A Quiet New Years Eve

Tonight we spent a quiet New Years Eve at home. Jordan was hired to babysat his cousin tonight and will sleep over so his aunt/uncle won’t have to bring him home.
So tonight we took down our Christmas tree. I am always amazed at how much more room there is in the living room once we take the tree down. Tomorrow Todd and Jordan are supposed to take down the outside lights but I am not sure they are going to be able to do it, we are getting a nice snow storm right now and the temperature is really supposed to drop. So tonight I made some snacks for the 3 of us and we played a game of Scrabble. Between the 3 of us we used all but four tiles/letters. After subtracting the unused letters, Ethan and I tied for 1st with 137 points. Todd had the lowest score but he didn’t have any tiles left so in a way he won too. After the Scrabble game, Ethan picked the DVD Monty Python and the Holy Grail for us to watch. Not sure if midnight will come before the movie ends or the movie will end before midnight strikes.

Disney's Enchanted

I went with my sister today and saw the matinee of Enchanted



This is a corny, cute, girly movie. As a mother of 2 boys there was just a brief moment during the movie that I wish I had a little girl that I could have taken to see this movie. The movie had some funny parts and was enjoyable. This is definitely a movie for girls 4 to about 12 or the young at heart who someday hope to find their prince charming.

He was robbed

Ethan had a wrestling meet today in Bartlett.
There were a total of 6 schools there and we found out that they were wrestling all the schools. This was going to be a long day!
It seemed DGS brought all their mid-weight to heavy weight wrestlers today and very few from other weight classes. We ended up forfeiting over 1/2 of our matches.
There were 3-171 wrestlers 5-189 wrestlers and 3-215 wrestlers.
Ethan got to wrestle twice but unfortunately he was pinned in both matches.
The match agents Bartlett was a joke. We think they slipped the ref a little extra on the home team mat to let the home team win all their matches.
Ethan litterally had the Bartlett guy on his back pinned 4 times during his match and the ref wouldn't call it. But the second the guy got Ethan on his back the Ref called a pin.
Talking with other parents from other teams; they noticed that also when their school was up against Bartlett.

Oh well what can you do, at least we tapped Ethan's match and the tape doesn't lie...

2 For Dinner

The boys were invited to an 18th birthday celebration for their friend Mike at Papa Passero's which included dinner and arcade games. So it was just Todd and I for dinner.

We picked Uncle Bub's BBQ in Westmont.


The food was pretty decent; I had a pulled pork BBQ sandwich with a side of home style green beans and fried macaroni and cheese. Todd picked the brisket sandwich with a side of hand cut french fries and cole slaw.
Uncle Bub's has won awards at Ribfest in the past for best sauce and best ribs.
I thought the regular sauce was on the sweet side and the spicy wasn't really that spicy but it too had a sweet taste to it. They were good just wasn't expecting sweet. I liked the fried mac and cheese; it was really good warm but once it turned cooled it wasn't as good. Just like must fried items, it tastes better hot.
I can cross this restaurant of my list of places I would like to try sometime.

5 Changes for 2008 I hope….

I think mentally I would rather call them changes then resolutions

1) Read more. I have 3 books I would like to read in the 1st part of the New Year. I actually want to read more then just these 3 books in 2008; the 3 books would be just a start.

2) Like almost everyone else’s New Years list; lose weight and keep it off. When I put my mind to it and focus I am really successful losing weight, that’s not really the hard part for me. The hard part is for me to keep it off and not find myself yet again with the weight back on.

3) Say something positive everyday.

4) Save money, since September it seems like whenever we are putting money into savings we are withdrawing it to cover extra expenses that have come up every month. Wrestling, Chess, Class Ring, Pre-College expenses, Christmas.

