It has been a long Christmas break....

and there is still a whole week to go. Help me Lord.

The beginning of Christmas break started off with a bang. Ava returned home from her last day of school very excited after all of the Christmas fesivities she partook in. She anxiously took off all of her winter gear, ready to fill me in on all the details of her day full of candy, games and partying. As we sat on the floor in the playroom, her recounting her day for me, I noticed something strange in her hair. It was a gooey substance, dark brown and light brown in color, almost looking like (ahem) poo. As I got closer to her head I was able to figure out what it was 1. by looking closer, and 2 by smelling it. It was a reese's peanut butter cup - hmmmm. How in the world would a Reese's peanut butter cup end up melted to the top of her head like that?

This is where the investigating started.

Mom: "Ava, what is that in your hair?"

Ava: "What?"

Mom: "There is something in your hair."

Ava goes to feel the top of her head, I quickly pull her hand away so as not to get the melted substance all over the place. This, in turn, made her start to cry.

Mom: "It is alright Ava, there is no need to cry. You have Reese's peanut butter cups in your hair. We need to take a shower to get it out."

To which she began crying even harder. I again asked her what happened. No answer. I took her up to the shower, helped her get her clothes off over the goopy mess in her hair, and got her into the shower. All the while she was STILL crying. I got her out of the shower, dressed, hair dryed, and Reese's peanut butter cup free. She then finally stopped crying. Alleluia.

After getting everyone settled and on their couches for quiet time, a lightbulb went off (sometimes it takes me a while). I went over to her winter hat and took a look inside. Sure enough, there was melted Reese's peanut butter cup in the hat. SO, she must have somehow dropped a Reese's peanut butter cup into her hat, and put the hat on without it falling out. Amazing feat in itself, huh? On the bus ride home it must have slowly melted so that when she arrived home and took the hat off it was a big goopy mess.

Voila! Look at me, a regular Inspector Kluso!

This is just one of many eventful (well, eventful to my stay at home mom self) things that have happened thus far on this wonderful, hectic Christmas break.

January 5th can't come soon enough.

Do they really have to grow up??

I am not sure if it is because Olivia is our last baby or what, but I feel like I have to drink in every little moment of her "babyhood" (is that even a word??). Don't get me wrong, I loved all of my kids as little babies, when they just smiled, pooped, cried and slept - oh the joy. I much prefer this stage over the sassy, talk back, tantrum stage.

Anyway, I am sure that it is because I am not wanting her to grow up that she seems to be growing up way to fast! I just gave her a bath today and realized that she is getting too big for the baby bath. I had to put her in the bottom part of the bath, where she sat splashing and playing making a huge mess out of my kitchen counter and floors. But I did not care as this was probably the last time she would be using this bath. Who would have thought I would have found her last bath in this "hard to bathe a baby in tub" to be so sentimental? I guess it goes back to the whole last baby thing.

After her bath I put her on her changing table to get her dried off and dressed. It seems as if she is getting big for her changing table! She sat up on that and played around for a while as well. This is sort of (well very) off the point here, but I am noticing as I am looking at these pictures that my Olivia Grace may have big ears.... Hopefully she will grow into them, right?

There is certainly nothing I can do about this thing they do called growing up, so I guess I will have to admit defeat and spend my time savoring every moment of her "babyhood" since this is our last baby.... or is it?

Anthony and is (ahem) ornament

I know, most of the writing I have been doing lately seems to be about Anthony... for those of you who know him this probably makes sense. Anthony is my "wild child", my "spirited child", oh there are so many different ways to describe him. He is always into something, or has something interesting going on, therefore, I find myself writing about him a lot. Plus, my Ava and Lucas are pretty much at school all day so that leaves them less time for them to do things for me to write about.

Anyway, the reason for this post.... I was sitting here at my computer returning an email when Anthony shouted "look Mommy, look!!" I turned to find Anthony, pictured below, (he is naked as we are in the process of potty training and it is the only way I can get him to go on the toilet and not in his pants). Standing a few feet away from me with his favorite ornament hanging from his, well, you get the idea....

He seemed very proud of himself, as he had found such a unique place to hang his very favorite ornament.

He left it there until it proceeded to fall off (when he decided to try and walk around the house with it on). He simply picked up his ornament and placed it back on the tree.

Where it belonged.

Oh the holiday parties...peppered with lots and lots of pictures for your enjoyment

This weekend was a busy one. We had holiday parties on Saturday and Sunday, both were very fun. The first was at Pete and Deb's - our annual Mullins/Shelton party, always a hit. It was especially fun this year as we had two new additions to the festivities - Lucia and Olivia. They really do love playing with eachother and checking eachother out.

After dinner, we decided to open gifts,which was good as the kids were starting to get a bit tired. Lucia helped Carlotta open her gift.

I opened one for Brian and I from Carlotta and John - a lovely bottle of wine which Anthony was quite interested in.... looks like he loves the wine just as much as his mommy!

Ron opened his gift next, which both him and Diane were excited about - wine. Not just any wine, but sulfate/sulfite?? free wine. Not sure which one is correct - I know there was some argument about this at the party. :) No big deal either way, I just think Ron was happy to get a bottle of wine he could enjoy.

