Sunday, December 18, 2011

Twas the Night Before Baby!

Twas the night before baby and all through the abode
Every creature was stirring, preparing our loads.

Cleaning and packing and last minute details
And trying to remember what having a baby entails!

We should all be resting, but cannot settle down
Well maybe Kyle and daddy, but not Cody or mom.

Everyone is excited and ready to see
What God and Santa has brought for our family tree.

Just a few more hours of waiting and off to Enid we will go
To have our best Christmas present ever delivered and may even have snow!

And to all a GOOD NIGHT!!

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Quick Update

Well here I am less than 2 days from delivery and trying to get things together and organized.

Here is a little recap of out past week:

Monday was haircuts for the boys and Cody and the Tiger cubs caroling at the nursing home. The thought was great, but the implementation of having 10 boys caroling up a down a hallway signing Christmas songs the correct way lacked some planning. Most of the residents were already in bed, so only 3 were out in the hallway to actually see them. The boys were also a little amped up, so trying to keep them together and singing was fun.

Tuesday I had a work Christmas party with all the girls. One of the ladies graciously hosted the party and made some awesome soup. They also had wine and Disarrona, but I enjoyed my water just fine. We had a rousing game of Dirty Santa and discussed our favorite Christmas memories. It was a great time for us all to relax and enjoy the company. I then picked up the boys from my inlaws and headed home.

Wednesday was an evening relaxing at home with laudry to do and prep for my busy Thursday.

Thursday started with Kyle's Christmas program, which was cute. Unfortunately where Kyle stood was right in the middle at the bottom, which is where the music stand and the music teacher stood. Needless to say the photo op wasn't so good. I had to pass up a lunch invite from my mom and sister because I had to get back for a board meeting at work. After the board meeting I had to get some things together and start tying up lose ends because Friday was my last day. I then went to my baby doctor appointment that afternoon. No changes there, the heart rate was 144, i lost 3 lbs, and my blood pressure was good. Everything is set for an 8:00 am c-section on Monday. I then went to get a few more Christmas presents taken care and then to my inlaws for homework with Cody, dinner and getting the boys ready for Cody's program. It was then off to the Christmas Program, which was great. They had some really great children soloists that sang, including the pricipal that used to sing the Notre Dame choir. I talked to him after the program and he said that he was so nervous and didn't want to mess up the kids. I find that humbling that he was nervous because of all the places he has sung at in the past and he cantors at most of the masses. We made it home in time for bedtime, which we were all pretty beat.

Friday went so very fast. I was trying to get piles of work and information distributed to the necessary parties as it was my last day until the first of February. We also had our Christmas potluck, that had great food and and opportunity for all the staff to get together. After the potluck it was back to delegating duties and cleaning off my desk. At 4:30 I realized that I needed to make it to the cleaners to pickup Scotty's suit coat for this evenings party. I made a quick trip to the bank and then to the mall to finish what I could of my Christmas shopping. I found that I was not really in the condition to walk the mall, but I powered through and finished Scotty, Gina and my mother in laws' shopping completed. YAY ME!! I even was able to get Scotty's gift wrapped by some nice kids from Waukomis Christmas church so that I don't have to find a place to hide it. The only shopping left is my dad, my father in law and a few more things for the boys and stocking stuffers, which Scotty is in charge of. I went got the kiddos from my inlaws, drive thru washed the red mud off my car, picked up Mickey D's for supper and got gas, then it was homeward bound. I had plans of starting dishes and laundry, but was too exhausted to plug on.

Today is laudry, packing and getting ready for Scotty's work Christmas party. Tomorrow is the Moody family Christmas and last minute prep for Monday.

Hope everyone is staying calm and in the Christmas spirit.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Ten on Tuesday Tidings

I'm back and even made it for an edidtion of Ten on Tuesday!

1. We are now on 12 days or less until we get to meet the newest member of the Moody mob! We finally bought a carseat last weekend, but still need to get the room in order. I am not much of a decorator and I also know that it will get done, even if it is after we get home from the hospital. Besides it will give Scotty something to do while he is home with us for a week.

2. Kyle's birthday was last Thursday, which he had been counting the days for a week. Every morning he would ask on the way to school how many days until his birthday. He chose Buffalo Wild Wings for his birthday dinner and was super excited about his free dessert. We had his family party on Sunday, which was postponed from Saturday due to me being a little under the weather. Aunt Gina made him a awesome Bumblebee Transformer cake. She got to make  two cakes because Andy decided to do a quality control test on the chocolate cake and frosting to make sure it was satisfactory, luckily it was not decorated!

