Busy, Busy, Busy!

As you’ve already guessed from the title, we’ve had a very busy month or so since our last update to the blog.  We had family portraits taken at Sears:

            

         

We were very pleased with the fact that Sears lets you buy a CD with full reproduction rights included!  Yay!

Katie was uncooperative during the her-only session.  I made up some collages of all the pics, including one poking fun at the silly faces she made.  Jacob, of course, cooperated beautifully and his pictures came out wonderful.

We travelled to Ft. Meyers for Thanksgiving with the Fullers and Carters, and had a very nice visit, though we all missed Jacob terribly.  He was in New York and Boston visiting with his Mom’s family.

When we returned, we hung some lights out in front of the house and put up our Christmas tree. 

             

The kids had a great time decorating it – they kept putting ornaments on the same ten branches, almost as if they were trying to out-do the previous ornaments, so Mike and I distributed the ornaments upwards from there :)

I went to Arkansas on a short business trip, we had some friends come to visit, and one friend was put in the hospital for a couple of weeks.  Nana and Poppa picked up the kids one night and took them out for some mini-golf and Chuck-e-Cheese fun, the kids really enjoyed themselves. 

    

We had dinner at Nana and Poppa’s house, where Nana baked a cake for Katie’s Birthday,

  since they wouldn’t be able to attend Katie’s birthday party.  As you can see, the kids frosted and decorated the cake, with about equal parts of the frosting going on the cake and into their tummies!  We also celebrated the first night of Chanukah with them, which was a new experience for me.  We lit the candles, and Jacob helped recite the blessing.

I’ve tried to find some Chanukah decorations for the house so both our faiths are represented, but there doesn’t seem to be much out there to be found, at least not at the three stores I checked.  I’m glad at least that most of the decorations I already had were more winter-oriented than Christian-oriented, so they’re at least more universal for a blended family like ours.

Then Jim and his son Nicky came to visit, and the kids had a good time playing with Nicky.  I thought with the age difference (Nicky is 8), they wouldn’t have much in common, but they did very well together, especially Nicky and Jacob.  Jim made a yummy dinner Saturday night for all of us, so that was a nice break ;)

Next was Katie’s Birthday party.  After picking up the birthday cake and driving home, I started having stabbing pains in my back, still don’t know what caused it.  We went ahead to Katie’s party at Birthday World, and all of the kids really enjoyed it.  Jacob especially enjoyed the train roller-coaster. 

I think the major issue for the parents was that the table we were at was right next to the train roller-coaster, and it was very noisy.  But the kids had fun, and that was the point. 

We were supposed to go that evening to Mike’s company’s Christmas Dinner Party at Interlachen Country Club, but instead we spent the evening in the ER because my back pain kept getting worse instead of easing off.  Followed up with my orthopaedic doctor’s office the next day, and that Dr. thinks I tore a ligament.  They scheduled me  for an MRI, which I had done today.  I also had the joy of getting squeezed half to death – I had a mammogram that my gyn Dr. ordered as a baseline study. I was at the hospital for the MRI anyway, so decided to get that out of the way too.  Should have the results of both by sometime next week, or the week after due to the holidays.

Tonight my little performer decided she was going to put on a show with the microphone Nana and Poppa got her and Jacob.  I had a hard time not laughing, she was so adorably cute!  See the best concert this year here! LOL!

We uploaded several videos to YouTube, in addition to the two embedded in this blog. 

I finally uploaded the video of Mike proposing to me. Awwww!

There’s also another video of Katie playing the drums. 

Here’s a video of Katie and Jacob playing football after their afternoon with Nana and Poppa.

This is Katie and Jacob reacting to seeing the Christmas tree all lit up before we decorated it.

And all of us decorating the tree.

We are heading to Ft. Meyers next week to celebrate Christmas with the Fullers and Carters, should be loads of fun.

Have a Wonderful Holiday Season Everyone!

The things kids say…

A lot is revealed in the things little kids say.  You really get a window into how they’re looking at things.  Often, Kate and Jake remind us what it was like when we were children and everything was a possibility and imagination was the only resource required to have fun.  I love these ages the kids are right now.  I wish I could just pause them like this, keep them at this age for a bit longer.

“I love everyone in the whole world!  I love Daddy, and Stephanie, and Katie, and Mommy!” – Jake, 4.5yrs old

Mike was talking to Jacob one day about something he’d done.  Katie was putting in her two cents worth, so I told her to “butt out”.  Her response?  “Butt out??!!  EWWWWWW!!!” ROFL.  Note to self - “stay out of it” instead of “butt out”, *chuckle*.