Pete's gift from Ron and Diane was a nice one - a bottle of Margarita mix which Diane explained was for making Margarita bars. Pete asked if he could just make drinks with it which Diane said would be alright. :)

Many other gifts were exchanged, but I did not get a picture of all of them.... I am a bit dissapointed I do not have a picture of Deb's lovely snowman she received from Ron and Diane. I learned something new about my friend Deb - she loves snowmen. I guess I never knew this about her until I noticed her many shelves in her basement filled with snowmen, lots and lots of snowmen. :)

It was a fun evening and we would have loved to stay longer, but the kids were beginning to melt down. We also needed to get home and get some sleep as we had a long day ahead of us with our family holiday party over here the next day.

Party #2.....

I was a little apprehensive about this party as I was not sure how it would go seeing that my whole family had not been together for over 7 years. Let's just say we all have not gotten along well over the years (not sure why exactly), but we haven't. Because of this, everyone has pretty much steered clear of eachother. Well, I decided that 7 years was way too long, and this family "feud" was getting ridiculous, so I decided to organize this family get together. It seemed like such a good idea from the get go, but as the party time approached yesterday I found myself getting a bit nervous. I was hoping nothing "Jerry Springerish" would go down. You never know if someone would start something, bring up old arguments, etc. If this happened a fight could break out. No, not a fist fight, but a verbal, yelling type fight. Alright, I have a very active imagination, I know the chances of that happening were slim to none, but still, it was a thought that was in the back of my mind.

Anyway, my worries were all for nothing as the party was a great success. Everyone caught up on eachothers lives....

Had some cocktails, which made conversation flow a bit better.... (always amazing how that works)


The kids played really well together - they were loving the video games which my sister loved (anti -t.v., video game woman) gotta love her. But who could complain as they were kept busy, which was really nice as it made it easy for us adults to catch up...

Anthony was shy at first, but quickly warmed up when my cousin Pat started rough housing with him. Oh how Anthony loves this....

I don't think Pat knew what he got himself into, as once he started playing with Anthony, Anthony would not leave him alone!!

What a great weekend full of great Holiday parties, spent with great family and friends who I love so very, very much. Times like these remind my of how truly blessed I am to have all of these people in my life.

Daily prayer helps

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference..... I think that is how it goes? I am not the most religious person per say, alright I am really not religious at all (sorry mom,) but I find myself repeating this little prayer to myself when times seem to get rough around here with the kids, and it seems to help. Like earlier tonight for instance!

Anthony was sitting behind me on my chair while I was trying to get some things done on my computer, (you know important things, like "facebooking")crying and repeating over and over again "I want to play Noggin, I want to play Noggin!!" For those of you who do not know, Noggin is a website geared towards little kids that is filled with computer games, etc. Games Anthony is not quite old enough to figure out, but likes to try to play. Not the best thing to get into when he is already tired.

I said "I am sorry, mommy is busy on the computer, not right now." But that did not stop him, he is a persistent little guy.....

Anthony: "I want to play Noggin"
Mom: "No, I am busy, sorry. I think it is time for you to go to bed."
Anthony: "NOOOOOO!!!"

Anthony: " I WANT TO PLAY NOGGIN!"
Mommy: "I said NO!"

Yes, this was the dialogue between my two year old and myself tonight - believe it or not. He ended up not getting to play Noggin even though he was quite persistent. This whole ordeal tuckered him out so I put him to bed, which was much needed. He is now sleeping soundly... hopefully he will feel refreshed in the morning.

Sweet Dreams my Anthony Thomas....

You take the good, you take the bad...

.....You take them both and there you have the facts of life. For some very odd reason, this song popped into my head last night as I was making dinner - not sure why in God's name it did, as I have not seen the show The Facts of Life for years and years, but I thought these lyrics seemed to explain the day to day living here in the Shelton household. We have good moments, and we have bad moments (sometimes the bad unfortuntely outweigh the good), but this is just a fact of life. Here is how are day has been so far....

Bad: Anthony woke up at 5am, yes I did say 5am, and stood in his doorway screaming " I can't sweep (sleep) anymore, I want to watch a toony (cartoon)!!!" He proceeded to scream this until I finally gave in at 6am, brought him down, turned on his tooney's and went back to bed. All the while Brian snored away - not even a stir with all the commotion going on. I only wish I could sleep through things like that. (sigh) Since he decided to wake up at this ungodly time, his behavior has been rather horrible. See below.... So this is "the Bad."

Good: Olivia just started eating solid foods, peas of all things, and she just loves them. This is amazing to me as none of my other kids would even touch peas. I am pretty sure it is because I made the mistake of starting them on the good stuff - you know, bananas, peaches, pears, etc. So when it came time to introduce them to the green beans, peas and other veggies they would spit them out over and over again. Well "Duh"...why did I not start out with the yucky stuff first, then they would not any different?? I guess sometimes it takes a while to figure stuff like this out, 4 kids later, I have finally figured it out! "Good thing."

I guess I unexpectedly took something away from watching all of those episodes of The Fact's of life in the 80's - "you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life."