3. I am now getting into the Christmas spirit, still no decorations up,  but I purchased some Christmas music. I bought Manheim Steamroller, Straight No Chaser and Trans Siberian Orchestra so the boys and I have been enjoying the tunes. Kyle was a little confused when we were listening to Manheim's "Away In A Manger". He asked why there was not any singing and before I could explain, Cody told him that the instruments do the singing. I love his explanation so much better than how I would have answered.

4. Congratulations to the Richards' family on their expanding family. I am anxious to see how little Maggie mothers the little one. I am sure that her and Brendan will be a great big help to mom. I know mine have been awesome help with laundry and even vaccuming for me.

5. The Hladik Christmas will be this weekend at my aunt's house near Prague. I was really looking forward to attending but, after much thought have decided that is little to far to travel this close to delivery day. I think the plan is to either put up the tree or do some much needed Christmas shopping.

6. We woke up to a suprise the morning, SNOW! What a beautiful sight to see on a cold December morning.

7. I am hoping to see the Kingfisher Lights, maybe this weekend if the family and I am up for it. It just isn't Christmas without walking across the lighted bridge. I love that bridge. It feels so romamtic and magical to see it and walk across it.

8. Cody and the Tiget cubs will be caroling at a nursing home next week. Yesterday they did some fun Christmas crafts and even made a card to send over to the deployed troops.

9. I am working somewhat frantically to get as much of my work done as possible. I really did not realize how many little things that I do and making sure that things that I have planned are told to someone else, just in case I go into labor early. I am hoping to work until the 16th, so hopefully I get it all done and get my desked cleaned off.

10. I am hoping to get with Amanda this weekend for a blog workshop so that I can load pictures and do some other neat things, so that my faithful few followers can see what is going on. I am hoping to blog after the baby arrives, so everyone can see what our baby is a looks like.

Have a great week!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Sunday Slowdown

This is akin to the Ten on Tuesday, but as it it hard for me to get to blog during the week this is my version!

1. Cody and Tiger cubs - He has already got his 2 beltloops for archery and BB gun, and we now have a list of ones that we can work on at home. We will be visiting the main fire station tomorrow for our meeting as another Go See It. We also have the book to start working on his Light of Christ.

2. Kyle's birthday - We are now at less than 2 weeks until his birthday and I am still trying to get things planned out. We have talked about having a party at the Y for all his classmates, but I am not sure that it will fit into our plans, due to Thanksgiving weekend being before his birthday and my hope to get him and Cody enrolled in Sibling classes on Dec 3rd. I am thinking we will have the  family party on the 4th, but not for sure where yet.

3. Baby update - Only 4 more weeks to go! Friday was my check up with the baby doctor. Everything was good, heart rate was 156 and he is estimating it to be around 7 lbs. We have a c-section scheduled for December 19, which is the due date, so the little bundle will be here by then. I am still needing to get in gear and get things together for the arrival of our little bundle. I am hoping to go to the city this weekend and find a carseat as ours expired last year and the canopy was broken. I think we have decided what room the baby will be in, we now just have to get things moved in and out. I don't remember if I have posted names yet, but here they are in case I haven't:. Cole Joseph for a boy and Kate Helen for a girl. Scotty picked out the first names and I picked out the middle names.

 Cole is just a name that we both liked although it does have a funny story behind it. A few months back I was reading the baby name book, much to Scotty's dismay, and I was reading the meaning of the names. Cole is short for Nicholas, which is one of Scotty's friend from the fire department and is a shorter guy. Kyle told us that yes Nicholas is short and so is his 2 yr old son, also named Nicholas. Joseph is somewhat after my dad. His middle name is Joe, but I liked the way Joseph sounded better.

Kate is my little sisters middle name and is somewhat named after her, but Scotty really like the name Katie but it did not sound as great with Helen. I refused to change the middle name as that is my Mimi's name, so we went with Kate.

4. Bake Day - My mom, sisters and I had a impromptu bake day yesterday that was fun. We have baked more things in the past few weeks than we have in years. On the menu this time were bierox and cinnamon rolls and mom and I had to make our potato dumplings for the Thanksgiving dinner at church. The bierox were yummy and Andrew took an instant liking to them and cutely calls them "rocks". The cinnamon rolls were awesome and to me they taste a little bit like pecan pie in a roll. At my dad's suggestion we added honey and nutmeg to the normal brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon and nuts filling, which we think eased the sometimes overpowering bitterness of some cinnamon rolls.

5.Scotty's phone - This made the list becasue my husband had been waiting for over a month for a new phone, and with Pioneer having their Black Friday event this past Friday, he had scheduled to whole day off. He is very much like a kid with a new toy and is constantly finding cool stuff that his phone will do. I think his favorite feature is the capability to talk to his phone and it will text or search the internet for what he says. He has had much fun with this and has led to me having some very interesting texts that take me a few minutes to figure out (i.e. beirox = beer ops and Cody = Tony).