“I’m going to be Super-Kaitlyn when I grow up, and I’m going to fly to school instead of drive.”  Then this weekend, that changed to “I want to be a little Christmas Tree when I grow up.”  And also, “I want to be a garden when I grow up.”   ??? Where did those last two come from? ***Mom shakes head in puzzlement***

“That hug gave me 17 hearts, and filled them all up with Daddy’s soda!” Jacob stated, then asked “Can I have a drink of your soda?” :)

We took the kids to see Astro Boy this Saturday.  They both loved it!  Katie was telling me that night about how Astro Boy could fly.  I asked, “He flew like an airplane?”  “No, Mommy,” Katie patiently explained, “he used his legs!”

Jacob said his favorite thing to do is watch Daddy at his work.  But that he wants to be a Jedi Ninja when he grows up, lol.

“Mikey has a cool car.”  Katie said this morning.  “What about Mommy’s car?” I asked.  “You need to get a cool car next time, Mommy.”  ROFL!!!!!

Some new pics online.  Enjoy!

This-N-That

So, Jacob looked great as a Ninja, and Katie had a blast being “Super Kaitlyn” for Halloween.  We did a bit of trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, then went over to Crane’s Roost Park and did more there, came back to the neighborhood and hit some more houses.  All-in-all, Katie had loads of fun, and it was wonderful to see her “getting it”, showing a better understanding of the holiday for the first time.  That’s a part of parenthood that has really surprised me how much I’ve grown to love it – seeing Katie and Jacob learning or discovering something new, I just adore that!

And good news from the Dr. too, turns out it wasn’t a stomach ulcer (yay!), it was something called pill esophagitis probably caused by the doxycycline I occasionally take for rosacea. 

Gearing up for all the holiday madness now.  Added to all the usual holiday fun is Katie’s birthday in December, and Mike and I both have business trips the same week coming up soon.  Oh joy, how’s that for complicated?  Let the wild rumpus start!!!  I love the book, can’t wait to see the movie.

October Fun

We’ve had lots of fun with the kids this month.  Going into and getting ready for the holiday season is always an exciting time of year.  We’ve taken the kids to mini-golf, a pajama breakfast at Sweet Tomatoes, and at Mimi’s they ate one of the messiest desserts I’ve yet seen - Oreo dirt cups with gummi worms and chocolate pudding. It was truly a spectacular mess – especially on Katie!  I told the kids no kiss for me after they ate dirt and worms until they brushed their teeth!  Yuck! LOL, they got a kick out of that.  We’ve had some friends over to play games with us and the kids, and last night the kids decorated their own pumpkins.  They had a blast!  Tonight or tomorrow I’ll carve the big pumpkin – I’m aiming for a spooky house, it’s a challenging pattern, will be interesting to see if I can pull it off.  Katie’s “Super Kaitlyn” costume is almost complete, just have to add the “Super Kaitlyn” emblem to the front of it.  I’m sure no one but us will understand the costume, but that’s OK.  Katie gets it; for months now, she’s been telling me that when she grows up, she’s going to be “Super Kaitlyn” and she’s going to fly to school instead of drive.  ROFL, so I decided she could be “Super Kaitlyn” now for Halloween.  Her cape has been done for a few days now, and it’s a riot to see her running around the house with it on, acting as if she can fly.  Jake says he wants to be a ninja with a sword, like the ninjas in the video game.  He will be with his mom for Halloween, but we still need to get him a costume for the school party on Friday.  That might be a bit tricky – Jake’s class is allowed to wear their costumes on Friday, but Katie’s isn’t.  Might have to bring his and put it on him at the school, so Katie doesn’t cry when she isn’t allowed to wear hers to school :(  New Pics Online, more to be added after Halloween. 

Mr. And Mrs.

Mike and I have tied the knot, and are now officially Mr. and Mrs. Fuller.  With everything going on with the custody trial, we didn’t know when would be a better time to schedule a family wedding, and although we wanted all of our friends and family to attend, we didn’t want to keep waiting indefinitely.  We couldn’t think of anything more positive than uniting our families, our hearts, and our lives.  A bright light has shot its way through the chaos, and while there’s still some chaos, we’re now in chaos with our sunglasses on.

