thanksgiving

Every year for Thanksgiving we always go to my brother's house. Nice for us since he is only 10 minutes away so it isn't a far drive. This year there was a lot of people and since mine and my brother's family seem to grow every year their were A LOT of kids. Rylee stuck with my cousin Maggie that is the same age as her. That is usually what happens at parties in which they are both their. Zach hung out with his "buddy" Gavin and the two caused a lot of trouble as always! Now that Brienna and Liam are both very mobile they played on the floor most of the night fighting over toys, it was so cute to watch them interact!

I made sure we took our Christmas card photo right when they got there since after dinner my aunt and uncle like to take the kids out to play football after dinner.

The next morning I was up at 4am to head out for Black Friday shopping. I picked up coffee for me and Cara and headed to WalMart to meet everyone. As soon as I pulled out on to Randall Road I was amazed at home many cars were on the road already. I was even more blown away when I pulled into WalMart and had to park at the Ihop in front of the store to find a parking spot. They had several Algonquin police outside the store as well as inside the store making sure things went smoothly. I could not BELIEVE how many people came out this year to shop. My sister and I waited in line to check out an hour! By the time we got to Target things were a little better, and when we finished at Kohl's people were starting to disperse. My family and I do this every year and have done it since I was in high school when my sister and I were able to start going with my mom and aunts. I remember the Black Friday when the furby came out being at Spring Hill Mall when there was a huge crowd of people that broke into the KB Toys to steal some off the display they had in the store. Anyway, other then that I have never seen this many people out shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I was able to get pretty much everything I wanted except of course what I wanted to get for Gary! I love the day after Thanksgiving, and would safely say it is one of my favorite days of every year. I even downloaded the Black Friday app for my iPhone, and now it is counting down until next years Black Friday!

he is such an idiot!!!

So very rarely does Joey ever get involved in anything to do with Zach medically. Zach has been seeing an Endocronologist since he was two years old and Joey has never once asked about progress or anything. Sunday however he comes to drop off Zach at our house after his weekend. Barely walks in the front door and demands that I call Zach's pediatrician on Monday and have Zach get a BRCA test for Cancer. Apparently his Aunt is very sick with Cancer, and so now his entire family is going to get this test. I just nodded to appease him, knowing that there was no way that I was going to call his peditrician to ask him to administer a test for Cancer on a 4 year old. After he left I was telling Gary about it, and I said I was pretty sure that I had seen commericals for this test recently but thought it was for breast cancer screening. Sure enough I looked it up and it is a screening test for women to determine their chances of getting breast or ovarian cancer. Maybe before he starts demanding ridiculous tests he should do some research. I can't wait until he asks me in a couple weeks if I had it done for Zach and I will make sure to ask him if he had his done, and what the results were. Knowing his dumbass he will lie and say that he did and everything was fine then get all over me for not having had Zach's done yet. Then I will let him know that I called the doctor and they said that was only a test given to women!!! Like I said he is such an idiot!!!!

an interesting comment

Wednesday when Rylee came over she was extremely tired. I am not sure if she had a rough night the night before but she was more emotional then normal, and wanted to go to bed by 6:30pm. She only had a half day at school, and we laid low the rest of the afternoon at the house so nothing to tiring for her. Gary asked her in the middle of one of her crying moments what was the matter, and if she was sleeping okay at her other house. She said out of the blue, "I am not sleeping because I dream of being able to stay here all the time". Confused Gary asked her if this was a bad dream she was having or a good one, and she said a good one "because sometimes I wish I could stay here all the time". I think that really pulled hard on Gary because as much as he would love for that to happen it really is not possible.

It made me think about the differences between Rylee and Zach and how they have both responded to being from a divorced home. Rylee has really suffered emotionaly and in that regard has not been very resillant to all the changes that have happened in her life. Granted she was young when her parents seperated so when she is older she will never remember her life with both her parents under one roof, but it greatly effects her now. Zach on the other hand fully takes advantage of having two bedrooms, two sets of Christmas presents, two birthday celebrations, and all the other perks of having two families. He obviously suffers a little from the ridiculous comments that his father will make periodically about Gary not being Zach's dad but those are usually resolved after some quality time with Gary and I.

Overall, it really made me think about a lot of things. As much as Gary thought it was a great thing to hear, I am not really buying it. I really don't think that Rylee wishes she could be here all the time. I know that she knows we have more strict rules then her Mom's house but I do think she likes to have someone to play with whenever she wants. She is always making comments about the games she has at home that nobody plays with her. I am sure again that this is not entirely true, because when I asked her if she plays with her Mom she said "yes but Mommy is on the phone a lot too." Oh the things that little kids say really crack me up!

