A cute joke from Scrapjazz

Rick forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really angry.

She told him, 'Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in less than 6 seconds ...

...AND IT HAD BETTER BE THERE!!'

The next morning, Rick got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window, and sure enough, there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her dressing gown, ran out to the driveway and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.

His funeral is Friday.

A new phase has started.

I'm sure there will be a day that we will be grateful when the kids can get up, go downstairs, and make their own breakfast, right? Let's just say, that phase has started a little early around these parts. Several mornings over the past few weeks, the kids are already downstairs when either Greg or I come down. We've caught them coming back upstairs a few times too. They've helped themselves to breakfast, sometimes it's dry cereal in a plastic bowl. Okay, thats harmless enough. Lately though, it's been Pop Tarts. Yep, *toasted* in the toaster oven.

[insert jaw dropping smiley here]

Interestingly enough, when I picked D up from school on Monday, they had had a fire drill during preschool. They all went outside and lined up, following teacher Jane's directions. Then after school, I took them to a great big park, just down the street from his school. I noticed a house that had been on fire, with a fence all around it. We all walked over to look at the house, and I was telling the kids how the house had been on fire, the inside of the house was all black, the blinds melted in the windows. Declan asked me if the kid that lived there had been making Pop Tarts.

I told him yes, I thought so.

I was so proud of myself, using all of these 'external' lessons to reinforce my parenting at home! I mean, when these things just fall in your lap, use them!

The next morning, they made Pop Tarts again.... grrrrrr......

Oh, and did I mention that they are getting up before 7? Yeah, someone needs to tell them that Mommy doesn't have much charm that early in the morning. Seriously, someone should have told me that kids get up so early........

Greg and Bean's downhill shred.

Go ahead, click the video. You know you wanna...

This is for a friend!

I found this picture when I was putting my photos into folders. This is our friend Alex, and it's pretty obvious that she has him wrapped around her little finger.

Snow, snow, snow near Tahoe...

We took the kids up to the snow on Saturday, about 25 miles from Tahoe. The kids had a blast playing in the snow and sledding down the hills.

Here is Teagan, modeling her most adorable snowsuit and boots!

Declan and I sledding. Don't let the picture fool you, I was scared. If you enlarge this photo, you can see our 'fin' carved a line in the snow. Evidence of our completely out of control, wild ride down the hill. I think we bit in a second after Greg took this picture!

Maren is adorable in her snowsuit too.... but she can't understand what was so fun about the snow. I love my hat, it matched my jacket, which is of course, the most important thing.

Declan and Teagan, shreddin'

if even only for a moment!

I *love* Declan's camo snowsuit. Looked for it in my size, but they were out... that's okay though, everyone would have thought I was a 12 yr old boy.

We couldn't have gotten luckier on the weather too, I think it was colder down at our house yesterday than it was up on the mountain. There is something to that whole 'wind chill factor' theory. We decided that since people come to this country to vacation in this area, it was the least we could do to visit for a day!

How common is your name?

teresa is the #54 most common female first name

0.336% of females in the US are named teresa.

Around 411600 US females are named teresa!

source: namestatistics.com

Major slacker blogger here, checking in!

Okay, my friend that just had surgery has updated her blog and I still haven't. Oh, the shame of it all!

Yesterday was the first day back to our regular schedule, and oh boy, was I ready! Declan was excited to go back to school, but not nearly as excited as I was! Teehee...

As I mentioned, we went to Arizona for Christmas. We drove, since flying with 3 kids would have been more fun than I was up for. It took us 15 hours to get there with about 3 hours worth of stops. We recouperated over the next few days and were good and ready for when the 'chick cousins' started to arrive.

Somehow, the elf knew we were at Grandma's house and all the kids had fun looking for him each morning.

We went to my Mom's for Christmas Eve, where the kids made out like bandits. Maren got to meet my brother, sister in law Jayne and Stepdad Dan. Maren was the official pass around baby while Declan and Teagan opened their presents and 'helped' everone else open theirs. Maren had a great time playing with the curly ribbon on her present! Nana and Preiss got Declan and Teagan 'computers.' They were thrilled! Declan can work it and Teagan loves that she has something of her own with so many buttons!
Uncle Billy and Aunt Jayne gave Teagan some great duds from the Gap. She seriously had to put this on right away, she LOVES it! See the pose? I think Billy gave Declan cars so he could get down on the floor and play with them himself, but big D loved it! Here is my sister in law, Jayne, holding Maren.

Maren checking out her presents
Bubby modeling his new hat.
Here's Teagan, checking out the tree.
Me, asleep with my eyes open.....
Notice how Greg isn't in any of the photos????

I think there was 734,629 presents under the tree! Teagan's scooter Maren's rudolph. Declan's guitar.
The elf was on the tree Christmas morning!
The plate we left out for Santa and rudolph.
Here is *most* of the clan. Anyone else notice how Declan is the only one who looks bright eyed and bushy tailed?
Teagan got more bling, thank goodness!
Maren having fun!

And last, but not least, here is my sweet boy and I, hammin for the camera!

With this, I sign off.