Christmas Day...

I am still teased by my siblings (and parents for that matter) about being the child who woke everyone one up super early for Christmas every year. Now they have turned me into a grouchy old no morning person. Happy?

They should be glad to know that we slept in to 6:58 at the Karafa house this year.

Good thing to, because I am pretty sure we just missed Santa. Or so Jordan thinks...

Two very excited Christmas boys...

He's Lotso... can you tell?

The big hits of the day...

Merry Christmas to All!!

Christmas Eve...

This year for Christmas Eve we actually stayed home. We are usually celebrating with one of the Grandparents but this was a nice little change for us.

The boys and I spent the morning decorating gingerbread cookies for us & Santa. It sure made the house smell AMAZING!

Jordan was very meticulous in his decorating. Not a stray sprinkle in sight... almost.

Dillon had more fun eating our creations then actually making them.

I prepared a Christmas feast of Ham, corn, funeral potatoes and Blair's favorite dessert (in lieu of b-day cake). Noticeably missing were the rolls that were an EPIC failure!!

After dinner we had our little Christmas program. Jordan serenaded the family with the songs he learned at school and Dillon sang Jingle Bells, which is the only song currently in his arsenal. I tried to read the boys a story from The Friend about the true meaning of Christmas, but they just wanted to know why I was crying.

The Hunt family tradition of opening new jammies for Christmas continued...

And our very own Karafa tradition of opening a new ornament for the tree carried on as well...

We got into our jammies and settled in for a family viewing of "The Christmas Story". It was a wonderful day!

Happy Happy Birthday Dillon Dear...

Yesterday (the 21st ) was the birthday of my little sweetie Dillon James. I cannot believe my baby is already 4 years old. Time goes by way too fast.

A Birthday SourPuss

We celebrated first by going to Amazing Jakes's on Saturday with G&G Hunt.Well and Ben & Courtney & Noah too (of course)The boys had an AMAZING TIME! The loved the pizza and pasta buffet and all the games. 

We most enjoyed the bowling, air hockey and laser tag. Dillon like laser tag because he got to shoot little girls. Such a Romeo that one. He has been asking for a Pillow Pet every time the commercial comes on or we go to Wal-Mart and big brother came through. I treasure these brief moments of brotherly love.

They have a ride that is called the Froggy Hopper. The kids are strapped in while the ride goes up and drops them down slowly and repeats. Blair and I had the best laugh watching Dillon's face when the ride dropped. He smiled all the way up then cringed the whole way down. When he got off the ride he was laughing and kept saying "I peed my pants, I peed my pants"! I took him to the bathroom (dry) and figured that the sensation of his stomach dropping must have made the poor thing think he was peeing!


We celebrated with the Karafa family on the actual birthday. Dillon requested a store bought cake. After the "Elmo Fiasco of 2007" who could blame the kid. He also wanted chicken noodle potato soup and rolls. It was delicious. The boys and I spent our afternoon at Dollar Tree gathering supplies for hand made birthday hats. Since we celebrate Grandpa, Dillon & Daddy's birthdays all at once we wanted it  to be festive.

He looks so much like a "Mini Barry" (my Dad) here...

Fun Facts about a Four year old DILLON:

• His favorite color is orange
• His favorite thing to eat is hangabers (hamburgers)
• His favorite movie is Toy Story
• He is 33 pounds... lightweight
• His favorite toy is stuffed animals (beanies to be exact)
• He loves going to a party

Happy Birthday Pickles!!

Making Soup...

About 4 months ago (wow, they went by fast) Aunt Gill was camped out at our house watching the boys for me. One night after giving the midgets a bath I came out into the upstairs TV room to watch some TV with Gill and noticed a strange smell. Almost like when you melt a plastic spoon in the bottom of your dishwasher. I asked Gill what the smell was and she said she didn't smell anything.

All my life my Dad has teased me about my 4 S's... Super Sensitive Sense of Smell. I shrugged off the smell and went about my night. Not too much later Dad came home from work and bellowed up the stairs "Are you trying to burn down the house"?

After heading downstairs to investigate I found my old crockpot (pulled out of the garage for a yardsale) plugged in by the front door. Inside was 1 pair of little boy underwear, 1 red Mickey Mouse croc shoe and 1 baby monitor... batteries included.

When I came too after inhaling the toxic fumes (just kidding but almost) I questioned the only midget still awake, who was also the most likely culprit and he fessed up that the "Crock Pot Undie Soup" was his creation.

Have I mentioned he is awesome?

Our Family...

