Happy New Year!

OK, well, it's only New Year's Eve at the moment, but I just wanted to be the first to say it! It's already 2008 in China!
I just felt like I needed to hurry up and blog about 2007 and tie up all my loose ends. I forgot to mention that one of my Zumba classes gave me some items from Bath and Body...one of which is a bath pillow. It's bright pink and is still in the box, at the moment, right next to my bed. Peter asked me the other day why I haven't been sleeping with my new pillow. I told him it's not for the bed, it's for the bathtub. "The bathtub?" he said. He just stared at me like I had lost my mind. I tried to explain it to him but he just could not wrap his mind around the idea of putting a pillow in the tub. I guess bathtime=playtime for him!
Also, Caleb (who says he hates reading) has been engrossed in a book I got him at the library. It's called the The Scary States of America: 50 Weird and Terrifying Stories Based on True Events. I knew I was taking a chance on this one but I figured ANYTHING to get him to read on his own. SO, it worked, he's been reading it on and off for weeks. It totally sucks him in and he'll sit and read for hours. The downside is that it also scares the bejeezus out of him. He is scared to be in the dark, scared to be anywhere by himself, scared of looking out windows, scared of the noises the hot water heater makes, scared of breathing...you get the idea. He won't even go to the bathroom and close the door. If I make him close the door then I have to stand outside the door and reassure him the whole time that he's OK and that I'm not walking away. He had a particularly hard night after reading about the 'New Jersey Devil'. We kept telling him this stuff was all fiction and that maybe we should get rid of the book but he insisted that we keep it so he could finish it. So I sat down the other night, after the kids had gone to bed, and read a few chapters for myself. It was SCARY! It gave me the creeps, too! In the middle of the night, when Caleb woke up scared for the umpteenth time, he agreed to let me take the book back to the library. The book has been gone for a few days now and he has progressed to sleeping on the floor beside our bed (in a sleeping bag) instead of crawling into bed with us. Next time maybe I should read it first...
Speaking of reading, I just finished the last Harry Potter book. I sobbed uncontrollably at times but held myself together, for the most part. The VERY DAY that I finished it, Dave read in the news that J.K. Rowling is hinting about writing an 8th book! Who knows if it will happen or not, but I'll tell you this; they are not going to be able to use those same kids for the 8th movie. They are getting way too big! Are MY kids growing that fast?

Rockefeller Christmas

We (OK, I) had a great idea that we would take the kids into the City to see the holiday window displays and the Rockefeller Christmas tree. As a bonus, we told the kids we would take them ice-skating either in Rockefeller center or in Central Park, whichever one was less crowded. I originally thought we might do this on the Friday before Christmas because the kids got out of school early and Dave would be getting off work early, too and we could just meet him there. We decided it would be too crowded, though, and decided to wait 'til after Christmas.

SO, we went yesterday, and I swear I will NEVER EVER do that again! Everywhere we went was unbelievably crowded. The line for ice-skating in Central Park was a mile long and the rink in Rockefeller, well, even though we stood right next to it, we never even saw the rink because it was so crowded!

Every street corner, every window, every INCH was jam packed with people. We were like cattle, slowly shuffling through the sidewalks, just trying to get to the next destination. I knew it would be a bit crowded, but Dave said it was WAY worse than it had been before Christmas. Who knew?!? I never understood before when I would hear news about people, human beings, being trampled to death at soccer games or wherever. NOW I understand. I don't normally have a "fear of crowds" or anything but I swear there were so many times when I thought to myself, my gosh, if there was any kind of crisis that would cause all these people to panic, we'd be lucky to get out alive. Or heaven forbid, someone should have a heart attack or something, I can't see how they would be able to get emergency personnel in quickly. I told Dave, I don't EVER want to do that again so if I bring it up next year, I guess he can just pull up this blog entry for me so I can remember!

We made our first visit to FAO Schwarz and the kids enjoyed seeing the life-size Lego models of Harry Potter, Hermione, Ron, and Hagrid. Also, Indiana Jones, Sponge Bob, and many Star Wars characters. The did NOT, however, enjoy the idea of us taking them to a toy store to "just look around".

