We were so close we could feel the heat from the fire and smell the propane burning. It was awesome for ML and I and for the girls. We had never been that close to hot air balloons. And getting to watch them from beginning to end was soooo cool. Now if only we could for an actual ride.
Little Miss A: "Mom, can you smell my breath this morning?"Me: pausing for a long moment and thinking "no, I don't realy want to"
We always end up doing Gingerbread Houses at some point doing the Christmas Season. We have become “honorary neighbors” to some friends of ours even though we live several miles away. Our friends were hosting breakfast for their neighbors and we were invited. It was such a cool thing, I hope to do it for our neighbors one year. But anyway, my friend Veronica bought the simplest stuff for the kids to make gingerbread houses with. My girls had so much fun and it was so easy. I will definitely do it this way next year (just use graham crackers, frosting, and candy).
What a fun month November was. Looking back, I can’t remember everything that we did, but I do remember a lot of baking. I can’t tell you how many loaves of my Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread (to die for!) I made. I also found a recipe for Pumpkin Cream Cheese Truffles and tried those…to die for!!! Those were a bit hit and I made 4-6 batches of those (I can’t remember now).
It has become our tradition to host Thanksgiving and I love it! ML always helps clean the house which helps and my mom even helped this year. It makes it so nice that everyone chips in and helps cook so ML and I aren’t stuck cooking everything. It turned out to be a nice, relaxing even with family. And of course, we ended the night with our family tradition of watching “Christmas Vacation” with Chevy Chase. Can’t get any better than that.
One thing I didn’t do this year was the 30 days of Thanksgiving. But everyday I am so reminded of things to be thankful for. The Lord has blessed me and my family so much that I am reminded to be thankful for more than just 30 days in November.
Awww, I love the holidays. There were so many times I thought to blog during November and I just never got to it. We had a great Thanksgiving and loved the fall season. And now I am ready for Christmas! The house is 95% decorated and we are getting scheduled with tons of festive, Christmasy stuff.
I have some fun events planned to get out and share with others and love on others during this Christmas season so stay tuned…
"Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done."
Psalm 105:1
I love listening to my girls play. They are so creative and hilarious with some of the stuff they come up with. Their favorite things to play are drive-thru (now that it is cool enough they play through the open window), dentist, beauty pageant, and now that I am in physical therapy, they play physical therapists.
Some of the things they come up with you now are things they hear from us as parents. Miss G and Little Miss A were playing Barbie’s and this is what I heard:
G: Let’s go on a ride (in the Barbie car).
A: Ok, I want to sit up front.
G: No, You and your husband sit in the backseat and me and my husband will sit in the front. That way we can each have some quality time with our husbands.
We were also talking in the car the other day and Miss E tells me that she doesn’t want to marry a tall man (because she is going to be short). And Little Miss A blurts out “I want a husband that will carry my boxes!”
Boy, I just love these 3 girls the Lord has brought me!
I absolutely love Thanksgiving. I get upset when so many people and stores forget Thanksgiving and go straight to Christmas. We have so much to be thankful for and it’s like people just forget all about it. It’s sad that we need to force ourselves to remember to be thankful for stuff and even then people want to pass over this day/month. (ok, off my soap box.)
Well, with that said, I messed up this month. We accidentally as a family (including ML) stumbled upon the Christmas Hallmark channel this weekend. We are now ALL addicted. Every weekend from now on they are playing Christmas movies. So I am torn because I am now in the mood for Christmas. I still want Thanksgiving, but I kinda want to put my tree up. (some one told me about a thanksgiving tree, maybe I will try that next year.)
I know, I know, I am a hypocrite this year. I feel so bad. Why is there not more time between Thanksgiving and Christmas????? Then we could celebrate Christmas longer and wouldn’t be on a time crunch to put everything up in a few days right after Thanksgiving. Maybe we should start a Nationwide petition to move Thanksgiving to earlier in November. Anyone with me???
Well, I had a few takers on my little experiment. Thanks for all who tried it out. Most people that tried it just ended up standing there and nothing happened. For me, in less than 7 seconds I was over like a ton of bricks. My physical therapist had to catch me. And when I showed my family and my oldest, she just kept saying “do it again!” She thought it was so funny.