All in all, I guess that despite some others personal opinions I guess Rylee doesn't think it is so terrible to be over here after all and that is what I took away from this!!

little gymnast

We had made plans Friday to go out with a bunch of the neighbors for Pizza and the open house at the new Gymnastics place that opened by our subdivision. We had all collected some free gift cards for the Connie's Pizza in Algonquin Commons when we took the kids trick or treating. We all we able to eat for free which was a HUGE bonus. There were 9 kids and 6 adults so I was pretty impressed that they let us use all the cards at one time. After an hour or so there we loaded up and went to the Gymnastics place. Rylee and Zach were so excited. As soon as they got into the big room with all the activities they took off to jump, tumble, and run.

They were all completely worn out by the time we left at 8:30pm. It was nice that everyone slept in the next morning which is always a plus!!!

an interesting question

Gary and I are working on getting some life insurance put into place. Even at a time when money is tight I will find a way to squeeze $100 a month out of our budget to pay for a little piece of mind. Our next step is to speak to the lawyer to get everything put into a living trust. That way we can both make sure that our money hungry exes have no claim or say regarding any money that is left to the kids. Lord knows that my ex would instantly claim Zach's and blow it on car parts for a car that he is probably going to blow the motor on 2 or make that 3 times!!

We had the guys out today for the last part of the application and signing. When we were going over everything we confirmed the needs for the insurance and what we were looking to pay off and supplement if something happened to him or I in an untimely manner. Which brings me to the interesting question, he asked me what I would need if something happened to him. Besides the obvious being money to pay off the house and vehicles, for a minute I thought about what that would look like and in a moment the last 3 years flashed before me and what it would be like to not have him in my life. So what else would I need...probably a padded room since I wouldn't even know how it would be to function without him next to me. I know, I know this sounds so ridiculous and corny, just as I am typing it I think "Come on!" but it is absolutely true.

Things like this just make you think of what you are preparing yourself for, and make sure you pray to God that it never happens.

my crazy children

Brienna has decided that she is definitely no longer interested in baby food. For the last week she has been on mostly table food. I have been loading her up in between meals with more formula to make up on some of the nutrients and also been giving her vitamins. I have tried and tried to continue baby food, but she literally will spit it back out at me while she is eating. Her favorite foods right now would be bananas, yogurt, mac and cheese, and hot dogs. Today at lunch she ate an entire hot dog in 5 minutes. I then cut up some cheddar cheese and she ate that all up too. For breakfast she had a cereal bar and some Cheerios, and for dinner she had the same thing we had, sausage and mini potatoes.

Zach, well he is another crazy all his own. He has been doing really well at school. He has taken really well to learning his letters and how to write his name. However, he has been having some behavior issues lately. I am actually having him evaluated for a Sensory Integration issue. One of his doctors feels very strongly about this. There will definitely be more on that later, but it has been a struggle for him at school and in crowded new situations. Today he was extremely good at school so I made a big deal about it all day and he was pretty good all night. So tonight we were playing a game he decided to take the tutu I made for Rylee and play around with it. At first he put it on his head, and then decided to dance around like a ballerina. He is such a rough and tumble kind of boy it was pretty funny to see him act that way!

the business show

I have spent the last 2 months planning for this show, and now that it is over I wish I would have spent more time working on the website. It was offered by our park district here, and they obviously did not take any of the registration money to advertise it. There was very little traffic, but I did sell to the few people that came by. More importantly I gave out a lot of cards, so the site could be advertised. Now I have to make up the time loading the products onto the website. I have a couple orders pending with various suppliers so I will soon be offering a higher end line of diaper bags, and socks/tights. I also found a wonderful person to make the most adorable little clips thanks to my Jamie! I can do a lot of different kind of hair bows, but these are crazy good and I just don't have that kind of time to spend on hair bows.

I did meet a really nice girl at the show that lives in our subdivision here. She was selling the most adorable handmade cards. I bought a couple Holiday ones for Zach's teachers. She was pregnant so I gave her my email address to email me when she found out what she was having so I could send her a onesie shirt. It is advertising to me so I am more then happy to put them out there. The little boy on the website is my workout coach's son. He has the same birthday as Gary and I made the shirt for him for his birthday. She has since told all her friends about the site, and I am getting emails all the time about tees!

I am going to be doing another expo in Algonquin that my brother who in on the Chamber of Commerce told me about. That one is a bit more expensive to register, but Gary and I walked around it last year and it was super busy. Hopefully it will be good advertising, so I have from now until January to get the website done.