5) Organize. At work I am very organized, before I leave for the day everything on my desk is in its appropriate spot. But when I am home, I just don’t have the ambition to organize. My main organizing problem is with information I receive that I would like to save, but where? Mostly these papers and such get put in a box and occasionally I go through the box and end up just either throwing this information in the garbage or throwing it back in the box still not knowing what to do with it.

Christmas Photos

Below are some pictures taken Christmas morning and discriptions below about the photo.

This is me Christmas morning. I actually received both Will Ferrell SNL DVD's


2 pictures below, Todd receiving his boots and him wearing them.



Ethan opening a gift


This one is kind of dark
Jordan receiving his Simpson Movie Poster

My Favorite Christmas Song sung by one of my Favorite Artists

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

A DVD Christmas

Here is a list of the DVD's that we received for Christmas.

300
The Prophey 1
The Prophey 2
Sonny and Cher Ultimate Collection
Walt Disney's Jungle Book
Unbreakable
Disney Pixar Ratatouille
Disney Pixar-Pixar Short Films Collection
Walt Disney's Pirates of the Carribbean At World's End
Dreamworks Shrek the Third
SNL The Best of Will Farrell
SNL The Best of Will Farrell Vol 2
Ghostbusters
The Simpsons Movie
Garfield and Friends Vol 1(the cartoon tv shows)

Boy we have alot of DVD's to watch!!!

Dillinger and Christmas

This morning Dillinger our dog woke 3 of us up early (5:15am), probably to wish us a Merry Christmas and he wants his presents. We can't put presents under the tree until Christmas Eve because Dillinger thinks they are his. Dillinger goes around sniffing them and sometimes even grabs them with his mouth to try and open them.
When we put the presents under the tree last night we placed his gifts on the book shelf so he couldn't get to them. The 4 of us had to constantly monitor him to stay away from the tree.
Ethan suggested that the dog sleep in his room with the door closed to keep Dillinger from going to the presents while we slept. Good idea!
Now Todd, Jordan, Dillinger and I are sitting in the living room by the Christmas tree chit chatting. Once Ethan gets up we open presents making sure Dillinger gets one of his 1st. If he wasn't a dog I would think he was a 4 year old child.
If you don't believe this, below is a picture of Dillinger opening his birthday gift on December 16th

And here is Dillinger with his gift

Christmas Family Get Together

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with my side of the family. My sisters and their families came by to celebrate. We had lots of good food and presents for everyone.
Below is our family picture taken yesterday. I got creative and added the date.



Ethan with his cool pajama bottoms:

yes, those are lounge pants and not jeans
and Jordan with his bendable Simpson characters

Ahhh Good Times!

Elmo's Christmas Countdown

In continuing our Christmas special watching, we set our DVR to record Elmo’s Christmas Countdown tonight but we actually were able to sit and watch it at the time scheduled then having to watch it later.
Because of Oscar, Elmo and Abby need a miracle to help Stiller the Elf and his sidekick Stan the snowball find the missing numbered boxes of the Christmas Counter-Downer. Ben Stiller supplies his voice for Stiller the Elf and Charles Gibson provides the voice of the reindeer anchorman Charles Blitzen. Other celebrities include: Sheryl Crow, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys and Brad Paisley. But my favorite was The Count and Ty Penningtion with their rendition of I Saw Three Ships; but it ends up being more then 3 ships in The Counts version of the song. A very enjoyable Christmas special.

Holiday Cookies

Yesterday I divided up all the holiday cookies that were made by me and the participants of my cookie exchange to be given to our neighbors, work and for us.
The boys took the cookies to the neighbors as a thank you for hiring them throughout the year doing yard work and pet watching. We in return were given a thank you gift from one of the neighbors. An ice bucket filled with movie treats and a gift card to Blockbusters. What a wonderful surprise. I took a tray of cookies to work and was complimented on them. I confessed that I didn't make all of them. It kind of made me ponder opening a cookie store.

