Devils vs Wild

Well as most of you know I was the fortunate recipient of Devils hockey tickets for my birthday on March 3rd. I was pretty excited and the game was better than I imagined! To top it all off we tied and went into overtime (BONUS!!) and then to a shoot-out (DOUBLE BONUS!!) I could not have asked for a better game. The very best part it being able to see my favorite player Martin Brodeur start and beat the Minnesota Wild. My husband was pretty chapped that his team didn't win but I was pretty sure we were there to celebrate my birthday and it wouldn't be complete without a Devils win! Well I am going to post some pictures for all to see and enjoy! I would also like to thank my husband for the gift as well as Andee and Bryan for helping as well!!


The score board.



A common hockey fight on the big screen!



My favorite Goalie!



Here he is again!



Oh...I think he is looking for me!



Rolston shoots and scores.




The Devils celebrating victory!



Me and my wonderful husband, Jake



Andee and I

Another one....

I marked another thing off my 101 list this morning. We painted our fireplace last night and it looks awesome. Kaleb was pretty mad that when he got home from Papa's it was already done. His exact words were "I can paint because I am a big boy and big boys can paint." Oh well, I am sure when he is older (teens) he will rather die than help us paint. Maybe I should take advantage of it now!
We went from a terra cotta color to a red called "blaze." We still have to paint one of the dining room walls the same color but wanted it dry before Easter and honestly at midnight I was not in the mood to start the priming process all over again!

Here are the before and after!

This is when my sister owned the house


I love this color!

My 101 in 1,001

Well Gigi and I posted our lists this morning and according to our calculations we should have it completed by December 3rd, 2010. It seems like a ways away but I'm sure we will be pretty busy completing our tasks!

Enjoy reading and I strongly encourage everyone to make a list. I feel it will keep me focused on what I need to do that I keep saying I am going to do but still haven't done! Make sense?

All my thanks to Jenny Balow for bringing this to our attention!

www.jodys101.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday to me......!

Well this morning started off great! I was awakened by the laughter of two boys in their room playing in Ian's crib. Kaleb had climbed in there and they were wrestling in the blankets. Jake came home (from his 2nd job~the paper route) and we all went downstairs to watch "Handy Manny", "The Doodlebops" and other great morning cartoons while we ate bananas for breakfast! Next I opened my card from the boys and my present-a weekly magazine that keeps me updated on all the celebrity gossip. Next was Jake's present. He is a great gift-giver. He always knows what I want (as I am a great hint dropper) so I always know that I am going to be happy. First I opened my card and inside was a piece of paper that had a picture of a New Jersey Devil's jersey. Something I have always wanted was a PINK New Jersey Devils jersey so I could wear it proudly when I watch them play in person or on TV. Well next he said "Well I thought you might want a jersey so that you could wear it while using these....." and pulled out 2 tickets to the game. AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Just had to put that in there because that is how I felt. I wanted to scream and do the "dupa dance" (the dance that Kaleb does when he is happy...which involves shaking his booty!) But instead I started to cry. I love my husband and he made me cry even more telling me all that went into the surprise. We are meeting Andee, Bryan, Dave and Jenny for dinner and then we are all going to the game. He talked to my parents and they have the boys overnight. His mom and sister are doing the paper route and he talked to my employers who gave me that next day off. On top of all that my favorite Richfield, MN in-laws (Andee and Bryan) are planning to have Friday off so that we can spend some time with them! Man I am the luckiest gal in the world. I could not ask for more. Well it's off to bed now with sweet dreams of my devils!

As I predicted...

As I predicted in my blog about cleaning my office I would become more efficient scrapping and such. Well I have been scrapbooking every night for a couple of hours turning out 4-5 pages a night. My goal is to be caught up by the end of the summer so I can start on the pictures I still need to print. (Halloween until now) Don't get me wrong I love my digital cameras but with film I always had pictures to hold and look at. With the digital I tend to "dump" them on the computer and only print them when I want to scrapbook. So my goal is to be better at that and print more pictures to keep up to date. Wish me luck...at this point it is a huge undertaking!

Well I did it...sort of!

