A Package For Me!

Mr Mailman walked up to my house yesterday with a package. I looked at the return address and knew right away it was from Amy!! I won a giveaway on her Chic Book Chick blog and boy did she spoil me, it totally made my day. I won these awesome books and I can't wait to read them...but which one do I do first??? (what?? a Nora Roberts book I haven't read yet?? How did that happen?) I just finished P.S. I Love You and if you haven't read it, it's an absolute MUST. I really want to rent the movie now.

She also sent me all of this crafty goodness!! This girl is talented...you can see a lot of her craftiness on her other blog, Caffinated Cropper.

(I'm sorry the lighting is so bad, it's overcast and I still don't have access to my basement computer where my beloved photo editing software is.) I got this awesome notebook and pen (she knows I love my owls!), the coolest bookmark ever!, and these gorgeous notecards. Thank you, thank you Amy!! You definitely perked up my week!

Weekend

How's that for a title?? I'm so creative sometimes.

After all bad and the ugly that happened last week, I felt like posting some of the good from my weekend.

Saturday morning we had perfectly beautiful weather for the annual Dogwood Parade. The boys of course were ready to scoop up all the candy and other goodies that were thrown their way. Here the boys are waving their flags with cousin Hunter. (Drew is the one in back that looks like the unibomber.) After the parade we all headed back to my mom and dad's for pizza.

This might have been about the time that Blake and Noah were discussing whether this older gentleman's beard was real or not. He overheard them and said it wasn't . Just a little embarrassing. :)

I snapped this cute picture sunday night of Noah and Grayson. Seriously could those two be any cuter together when they are sleeping?? Everybody needs a furry buddy.

Sunday I had my Mary Kay Open House to celebrate 5 years as a consultant. Drew, my sweet Drew, wanted to help me with it again. He was so excited for some reason. Not only did he help me clean the house and set all of my stuff up, he showered and got dressed in his suit so he could answer the door for me and pass out drinks and cookies. How lucky am I?? I tried to pay him for all of his hard work and he refused. My sale was a huge success and to thank Todd and the boys for their help and support, I took them to Applebees for supper to celebrate. (ok, seriously, am I really only about a head taller than him?? I'm 5'8" and wearing short heels)

I was cracking up because Drew started posing with the products.

The sun has been shining for a few days now and order is being restored, slowly but surely. The insurance adjuster came today.....that was a little nervewracking. After she took pictures and looked around we came upstairs for an "interview". She pulled out her little voice recorder and started asking me questions. I was a little nervous. Servicemaster came this morning for about the 100th time and we are down to 30% humidity and it's close to dry. They will be back tomorrow to start cleaning and disinfecting. It's an almost sure thing that we will have to replace the padding. Those who know my basement, I ask you this......where in the world are we supposed to move all of our crap...... I mean furniture, toys, and stuff, in order to remove the padding, put new padding in and then, get this, stretch out our carpet??? I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it. If you could have seen the panic attack I had wednesday night when Drew got sick and then this with the basement....well, it wasn't pretty. But I'm sure I'll post more on the basement at a later date. I'm going to go bury my head in the sand and think happy thoughts.......like tonight Aiden, Blake, and Ty have a soccer game and team pictures and they are so stinkin' cute out there on the field. Then I get to come home and watch what I hope to be one of the best weeks of American Idol yet!!

"Everything Happens For A Reason"

HAH!! Whoever came up with that quote obviously had a lot of bad stuff happen to him/her.