6. Thankgiving Potluck - Friday was our potluck at work, which is always filled with great food and a miserable afternoon after eating too much of said great food. I brought beef roast and cranberry chutney. This was my first time to make chutney and it was so good and easy. My hubby actually was able to attend this year as he had atken off to get his phone and run some other errands.  This was probably one of our lesser attended potlucks by employees but many were on vacation as they are trying to use up time before the end of the year.

7. Thanksgiving at the church - Today was the annual Thanksgiving dinner at church, so this is my second of 4 Thanksgiving dinners! Mom and I are on the dumpling group so we left this morning about 5:45 a.m. to start our dumplings. We have to go early as the kitchen is not great big and we shift the different groups so we are not all in each other's way. The dressing ladies normally get there around 5 am, followed but us the dumpling ladies, then the turkey lady, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans, so that lunch is ready to be served at 11:00 a.m. It is always enjoyable to see everyone that attends. It was great to see the Blakley/Richardson clan and my Mimi!

8. Thanksgiving Day - On the menu for our Thanksgiving at my parents is: smoked ham, turkey, cheesy potatoes, sweet potatos, green beans, peas, Watergate salad, cranberry salad, rolls and pumpkin cheesecake. As for the dinner that evening at my in-laws, all I know so far is turkey, as the full menu has not been discussed yet.

9. I am hoping to start my Christmas shopping on Saturday. My hope was to be almost done by now, but it hasn't happened. I have a few ideas for most everyone, so it should not be too bad.

10. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! Hope everyone has an enjoyable day spending time with their families and counting their blessings. I know I will be.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

The Forgotton One

Here is a random post on my feelings on the forgotton holiday of Thanksgiving!

I have noticed in the past few years that Thanksgiving is getting edged out more and more. This upsets me because it is a great holiday that I believe is a great time to reflect on all that you have in your life, namely family. We go from Halloween decorations and candy right to Christmas. Granted Thanksgiving is not a gift or candy giving holiday that all the retailers can sell on, but it frustrates me to no end that right after the Halloween candy and decorations are consolidated and clearanced, up goes all the Christmas paraphenelia. I do understand that the retailers have to put the merchandise out early because many people are not procrastinators like I am and start there shopping early, but I find it hard to swallow that they have already pulled out the Christmas music and have it blaring from the overhead speakers. I was also appalled to have read on facebook that a few of my friends have put their Christmas trees up this weekend! REALLY???! I could see it if someone was being deployed overseas or if family was going to be in town, but to put it up just because really goes right through me.

I love Thanksgiving because it is spent with family around a table eating great food and talking and spending time together. There is no rush with it and you can sit back, relax and enjoy time with everyone.

Now don't think that I am anti-Christmas, because I do love Christmas also, but to me that season starts December1st, but to me it is the 2nd due to Kyle's birthday on the 1st. It may get delayed even further next year due to the new baby's birthday sometime in December. You will not find my tree up until probably a week or so before Christmas and it does not come down until after January 1st.

Well that is enough of my ranting. I would love to hear your thoughts on the forgotten one.

Sunday Slowdown

So it has been a few days since I last blogged so here are some of the happenings at the Moody's.

Let"s start with last weekend. Friday night I actually made kolaches from start to finish all by myself! I did have guidance from my mom and my sisters helped out alot to, but I had my hand in every part of the process and am proud of myself for making this accomplishment. It really is not that bad, the worst part is waiting for the dough to rise, but when you are with family it gives you time to sit down, put your feet up and catch up on the goings on in everyone's life.

Saturday brought with it Kyle waking up with a fever and a headache. Luckily it only lasted about 24 hours, but him and I stayed home while Scotty and Cody went to the November birthday party and went shopping for parts for the pickup repairs. Let me take a moment to explain the November birthday party. The birthday week begins with my father-in-laws on the 5th, then Scotty and his twin sisters on the 10th, the 11th is my inlaws anniversary (44th), then my other sister-in-laws on the 12th. They started having them together to make it easier on everyone!

Sunday was pretty uneventful. I did make some pigs in the blankets and some more kolaches with my mom and sisters.

I don't remember much of anything to important that happened on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

Thursday was Scotty's birthday so we went out for an early dinner at Rib Crib because he had some medical training for the fire department. When he came home we had some birthday coconut cream pie and then bedtime for all.

