Aunt Jo's Birthday too

On Saturday was Aunt Jo's birthday party and the cuzzins came over and joined in the
celebration. mmm..chocolate cake. How am I ever supposed to get to slim and slender with all these tempations. There is always a lot of good food around too. Aunt Jo made her famous potato soup that I ate all week and we are anticipating Nana to make her spaghetti sauce too.

Another New Year...ooo boy

2010 here we come. Time just flies by in these parts when you are involved with four little buggahs and all their activities. We are still having fun and nothing much changes except there are no more messy diapers to change. Sometimes thats unfortunate because it was pretty cool to always have a baby around the house. In the meantime, we'll just make do with what we have. For the time being I'll just have to ramble on about the happenings around the old household.

First, Christmas came and went so quickly. It was awesome to have all four of them so eagerly anticipating the arrival of Santa Claus. The kids got pretty much what they wanted. Thankfully, there were no complaints and no one felt slighted. Thats always a concern. Believe it or not, we are still putting together toys in the house. Last night I put together a race track for Jack to run his little cars around. He is starting to talk in full sentences fluidly and its a riot to hear him say his little sayings. He told me the other day not to tell him that he's driving me crazy. He picks up so much so we have to be careful what we say around him because he questions everything. He hasnt broken anything recently...if he did I completely forgot about it. We were going to buy a new TV after Christmas, one of those new LED ones....that is until jack took a pool ball and bounced it off the screen of our existing old TV. That made us think that we might just wait another year for the high end Television. He came into the bed last night and kicked us all night long......allllll night long. He was sick earlier in the week so we're taking it easy on him. We were looking on the computer last night and he saw a picture of Kevin Youkilis and he told me that he saw him at the coffee shop last week. There is a guy at the place that somewhat looked like him. He loves going to the coffee shop still because of his girlfriend that owns the place. I love to listen to him talk about his girlfriend Tricia.

Catherine has been loving her pre-school. Every week she has to come out with a new show and tell that starts with the letter of the week. Last week she took a picture of Kara for K and this week it was the letter L and she brought a picture of Laura. Jim Jim was made because it wasnt fair that she had no pictures of him. She is such a happy go lucky kid, always smiling and inquisitive, our best sleeper. We went to the riverwalk today with the two youngest and walked a couple of miles in the freezing cold. I know its hard to believe but we ended up going to the train and Coffee shop the other day too.

Dear old Laura was sick earlier this week and missed a day of school. Her and Catherine still enjoy the irish step dancing classes. We see them dancing all over the house. Today, we went to the car wash and unfortunately there was no octopus to clean the car so we couldnt scare them. what parents~~

My little Jimmy boy hasnt left baseball behind just because its the winter. On Friday nights he has baseball lessons in a cold old mill building. He just doesnt seem to mind. Its plant, stride, pivot and swing over and over again. I have to admit, cant really wait till baseball season begins. This year we'll have Catherine on one field playing t-ball, Laura playing softball and then Jimmy playing minor league ball. Jimmy has been playing basketball on Saturdays now too. For once he isnt the only one taking shots at the basket. There is another kid that takes more shots then he does and that takes some effort. Last week he nailed two shots from way downtown and he knew it. fun stuff but of course I didnt have the camera with me. Speaking of the camera, I took 10,000 pictures in 14 months. That takes some effort.

Strawberrty Shortcake visited us from Florida in the last week. Unfortunately, it was because she had a funeral. We were still very happy to see her. I wonder if the kids still think she's Strawberry Shortcake. Probably not, but I think Jimmy has a crush on her. He always talks about her. I can see why.......but its blood ya know.

In the back yard we have created a nice little sledding track for the kids to go flying down. Umple Eddie came over one night and made the track for them to use. The snow isnt so easy to glide down before its packed down and sure enough, there was umple packing down the powder for the benefit of the kiddies. I actually went down on it with them last night and was my little bottom very sore. I love how these kids arent wimps in the cold. If you are going to live in this area of the country, you really have to learn to like doing things in the snow. Otherwise, there is only video games and we are not 24/7 video people.....though Jimmy keeps telling me that he wants me to learn how to play x-box with him. I just was never a video game person but I just might take it up. I'd prefer to throw footballs and baseballs with the kids though.

I almost missed it but this is post 301. Thats incredible and is still very fun to do, so very easy also and I'm very glad I decided to do this.

2009 in review

Christmas 2009

We always keep thinking that Christmas is right around the corner and then poof, its here in our face - always with us forgetting some things or having put off some stuff to do and let them pass because there was always time to do it before Christmas.

Christmas came and went in a flash. The night before Christmas we went over Kara's house for some crazy food.

The kids got tons of gifts once again. Most importantly, Laura got several of her gifts that were marketed on infomercials. Jack got his Hess car, James got his ipod and Catherine got her Zuzu's, among other things.

