The Grinch, Part Deux

Well, the big day is almost upon us and so begins the rush rush rush to get everything done. Last minute gifts bought and wrapped, goodies baked, cards sent (which I didn't do this year...ooppss) and the ever present desire to make sure that the kids have the biggest and best that the season has to offer. But a funny thought occured to me as I was driving home from work the other day with all of the to-do's running through my head...I simply could not remember but maybe 4 or 5 of the gifts I'd gotten as a child.(Sorry Momma and Daddy!) When I think back on the Christmases of my youth (which was NOT all that long ago, thank you very much! ;) ) what I remember most is the traditions that my family had. On the night of Dec. 23rd, we would all get together at my Mamaw's house. The grownups would stay up late playing cards (Rook to be exact, a game that I learned to play as I got older and haven't played in a LONG time) and my cousins and I would make general nuisances of ourselves. And of course, there would be LOTS of snacking going on.....MMMM, sausage balls!! Then that night, (Christmas Eve Eve so to speak) Santa would come and visit us at my Mamaw's house. Christmas Eve was always "really" Christmas to me...Christmas Eve was Christmas at Mamaw's and if Christmas is all about where your heart is, well, Mamaw was (and still is) where my heart is. Not that I don't love going to my Granny's house, which is where we went on Christmas Day, but even now, when I think Christmas, I think Mamaw's. Of course, then there was Christmas morning at my house, which was probably the most wonderful part of Christmas b/c it was the part that I didn't have to share with anyone else...(This is where the Grinch comes out of me...) It was all about ME! (Ahh, what else would you expect from an only child, hehehe) But really, if the truth be known, the best thing about Christmas wasn't the gifts, or the decorations, or the food....it was the anticipation of Christmas. The time from Thanksgiving to Christmas, the time spent with family getting everything ready for the big day...That's the best part of Christmas. So this year, when Santa leaves the Hurricanes' toys and I'm looking and worrying that they don't seem to have much (YEAH RIGHT!!) I hope that I will remember the famous line from the Grinch movie...."Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe, just maybe, Christmas means a little bit more"

Feeling like the Grinch.....

"If there's one thing I hate, it's all the NOISE, NOISE, NOISE, NOISE!!!"
I don't know what their problem is tonight but the Hurricanes WILL NOT BE QUIET!!!!!!!!! And they are getting on my LAST NERVE!!!!!!!!!!! I got the new Harry Potter movie tonight and they would NOT be quiet while I was trying to watch it.........GRRRRR!!! I'm just in a generally pissy mood tonight. My nose is stopped up and I can't breathe, it's taking FOREVER for Christmas break to get here, I've got TONS to do before Zach's party on Saturday, and my kids at school are getting on my nerves BIG TIME. On the up side....One of my kids is suspended, one is at alternative school, and 4 have in school suspension. But on the down side, that still doesn't take care of even half of the discipline problems. God I'll be so glad when this year is over! But the down side to that is that next year Daniel will start Kindergarten. So while I'm ready to get a new group of kids, I'm NOT ready for my baby to start school. :( I need a vacation....a nice long trip to some exotic island....No kids, just me and maybe Robert. But, only 2 more school days left in this week and then one more week until Christmas break....I can't wait!!

It's hard to believe....

That Zachary is almost one year old!! My baby is growing up!! We are planning his first birthday party for this coming Saturday, even though he won't turn one until the 21st. With Christmas coming up and all of the hustle and bustle that comes with it, I wanted to have his party a little early so that it would be all about him. As I was looking at the calendar, I realized that Friday is the 14th, which is the day last year when I had the wreck that set Zachary's birth in motion a little early. He wasn't supposed to be born until 12/27, but when I had a wreck on the way home from work on 12/14/06, my blood pressure went up and my dr decided to induce me earlier. We were hoping that since Zach was born on the 21st, that he'd be home in time for Christmas. That wasn't to be the case. He developed pneumonia and ended up staying in the hospital until 12/31...a total of 10 days. But he has certainly made up for his rocky start. He is almost a year old and weighs nearly 30 lbs and is about 3 ft tall. He has been walking for about 3.5 to 4 months now and is definately able to keep up with his big brothers. Like Daniel and Mikey, he has gone straight from newborn to toddler. All 3 of my boys seemed to just skip over the baby stage. It's so hard to believe that my baby is turning one!!