Frosty the Snowman & Frosty Returns

Have you ever watched a movie and really enjoyed it and then a few years later they release the sequel and it's a dud? Well that in my opinion is Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns. Todd and I watched both of the holiday specials tonight. In Frosty the Snowman, you root for Frosty and Karen. This is a real cute animated storyline with great voice actors portraying the characters. Jimmy Dirante fills in as the narrator; but my personal favorite is the voice of Billy De Wolfe as Professor Hinkle the evil magician. Leave it to Santa to come and save Frosty and blackmail Professor Hinkel.
As Frosty would say: "Happy Birthday!"

Happy 16th Birthday Jordan and Happy 10th Birthday Dillinger

Today we celebrated Jordan's 16th birhtday. 16 on the 16th. He was up very early, wanted his presents of course. He had to wait until everyone was up before he was able to enjoy his gifts. He is just a few months away from getting his drivers license. Oh Boy!!!!
We also purchased a few dog treats for Dillinger wrapped them up and had him tear the paper to get to them. For a dog, he does a pretty good job opening gifts. We had a pretty big snowfall yesterday so all Dillinger wanted to do these last 2 days is spend time outside. He loves the snow.
I took a few pictures from today's events and will post them after we have cake later on.

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

This morning we threw in the DVD The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
I really like this version the best. Martin Short really makes the movie. His acting at times can be over the top; but this time it works for the Jack Frost character.
I just can imagine the fun Tim and Martin had during the taping of this film.



A good story that fits in great in the Santa Clause trilogy

2nd Period Pin

I had the opportunity to go see Ethan wrestle today at Oswego High School. It was a Quad match and he was only going to wrestle once. He finally made weight to wrestled 189. The way the match started I thought he was going to get pinned, he kept reaching for the guy and with this opening, the opponent was taking advantage of that.
Right before the 1st period ended Ethan had the guy on his back, he only needed to get his arm out from under the guy and hold him down for a pin. Of course at this time the buzzer went off. (I hate when that happens.)
2nd period, again Ethan started reaching for the guy and I think Ethan finally realized what he was doing wrong. The opponent took the shot, had a good grip on Ethan and they both went down, I thought that's it, he's going to roll Ethan and get a pin, but Ethan got out of the grip and quickly turned on the guy. Ethan got the guy on his back; all Ethan had to do is get the guys right shoulder down. Everyone kept yelling for Ethan to lift his head. I think it took all of the DGS wrestlers and parents to get Ethan's attention. Ethan lifted his head and got the pin. I took pictures but have to wait until they are developed, my old 35mm takes better pictures then my digital does in gymnasiums.

A Christmas Story

We spent the rest of the evening watching A Christmas Story.
Who doesn't love this story of a young boys quest for his dream Christmas present.

Here's what Peter Billingsley/Ralphie looks like today?

Art Show Winter 2007

We attended the art display at Ethan’s high school tonight. They have quite a variety of Medias displayed. On display are Ceramic, Basic Design, Jewelry, Painting, Drawing & Photography each showing the art work from level 1 to the advanced levels. Ethan's class is painting I, this is the 1st time he had ever taken a painting class. 4 of his paintings are on display along with the group collage. For this collage, each student painted a square, then assembled the squares to produce a painting. Ethan’s square is the top right.

He did these 2 bottles


Green Onions

But my favorite one is this dog.

Miracle on 34th Street 1973

I had a flash back to the 70's tonight. We watched the 1973 version of Miracle on 34th Street tonight. I have always liked Sebastian Cabot and he makes a great Santa in this version. An all star cast which also includes Jim Backus, Roddy McDowell, David Hartman & David Doyle just to name a few. This doesn't beat the classic black and white 1947 version but for a nostalgic look at the past, this is a good trip.

I Want A Dog For Christmas Charlie Brown

Sat down and watched another holiday special tonight. I have never seen I Want a Dog for Christmas Charlie Brown before. This one features Lucy & Linus' brother ReRun. He is such a trip in this special. They gave this character all the best lines. Enjoyable family special, I don't think it will ever be considered a "classic" but still fun to watch.