That quote DID run through my mind last night. Through a series of circumstances starting with Drew vomiting all over the hallway to ending up with me sleeping on the basement couch, I happened to be in the right place at the right time, or maybe the wrong place at the right time. I went to sleep about 11:45 last night (was caught up in a good book) and everything was ok. I woke up at 2:30 am to some strange sounds. I was pretty sure it was the cat but I kept hearing water. (At this point I can hear my family groaning loudly because they know where this is going.....) I decide to jump up to investigate. I made it 3 steps from the couch before I splashed into about 2 inches of standing water on my carpet! What the heck??!! I flew over to turn on the lights and rushed to the sump pump. D%@*n thing was off again. I kicked it on and it started sucking water down. I tore upstairs to wake my dear sleeping husband. He handled it very well. Honestly I think we were in too much shock to do much else. There were two inches of standing water in every room of the basement.....family room, spare bedroom, bathroom, my craft room, storage rooms. We got some pictures knowing we'd need them if this had to go to insurance. The sump pump continued to pump water down as it continued to pour rain outside. There was so much water, it was pointless to try to even bring the shop vac down. We just kept checking on the pump all night and this morning I begged and pleaded with Servicemaster to come out (they were here in the fall with a smaller fiasco and did an amazing job!). That time was expensive and this is at least 3 times worse. I can't even imagine how much it will cost or where the money will come from but we need the water out. We also need to figure out why the hell the sump pump did this. Nothing was used in the basement so it was all rainwater coming up and for whatever reason, the sump pump didn't kick on. (We are soo replacing that!) Ugh, I thought I was doing ok until I looked at these pictures just now. So much is ruined I just want to cry. The only good thing is that Drew seems to be feeling better now and Servicemaster is coming today. Back to my original quote. Can you imagine how much worse it would have been had I not been sleeping in the basement?? This mess happended in 2 1/2 hours, if no one had been down there for 3 more hours when Todd got up for work, it could have been twice as bad. I'm scared to go in my craft room, I had stuff for my mother's day gifts in there. If all of my stuff is ruined, I will cry.

Part of the family room area.

Hallway....see the reflection of the light in the water???Other side of the basement....it seeped through the spare bedroom all the way over here.


Spare bedroom. Notice the cat wading in the water...he was a little freaked.

There's also the saying "God doesn't give you more than you can handle". Ok, God, I'm good for now, that's enough. I'm off to mop, move as much furniture and toys as I can and try to get it ready for Servicemaster. I'm hoping for a miracle today. I had hoped Todd could stay home and help me with this but his principal was evaluating him today. So I'm putting my big girl panties on and will try and do as much as I can while taking care of Aiden and a sick Drew. Oh, and I'm supposed to have a Mary Kay Open House sunday to celebrate 5 years of being a consultant....I don't think I will get to have it in my basement now, what do you think??? Thank goodness for a large dining room! Happy freakin' Thursday!



*****Just got some good news.....I love you Amy! My friend Amy started a new blog called Chic Book Chick. She reviews different books and even has awesome giveaways. I won one of her giveaways....see here. Thanks Amy, I needed some good news!!

Almost Heaven

There's a little place my family likes to frequent known as "Almost Heaven". Any good John Denver fan knows that is a line from one of his songs but "Almost Heaven" is also a cabin built by my dad on a lake and a lot of hunting ground. It was a dream of his that came true. Our family spends a lot of time out there....... it's our place to relax, have fun, and just get away from the city and enjoy the beauty of the countryside.We hadn't been out there much over the winter and when I saw how awesome the weather was going to be on Saturday, I got the family together out there for an incredible day! It really did feel like we were in heaven.

Saturday got up into the mid 80's....plenty warm enough to use the water blasters. The boys had so much fun cooling off in the water. I admit, when they complained of the water being too cold, I went in the cabin to fill the bucket up with warm water for them to shoot at each other. Pathetic, huh??

Aiden and Ty had fun hanging out upstairs in the cabin....their little "hideout".

These are some of the flowers my mom found out in the woods. She'd like to transplant some of these back at her house. Noah and I took a little excursion of our own on the Gator and went to take some pictures of these flowers........
and I got some really cute pictures of Noah, this being one of my favorite. He also took some of me but I couldn't bring myself to post them. Sorry, I was too scary looking.

The oldest cousin and the littlest cousin enjoyed hanging out together. Noah jumped in for a shot with them too.

Noah was thrilled to find a snail. It immediately took up residence in his bug habitat. Unfortunately the poor guy didn't make it until the next day.

Aiden caught his first fish of the year. He was pretty proud.....he has good to reason to be!


The view from the dock.
The weather was gorgeous. We cooked out on the campfire, took numerous Gator rides, went mushroom hunting, cooled off with water fights, did some fishing, and played hard all day. Then we all came back to our house for pizza and margaritas to finish off the day.

Aiden didn't make it too far on the half hour drive home before he was passed out. I think everyone was exhausted from all the fun. The boys are already planning our next trip out there and I for one am ready!

Words To Melt Your Heart

Aiden climbs in my lap, cuddles me close, and whispers in my ear..... "Mom, I just want to keep you forever."