Ick…

WELL, we just had a fun weekend (not). Thursday Mike and I both went to get a flu shot. Carlo, Mike’s co-worker, came down with the flu, and although we had gotten the kids their flu shots the week before, we both had not yet had ours. So we took care of that. Friday evening, I started feeling sick, heartburn and nausea, and Mike was feeling a bit stuffy and congested. Saturday, my heartburn and nausea were mostly gone. I spent a good part of the day making French Onion soup, one of Mike’s favorites, and it came out wonderful (Thank you, “Joy of Cooking”) but around dinner time I started having trouble swallowing my food. Every bite was painful, and I only got about half of a bowl of the soup down. We didn’t know what was causing this, weren’t sure if it had something to do with the flu shots, Mike having been exposed to someone who came down with the flu, or what. Mike was feeling better by Sunday. But when I woke up Sunday morning and my problem was much worse, I couldn’t even drink without pain, Mike insisted I go see my Dr, and he watched Katie while I went (Jacob was at his mom’s). Luckily, my Dr’s office is open on the weekends, I did NOT want to sit in the emergency room for endless hours. Long story short, my Dr. thinks it is a stomach ulcer, most likely brought on or made worse by the recent stresses in our lives, and he referred me to a gastrointestinal specialist for further testing. He also prescribed some medication to help my stomach feel better in the interim. Sunday was still pretty icky, even though I had the medicine, but by Monday morning, I was able to eat breakfast with very little pain, so that’s some progress!! Poor Katie, I feel so bad for her. She had the most boring weekend, we didn’t get to go out and do anything fun with her, and by Sunday evening, she was bouncing off the walls with boredom.

The good news is Mike managed to shake off whatever it was that was trying to get him sick. Good thing he takes his vitamins!! He went to work this morning and half his office (Including the entire QA department except him) was out sick. Good thing he learned Whiteout and Wildfire on Sunday..

We have a great next weekend in store for the kids . We will keep everyone posted.
Love ya

Steph and Mike

Together Again

After a very painful month where we did not see Jacob at all, we were finally able to spend some time with him this past week.  It was a very emotional reunion for the entire family.  Mike was beaming but on the edge of tears all evening.  Katie and Jake kept hugging each other.  I was a total watering pot, of course.  Jake kept saying over and over how much he had missed us and loved us.  He said he loved us so much, we didn’t even know how much it was, LOL.  We packed the most fun possible into the last ten days with him.  Some pics are already in the preceding link; a few more to be added this evening (so check back!).

Last weekend we spent Saturday at home, spending some quality time alone with the kids.  Sunday went to visit with Stephanie (not me, another Steph! :) ) and her family.  We had a wonderful dinner with them and the kids all got to play together.  Jacob was especially glad to see Dustin; he and Steph’s son have bonded like Gorilla Glue and really missed each over this past month.  Mike (of course) worked on some computer / networking problems for Steph.

 

This past Friday, we had a living room pizza & movie picnic (we watched “The Incredibles” ), and Jamie joined us for that.  I made popcorn balls that everyone enjoyed.  I followed the suggestions in the comments and added 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla to the syrup.

Mike’s parents and nieces came to visit this Saturday and Sunday.  The kids had a wonderful time playing together, and it was very nice to get to visit with Mike’s folks.  Mike’s parents treated everyone to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (yummy! Muchas Gracias!) Saturday night.  On Sunday, the big hit of the morning was the Wii Fit.  The kids all had tons of fun running, balancing, and in general, exercising without knowing it :)  Now that’s the kind of video game we have no problem with the kids getting addicted to!

After they left Sunday, and Jake and Katie woke up from their naps, we worked on a pottery project together, but that is a lot more difficult than it looks on the box! LOL.  But we had a lot of fun making a huge mess anyway.  I think the kids don’t yet have the necessary motor control (I barely do!), so probably I’ll need to make them a pot, then let them paint and decorate it after it dries.

We’re BACK!!!!

Whew! Been a long time since we've updated the blog. Lots has happened since June. Where shall I start?

Rest of June

Well, first of all, not long after Mike's birthday, we received the news that his grandmother had passed away. Mike, of course, was devastated; he adored his grandma. I did not know Lillian Sterling well or for long, but I liked her very much, and am saddened by the thought that I won't have the chance now to know her better. Mike's parents were away when it happened, so the service was scheduled for July to allow everyone to attend.

We attended the verbal arguments for the appeal regarding Mike’s custody of Jacob. It did not go well. We were advised that a decision could take days or weeks or months, no way to tell, we just have to wait. So we did. Agonizing!

Katie’s dad left for an out-of-town job right before Father’s Day.

