The Thanksgiving Narrator!

Sarah's 1st grade class put on their Thanksgiving play on Monday. She had several lines to learn and she did fantastic. She was very nervous. I did notice while I was there that this must be the time of year that 1st graders loose their front teeth. There were several children with one or both of their teeth gone, so cute.

Parade #2

This is a picture of Sarah in her second Christmas parade of the season. She was in it with her dance studio, In His Steps. I tried to get a picture of Jacob, he walked with his cub scouts group, but he practically ran by me when they went by. It was a long parade, there were a TON of cub scouts and girl scouts. My favorite was the Up float. It was great, but again they went by too fast and I didn't get a picture. Thats it for us for parades this season, so until next year we'll put our princess waves away.

Family

I could say a lot about this picture but mainly I want to say show the people in your life how much they mean to you before it's too late. My children have been fortunate to know their great grandma, something I wasn't able to do. This Thanksgiving tell your family and true friends how much they mean to you, you don't know what tomorrow will bring.

My Brother

This is my brother and his beautiful family, my sister in law Allison and nephew Chase.

We are spending the day with them tomorrow for Thanksgiving cause with his new job he will have to work on Thursday.

Let me tell you about my brother.....

He used to be a repo man, yes a repo man, the dude that comes to your house or place of business and takes your stuff when you stop paying for it. He told us some funny stories, some scary stories and played it off like it was no big deal. I worried about him all the time. He didn't work in the best area and he had guns pulled on him numerous times. He is a big guy, I would be scared of him if he showed up at my house in the middle of the night but truely he is a big teddy bear. He has a new job now (thank you Lord). I don't know the name of where he works but from what I understand it is like a juvenile home. He is in charge of a cabin of boys (men). Once again he could be in some danger, some of these boys have done some pretty bad things. But the BIG difference is that this is what he was destined to do. He is getting the opportunity to make a difference in these boys lives. He is going to be someone that they confide in, someone that they will learn to trust, someone that will care a lot more than a lot of people ever have in their lives. The trick will be for them to figure that out. This past summer I went to one of Chases baseball games that Josh helps coach. I loved the enthsiasm I saw on his face. He just likes to help people. He didn't get some college degree to teach, or counsel, or mentor but I bet he will be better at this then most people that did. I am proud of my brother and although we haven't always been that close (I guess I was pretty mean to him when we were younger lol) I love him and I hope that everyone out there that knows him knows that they are lucky to have him in their life! Well except all those people that he had to repo something from!!!

Four in a Row!!

That's my man, Jimmie!! I have to admit I was a bit nervous, thinking he might screw it up. Run out of gas or something crazy like that...he's disappointed me before. But not today, a perfect day.
Congratulations Jimmie Johnson on another championship!!

Santa is my Homeboy!

So those of you that know me, all 6 of you, know that I work at CDC and that I am in charge. Something I have to tell my staff is that you can NOT have favorites because it is not fair.

You shouldn't have one specific child that you pay more attention to.

You shouldn't think that one specific child is cuter than the others in the room.


You shouldn't go into his room and hold him, play with him, and kiss him more than the others.

You shouldn't hold him while he sleeps cause sometimes he has a hard time sleeping at day care cause he's a little bit spoiled but make the other children sleep in their beds.

You probably shouldn't give the staff the "look" when this child is crying and they are not doing EVERYTHING they possibly can to make him happy, even though they happen to be busy with one of the other children in the class.

and you probably shouldn't let this child sit on your desk and tear up your calendar and eat your favorite Mickey Mouse pen cause he wants to.

Did I mention that I am in charge and those rules don't apply to me.

and just so you know I do happen to have a few others that fall into this category but their parents don't encourage me to blog about them.

Good times In Kzoo

So CDC was in the Kzoo Christmas parade again this year. It was a beautiful day, and I have never seen so many people at the parade. Cortnie and the kids came with Sarah and I to be in it. Sarah volunteered to be a Christmas tree. At first she wanted to walk, then she decided to ride on the trailer. About half way through the parade she realized it would be much more fun to actually walk. We had a great time.

Me and my tree!
Sarah in her Christmas pjs waiting for the parade to start.