I finally cleaned my office/craft room. I spent one night cleaning (2 am) and today after my long nap (my little ones infected me with a sore throat) I organized. My main purpose was to clean the entire room and have a well-functioning office but after much thought I really only need to get to the computer and be able to efficiently scrap! So here are the pictures to prove a job well done.
I would like to add that my corner has a little inspiration from my favorite "Outsider" Gigi! I added a TV and a IPod dock/DVD player so that I can watch movies while I scrap! It was a phenomenal idea and I can't scrap without it now! Hopefully I'll get more motivated and organize the toy corner....and maybe not!
The before picture!
The after picture!

Scrapbooking

Besides my family nothing gets me more excited that scrapbooking. I love organizing everything I own, buying new things to use and spending time with people who like to scrap also. So last night and today I went through all the pictures I have to scrap and came to the conclusion that I have to start my goal of scrapping every day. But this means that I actually need to organize the room where I do this which was ravaged during "Hurricane Kaleb-Ian" this past week. The room of which I speak is the office, toy storage and scrap/craft room. Right now you have to hop, skip, jump and sometimes leap over items that are lying on the floor....you can't even see the rug that is down there. So I have attached a picture to give me some motivation (because of embarrassment) to clean it tonight and tomorrow! I will post the results as soon as they are available!

Valentine's Day 2008

This year Jake and I decided that from now on Valentine's day is a family holiday and we will stay in and make dinner...just us. So this year we made our favorite pasta and garlic bread and had special apple juice. It was so nice to be together when no one is working and we can be silly. So here are some pics of the night, we hope you enjoy. Happy Belated Valentine's Day to all of you!


Cute Kaleb. He didn't think I noticed all the bread he was "accidentally" dropping on the floor!




Ian being a ham as usual!


Kaleb and his daddy.


Our Family!

Return of the Blog Slacker!

Well here I am again updating my blog after a short hiatus!
This weekend Jake's out of town siblings made it home to visit. We spent Saturday night eating and playing an awesome game called Quelf. I introduced them to this game and I think everyone would agree with me when I say that I think it was one of the best times we have spent together while playing games! I have some great pics from the game that I will share with you all!


Matt contemplating is card!!


Katrina giving us a "show!"


Bryan looking for a stapler.


Gavin with his aluminum foil glove for the whole game!


Mark making an oragami animal singing like a mad scientist.


Jake singing and dancing while Katrina does the chicken dance.


Gigi laughing at Jody's reaction to her car. "Sing Happy Birthday to the Prime Minister of Quelf in your best Marilyn Monroe impersonation!"

On Monday (yesterday) we went to the depot for family day (normally the admission is $10 for adults and we got in for $2...a mighty fine savings if you ask me!) Anyway the boys has a blast and Kaleb walked around like he needed to take everything in before we yanked him back home. Ian loved the little carts they had because he could walk around unassisted. (He can walk and secretly when he thinks we aren't looking I have seen the child walk...sneaky, sneaky!!)


Kaleb using the back-hoe at the Children's Musuem.


Ian ramming all the cars in his way!


My boys sitting in the most colorful chair that I have ever seen!

Life is Crazy!

My bosses have changed to another real estate company so my work life has been crazy. We have to change everything over to Prodigy Real Estate from Weichert formerly RE/MAX. (It is a mess.) What a pain; but it will be a great move for them this year and hopefully if they make their goal they are planning on leasing me a car (which makes me want to work even harder.) So with that I am working from home (on crazy cold days), from our cramped office and my car! It's been so stressful but I had a welcomed break when we went to AZ. So on top of all that I still need to include some pics of that trip for all to see. Jake took so many that I am having a hard time picking my faves but I will include some tonight.

My boys are great. Ian is still not wanting to walk. Secretly I know he can (he has taken steps) but is waiting for the right time to impress us all! Crawling is faster and with an older brother probably safer. Who knows when Hurricane Kaleb will rush by and knock you over! Kaleb is so awesome. He is such an excited little boy and has so much going on in his head. He loves crocodiles and pirates (courtesy of Peter Pan) and I always get to be Wendy, Daddy is Peter Pan and Kaleb is Captain Hook. Ian gets a bum deal and gets to be Swiper Fox (courtesy of Dora) because he comes by and steals all Kaleb's toys! What an imagination!! I am slowly picking up my scrapping and stamping. Hopefully I can get my goal going of a page a day! So far I tend to do a lot of organizing and not a lot of actual scrapping.