So what does it all mean???? It has to do with your sense of balance and your core strength. Now, I have always known that my equilibrium has been off and my core strength is horrible. Interestingly, my therapist also asked about ear infections and sinus infections growing up and said that would affect my inner balance also. And in these last few weeks I have actually been fighting a sinus infection. So that’s what the test explains. My therapist also said the more you do it the better you would become at it. So guess I’ll have to keep practicing.
Dominic Charles “Pop” DiVito.
4/17/1923 – 10/21/2011
Father of Frank, Robert and Margaret (McGuire)
Husband of Polly
DiVito, Dominic Charles 88, of Surprise AZ went peacefully to the Lord on Friday, October 21, 2011. He was born on April 17, 1923 in Boston, MA to Italian Immigrant parents Antonio Vincente DiVito and Margaret Cenci. He was a Veteran of the WWII Army Air Corp and retired as a Civil Service employee from Luke Air Force Base in April of 1985. He was a Third Degree Mason and a member of Chalcedony Lodge #6 F. & A.M. in Holbrook, AZ for over 50 years. Dominic is survived by his wife of 66 years, Polly; his sons Frank (wife Dixie) and Robert (wife Cathey); daughter Margaret McGuire (husband Mike); half brother Anthony DiVito of York Harbor, ME; 11 grandchildren, Beckey Clow, Claire DiVito, Daniel DiVito, Sarah DiVito, Tim DiVito, Kara Gentry, Erin Holland, Conlin McGuire, Shauna Ross, Mike Stone, & Nathan Stone; and 16 great grandchildren. His favorite term of endearment to us all was "Dopey Kiddo" which will forever remain in our hearts. His hobbies were to tinker in his shed and collect old or rare reference books. We kindly appreciate and thank Hospice of the Valley for all their help and support during his last days. In lieu of flowers we ask for donations to be made in Dominic's memory to Hospice of the Valley, 1510 E. Flower St., Phoenix, AZ. 85014.
Yesterday I started PT (physical therapy) for the 2nd time (different doctor, new insurance). It’s to deal with my major back and leg pain I have going on and my newly diagnosed bulging disk. Just by the little stretching my PT therapist did with me, I feel an improvement already. But what I was so interested in was this little test he gave me.
As soon as I came home, I started asking everyone to try it to see what their response was to it. So…I want you to try it. Here’s what you do - BEWARE DO THIS NEXT TO SOMEONE OR NEXT TO YOUR BED/COUCH…I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INJURIES INCURRED WHILE TRYING THIS OUT---YOU ARE FOREWARNED!!!!
1. Put your feet together and stand straight up
2. Cross your arms over your shoulders and put your elbows up a little
3. Get ready to start counting by seconds
4. Clothes your eyes
So what happened? Anything? Did you fall over? How fast did you fall over? How long did it take for you to fall over? Or were you able to just stand there with no problem? I want to know how other people responded. The only problem is I forgot to ask what all it means LOL. I think it has to do with my equilibrium, which I have always known was off, but I will ask when I go next week. But PLEASE let me know your results. I am just SO curious.
I am honestly not that vain of a person (minus the gray hair part). Do I go out of the house without make-up on? Yes. Do I pull my hair up and just go run errands? Yes. I can be seen in my worst and have been seen in my worst. But for your average, feeling well day I choose to get all dressed and ready before I leave the house. I choose this for me!
I was recently at a Mary Kay party where a friend’s friend was talking about her everyday appearance. How she drops off the kids at school in pj’s with no bra, rarely ever wears make-up, and doesn’t care what outfits she wears when she is out and about (I told her she needed Stacy and Clinton from “What Not To Wear”).
This conversation really made me think. As women, I think a lot of us get to the point where we just don’t take care of ourselves. We just let ourselves go. Where the same things around the house, never do our hair or make-up. We are just stuck in “mommy life.” It was after my 3rd child that I started slowly with my hair. I was done with the ponytail look, everyday, morning and night. So I made the step and went for a cute hairstyle. And I have kept it ever since. And now with the weight loss, I had decided that enough was enough. I am taking charge of my own body.
