Ski Lessons Started

(Notice her ski is crossed over her other one. Classic!!)

Haley has no problem staying up!

All of the kids are doing ski lessons on Saturday at Brighton, for a 5 week session. I only got pictures of the girls this past week because the boys are in the all day group so they are up on the mountain most of the day. I will get some pics of them next Saturday. They are all having a great time. They love it and the only complaints are when it is time to go home at the end of the day. Adam has always been a snowboarder but he is doing really well skiing, although he wants to snowboard for the 2ND half of the season. The other kids have only skied so they do not know any difference. They are all doing very well and have graduated out of the clamps and have moved up to the Majestic and Snake Creek lifts. I love that we have found something that they all like to do during the winter.

Haley Had A Singing Program At School

Just Ignore the Blood Part

Here is my 2nd post of the week. I really want to keep my goal of blogging so here it is!

I have so much to tell but right now I need to lay with Abi who had surgery today. Yes surgery. She was put to sleep, had an IV and everything. She is in a lot of pain. I will tell you more later when I have the pictures loaded. But as a clue to what surgery she had I will show you this image:

Just ignore the blood part. It is hard to find a picture of a female vampire that is not really sexual, and since this is about Abi I thought blood was better then half naked!!

Goals, Glee and Me

Another goal that I failed to mention yesterday is that I am going to try and blog 3 times a week this year. (Adam just grunted and laughed.)

What?

Then he said, "That would not have been a problem for you 2 years ago but now... whatever!" Then he walked away. Whatever Whatever!!! I am trying here. I have 4 kids, a husband, a dog, a cat a FULL TIME JOB!!! Laundry, shopping, vacuuming, dishes and everything else that you could imagine to do, to um, well to do. I try to fit in my blog but sometimes it comes down to writing a blog post or watching Glee, and well friends, Glee will win out every single time. It is not that I do not love all of you imaginary friends that read my blog, it is not that I do not like to frantically type out a 5 page post in 5 minutes, it is just that sometimes a woman need a little show choir and 60 minutes of mind numbing trash.

So here is my post. Maybe a waste of a post, but a post all the same. And as I always say:

What is a post without a picture?

Goals, Not Resolutions

This year I have decided to do a list of goals instead of a list of resolutions. Statistics show that people quit on their resolutions by the middle of February. I figure of I set goals then I am more likely to accomplish some or part of them during the year. So here we go, my long list of goals that I will try and accomplish this year:

Spending/Saving Money & Eating Out

1. I would love it if we ate out only once a week or less as a family. With 6 people we waste so much money eating out, and really most of the time it is not good food anyway.
2. Save $100 a month for our vacation fund.
3. Grocery shop on a regular basis. This is the biggest reason that we eat out a lot, I never have food in the kitchen. If I go shopping every two weeks and get everything that we need for proper meals then I am less likely to say lets just eat out.
4. Put $20 a month into the kids savings accounts. This should be an easy one. Their savings accounts are at different bank then we go to so I just need to go and do it.
5. NOT to accumulate any debt.

Household

1. Teach Adam to do laundry. This one might be hard for me, but if I want to be a good mom then I need to teach him to do these things.
2. Take one room a month and gut it and throw everything out that I no longer need/want. Also organize everything in the room. There is not a ton that needs to be done because we just moved to this house 4 months ago, but there is still a need for organization.
3. Curtains, and home decor for the living spaces are in high demand.
4. Teach the kids to change their own sheets and put new sheets on the RIGHT way.

Work

1. Organize into one space. Right now I work out of the kitchen but have a globble of stuff in an office that I "share" with my boss. ("Share" means that he has the office and I only use it when he is gone for the day to make phone calls. The kitchen is too loud to make calls so a lot of the time I make calls from my cell phone in the staff lounge.)
2. Figure out how to stop working when I get home at night. I check emails, make menus, work on monthly reports at home at night. I am sure that it bothers my family, but mostly it bothers me. I need to stop "bringing work home with me".
3. Make it run more smoothly in general. (This is generic but I know what it means.)

Family

1. Check homework every night that I am home. Check for reports and projects that are due in the near future.
2. Read with the kids that are less able each afternoon/night that I am home.
3. Go on two family trips this year. I am not saying spend a lot of money, I am just saying a trip with the family for family fun.
4. One family activity a week; even if it is a movie, a game or bowling.
5. Plan fun things during long breaks for the kids when we are out of school. This way we do not just sit around doing nothing.