Brienna came to visit at lunch time and got into the bin of extra placemats and headbands. She thought it was a lot of fun to pull them out one by one and then chuck it across the floor!

the debate may be reaching a decision

So Gary and I have been in a big debate lately on to have any more children (assuming of course that is possible). I will definitely not go through any fertility treatments again, but if I am able to get pregnant on my own then should we or should we not have any more kids. There is a part of me that would like to give Brienna a sibling that is here full time. However there is another part of me that would always like her to be extra special and the "only" child every other weekend. She really is the most perfect baby, and I don't say that just because she is mine...because trust me I will be the first to admit how much a pain the ass my first child is!!! I remember how close my sister and I were and still are and so I would hate to rob her of that. I know I have no way of knowing that it would be a girl, but odds are stacked against Gary for any boys! So if we made the definitive descision to have another then I would want to start trying shortly after Brienna's 1st birthday to put them right around 2 years apart. Every month that goes by I think about what to do. Gary is on board either way, but I am the one who is not convinced. That was until we started talking about the holidays. Since both Rylee and Zach will have other families to attend to as they get older, Brienna could be left to fend for herself. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the holiday season, and a big part of that is the memories I have as a little kid sitting with my sister waiting by our door until we fell asleep to see if we could wait up for Santa. This year we don't have the older ones for Christmas, and of course that doesn't matter now because she won't remember a thing about her first Christmas, but what about in 5 years when it is Christmas and she has no siblings to put out cookies for Santa with, or no sibilings to wake up before daylight to say that Santa has come.

So I think as of now the decision is to have another baby. Of course I have 3 months to change my mind again, but I really think we are going to go for it. I know that Gary would really love to have a boy to carry on the Cundiff name but I also know that he would be just as happy if it were another little girl. We would of course have to make modifications to the house by turning the loft into another bedroom.

I am excited that we have finally reached the end of this debate. Wish us luck for the beginning of next year, although the "trying" part is the best of it all anyway ;) We certainly have no shortage of practice now!!

should i forward the calls??

So now my car payment is going on 10 days past due so my auto finance company has started calling our house and my cell phone every day. With Gary being unemployed he only gets paid his unemployment check every couple of weeks, and the last check that he got went to pay Rylee's school fees that she was hounding him about and $600 dollars to our lawyer. I would so love to give them her cell phone number so they can call and bother her since SHE is the reason that I could not pay my car payment on time. So yes, I am genuninely pissed off. I know that I complain about this situation a lot, and so I apologize to all my friends that read this. Unfortunately this is a major part of my life right now. I know she seems to believe that we have all of this money falling out of our butt, however the truth remains that he is not working and the business is not doing well since the economy has suffered.

Then Sunday she wants to spend time talking to Gary about their old friend who is about to have a baby with his "girlfriend". This is a man who started dating Shari's so called best friend while he was still married to anotherwomen that Shari called a friend. They would all go out together and she condoned this relationship. She actually had the nerve to compare mine and Gary's situation to this white piece of trash that she calls a best friend. She said she felt as if she was looking in a mirror. REALLY?!?!?! That is the biggest bunch of crap that I have ever heard. For the record...almost everyone knows that I was told by doctors that I would not be able to conceive on my own. I was always on birth control to regulate hormones, not for the actual birth control aspect. For christ's sake I went through 2 years of fertility treatments and hundreds of shots and procedures to have Zach. When I stopped taking birth control in the spring of last year the very LAST thing on my mind was that I could wind up pregnant. Trust me I will never forget the day I took that test until the day I die. I would not trade Brienna for anything, but trust me when I say that I would have never stopped taking birth control if I would have known that was going to be the result 2 months later. So please tell me how this is anywhere near the same situation as a women who already has 4 kids. Pretty sure her fertility was pretty well known and so their stupidity and carelessness is no where near the same. Not to mention that this guy and his "ex" wife have only been seperated for a few months and have not even filed for divorce. Gary and Shari's divorce was finalized a month after I found out I was pregnant and they had been seperated for over a year at that point.

So again I am sorry to spend so much time talking about this, but I refuse to let this situation affect my marriage and so as not to loose my mind with him I come here to vent. The sooner she realizes that I will do what ever I can to someday pay her back for all of this the better. Karma is a real bitch and her bad karma pool is just about filled up!!!!!

finally a little piece of mind

I have been trying for weeks to get the kids the H1N1 vaccine. I have called their Pediatrician's vaccine hot line everyday to check their automatic message to see if they have the shot yet and no luck. One of our neighbors told us that Centegra in Huntley was offering the shots this week and so I found out that one of the clinics would be today starting at 4:30pm. We headed over at about 3:30pm expecting to be in a really long line. I came prepared with Zach's Nintendo DS, markers and coloring books, snacks, and plenty of toys for Brienna. When we got there the line was not that long. We waited for 45 minutes until they opened the door and then another 45 minutes to get through the shot line. I took pictures so that some day when the kids are my age I can show them pictures of the "Great Swine Flu Scare of 2009" and the day we waited in line for an hour and a half to get them their shots.