For Lent I am refraining from buying any scrapbooking stuff because I have a ton that I already need to use. I feel that it will help me be more aware of what I have and get going on what I need to do.

Well I must return to work leave you readers with some snapshots of my life. ENJOY!

Kaleb

Here is a random pic of my sweet boy Kaleb. I seem to have blogged about Ian a lot lately so here is Kaleb's moment to shine. I will blog about our awesome trip to Arizona and include some pics we took as soon as I get the chance.

New Year Resolutions...

Well I hate New Year Resolutions because I feel like I never fully complete them. One of mine in the past has been to lose 40lbs of chocolate, marshmallow and creamy Carmel and I haven't been successful but maybe this is my year. Another one has to record a CD of me singing my favorite songs because I have close friends and family ask me to do one for them. Maybe this is my year for that too! I always say I am going to start school and finish what I started. I want to teach children so maybe this is my year! We'll see what happens. I always have ambition in January and February and it fades by March. I need someone to be on my tail at all times but people like that cost money!! WISH ME LUCK!

Our New Year!

With the new year upon us I thought I would blog about what we are planning for 2008. Please be sure to read the whole blog (no skimming) as it is pretty interactive.

Well on January 9th we are leaving (along with 9 other family members) on a trip to visit my dad's brother Tom in Arizona. Kaleb is pretty excited to ride on a plane although I'm sure he doesn't know that it requires mostly sitting. (Any tips from parents who have traveled with small children?)

In February we are celebrating Jake's dad Mark and Andrea, Jake's sister's birthday. (I'm not sure on all that punctuation!!) Mark and Dianne will celebrate their 7th (Jake did the calculations!) anniversary on Feb 29th. Happy Valentine's Day and Groundhogs Day!

In March we have my 27th birthday as well as "niece" Cadence's, my sister Amanda's, and our nephew Garek's birthday to celebrate. A couple of times that month also we will be thinking of 2 special NC boys on their birthdays! Most importantly we are celebrating Easter and reflecting on what that personally means to us. On March 14th I will be in my living room watching the greatest Hockey team to ever play, in my opinion, against the MN Wild. The New Jersey Devils are going to be in my home state, Yippee!! Maybe 2009 or 2010 will be my year to see them, LIVE!

In April we have a lack of birthdays so maybe it will be a welcomed break! We will celebrate our 4th anniversary this month and another big event of April will be nephew Gavin's 1st Communion!

In May we start off the month celebrating Kaleb's 3rd birthday and then my mom Maryjo's on the 23rd.

June is my dad, Gary's birthday as well as Jake's golden birthday. We are photographing a wedding for Jake's co-worker this month in the cities.

In July we will celebrate Jake's mom, Dianne as well as his sister Katrina's birthday. Happy 4th of July! We have a wedding that I am singing at this month.

In August we will celebrate Jake's brother Matt and nephew Gavin's birthday. My parents will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary this month also.

In September my brother Dave turns 24 on the 6th and Andrea and Bryan celebrate their 2nd year married! Happy Back to School!

In October my best friend Anne turns 28 on the 5th.

In November besides Thanksgiving and shopping on the biggest shopping day of the year (which will be the 11th annual for me) we have a tentative New York trip scheduled.

December brings Ian's birthday on the 10th, brother in law Bryan's bday on the 13th, our friend Stoke's bday on the 15th, Matt and Gigi's 10th anniversary on the 19th, Christmas and all it's glory, Gigi's bday on the 30th and "nephew" Liam's bday on the 31st as well as New Years Eve. We are also debating between a Christmas or a New Years party for 2008 and can't decide. (What are your suggestions?)

That is 2008 month by month. According to this we have many birthdays to celebrate and probably others I am forgetting. If I have forgotten you and you are slightly offended or even extremely offended drop me an email and I will add you to my growing list. We would like to add spending time as well as visiting with family and friends and other big celebrations that we might have this year so send us your reminder and we'll add that too!!