So mommies it’s time to take charge! Take charge of your beauty and your life. It will make you feel better, it can even improve your marriage. But it’s time. Do it for yourself. You deserve it and you owe it to yourselves and to God.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
Miss A. is definitely the 3rd child. She comes up with the funniest things and they just blurt out of her mouth. Here are a few to add to the list:
hanitizer = sanitizer
cockcorn = popcorn
The phone rang the other morning and it was a solicitor so I didn’t answer it. And Miss A. says, “what if it’s the mental institution?” Who knows where she got that from.
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So here was my week in a nut shell….way to busy. I am shocked that I am even standing this Friday night. I had too many doctors appointments (thank goodness my appointment today was rescheduled by the doctor until next week), sort of an urgent ultrasound done to rule out a blood clot in my right calf (still have to figure out why it’s swollen), grocery shopping, menu planning, running errands for ML, ML starting a new job, ML being gone 3 nights out of this week and the first week of me doing all drop off and pick up for the girls at school.
I am so tired and wiped out. And super thankful that tomorrow is Saturday and that this is a 3 day weekend. I’m totally not looking forward to my body catching up with me. But I am hoping there is some help on the horizon for me and my excessive daytime sleepiness. And just thankful I made it through this week.
Little Miss A is obsessed with calling people on the phone. All day long she asks me “who can I call?” Over the summer her favorite has been Grandma/my mom, but now Grandma is working so we have been having to find other people who are home or not in school.
But the funny thing is that my mom and dad have a nice message on their voicemail that says “…Have a great day in Jesus!” So if Miss A happens to call and get the voicemail, she tell us that they can’t talk because they are “with Jesus!” LOL
And she just hasn’t quite figured out the whole leaving a message thing, but it’s so funny listening to her try. As soon as she hears the beep she will say “call Grandma.” But it is a command, like she is giving her cell phone a voice command to call someone.
Gotta love my Miss A.
I’ve solved a mystery this early (well, not that early) Monday morning. For the past 3 years, except this summer, we have gone on a family vaca to Cali with the in-laws. And every year while we are there I get this annoying itch. It’s like a rash, though you can’t really see anything. It attaches itself where ever it wants and can last for months (even when we return to AZ). One year it was on my butt and arms, another on the front of my legs, and the last was on my neck. I’ve gone to the doctors and they can’t figure it out (what a shocker).
But TADA!!!! I did this morning…we didn’t go to Cali this summer and I didn’t get the rash. Soooo what that must mean is I am some how allergic to the sea air? The one year it was the worst we stayed directly across from the beach and the other two years we were an hour outside San Diego. Now I have gone to Bakersfield with no problem (there’s probably a joke in there somewhere). So it’s gotta be the salt in the air???
Just a guess here, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. And since I love the beach so much, I guess I will just have to put up with the rash. Oh, how I wish I was at the beach right now.
June 2010 (pre-weigh loss) :)
“A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man [or woman] who talks too much” (Proverbs 20:19).
This July we went and spent almost 3 weeks with my in-laws at their cabin in Munds Park. We have spent about 8 days with them in the past and weren’t sure how 18 days would go. But they were awesome. We had tons of fun. The older girls participated in a drama camp that ended with them doing a performance of Grease.
It was also awesome because it rained almost everyday we were there and reached about 79 degrees each day. This was great for my Fibro and made it so hard to come home.
We did our annual 4th of July Parade Celebration up there and added a breakfast this year.
The Girls got to go on their first ride in the forest in Rhino’s. They absolutely loved it and loved riding in Poppy’s golf cart. ML even taught Miss E. to drive the golf cart.
We just had fun playing and relaxing.
We all kept feeling the windows as we drove down the mountain not looking forward to the heat that was about to slap us in the face. I think that staying in the cool pines for July should become our family tradition.
