A CHRISTMAS TRADITION

It appears now for several years (since Daniel was little) that the week before/of Christmas our family ends up sick. So far this year has consisted of:
Justin: double ear infection and bronchitis
Delaney: throat and ear infections and a fever of 104
Natilie: ear infection, throat and bronchitis
Daniel: ear infection, swollen glands
and our poor Wade: has been sick for 13 days, he has been into the Dr's 3 times in the last 13  days, he was first being treated for ear infections and throat,fever and just laid lifeless and would cry and moan nonstop, and was put on one antibiotic that didn't seem to be working, so was changed to another antibiotic and still didn't seem to get better until this past weekend, we thought he was finally on the up, until Sunday afternoon he took a drastic turn for the worse! He was back in the doctors changed his meds again AND sent us to Children's to have a chest xray and blood work done to rule out pneumonia and mono and check for a few other things. The xray was normal but we are still waiting on blood work. He has lost almost 5 pounds these last two weeks (which he was already skinny to begin with) I have never seen him that sick and for that long, it was really starting to scare me, but today he has finally drank a full cup of water and sipped on some rootbeer and snacked on a few things so hopefully the 3rd antibiotic is helping. Just my luck all of the kids end up sick the week before my own surgery (which if I get sick they cant proceed) so here is to hoping that everyone is healthy and better by Christmas eve, so we can enjoy Christmas day. We sure seem to go through one thing after the other, but as I look around and see that there are people who have it worse off than we do, I am constantly reminded of everything that I have to be thankful for.

Merry Christmas!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS FAMILY NEWSLETTER

MY LITTLE WRESTLER

 This first picture was the "Picture of the Week" on our wrestling website, that's right, its my boy pinning the other kid, and the other kid with a busted lip.

 Daniel won his first match of the season :)

 This past Sat. we had to have Daniel on the school bus at 7:15am for him to head to his Wrestling tournament. We were gone ALL day and didn't get done until 4pm but it sure was a BLAST! These next pictures are from the tournament, Daniel wrestled 5 matches that day, he was pooped when we left there.

Out of the 6 schools at the Tournament, Copley took 2nd place and got a trophy!

It was such a rush for me to watch him wrestle. I know wrestling is not a fond sport by most mothers but I grew up working with the wrestling team through my high school years. I was the student athletic trainer for wrestling and football (and yes I was the only girl) but my passion is with sports and I am VERY competitive, back in high school I actually wanted to wrestle myself  (and play football) and started working out  learning moves from the other wrestlers, the coach back then said he would be happy to have me on the team (back then I was also on a competitive weight lifting team (yes once again the only girl) and was super strong and could actually take some of those boys down while practicing) my dad never said no that I couldn't wrestle but he never actually said yes either, so I didn't, but I continued to work with the team never missing a match. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE wrestling, so when Daniel said he wanted to give it a try I was super excited. This is his first year, he has played 5 years of baseball (and is REALLY good at it) and tried cross country this year too, now its wrestling and so far so good, he has a lot to still learn, but he LOVES it too and is really doing well for his first year. I am a little insane at the matches, after Sat. when the tournament was over I was hoarse (yes I am one of those way crazy screaming very intense moms) but it is just so fun to watch your kids play sports (or do anything really) Daniel tries so hard at everything he does and never gives in. Way to go Daniel! There will be lots more wrestling updates to follow, the season started last month and he is gone 5-6 days a week with it and the season doesn't end until Feb. (yayyy for me :) it means lots of running around for me and the little ones but I wouldn't miss it for the world :)

WOOHOOOO.....(complete sarcasim!)

I got a call from my OB's office today and they scheduled a Laproscopy and a Cystoscopy to be done Dec. 30th....More fun times...(NOT) well I guess the upside is that it will be before the end of December, because Josh's work decided to change medical insurance companies and to a more crappier plan, which sucks for our family since we all have some kind of medical problem or regular medicines to take, next year outta be real interesting.....I guess its better to get everything we can done now in the next 2 weeks!

FUN TIMES

I guess I will document, that tomorrow I have to wake nice and early for an Endoscopy and a partial Colonoscopy (for another biopsy, I had a full Colonoscopy last year) they are still trying to find an answer to some problems that I have and from what they found last year from the Colonscopy, hopefully they will because I am just having way to much stinking fun!! ;)

THANKSGIVING/BLACK FRIDAY

 I have cooked dinner by myself for about the last 15 years. It is a lot of work and can be stressful at times if the kids are losing it and I have to tend to them as well, but I do enjoy cooking especially when its for a big meal for my family to gather around and be together, we have so much to be thankful for! The last few years I have cooked the dinner over at my dads house since its bigger over there and the kids can just run back and forth through the house and so we all aren't cramped in our tiny kitchen with no where to put food.