You can, Aiden, you can.

Easter Break

My dear blog, how I have neglected you. I have been busy and for some reason my blog was not a priority, what is wrong with me?? :) I've had blog block or something. So here I go, finally updated on our Easter break and hopefully will be back into the swing of things with my blog.

The Thursday before Easter, our party planner, known as Drew, planned a fun Easter party for his brothers and cousins. We ate lunch, did a craft, hit at a pinata....everyone got a swing, from youngest to oldest and Noah knocked it down.

We enjoyed some cookies and treats. Ty loved those Marshmallow Peeps.

Drew set up an egg hunt for them and they played some games. He planned an awesome party and I think the kids had fun.

On the Saturday before Easter Matt and Beth had a party at their house. We could only go for a bit because the big Klauser family get together was that night. Noah was a little under the weather so he missed it.

They had an Easter egg hunt for the kids. Drew may not believe, but that sure didn't keep him from finding eggs!

Aiden found one of the eggs with his name on it!

All the kiddos.

Todd took Drew and Aiden to the Klauser easter and I stayed home with Noah. He really could have gone though. He had a headache and leg ache that morning and had about a 100 degree fever. I gave him tylenol and he rested and woke up fine and his fever never came back. How was I to know?? I thought for sure he was getting sick. Maybe it was just from the headache?? To make up for him missing the fun, we got McDonalds for supper and rented a movie so we enjoyed some special time together. I'm glad he was fine so we could all spend Easter day together.

Cousins Carter, Aiden, Hunter (Connor in the background).

They were all "Hangin' Tough" (sorry, had to throw a NKOTB reference in there) They had so much fun together.

Easter Morning.

I had bought coordinating shirts for al 4 of my guys but Drew had just gotten the suit jacket of his dreams (seriously, that's all the kid wanted) so he and Daddy dressed up for Easter mass.

Handsome dudes.

The 6 Grandkids at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Seriously, love these 6 kids more than anything in the world!

My 3 again. I kept trying that day for a good picture but have a lot of mediocre ones.

My gorgeous "flowers" from Blake,Ty and Ellie. They were made with cutouts of their hands. Beth always has the cutest ideas. These are the best flowers ever and they will never die on me.....they have a special spot on my dining room table.

I even had time for a bit of craftiness. These were just a couple of the projects I tackled. Todd helped me with the lamp. Ours was brass and tarnished nastiness. After looking around, I realized not only are lamps expensive, but so are shades. So we spray painted it black, cleaned the shade, and I found a black and cream ribbon to tie around it and voila, new lamp. I love it.

I made this shirt for my niece Ellie for Easter. I found the idea here. It was so easy and I'm ready to make some more!! I was scared to try the stitching so I added the buttons instead for a little embellishment.

I wish I had some pictures from last night. The 5 of us were outside jumping rope!! We had a nice long one and took turns jumping. We even got Aiden jumping and he though he was so big. He was also an awesome rope twirler. I enjoyed flashing back to my childhood days jumping to all the silly rhymes but let me tell you......after about 45 seconds I thought I'd pass out. I'm seriously out of shape people. Drew and Noah recited some of the songs from when I was young and had some new ones of their own that were pretty funny. Aiden wanted to join in so when Noah and I started jumping together, he started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". That cracked me up. What a great way to end the day. (followed by American Idol of course.....Allison and Adam ROCKED!!!)

You Will NOT Believe This!!

I feel like a bad mom....I took a blogging break and then when I want to update on Easter activities, our internet was spotty so I couldn't upload pictures. I finally get a chance to sit down and blog and our Easter break post will have to wait until tomorrow. Why, you ask?? Because...

WE MET DAVID COOK LAST NIGHT!!!