"When I was three, I pushed a Clow"
I’m not the favorite, boo hoo hoo. Little Miss A. has made it clear to me the last couple days by telling me that
“Daddy and Grandma are my favorite, but not you!”
And then she also told me that…
“Daddy and Grandma are IN and you are NOT!”
But do you think this has changed her wanting/needing me anymore???? That would be a big fat NO!!! Good thing Miss A. is such a cute thing and I love her so much.
). I might to almost lose another 4 year old. I am up for the challenge and won’t stop until I am done. 
Do you ever get a feeling that something is missing? Or you should be doing something and your not? Or you are wanting something, but you can’t figure out what? Well, I am there. I just can’t put my finger on it. I feel like I am forgetting something and I just don’t know what it is.
But then it’s also like I am bored. Bored of where life is and wanting a change. Maybe I am just ready for school to be over and summer to begin. I don’t know…like I said, I can’t put my finger on it.
As parents we are faced with so many decisions. Should we do this with our kids or that? Should we let them experience a certain event or not? What is the right thing to do?
We were faced with this when our friend passed away. Were we going to take the girls to her funeral? When is the right time to expose them to this? How much is too much? So many questions that you are never taught in childbirth classes. We have always been open and honest with our girls about life and death and we remained so with this situation.
Through some discussion we decided that it was the right time for the girls to experience a funeral. (The husband also helped make the decision because he said “now you are bringing the girl, right"?) We did clarify if it was going to be an open or closed casket which was also a deciding factor (in this case it was closed).
Thankfully we had a week to prepare the girls and had many opportunities for discussions where they asked tons of great questions. We walked them through everything that would happen that day and what different things meant. We also explained what things meant to our family and our relationship with Jesus Christ.
The girls ended up doing great and really learned a lot going through this process. They each took in what they could for their age and mental ability. We were able to share and teach them so much, it’s just sad that it was due to the loss of our friend. I think that ML and I made the right decision to involve them and that it brought the girls closer to us and a greater understanding of love and life.
Well, I got some great news…..the judge approved my court case. That means I WOONNNN!!!!!!! After an almost 2 year long, tiring battle, I finally have justice on my disability case.
It was a little weird that I first got the call from social security that I had won and even now that I have received the judgment from the judge still haven’t heard from my lawyer. I’m afraid that it’s because my case wasn’t 100% successful when you look at my case overall. But for us, any win was a win. The ideal was for the judge to find me disabled back to 2001. Unfortunately, the judge only found me disabled back to 2009. But like I said, for us a win is a win.
It means a lot to hear someone of huge authority say that yes, I am disabled and that I cannot work in the working world. It is now officially on paper that I can’t do it. I do not have enough energy to function in the work place. I am in too much pain to be able to work. Overall, I just can’t do it.
And the first thing I said was waaaa hooo and Praise the Lord!!!!! It has been 10 years of suffering with FM, but honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing. This is who God made me to be and I have accepted it. The Lord is providing a way of easing our financial stress and it takes a huge load off of our chests. It has been a long time in the making, but I know that it comes perfectly in the Lord’s timing.
My poor Miss G. broke her pinky finger at school. It’s actually a cute story. Her best friend Ryley and she were playing “horses” at lunch recess. They went to pinky swear that they would always play with each other, they jumped up and some how her pinky came down and hit her friends elbow.
After it happened, she didn’t even cry. She went to a friend who is an aide at the school and whispered that she had bent her finger and asked to go to the office for ice. She told her teacher that her finger hurt, but never a tear. When she got to the car, she said “mommy, I hurt my finger” and put the finger in front of me. And of course I said “HOLY COW G., what happened?” Her poor finger was swollen twice the normal size and completely black and blue. We were going to just give it a day or so before we took her to the doctor, but ended up googling broken fingers and decided to take her to urgent care.
As soon as the doctor saw it he knew it was broken. But it couldn’t be a normal break, it involves the growth plate so off to the orthopedist we had to go. She will have to have it splinted for a total of 4 weeks, but thank the Lord no surgery. She is being such a trooper and doing great with the splint. She is only having a little pain here and there. Unfortunately for her teacher, her handwriting has been affected, but at least that’s temporary.
