A family Christmas night out. We went and saw lights and reindeer and got warm by a cozy fire before dinner. We had so much fun. The kids are really getting to fun ages.


Thought maybe I should add in a picture of our crazy dog. Bubs wasn't feeling very good and Zeus was giving him some good cuddles.

It was winter sing time at school. Clesson was not all that animated when he was singing but sure enjoyed some good laughs with his best buddies. They must be a handful at times for their teachers but his report card was good so it all evens out.

Now Alyssa very much enjoyed her winter sing. She was very animated and was quite the little princess in her dress. At least until Santa Claus came and then she wanted nothing to do with him. Smart girl really. Who can blame her for not wanting to sit on some old mans laps. She has absolutely the most wonderful preschool teachers!

Posing pretty in her new Christmas dress. It also has very good twirl ability.

Well I got behind with the sickness that settled upon my household the day after Thanksgiving and has just barely begun to release its hold. It has gone through everyone, except the dog. We had a mono scare with Alyssa but I think it was some lighter viral thing that just hit her worse because all of us had some version of it. She did give us a scare one night with her high fevers and waking up screaming. If I didn't also work in the ER and knew what they would do to her if I took her in (which could include a lumbar puncture) I just might have. But instead Cless and I stayed awake most of the night with her in between us in bed just watching her to make sure she was okay. Fortunately she is now back to running around and making us all smile. The other night I was getting ready for work and she walks into the bathroom behind me and said "Mom while you get ready for work can I follow you around and ask a bunch of questions?" Well when she puts it out there on the table like that how could I say no, so true to her request she did just that until it was time for me to leave.
Well I am going to call it a night. Amy thanks for the Holiday update. I need a co-blogger to help me :)

Okay so the pictures loaded backwards from what I had planned. So I guess I will start with the sledding which Alyssa did not love which could have something to do with the fact that she ate snow the whole way down. This picture says it all, Clesson is smiling and Alyssa is trying to endure the snow. I have to admit after my own trip down my face was frozen. She wouldn't try it again after this one trip, she decided she didn't like the snow or the cold.


This is our Christmas tree this year. My husband and kids talked me into a flocked one. It has grown on me and the kids absolutely love it. The first night we had it up I heard Cless get up to go to the bathroom and I see him stop by the living room looking at the tree and then wave and head back to his room. I stopped him to ask who he was waving at and he looked at me matter of factedly and said the tree mom and then went to bed. I fell back asleep laughing.

Now we are back on Thanksgiving. We had a really nice night that ended with a rather long session of rock band. I think initially we were all amusing my husband by playing since he had set it all up, but then we got into it. Michelle, my neice Aubree and I ended up playing for any hour straight with me on guitar. I got booed off stage twice before I got the hang of it but then I was rocking. Alyssa was our dancing queen groupie, cutest groupie there ever was!

My beautiful children dressed in their best for Thanksgiving dinner. Alyssa loves to wear pretty dresses and twirl (what little girl doesn't?) And Clesson ofcourse was very handsome (and knows it!)

Can't have Thanksgiving without a little gingerbread train in this case. I think a good time was had all around and the train was sufficiently gaudy with frosting and candy. I am surprised it is still standing.

Christmas Face-lift...

Hey Jen!
Just a quick Christmas face-lift for your blog - I couldn't help myself. Enjoy!
Love, Amy

Here is Alyssa's art work from Preschool. That is her boat
from learning about Thanksgiving. It is so nice to have two
genius kids in the family!

This is some of Clessons school work. His writing is coming
along nicely.


This is his family picture. Cless Jr is in the middle with
his spikey hair, his Dad is on the left and Alyssa and I are on
the right with Zeus, the crazy dog on the bottom.

So I have been sick all weekend. Not fun and not at all what I had planned to do with my days off. So unproductive. This morning I awoke with a neck ache so bad that if I wasn't a nurse I would have run into the ER claiming meningitis but as it is I just took some Ibuprofen and some coffee and I am good to go! Since I am now feeling functional I am going to try to get as much done today as possible considering I work between now and Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving is at my house this year. That'll be some good eating!
My dear sweet daughter has taken it upon her to take care of her mommy. Could there be anything sweeter? She rubs my back, checks my forehead and hands me tissues the whole time murmuring "I'm so sorry your sick Mommy. I love you!" That is enough to make anyone feel better.
Swimming lessons are almost done and I am so glad. 2 hours at a pool 3 times a week is more than enough. But Alyssa has done fabulous with only a few brief tears the first time she had to do class without her beloved older brother. Maybe this will continue to give her the confidence to try new things. Clesson on the other hand has done great as always. He is a little fish and is often halfway down the pool before the teacher is done instructing all the kids. He is just such a natual athlete.
Well I better get going. I promised the kids that we would put up the outside Christmas lights today. Many people already have around here and they are feeling horribly left out. I am holding off on the inside decorations and the tree until after Thanksgiving. I think we are going to try a real tree this year and pick it out with the kids. Ofcourse they are already eyeing either the purple spray painted tree or the 15 foot tall one. They might need a little direction when it comes time. Parenting....the hardest job you'll ever love. Has there been a truer statement? I do love it though.

Alyssa wanted me to add what she did during the games
which consisted of posing for pictures (and getting mad if
I switched to taking pictures of the baseball game) and practicing
her summersaults as you can see below. She really got
pretty good but still refuses to do any gym classes.

Thought I'd try and get fancy and add a video from my

flip video. Hope it works! This is last Halloween. Clesson

just crack me up because he kept "posing" as superman.

