Christmas at our House

1. Do you like hot chocolate or egg nog?

I like a Real Hot Cocoa, where you melt chocolate and then add heavy cream....no egg nog for me thank you

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just put them under the tree?
Santa fills stockings(if we are at our house) or he just puts them under the tree when we are else where for the Holidays

3. Colored or white lights on tree/house? I doesn't matter on the tree, but I prefer the multi colored lights or red and white ones....not a big fan of the purples, blues and other odd colors

4. Traditional Christmas or Contemporary/Mod Christmas? I love Traditional christmases all of the ornaments on our tree are ones that Kirby and I received each year as we were growing up, a lot of mine were home made by family members so they have a special meaning and We also have a few ornaments that were given to kieona and zaiden and a few that they have made, it makes the tree much more special when you know the story behind every ornament

5. When do you put up your decorations? Usually a few days after Thanksgiving, this year it was about a week after thanksgiving because we had to wait and get a tree, I don't like to decorate until I have my tree up ;)

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Oh boy, I love all of them

7. What is your favorite holiday memory from your childhood? When we were younger my mom, my brothers and I were up at my Grandma and Grandpa Acciavatti's and they were putting up their tree so we were staying to help decorate it. That particular year my grandma decided not to put rocks on the base of the tree to help hold it down. We were in the middle of decorating the tree and wouldn't you know it the cat decided to climb the tree! which she hadn't ever done before, the christmas tree starting tipping over and dispersed ornaments all over the place and when everyone righted themselves we looked around and all of us were covered with ornaments ;)

8. Do you open a gift on Christmas eve? Growing up we always opened all of our presents on Christmas eve, then we had our Santa Presents to look forward to on Christmas day morning. But now that we have kids and we usually travel back home for Christmas, we usually open our presents before we leave so that we don't have to take them with us, then we open presents with my side of the family on Christmas Eve and on christmas Day we open presents with Kirby's family

9. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? With all the ornaments that We have received over the years and with the kids homemade ones, and later today Kieona and I are going to make a paper chain and finish the tree off ;)

10. Snow! Love it or dread it? Oh I LOVE the snow......except the Coldness part of it and the ice..........But it doesn't really look like we will be having a white christmas this year, which is very very odd

11. Do you remember your favorite gift?I don't know that I've had an all time favorite gift, it usually changes from year to year

12. What is the most important thing about the holidays for you? spending time with family, its usually the time of year that everyone is able to make it home and spend it all together

13. What is your favorite Holiday dessert? My grandma's Cheesecake

14. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I love our Christmas dinners, where us, my mom, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and everyone get together and enjoy a huge dinner, then afterward we listen to stories from my grandpa about what things were like in his day and age and the mischief that he used to cause !

15. What tops your tree? Its an angel that you can plug into your strand of lights and it lights up, Kieona picked it out the first Christmas Kirby and I were married....I'm not too fond of it but Kieona loves it and thats all that matters! Its her job to put the Angel atop the tree each year and she won't let you forget it either!

16. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? I love giving! I love finding a great gift to give someone

17. What is your favorite Christmas song? Kieona's Christmas song, I'm not sure what she calls it but its great fun, its a mixture of all the xmas songs

18.Candy canes? I like a couple, this year we decorated them with pipe cleaners, googly eyes and red noses to look like reindeer

19.Do you feel Christmas is too commercialized? In a lot of ways, but as Laura said, its all in how you were raised

20. Favorite Christmas movie? hmmmm I still love Christmas story

21. Can you ice skate? not very gracefully

22. Are all your Christmas presents ready yet? Yup Yup!

Tag! If you've read this consider yourself tagged

Just a few pictures

Mom's Rodeo Princess........So serious though

Zaiden's mouth is always open in pictures! Notice his hat....yah its had better days

Zaiden playing on the Pirate Ship

Both kidlets playing on the ship, can't get them off!

all we need is our pirate flag and the masts up....but with the wind we have
the ship would probably fly away ;)

Seriously?

I have worked in customer service my whole life, so it takes a lot to bewilder me. But Friday took the cake....

Kieona, Zaiden, my daycare kiddo Brooke, Kirby and I headed into town Friday afternoon after nap time. We had some errands to run and kirby had to become re-instated as an Independent Contractor.