So both the kids are now protected. It makes me feel a little better since a couple of our neighbors got the H1N1 flu and one of their husbands ended up in the hospital by ambulance over the weekend. I am normally not a paranoid germ-a-phob but this for some reason was scaring me, especially for Brienna.

a really busy weekend

Friday I accidentally double booked us, so it was a crazy busy evening. I promised Holly across the street that we would go to Chuck E Cheese, and we also had a birthday party for my uncle to attend. We went to Chuck E Cheese early around 4:30pm, so the kids had plenty of time to play and still make it to the party by 6:30pm.

Saturday we had Zach's basketball game. Rylee was very interested in playing and asked if she could play in the game with Zach. Unfortunately she couldn't, but she did practice with the team for 15 minutes or so before the game started. It is great to see how much effort Zach puts into this sport. He has never really done that for any of the other activities that we have put him in, so it is either the growing maturity as he gets older or this is something that he actually likes.

After we had some lunch we took the kids home for a quick nap and then off to the circus. We have taken them the last three years and they really enjoy it each time. This year the show was centered around magic as it's theme. It is interesting that this year Rylee's fear was if everything was safe. She kept asking me if the trick was dangerous and if someone was going to get hurt. She has progressed from the first year being terrified of everything, to last year only being afraid of the loud sounds, to this year being concerned for everyone's safety.

Sunday we relaxed and took advantage of the really nice weather. We watched the ridiculous display of Bears football until about mid 3rd quarter. Then we took the kids outside to play across the street. It turned into a neighborhood kid festival as a whole bunch of kids came out to join in the fun. It is times like that in which I enjoy living here. Obviously me having to move into this house was not my idea of a perfect situation but I am grateful for the friends that we and the kids have made and so that makes it a bit more bearable.

brienna's favorite things

It is so fun to watch her explore and learn about new things. This morning while we were getting ready to take Zach to school he was watching the Fresh Beat Band on Nickelodeon. She was holding on to the table bouncing up and down dancing. It was the cutest thing and I could not get to my camera fast enough. She was so excited to see herself move to the music as if she was realizing that she could do this for the first time. After the Fresh Beat Band comes on Dora. Brienna absolutely LOVES this show. This morning I was finally able to catch proof of it!

She stands there usually the whole time it is on or until I pull her away because no child should be that close to the television. This is the only time the TV is on all day until later in the afternoon when Zach wants to get his Spongebob fix. So she takes advantage of every minute.

The next favorite of hers is a new toy that we got to help with her walking. She really loves to pull up on everything and this has unlockable wheels when she gets the balance to start pushing it along. She will spend a lot of time in front of this walker pushing all the different buttons. It is amazing how many different activities were on this thing!

zach's basketball

Zach has started playing basketball on Saturday's with practice on Monday nights. He has really been doing quite well. I think we finally found something he actually enjoys enough to hold his attention for longer then 15 minutes.

Gary is his assistant coach, but his head coach is really great with the kids. It is nice to see a coach for once that works with kids from this age group that knows how to keep their attention and still teach them the fundamentals all at the same time. Hopefully he will keep his interest in the sport for the next 6 weeks.

finally some halloween

Now that I finally have a free moment! This was a very action packed Halloween for this house. Zach has his Halloween party at school on Thursday the 29th. It was so cute to see all the kids dressed up. It was really cute how almost all the girls were some kind of Disney princess.

On Friday we had a trick or treat parade at Rylee's school. She had asked me that Wednesday when she was here if I would make her some Halloween bows for her to wear. I had one already made up and I made her another one just in case. She was very excited to have new hair bows to wear and had it in her hair that day we went to her school. I passed out candy on one side of the hallway and Gary took pictures on the other side.

On Halloween we only had Brienna so it was a pretty laid back day. She dressed up in her 1st Halloween shirt and also sported a fancy bow that I made for her. This one took awhile, but I was very proud of how it turned out.

Later that afternoon we got Brienna dressed in her Bee costume and went across the street to go trick or treating with Doug and Holly and their kids. It was so so so cold so we did not stay out long with Brienna, but it was fun to go around and socialize with all the neighbors!

After trick or treating we ordered pizza and went over to Doug and Holly's. It is so cute to watch Brienna and their youngest Nolan. It was a nice peaceful yet still festive holiday!