Enjoy your New Year I know I will!!

Happy Birthday Ian

My baby boy is 1 today and as I sat at work today I remembered that one year ago today I was holding a defeseless little boy who needed me to protect him. Now he is moving around like crazy getting into everything he shouldn't and not wanting to give up nursing (we still do in the middle of the night~so much for sleep.) I am so proud to have such an amazing little boy as well as his brother too! We had a great party yesterday for Ian and Kaleb was so helpful opening his presents! He thought that they were all for him. Well Kaleb deserves them for being patient (most of the time) with Ian when he takes his toys.

LIFE IS AMAZING!!!!

My celebrity look alikes!

NYC

I am adding another thing I would like to do in my life and it is travel to NYC to see Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and everything Christmas NYC has to offer. I was supposed to go this year with my family but some circumstances came up that were out of our control. We made a vow that 2008 is the year and now both my parents have to work Thanksgiving. So I think that I still might go with my sister and make it a "Sister's Vacation." FUN!!! I will make it there someday and I hope that it is soon before life is too busy to make it. That's my blog today.....quick and to the point and with 1 cute baby boy picture!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am a very thankful person today and as we ate and laughed I was reminded of all the things I am thankful for.

I have a loving family which includes my boys, Jake, Kaleb & Ian, wonderful parents and siblings as well as a awesome family of in laws! My life wouldn't be complete without any of them and as we are all separately celebrating this Thanksgiving I remember how much we miss them when they are not here. I have a stable job and great friends all over the United States. I have a warm house full of love and a car that, although threatens me at times, is drivable! I am thankful that God has blessed me with so many wonderful things and many more (too many to mention!!) I hope all of you reading this is reminded of what you are thankful for.

I am gearing up for my 12th annual shopping excursion tomorrow. I don't have much to get but I still can't wait to see all the people and get home to my boys. We are decorating the house tomorrow which should be very interesting!!

The Results

I placed 2nd last night and very happy about it. The woman that won attends my old church and has been doing Karaoke for awhile and deserved to win. She won $500, a nights stay at Grand Casino, 2 tickets to the concert, Opening for the Rockin' Road House tour and two meal vouchers. As a finalist (top 10) we each got tickets to the same show and 2 buffet vouchers at Grand Casino (where the concert is taking place.) Most of you who know my husband knows that he was just about to pee his pants with excitement when he found out that I won 2 meal tickets.

I called the winner this morning and gave her my two tickets to the show so she could take her kids (5 of them (including a foreign exchange student)) as well as her husband. She said that she has spent most of the morning trying to round up tickets to take them. I felt that I wouldn't enjoy the show as much as her family would seeing her up there and I would have wanted someone to do that for my family when I opened for JoDee Messina..."do unto others." Thanks to everyone who wished me luck.

Update

Well I have finals tonight for a karaoke competition in Duluth. If I win I get to open for Mark Chesnut, Joe Diffey and Aaron Tippin at Grand Casino for the Rockin Road House Tour. I also get a night stay and Grand Casino, $500, Front row tickets to the concert as well as 2 buffet tickets! I am pretty nervous and have been every time I think about singing. I usually sing the same song, "Broken Wing," by Martina McBride (it's my signature song) but recently Jake has been telling to "break out of my shell" and sing something different. Well, my other option is "Forgive," by Rebecca Lynn Howard but I am afraid that I don't know it well enough to really perform it. I have been practicing in the car though. Here is my thought. What if I sang "Broken Wing," and after the competition my friends usually make me sing more before I leave I could sing "Forgive." I think that is what I'll do. Writing always helps me solve problems. Thanks for reading my crazy incoherent thoughts and giving me advice as to what you think I should do.

Impromptu Photo Session

The other day while Kaleb was away playing in Chester Park with Auntie Manda Ian and I had a photo session with a bushel basket and leaves. Now some of you may know that when Kaleb was a baby (5 months old) I scooped the guts out of a pumpkin and wiggled him in there. The results were fantastic. Well I wanted to do the same for Ian. My sis-in-law Gigi had a great idea of doing a bushel basket and leaves instead of the pumpkin. So we mixed it up a bit. And I think the results are fantastic again! The model was handsome and very cute as well very easy to work with. He wanted to make it as quick as possible. (I think we dumped over in the basket about 12 times.) He as you can see in a couple of the pics did not like the leaves touching his back. Enjoy!

