Holiday Season

Well, we all survived Christmas. After spending over 9 hours wrapping gifts, and an hour "nap" after, everyone enjoyed their gifts. The kids got so many toys! Ricky was surprised. This year, he had no idea about his gifts. Same with mine. I didn't shop for my self this year. The only item I purchased was the Scrabble Diamond Edition only because I knew it was $30 at Wal-Mart and one day Amazon.com had it for $14.99. Ricky had already bought it for me and told me it was ok to buy the one on Amazon. I hold him if he didn't want to save $15 on it, that was up to him. I purchased almost all of Addison's gifts on Amazon.com at such a great deal. From now on, I'll check there before purchasing at the store. My house is almost back in order after Christmas. When you have 13 people over and only do one Christmas, there is a lot of mess. Next celebration is Mine and Olivia's birthday's in January.

Why are the holiday's so stressful? Because of the shopping, planning, cleaning, family, etc.? All of the above! Going through the presents I have purchased, made me realize that I bought more for two of the kids and not so much for one of them. I try my best to keep track of the spending so they are all equal, but really it's harder then it sounds. I'm really trying to cut back on spending and I think I have compared to last year. It's hard when you purchase for over 15 people. Limits are set, and some may not be happy. We have to be oh so very careful. This recession has hit home! Aunt Judy and family are flying in on Christmas. I try not to stress too much on having a clean house, but your house is a very strong impression on yourself. One of my co-workers said today "I'd like to go to your house to see how organized it is". At work, there is just me and my desk, at home there are 4 addition people. On Christmas, including Aunt Judy and family, there will be 18 people in my house! My house isn't large so everyone fills the upstairs. It all works out and everyone goes home alive.

We (me and the kids) went trunk-or-treating today with my friend Jennifer at her church. It was a lot different than I thought it would be. We had dinner in the church, which everyone brought Chilli. Then we all went outside and let the kids walk around the parking lot going "car to car". They had a lot of fun. They got almost as much candy there as they would have gotten going around the block. I felt a little out of place, not being full LDS, but it was a lot of fun and the kids loved it.

Family Matters

This years been tough for us. In January, my step-dad Ted passed away the day after my birthday. He'd been in the hospital for three days total, but no reason to suspect it would happen. He died due to liver failure, blood not clotting and heart failure. On October 6, my mom passed away. Again, no reason to suspect. I had a suspicion that she wouldn't make it after Ted passed. We are waiting on the tox screen to find out cause of death. I tried time and time again and failed at helping her. She is in a better place now and happy. My brother Marco is in jail for the second time this year. At least he's out of trouble, so to speak, and we know where he is. He needs to get his act together. Larry, my second brother, is doing great. He's a senior in high school and is taking three college classes. He wants to be a respiratory therapist "when he grows up". My little brother Dominic is doing great. I don't know much about him, as he lives with our dad in South Carolina. Hopefully soon we'll be able to meet.

Why Not?

Why not? Everyone else is doing it. We have family and friends that we don't always talk to regularly, so hopefully this will help keep everyone up to date in our lives.