My surrogate daughters....

This post is dedicated to all of my "daughters" who visit my blog and my room each day. AND who have won a special place in my heart. Being the mommy to 3 boys, I thought I'd never get to have the joy of having a daughter. So thanks to my girls from school, I know how wonderful it is to be blessed with daughters, sort of. I just want to let you girls know how special you are to me and how much I love all of you!!! You girls really help make my day more than you know. Sometimes your smiles and hugs make an otherwise unbearable day a little brighter. I love you all!!
Love ya,
Momma Forney!

Confessions of a Christmas Tree Snob

Hello, my name is Lee and I am a Christmas tree snob. I REFUSE to have an artifical tree and I REFUSE to bring home a less than perfect live tree. Each year, it takes me no less than 30 minutes to pick out a tree. I have been known to go to 4 or 5 tree lots to find the perfect tree. We got our tree last night and this year was actually a pretty good year. We only went to one lot and it only took me about 45 minutes to decide on a tree. My daddy is the one who taught me the fine art of picking out the perfect tree. When I was a kid, my daddy insisted on having cedar trees. He and I would go into the woods behind our house and search for HOURS until we found the perfect tree. It had to be shaped just right and there absolutely could not be any holes in the branches. Then we'd drag it through the woods and put it in the tree stand. I still go with my dad to look for the perfect tree, but we go to a tree farm now to get his tree. I guess we depleted the tree supply back behind our house! Once we had the tree in the house, Daddy's job was over. He'd go sit in his recliner and watch TV while Momma and I decorated the tree. I'm also very particular about decorating the tree. If my daddy taught me the art of choosing a tree, then my momma taught me the art of decorating it! I am very careful to make sure each side is evenly covered and that similar ornaments aren't hanging close together. I am know teaching my boys the fine art of choosing the perfect tree. Right now however, they just get bored with the process. "Mommy, just get a tree so we can go" They also are still learning the finer points of tree decorating! Mikey would hang all of the ornaments on one branch and leave the rest of the tree bare! AHH, youth! They will soon learn to appreciate that the art of tree choosing cannot be rushed!!! And that decorating the tree is an art that must be carefully honed and perfected. I just hope that when they are grown, they'll have the same great memories of Christmas that I have from my childhood.

Slacking again!!!

Ahh, I have seriously been neglecting my blog. And trust me, it isn't from lack of topics, it's from lack of energy. So tonight's entry will be random tidbits....just whatever pops into my head. There is a technical term for this type of writing but it has now escaped my train of thought. So anyway, I guess first I will start with some random phrases that my two oldest Hurricanes have said:
"I'm a strong man. Strong mans eat barbecue; I eat barbecue, so I'm a strong man" --Mikey
"I want some Man Drink"--Mikey, asking for some Gatorade
"I want Daddy to cut my hair, like a man"--Mikey "I want Miss Mindy to cut my hair, she has suckers"--Daniel

Once I picked Daniel and Mikey up from daycare, and they were both in time out. I sat them down and told them that when they got in trouble at school that it made their teachers sad, it made Mommy and Daddy sad, and it made Jesus sad. Poor Daniel had big ole tears running down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, Mommy. I don't want Jesus to be sad" I look at Mikey, he's sitting there very composed and he calmly asks me "Can I have a popsicle?" "No, you can't have a popsicle, you made Jesus sad!!"

One of the things that cracks me up so much about Mikey is how matter of fact he is about EVERYTHING! He can say some of the most off the wall things with the straightest face. It's hilarious!!