One of our stops was Walmart, Kirby needed to get his watched fix so the kids and I meandered thru the store waiting for it to be done.....Zaiden was sitting in the designated seat, Brooke was sitting nicely on her bottom in the cart and Kieona was holding onto the side of the cart...Kieona asked if we could go look at toys, so off to the Toy Chaos we go! While Looking down an aisle of matchbox cars, The kids were pointing and jabbering away, none of the kids were being unruly or acting like monkeys they were just excited like well....like kids in a toy store =)

When along comes this lady.......she sees the 3 kids........2 of which look like twins(zaiden and brooke) and my protruding belly, and she snidely says "You're expecting another one?!" and I say "yup!" and much to my amazement she says "well I'm sure glad its you and not me!" at this point I'm just a little fed up, her attitude plus my pregnancy hormones just aren't mixing well. She turns to walk away and says to her daughter whom looks to be about 13 or 14, and she voices it just loud enough so I can hear...."Those are the people you have to watch out for, They take advantage of 'the system' and just live off of wellfare and medicaid, they live to have more kids" AND as she says this my blood is reaching the boiling point......I turn around and I say "excuse me, but my family and I DO NOT live off 'the system' we don't have medicaid, food stamps or any other sort of government offering! Maybe you should be more careful of how you act in front of your young impressionable daughter as she is the future."

So Seriously What the Heck?! Where do people get off saying this stuff to people, sure some peope may be thinking it, but its another thing to voice it! GRRRRRRRR

Messenger

For all of you that I keep in contact thru Either Yahoo instant messenger or thru Myspace's Skype Messenger, I am no longer going to be using those I am only using MSN, so if you would like my contact info just leave me a comment and I will give you my e-mail addy
Thanks

Hanging in the Balance

This is for all you family members that have been asking us what we are going to be doing for Thanksgiving, Christmas and so forth....We don't really know!

The financial rug has been jerked from beneath our feet and we are not sure absolutely positive if we will be back for all of Thanksgiving or not. All thought we are about 90% sure that we will be attending Thanksgiving dinner. But we will probably not be spending the long weekend....why you ask? well my 2 daycare girls will no longer be in attendance beginning Dec 1, and my other little daycare boy's attendance is still up in the air(due to a possible lay off at parent's work) SO, I have went out on a job hunt and have secured a retail job, but as you know the busiest shopping day of the year is the day AFTER thanksgiving, so there is the reason for not being home for the whole weekend.

Christmas? Well who knows if we will even have the money to drive back home for Christmas, it all depends on job situations. I really would like to spend the Holidays with Family but well feeding my family is my priority.

Any more questions? Please ask and I'll let you know, but as of right now this is our life and in 2 short months its going to be shaken upside down again by a new family member.....

Halloween 2008!

HALLOWEEN 2008

Kirby and I took our kids and then one of my little daycare boys(who's name is also Logan) to the Helena trick or treat for Little tykes. Over 70 businesses participated, and a TON of little trick or treaters went from business to business in downtown Helena. This was a great way to go trick-or-treating as it was in the afternoon from 1-4ish so we were able to get our trick-or-treating done before dark and before it got too cold and we didn't have to deal with getting kids in and out of a vehicle every 5 minutes to go door to door!

Zaiden the Dragon, Kieona the Pink Poodle, Logan the Horse, and Thing 1 & 2(I don't remember their names! woops)

Baby Name Ideas!

Baby Names!

I need some help thinking of some Boy names!
Kirby and I have already picked out a great name for a little girl, but we now need a boy name.
All your ideas and comments would be greatly appreciated ;)

So FAR.........We have come up with a few possibilities such as
Malachi
Tucker
Ryder

MAKE FREE MONEY! Wahoo

So seriously people go to this site.......... Www. youdata.com create a free 'mefile' the more info you use the better money you'll make! Then, check back daily and go check out their suggested sites, each site you visit you earn money, the more things you investigate and click on the more money you will make, its not a lot of money but hell its free right?

Today I made $4.55 so far!

there are 2 catches.........1-You need a Paypal account, 2-You must have a cellphone as this is how they verify that you really are a person oh and you have to be able to receive text messages to receive their acceptance code.