Zach and Sarah I told them that this would be one of the pictures that we'll frame and put on display at their wedding, they both laughed.

So she didn't wear it during the parade but Cortnie decided to model the tree costume for the two seconds it took me to take the picture.

Where's Kenny?

So I'm enjoying the CMA's...all my favorites.....

Like Lady Antebellum, oh I love Charles Kelly and thank God she finally dyed her hair......
And who doesn't love Keith, and yes he brought Nicole but I guess he had to, she is his wife.
Nice, very nice....... but really he needs a shorter wife, I'm just saying....
Luke Bryan, adorable, catching him in concert tomorrow in Grand Rapids Sugarland
Another of my favorites, man she can sing and he is the best sidekick of any duo.....

The very sweet Joey and Rory...they have an awesome CD but very country, she has an amazing voice

Love those curls, Billy Currington, I'd like to see him in concert again......

Lady Antebellum, again but never too much of them, I'm so happy that they won an award......

BUT where is Kenny. It's freakin 10:30 and he hasn't been on stage, they have barely shown him in the crowd and searching for these pictures on various websites there are NO pictures of him. Stay tuned!

My next blog will be all Kenny

with some fun info about how you can go see him in concert in 3D at the theatres this April,

hey if Hannah, Jonas Brothers and Michael Jackson can do it, so can he!

My first time

You might wonder why I am posting these pictures, well today I went to see "the box". The movie is set in the 70's and this was the wallpaper in the house. It was driving me crazy while I was watching it. Cameron Diaz was perfect for this role. Her hair had that 70's feathered flip. And she was oh so stylish.
So why a blog about this movie....it was my first time in my entire life to go to a movie by myself. It was at West Columbia and I was anxious about going in but once I walked in there was two ladies there and they just smiled at me. So I sat down and wouldn't you know it but it mustve been mentally challenged movie day. A bus load came in and now don't get me wrong thats not the problem but out of the whole theatre they sat in the same row as me. AND one of the gentlemen was a moaner. So I've got a moaner and one lady that just had to keep talking about what was happening over and over again.
So will I go again, um yes but I will wait till after the movie starts to pick my seat and hopefully I will pick a better movie. If anybody out there sees this movie and can tell me what it was about I would really appreciate it. I was lost and I don't understand the ending.

For the Texas blog stalkers

Ms. Mesha rescued me from the baby room so I could sit in the office and listen to the lunchtime gossip. You wouldn't believe what these people talk about in there.
This is me practicing my evil, oh no she didn't face.

This is what I think of my office visit being over and having to go back to the baby room.

Yea they let me stay longer. Nothing like lunch time in Ms. Nicole's office.

Family

This will probably be one of those post that you'll want to skim over...no pictures sorry. Currently I am sitting at my in-laws house typing this on their acient computer. Seriously I can't believe it even works.
That being said, I love being here. I love their house, the coziness of it. Although they did get rid of their comfy couch and got a really uncomfortable "fancy" looking one. I'll post pictures when I get home. It's been a great weekend. We got here last night and pretty much right away went to grandpa tony's. If you've ever been to Bay City or ever drive through you have to go there. They have the yummiest food, italian of course. Joel and Jolie met us there and I received a birthday present. The warmest fuzziest pajamas ever, I love them. When we got home Nana had made me a birthday cake, carrot, hmmmm it was so good. They put 35 candles on it, yes all 35, it looked like a fire in a pan when they brought it out to me, once again I will post pictures later. Then more presents!! For the rest of the night we just hung out. Actually I think that everyone was in bed by 10. This morning Nana and Papa left for Manistee so it was just us and Joel in the house. We got up pretty early and went over to my grandmas house. She is suffering from dementia right now so I was worried how she would be. I was so relieved that she seemed ok. My dad was there for a little bit and my Uncle Gary is here from CA too. We sat at the kitchen table and talked for about 2 hours. It was so nice to be able to catch up with Gary and spend time with Grandma. The kids played awesome in the living room and we just sat and visited in the kitchen. Right now we're hanging out and in a little bit we are going over to my dads for dinner with him and Lorraine and my brother and Allison and Chase are coming over too.....
that pretty much brings me to why I am blogging...I miss my family so much. If we lived up here we would be able to see them all the time. I hate that my grandma is getting sick and the next time I come up here she might not know who I am. I would like to visit her weekly. Now I know that won't happen cause our home is in Battle Creek but I would like people that have their family near by to appreciate them more. Call and visit, have dinner together, stop by and say hi, have family birthday parties. When I have talked to people about families and I say I have a brother, they say are you close and it makes me sad when I say no not really. I love him to death but I don't really know him. Not my fault, not his but just sad I think. Not real sure what I could do to change that, maybe come up to Bay City more but its so hard with our "normal" life stuff going on. Sooooo thats all I guess, just feeling a little homesick even though I'm home.