Slugger!


He is so proud of his first trophy.




Focused on getting that ground ball.


Okay so I didn't have any new pictures this week so I thought I would put some up of his T-ball games up. It was actually alot of fun though 5 year old baseball games are pretty amusing to watch. He did great and was really getting the hang of it. The whole team was very nice. I think all of us parents were a little sad to see it end. He will definately have to do it next year.

Now we have started our first round of cut throat swimming lessons. I finally got them both in so I finally feel like a good mom. For some reason swimming lessons just seemed to be on the good mom list and I was missing it. My son loves it, my daughter does not like to do much of anything that doesn't involve one of her parents hips but I'm hopeful.
Well I am off to run a bunch of errands. Alyssa broke her glasses so that is top on my list to go get done, though her eyes are doing so much better. I am hopeful that she will see in 3D yet!

Just to clarify, I got the 15-20 million number from the news and the papers here in Salt Lake. Considering where I live I took it as an accurate quote. I don't believe they should be allowed to marry, I just questioned the amount of money. I do believe they should have something though. Maybe because I see the other side of it here in the hospital. People who have been with their partners for years and their families have essentially abandoned them and then they wind up here with a critical illness and we are not allowed to let their loved one make decisions for them but their family who has not cared in years. I have seen it over and over again. I do not understand "being gay" but I do believe the experiences I have witnessed they truly love and are committed to each other. I truly believe some people can't help it either (I'm sure we all know some people that are what I call skipping gays, meaning they skip instead of walk) I just know that I have felt badly and not followed the hippa laws because it just felt wrong. This is definately a complicated world.
On another note, thanks for the nice comments regarding my soap box. It is nice to have a healthy depate without taking offense because I did not intend it that way. Just stating the other side because there always is one. Ofcourse in my case I am right :) hee, hee

Halloween!

Pumpkin pride!

We had such a good time on Halloween. I think it will go down as our best ever. The kids were so good and polite to all the houses they went to (after some threats from Mom to say thank-you or get no candy) It even started raining while we were out but that did not dampen our spirits. It was Alyssas first Halloween at school and she was so proud to have her Mom and Dad there to do all her fun school things with her.

soapbox

Okay, so I have to get on my soap box for a moment in response to my sisters. Where do I begin? The socialist comment I find disturbing (along with any further mentions of Joe the plumber who is not even a plumber). The comment regarding spread the wealth was in reference to taxes, which is what Joe and Obama were discussing. What are taxes other than a redistribution of wealth?? 90% of the taxes of this country are paid by the rich and then all the taxes paid in are REDISTRIBUTED to many things including, welfare, food stamps, medicare etc. His plan only recends the bogus tax cuts of Bush and it will mean paying the same taxes as when Clinton was president which is only a 2% increase on those making more than 250,000 which will effect at best Jase in Alaska but the rest of us will not be affected. The movement to get people believing the socialist thing was started by small minded people who use scare tactics to influence votes. It's worked in the past and I am happy it did not work this time. President Obama started as a community organizer and believes that change will happen through the people of America stepping up and making changes in their own communities. In building this nation from the ground up. I do not see anything in his positions that speak otherwise. I guess time will tell but last Tuesday night I was so proud to an American for the first time in at least eight years. In fact I got misty eyed during the small bit of his acceptance speech that I got to hear during a rather busy night at work. I feel like hope is alive in this country again after 8 years of gritting my teeth and bearing what will easily go down as the worst president in history. I could also go on and on but I will stop. On another note I wonder how everyone feels about how much money the church put into backing proposition 8 in california. I thought there was supposed to be seperation between church and state. There was nothing else 15-20 million dollars could be spent on? Hmmm....

I just wanted to add what we woke up to last weekend. Nothing like the first snow and the kids were begging me to go outside before I had even completely woken up. We had to patch some snow clothes together since I couldn't find half the stuff from last year, but at least we made it out before it melted. Alyssa was so proud of her big snow ball and Clesson was strong enough to lift them up and put the snowman together. They are best friends and feel that life is so much better if the other one is there. I hope they cling to that the rest of their lives!

Well since I have been forced into blogging I suppose I should post my own blog. My sister is right, life is crazy busy now but I would not trade it. Like right now I am trying to watch Baby's Mama and blog so that my sister won't nag at me.
I have a fabulous husband and two wonderful kids. My son, Clesson Jr, is in kidergarten and learning like crazy. He reads us books every night and go a 100% on his math homework today. He also loves sport and just finished T-ball and is taking karate. If it sounds like I am bragging it is because I probably am. We just love him like crazy.
Our daughter Alyssa is 3 years old and full of mischief and energy. She keeps us laughing everyday. She is going to pre-school and loves her teachers.

Well I am going to go eat left over halloween candy and go to bed. Blog soon!

I Now Have a Blog!

My sister knows how busy I am and she also knows that I love to take pictures of my kids. She lives in Las Vegas (along with most of my family) and she doesn't get to see all the fun things that my kids do. So...because she loves me...and because she knows how busy I am...and because she knows how cute my kids are...and because she wants to see all my pictures...she made me my very own blog!! She's going to teach me how to upload pictures and write a few lines about all the cute things (and not-so-cute-things) that my kids do. That way she'll be able to stay in touch with me a little bit better. I'm going to promise her that I will post at least once a week because if I don't, she'll nag me and nobody wants that!

*written by my sister Amy, but she's sure that I agree with every word of this!