So, after all the walking around, NO ice-skating, and NO toy purchasing, we felt pretty bad for the kids and told them we'd take them to a nice restaurant. Caleb and Sam are actually kinda 'into' the whole "let's go to a fancy restaurant" idea whereas Peter would be much happier at McDonald's. (When I say 'fancy restaurant', we're talking about something like Olive Garden or Applebee's)! Unfortunately, we were on 5th Avenue and the 'fancy restaurants' there started at around $40/person. We knew we had to keep walking away from 5th Ave. and Madison Avenue, more toward where we were parked in a budget parking garage. (Only $18 for 4 hours)! Anyway, by the time we got down there, we could only find Asian restaurants and a couple of Diners. We opted for a diner called the "Moonstruck Diner" because it was nicely decorated and had fish tanks to look at, too. Anyway, all of us had a good experience except for poor Dave who tried the seafood platter. (Man, did it stink)! So now we know, when you are at a restaurant with "diner" in the name, you DON'T order seafood, even if it says it's fresh daily. But hey, my fries were darn good!

Here's some pictures:
The first ones are of the window displays at Bloomingdale's. (Bloomie's to New Yorkers). Each window was originally designed by children...with some adult help for the end product. There was a little description at the bottom with a storyline for each scene and the names of ages of the kids who dreamt it up. My favorite was one made entirely of candy. The robot (above) moved its limbs, too.
Here, Peter is saying, "WHY do we have to keep looking at these dumb windows?"

You may have heard about the Penny Harvest Field. It was really cool and the kids sure enjoyed looking at over a million dollars worth of pennies. (That's 100 million pennies). Of course, people have been throwing in all kinds of spare change so who knows what the tally is now. It was originally collected by children in all the NYC schools. (Over 850 schools). They only collected pennies so that even the poorest children could participate. Anyway, you can click on the website if you want to learn more. You can see the tree in the background. It was HUGE. Every single branch had lights on it. They are LED lights so they are quite brilliant in person.
Also, I just HAD to take a picture of Home Depot right in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Do you think they are ready stocked with sheets of plywood and loads of 2 x 4's? I didn't see anyone leaving with flatbed trucks full of supplies...

Oh yeah, there was one teeny incident while in Rockefeller Plaza. Not only was it wall to wall people, but you had to maneuver around street vendors selling their junk, I mean, wares everywhere. Well, the crowd was so thick I got separated from Dave, Sam, and Caleb but I had a hold of Peter's hand. One of the street vendors who cut me off from Dave, inadvertently backed into me, pushing me backwards off a curb, onto my hurt knee. He did it hard enough that he had to have felt me but he never even turned his head to look.
Needless to say, this really ticked me off and as I got up and proceeded to plow through the crowd, I will admit, I was not so gentle as I shoved past the vendor. After I got past him he had the nerve to yell out to me that it wasn't nice to push people and that I couldn't go around pushing people like that. Normally I would have just rolled my eyes and ignored him but I, instead, chose to act like a two year old (well, maybe a three year old) and got into a screaming match with this guy about how he wasn't watching where he was going and backed into me and pushed me off the curb with my kid, etc., etc. He just kept interrupting me, telling me that there were homeless people around (whatever that means) and how it's not nice to push people. We were literally yelling at each other with HUNDREDS of onlookers in Rockefeller Plaza.
It ended with me yelling at him to knock it off! He finally shut his mouth and I stormed away through the crowd...I noticed people got out of my way at this point....
Poor Peter said, "Mom, were you angry at that guy?" I said, "No, I was VERY VERY angry at that guy." Dave was far enough away that he had no idea anything happened. In retrospect, I am sorely embarrassed by my behavior in front of all those people, (and those of you who know me well know that this was a little out of character for me) but I just didn't feel like letting a toothless street vendor push me around in New York City. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and I really wish I'd ended it differently. Something more like, "Knock it off!...and MERRY CHRISTMAS!" snarl

p.s. Caleb is begging us to take him to Times Square for New Year's Eve. It's the 100th anniversary of the ball drop and they're expecting a MILLION people there. I told Caleb, "ARE YOU CRAZY?!?!?!?!"

Day after Christmas FUN!

So, I got up this morning to go teach a class. There was a good turnout so it was fun. Immediately afterwards I went to the doctor for a pap smear, flu shot, and tetanus shot. Not the funnest day after Christmas ever...the worst part was sitting in the waiting room for an hour with tons of sick people and no book to read. Why did I forget my book?! What was almost worse than that was sitting in the freezing cold examination room with nothing on but a paper napkin and again, no book. There was a Sports Illustrated magazine, though, but I opted to stare at the floor tiles. I just hope I got out of that waiting room without contracting something. At least I know it's not tetanus...or cervical cancer.