We had family pictures taken the other night. After the shoot we spent a while visiting with Grandma Karafa. Somehow a story about Dillon came up and Grandma mentioned I needed to write it down. It gave me the push I needed to start blogging again. It really is about keeping track of the magical moments we spend together (whether they occur at Disneyland or not) :)

It's not only the stories I have been missing, but the pictures too.

I treasure pictures of my favorite people!

So here's to regularly posting again. And to telling My little Pickles awesomely hilarious story!

Little Champ...

Saturday was the second to last game of the season. Jordan's Coach, "Coach Joe" was deployed overseas on Sunday so it was a little bit of a celebration for him and the players.

The last few months have been a whirlwind of practices, games, snack assignments and lost shin guards. I feel like after this week I will be able to breather again. I never fully understood what being a "Soccer Mom" meant. It means you eat, sleep  & breathe soccer for 3 months at a time. It is exhausting!

Jordan was really resistant to playing soccer. Blair and I are so proud of him! He put such an effort into learning the game and always played his hardest. Best of all he has had a great time doing it.

Way to go Champ! We love #6!

Celebrations...

We kicked off the holiday season this year by seeing Zoolights with the Karafa's. It's becoming a tradition that the boys love! Their facorite is the talking Giraffe who magically knows their name. Mine is the "Dancing Tree's"...

We visited with Grandma Hunt and the gang the day after Thanksgiving. The kids had a ball decorating Grandma's tree for her. Aunt Betsy had a great time (I'm sure) re-decorating the top 8 ft. of the tree left noticeably bare.

The other night the boys and I enjoyed some hot cocoa.

This was to make up for the "nasty" (in their own words) tea I had made for them the night before. It was herbal and caffeine free, and all I had in the pantry. I took my lumps though... they outed me to the home teacher for making tea. That was an awesome first visit.

Sage advice...

I really doubt that I am the only Mother that this happens to. This morning as I droppped the boys off at Grandma K's before work I left Jordan with saying "You decide how your day will be with your choice of attitude & behavior. You need to find a better attitude and a smile."

Mean Mom city, I know. Some mornings I just can't get that kid moving despite doing everything I can to have him ready for school the night before. I am almost ready to start having him sleep in school clothes. (Not really. That's gross)

On my 1.2 mile drive to work I kept hearing my statement over and over in my head and realized that I must needed to say it this morning. Not for Jordan, but for me. I like to think that my family is full of non-morning people but in reality it is just me. I am really, really not a morning person. I can't wait for my boys to be teenagers, if only to sleep until noon with them!

I made up with my little buddy at lunchtime. I felt horrible for leaving him like that. A shiny quarter and promise of buying a pencil from the machine in the office did the trick.

I also made up my mind to try a little harder in the morning to start mine and my babies days off right with MY OWN good attitude, and behavior of course.

About time...

Yeah, yeah... so I am a total blog slacker and a half.

I blame the heat. Seriously though, it's November for heaven's sake and it is still so stinkin hot around here.

It seems the end of summer has come and gone and Autumn is on our doorstep. I feel like there should be tons of things that I have missed blogging about but I just can't remember much...

Except for these:

1. Jordan is rockin the Kindergarten thing. And he has his first real girlfriend. Her name is Kelly.

2. I have ANOTHER new job. But it happens to be this working mother's ideal job... I work at Jordan's Elementary school. I am in charge of attendance, enrollment, withdraws and all sorts of student records. And I have lunch duty with the 1st graders. I am a milk carton opening pro! I seriously LOVE my job. Go Freedom Falcons!

3. Dillon sliced a hunk of his toe off last week. Its pretty nasty. I totally cornered the ER Doc in our ward on Sunday to see if it was really Dr. worthy or not (not). Thanks Dr. B!

4. My entire family minus my bro-in-law Eric came to visit a few weekends ago. We survived. All 17 of us... and the 2 dogs and 15 fish too!

5. We are halfway through the soccer season (Yeah!!)

6. My favorite Holiday (Halloween) passed. I felt like we slacked off a bit this year. We didnt even carve a pumpkin. We did however go to:

• Boo at the Zoo
• The Halloween Carnival at school
• Trunk or Treat at church
• Trick or Treating at Fry's
• Trick or Treating on our street (all 6 houses with lights on)

and all sorts of places dressed up as this:

I am declaring it a success. Jack-O-Lantern or not.

And that my friends is about it. At least I think so anyways.

So this new job...

Yesterday started my 4th week at the new job. I am working as a PC Technician for the Liberty Elementary School District. I like it enough. The pay could be better but the commute definitely could not. It was such a change moving from I-10 morning traffic to 1 stop sign and cornfields. I love my new commute.

