A Year in Review...

Stealing ideas from Christa. I too put links in the titles in case anyone wanted to take a quick peek back. Thanks for sharing my year with me.

January 2005: I hate that I cry. A purging of the soul.

I hate that I cry. It feels like such a weakness to me. I don't cry at weddings or sad movies. I don't cry at funerals.

February 2005:Yuck!! Stomach Flu.

So I have won the championship in body fluid spewing contests. Thursday morning I came down with what I thought was a quick bout of the woogies.

March 2005:Weebles wobble and they do fall down.

Yup, I am one giant Weeble Wobble and I took a nice spill down the basement stairs yesterday. All is fine with baby and me, but it was quite the scary moment.

April 2005:2 week update

Daniel is a sweetheart. I am so in love with him. We just went to the docs for a weight check b/c he was still dropping last week, but this week we are back up to 9lbs

May 2005:We interupt your regularly scheduled programming for this break in mental health.
I felt I needed to do a tribute for mother's day. How can I dislike my own mother so much? Isn't that just an aweful way to feel?

June 2005: Untitled post. It's a picture of the man.

July 2005:He fell off the couch

Daniel is OK and so am I, but I felt like such a terrible mommy. It happened a few nights ago. Let me start by saying how incredibly sleep deprived I am (as many of you are, I know).

August 2005: Penneys Pic.
I love this pic of Danny at 3 months. It looks like the bear is telling him the most fascinating story

September 2005:Daniel's Christening

So today was Danny's christening and of course it couldn't be uneventful. My family arrived at my house and my mom and I were going to go to mass and then call everyone back at the house to come down to the church

October 2005: Way Back Wednesday!!

Here we go...it's heavy petting time thank to TKW

November 2005:I feel so ugly.

And I’m not talking about my reflection in the mirror, although that too is leaving something to be desired

December 2005:The Christmas Spirit is Alive and Well

So can you feel the love. I really wish I had chose this pic as my Christmas Card pic, but I did not.

It would appear that I have been tagged

Christa has tagged me for 5 facts about myself. Thanks to Katie for bringing it to my attention. Now I have to come up with 5 things about myself.
1. It took me 5 1/5 years to graduate from college. I started out as a Studio Art major and devoted 2 1/2 years to that goal. I then switched to science and graduated with a bachelors in biology. I am the first and only person in my immediate family to attend and complete a 4 year degree.
2. I started partying when I was 13 years old. My first "partying" beer was a Heini up on the old railroad tracks with Kristen, Carl and Shaad. I used to go to this place called "camp" which was back in the woods and was an awesome place to party. I have a lot of great memories there. I also used to party on old dirt roads around bon fires. I wonder how much to tell my kids when they get older. Yikes!!
3. My first boyfriend (I was 17) had a criminal record and a daughter. He was an alcoholic and a drug addict and I loved him with all of my heart. The best thing he ever did for me was to break my heart and let me go. I was so in love I don't know if I would have ever moved on and I think he always knew we weren't meant to be together.
4. I get physically nauseous when I look at bee hives and pine cones. I know, I know I am a freak. It's all those repetative dark crevices that make me sick. I don't like photographs of the brain either with all of the deep convolutions.
5. I've been smoke free for a little over 8 weeks now. I have quit before (on at least 3 occassions), but at least 2 of those times were because I had too not because I wanted too. After the birth of my boys I had only been able to remain smoke free for about 6-8 weeks. The difference this time is that I CHOSE to quit. I had/have my reasons (2 of the most important are currently asleep) and I believe I will remain smoke free this time.

Now that I have hung my freak flag out I should probably tag someone. But seeing as everyone I know has already been tagged I'll leave it to anyone who checks in here is welcome to feel as though they have been tagged. Leave me a note so I can check you out.

Christmas with my boys!!!!

It's Christmas morning with Santa's cutest little ELF!! Danny was such a doll all day.

I love the expression on Jacob's face. This is what Christmas morning should always be like.

Santa forgot one of his reindeer at my house Christmas Eve.

Mama and her boys. I have everything I could ever want for Christmas in my arms.

Look...I caught the reindeer!!

Norman Rockwell or Clark Griswald?

Yes people tis the season once again. And as I have mentioned in the past I was going for that Norman Rockwellian thing again this year. Go here to last years NRC to see how well that worked out for me. So this years plan involved me taking last Friday off of work to trim the tree, bake cookies, shop and generally Fa La La La La. We were suppose to have purchased our tree the weekend previous, but do to sick children that didn't happen. So I decided we could get it on Thursday and put it up so the branches had time to settle before we decorated it. Thursday came and went with no tree because the kids and myself were sick. Friday morning I was not doing well at all, although the kids were definately on the upswing. Bless Ethan's heart, he did his best to make things go smoothly. He made breakfast in the morning, but all cavities in my head were full of snot so I barely ate. It's hard to eat when you have to stop breathing for the process.
The day mostly involved me drugging myself with cough medicine, sinus medicine and cough drops. By 1:00, Ethan had the kids ready to go and dragged me out of the house. We bought his parents their gift and went on to purchase our tree. We did succeed in putting the tree up, but that was it.
Saturday, again I was too sick to do the tree.
Sunday, Ethan and I put on the lights, but after 2 strands I had enough and said 300 lights sound good enough to me. Then we did the garland. I am usually very particular but this year I just threw it on. Hell I let Jacob wrap it around the tree. I was a little bummed no ornaments were up so when E came home from work he put the ornaments on for me (I did help some). We were very careful to put the fragile glass ones at the top.
Did I mention I had asked E to secure the tree to the wall? yeah, well. When I came home from work Monday the tree looked "off" to me. It took me a bit before I realized the tree must have taken a spill. I'm not sure how many ornaments we lost. I've been collecting ornaments for my tree for 32 years so this hurts a tad bit. But it is all just material and at least the tree didn't come down on the kids or anything. BTW, the tree is now secured to the wall. In fact it is tied so tight it is tilted toward the wall and most of the remaining ornaments are facing the back. I really need to fix this. lol.

Cara..

Not sure if you are still out there reading these things, but I wanted to let you know I am following your chart and thinking of you this month.

I need new wine glasses

I'm on my 3rd refill!!

The Christmas Spirit is Alive and Well

So can you feel the love. I really wish I had chose this pic as my Christmas Card pic, but I did not. I couldn't think straight when I had to make my choices because the whole photo shoot was stressful, but this one just cracks me up now