Boston Massacre

Jordan spent the whole day at a Chess tournament today.
As he said Loss, Win, Loss, Loss. His win was a Boston Massacre. HUH?
That would be a 4 move Check Mate. He said one of his team members did a 2 move Check Mate.

Cookies

I spent the better part of the afternoon baking 2 different batches of Cookies for my annual cookie exchange. I made Confetti Snowball and Eggnog Snickerdoodles.
I will have everyone over tomorrow for the exchange. I will save a tray of cookies for Christmas and give the rest out as gifts.
YUMMY!!!

Santa Clause is Coming to Town

Yet another Christmas special was watched tonight.
The story of Santa Clause from birth to adulthood is told during this stop animation special. The names of some of the characters are rather funny; like Burgermeister Meisterburger. The voice of Mickey Rooney as Santa and Fred Astire as the Narrator is a large part of why this holiday specail became a classic.

Holding Letter

My sister sent me this picture today.
This is Ethan holding his acceptance letter for Columbia College.

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

Todd and I watched another Christmas special tonight. The boys had no interest in watching Rudolph. We both kept pointing out things we liked, disliked and remembered about the show while watching it. Got to love Burl Ives as the voice of the snowman though! Not one of my favorite holiday specials from my childhood.

Flagfall

Not being a Chess player I have no clue what this meant until tonight.
My son Jordan plays Chess for his High School team. He is the 1st to admit he is not the best Chess player, he makes moves without thinking sometimes and then realizes once he lets go of the piece what he did wrong. Today's meet he must have taken his time and thought about his moves because he won his game by a Flagfall.
A flagfall is when the opponent runs out of time. It is considered the same amount of points as an actual win. YEA for Jordan!!!

Birthday Cake

We celebrated Ethan's 18th birthday and Jordan's 16th birthday with my sisters and family this weekend.
Jordan made this cake and frosting by scratch (no Duncan Hines here)


Here is a picture of the birthday boys:


And one of the cousins:

Sympathy Card

Todd's Aunt Bobette pasted away late week and we were unable to attend her funeral.
I made this card for the family to send them our heartfelt thoughts.

College Bound

We found out this afternoon's mail that our oldest son Ethan has been accepted at Columbia College Chicago.


We are such proud parents, we are beaming. Columbia College is a visual,performing,
media and communication art school. Ethan has had a dream to be an animator since he was in 5th grade and we are so happy that he has a vision and goals that he is following.

New Toy

Last week Todd went to the Comcast office and picked us up a new cable box with the DVR feature. Ok I think I am hooked, so far I think I have 8 shows to catch up and watch. I'm afraid I am going to keep recording things and get to the point where I don't have time to watch them. I will probably be watching Christmas specials that I am recording at Easter time.

Shrek the Halls

Tonight we watched the premiere of Shrek the Halls.
In true Shrek fashion, LOL fun and excitement.
Everyone’s version on The Night Before Christmas story was hilarious.
It is so neat that all the original actors participated in the holiday special.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

A tried and true classic
Jordan and I are sitting here at home watching A Charlie Brown Christmas.
We own it on DVD and can watch it anytime but here we sit watching it with commercial interruptions.
A few of my favorite parts:
Charlie Brown finding out he has Pantophobia
The twins dancing
5 good reasons and Lucy makes a fist.
When Lucy asks Schroeder to play Jingle Bells “That’s It”
Charlie Brown saying he “killed” the tree.
Turning the little tree in to a spectacular tree. Where did all the green branches come from?
The very end where they sing “O’ Christmas tree” the faces of the characters taking breaths when they sing the Oooos is so fun.

White Christmas

Today I watched the movie White Christmas for the 1st time though I thought.