 As you can tell Daniels starving...

 Justin always wants to sit next to Pa

 This may sound silly, but Daniel and Natilie LOVE the Sparkling Grape Juice at the holiday times, this time we got a 3pack and they guzzled it all down...

 My cute Wade, we can never get him to sit still, so he just ran around while we ate (since he wont eat ANY of that type of food anyways, he played with a hot dog in hand)

 Some of the Feast

 Delaney LOVED her food (as she always does, this girl can pack it away)

 We had to take a silly picture...... its only sparkling grape juice!!!! lol

 the proof, it really is juice :p

After we ate dinner, I sat down and went through the thanksgiving day ads to map out my route! I have always gone black Friday shopping with my dad since I was a teenager, but now with his bad health he cant go anymore but I still go out and do his shopping for him. I went through each ad, and wrote down what I needed from each store and arranged them in order according to the times they opened. We left around 8pm on thanksgiving day, Daniel and Natilie decided they want to venture to walmart with me since that was the first stop, that place was a  MAD HOUSE, with looney people everywhere, a fight had broken out over the towels and one lady got punched in the face, thank goodness that was all that happened, in other walmarts in California, 2 people were shot and killed....people can be so crazy!!! we didnt get done at walmart till almost midnight so I took daniel and natilie home to sleep since daniel had a wrestling scrimmage the next morning, then went back out to my other stores and didnt get home till 6:30am....Yes we shopped for 10 1/2 hours, but we saved a ton of money, with 5 kids and our income, we HAVE to do black friday shopping, so its fun, exhausting and can be irritating, but I suck it up :)

AKRON TREE FESTEVAL

 Every year we go to the Akron Christmas Tree Festival held at the John S. Knight Center, its free admission and is so fun to walk around and see. People donate and make Christmas trees to auction off for people to buy and all of the proceeds go to Children's Hospital. They have the trees up for display for 2 weeks every November. I wish I could have gotten pictures of every single tree, they were all so gorgeous and clever but my phone camera will only hold so many...We took all of the kids but Daniel because he was at a friends birthday party.

 I LOVED this tree, this is the tree in that first picture, gosh you can tell Natilie is my daughter uh :)

 This was Wades FAVORITE tree, he is obsessed with cars

 My favorite tree, GO BUCKEYES!! :)

 Natilie and Justin checking out the miniature trees

 Wade and Delaney loved looking around too from the stroller, dont you love Delaneys pigtails :)

 getting ready to enter

Daddy and Justin

 An awesome Tran village

 A blast from the past, a LIght Bright Christmas Tree

 Justin LOVEd walking around and looking at the trees, he did so well with not touching

 Had to get a picture of the Navy tree, my little brother is in the Navy and is stationed in Italy right now (which he hates it there) but there was 2 Military trees this year which i thought was neat

 The kids loved this one with the train that went around the tree

This Navy/Military tree was made completely out of duct tape, it was pretty neat. There was also a Wizard of Oz tree there but forgot to get a picture, this is one of our favorite movies and the tree was awesome with the Emerald City as the tree topper.

A MORNING OF PAMPERING

 This past summer I talked my friend Ursala into doing the biggest loser contest with me (it was my second contest that I did back to back) and won, our prizes were a FACIAL!!! Neither one of us had ever had one done and how lucky that we both won the prize since we are good friends and that we could go together made it SO much fun! It was a a skin center in Wadsworth and the place was super nice and the 2 ladies who did our facials were awesome, I so wish I could afford to have a facial done once a month :) the first picture is in the waiting area before the fun started!

 Our room, they had heated beds for us to lay in which was great because I had been freezing all morning!

 Just as we got all nice and cozy in our beds before the fun begins

 relaxing with the deep cleansing mask on that they put on with a stone

An up close and personal shot

 Then the hot towels, I LOVED that part, they did this a few times throughout the whole facial

Ursala enjoying her hot towel, I have another up close and personal picture of her with the mask on too but I want to get her approval  before posting it :)
We had a wonderful time getting pampered, relaxing, talking and getting beautiful skin in the process. I was so thankful to win something like that (because I would have never been able to enjoy it otherwise) and it was a nice break away from a house of 5 screaming kids.

In the car on the way back home, so sad to leave, I could have stayed there all day