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Monday, December 29, 2008

What a Christmas!

Christmas has finally come and gone. I hope yours has been exactly what you wanted.

The kids have thoroughly enjoyed their Wii. We got it hooked up by 7am Christmas morning and never turned it off until 6pm...Then Shawn and Tasha came over a bit later and we turned it back on for a few more hours. Shameless I know, but at least we are getting some exercise out of it. Dami's little heart has been about to beat out of his chest. He is much more competitive than I realized. He cannot stand for anyone to beat him at ANYTHING, so he has discovered how to really rack up the points in everything he plays.

Brianna has discovered a love for tennis. She is so cute. She doesn't realize that the program will make sure your Mii (avatar) will always be in the right place, all you have to do is hit the ball at the right time. She keeps charging the tv screen. She has hit the screen on more than one instance, and has left a scratch on it!

Alyssa has received more dolls than any one little girl should have...and loves them all!

All in all, I have to say it was a great Christmas for our family. We are all relatively healthy, (Alyssa is feeling much better now...no more breathing treatments!) and we spent most of the time together as a family.

I'm looking forward to a healthy and happy 2009. Now, I've just got to get my resolutions, my business plans and my home school plans ready for the new year!


Nini

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

What is best for the child...

As a parent, you have to do a lot of things that aren't pleasant. Some of them are because you know it is the right thing to do, some of it is because it is the best thing to do and some things simply because you have to do what is best for the child.

This is one of those types. It was something that was best for the child but not best for Grandma! Alyssa has a bout with pneumonia. She hasn't run a fever at all, but has had a bad cough that just kept getting worse, and would not eat anything. Then she started having a raspy rattle every time she would breath. The doctor prescribed breathing treatments with a nebulizer. You know, those machines that your Grandma had to use to keep breathing.

I knew she wasn't going to like it, had already been warned by her mom. So, I thought we would try to make a game out of it. Pretended to put the mask on and giggle then take it away. Turned the machine on so the noise wasn't scaring her (she hates noises)...everything was fine, until I tried to put the mask on her. The fight was on!

She is only 16 months old, but she is already stronger than Grandma! Holding her arms down, trying to hold the mask on her and trying to keep her head still...I really got a workout. I'm not sure who cried more, her or me. I was really having my doubts as to whether or not she was getting any benefit from it, but now as she is exhaustedly sleeping, there is no raspy noises at all. In fact, if I did not see her chest rise and fall, I would not even know she was breathing!

This makes me think back to all the things I've had to do as a mom...things I never would have thought I could do, but managed. Simply because I knew it had to be done for a sick child. Things I can now turn over to mom or dad...because Grandma should be the one the kids run to when bad things happen...not the one that is making the bad things happen!

Nini

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Where has 2008 gone?

As 2008 is beginning to wind down (although Christmas hasn't even made its appearance yet), I've been thinking about what changes I want to make for 2009.

My 'business' hasn't gotten off the ground yet, but I really want to perfect my techniques and learn new techniques. That way once it takes off I'll be ready.

I am refining my business plan to include when I want to start taking in customer quilts and when I want to upgrade my equipment. I really want to take at least one class this year. I am hoping to get to one major quilt event through out the year.

As I refine and modify this plan I will be posting it here. We all know that once something is posted on the Internet, it is there forever. In a way, this time next year I can be either convicted or acquitted by my own words. Kinda scare-y isn't it!

I am one of those people that has to have everything written down for it to be real. Anytime I plan, I ALWAYS have to write it down in order for it to come true. I am a list maker and calendar keeper. I HAVE to not only write it down, but I have to break it down onto the calendar for it to come to fruition.

So, with the year ending down, I will be around with paper, calendar, pen and pencil in hand to work on my shiny new year. So by the time January rolls around, I should have a very messy calendar and lots and lots of paper to put into a readable and doable plan for the new year.

Nini

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Where's the pictures???

I just went back through all my posts and realized, I have NO pictures here...at least none to speak of. I really need a camera for Christmas!

Here's hoping Santa reads my blog and brings me a camera!

Santa, are you there?


Nini

Sunday, December 14, 2008

What a week!

Amanda finished quilting her quilt last week. I'm hoping for a picture soon to add here. She promised she would give me one so I could say something like 'here is the picture of my oldest daughter's first quilt' (maybe a wee bit jealous that her younger sister got her picture on the blog first...)

In the past week, we've bought a tree, gotten it decorated, and attempted to get the rest of the house decorated. I've made 13 baskets for the goodies for all the teachers and therapists, but somehow I managed to miscount and still need to make one more....also had to add two more stockings to the line up as my dad and step mom are going to be able to come up for Christmas after all!

It is strange, it only took a couple of hours to make these two, when I put in over 30 hours on the 10... not sure why these went so much faster, but they are now added to the mix. (now I just have to get all the stocking stuffers ready for all them!

I also finished a QOV this week. I will definitely NOT have a picture of that here. I did a feather meander sort of thingy. I'm not 100% happy with the result, but everyone else seems to think it looks great. It really upsets me that I still cannot get what is in my mind to translate to the quilt. At least I didn't change midstream to a completely different pattern, which is what usually happens. I work on a pattern or fill that I want to use and once I turn on the machine, it becomes a completely different pattern or fill.

We took the kids to do their Christmas shopping this afternoon. It was really cute watching them try to think if things to get for the family members with their limited budget! They actually came up with some good ideas, and a few I'm not so sure about! (Brianna wanted to get Michael some play money since he doesn't have a job and isn't actually looking very hard for one!)

Well, it is almost Taco time! Rex always gets Tacos after Church services on Sunday night. I stayed home with the kids tonight and he should be here with the Tacos in just a few minutes. We have Alyssa still this evening, her Momma is sick and hopefully she is using this time as a much needed rest for her.

Taco! Taco! Taco!


Nini

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Back among the connected!

I'm finally back online! Thursday morning, I turned on the laptop and saw an ominous error message. Basically I was told that there was no bootable hard drive. I bought one of those Wal Mart specials last November, for about $250, and it didn't come with disks for recovery.

At the time I didn't think anything of it...but looking back, I should have at least backed up everything!

We tried all day Turkey Day trying to get it to boot. Korey (my resident computer person) tried all his magic, but nothing worked. Saturday morning, we took it to the computer ER, paid $50 for them to confirm, the hard drive was dead!

Seems Damien thought he would get up early and play some computer games. He couldn't get it to work, and somehow the laptop was dropped on the floor.

Sunday we went to the PX and looked at computers (and Santa, but they didn't have very many toys this year???). Rex bought a $779 Toshiba. I guess he is tired of all the cheap computers I buy! So far it is a dream computer. The keyboard is larger than my old Acer, and the mouse pad is not such a pain to deal with. The problem is trying to get all my passwords back up and running. So far I have a couple of websites I STILL can't get back into, and all my bookmarked pages are practically impossible to get to! (including this one very neat site to use for Homeschooling during the Christmas holidays. It has a great place to email Santa. The letters the kids write to Santa, as well as his answers, are sent to the parents first and THEN sent to the kids.)

Also did a great deal of Black Friday Shopping, but I will save that for another post later!

Happy Quilting!

Nini