Jumping to a new topic now....I'm so excited about Christmas this year. Last year was a rough Christmas for us. Zach was born on 12/21 and was still in the hospital in the NICU at Christmas. It was a scary time for us and I really didn't feel like I had a Christmas. Of course, Christmas is going to be difficult this year as well with Matt in Iraq. But I'm really looking forward to making this Christmas a special one for the boys. We haven't gotten our tree yet but I hope to get it up this weekend. We always have live trees and with our new house, we can get a REALLY TALL tree! WOOHOO!! I have also gotten a lot of my gifts bought already. Besides the boys and Robert, I only have my dad and my granny left to buy for. I think I know what I'm getting Granny and I'm letting Robert pick out Daddy's gift. Well, I guess that I've rambled enough for the moment....More later!!

It's Party Time!!

We had Mikey's birthday party on Sat. There were only about 6 kids here, counting Mikey and Daniel, but we had fun. Since Mikey is into arts and crafts type stuff, we let the kids paint suncatchers and make visors. They loved it. Then it was time to open gifts and I swear it looked like Toys'R'Us threw up in my house!! That kid got more stuff for his birthday than some kids get for Christmas. Of course, all of those toys are now scattered throughout my house and I should really be up putting them away, but oh well. So, now Daniel and Mikey's parties are over and done with and that means that there's only Zach's left to go. YAY!! Birthdays were so much less work when I was a kid....

Through the Eyes of a Hurricane (Mikey edition)

The time has come, the walrus said
To talk of many things.....
Like all of the crazy antics my Mike Mike has gotten into over his nearly 4 years of existance. Mikey has had the "Middle Child Syndrome" long before he became the middle child! Out of my 3 boys, Mikey is probably my most headstrong. And that's saying a lot! One of the first Mikey Mike episodes happened when he was around 18 months old. We were living in our other house and Mikey had somehow managed to find a way past the baby gate that was supposed to keep him out of the kitchen. I was in another part of the house when I hear a blood curdling scream. My immediate thought was, "What has he done now?" Didn't really matter which "he"....I just knew one of my Hurricanes was up to no good. Sure enough, there was Mighty Mike....standing in the middle of the kitchen with water spraying all over the floor....HOT water, at that. He had somehow managed to open the cabinets under the sink and pulled the hot water pipe OUT of the wall. I called Robert in a panic.....he tells me to just turn the water off there under the sink. Major flaw to that plan....Mikey had pulled the pipe AND the cut off out of the wall!! SO by the time I get around to getting the water turned off at the road (my neighbor had to help me!) my kitchen floor was covered in about 2 inches of water and it was seeping into my living room. That was a huge mess to clean up!!
Moving right along....Mikey seems to have a fascination with sinks....When he was about 2, I found him one day sitting in the bathroom sink. Yeah, I said IN the sink...Don't know what he was thinking!!
Not only is Mikey fascinated with sinks, he's also fascinated with horses. In the house where we used to live, there was a horse pasture across the street. We had a really hard time keeping Mikey away from the horses. Well, one day, his daddy and his Uncle Steve were supposed to be watching him. Somehow he managed to escape from their watchful eyes (insert sarcasm here) and make his way across the street and up the gate and ALMOST into the pasture with the horses before his daddy caught him.
Among Mikey's other quirks, he has a thing for lining things up. He is very particular, especially when it comes to his Matchbox cars or Thomas the Trains. They must be in line and in order or we will experience the full blown power of a Mikey-Mike Meltdown. And believe me folks, those are not pretty.
And now for the masterpiece of Mikey stories....It was my Granny's 80th birthday party. My entire family (over 40 of them) were at my Granny's house. We were having a blast...until I hear the all too familiar sound of Daniel screaming. I was thinking, "Oh great, what now?" when Daniel walks in with blood running down the side of his face and neck....."Mikey hit me, Mikey hit me" With what, a meat cleaver?? Apparently, Daniel, Mikey and assorted cousins were throwing rocks at an ant bed and well, Daniel's head got in the way of Mikey's rock. So we left Mikey at my Granny's with my parents and took Daniel to the ER. About 30 min and some DuraBond later, Daniel was as good as new. Let's just say that Mikey found a way to make Granny's birthday a memorable experience. But then again, everything is a memorable experience when Mike Mike is around!!