My brother Matt, my sis in law Beth, and her sister Katie traveled up to Macomb IL last night to see David Cook in concert. He was absolutely awesome!! His opening act, Ryan Star, was pretty good too but David was incredible. It was a small venue....only 400 tickets were sold and we were in the Heritage Room at the University Union. There really wasn't a bad place in the house and we were pretty close to the stage. The show was shorter than we expected (of course they were $10 tickets so who could complain!). We hung around because David (yes, we're on a first name basis now) is known for coming out to meet with his fans. Dianna was keeping us up to date with information via his website and postings there. We found his tour buses and decided to hang out for awhile. After 2 hours of freezing our butts off and seeing everyone on the crew, opening acts, etc, David and his band came out! He was awesome and came over to the 35-40 stalkers, I mean dedicated fans, that waited around for him. He autographed my CD and Beth's ipod. We got some up close pictures, one that we are even passing off as one with us and him. (he was in a hurry and they were really rushing him through.) I even asked him if he would say hi to my best friend Dianna on my cell phone and he did!! How's that for an awesome gift from a friend Dianna?? :) It was an amazing night and sooo much fun. We laughed, ate good food, danced and had a great time. Ending the night with meeting David Cook was so worth getting no sleep and having a headache all day today!

Some pictures....................

The front of his tour bus....you could see the guys after they went inside.... Here he comes!!! He was looking for me, I know.

He had just signed my CD and was reading a poster that someone made for him.

Beth took this one, I think that may be my CD he's signing.

There's us trying to pose with him, notice Dianna still on the cell phone. She listened to the whole concert through my phone and we talked off and on all night. It was like she was there with us!!
One of David Cook's guitarists. Dianna had her picture taken with him when she saw them in concert in Biloxi, MS

My autographed CD.....his fingerprints are on there!!

Thanks to my mom for watching Matt and Beth's kids so they could go and to my dear sweet hubby for taking on the boys for the night while he was busy drinking 2 litres of nastiness for his colonoscopy today. In my defense, he chose to schedule it for weds. long after I had concert plans. I felt really bad leaving him last night. His procedure went smoothly today though and he was given the all clear. Whew!

The sound quality of my videos was horrible. Here's Light On from someone that was at the concert.

One Week From Today........

I'm going to see David Cook in concert!!!! I'm so excited.....he's been one of my favorite American Idols of all time. He had me at "Hello".

When he sang his version of "Hello" by Lionel Richie, I melted into a pile of goo. It was idol love. He's doing a concert tour right now but is doing smaller venues to make it more personal. Me, Matt, Beth, and Katie are going up to Macomb next Tuesday to see him. Only 400 tickets were sold and thanks to my friend Lorri who is a professor up there at the university, we were able to score some tickets. I hear he's good about coming out and talking with the crowd too. I think I just may bring something to autograph. I'm so excited, Dianna saw him in Biloxi on Valentine's Day and said it was awesome!! I will definitely be posting details next week.............

I Won! I Won!

I won a copy of Backyard Baseball 2010 for our Wii. Woohoo! I read Classy Chaos' blog faithfully. She's an awesome mom of 3 of the cutest kids you will ever see. She also happens to have a review blog where she reviews various products and has those products to giveaway. Who doesn't love giveaways??? I enter them every chance I get. I was very excited to win this today although I think my boys may be even more excited than me. Thanks OHMommy!!

The Gig Is Up

I knew the day was coming, in fact I suspected it was already here but it was being kept hush hush. It came out today. Drew told me there was no Easter Bunny. He also told me there was no Santa. He was also standing right in front of Aiden when he told me this revelation of his. Luckily Aiden was half asleep on the couch and wasn't processing anything Drew was talking about. I wasn't sure how to respond to it all especially since I had to be really careful of how and what I said about it in front of Aiden. I was kind of speechless actually. He went on his merry way, working on things for the Easter party he's throwing for us later in the week. He came back in later with a big grin on his face and repeated it to me. Since Aiden was gone, I asked him why he thought that. He told me that he went snooping around at Christmas time and found the Magnetix iCoaster in the spare bedroom closet. Damn, I had some suspicions that he saw that back then but Todd and I had a good white lie to cover that up if he said something. (Todd's mom had bought that for him too) He never said anything though. I thought I could explain it away when he said he also saw Noah's Magicarp (a pokemon figure) and Aiden's Planet Heroes. I was screwed, I had nothing. I asked him if he was disappointed and he said no. I then asked him to please not say a word about it in front of Aiden and Noah. In some ways, it will be nice because he often shops with me and it's a pain when I find xmas/easter things and can't buy them because he's with me. At the same time, it's just another sign of him growing up and losing some of that childhood innocence. So does this mean he doesn't believe in the Tooth Fairy too?? We'll see what he says about that next time he loses a tooth! :)