"And I'm feeling good!" ~Muse

Today's post starts with old pictures. These were taken sometime last month and show how I've rearranged the girls' room after removing that huge bunkbed/playhouse that they used to have. We instead bought some bed frames and box springs and gave them two separate twin size beds. I reorganized the big walk-in closet so that all of their clothes are now in it and removed all of the dressers to make more space. The only update to the picture below is that Dean finally installed a computer in their room (with parental controls, of course!) He is currently working on wiping out one of his own computers to install in their room so that each girl has her own machine. I thought for sure they'd fight over the single computer, but they really aren't as bad as I thought they would be! They take turns and have fun watching the other one take her turn. They love their new room and I love how much space they now have! This is Luci's bed.


Here's Drew's bed.

Chinese New Year fell on Valentine's day this year, February 14th. Though Daddy treated the girls and me to a small token, we usually don't do much for V day. But to celebrate the new year, we took the girls to their favorite Chinese restaurant and met up with Dan and Tina, Sonja and Max and Dean's parents. And of course they wore Chinese outfits! My beautiful China Dolls!

Last weekend, Tina's niece, Ana celebrated her birthday. After the party, they all headed to a local sledding hill. Though there wasn't much snow on the ground, it was plenty enough for sledding! I couldn't make it as my chorus was having a coaching session in preparation for our upcoming regional competition in April! So these were the only two pics from that day that Dean could snap before the camera battery died.

Today was a lazy do nothing day...we take them when we can get them! The girls and I were goofing around on the piano when Dean decided to try his hand at it. So I taught him the old stand-by, "Heart and Soul". While he drummed out the chords, I played the melody. I think we impressed the girls (shhh...don't tell them that we really don't know how to play!!)

My brother stopped by today with his dogs, Gigi and Boone. So I set my photo stuff up to try and catch a good shot of Boone. (No easy task with a 3 month old puppy who does NOT sit still!) While waiting for him to calm down, I instead got this cute shot of Monty. He's a great posing dog!

Though the task was next to impossible, I actually DID get a relatively decent shot of Boone! He's so adorable and getting HUGE! My nickname for him is Tank-ass!

Drew wanted a shot of her and Monty...

In other news, the latest with myself is LASIK surgery! I had an initial appointment last week and have scheduled the surgery for April 2 (though I may change it to an earlier date, depending.) This is something I have wanted to do for many years, and I'm finally getting my chance and I cannot wait to throw these glasses right out a window!! I look forward to being able to buy regular old sunglasses again, doing away with the semi-permanent furrows in my temples from the arms of the glasses being to tight, no longer sweating under the nose-pieces, no more scratched lenses, etc! I don't look forward to having to use reading glasses, an unfortunate side effect from this surgery, but readers are way more preferable to constant daily use of regular glasses in my opinion! Oh, and the thought of using my camera without glasses seems divine!

I have a birthday coming up in the next couple of weeks and have asked for an ipod Touch! (Basically and iphone without the phone and camera). I checked out the option of just upgrading my phone to an iphone instead of doing the ipod touch route, but I'd have to settle for an 8GB phone as opposed to the 32GB ipod I'll be getting instead...plus I really like my Blackberry, so it was a rather easy choice. Now, I haven't received definite confirmation on this as of yet, but I'm pretty sure I'll be getting my way! :-) I'm so spoiled sometimes!!

A shout out to Team USA! Though we fell short of the gold medal standings, we kicked some butt in the overal medal count! Great job to our nation's athletes as well as to the world's athletes! An excellent Olympic games this year!

Today's quote:

Change is in the air, people, and I'm hitching a ride! I've officially decided to end my pity party much to the relief of several people, I'm sure. Will I forget all the pain and heartache? Absolutely not! How could I?! But whatever has recently occurred in my brain has made me have a new outlook on life and I couldn't be happier! Change...lots of it, starting now! :-)

One of my all-time favorite bands (Muse) sings a great song called "Feeling Good", a song written back in 1965 by someone else. This is one of my most favorite songs, though I am exceedingly hard pressed to pick just one!

"....It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life....for me. And I'm feeling good!" I'm using this as my new life motto! Hope you have as great a day as I've had today!

Winter Blahs

Sadly, due to the cold, we kind of hibernate when winter comes strolling along, so there isn't much to report on. But, since it has been a while, here are a few little tidbits. Drew's brownie troop recently hosted a local dog breeder/trainer of Golden Retriever therapy dogs. Here she is showing two of her therapy dogs, a mother/daughter duo in Alexis and Moya.