So go now! Any question please feel free to ask me ;)

Anniversary Weekend

This last weekend Kirby and I headed over to Post Falls, Idaho to see my mom. We headed over on Friday Evening after we both got done working. Then Saturday we left the kids with my mom, and stayed at the Bennett Bay motel, it was a neat old motel. It was right on Couer d'alene lake and each bedroom had a different theme(i think ours was a hawaiian theme) and each room had a hot tub right in the room! Which would have been great if they would cut down on the amount of chlorine that they use, we turned the jets on and it put tons of chlorine into the air......I got out immediately and my eyes burned the rest of the night from the chlorine in the air, so we had the windows open the heater going full blast....maybe they should just invest in a different ventilation system?
We also went out to dinner at the Wolf Lodge Inn, Oh my goodness they have the BEST steaks Ever! Yum Yum, and they are even reasonably priced. It wasn't anything fancy just a really good cowboy steakhouse out in the middle of nowhere.
With out the kids Kirby and I did most of our christmas shopping! YAY! (laugh all you want)
We took the kids with us to Cabela's and spent a good chunk of the day oggling everything they had to offer, what an awesome store!
hmmmm that about sums it up I suppose
We Headed home on Sunday evening from a nice sunny 65 degree Idaho and met up with a buttload of snow in Avon. So needless to say we got to drive 35 MPH over McDonald Pass, because it was so icy and snowpacked. We finally got home about 11pm UGGH! i hate getting home late from excursions, but oh well at least we got home all in one piece!

Chaos of a homeowner

OK for those of you who have been asking about the pictures of progress on our home here ya go.....although these aren't really up to date, the newest of these pictures were taken towards the end of April....I will be posting more pictures as soon as the rooms are the way I want them to be(well if that ever happens!)

Basement living room area when we moved in

The other side of the basement living room, when we moved in
Lots of work to come!

Hanging Sheetrock

We had to frame in the Duct Work

Mudding away....notice all the crap laying around me? ya.......hmmm maybe I should have moved it, maybe working would of went faster

Mudding the screw holes......notice I am always the one working in the pictures? =)

Fresh coat of Bright blue paint! (not sure I like it now though, maybe have to change it!)

Laying the Pergo flooring!





WAHOO ALL DONE!




Only took us about 1 1/2 hours to cut and lay it......its so nice not seeing that cement!

Here is a picture of the office in the basement, this is how it was when we moved in

The Basement office sheeted, we also had to frame in the doorway as it was a giant opening and rather odd ?

I know you cant see very well in this picture, but the walls are all textured and awaiting a coat of paint......Those pictures will be coming as soon as my office is finished...that far left wall is going to be a GIANT book case to house my growing collection of books

Mom! Your Hippos are Falling out!

Last weekend I went to Target to try and find some Maternity tops, as I honestly didn't have many from my last 2 pregnancys........Well I found one, I call it my Slutty maternity shirt because it really shows my cleavage off, Note to self: Next time wear a Cami underneath!

Well I decided to wear it the other day. We were sitting down to dinner and I was leaning over to cut some food up for Zaiden and Kieona says, "MOM! Your Hippos are falling out!" I sat down and I said Hippos? what HIppos? and then it hit me, my boobs were popping out of my shirt! Doesn't help that they have grown from enormous to Ginormous, make finding a bra damn near impossible! So seems as I am the butt of the Family joke right now =)

But seriously Hippos? are they seriously that huge? LoL

Ranting raving lunatic

Ok so I know I haven't been very good at updating this blog very much...but well everytime I sit down to write something, I just can't! Well actually I can, but its just a bunch of mindless blabbing and complaining. AND I figured if I didn't have anything nice to say than I just wouldn't say anything at all! Except today, I figured I would clue you all in =)

Number 1 Rant for today=Stupid Wells Fargo Bank! When we moved up here in January we opened checking accounts and savings accounts through Wells Fargo....Its been 9 months of nightmares! They don't post deposits to our accounts, so we have a butt load of bounced checks GRRR! They keep charging us some random monthly fees(which shouldn't be there as its a FREE account!) now this wouldn't be too bad, except we have 2 checking and 2 savings accounts, and EVERY month since we have opened the darn account we have had a problem or two with EACH account! Thats a lot of mistakes! I feel bad for the people that are getting taken advantage of because they don't pay close attention to their account, Wells Fargo has got to be making a buttload of money off of them! HA BUT NOT US! Well yesterday was the last straw, I had made 3 deposits within 3 days and not one of them showed up! They lost the checks! and we were well beyond overdrawn.......we are now taking our business elsewhere.

