family time

 just a cute picture, not the actual tree

This was Karrick's year to pick the Christmas tree...last year we cut one down ourselves. We went to  Hackers Glenbard  Nursery that is around the corner and Karrick found our special tree. We also bought 2 large wreath's, a swag, 3 poinsettia plants and Callahan got a cactus. Our home has the most amazing smell

Never too old to play tag in the tree garden

hundreds upon hundreds of poinsettia's in every color

A beautiful white pine

 Family workouts

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We are trying to work out together as a family 3 times a week. Out health club Glass Courts prides itself on being family friendly. There is something for everyone. I am tired of not having any muscle tone. I just have to be careful with my neck. If we go as a family it's more fun and you can't back out...good support system

 the dork that takes pictures of herself

 TJ had me do "burnouts" ummm, OUCH!

TJ has to weight train 4 days a week after school at Glenbard East in order to play football next year. He still goes to the club with us, he'll lift some different weights, play racquetball and ping pong

 Tim is teaching Karrick the game. Everything in the club is open. All Racquetball court are visible from 1st floor. I was looking down some 20 ft (over a 4 foot wall upstairs)

Is there something wrong with a fully stocked bar in a health club? We go for the free popcorn, ping pong and big screen TV's

 A track surround the outside of the pool, Karrick just runs and runs, he is destined to become a track star....Forest Gump has nothing on him. We also play basketball in the open gym

 It started snowing really hard when we left Thur night (whatever night it snowed)

our house looks so cute in the blizzard

A little bit of Christmas

This is a fake blog, the real "A little bit of Christmas" is below...it logged as Friday, but it really happened on Saturday....shhhhh, don't tell anyone

I have been experiencing technical computer difficulties also explained in previous blog

a little bit of Christmas

So a trojan entered my computer and in the span of a week at least 6 virus's entered through that....Aarrgh! is all I can say. Thank God Tim is a computer genius...what do other people do when their computer gets completely trashed?

All my files were damaged. First Tim had to remove all my invaders...don't know how, but it took a day or two. Then he backed up my computer to TJ's computer, took overnight. I guess I have some crazy big picture files that would take 200 disks if Tim were to copy them. I believe he then copied files from somewhere onto disks to reset everything to factory settings, then reinstalled everything. As we speak my picture files are still loading

How did I get mister trojan? Not sure, but he popped up anti-virus warnings that were very similar to my anti-virus....me being ever so conscious clicked on them all. NOT A GOOD THING THEY WERE EACH A VIRUS

The moral of the story...Never open anything...call the master

It took a lot of Tim's time and I don't think it was easy, but it was Free! In between he even fixed my dishwasher...my personal handyman

Today we hung at home and put up our Christmas decorations. We got our tree during the week, but those pictures are still loading (see above :)) All I have are the photos I took today.Karrick and I made some Christmas cookies...pretty much against his will. I'm "always wasting all his time" me and school that is "school wastes all my time" is what he says all week long...on the bright side he only has 18 years left...

Karrick loves Rudolph...I mean loves him. We have all the reindeer that are on Santa's team. Karrick was pretty cute playing with them...not sure the game, but they were flying and rolling across the floor...reindeer wrestle possibly?

Again, mommy pulled him off the electronics to help make puffy felt ornaments. He was more receptive to this idea

Here is Santa snowman in the middle phase of completion. Karrick made a snow-globe out of felt, but we need glitter and fabric paint to complete. Callahan told him that if you put a snow-globe on the tree Santa will bring you more presents. Hey, whatever works, right?

Karrick in his secret fort...on my phone because he was starting to get the DT's from being off video games (I was sewing his snow-globe and caved to his whinning)

I believe the year was 1987, my mother ever so proudly gave each one of us kids a Liberace limited edition ornament. I really thought it was a joke...I was mistaken.

