cody" issue again. No WAY!

Miss O: She has been doing pretty darn well... except for her colds and changes in lack-of-nap time! She was moved up to the older preschool class - which goes from 12:30 to 2:45, W,TH, F. She rides the bus to school - but I have to pick her up. She is enjoying seeing some of her old friends from last year and doing more "big" kid stuff. She has been a real... pill.... due to the lack of nap - so she gets bedtime at 7:30, for which she is out in about 10 minutes... nice !! :)
Miss O also got ALL her kindergarten shots, even though she won't start until 2010... since she was four - we figured we'd get them all done and over with - whoo hoo! She is also in the 75th percentile for weight and about 90th percentile for height... the dr estimated that if she continued at this rate - she would end up at 5'8 or 5'9 and probably very lean.... uh oh! The hubby will be busy screening her dates when she is 16!

Not too much else to report... the county is trying to fix the roads and driveways around us from the "great flood of 09"... the freeway we use all the time in front of us has taken forever to get repaired - big pain and lots of waiting! We usually go the long way around it! The weather has been cold - but there has been some sunshine - nice to see!

I'll try to get back into a regular blogging schedule - things have been a little crazy with the new schedule and everything else going on!

Have a great weekend!

One of those weeks....

Trying to think of something to post... not much has happened since last week.. the weather has quite frankly stunk... below freezing, foggy and blah... no sun - what-so-ever!
Saturday afternoon we headed to Seattle...
The kiddos were watching fishing in Puget Sound while we waited for the ferry - how convenient that we were 3 minutes late and missed the ferry.. so we were 2nd in line to get on the next one!

Saturday night we spent at the Best Western where the hubby has been spending all his working nights away... Big Al is enjoying watching tv in bed!

Miss O likes having alot of mirrors in the bathroom so she can watch herself brush her teeth and make cute faces at herself...

Saturday we spent about 2 hours at the Fun Center in Tukwila.. we spent the $25 so we could all ride the bumper boats (yep - in the cold!) Miss O and I had fun whipping around in circles..

The hubby was a bit too tall for the boat - but had fun as well chasing the kids across the little pool.

Big Al was in his element racing around harassing other drivers... he does that well!

Little J liked the speed and the fact that he was able to smash the boat into his brother... no surprise there!

We had dinner Saturday night with my brother, Uncle Steve... the kids enjoy a good night with their uncle... we had a good - albeit expensive dinner at Jimmy Macs, one of the hubbys favorite places to eat!

And Sunday - we spent a few hours on Bainbridge Island, working on our adoption homestudy. We decided to go ahead and have Miss O readopted here in the US, so that she is able to get a US birth certificate. Not that the readoption is necessary or required, it will make things a bit easier for her (paperwork wise) when she is older - or heaven forbid, anything were to happen to both my hubby and I and someone had to try and figure out her Ukrainian paperwork! So basically, we have to do everything that we did in order to bring Miss O home... alot of the same paperwork, back ground checks, medical exams, etc etc etc... It is a time intensive project - but hopefully we can get it done by March!

On Sunday - our way home - we stopped at our friends Shaun and Kerri's new house - which was awesome! They raise those adorable Alpacas.. and I am so hoping that the hubby will let me get one! So super cute!!!

Not much excitement - and now on to a new week!!

A wonderful accomplishment!

Miss O never ceases to amaze us with her newly acquired talents! In the last two weeks - she has learned to write her full first name... for the longest time, it was just "O" and "l" with scribbles after it! Now she can write her name with all four letters - AND you can read it!

Last night - she wanted to spell everyone elses names and write them too! She just could not get "Mama". as she said, it was "too haud" - but she got "Papa" down with no problem at all!

Here she is showing off her name... not bad for a new four year old!!!

A big first!

This year for Christmas, Miss O received a "biiiiggg bike"! She had specifically asked for one - and yep - the big man in red complied! Since the weather the first two weeks after Christmas were cold and snowy - she rode it in the house!

Now, since the weather is (gasp!) 60 degrees outside today - she has moved the bike from the bedroom to the garage!

Here she is on her new ride!!

Have a great day!

A simple thing - and oh so helpful!

One of my resolutions is to try and help causes that are near and dear to my heart by sharing information to others - and help spread the word!

My cause this month is Ukraine Orphan Outreach. Two of the families who have founded the group are from our CH Angels group. Both have adopted children from Ukraine. Heidi and Felix just returned at Christmas with not one but THREE wonderful older children from Ukraine! (Their blog is listed on the right as well)

Ukraine Orphan Outreach (UOO) is raising money to bring a group of older children from Ukraine to Colorado this summer to spend time with families and enjoy life away from the orphanage. This group is a lot different from others, as they don't focus on daily needs of the children, but LIFE needs. It is fairly easy to donate money to a group to help purchase clothing and food - but it is another to help a group truly change the life of a child for the better! These children have no families to call their own. Spending a few weeks during the summer in a family setting, creating bonds, sharing family life, and truly knowing that they are loved and cared about is life changing and makes an amazing difference to these kids. Some that are brought over actually find their forever family here - others are given the chance to have such wonderful experiences that we take for granted daily!