Today, I let go of the leash.....

The other day while talking to Robert, I made the analogy that teaching my kids this year was like walking a really big dog that is a lot stronger than me. You know how when you walk a dog that's that much stronger than you, by the end of the walk, you're exhausted from the strain of holding it back....but you know that if you slack up even a little, that the dog will run away with you. Well, that's how I feel this year....if I slack up just a bit, I'll lose total control of these kids. It's a very tiring experience. Well, today I was tired and had a headache and by the end of the day I just couldn't hold on anymore so for the last 15 min or so, I just said the heck with it and let go of the leash. I think it freaked the kids out....they got louder and louder and I just didn't say anything....after about 5 min when it became clear that I wasn't even trying to get them to hush, they all got real quiet and one of my boys asked me what was going on.....I just told them that I had let go of the leash. They looked at me funny and I explained what I meant. Surprisingly, after that, they were quiet until the final bell rang.....just hope that maybe it had some lasting effect, but I doubt it. Oh well, at least I got a peaceful few minutes, haha!

Feeling Nostalgic Tonight....

Several holiday posts on SMW have gotten me in the mood to walk down memory lane tonight. So I'm putting the Hurricanes on hold and am going to delve into MY childhood. I'd like to take a minute and tell you about the lady who was one of the most influential people in my life. My Mamaw (my mom's mother) lived across the street from me when I was growing up. She quit work when I was born to keep me while my parents worked. She was unlike the typical grandmother....She was my champion, my playmate, my best friend, and my world. She was always there for me, never too busy to listen to my problems and offer advice and a shoulder to cry on. She had a sense of humor that was out of this world. She LOVED sports....all kinds of sports. She's the only person I know who would actually watch golf on television!! You know, most kids spend the weekends with their grandparents...not me. I stayed at my Mamaw's house during the week and at my parents' house on the weekend.
The holiday season was always a big deal with my Mamaw. I remember that beginning about this time of year, we would start preparations for the Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts. My first experiences with cooking took place in my Mamaw's kitchen. We would pop some Lewis Grizzard (a Southern comedian) tapes in the tape player and we'd spend HOURS in the kitchen cooking and talking and laughing. Of course, then we had the presents to wrap. To all of you who complain about my excessive use of tape when wrapping gifts....blame my Mamaw, :D! She is the one who taught me the finer points of gift wrapping. And also, there was the tree to decorate. We'd spend hours making ornaments for the tree and then decorating it. Mamaw learned early on that she had to cleverly disquise my gifts or wait until the last minute to put them under the tree. I was (and still am) a sneaky little devil when it comes to presents. Daniel takes after me in that respect. Speaking of gifts...I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world. Santa came to see me at my Mamaw's house on the night of Dec. 23 and then came back to my house on Christmas Eve. And my trusting self, I never once questioned that arrangement. (Of course, who in their right mind WOULD question 2 visits from Santa?) Well, so ends my trip down memory lane for tonight.....thanks for taking the journey with me!

Through the Eyes of a Hurricane (Daniel edition, part 2)

Well, yesterday I posted some of Daniel's funnier moments....I know I'm missing some, but they'll come to me! Today, words of wisdom, from my 5 year old:
"Focus, mommy, focus"
"I want a poptart, Momma." "Hold on a minute, Daniel." "No, I want my poptart immediately!" (he was 2 at the time!!)
"Mommy, you said a bad word...you need to tell Jesus you're sorry" Nothing like having your kid be your conscience.
There are more, but I'm drawing a blank right now. I'll be back with more later.