Remember when I mentioned awhile back that I take off my pants two legs at the same time? Well, when I was uploading the Christmas pictures off of the camera, I found these two pictures that Dave had taken. You can see my black slippers and my pajama bottoms sticking out of them. I guess Dave took it because it kinda shows how I HOP out of my pants and the bottoms are still in the slippers. See, I told you he found it endearing.
Oh, by the way, I bought these pajama bottoms recently because I liked them, I needed some new ones, and they were only five bucks. They have flying guitars with the words "Rock Star". When Caleb saw me wearing them he asked me about them. I told him I had just bought them and asked him if he liked them. He said yes and that they really increased my sex appeal. (His words exactly). I wasn't sure how to respond to this so I said, "Uh, thanks" and walked away.
Where does he come up with this stuff?!?!?!?!? Should I be concerned?

p.s. I forgot to mention in the previous post that one of the gifts that Santa brought was wrapped in a Kohl's box. It was to all 3 kids so they were tearing it open together. Once they got to the box, amid the frenzy, someone (probably Sam) saw the box and read out loud, "Kohl's". Then I heard one of the other kids exclaim, "Coal?!? Santa brought us coal"!?!??!?

Without a hitch

Well, we pulled Christmas off without a hitch, I'm happy to say. More than I can say for Steph, who had a fire in her oven and had Christmas at a Chinese buffet. I swear she does these things on purpose just knowing that it'll make a great blog entry later!

Anyway, back to MY Christmas. I woke Caleb up on Christmas Eve, after Sam and Peter had fallen asleep, so he could help set out the Santa presents. He was really excited but wasn't feeling well (after all the food and sugar at Logan's house) so he just set the presents out, ate a carrot that had been left out for the reindeer (he didn't even want the brownies...that's how much sugar he had already had), and went right back to bed.

We had made a deal with the kids to not get us up 'til 7:30am, so that was nice. Sam and I actually got up at 7:00 (I never get to sleep in because my full bladder wakes me up early anyway) and we started making monkey bread for breakfast. The kids were really excited and happy with everything they got. Sam said it was the best Christmas ever. We got him a cellphone. So, apparently now he is not the only 5th grader in the world who doesn't have one! (It was only $10/month and the phone was free so I figured, what the heck, now I can keep track of him when he and Caleb are walking home from school and shows up a half hour late...a story for another day...). The downside to this is he is dying to use it and no one has his number and he has no one to call. So now he uses it to call me and Dave constantly, even when we're at home. It's like an intercom system. It doesn't bother me because I keep my phone in my purse usually and just ignore it. But Dave keeps his phone on him all the time and so it is ringing in his pocket constantly.

Hello?
Hi Dad, it's me, Sam.
Uh, hi Sam.
What time is dinner?
In about an hour.
OK, thanks, bye.
Bye.

Stuff like this goes on all day long. Caleb received 4 more Lego Aqua Raiders sets which completes his collection. He spends hours and hours putting this stuff together and he really loves it. He likes the idea of being a collector and is very excited now to have a complete collection of something. Peter got a variety of things...he is pretty easy to please. The one big mistake I got him (via Grandpa Capener) was Moon Sand. It is supposed to be the "new" play-dough. He loves play-dough and the moon sand is supposed to be better somehow because it never dries out, etc. I HATE it! Why did it never occur to me that it would be...sandy! It is just like wet sand and I'm glad he loves playing with it but, oh my gosh! It makes a HUGE mess and there's colored sand all over my kitchen table and dining room! Aaaaargh! At least he's not doodling on the computer screen with magic markers, I guess.

Our Christmas dinner was fabulous. Dave bought a very expensive ham and although I had misgivings at first, it was worth every penny! It's the best ham I've ever had. We splurged another $3 and bought the glaze to put on it, which was delicious too. Something happened to me in the middle of the day, though, before we even had dinner. I wasn't sick or anything but it's like a message was finally sent to my brain that said STOP EATING NOW!!!! It was weird, because all my need for sugar, etc. was finally satiated! So I stopped stuffing myself and when dinner time came around, I had a normal sized portion of everything and felt pretty good. Until dessert. Even then I had half of what everybody else ate and I was stuffed sick. Good thing I had to teach a class bright and early the next morning. When I got there, a lady in the front row yelled to me, "Work us HARD"! I guess we're all paying penance for our holiday splurging.