The approximate cost to bring a child to the US on this type of trip is $2500... there is alot of paperwork that goes on behind the scenes, which takes months of hard work, all done by volunteers... please consider making a donation to help!

Please visit the UOO website by clicking here. It is easy to donate and you can go back and check the website in the summer to see the kids that were helped by your donation in pictures!
Amy

200th post and Nation De-Lurking Week!

I have been informed that this week is National De-Lurking week on blogger! Hmmmm... someones idea of getting folks to do more typing than usual!! hehe!

So - I decided that since this was my 200th post since I started the blog that I would ask each of you to simply leave me a little comment and tell me who you are and how you found my blog!

So, go ahead - don't be afraid!!! Comment away! :)

Have a great day!!!

Stuck at home!

I am running out of things to get done since the kids and I are stuck at home today!!!
Last night - the weather warmed up drastically and we had 50 mph winds most the night WITH tons of rain... all night long! About 90% of our snow has melted, since we had over a foot still on the ground yesterday, it created a real mess!
At 6:30am this morning, the bus garage called to tell me that the highway was closed and they would not be able to pick up my kids... arghhh #1!
So, about 7:45am, I loaded everyone up and we attempted to head towards school.... First we saw this absolutely beautiful rainbow, which was funny as it was pouring down rain!

Since we knew that the freeway was closed - we went the "back" way - or at least tried to! This picture does not show enough detail, but - there was more than a foot of water over the road here - and the freaky part was that you could see asphalt breaking off in the lovely little waterfall to the right.... I made a couple calls to people that I knew traveled the route I was wanting to take... one made it in their jacked up truck - the other said a majority of that road was under water! ARGH #2

So - decision pretty much made... we were homebound! We headed back home, one kid was PSYCHED that he was missing school... and one boy was in TEARS... the cute little girl was angry that she could not go to school... This was becoming a recipe for disaster! ARGH #3

Picture below is the neighbor two houses down the road... He is a hay farmer and his fields were completely full of water!

This picture below is our neighbor directly across the road from us... his driveway was gone! It was like a river!

We are really fortunate that our house is up on a hill, and that our driveway is on the high side of the road! Hopefully, the rain will stop and the sun will come out - at least so I can make it to town tomorrow! The kids are driving me nuts!!!! :)

Благословения на Рождество!

Благословения на Рождество!

Today is Christmas!!! Miss O is the only person in our family who has been baptized as Russian Orthodox! So, since today is Orthodox Christmas... we wish her.....Blessings for Christmas!

What? No posts yet this year??

We are already a week into the new year, and I have not posted one darn thing!!! Not too much has happened! We spent New Years chilling at home - lit off the remainder of the 4th of July fireworks - as it is much safer when there is no wind and about a foot of snow on the ground!
The kids went back to school yesterday = WHOO HOO! Two weeks off is almost too long! The boys tend to start getting on each other's nerves, then that of course gets on MY nerves!
It seems like everyone is thinking about resolutions... I have not really decided on any yet! Maybe by the end of the week I'll be able to get them posted!

I hope that everyone is having a great New Years so far... we've got a looonnnggg way to go!!!

Bye bye 2008 - Hello 2009!!!!

I tried really hard to get a better picture of what these two trouble makers were watching.... they are busy watching the birds attack the bird feeder outside... though they are really brave and fearless hunters - the snow tends to make them think twice!
They are wishing for a warmer and less-snowy winter in 2009!

Happy New Year to all!

Finding a better method....

Anyone have any great ideas on how better to organize the kids information in one place???? I wanted to put a copy of their b. certificate, ssn, shot records, IEP's and report cards... not really memoriblia stuff - mostly boring records and paperwork.....
Currently, I "try" to keep it in a 3 ring binder for each kiddo.... but I really want a backup plan in case of a fire or major disaster....

What do you do??

The rest of the aftermath! - notes to self!

I need to make a mental note to self.....

#1 - Don't forget how over stimulated two boys get when the holidays come around! Arghhh....
Though it is a wonderful and enjoyable time of year, it is also incredibly stressful and can make parenting these two tougher than usual!
Two days in a row - Big A had major "challenges" that made some of his visiting time with his cousins very limited! Todays incident was biting his brother... hard enough to break skin - and his brother was wearing his snow gloves - so you know it was hard!

#2 - Cut back on fun gifts or make each boy get EXACTLY the same thing - right down to the color!
Little J is very vocal when someone else (aka his brother) gets something that HE may have wanted for 2 seconds in the last 8 years of his life... this causes a bit of a mental meltdown that always takes more than a few minutes to blow over. Maybe extra duct tape to keep him quiet would be in order!

#3 - Consider just letting Santa do his job... if he does not show... oh well!
I'm getting tired of the old naughty and nice list threat! Maybe next year I will hold fast to it!

#4 - Purchase ear plugs, dead batteries and non-functioning screw drivers!
That way - what is noisy that does not have batteries won't be heard, what needs batteries won't work, and what needs to be opened to put batteries in can't be opened... until the next day the store is open! :)

Anyone else got any great holiday tips?????