It takes a village

Every once in a while life gets so ridiculous that I feel it's worth writing about. Not your typical ridiculousness that happens here day in and day out. There's always craziness going on here. Yes, in between my twinkly lights and enjoying there's boys fighting, crying, screaming, spills, bumps, falls, toys thrown, you get the point. But that's our normal. I'm not complaining. We chose to have these two nuggets. We're lucky. We love them. But....

I just don't want to give them a false sense of reality so let me begin...

Last Wednesday, my radio in my car froze. Nothing would work and the display stayed one, even when they car was off. I asked Dave about it and he said it shouldn't kill my battery. Friday morning, I was already running late getting the kids to school. We got out the door, got buckled in, I went to start the car and nothing. Ugh. I had a 9:30 meeting that goes for 2 hours and I have to be involved and talking. It was 8:30. No problem just gotta get them to school somehow.

I get the kids out and we start walking to Katie's house so I can ask to borrow her car. As we're walking down the street another neighbor, Jen, stops and asks if I need a ride and if everything is ok. I explain to Jen what's going on and she said we could hop in her van and she'd take us after she dropped Brendan off at school. Brendan wouldn't get on the bus that morning so she was now taking him to school.

I have Zac on my hip and Tyler next to me and I tell them to get in Jen's van. They know her. Tyler wouldn't budge. He wanted me to go in first. As I try to crawl across Kayleigh (who was in the middle row) with Zac attached to my hip he starts screaming. Clinging to me for dear life (as if I'm trying to throw him in to cage of lions) refusing to get in the car and Tyler then decides he's not getting in either. Ok Breathe. Jen is trying to entice them with Scooby Doo movies that she'll put on for them if they get in. Nothing. Zac is having a fit. I put him down and tell Jen to just go and I'll walk to Katie's and just get her car. Zac is now laying in the road in a pile of leaves screaming. Great.

Jim our other neighbor pulls up behind Jen and we're now a small disaster on the street. Everyone pulls away. We continue walking. Mind you Katie only live about 4 houses away.

We get to Katie's. Walk in and she she says Jackson missed the bus this morning. She's trying to get her 3 out the door while trying to convince Brennan to put his shoes on instead of rain/snow boots. I get Brennan's shows switched. We plan on taking Jackson to school then going to daycare to drop Tyler, Zac and Brennan off. Good plan. We get to the car and realize we're not all going to fit.

Katie leaves us at her house while she runs to drop Jackson off. She'll loop back around and get us when she's done. I tell her Jen is going to swing by too on her way home and see if Zac will get in the car. We sit in her driveway and wait. It's 30 degrees, the kids are playing but nicely reminding me their hands are cold. I get it I wasn't wearing a coat. Blood pressure cuff would've been good at this point.

Jen pulls up. She tells us to try and get in again and we'll take her home and just take her van. Good plan except Zac still refuses to get in the van. Good thing I'm an experienced alligator wrestler. I wrangle him in the front seat with me as he screams and shove Tyler in the back of the van. We drop Jen and Kayleigh off and get the kids strapped in to their seats. Only thing is they just have a booster so Zac had to be seat belted in with the booster. We were driving one mile I wasn't very concerned at this point.

Katie asks where I am. She's on her way back to get me. Oh gosh she didn't get my text that Jen swooped us up first!

Zac is still screaming. We're driving and Tyler starts yelling "Mooooomm, he's out of his seat". Yep, he's standing on the seat in the back as I'm driving. We had about 15 seconds left to drive and I couldn't pull over. So we drive. We finally get to daycare and I drop them off. I zoom back to Jen's house, drop the van off and run home. It's about 9:25. I made it in time for my meeting and feel like I ran a marathon. Now, time to start my day. Phew.

I have awesome neighbors. I do.

The moral of the story. Don't listen to your husband when he says your battery won't die.

And one more thing to share on here. This next picture will go up at Zac's wedding. You can count on it. We took the grandkids to get pictures for Gram DePolo. There's a reason we've never taken Zac to get professional pictures. I just know it wouldn't be good. We get to the place for pictures and Zac wakes up he's been sleeping in the car. No bueno.

They call us to get the pictures and Zac will only take a picture if I'm in it. We try everything to get him to stand with the boys alone. Nothing is working. Gram needs a picture. Crap.