I was about half way through watching it when I was like "Hey I remember watching a movie vaguely familiar to this" I think I saw part of White Christmas before but not the whole thing.
Todd watched it with me and we both thought that Vera-Ellen the women who played Judy was way too thin. We both knew a lot of the songs from the movie and we recognized the dance "The Jive". I guess that's from watching too much Dancing with the Stars.
Very fun movie to watch during the holiday season.

Practicing His Stance

Jordan is practicing his stance so when he is on Iron Chef, his competition will be intimidated.

Here's The Birthday Boy

18!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Ethan

Ok, I am a day late.
Yesterday was my oldest son Ethan's 18th brithday.
It is mind boggling that we have an 18 year old. Where did all the time go.
I'll posts a few pics taken yesterday of the B-day boy later today.

It came visiting again this year

Well this must be the 7th or 8th year now that my laryngitis came to visit again.
I used to get laryngitis every winter when I was in high school, then for awhile it didn't happen. About 7 years ago I started getting laryngitis right as the temperature starts to drop. It starts with a sinus infection and ends up with me getting a "manly" voice for about 8 weeks. The later as the day goes on, the deeper my voice gets. It is kind of fun because other then the voice being gone and my draining sinus', I don't feel ill. The big bummer is I can't belt out the Christmas songs like I love to do. I really think what causes it is a combination of the dry air, sinus infection and allergies from the furnace blowing out all the old dust. A humidifier helps but doesn't stop the lack of voice.

Happy Thanksgiving 2007

Well the turkey has been in the oven now for about 1 1/2 hours. Jordan came down and helped chop the onion and peel potatoes. He was also interested in watching a parade. He started with the Macy's parade in New York but got really frustrated that all they were doing was showing people perform, he wanted the Big Balloons and floats so he switched to the downtown Chicago parade and was still disappointed by the lack of floats and Big balloons.
Now we wait for our company to arrive and we will FEAST around 2:30pm. After we will maybe play some games and then EAT PIE!!!

Seven little facts

Seven little facts about myself you may not know:

1. I love to sing, I mostly do it in the car while driving.

2. I am named after my Grandmother Maryann.

3. I hate touching any kind of raw meat. Chicken, ground beef, ect.

4. I love to be creative. I love to scrapbook and rubber stamp.

5. My favorite snacks are sharp cheddar cheese spread with crackers and Cheezits.

6. I like to do Sudoku puzzles.

7. My favorite movies that I can sit and watch at anytime are Sense and Sensibility, Elf, The Ginch & Young Frankenstein.

Funny Phrase

Today I was in the lunchroom at work having a conversation with one of the ladies I am on the same floor with but our desks are on the opposite side of the building.
When the conversation was finished, she said to me "If I don't see you, have a Happy Thanksgiving"
Does that mean if she does see me again before Thanksgiving she wouldn't want for me to have a nice Thanksgiving?

I just have always found that phrase funny.

It’s a Wonderful Life/Day!

Yesterday was a wonderful day.
We started our day getting up early and grocery shopping for the Thanksgiving holiday. Once we were home Todd and I went in the backyard and tackled all the leaves that fell from our 40+ year old maple tree. We ended up with 10 leaf bags full. Luckily for us our garbage pickup provider is having FREE leaf pick up this month as long as they are bagged.

We decided after lunch we should take a nap to make it through our “Date”. I know a nap? Yes, naps are a great welcome once you hit a certain age. We haven’t been on a married couple date in quite awhile so we were both looking forward to this evening. Earlier in the day I searched the internet for a restaurant that we could go to on our way to the Radio City Music Christmas Spectacular Show. I found a restaurant that had 5 star ratings from customers; the restaurant is called Tapalpa in Elk Grove Village.

