I'm BACK!

and WAAAAAYYYYYYY behind. I'm so sorry that I haven't posted in awhile. To say things have been crazy around here is quite possibly the greatest understatement of the world. I have so many things to update so please bear with me. :)

Thank you to all of you that have posted on mine and Shar's blog wondering where I am, and to Shar herself for even dedicating a whole post just to me. :) She hit the nail right on the head and explained perfectly what I've been up to. Since a picture can speak a thousand words and I don't want to type all day I'll post a few showing what things have been like around here.

First of all, I thought it would be SUCH a GRAND IDEA to make hard candy suckers for all of my neighbors. My mom made them ALL the time when I was little and I LOVE the memories from it. Shar and I even talked about it and reminisced when she came by and I was in the thick of things. I had put all of the sucker bits in a bowl to munch on (because that is what my mom always did) and when Shar came by she mentioned how just looking at the bowl of bits and smelling the hard candy in the air evoked so many fun memories. I think this is primarily the reason I wanted to make them this year. I wanted my kids to remember their mom making suckers when they were little too. Though, in hind-sight I don't think the memories from this year will be very fond for them. I always get a little too stressed when my house gets out of control and this little adventure of mine made a MUCH BIGGER mess than I anticipated. GRRrrr. I was happy that they finally got done and it was fun to take them around to the neighbors so all in all I'd say it was a success. Mark (who will admit openly that he is NOT a big hard candy fan) says he thinks we should do chocolates next year and has already committed to helping me out. He thinks we should do it the Sat. after Thanksgiving and the whole family can just stay in their pj's all day and help, I'm all for it if he helps me and we get it all done in one day. Plus, I think it will be fun to try something new. So maybe MY kids will remember when they grow up about how their mom AND DAD always made chocolates for their neighbors every year and they got to help. That will be much better than the "I remember one year, my mom made suckers and we didn't see her for a week" memory that I'm going to try hard to erase out of their little heads in the coming year. :) Here is a picture of the colorful little guys:

After the candy adventure I was faced with the candy MESS and various other messes in my house that I let get WAY TOO OUT OF CONTROL and I wanted everything SPOTLESS for Christmas so I was frantic as I busled about turning this:

Into this:

And this:

Into this:

Do you THINK my kids have enough TOYS? And Santa came AGAIN this year!! I think I need to have a talk with that big guy......For those of you that remember my post awhile back about ALMOST getting the toy room done and wishing I had posted a before and after picture...? Well, I DIDN'T get it done and so then it got WORSE WORSE WORSE and WORSE. You couldn't even WALK in there!!! SO, this time I DID get before and after pictures and now the toys are mostly all in lock-down and will need paretal assistance to get out. I figure this way I can combat the mess a little instead of just letting them loose in the basement for days on end and never going downstairs to see the damage. :)

This is my next project. These are the toys that I allow upstairs and the place for all of the board games. They are mostly Gabe's toys and he's not the best picker-upper so usually things just get thrown back in the closet and the door shut (usually by a kid that has to put full body force against it to close it). I'm always leary to open the door as I know someday I'm going to fall victim to a toy and game avalanche and my kids won't be able to find me for a month!!

The good news is that although it looks ridiculous, it's really just a matter of stacking things a little better here and there and clearing the floor which I think in all actuality will take less than an hour....I just need to reserve enough energy to do it and right now my reservoir is running VeeeerrRRRYYY low in the energy department. :)

Also, I've been busy creating my family slideshow for 2007 which always ends up taking longer than I plan. It is such a rewarding task though and I love that we have a slideshow of all of our pictures since the year 2000. Joshua was only one and a half when I started making them. The boys all have a binder that holds their discs and we all get a copy that we can keep forever. Since I'm WAY behind on their scrapbooks I figure this is the next best thing. They've also come a long way since 2000 and now can incorporate video which is SO COOL! I will replace the slideshow from 06 with the 2007 slideshow at the bottom of my blog soon...maybe today if the stars all align in my favor.

So that's what I've been up to! I'll post with everything else SOON and I promise not to disappear for so long again....well that's a pretty steep promise...I'll TRY not to anyway.

And I do need to say that while I've been away from MY blog for awhile I haven't been away from yours. I've loved reading that my cousin Kandis has officially acheived CPA STATUS!!! Unless you are personally going through this I just don't think you understand what a HUGE UNDERTAKING it is and I am SOOOO proud of her!!! WAY TO GO CUZ!! I know Mark is SOOoooo jealous that you are done and hopes that he can add those wonderful little letters to his name sometime this next year too! :) I also LOVED finding out that my amazing and almost perfect cousin AD has a "real-life" life afterall, and was SO relieved to find out that even something as simple as a night out can get messed up at her house too. whew!

I continue to be amazed at my wonderful sis who has taken this bloggin' thing on FULL FORCE and just astounds me with her almost daily posts and cool pictures to illustrate with that she finds online. She's growing up and making me so proud... *sniff. I also totally love her movie reviews. Seriously, if you are contemplating a movie you've GOT to go to her site first to get the dish about your movie, I can almost GUARANTEE that the movie you're thinking about will be there, from Alvin and the Chipmunks, to The Legend, she's got it all. :)

I've been celebrating with Christine for finally selling her condo, and laughing with Tib over her holiday eating tips. For your daily blogging fix you just can't do better than my cousin Camille who started blogging AFTER me and already has over 100 posts. PLUS, they aren't BORING in the SLIGHTEST, she is so funny and witty that you just can't help being hooked, and she has two little ADORABLE boys and is so inspirational, I just love going there. :) I can't forget about Sheriece (she's not on my favorite's list yet, because I keep forgetting to ADD HER!) her blog is HILARIOUS! She is my cousin's daughter so what does that make her and I?? I tried to figure it out once but then my head started to hurt so I didn't worry about it anymore. She doesn't remember me from Adam but I TOTALLY remember her from when she was little and her blog is just awesome. I love how she taught everyone what the meaning of "blog" is and how she now provides cool links in almost every post. SO FUN! I've also loved catching up with my cousin Carla and hearing about her fun holiday shopping, her tip on what to do instead of buy a gift card that will go to waste was very inspiring also! :) Ok. I'm on a roll now. I can't forget Lisa whose life patterns mine (or vise-versa) SO much that it's almost scary! I love reading about the adventures of her 4 boys and feel as though she understands more about my life than anybody else can. I've loved reading about the incredible poem that my nephew Kyle recited in front of his WHOLE SCHOOL and catching up with friends Peggy (Santa almost didn't come to their house, that was a close one..WHEW!), Megan and my new friend from Christine's site Danielle even if it was 4am. That is what I LOVE about the blogging world, it doesn't matter when you show up, you can still catch up like you never left. :) Oooh, I CAN'T FORGET about Reagan and her wonderful post about the things she's learned in her 28 years of life. I laughed all day about that one! I LOVE ALL OF YOU!!!