Here is Peter enjoying his gift from Santa: a NASCAR race track.






Left is Caleb and his new Smithsonian crystal growing kit. Another of my "great" ideas. Good thing he has safety goggles and a dad that is happy to help him!

And below is only part of the Christmas Aftermath.

Christmas time is here!

Well, we actually got all our shopping done THREE days before Christmas! This is a first for us. We usually put it off and are scrambling at the last minute on Christmas Eve to find that one more item that our kids MUST have. It was nice to have it all done and wrapped way before Christmas Eve. Peter drove me nuts all day on Sunday because he was so excited for Christmas to come on the "next tomorrow", which is Peterspeak for the day after tomorrow. On Christmas Eve we were invited to the home of one of Caleb's friends from school. Her name is Logan and they hit it off as soon as we moved here. Anyway, her parents invited us over, knowing we had no friends or family here and they were really nice. It wasn't a huge gathering but there was enough food to feed 50 people!
While we were there, the subject of Christmas caroling came up (Dave and I HATE caroling, by the way) and I said I hadn't seen any carolers and wondered if people in New Jersey go caroling. They scoffed and shook their heads at me and said no, people in New Jersey don't usually do that sort of thing. (Can you imagine caroling at the Sopranos house)?
Seriously, I can imagine a group of carolers going door to door and I'll bet about 50% of the homes would simply refuse to open their doors and the other 50% would open the door and scream at the carolers to get the !$*@# out of here and go mind their own !$*@# business! Jersey people, you gotta love 'em. At least they say what they mean. Later, after we came home, Dave said that he thought I had been exaggerating last summer when I blogged about how Jersey girls talkandhowtheytalksofastthere's
nowayyoucangetawordinedgewiseandtheyconstantlyinterruptyouandthemselves andeachotherANDtheysaythesamethingoverandoveragainforemphasis.
But he acknowledged now that I was NOT exaggerating. It really is just like that!
OH, one of the women told me that she and some friends DID go caroling one year when they were teenagers to "get money for beer". I was totally confused by this. I asked her how do you "get money for beer" by caroling? She said they would go door to door caroling and people would just give them cash (to get rid of them, probably). Then once they had enough they went and bought beer. Hmmm...Dave said maybe next time we need money for a movie at Blockbuster or something we should just start caroling in our neighborhood. Shouldn't take long to get $4.95, I reckon. Of course, after awhile, the neighbors will catch on. Before you know it, the next time we want to rent a movie we'll ring the first door and when they answer they ask,
"How much do you need?"
"Four ninety-five," Dave replies.
"Here's five bucks. Keep the change and get outta here". Hopefully they'll leave out the expletives with the children present. Aaah, lasting Christmas memories for the kids.
SO, that was our Christmas Eve. I've got to go rest for a moment and get over my overstuffed feeling of nausea before I can actually write about Christmas. WAY TOO MUCH FOOD TODAY!

He's driving me crazy!

Believe it or not, I'm not referring to anyone in my household: it's the mailman! He's driving me crazy! Often I will put more than one letter/bill into the mailbox and I put the flag up. First of all, sometimes he doesn't lower the flag after he comes by so I go all day thinking he hasn't come when he actually has. Whatever, I can live with this. The worst part is that he only takes the TOP piece of mail and leaves all the rest! WHY!?! Why would he do this? I've learned that I have to put the most urgent bills on top to make sure they get mailed. What can I do about this? Who do I complain to? Do I call my local post office and complain that my mailman is driving me nuts? Do they not learn to take ALL the mail in mailman school? Is it because I didn't give him a birthday present this year? I HAVE been known to give Christmas presents to our postal carriers, but you'd better believe this one is getting nothing from me!

Here's some blabbing that has nothing to do with any of the above:

Peter likes to wear this shirt because it reminds him of how old I am (currently). He likes to tell people, too. I wouldn't mind except that he tells people I am fifty-three. I guess we need to work on that. I assume it's because he looks down at the shirt and from his perspective I guess it could look like fifty-three. But on that note, why doesn't he just tell people that I'm S3?

Yesterday, Caleb yelled to me from the bathroom, "Mom! The toilet is overwhelming!" When I took a look at it, I had to agree, it definitely looked overwhelming. Good thing Dave is good with a plunger.