This restaurant is now my favorite restaurant that I have ever eaten at.
It is a family authentic Mexican restaurant that is actually in a strip mall. The restaurant doesn’t come across as anything fancy but they have absolutely fabulous food and service. Starting with Margarita’s and ½ combo plate appetizer that we shared; through our main courses; Todd ordered the Tilapia and I got the Mini Combo plate there were no flaws. Toward the end of the meal a mariachi band came and played 2 Mexican songs for us. Both musicians were outstanding guitarists and singers. When our check arrived, we received 2 shots of butterscotch liqueur with whipped cream on top. YUM!!!! This restaurant is definitely worth the trip and tolls we paid to get there.

After dinner we proceeded to go to the 75th Anniversary of the Radio City Music Christmas Spectacular Show.

Due to my bad map reading we got a little lost from the restaurant to the theatre. We sat in our seats literally 2 minutes before the show started. The show was as they advertised Spectacular. My absolute favorite part of the show was when the Rockettes danced to the 12 days of Christmas. The choreographing for that song as well as all the songs throughout the show was very impressive. The Christmas Show is apparently known for their Toy Soldier routine and the Nativity Scene; and in not disappointing was breathtaking. My hopes are to see this show again in the future; taking my children and hopefully my nephew Nikolas. I could see this becoming a show that someday I can take my future grandchildren to.
What a Wonderful Life and Day!!!

52, 52 in 52 weeks

I want to set a goal this year.
I want to complete 1 scrapbook layout a week and 1 handmade card a week.
So that would be 52 cards and 52 scrapbook layouts in 52 weeks.
I have no problem scanning the card to show off here but I think I will have to ask my son or DH to teach me how to thread a 12x12 scrapbook page to post. Either that or just take a picture of it with my camera and post it. That would probably be easier. LOL

A little scary but everything was ok

Last night the high school had the 1st wrestling meet of the season. It was actually a scrimmage meet against each other and a get together for the families of all the wrestlers.
It was Ethan's turn to wrestle, he is wrestling the 189/215 class. During the 1st 1/2of the period he was in the lead by points and close to pinning his opponent. Then about 1/2 way into the 1st period he started holding what we thought was his rib. We figured that he fell on it wrong or something, throughout the rest of the next two periods he really was breathing heavy. We could hear him up in the stand over all the noise. He starting losing points but was still in it, I was getting worried because at some points when the two wrestlers had to go back to the center of the mat, he wasn't moving right away. He made it to the end of 3 period’s unfortunately losing but what really got us, was when he went to take his ankle strap off and shake his opponents hand, he was shaking vigorously. Todd immediately got up and head for the side of the mat. Ethan told his father that he had a bad cramp, couldn't breath and at the end of the match everything was blurry. We had the physical trainer look at him, he checked his pulse and told him to take it easy the rest of the evening and make sure that he eats a big breakfast tomorrow morning. He thinks that with Ethan having a light supper and his adrenaline being high is what caused the incident.
I really commend his effort for making it through 3 periods felling that way and not getting pinned. I also being a mom told him if he ever felt that way again to tell the ref you are injured and need a 2 minute time out. This probably would have helped him catch his breath to resume. I strongly feel that Ethan would have won the match if this didn’t happen!!

2 more days

I am getting so excited. In 2 days Todd and I are going to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. They are celebrating 75 years of putting on a Christmas show, so I am hoping it will be an extra special performance.
I have wanted to see the show for about 5 years now and finally had the opportunity to purchase the tickets at a real good price. I will be able to check this off of my list of things I want to do before I die. LOL

Exhausted

Boy am I tired. No contacts today. I hosted the Christmas Card Stamp Camp last night. I had 18 energetic, creative women here last night. I am hoping they had a good time making their cards. Today we are off for a small gathering with my in-laws and family. My MIL and FIL leave for AZ for the winter this week. MIL organized a get together today to see everyone that could attend before they leave.
Quite an exhausting but fun weekend for me.

Here are the cards the the campers will be making at camp on Saturday.
The Stampers will be making 10 Christmas Cards at this camp
I Stamp-lifted some of these ideas from different websites.