The dogs were a big hit with the girls. They all clamored to pet the dogs as if they all neither owned a dog nor have ever petted one! The dogs, however, were glad of this and were happy to receive the attention!

Last month, a very good friend of mine...and also my first cousin, Heather and her family moved to South Carolina! Lucky ducks to be leaving this god-awful place, I say!!! The day before they left, we headed over to their empty house to hang out a little and say good-bye. Heather's oldest and only boy, Nick plays with one of his cousins. I recall when Heather brought him home from the hospital...his teeny little diapered bum was so small that it fit entirely in the palm of my hand! But his feet were very large for such a small baby! As a toddler, he was SOOO mischeivous!! I lived with Heather and her kids for a short time and have so many memories of him at that age! He was definitely a stinker!! Now, he is 17 and a super-smart kid taking AP college courses in 11th grade. He's mild mannered and very polite!

Dean, a veritable kid-magnet, holds a drowsy Grace, Heather's 3rd child. I remember being invited to watch while she was being born!! It was the first time I had ever watched a baby being born and it was, as anyone can imagine, amazing! Drew will miss her much as she was in Drew's multi-age classroom.

Liz (or as I like to call her, Lizzie, which she hates!) a now 16 year old beautiful girl! She has always been a beauty young and old! My favorite memory of her is when she was just around a year old or so. I came home from work and walked in the house to find that Nick had climbed a chair onto the countertop to reach a can of powdered hot chocloate mix. He then climbed back down and had dumped the entire contents on top of Lizzie's head as she toddled around in her walker! (Their father was asleep on the couch and that's all I have to say about that!!) She had licked some of it on her face and by the time I arrived home, she had dark brown streaks all over her face and a perfectly cone shaped mountain of hot chocolate mix on top of her little blonde head!

Little Hannah, her youngest...and most precocious! This little cutie-patootie has a vocabulary like you wouldn't believe!! She's a non-stop talker and my dad LOVES having conversations with her! Just the cutest little thing!! We'll miss them all so much...BUT, now we have one more reason to go visiting down south!! And believe me, come hell or high water, we'll be going!

Due to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, there has been overwhelming response to donate all over the country! Our town was no exception! Our local Catholic Charities started a penny drive and left collection bottles all over town. We stopped at our local newspaper office to donate a huge bank bag full! Thanks to Meema and Uncle's contributions, it had to be 30 pounds at least!

It was a great opportunity to teach the girls about the world around them, disaster relief, and community responsibility! They were exceedingly happy to donate and we are all exceedingly proud of them as well!

If there's one thing you CAN do in these horrendously low temps, it's ice fishing! Papa drags the girls behind the 4-wheeler out to his ice shack!

Even low temps can't put a cramp in a pleasant fishing trip when the heater keeps you toasty!

Drew checks on a tip-up.

And when the fish aren't biting, conversation with Papa keeps them from getting bored!

Luci doesn't last so long when the fish aren't biting, but she manages to find her own fun anyway!

Today's quote:

It is hard to remain angry at someone when you can only feel sorry for them. After all, not everyone can function well in society and always know what's right and wrong. Ignorance comes in many forms. Just be sure to steer clear of them lest you fall victim to their ignorance. And if you do fall victim, learn from your mistake to never allow it again!

Birds, buddies and BRRRRR!

I have been sooo busy lately, this poor blog has suffered! Unfortunately, I don't have that many pictures, but I can at least fill you in on our life this past month! A few weeks ago, Dean yelled down the stairs for me to grab my camera and come upstairs quickly. I figured the girls were doing something cute, so I rushed upstairs to find Dean looking out one of our bedroom windows. When I peeked out, this is what I saw. A large hawk had found itself a snack (a pheasant.) It had ripped most of the feathers off and as you can see in the picture, made a big mess of our side yard. I should have run down to the basement as the hawk was literally just 2 feet from our basement window, but alas, it saw us peeking and got spooked.