Friday I was off of work for Veteran's Day, so I had planned to help with the preparations for the Taste of St. Joes and childrens auction. My day did not goes as planned, as I had to take Scotty's pickup in to have the distributor timed. I took it in at 8:15 and it ended up not being done until 4:00. I did get to spend the day with my inlaws and had lunch at Applebees were my father-in-law got a free meal for being a veteran. Friday evening was the children's auction. Let me start by explaining that the children are not actually auctioned off, but it is more of a carnival for the students. They have various baskets of kid stuff like legos, art projects, principal for the day, etc. and the kids put tickets into boxes to be drawn out for a winner. They also have pizza and cookies and some games for the kids to play while they wait for the drawing. Cody actually won this year, which is his first time on 3 years. He gets to ride to school in an Enid firetruck and is super excited. Kyle was disappointed because he did not win, but he did get a consolation balloon.

Yesterday I was able to get a pedicure from Gina (Thank You!) since I am not able to bend as easily to do my own. Gina, my mom and I discussed our wardrobe for the Taste and got everyone accessorized. It is fun to be able to get a gussied up and go out for an evening with great food, friends and family. This is the first year that I have not been real active in the preparations and I must say it was very enjoyable. Amanda watched Cody, Kyle, Wyatt and Andrew. Thanks Amanda! My mom, dad, Gina, Jeremy, Scotty and I all rode together and had a very enjoyable time.

Today we slept in and this aftternoon we the took Kyle to a birthday party for one of his classmates at Cherry Berry, which was a first time for all of us and it was very yummy.

Hope everyone has great week!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Blogging Day 2

Wow! What a suprise to login and not only see I have comments but also followers! Thanks for joining in.

I didn't get to do a 10 on Tuesday yesterday, so here"s a few things that have gone on this week.

MONDAY - Halloween and my dad's birthday.

Halloween was fun even in all the chaos and made for a late night. Cody was a mummy this year and Kyle kept with his old stand by of the last 3 years and went as a cowboy. I was not nearly prepared for Halloween, so I put together goodie bags for my nephews, great nephews and great nieces and then got the boys into there costumes. We went and saw Amanda at the dorm before she had to go to a lecture, then to my cousin's house, followed by my sis-in-law, then to my inlaws and a few houses on their street. My mother-in-law made her famous Sterling Stew as she always does on Halloween. Yummy! We headed out of town and back toward the house and stopped at mom and dad's to wish dad a happy birthday and give him his present and trick or treat them.

I was able to see all but 2 of my nieces and nephews and great nieces and great nephews. The cast this year was (in order of appearance) Annabelle as a beautiful princess, Michael as Yoda, Abigail as a cute 5 month old (no costume), Ethan as Spiderman, Hunter as Spiderman, Chloe as an enchanting Garden Fairy, Wyatt as a sleeping Decepticon and Andrew as a stripped Spiderman. Apparently Spiderman was very popular.

TUESDAY - Started blogging, baby dr appointment, All Saints school party.

I finally took the leap and started my blog. I am still figuring some of this out and may need a tutorial from Amanda (pretty please!). Hopefully soon I will have pictures loaded of the boys.

Had my appointment with the baby doctor as I am know going every 2 weeks. Only 7 more weeks to go! I had to wait a little longer than normal because he had to do an emergency c-section. The heart rate was 140 and I go back on the 18th.

Headed directly to the school as I was running about 5 minutes late for the parties. Cody went as St. George and wore his Tiger cub uniform and Kyle went as St. Isidore and wore his overalls and boots. I completely forgot to take pictures of them. Cody's class did a few art projects and had snacks, so I went over to Kyle's class to find out that the teacher had decided to have a low key party because they were all pretty hyped up on sugar that morning, so they celebrated with pizza and games on the intelliboard.

Wednesday - Nothing to exciting...

I did not have much planned for today other than work, which changed with a phone call from the school secretary about 1:45 p.m. Cody was in the office with severe earache that hurt if he did not keep his hand over it. Called the dr and was able to get in to see his PA at 2:15. Rushed to the school and then rushed to the dr office. He has the beginnings of an ear infection so we got some antibiotics and he seems to be feeling fairly well this evening. Went to the grocery store and then to get Kyle from school and came home to start dinner. Scotty came home from work and found that his pickup is leaking coolant, he thinks he has found the problem and the part is not too expensive but requires removal of alot of stuff (girl talk for engine parts) to get to the problem. OH JOY!

I wonder what tomorrow will bring!!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Long Road to Blogging

Well it has taken me over a year and a half to finally take the leap and join blogging. I first thought of doing this in spring and summer of 2010, and was so convinving that my baby sister started one last fall. I was torn what to title my blog and what the direction of it would be, and how much information I wanted to divulge on the blogosphere. I still am not sure as to what all will be posted here and as to how often it will be updated but here's to trying something new.

Hope you all enjoy!