Personal

1. Read at least 2 books a month. (This is an easy one that I usually do already but sometimes I get busy and need to be reminded that reading helps your mind stay strong.)
2. Go on at least 2 dates a month with Lewis.
3. Be honest about how I feel. I do not mean freak out in the lounge at work, but be really honest about how I feel within myself. (Deep, huh?)
4. Get in better shape, whatever that means.

Okay, that is it for now. I have to go and do some more laundry so that we can get to school on time tomorrow. Let me know what you think of my goals. Yes goals, not resolutions.

New Year's Family Fun

Wii bowling, Super Mario, dog sleeping, dress up, and peanut butter M&M's. Now that is what I call a hopping New Year's Eve!! (Well at least it is what the kid's call a hopping New Year's Eve.) Obviously we stayed home with the kids this year. They loved it and it was actually nice to have a down night with the kids for a change. Abi fell asleep at 11:30, but the rest of the kids stayed up until midnight. At midnight we (I) screamed, tried to kiss everyone while they ran away from me and then the kids went straight to bed. Oh yeah, so did Lewis. I watched TV with the dog and then went to bed at 2am.

Happy 2010!!

Wait, is that Twenty Ten or Two Thousand Ten? You decide I am too tired!

Everything in my life is like a Lego set...

Guess who got the Taj Mahal Lego set for Christmas? It is the largest set ever made for sale by Lego. I have worked on it twice during the break so far and I am about a quarter of the way done. I love doing Legos. It just calms me and puts me in a great mood. Adam helps by finding the pieces and I put them together. Just like everything else in my life, I need to have the final say in where things go. It was a family gift but as we all know I have a very hard time letting anyone else put the pieces together, of anything. I am getting better though, a huge step this year with the Christmas gifts; I let the kids wrap what they bought for each other! I know! I had to take 2 chill pills and walk away so that I would not grab them and unwrap them and then wrap them again when the kids were all done wrapping.

Christmas Wish

9); ">Between the 2 Snuggies and the motorized pink 4 Wheeler everyone had a great time playing. The kids asked me what my Christmas wish was and I told them that my Christmas wish was to dance around the house wearing a Snuggie while listening to the Glee soundtrack. Well let's just say that I got my wish, much to the horror of both Lewis and Adam. :) Neither one of them appreciate a good soundtrack when they hear one!

Christmas Morning (Early)

So we decided to only do 1 gift per person this year from Lewis and myself. Santa only brought one gift per kid this year too. Christmas was very small this year but nobody seemed to notice at all. Everyone got the "big" thing that they asked for from either Lewis and me or from Santa. We were all done and cleaned up before 9. We made a great breakfast of German Pancakes and then played with our toys until it was time to get ready for the family lunch that we were hosting.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve

After we got home from my parent's house we had the kids open up their traditional Christmas pajamas (the parents got them too) and take the traditional Christmas Eve picture. Here are the best of the best. After that the kids set out cookies and milk for Santa and were sent straight to bed.

Christmas Eve With The Balmanno's

We went to my parents house on Christmas Eve this year. My parents had a bunch of activities set so that the evening would go smoothly and quickly for the kids:

*Alain made crepes and had a ton of fillings for us to choose to go inside (they were delicious as always, he is French you know!)
*Donna read one of her favorite Christmas stories to the grand kids
*Ti played 3 Christmas songs
*Haley signed Silent Night while everyone sang
*Alain told the Christmas story by asking the little kids to answer questions pertaining to the story (of course the one question that Abi new knew the answer to was answered by her cousin so she looked like she had never been told about Baby Jesus)
*Alain and Donna opened all of their gifts from the kids

Grandpa's Tree Decorating Party

This is one of my kid's favorite Christmas activities every single year. Since I do not let them help decorate our main tree in the living room (go on and judge, I know all of you are*) they love going to Grandpa's and helping him to decorate their tree. They have a great family tree with a great mix of homemade ornaments, colored and white lights, expensive crystal decorations, and regular old balls. It is the kind of tree that I grew up with . We all got together usually for a Family Home Evening and decorated it. My kids love that! And because my dad lets them help him out with the decorating I do not feel bad not letting them touch my tree :)

*In my defense we do have a second tree that I will allow them to decorate if and when we ever get the basement finished and have a family room again. I am happy for them to have a fun kid tree that they can design and decorate.