Countdown

In approximately 12 hours I will be doing this:

(of course this picture of me daydreaming peacefully is my 30,000 feet fantasy, the real picture would include: me totally stressed out, me praying the boys don't make a peep, me praying cohen sleeps the entire flight, me bribing them with any type of food item I can come up with, me rolling my eyes after telling cohen to stop kicking the chair in front of him for the 10th time, and of course eric pretending to sleep/not know any of us.)


In approximately 18 hours I will be doing this:

(this is not a fantasy)

Enough already

Thursday night is meant to be spent watching must see tv. Did I do that this evening? NO. The only show that remains on Thursday to watch is Survivor, and that is ending on Sunday. Thank goodness for reality tv because there is nothing else out there. When is this strike going to end anyway? It's been going on for five weeks now. Wikipedia said the longest one on record went for 22 weeks. Can you even imagine?

Snow blows

I am not exaggerating when I say that I shoveled our driveway three times today. THREE times. Why oh why didn't I just call Mr. Plow? I am regretting it now. We got officially dumped on today. And it wasn't the light, airy kind of snow that is easy to move. It was heavyyyy. All in all I would guess about 16". Madness. There were tons of school closings, all but Marquette, of course. So while I was outside shoveling for hours I pondered the true benefit of the stuff. My conclusion was this....
Snow is great and necessary for places like Utah or Colorado. There are mountains there, in which you can spend your time enjoying the snow. Wisconsin has no such thing. There is no skiing here. All of this snow is just wasted. I guess you could go snowmobiling, but whoopie. Don't get me wrong, I like snow, in moderation. I like the seasons, and I am going to desperately miss them when we leave, BUT come on. We have had snow for six out of the last ten days. It's days like this when all I want to do is get in a hot tub. 4 MORE DAYS till CA!!

JDRF Award

Ethan was invited to attend the JDRF (juvenille diabetes research foundation) Award Ceremony tonight. He was honored in the 'bronze category' which was given to people who raised between $1,000-$2,500 for the JDRF Walk this past September. He was so excited to get a 'trophy'. It's his first one ever! Thanks again to all those who donated. He had a great night.

Ethan's Bronze Level (by a team) Plaque

Ethan at the microphone telling everyone how much he raised

Ethan's Gold Level (by an individual) trophy!

Photo shoot

Grandma Diane sent the boys some cute Christmas wear the other day so we had them wear it to church today. Eric slicked, and I mean slicked, their hair flat for the pictures. Surprisingly, we got some good shots. Why is it that a 14 month old understands how to take a picture when a 4 year old has issues? Ethan has a hard time actually looking at the camera. He will smile if you tell him to, but his eyes are always somewhere else. Love the double chin!

So, we get back from church and put Cohen down for a nap. Apparently, Eric didn't slick his hair well enough...

Crazy bedhead, a la Donald Trump.

Man Cold

A great example of what happens when Eric gets sick:



(thanks dooce)

Gotta LOVE IT!

Anne, is the reigning favorite aunt at this point. I'm sure that is what she was striving for when she sent this to Ethan. Anne told him a few days ago that she was sending him something and for days has been waiting for it to be delivered.
Today, he was not disappointed.


Ethan's favorite things:
1. Playing with friends.
2. McDonald's (although as of late not so much).
3. Any type of holiday in which you get things for no reason, and you get to decorate for.
4. Playing with legos and doing puzzles.
5. Shopping. No joke.
6. Watching cartoons.
7. Going to California.
8. M & M's
9. Spiderman
and of course........

10. DIET COKE

A Diet Coke ornament! Amazing find Anne. Two of his favorites in one. Oh, the glee and celebration that followed after opening this and being able to run upstairs and immediately put it on his little fake tree he has in his room. YES, he decorated it himself. I think at least half of the ornaments he had on there have fallen off. The thing was jammed with stuff. But now he has his favorite, front and center. Poor thing looks huge on his tiny tree. Oh well, he loves it!

Mr Plow!

So after our first snowfall of the year a few days ago (see previous post) we kind of were lazy and didn't shovel the driveway. Therefore, it became a sheet of crusty, icy snow. I tried to chip away at it yesterday with a shovel and it didn't budge. See, Eric's back has been hurting him and he complains about it constantly (especially when the driveway needs to be shoveled) so, I turned to craigslist. First I started searching for a cheap snow blower. That didn't work. They were all crazy amounts of money and looked to be about 30 years old. Nothing like price gouging when it's a hot commodity. I decided to post that I needed someone to shovel my driveway and got an email pretty quick from this guy who goes to UWM and plows for extra money. Well, Eric didn't know I was setting up all of this up so when he stopped by yesterday to see my sorry driveway full of ice to try and scrape it off Eric was a little surprised. He calls himself Mr. Plow (even has a brochure - thank the Simpson's for the name). He got a lot of it off and then proceeded to throw salt all over it to try and loosen the rest. After he left the questions from Eric started. How much did that just cost? Our driveway was fine, we could get out ok. Where did you find that guy? AHHHHHHHHHH!

Validation: About 20 minutes later it started snowing. A lot. And by the time we went to bed there was at least 5 inches.

Eric: So is Mr. Plow coming again?
Me: I think he was going to stop by again in the morning.
Eric: Will that cost us more?
Me: I think so.
Eric: Well tell him not to come.
Me: Ok, so you're going to shovel?
Eric: Yes.
Me: Ok....

Scene - 8am, Eric standing at the front window surveying the madness that happened over night, trying to be ok with the fact that he cancelled Mr. Plow, knowing full well he never should have.

Eric starts shoveling while I feed kids, which takes about 20-30 minutes and in that time had only moved about 200 sq feet of snow. So I bundle up the kids to go out and help him.

Eric: Jos, I told you we need a snow blower!
Me: Eric, I am not shelling out $500 on a snow blower we will use for 4 months.
Eric: Why not, we can just sell it when we move.
Me: NO, we don't even have $500 bucks. I knew we shouldn't have cancelled Mr. Plow.

....Trumpets blaring.... Up drives Mr. Plow, cigarette in hand, blood shot eyes, looked like he had been out all night plowing driveways. Turns out he didn't get my email saying not to come and he was here to rescue us! In 5 minutes flat he was done and on his way.

Eric: Wow, I can't believe he is already done.
Me: It was a Christmas Miracle. Thank you Mr. Plow.

It has begun

December 1st just wouldn't be December 1st without a big snow storm. Winter is officially here! Unfortunately, Cohen is a lot more eager to play in the snow than Ethan ever was. That results in me having to be outside in the madness. It's the first day of snowfall and I am already thinking about Christmas break in California. It's going to be a long winter.