Dave suggests that the women cover me up with a backdrop that's the same color as the one she's using. She thinks that's a good idea to try and I'm not sure if she picked up that Dave was kind of kidding. Either way we'll try it.

I sit on a chair and she covers me up with the blanket and says to lean back as far as I could. Dave, Kris and Kyle's friend have lost it at this point laughing so hard and I couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard at what was happening. I was sweating. People are looking at us, other photographers are staring...hysterical. Dave is snapping pictures and getting told he can't take pictures by the photographer. Come on lady, wouldn't you want this picture in your kids baby book too?

Thankful

There's so much I have to be thankful for and I try not to focus on it just once a year. We have wonderful family, healthy kids, a roof over our head, food to eat, a warm house, clothes, jobs, cars, great friends and neighbors. We have so much to be thankful for every day but putting it all down once a year makes you realize how truly lucky you are.

We spent Thanksgiving with family, lots of food and playing in the snow. Perfect.

I got out my spiced apple toddy candle tonight and my smile was like someone had just given me a new car. I could not wait to light it. The tree is up, lights are twinkling, stockings are zip tied to the stairs, garland is hung, Christmas lists are being made and the air is chilly outside. Tyler decorated almost the entire tree this year. Zac handed him ornaments and they decorated together and didn't even break ornaments. Stuff like that makes me feel like they're getting old. Oh my babies aren't really babies anymore. I think I say that every other post on here but it's surreal.

Tyler has been in to doing chores lately. I came home the other night and the house was really clean. Dave said Tyler cleaned it by himself. He's started taking recycling and garbage out for me. I don't go with him he just takes it out himself...crazy. He was sweeping and mopping tonight. Hopefully this lasts!

I went for a 6 mile run this morning with some girls. I'm getting back in to things after my hernia surgery and also giving my ankle some time to heal. I think it's safe to say I'm a better person when I can exercise regularly. It felt so good. My quads hurt. I love that feeling because you know you did something that pushed your body.

We finally got a generator today. Since we now have one this will be the season that we won't have to use it I'm sure, but we have it. Dave is ready to juice that puppy up!

I haven't been taking many pictures lately. There's a few outtakes from our Christmas card picture and some other randoms like when Pop overloaded Tyler's mouth with Redi-Whip. There's Christmas cards to address and toffee to be made now. We're enjoying, actually I think we're always enjoying. Because what else is there to do?

Catchin up with pictures

Halloween 2014

Halloween...the day where tons of kids run around like crazies while lots of parents walk, talk and grab beers from their transporter of choice (ours being a wagon rolled around the neighborhood). Doesn't get much better! Our neighborhood is way awesome. The kids are free to run from house to house, running between yards, trick-or-treat...thank you, then on to the next house. Parents try to keep up but often get left behind only to catch up with the group of kids three houses down the road. From my mouth came the occasional "Ok, there's wolverine and a monster" the two I was looking out for and the occasional reminder that you better be saying thank you or else you'll go home...I'm a stickler for good manners and thank you's! Wolverine being Tyler and the Monster being his friend Kyle who just moved on to our street. The cuteness from the two of them was great. Their little feet going nine thousand miles a minute running after each other like no other. Then, there was the occasional fall, the cry of my entire candy bag just spilled all over the lawn and it's pitch dark out so I need help picking it up, but that only happened twice and one of wolverine's claws unfortunately didn't make it through one of those falls but thankfully he was some hyped up it didn't matter.

Zac rode in the wagon and ate goldfish for a while, then decided he'd trick or treat. Much more cautious than his brother, he'd slowly walk up to a house with Dave by his side, he'd utter trick-or-treat, give a very nice thank you and cautiously walk away and move on to the next house at a pace that was all his own. I'd hear Dave yelling in the distance "Beth! wait up! (only because he needed a refill)", we'd wait and catch up. Zac agreed to let go of his sick kick and let me have a turn with him going to a few houses and the sweetness from this kid was too much to handle. Gah, I love them!

We continued to enjoy the night hanging at a few neighbors houses, possibly crawling through bushes in a neighbors back yard so we didn't have to walk all the away around all while holding Zac in a wagon and laughing so hard I almost peed. We ended up coming home way late, but also realizing the kids had fun, so did we, and we all slept in really late the next morning (something I've been waiting for them to learn to do for 4 years now). Life's too short to not enjoy times like these!