Peter walked into the bathroom the other day and closed the door as I walked by. He told me he didn't want me to see his privacy.
When Peter is trying to get out of the car with all his stuff from school and I'm telling him to hurry up and open the door for me, he yells to me, "I'm full of hands!"

That's all I can remember for now. Aren't you glad there's no more Zumba videos today!?!

Last one, I promise!

OK, here's a preview from the new Zumba infomercial that's coming out in January. It's by the same company (Guthy Renker) that put Winsor Pilates, ProActive solutions, and Tae Bo on the map. Now it's Zumba's turn! It won't let me post the video here, you'll have to click here and watch it on YouTube. Muchos besos!

Zumba with Erick

Can you guys tell that I'm bored to death and have nothing to write about? Erick Santana is one of Zumba's master trainers. He is amazing to watch and learn from. Ladies, I am 99% sure he is gay so you can watch all you want without your husbands getting jealous! I only included this video here because of my favorite part: Hitler in a yellow tank top. Watch for him!

Zumba Hamster

Leaf pick up

We've learned that they have a different way of picking up leaves here in New Jersey. First, you rake all your leaves into the street. No kidding. Just see the picture at right. We are given dates for leaf pick up based on our voting district, which unfortunately, we have no idea what it is but oh well. When we see all our neighbors frantically raking leaves into the street then we know we'd better get busy!

On the day of pick up, the city uses snow plows to push all the leaves on your street into a big pile. And I mean a BIG pile at least 5 feet high. My kids would love to ride their bikes right into it. This big pile gets carted away in a truck later in the day but in the meantime, they have to clean up all the leaves up and down the street that didn't quite make it into the pile. Unfortunately I haven't been able to snap a picture of this, but seriously, they come by with a big vacuum! A large vacuum hose sucks the leaves up into a truck. It is like a giant Noo Noo from Teletubby land. I could hardly believe it when I first saw it and thought, well, that's one way to do it! It looks so funny to me.

We have one more leaf pickup...after Christmas, so I'll try to time it right to get a picture of that for your viewing pleasure. Until then, I'm just wondering how they're going to manage picking up all the leaf piles which are now completely covered in snow and ice! Any suggestions?

Snow Day

The kids were sent home early from school today as a big snowstorm was heading our way. The snow isn't too deep, but the freezing rain has been a problem. We spent a lazy afternoon watching America's Funniest Videos which I just introduced them to a week or so ago. They love it!
Once they finished that and their homework, it was already dark outside. Undeterred, they proceeded to play in the snow in the backyard with the porch lights on. I didn't have to keep an eye on them too much until I happened to look out and saw the sprinkler going. Now why did it never occur to me that they might want to turn on the sprinkler? It's partly my fault since I should've had the hose unhooked to the faucet by now anyway. I'll be curious to see if our backyard is a skating rink in the morning!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus?

**Warning**This blog post is for adults only. Kids, please check with your parents before reading any further.

Caleb has been suspicious/skeptical of the whole Santa thing for a few years now. He's nine and last week he confronted me about it again and told me over and over how he really needs and wants to know and how much it is totally stressing him out to not know. I tiptoed around the answer and never was straight with him. I had a hard time trying to understand how it was "totally stressing him out"...I can't remember being nine and being totally stressed out about whether or not Santa Claus was real. Anyway, after talking it over with a few friends and with Dave, at length, we decided to go ahead and tell him the truth.

SO, I sat down with Caleb the other night and brought up the subject and told him that his dad and I decided he was ready to know the full truth of the matter and so on and so forth. Well, his reaction was totally unexpected. For some reason I thought he would just purse his lips together, narrow his eyes, and nod his head while saying "Hmmmm, I thought so." Uh, no. He barely held back the tears and said things like (and I quote):

I can't believe this.
It just can't be true.
Christmas will never be the same again.
Christmas is ruined now.
All the magic is gone.
I just can't believe it.
I can't believe this is happening.

All the while he's shaking his head back and forth and trying not to cry.

My very loving and nurturing reply sounded something like this:

Uhhhh,
Ummm,
Uhhhh,
Ohhhh,
(but in my head I was saying, "This is all Dave's fault.")

Of course I immediately felt horrible, like I'd completely ruined his childhood. I reminded him that he had interrogated me endlessly the week before and that he had demanded to know the truth. I asked him if he wanted us to just keep lying to him every time he asked us about Santa like that and he said, "Yes, I wish you would've never told me the truth. It was fun to just always hope and wonder if he was real or not and now that's ruined." He said the next time he asks me something along those lines to just say to him, "Caleb, remember our talk?" and he made the little quote signs with his finger when he said "our talk".