I'm a Snowman...ROAR!!

We ventured to Boo at the Zoo this weekend. Kaleb was a snowman and Ian was a fez monkey. We went with our friends Anne, Stokes, Cadence(a Peep) and Liam (a bat). We started the tradition for Kaleb and Cadence's first Halloween and took their siblings along for their first time this year. Cadence had a baby brother on Dec 31st of 2006. So all of our kids are really close in age.
Anne has been my best friend for roughly 7 years. We met at Blackwoods where we both worked at the time. We have shared a ton of things together. Her and Stokes were married November 1st, 2003 and we were married April 17th 2004. We both were pregnant with our kids at the same time. Cadence was born March 7th, 2005 and Kaleb was born May 5th, 2005. Well the next year we were pregnant within a month of each other and had our babies in December. (Ian on the 10th and Liam on the 31st) Liam was supposed to be born in January but he wanted to share a birth month with his friend Ian as well as his Papa Stokes. We have shared so much together and year after year it keeps getting better and better. We have learned a lot about life from each other and plan on spending the rest of our lives as best friends. Could it get any better than that??
I've included some pics of the kids all dressed up. Kaleb loved being a snowman and thought that snowmen were supposed to be scary so he "roared" a lot!! Ian was pretty indifferent about the whole situation. He was just content riding in the stroller watching people as they walked by. One of the pics is of Liam sleeping by a pumpkin. He was asleep in the stroller and they wanted some pics by the pumpkins and he wouldn't wake up!! Enjoy!!

Our Weekend

We had a busy weekend with work and our annual SWAIN Cross Country Invitational. My dad is the director of the high school cross country meet for the Duluth Public Schools and as his daughter I have been selling t-shirts for as long as I can remember. So now that Jake and I are married he looks forward to the first weekend of October as much as I do. Unfortunately we don't have any pics from the event due to the less than favorable weather. But I will add some of the boys for fun.
On a happier note I finished Harry Potter on Thurs night. I actually was shaking for the last 5 chapters unable to predict what was going to happen (there was one point where I shut the book and thought maybe I would not read it but I pressed on) and that it would be to my dislike. It was better than I expected. In fact I was very happy with the ending but now am sad that it is over. It honestly makes me sad that I have no more Harry Potter to read. I can't wait for the last two movies and to buy the whole series for myself (I've been borrowing my in-laws copies) and for Kaleb and Ian to read someday. Now I must find something else to read while I pump. I did find an old copy of "Mr. Poppers Penguins" that I might read again just for fun. Maybe I'll embark on a Roald Dahl adventure after that.

Here are the cute boys. The first one is of Kaleb and his Papa (my Dad Gary) doing Wednesday night at the races earlier this summer and with his ribbon. The next two are of Ian and the final one is of Kaleb and his friend Cadence. She was born a little less than two months before him and she has a new brother that was born 21 days after Ian. His name is Liam. Enjoy!!

Harry Potter

Well as it states in my profile I am reading Harry Potter. I am now approaching the end of the last book and I am pretty sad. I get so excited to read (it helps me through the time when I pump breast milk for Ian) but then I don't want to read because it means that the end is approaching. I never thought I would but when the 7th book came out I was not going to let anyone ruin the ending for me and up until now I have no idea how it is going to end. (Which I would like to thank all you who know how it ends and didn't spill the beans.) I can't put it down. I stay up and read until 1 or 2 in the morning.
It actually makes me cry to think that I won't be visiting Hogwarts or Harry anymore. I have come to love the storyline and all it holds so much. I sound so corny and a few years ago I would be the one laughing at myself for how I feel about this series and guffawing at the fact that I am reading it. "Who has time to read 7 books about a little boy?" I certainly didn't think I would but I had to make time and through it all I have connected so much with the whole series. So if you haven't read it....DO IT! I totally recommend it to anyone who can sneak 15-20 min a day. It has been a journey for me that I will never ever regret.