Through the Eyes of a Hurricane (Daniel edition)

Everyone keeps telling me that I need to be writing down all of the funny sayings and goings on of my children, so I think this is a good place to record what it's like living daily with 3 hurricanes. So, as Daniel is my firstborn, I'll start off with him. (Mikey, Zach, don't worry, you'll get your fair share of exposure, trust me!!) Daniel, God love me, is the child that is most like me. Which means that he is the child that tries my patience more than the others, but he's also the one I understand the best. He has done and said his share of funny stuff (or at least NOW it's funny.) The first thing that really stands out for me with Daniel happened right after Mikey was born. Mikey was in his bouncy seat, minding his own business, and Daniel was eating his lunch of Chicken McNuggets from MickeyD's. I was in the kitchen doing all of those wonderful chores that we mothers do. When I walked back into the living room, there was a chicken nugget on Mikey's mouth. When I asked Daniel why he had put a chicken nugget over his brother's mouth, he replies "I was just sharing. Jesus likes it when we share!" Yeah, but Jesus didn't mean to share your chicken with your month old brother!!
Mikey was about a year old when we got a kitten from my sister, Stacey. (Ok, she's Robert's biological sister, but I've adopted her as my own!) I named the orange tabby Weasley after the red-haired characters in the Harry Potter books. One day, as Mikey was sitting on one of my legs and Weasley was occupying the other, Daniel comes to me and there's no room for him to sit. He proceeds to tell me that he doesn't want a cat and we need to take Weasley back to Stacey. Then he tells me that he doesn't want a brother either. "We need to take Mikey back to...Where did Mikey come from anyway?" I told him that Mikey came from the hospital and they had a no return policy!!
And now we come to the time that every parent both looks forward to and dreads all at the same time....POTTY TRAINING!! It seemed as though we potty trained Daniel FOREVER!! One day when Daniel was about 2 1/2, we had some friends over watching a movie. Daniel and Mikey were quietly playing in their room; all was well, or so we thought. I knew that we were in trouble when I looked up and saw Daniel walking down the hallway wearing nothing but his shirt and carrying a Spiderman bucket. I cautiously approached Daniel...."Hey buddy, what's in the bucket?" No answer, so I peek into the bucket. My worst fears were confirmed....My child had pooped in the Spiderman bucket!! When I asked him why he did this, his response was "Grandma told me to poo-poo in the pot. I couldn't find a pot, so I used the bucket." Can't really argue with that kind of logic, now can ya?
I could go on, but I think I will end with probably the funniest thing Daniel has ever said or done. We were watching the movie "Standing Tall" which has the Rock in it. Of course, Daniel came walking through at the worst possible time....right in the middle of the stripper scene. He was mesmerized by what he was seeing. So I sat him down and explained to him that what was under our clothes is private and we shouldn't let other people see it and we shouldn't look at what was under other people's clothes. After my motherly advice, Daniel went and sat down and seemed to think this over. Then he comes, climbs up in my lap and tells me "Mommy, I like it when girls take their clothes off and you know, you shouldn't take that away from me." Well, at least he's confident in his sexuality, even if he was only 4 years old at the time!!!

My very first blog!!

Well, I have finally decided to leave the Dark Ages behind and create my own blog. Like I don't have enough stuff going on in my life...hahaha! Just 1 husband, 3 boys, a dog, and 51 6th graders to deal with....Yep, I lead a pretty tame life!! Actually this morning is very tame....At 8:45 am, Mikey is still asleep (of course, he probably didn't go to bed until 2 am. He's my night owl!), Zach is wandering around looking for things to put in his mouth, and Daniel is watching cartoons. The stupid dog has FINALLY quit barking, so all is relatively quiet around here....Which only means that things will be 10 times louder than normal in a little while when everyone is up and moving! I'm really glad that it is the weekend though....and only 5 school days until I get a day off. My kids this year are really wearing me down. I told Robert last night that by the end of the week I'm so tired....You know how when you walk a dog that is a lot stronger than you are and it takes all of your energy to keep him in check...well that's how I feel this year at school. I feel like I can't relax at all or my kids will just go wild. But enough whining for right now!! I think that I'll bring my first entry to an end and see about finding some breakfast!