Oh I forgot about these Disney photos!

Jacob with his barf bag on the plane. No he didn't have to use it.
One of my favorite photos! Grandpa!!

Sarah going into the bugs life show with her 3D glasses on.

All dressed up for Halloween at Disney.

I'm going through Disney withdrawal. I still like to go to allears.net to read about whats going on but Im sad that I have to wait so long to go again. I'm trying to live vicariously through Kelli and Cortnie since they are going this spring but Im starting to think that that makes it harder. Oh well sometime soon, I'll be back to planning and saving but until then I'll have to scrapbook this last trip and daydream about staying at the Polynesian!

What a rip off!

I finally tried some of KFC's new grilled chicken. It was pretty good but I would barely know that based on the size of the pieces of chicken they gave me. The above picture is of one of my FRIES compared to the chicken drumstick they gave me. Not only was it tiny but barely had any meat on it.

This is a picture of my actual meal. Yes it was enough to fill me up, but seriously I can't believe they even call that a drumstick. How disappointing.

Adorable

Today marks the beginning of Christmas attire for me, my mom even bought me matching socks.
I'm not sure how I feel about it.
Seem to be ok with it,
Hmmmm I wonder how many Christmas shirts my mom has bought for me??

I love Christmas! Bring on the cheesy holiday shirts!

Don't Kelli and Dave have the most adorable son?? love those cheeks

Good Movie!

Jeremy and I went to see this movie tonight for my birthday. It was so good. I really like Gerard as a bad guy. It suits him much better than the romantic comedy characters he has been in. It was crazy and gory and even though he was awful I didn't want him to die. I am not a big Jamie Foxx fan but he was also very good. Jeremy said it's hard to take him serious when he thinks about him still as the guy that played Shanaynay from In Living Color. I am still looking forward to seeing The Ugly Truth, since the bff squad when to see it without me, I'll have to rent it.

No cake Mesha!

Just wanted you to know, I got NO cake on my blogger page!! so sad!

My Halloween pet peeve

I don't understand why people can't

1. Trick or Treat in their own dang neighborhood (unless accompanying a family that lives in said neighborhood, like Cortnie and her kids)

2. PARK AND WALK...really are you that lazy that you can't walk with your child/ren while they run from house to house. Do these people realize how much more dangerous they make our neighborhoods? I actually saw a pick up truck with it's tailgate down with three older (like 13 or so) kids sitting on the tailgate. The driver would slow down the kids would jump off, run up to the house, and then run to catch up to the truck and jump back on the tailgate.

3. Tell their children that once they are a certain age that maybe they are too old for trick or treating...I'm talking like 16-17. We saw two teenage girls walking down the road chatting on their cell phones while trick or treating. Mesha thinks their car was parked up around the corner, once you can drive you can't trick or treat. We even saw a couple teens carrying a toddler while trick or treating. And while I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it was their younger sibling they were carrying, I'm pretty sure that it was their own child. So I guess I'm saying once you've born your own child you probably shouldn't trick or treat.

All that being said this year was bitter sweet for me. While I had a great day and night with some wonderful friends, I couldn't help remembering what we were doing last year. I believe it was one of the last times the bffs and their husbands spent all together. I'm sad for what used to be but believe that what happened was beneficial to all. I see a happy, hopeful, woman in the woman that was fraught with worry and doubt last year so to you Cortnie I say Happy November 1st and best wishes on an exciting year ahead!!!