Spring break in March was a long, hard week. On Thursday, March 10th we lost a friend to cancer. She was a young, 30 year old wife and mother to an almost 3 year old and 5 month old little boys.
Shauna fought a good fight and gave God the praise and glory through the entire thing. Up until the end she believed that the Lord was going to cure her of this horrible disease. The end came fast and sudden to everyone. When she went into the ER on that Tuesday no one thought she wouldn’t be coming home.
ML and I have a great last memory of her that will always be in our hearts. And her hubby and her boys will forever be in our lives. We know without a doubt that God put this family in our lives for a reason and we are here to be used as God sees fit.
Shauna we are all so thankful that you are out of pain and suffering. We ALL know without a doubt that you are up in heaven with our Lord and Savior praising Him with the angels. All we can say is that we will see you one day. We still wish you were here on earth, but know that you are truly somewhere even better.
There was no April Fools going on today in our house. The most awesome, Praise the Lord moment was that our middle, Miss G. asked Jesus to come into her heart tonight. We finally found our devotional book (lost with the move and out of habit) that we would read with the girls at dinner and have been reading it the past couple nights. And it lead to her wanting to ask Jesus into her heart.
She prayed the prayer inside her head (they have always been so scared to say it aloud) as she repeated after us. We are so proud of her and so happy that she has taken this step, now we just have our Little A. left. Thank you Lord that you have given us girls that have a heart for loving you!
.For some reason, my girls like to watch me go through my medicine bottles and pull out all of my night time meds. The other night as I am pulling them all out, the girls are counting them as I go. When I get to the end, I ask them how many are there. And the big whapping answer is 10! And then my Miss E. says “well that’s not that many!”
Not that many??? 10 pills just at bedtime? (No wonder I have to pee so much in the middle of the night 
Happy Birthday to my now 7 year old. Oh, how the time has flown. I remember the day so clearly and you will always hold a special place in mommy’s heart. We will always have a special connection since we are both middle children, but I love you so much.
Thanks for being our G. Poo. You are a loving, kind, sweet little girl who is full of energy and has a wild, experimental spirit.
Ugghh, my nose has been soooo sore. I was putting Little A to bed last week and by accident the back of her head slammed into my nose. It hit me hard on my glasses and shoved them in on one side of my nose. I was shocked it didn’t start bleeding. And I was shocked I didn’t wake up with a black eye. And now days later, I am still in a lot of pain.
My nose is throbbing. It is causing me headaches. Anytime I blow my nose or adjust my glasses it hurts. It’s just a nose, who knew that it could hurt so bad. I must have a deep bruise or something. I just hope this goes away soon, because I am done with it affecting my life.
And yes, I know it could be worse. I am thankful it is only my nose and nothing else. I just wanted to share one of the hazards of being a mom 
Miss G said that she has a rock she wants to show me that is “awesome!” It was a flat, shiny, dark green rock. When she showed it to me she asked me if it was a frog egg because her friend said it was.
Oh, the things kids come up with.
“On average, a preschooler requires mom's attention once every 4 minutes or 210 times a day” (MOPS)
Wow, does this saying ring so true in my life. Every day, all day long I hear “Mom I need you!” Little A has such a way of saying this. I’m surprised I don’t hear it in my sleep.
Now I know this is totally part of a preschooler’s life, but I think she over uses just a tad bit. Especially since there are times when she is completely capable of walking to me and asking for help versus yelling from her room and making me walk to her.
Something else that Little A has been doing is telling me that she can’t walk because her leg hurts. She’ll get up in the morning and ask me to carry her because she can’t walk. She wants me to carry her to bed because her leg walks. She wants to be carried to the dinner table because her leg hurts. Little stinker. I wonder if she gets it because she hears me talk about my limitations. Lately I have been telling her I (well, I guess more like threatening) I will have to take her to the doctor if her leg keeps hurting and that pretty much stops it.
I know one day I will long for the day when I would hear “Mom I need you.” But there are days now when I definitely wish I heard it a lot less.
