Christmas

Last post today...promise.

Christmas was great this year. We spent it with our families. We ate lots of delicious food and opened way too many gifts. We feel spoiled, blessed, and oh so happy to have the greatest gift in the whole world...

ROCK BAND.

What...did you think I was going to say! FAMILY or something. Well... I was. But we did get Rock Band too! Hence the reason for the lack of posting. This mom has been off on tour with our family band "Return of the Mac."

Enough already...here are the picture...

Drew got a killer train table. (Killer as in cool, not like deadly killer lead paint toys or anything harmful.)

The crazy lady got a dock for her i-pod as well as a sweet new "boyfriend style" fossil watch--not to be confused with a sweet new boyfriend...that would be bad.
Jenna got her barbie dream house, barbie corvette (of course Dad had to get her this...I mean Santa), barbie gear, etc. and etc.

Our favorite thing in the whole world is waking up Jenna and see her run (half way asleep still, mind you) down the hall and up the stairs on Christmas morning. It is a sight to see for sure!

Our little elf-man --E-man--Ethan...what a sleepy baby.

And Daddy got a new pair of Jordan 23 basketball shoes...the Bulls collection. Only thing is that UPS was so snowed in that they didn't arrive until New Years. Ohhh well...Joel works for the company too...funny stuff. That is why UPS is in the word UPSet I guess. Till next year my friends. Merry, merry Christmas!!!! Three weeks late...but I have been busy. Man, I didn't even blog about our anniversary that was on the 7th!!!!

"Moms do not let moms teach kids to ski..."

Why didn't anyone tell me this earlier..."Moms do not let moms teach kids to ski."

We (Jenna and I) came full circle on New Year's Eve...I took Jenna skiing for her first time.

We started off happy, enthusiastic, excited, fresh!

We practiced lots of "Pizza Pie" (snow plowing) and "french fries" (going straight down the mountain)...thankfully more "Pizza Pie" than "french fry"

We (meaning Jenna) spent time on the ground pouting and crying...

We (meaning Me) spent time learning patience and loosing it a couple of times- like twice.

We (meaning we) spent time making funny faces and eating yummy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the truck which helped us unwind, become happy again, get excited, get fresh!
(why do ski lunches always taste the best even if just pb and j???)

We (meaning we) conquered the pizza pie.

We were happy.
We were enthused that Jenna is now officially a ski bunny.
We were excited!
We were exhausted--but became refreshed as we headed down the mountain eating our candy bar treats!

What a full circle day...one to remember!

Dr. McCombs

Happy Birthday Jenna!!! --December 15th

Happy late posting your birthday my dear. Thank you for being such a sweet heart and making me feel like I am doing something right as a mom.

For example:

She was unable to watch the rest of Calliou on PBSkids today because she needed to go to school so I said, "here let me record it for you."

Today she came home from school and asked if she could watch some TV (which we are cutting down on for our family new year resolution...but today I have a headache so I said sure.)

I turned on the rest of Calliou for her and she replies, "Thanks mom. You are the best mom ever."

Really, is that all it takes with this one. Pushing the DVR button! Really???

I love you Jenna!

Here she is with the robe that she has been asking for forever!!! She wears it every night and morning!


Being bashful as she gets sang to...we also went to bowling and Red Robin for her birthday and she got sang to there as well. She kept telling everyone that it was her birthday...waitress, bus boy, table cleaners, you name it!

Her ballerina cake I made. It turned out pretty and pink.

The beautiful 6 year old...WOW!!!


Some of the loot...a new church dress from Grandma Gretchen!!! Thank you everyone for all the gifts! What a day for a sweet girl!

Chuck E Cheeses: "Where a kid can be a kid, and moms can relax."

When Jenna grows up she wants to be a "child doctor" or otherwise known as a pediatrician. Needless to say I am so proud (already). But really, I could see her in marketing or advertising. Here is why.

Jenna: "Mom, we need to go to Chuck E Cheeses. I never been there before."

Me: "Oh really, that is too bad. Maybe we will go there someday or when the one in the valley is finished being built."

Jenna: "Come on Mom. We can go to Chuck E Cheeses because that is where a kid can be a kid and you can sit back and relax."

We went two days later...

*note to self...try going on a weekday afternoon next time...Saturdays are crazier than a day after Thanksgiving Wal-mart (with some weird looking people as well)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DREW!!!

Drew's birthday was on January 11th...he came into this world demanding attention (he was in the NICU for about 8 days after and emergency c-section) and is still running the show and demanding attention today. What a boy.

The Lightning McQueen cake I made for him...Cars is his favorite movie.

Blowing out the candles...we only had to do it a couple of times. "More candles!"

One of the many cool gifts that was recieved...an automatic baseball tee...really cool. Hopefully it will pay off someday with a big MLB contract. Thank you all three sets of terrific grandparents for all the candy, books, balloon, cars stuff, and sooooo much more!

Let's not forget the future "child doctor" who also had a birthday.....which leads to another post.

Starting off the new year with a bang...or a whole lot of posts

Well it is about time...right?! I have been dragging my feet to keep up on my blog and have considered even quitting. But then I talked to my wonderful sis-in-law, who decided to up and leave the wonderful 4 feet of snow here in Spokane for the warm-all-year round Texas...by the way, and I realized that in order to keep in touch with my close friends and family who keep moving from Spokompton I need to continue the quest of the blogging world...but I am not promising much...just to try. So hold on to your seats because here we go!(warning this is the mother load of all posts and I already have a headache)...

for all of you who haven't heard we were hit real hard this year by Mother Nature...

this is proof--view outside on my grill and back deck (pre-icicles)...i bet you are wondering where rocky went potty...let's not even go there.

There were also crazy icicles that were hanging off of our house...then comes story

we got a leak in our house because we had ice dams form on our roof because the ice was so thick and the icicles were so big...so I googled what causes these icicles and this popped up...

BAD INSULATION

so I had my trusty handy-man Joel climb in the attic to find that we had

NO INSULATION.

Stupid dam icicles...(doesn't this remind you of the time we went on our Summiteer hike --AJ and Marianne??? Jeana too if you are out there.) I am not cursing because they really are dam icicles.--Besides that is another new year resolution.

Next step...call the builder. So we did this and thankfully he had the insulation company come out the next week and insulate our house...apparently it was missed. But my question is...how did the housing inspector miss that one???? And another question was answered as to why we pay out the nose for our heating bills. It is just amazing how different our house feels and sounds with proper insulation like when it gets windy at night we do not hear the high pitched howling of the wind ripping through our attic...(things just seem to make sense now).

Well the outcome is okay because our builder is fixing everything and is even putting in tile in our master bathroom and has offered us tickets to Gonzaga basketball games... but we couldn't go because we were going to off the Chuck e cheeses for Drew's birthday. Which leads me to post numero dos.