Early Christmas morning yawns

spongebob squarepants

On Christmas we all went over to Uncle Patrick's house for some good grub and then we went over to Kara's house for some more. Ump was over at Kara's with Paula and Bobby too along with aunt Jo, Nana, Doe and Grammy Micki. Once we were done there we decided that we'd go over Bill and Thresa's house for their annual Christmas night party, calling everyone and anyone and singing 'we wish you a merry christmas'. The kids wore down little by little. It was a long day for them but for the most part, they did great. Nana and Doe went with us over to Thresa's house. Patrick has done over their kitchen and it looks real good.

Ruled by the kids again

Lyn picked up Catherine the other day from pre-school. She hadnt been able to pick her up much lately so Catherine took full advantage. Usually when I pick Catherine up from school she gives a song and dance about how she never gets to go to MacDonalds, Burger King or whatever she choses. Sometimes, of course she wins. Like last week, one day I brought her to MacD's and the other was at Burger King because they have better prizes. Fast forward two days later, Lyn went to pick up Catherine and received a story about how the other kids get to have private time with her or I. Catherine told her that she NEVER goes to Burger King. Of course Lyn bought it hook line and sinker. Lyn repeated the days events and how she felt bad for Catherine because of.........Imagine her surprise in finding out that the NEVER was only two days ago.

I got a billion dollars

We got some envelopes with money in them for the kids. Joan from next door was over the house and she usually gives the kids a gift, this year she told me that she would rather give them a card with money so they could buy what they wanted. Jack was so excited when he opened the card in front of her he yelled out "I got a billion dollar". She told me when she was young there was an 'old' lady down the street from her that used to buy the kids gifts for Christmas and she wanted to be that woman that the kids remember. Jack ran over and gave her a big hug.

O' Christmas Tree

Catching up with the Christmas Tree pictures. A good time was had by all.

Another Christmas Party

Another Christmas party for the family, this time Lyn's family party. It was good to see santa show up and Jackie again went and sat on his lap with no problem. There was a pinata and we had some stars in our family I must say. When all the kids were taking some whacks at the doll it didnt seem to move until Laura got up there and gave it a whack, breaking it wide open. Jimmy did the next one knocking it up into the roof. Jack just likes to hit anything with a stick and Catherine was her dainty self.

They once again had the nativity scene. Jimmy was one of the three kings, Laura was .....i forget what they called the people with the sacks on and Catherine was an angel.

meg and Lyn

Catherine's pre-school Christmas party

We all headed over to Catherines Christmas party at her pre school. she was so happy to have us there. Jack was unbelievable just hanging around in the corner playing with the toys and eating all the chocolate chip cookies. Santa Claus showed up there too and gave Catherine this great shirt. She was also sitting with some boy named Andrew B and her friend Catherine Q.

Whats up December

This cold weather just comes slamming in on us so quickly doesnt it? We really cant complain because we had so many beautiful days in November. Jack and I have gotten into the habit of going out at least once a week when its just he and I in the house all day, at least half the day. He has a girlfriend, the shop owner, at the coffee shop. She stops everything she's doing to come over and pouring Jack's drink. The bad part comes when he wants to eat some coffee cake or muffins. Oh the mess. If he's home he is all over the place, but if its just he and I its do-able. the other day he had done something nutty again and I said "jack !!" and he says to me "Daddy, dont say-you are driving me crazy".
Catherine has been bringing me home great prizes that she makes at school. She loves to be picked up at school by daddy. Alot of the days we are lucky enough to have Karen or Nana pick her up but sometimes I get the honor and it is fun to watch her. Last Friday she and I went out to lunch after I picked her up. I had asked her where she wanted to go and I left it totally up to her as to where we went. Of course she wanted to go to McDonalds for a happy meal. It was good that we went there because we ran into a friend of Grammy Franny's. Lena used to go to Foxwoods with mom and they would share a room. Mom always said she drove her crazy because she would follow her around and look over her shoulder. One thing that mom didnt like was when people followed her around or didnt trust her to be on her own while she was fueling her gambling addiction. The one thing that is hilarious about anywhere we go is that she all of a sudden have to go to the bathroom, like right now. It can get frustrating as hell but she's so cute as she cups her hands and bounces around. so cute I say.
Laura got me to sign up to volunteer again this week. She's so funny at night when she tries to suck me into lying in her bed and doing whatever she wants me to do. I'm thinking she knows how to play daddy. She'll say "daddy, can I talk to you"...and of course I cannot say no to her.
James has been doing baseball and basketball again. Obviously it is indoor baseball. He's just doing a hitting clinic but he's loving it. On Saturday he plays basketball. He hustles his heart out but unfortunately he gets his father's basketball genes. He was playing against Claytons team this week and of course he was doing his usual trash talking with him. they are good kids.

I'm a lucky birthday boy

I was at the family christmas party yesterday and someone asked me how old i was going to be tomorrow. i told them I was going to be 35. The bartender was confused because he had played football with me thirty years ago and couldnt understand how I could be in the same league, same age group as he was while I was such a young age. I guess that is what you call "Busted" !!