July

We purchased season passes to the Orlando Science Center, and have taken the kids several times.  There’s more to do there than we can do in one day, but we do a different section every time.  Katie liked the Mr. Potato Head exhibit, Jacob was enthralled by the planet display.  We watched an interesting little rendition of a Dr. Seuss book that was edited to teach kids about the planets.  The dinosaur exhibit was also cool – the kids had fun pretending to “dig” for dinosaur bones.

On July 17th, the decision on the appeal came down, and the original custody determination was reversed and remanded back to the trial court. This means a new trial to determine custody for Jake.

Later that month, we drove down to Lehigh to attend the memorial service for Mike’s grandma. Lillian obviously had a large family who loved her, and she led a very full life. After Karen, Mike’s Mom and Lillian’s daughter, spoke about her, my loud-mouthed daughter Katie yelled out loud enough for the entire service to hear, “Good Job!”. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to crawl under my chair and deny I was related to the little town-crier. But everyone laughed, and though I was twelve shades of red, the memorial service resumed with a slideshow of pics of Lillian’s life. Joann, Mike’s sister, did a beautiful job with the slideshow, all of her hard work on it showed. Katie also felt necessary to comment on the slideshow, “That was a good movie, let’s do it again!”, but I don’t think everyone heard her that time. Note to self: purchase muzzle or gag for 3.5 year-old loud-mouthed daughter!

After the service, Mike’s family, all 30-something of them, and all of us met at the Macaroni Grill for lunch. In between the yummy bread and the meals, Mike picked up his knife and started tapping on his glass to get everyone’s attention. The knife had been used for buttering the bread, so I tried to stay out of the way of the bits of butter that were flying everywhere. I think I escaped most. Anyway, Mike’s reason for attracting the lime-light became clear when he began talking about our relationship and what I meant to him, then pulled out a black velvet box and, on bended knee, opened it to reveal a beautiful ring, then asked me to marry him.

I said yes. Didn’t I mention? - I’m no dummy. I know how lucky I am to have a wonderful man like Mike, who puts up with my occasional moodiness and loves me anyway, and who understands me sometimes when I don’t even understand myself. I said yes.

Add by Mike: She looked me deeply in the eyes and said yes. There was no hesitation, no question, no delay. I often tell Stephanie when we cuddle that sometimes I have a hard time feeling where I stop and she begins. That's exactly what I felt when I asked the question. I love you Sweetheart.

Playtime!!

Wednesday we had our first visit with Jacob since he went to his Mom's for summer vacation. It was SOOOO good to see him!! We all miss him so much! I picked up Katie from school, then picked up Jake from his Mom's at around 2:30p - Katie greeted Jake with, "Jake is my brother, he's so cute!", ROFL. Then we all returned home. Jake and Katie and I all played with my newest toy (thanks Mike!), the Wii Fit. We still have Jen's Wii Fit here as well, so I put them both on the family room carpet in front of the TV, and the kids mimicked my movements as we played several of the balance and aerobic games together. Jake even tried the skiing game, but since the board was calibrated to my weight it wasn't recognizing when he was leaning. If not for that, I really think he would have done very well at it - he got the hang of it very quickly. Mike went in to work early so he could leave early, so he arrived home about 4p. He played ball with Jake while Katie helped me make the pizzas for dinner (yellow squash hair, green pepper ears, bacon mouth, and pepperoni eyes on Katie's pizza - hey, how else am I supposed to get her to eat squash???). Then Katie joined Mike and Jake and they all three played ball while the pizzas were cooking. We enjoyed our pizza together, and Katie even ate some of the squash hair :) . Mike took the kids upstairs to play a while longer after dinner. Then it was time for Jake to go back to his Mom's.

Getting Stuff Done

We spent Saturday hanging out and playing video games, mostly Super Mario Party 8. Jen and Carlo came over for a while, and we ordered Italian which was very good. Carlo brought Mike a Wii controller and Wii Play game as a birthday present, which was very sweet of him! (thanks Carlo!)

Jen delivered some very happy news, met with much congratulations!

We got Jen watching True Blood, a vampire story based on a series of books called The Southern Vampire Mysteries, to which Mike and I are both addicted - we're anxiously awaiting Season 2. We want to get the book set as well and see the differences. Jen brought over her Wii Fit and demo'd it for us, then left it here for us to borrow (thanks Jen!).

I got up early Sunday and put in about 30 mins on the Wii Fit. I had fun with it, and it's a good workout, but I'm not sure yet I'll be able to cancel my gym membership and use it primarily instead.

