That was fast!

I decided that I would just go ahead and use one of our family pics taken at Easter time. Not real current, but the most current one we have! lol I decided that I'd make it black and white, so the colors weren't so obviously springy. ;) So, I went to Costco's website and created our Christmas card....and it's already DONE!!! Seriously, I made the order less than 2 hours ago! So, I can pick them up later today when I don't have extra little ones with me! I put my URL for this blog at the bottom of the card and hopefully that isn't tacky....but I really don't have time to write a Christmas letter and all that entails, plus it's a way that everyone can peek in at our lives all year long instead of getting a brief synopsis once a year! Well, that's one thing down on my list. Hopefully everyone will hurry and get their addresses to me so I can get them all mailed out by Saturday!

'Twas the week before Christmas,,,,,

I can't believe that Christmas is ONE WEEK from today.....and I am so not ready! lol I've still got some shopping to do, need to get to the post office to get a couple of packages mailed off and get my house cleaned up and guest ready for my in-laws who are due to arrive on Monday! I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't even gotten Christmas cards done, let alone sent off! ACK!!! I need to get one good shot of my kids tonight, then I can just do it all on Costco online and maybe be able to get them picked up by tomorrow and maybe mailed off by Saturday. I have been very scatterbrained since Mom passed and just can't seem to get it all together into some sort of organization either mentally or physically. Now that Erik doesn't work Fridays, at least he'll be here to help me! He can go stand in line at the post office while I have extra kids here! lol I guess I should send out an email asking everyone (yet again, this year!) for their mailing addresses. We do have most of our shopping done, it's mostly little details and pretty much all of what I'm getting Erik. I need to break away here in the next few days to go shopping without little boys who don't know how to keep surprises. lol Erik took Connor to Wal-Mart the other day and Connor told him, "Daddy, we bought you a movie. But, It's NOT Batman!!!" Guess what movie we bought him? Yep, The Dark Knight....a Batman movie. lol Little twerp! It's the ONE thing I've bought him and he already knows what it is! I guess we at least got the Christmas decorations up......but I'd better get off here and start doing some stuff to actually help myself! ;)

All Aidan wants for Christmas is.........

His one front tooth.....His one front tooth!!! lol Aidan lost the first of his top front teeth this morning. In fact, the very first thing I did this morning was pull his tooth! He woke me up and told me that his tooth was "wiggling really fast now!" lol He told me he wanted to eat an apple to loosen it up more and I said, "Okay get an apple." He bit into it, "OUCH!!!!" I told him anything else he eats today would hurt it too, so it needed to come out. I grabbed a hold of it with a paper towel for some traction gave it a tug and it popped right out. He was very pleased to say the least. :) He also wanted to take it to school and pretend it came out there so that the school nurse would give him a special case for it. lol The other tooth is slightly loose too, but don't think it will be out in time for him to sing, "All I want for Christmas is my TWO front teeth." ;)

My cRaZy insane day and an amazing random act of kindness from a stranger!

kay....my day started off just bad. Kids were crazy this morning and not in a good way on a school morning. Went out to the car this morning to find the molding on my windshield that had been replaced Friday had popped off at the top of the windshield....so obviously, I wasn't going anywhere right then. Called the company to come fix it and they came fairly quickly (much more quickly than I'd anticipated) but even so my day had been thrown off kilter by the delay. Finally get to running my errands, run to the bank then to Target....which didn't have one thing I was looking for so I ran to Wal-Mart after that. As we're pulling into Wal-Mart's parking lot it had started lightly sprinkling and then started pouring suddenly making us run for the door and we still got pretty wet. I grab what I need there and then we head home, and I'm thinking that I can get Connor down for a nap still. Oh no, of course not. I walk in the door and see the light on my answering machine flashing, push play and I hear a man's voice, "Hi. I'm trying to reach Jodi Simper. My wife found your purse in the parking lot at Wal-Mart, we'd like to get it back to you if you could give us a call." Dumb me, left my purse in the cart and was completely oblivious till I got this message. I call them back and get their address, luckily, they were only a couple of miles from my house and thank Heaven honest people found it! A little while later, the boys and I leave to go meet Erik at the bus station so that we can go to Costco and order the cakes and pick up other stuff for the Church Christmas party we're in charge of on Friday. Erik missed the first bus, so we waited a bit for him there and the kids were already getting tired, hungry and cranky. So, we get to Costco (finally) and Erik runs to the restroom and I head back to the bakery to get started putting in the cake order. Aidan starts running around like a wild child and Connor starts trying to climb out of the cart to follow him. I make him get back in the cart which throws Connor into the queen mother of all melt downs. Connor didn't end up getting a nap at all today due to the other stuff. So, we get to the front to pay for our 8 20 lbs. bags of potatoes for the party (doing a baked potato bar) and for some freak reason our Amex Card is declined. Erik and I are like what the heck.....the card has a sizeable limit on it and we are not anywhere even close to being near the max on it AND we just paid a payment last week. Now, we have two other bank accounts with more than enough money in each to pay for the potatoes, but we like the convenience of not paying out of our own pockets and then waiting for the reimbursement for the Church parties/activities we do and just paying the Amex Bill right off with it. Not to mention, we wanted to know WHY the card was declined. So, Erik is on my cell phone and the kids are getting even more cranky and impatient and I'm getting frustrated and telling them just to be quiet and hold on a minute. Finally, I just thought forget it we'll pay out of one of the bank accounts and get paid back, whatever, I just wanted OUT of there! So, I get back in line and the cashier holds her hand out with a receipt and says, "Ma'am, that man walking out the door right now in the green coat just paid for your potatoes and said to tell you, "Merry Christmas." EIGHTY DOLLARS worth of potatoes. WOW!!!! These are the stories you hear about, but never have happen TO you, kwim? Erik and I stood there with our jaws on the floor going, "NO WAY!!!!" and the cashier was like, "This never happens, I've got chills!!!" This guy was out the door really before we even knew what had happened. Before we could object and tell him that we really weren't a charity case and had plenty of money to cover the potatoes, that we were just irritated with our card and being stubborn about how we wanted to pay for it. Anyway.....that's got to be one of the coolest things that have ever happened to us. We then followed it up with walking out of the store without Connor. Don't worry, he was right inside just looking a little worried. Yes, it's been a crazy day. But, I also had two really great experiences with total strangers as well.