I also told him that his brothers (even Sam who is 11) don't know the truth about Santa---Caleb interrupted me right here and said, "DON'T TELL THEM!" I guess he was trying to protect them from having their childhoods completely ruined, too. I reassured him that I had no such plans: Peter is too young and Sam, who is NOT too young, probably already knows but likes to pretend anyway.

He only started perking up when I told him that now that he knows, he can help us "play" Santa and help set out the gifts and stuff on Christmas Eve. He was really excited about the idea of eating the cookies that we leave out for Santa, too. The only downside to this is that eating the cookies was MY favorite part of being Santa. I guess I'll have to relinquish that as a consequence for ruining his childhood...

Happy Birthday Peter!

Peter turned SIX today. He woke me up bright and early, standing over my sleeping body and staring me down until I cracked one eye open.
"Can I open just one present now?", he asked.
"No, not yet," I mumbled back in my breathy morning voice.
Then he started whispering threats of what he was going to do if I didn't let him open one present right now so I answered back with a few more threats of my own...something to do with taking presents back to the store, I think. I was still half asleep so it's all a little fuzzy. It was kinda funny, though, because the whole time we were issuing threats to each other we were still whispering; as if we needed to stay quiet in orderto what (?) not wake me up?!?

His party was at 12:30. He pestered me endlessly from 9am to 12:30; asking me when the party would start, when his friends would arrive, and of course, when would he get to open his presents! Why don't we just schedule their birthday parties to start at 9am to avoid all this aggravation!

As you may know, it was a "dog" themed party. We had pizza and hot dogs and I put Cracklin' Oat Bran and Reese's Puffs cereal in a dog bowl to snack on. I have to say, it's scary how much these cereals look like dog food. Cracklin' Oat Bran just happens to be Dave's favorite cereal but I almost never ever ever buy it because it's ridiculously expensive and it looks just like dog food!

We also constructed a dog house out of cardboard boxes and let the kids "decorate" it with markers while we waited for all the guests to arrive. Luckily, we only had 4 guests. 3 of them were girls and let me tell you, I am not used to having a bunch of girls around. They were so bossy and catty with each other; the drama was too much for me! I agree with most that boys are definitely much easier!

I'd like to say that I'm blogging about Peter's birthday in order to remember the fond memories and record it for posterity. Mostly, though, I just want to brag and show off the cake I made! I am SO proud of myself with this cake. It looks just like the picture that I copied it from. This cake is the whole reason for the dog theme; Peter picked it out and had his heart set on it. I was not excited about having to make it...I was thinking we could just do a plain cake and stick some plastic dogs on top or something. I've been getting away with stuff like that for years! Anyway, despite the hard work, it looked great and he was really happy with it. I think Sam and Caleb were a little jealous. I'm not sure they remember me doing cakes like this when they were little. I'll have to pull out the pictures to prove it, I guess. All the remember right now is the aforementioned plain cakes with plastic objects stuck on top! The only funky thing about the cake, though, was that I unknowingly purchased "magic" relighting candles that you can't blow out. It turned out to be hilarious, except for the sparks flying around as Peter blew harder and harder as I kept insisting that they were regular candles.
Dave and I are exhausted but Peter and his friends had a great time and we don't have to do it again for another whole year! Here's a video of the birthday song and candle fiasco.

I've been tagged!

The rules of the game are posted at the beginning of the post. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Unfortunately the buck stops here because I only know one person who has a blog and hasn't been tagged yet! That's YOU, Nichole!

So here goes nothing, not necessarily in any order:

1. My feet are a half size off from each other. My left foot is a half size smaller than my right foot. Makes shoe buying a little tricky. Fascinating, I know.

2. I LOVE infomercials and have been known to even make a few purchases from them. I have SpaceBags, Winsor Pilates dvds, and have been an active user of Proactiv Solutions for many years now. Now that I am home recovering from knee surgery I have LOTS of time to watch infomercials. Do you know that they play infomercials 24/7 on cable?!!! I have so far refrained from purchasing anything lately but I swear they really get me when they say, "Call within the next 2 minutes and we'll take away one whole payment and throw in a free Siberian tiger" or something else. I keep reminding myself that there's really not an operator sitting watching a stop watch to see if you made the 2 minute cut off. I tell myself I can order it online later but then always forget all about it! Probably a good thing. Watch out, though. Zumba is coming out with a new infomercial in January. I'm going to be watching for that one!