In honor of my mother I proudly display Andy Avelos in drag on our tree and when I go, I will pass it down to my first born son to carry on this tradition

Karrick made a concert with all our holiday singing animals, snowman and a tree. Each character sings a different song, but if you play each one at the same time you get a Christmas concert...yeah, ya really do

opps, I forgot to add jazzy Santa to the playbill
a side note: year before last I accidently stepped on Jazzy Santa and he broke...guess what?

They sell them everywhere, so yeah, we were able to pick another one up, otherwise our concert would be lacking

A final note: Tim said to write down any files that he missed....spell check, honey there is no spell check

Tj's new coat

 Today I took TJ to Yorktown Mall for a new winter coat, ski-pants, shoes, jeans and a hat. I have only one thing to say

 If 14 is an awkward age....

We are freakin screwed!!!

I don't care how socially unacceptable it is to say this, but

My kid is HOT!

and that face could not belong to a nicer, more polite hard working all around good kid

While driving to the mall, TJ told me he has a four year plan

Take honor classes the next 3 years of high school and not get lower than a "B"

Go to Florida State and play baseball

 Model in South Beach while majoring in medicine. He wants to be an internist.

The boy aims high and all we can do is support his dream

No matter what TJ ends up doing in life, as long as he is happy, we're happy

I snapped 5 pictures of TJ and got 5 awesome shots
and by the way...did I mention he picked out a way cute coat?

Date night

Tim and I went back to The Ivy in Wheaton for dinner, again with our Groupon. The food is so amazing even the butter is great. It is so good that I tried Tim's lamb chop with deep fried tomatoes and ate an entire lamb chop. I always hated lamb...never could stand the after taste...no yucky after taste here.

I was also excited to wear my new super cute outfit. Vera Wang and I have become good buddies (purple tights.)My outfit is really 100 times cuter in person. I have bought a ton of new nice clothes...call it a mid-life crises? I'm not sure, but I do know Tim seems to be enjoying it too

love my tights!

I am dying for these boots below and I am pretty confident in Santa this year. They are similar to ones I already have, except the Aldo boots below have a better sole and support. They also are knee high (almost knee high on me) and a tighter fit around the leg

 

a little bit of everything

My blogging has become lame....just sayin

I have started renovating the upstairs bathroom that I primed 8 months ago. Here are little bits that are almost complete

 The marble backsplash isn't glued to the wall yet, just getting a feel for it. Tim put in the new sink...it's much bigger than the old one and I really love the faucet. We have looked for a new cabinet for over the sink, but haven't found the right one yet

I love my disney prints, I bought them 2 years ago with some of my settlement money. With a house full of boys there really isn't any place to hang them, so my bath seemed ideal

 

 I had a meeting in downtown Arlington Heights and the park next door was all lit up

 I finally got Karrick an advent calendar that I fill myself. He doesn't like chocolate so the pre-made ones were of no use to him. I will say it cost me a good $25 bucks to fill. Today he got a Rudolph jingle bell which he was thrilled with. The little gifts were so big I had to wrap them all...see blue in background



and a fine pair of legs at that

Those fine legs belong to my Callahan...the 511 skinny jeans. Yeah, those Converse are slighlty large, but a good model always adapts and rocks it no matter what

Gingerbread House

My Moon

 Last night I was heading North on 355 just after the sunset. The Moon was low and bright orange. I seriously thought about pulling onto the shoulder of the road to capture it. An inner voice kept saying "not your best idea" By the time I reached my destination 30 min later, the bight orange moon and risen and faded. I still was able to capture some shot, especially when blown up and cropped. I am kicking myself for not pulling off the nearest exit....Aarrgh!

Kolh's Ad

Callahan for Kolh's. I missed the flyer or maybe it is in store only. Thank God for internet! He is suppose to be on the cover of Kolh's either next Wed or Thur

Lombard Thunder

Look what showed up in todays neighborhood paper. Thunder is going full-time this year, so we start in January with indoor practice and will continue until high school baseball begins.. Most of the boys will play high school ball, which doesn't allow you to step on another teams field. Thunder will not start any tournaments until high school ball is finished. There are only 3, 8th graders on the team the rest are freshmen,

I'm ready, already!