A curse or a blessing... its one in the same

Twister has gone through about 15 diapers just today. Poor kid.
3:15 pm. School calls, Goose threw up in class. Benson leaves to pick him up.
3:25pm. Benson walks in door. Tank informs me her stomach hurts and proceeds to the bathroom and pukes.
3:30pm. School calls, "are you home yet? could you come back and pick up Sweetie, she just threw up."

I've NEVER had all my children sick at the exact same time. Its usually a case of one starts it and it goes through them all one at a time dragging on for days and weeks. So, maybe it is a blessing to get it all over with. At the moment, it feels like a bit of a curse. I'm usually pretty stoic through throwing up, I built up a tolerance when I worked at the plasma center (ha!), but my stomach is feeling a bit queasy right now. Wish me luck getting through the next 24 hours.

for a little laugh...

I don't think I've laughed so hard since I read ... this post of Corrine's a few weeks ago. Click there if you need more than one good laugh. Anyway, I hope I can get this out in words as hilariously as it was done in person... here we go.

I was in my craft room, reading updates from my friends on facebook when an adorable little voice startles me from behind. I turn and there are those bewitching dark brown eyes. With a couple little blinks, I then hear, "Mommy, I need to talk to you... Daddy has . . . *something* on his face, and it hurts me! . . . You need to come check it out."

This has that game "telephone" written all over it. I begin to wonder what the real message was as I ask her, "did Dad ask you to come get me?" Yes. Ok, so I start to walk towards the family room. I'm thinking he probably has a rash, or a zit or something that he is wanting me to take a look at. I sat down next to Benson and looked at his face. I can't see anything strange. Benson then asked me if Colette told me what was wrong. I say yes, she said Daddy has something on his face, and it hurts *her and I need to come check it out. I waited for him to clarify the message as it should have come out. Benson then asked Colette to show me the problem. She says, "right here mommy, see! I kissed Daddy's cheek and it hurt me!"

Can you figure out what it was?









Yup, his "scruff". I laughed so hard! She was so sincere about his problem! All I could do was tell her I *TOTALLY* agree.

The latest and greatest...

...from Designs in Floral. I was able to make this over the weekend (Thanks Benson!) I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I was afraid it would be too "bland" since the building are all mostly gray, but with a little ingenuity and the colors in various leaves, it turned out fun. Enjoy!

Guess what!?

Its colder here in Chicago than it is at the north pole today. Awesome.

http://www.slyrussian.com/images/chicago-colder-north-pole.jpg

Perfect day for our heat to go out. No, really, it did. The house temperature was falling fast, so I took refuge at my parents house while the repairman came. What is it I am still supposed to learn? I think I was grateful for my warm home. Maybe not grateful enough. It feels especially warm now. :)

and I quote...

From weatherbug.com :

"........Wind Chills Will Rise To 20 To 25 Below Zero By Friday Afternoon. "

No its not a typo.

Bbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Oprah...

So. . .

My good friend got tickets to Oprah. AND!... she invited me and 2 other friends to go with her. Usually you don't know what the topic is going to be for a show, but last week, my friend got a call from Harpo studios telling her that Kate Winslet was going to be on the show and we were "invited" to watch her 2 movies on Monday night compliments of Oprah. Pretty exciting. :) Her two movies were Revolutionary Road and The Reader. So, Monday night we drove downtown and watched these 2 movies back to back with a dinner in between...

I have to say the movies were my least favorite part of the experience.

Revolutionary Road was at least interesting to ponder and discuss, though my first comment after seeing it was "why does someone make a movie like that?" It draws you in and you can relate in various ways to different characters, but then sort of end up wishing you didn't relate to them. It was very emotionally intense. . .

The Reader was pretty bad. Well, let me clarify, it was really well done, but the story was one I could have lived without. It starts out for the first 30 minutes of the movie building up this love affair of a 30 year old with this 15 year old boy she calls "kid". Off air the air, Oprah asked the audience if she was the only one who thought it was sexually explicit. It was too much and just wrong. Some stories are better left un-cinemized.

That's my 2 cents.

Since there was a BLIZZARD watch for that night, we decided at the last minute to stay downtown rather than drive home at 11pm then back at 5am. Ironically, there was hardly ANY snow, but the hotel stay was an awesome get away, and a fun girls night out. We stayed up late talking girl talk and enjoying each other's company. I haven't been away from the kids overnight for this type of thing, well, ever!! It was definetly fun. The hardest part of it all was waking up the next morning to get over to the studio, but we all managed to get up showered and looking our best for Oprah.

The show was being taped live, so it moved pretty quick. Kate Winslet was the first guest... so it was fun to hear her opinions about the movies. Leonardo DiCaprio was "live via Skype". Not nearly as exciting as in person. By far. All though it was somewhat entertaining to watch him waiting for the interview to start. Maybe it was just me. Anyway, there was another few guests via skype, then it was over. Oprah answered some questions after the taping was done, which was very interesting... They even gave us a copy of the book "The Reader" to take home. I'm sure I'll never read it, but the gesture was nice. ha!

So, that was my first experience with Oprah, and my first girls night out getaway. It was a blast. :)

OPRAH! Here I come...

Keep your eyes open for this!
:)

So, a good friend of mine got tickets to Oprah and invited me to go along. We just found out that it is a LIVE taping this tuesday. So, watch Oprah on Tuesday and watch for the back of my head. I don't anticipate you being able to see anymore than that of me, but I'm SOOOOOO excited!

(ps, do you like the new "sassy" hairdo? I'm LOVIN' it!)

Ok, its been a while.

I guess I was going with the theme of no news is good news. Here are a few pics from our last few weeks. We've been very busy! The lighter pink is the new color for the walls. We'll finish painting when the new windows are installed.

This was a big project that I am SOOOOO loving. Benson built this pantry for me!! It used to be an entrance to the house, but we took out the door and made it into a much needed pantry. I have room for food storage!!


The kids had a slumber party as part of our New Years Eve celebration. We had my brother in town from Oregon, and another brother surprised us from North Carolina, so we were only missing a few people from my large family! It was a great week, and the kids had a blast!


A kiss to sign off for today. She dressed herself by the way. Love that girl. :)