Number 2 Rant for today=About 2 years ago, Kirby sold his Explorer to a friend. We were financing it for her, since we owned it out right. We weren't even going to charge her interest and we gave her a more than fair price on the Explorer. Well now we are down to the last little bit of the loan and she thinks that we are trying to screw her, because she figures she only owes us a couple hundred dollars whereas she actually owes us better than 600. This really just bugs that shit out of me because, we never said anything when she couldn't make payments for 7 months, anyone else would have went and repo'd the vehicle. Moral of the story......NEVER HELP A FRIEND OUT.....I guess?

Number 3 Rant for today= The stinking full moon~! There has been a full moon out for the last couple nights, which means sleepless nights for me, because Zaiden doesn't sleep during the full moons UGH! SLEEEEEPPPPPP I want sleep! I feel like a Zombie =) Oh well it should be gone soon right?

Number 4 Rant for today=I can't stand my house! Its horrible.......well maybe not the house, maybe its my housekeeping abilities! But I tell ya what I really do clean, and pick stuff up, I do it all damn day long! I'm going to blame it on the 5 little tornadoes running around =) oh and the fact that we need to finish our Storage Issues, than I think I should be fine! Phew!

Ok I Promise I am done! Now for 4 good things of today!

Number 1 Success for Today=I got free stuff! =) My Home and Garden Party company accidently sent me extra stuff...and I don't have to return it or pay for it! WooHOO

Number 2 Success for Today=I think I sold my Toyota Tundra! YIPPY SKIPPY! The guy is going to come and take it for another test drive tonite =)

Number 3 Success for Today=Result of the Full Moon and a sleepless Zaiden, I got lots of cuddle time with my little boy! which is very unusual as he always has to be moving!

Number 4 Success for Today=Its SUNNY! AND the day is almost over Wahoo!

Its a....................

So as many of you all know, I went in yesterday for another Ultrasound to see the gender of our baby. And well baby was being shy! Little stinker as Kieona would say. But they said that they are Pretty sure its a girl, which is good enough for me, since I have had that feeling that it was a girl! But I think the not knowing 100% will sort of fun in the end to see exactly what our baby is going to be =) But then again ask me that in a month and I might already have an ultrasound scheduled to see if that hunch is correct!

Kirby and I hadn't really thought of any baby names yet on account we were just going to wait and find out the gender of the baby making it easier to come up with names, so now we need to sit down and hash out some names! so any input would be great! and as you guys know we like different or as some people say Odd names so the quirkier the better!

H&GP

Ok so as many of you know, and for those who don't....I am now a Home and Garden Party Designer. At the moment I am looking for people to host parties for me, there is absolutely no pressure for you to buy anything, I am just looking to meet new people that I do not know, so that I am able to broaden my customer base! As a matter of fact the hostesses usually come out of the party with quite a few free gifts plus they can get many items at 1/2 price!

If any of you are interested in hosting a party let me know! We could even do an online party or a book party, I can just send you a few books and you go around and show your friends collect their orders and money and you get free stuff!

Oh and one nice thing about this party is......there is no S&H for a hosted party! For online parties there is a $4.95 shipping charge.

To take a look at the website please go to

www.homeandgardenparty.com

right now there are some really neat hostess gifts! Such as a Baking Stone Retail Value is at $29.50 keep it for yourself or use it as a gift!

Swimming Lessons

The last two weeks I have been taking my daughter and a girl I watch to swimming lessons. Last Friday was the Last day, Yay!


You can't tell but she was sticking her tongue out =)

Mommy and Zaiden watching Kieona

Kieona Using her "scoops" and blowing bubbles

Look at that face!

She loves swimming, with a life jacket on

Good Ol' Days and Boat races

Patiently waiting the Parade

Look!

Here it comes!

Fighting for Candy

Taking a break at Great Grandparent Acciavatti's

Helping Poppa water his "Not a Garden" (family Joke)

What a big helper!

Making sure that the dirt is all wet

Kirby at Great Grandparents

"look how fast I can go mom!"

Avah, Kieona's Friend from Mission Valley

Avah's Mommy, Amanda, we were pregnant at the same time

Forget the Boat races, I have a Sucker!

Ohhhhh

Kieona and Avah picking "berries"

Miss Avah

That red boat was a woman driver.....kicking EVERYONES booty!

Zaiden and Daddy

Picture update

Here are a few misc. pictures from the last few monthsKieona wearing Her princess attire

Gotta love the striped tights that she HAS to wear!

Nightly occurance, surrounded by books and plastered with stickers

Caged Monkeys, Zaiden and Miss Brooke