3. When I was growing up, I was always afraid I was going to be abducted. I don't know why...I never had any scary experiences with that really. Maybe I saw a show that freaked me out or something. Anyway, the bad thing now is that I have carried that fear over to my own children. I totally FREAK out if they get out of my sight for even a second. I used to even have a hard time letting Dave go to the store with the kids without me; thinking he might lose one of them. I have been working on it, though, and am slowly getting better. I don't worry at all when Dave takes the kids somewhere and I even let Sam and Caleb walk home alone from school now...and we don't live super close to the school either. The first few times they walked home was really hard for me but now I don't think too much about it. Baby steps...

4. I LOVE teaching Zumba. OK, I know you are all rolling your eyes and saying, yeah yeah, we know already, Shelley! But I have to say it anyway. It is SO much fun for me. It's like I'm a different person when I'm on stage. It's funny, too, 'cause the people who come to my Zumba classes all think I'm this wild, crazy, outgoing extrovert. They don't realize I'm only like that when I'm teaching Zumba. The rest of the time I'm actually kind of quiet and shy...more of an introvert. They invite me to parties and restaurants thinking I'm going to be the life of the party only to realize I'm not like that at all. I love teaching, in general, too because I shout out a command and everybody DOES IT! At home, it doesn't work out so well. At work, I say "3 squats now, or 2 kicks left" and they all follow. At home, they don't follow me so much...

5. I love NASCAR. Some of you already know this about me. I got hooked on NASCAR when I was pregnant with Peter and was puking all day. I would lay on the couch and watch t.v. and it must've been NASCAR season or something because that's all I watched. I really got hooked by the science behind it...drafting, fuel efficiency, do you change 2 tires or all 4 tires on the final pit stop, all the rules, etcetera. I've been to a couple of NASCAR events and they are SO exciting! Much more fun in person, but you can sure see it better on the t.v. I took Sam and Caleb in Michigan, once, thinking I was the coolest mom EVER to do that. They complained the whole time because it was kinda cold and way too loud for them (despite the ear plugs). Steph took me to a NASCAR race in Texas for my birthday one year. We had a blast and totally did NOT fit in with the crowd. It was kinda funny. We bought matching tight black t-shirts with NASCAR written across the front with rhinestones. Classy! The highlight was a catfight in the stands between two drunken women. You don't get to experience THAT when you stay home and watch it on t.v.!

6. I don't take my pants off one leg at a time. I take off my pants both legs at the same time. ...I stand, push the pants straight down or let them fall down, then I lean over and sort of hold onto them with my hands while I jump backwards, out of the pants. I have no idea why. I guess I think it's more time efficient or something. Dave looks at me like I'm nuts each night but I think he actually finds it quite endearing.

OK, so there you go! Six useless things to know about me...now you're all better people for just knowing, I'm sure!

O Christmas tree!

This is the first year, since we've lived in Michigan, that we've had the opportunity to cut down our own Christmas tree. I figure if we're going to have a live tree then we should make sure it's as fresh as possible and cutting it down ourselves hopefully solves that issue. So even though it's been 3 Christmases since we've done it, I think we somehow forgot how much of a pain it can be! No, really, it was a fun (but COLD) experience...until we got home. The trunk was too skinny for our tree stand and it took us FOREVER to get it right. In fact, it took us until the next day! And even now, you dare not touch the tree for fear of it wobbling around. Luckily the stand has a fairly wide base so I don't think it'll fall over...keep your fingers crossed!

We decorated it the next day and it was snowing outside so it was definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I bought a new star for the top of the tree and I LOVE it. We also got a small artificial tree to put upstairs that the kids could decorate all by themselves with all their "kid" homemade ornaments. We might have to put the presents under their tree because we forgot to cut off the lower branches of the real tree and it reaches all the way to the floor now with no room for presents. And we can't cut them off now for fear of tipping the wobbly tree over!

The cutest part of the whole process is that the kids really get into the Christmas spirit and get excited about giving gifts to each other. They (especially Peter) pick out some of their favorite toys and then wrap them in white office paper and stick them under the tree for each other. Also, I find things like this (picture left) laying around all over the house. Normally I don't get excited about paper and toys all over the place, but this is kinda cute!