When I interviewed for the job they (all 4 others in my department) asked me questions and there was really only one that I didn't know. Everything else was a walk in the park to answer.

Imagine my surprise when 4 weeks later I still haven't done any of those tasks. Everything has been brand new and is on the verge of "manual labor". They even had to buy me a special "little" ladder because I am too short to reach the ceiling mounted projectors. That and the teachers tend to frown upon climbing on the desks.

So to all my dear friends who have been inquiring as to how I am doing:
1. Thanks!!
2. I am alive.
3. I'm getting the hang of it.
4. It's going good.
5. I will be better at getting back to you. Dang the Internet filters here... a girl can't even surf the Internet!

An Act of Dill...

Last Thursday night The Midgets and I arrived home after 2 hours of soccer practice & errand running. As soon as I opened the door I heard Toots making a horrible worried/scared bark/growl /howling noise. Upon further inspection I saw the kitchen floor around her kennel was wet with an inch of water. It would not be the first time I walked through an inch of water on the kitchen floor, but that time it was accompanied by 3 inches of bubbles and I knew the culprit instantly.

This time I noticed the dripping sound coming from above and made a mad dash to the upstairs bathroom where I found the faucet handle broken off and the water running full blast. Awesome. Well awesome if definitely not the word I used at that given moment. I made a frantic call to the Hubs to get home ASAP and spent the next 1 1/2 hours frantically mopping up the floor.. er I mean floors.

It was really not my finest hour... Er hours.

I held it together until Blair walked in the door and then I blubbered on him like a schoolgirl. And then my baby (Jordy) blubbered on me like a schoolboy. Poor baby was so worried we were going to have to move away and that our house was ruined. I hate scaring my kids like that.

Now that a few days have passed it seems like not that big of a deal. All except the holes in the dining room ceiling I guess...

Bend it like JoJo...

The time has arrived for my baby to enjoy his first taste of organized sports. Another bonus of Mommy's commute/working day being 2 hours shorter each day.

Jordy was nervous before his first practice. He didn't even want to play soccer, we sort of forced him into it. We are mean parents like that. Right after that first practice he pretty much refused to get off the field. Boy howdy, my baby loves soccer!

JoJo plays in the same league and at the same field his Daddy played at all those years ago. Daddy was pretty happy to watch his boy slide tackle a kid during his first practice. Mommy wished he had chosen someone besides the coaches kid!

The first game for "THE TIGERS" is this weekend. We are all looking forward to it!

A Midget Update...

Jordy is now a month into school and is loving it! He comes home excited everyday and can't wait to show us the papers in his red folder. Yesterday was especially exciting because he brought home the Scholastic book order papers. Such a rite of passage... longing to order from those newsprint pages. We attended our first parent-teacher conference last week and Jordy's teacher did not have anything but nice words to say about him. In her words he is "well ahead" of the rest of his peers and my heart almost burst with pride.

Never one to be outdone this little Pickle has become the apple of his Grandma's eye. His behavior now that brother is in school all day is wonderful and he gets a glowing review when Mom gets home from work. We love our little Dilly but he definitely takes after his Hunt side with his stubborn, pigheadedness. These last few weeks have been heaven sent.

Now for a Mom update...

Friday will be my last day working for USA Today. I stopped just short of ten years and leaving is bittersweet. The ladies I work with have seen me through the last of my rebellious teen years, becoming a wife, a mother etc. It's almost like I am leaving home.

I have taken a job working for the local school district as a PC Tech. My ultimate goal is to get on at Jordy's school and follow the school calendar but this transition will at least get my foot in the door.

I am excited, nervous & sad. But it will be for the best. I just know it!

Mario- A Comic By: Jordan

Once there was a little alien walking down the street. And then it started to rain. It melted the little alien all up. And the little girl was happy because that alien looked scary.

SpiderMan flew up into space and then there was a meteor about to hit the Earth. And then Spiderman made the Earth have a bouncy thing around it. And then the meteor bounced off it onto the moon and then Spiderman turned the moon around with a bouncy thing around it.

And then there was a game I play with happy face and sad faces and I try to find all the happy faces.

Superman flew up into space and then he said "Go on Superdog".And then the Superdog spit a bomb at the alien guy and he blew up. And then he put up one of his guns to shoot something up at him before he fell down onto the moon. And then he fell on the moon. And then the meteor was going to hit Earth again and the alien blew up so he got smoke on it.

The end.