So, the reason we've been so busy as of late...we are back to working double time on our house. We now have the back middle bedroom mudded and sanded and it's waiting for me to drag myself kicking and screaming to prime and paint it. I despise painting! BUT, I decided I didn't care for the color scheme in our bedroom, so I repainted it a nice taupe color. I am currently sewing some gorgeous curtains for it! They are really pretty! Anyway, the color scheme in our room is now blues and browns...so cozy! We also installed doors on our bedroom, bathroom and closet and all the door trim and baseboard molding. The only thing left in there is to paint the trim and doors, install and paint window trim and buy a light fixture. I moved our bed to the center of the room and it's starting to look really nice in there now! :-) We added doors and trim to the other 2 back bedrooms, as well. Our dryer died recently, so we bought a new one. It'sone of those fancy front loading models that you usually put on a pedestal. Dean promised I could get the matching washer when our current one dies (which should be relatively soon considering the noise it's making!) We got it for a steal, too! Sears had ONE gas model in stock, and as they aren't supposed to stock gas models, he quoted us a great sale price! Five minutes after they hung up, Sear's called him back and told him that he quoted him on the wrong model. It turned out in our favor, though, as we ended up getting the upgraded model for the same price! We've made a few changes in the girls' room, too. We got rid of that behemoth playhouse/bunkbed that took up so much room and replaced it with two twin beds. It gave them SO much more space in their room, that we could fit another couple of kids in there! Speaking of which...I have been alluding to more kids for quite a while. Dean and I have completed the classes required to become foster/adoptive parents for kids in our county! That's why we've been hard at work on the house! As soon as we're finished, we can have it inspected and after a few more forms, we can officially open! We're very excited about this! Originally, we had every intention of fostering only kids who might become available for adoption. But as we met and spoke with more and more foster families in our area, our hearts changed. We are giving foster care a try...and though we hold no expectations of continuing indefinitely, we are certainly ready to give it our best efforts! It's a rather scary prospect for us as it differs from international adoption by leaps and bounds, but with our eyes wide open, we've taken the first step! Wish us luck on this new adventure! It may be a while before we open, but I'll keep you posted on our progress!

My brother, Thadd, has found a new companion...and his name is Boone! In this picture he was just 6 weeks old. He is the cutest little thing!

This shot is a bit blurry, but I included it to show how small he is compared to my brother's hand.

Sacked out from playing!

These shots show some hoar frost! It looks like we got dumped on with snow, but we didn't. It's very pretty!

Today's quote:

You are who you associate with. (That's why I no longer associate with backstabbing, two-faced, low-life_____________! I'm trying to keep this clean, but I'll let you have free roam with your imaginations!)

Hope for a better year ahead!

Well, FINALLY 2010 has arrived and I don't mind telling you...I am sincerely hoping that 2010 is WAY better than 2009 was! Eeeks! When I think back on all the BS I went through in 09...well, really, there is nowhere to go but up! The girls informed me that they were going to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve...and wouldn't you know it, they actually did! Although, you can readily tell from the picture below that they were WELL past the point of actually functioning normally! But they made some noise old school style with some pots and wooden spoons at the stroke of midnight! And then were promptly put to bed within 15 minutes of this picture being taken!


We took a trip to Canada to visit Dean's grandmother where she resides in a nursing home. She is 92 years young, and though her memory is failing, she enjoyed her visit very much. Especially since Luci was quite the entertainer for a large number of residents! As we were putting our coats on in preparation to leave, she turned around with a bright smile and said, "Bye everybody!" in her loudest voice. There were lots of giggles and smiles all around!

We never did get those ballet shoes hung on their wall yet, and the girls took advantage of that while watching a new ballet movie they got for Xmas. So I stuffed the toes with poly stuffing and secured their feet as best I could and away they tiptoed with the greatest of ease! Luci insisted on wearing a ballet dress!

January 1st was a beautiful mild day loaded with nice packy snowman snow...so we got dressed and got busy out in the front yard making this snow family. From left, Daddy, Mommy, Drew, Luci, Papa, and three dogs which we neglected to designate names. Note how much Papa Snowman is leaning...that'll come into play in a few more pictures...

Dean dug out the sled and had some more fun!

Remeber the leaning Papa? Well, he didn't last so long!

The girls love getting dragged by the four wheeler, but the snow in the face of the first rider is always a bit much!

Good thing they have face masks! Luci makes a face!

Drew!

Last Saturday, the girls and Daddy donned their ice skates for the first time in about 2 years to go skating with the area Girl Scouts.

Just like riding a bike, Drew gets back to doing some of her old tricks from when she took lessons.

Luci had only about 1.5 hours worth of ice time 2 years ago, so she wasn't as steady as Drew on the ice. But she managed for a while before finally grabbing a free "helper".

Even after a fall, she's still good-natured! Though she has her moments occassionally, she always comes back happy, which is a huge relief! If she were a major whiner I think I'd pull my hair out!

Luci grabs a "helper" and finds out that even using this she can do a trick or two!

Drew and Dean chase one another on the ice!

Today's quote:

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph! ~Thomas Paine

I am triumphant and victory is sweet! (also rather amusing! Ha ha!!) :-)