Then I went to work on the garage. We still had so many boxes left out there from our April Fool's Day Move! :) Mike came and helped, and we actually got a lot of it done - about half the garage is cleared out now - YEA!!! Garbage day isn't until Tuesday, so once the empty boxes and other bulky trash is put out, it'll be easier to see how much progress we've made, and how much farther we have to go. We got a mirror hung in the living room, unpacked Mike's dishes to assess what we had that was worth keeping (not too much, I'm afraid), and found all of our cameras - yes! - so now we can actually post some higher-quality, more-recent pics with this blog ;-)

Then Mike and I went to see "Land of the Lost" with Will Ferrell. It was a fun movie, but I kept expecting it to trigger some memories from watching the series as a child, and that didn't really happen.

We are all missing Jake. Mike especially, of course. When Katie got home from her visit with her Dad, the first thing she asked was "Where's Jacob?", so we told her he had gone to visit with his Mommy for a few weeks. I don't think she understood, but she did OK last night. I think it will hit her in a few days when he still hasn't returned home. Hopefully we can all learn to deal. I just keep telling myself, "It's only a few weeks!" When I said that yesterday, Mike responded, "It's more than just a few." To which I replied, "I'm in the middle of much-needed self-delusion here, don't interrupt me with the facts!". Harhar.

Happy Birthday, Mike!

Mike turned 39 on Friday, yea!!! I told him next year we'll have to do the whole "over-the-hill" party when he turns 40. This year we kept it pretty low-key. Mike stayed home from work and spent the day with Jacob. After taking Katie to school, I had Jacob decorate a card for Mike. Jake had fun putting lots of stamps on it, and got creative writing his own name inside and "Dad" on the envelope :) (I will scan those in and get them up here tomorrow). Mike loved the card. Then I gave Mike my card and a T-Shirt that says "Gamers do it all night long". That was just so he'd have something to open today - his real gift is I'm going to have the windows on his car tinted for him.

Mike and Jake played video games for a bit while I got some of the kind of work for which I get paid accomplished. Then we all went over to Chuck-E-Cheese's and played more games - Jake is getting good at skee ball! After that, we picked Katie up from school and all came back to the house. We packed up Jake's clothes, toys, favorite books and some pictures of our family so he wouldn't be so homesick. Katie gave Mike her birthday card, then we lit the candles on the cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to Mike. The Banana Layer cake was fabulous (I'll also post that recipe tomorrow). I swear I've never seen half of an entire cake get consumed so quickly!!

Not long after that, Jake's Mom and Katie's Dad arrived to pick them both up. We're all going to miss that Booger so much! *sniff* Mike was already missing Jake, and wasn't really in the mood to go to the dinner we had planned, so we decided to go over to Game Stop and browse instead. After a bit of that, we were looking for someplace to get take-out, when we decided instead to go to a Greek restaurant near the house. I hadn't tried Greek food before, so it was an adventure for me. We really enjoyed our dinner after all, and then came home to vegetate a while before bedtime.

Mike's Birthday and Summer Vacation for Jacob

We are busily preparing for Mike's 39th Birthday tomorrow. I am baking a Banana Layer Cake (yes, from scratch) for him, and Mike is taking the day off work to spend some time with Jacob. Tomorrow is also the last day before Jacob goes to stay with his Mom for six weeks. We know the time with his Mom is important for Jacob, but we are all going to miss him like mad. I'm not sure Katie will know what to do with herself without Jacob around. I'm not sure any of us will. Very busy day for me today. I have three conference calls (two down, still one to go), I have to go grocery shopping for the cake ingredients etc, and I have to pack up Jake's clothes for his visit with his Mom - which means tackling loads of laundry first. Somewhere in there I should fit in a visit to the gym today, but not sure I'll end up with time enough for that. Katie's Dad called to tell me he won't be able to pick her up from daycare Friday, but will need to pick her up here at our house later instead. So, that means I may not be able to take Mike to dinner as I wanted to celebrate his birthday. *sigh* Plan B.

Cowboys and Cowgirls

Jake and Katie's classes at school were both studying Farm life and Farm Animals for the entire month of May 2009. At the end of the month, the school arranged for a petting zoo to come out to the school for all the kids to see and interact with the animals they had been learning about. They asked that we dress the kids up in farm clothes for the big day. I looked for straw farmer's hats, but was only able to find cowboy and cowgirl hats. Here is a pic we took before they left the house that morning, and one taken by a teacher at their school.