Did you know.....

That I live super close to this lady.....like 45 minutes, if her kids went to public school I'd go to the basketball games when we played in her little small town just to see her....stalker much? Maybe.

Anyways, my mom has wanted her cookbook for a long time, so I figured what better birthday present then to buy her a signed copy when she came to the local bookstore in Ponca City. Yes, Brace Books in Ponca City is the closest bookstore to her home on the range. The problem was this, her signing was Dec. 10th, which was the last day of the Enid Tourney for Jeremy. So earlier in the week I stopped by to see what the deal was. I found out I could purchase books and she would sign them and I could pick them up, PERFECT! So that's what I did.

Well, I have a cookbook, and I really wanted it signed, so when the basketball game was a 6, I decided I'd go to the bookstore at 9:30, and if the number they were handing out was low enough I'd go ahead and drag my children to the signing. This bookstore gives out numbers, which is great, I was number 25, so I figured 30 minutes, should be pretty fast, that's not that far in line. They were nice enough to give me my books back, so I could get them all signed at one time. What I didn't count on is all the people in front of me, or what seemed like the first 15 having a stack of books, they should limit that you know. So an hour later and it's almost our turn to get in line, Maddie is screaming, Cooper finally found the train track in the store, but we got to meet her....
She was impressed because Maddie took her pacifier out for the picture, I couldn't drag Cooper away from the few tracks and trains the store had for him to be in the picture. In my 5 second conversation with her I found out, her mother in law went to school at Newkirk High School, and that she and Marlboro Man didn't find out the sex of any of their 4 kids. (Which if you didn't know we do not know what we are having, wouldn't have been able to tell if we wanted to, but will name a boy Kellen Lee and a girl Kellyn Lee)

I purchased her Children's book for the kids, she made it out to Cooper, Maddie, & K....Cooper LOVES this books, reads it all the time from memory, sleeps with it, the works, so you should pick it up!
Why am I just blogging about this now, well I didn't want my mom to know that I met her, so her book will be a total surprise. Unfortunately she found out I met her because when she and my Dad surprised me to start on the kids new room, she saw the book, saw it was signed, and I'm a horrible liar.

She said she would come back to Brace, after her new cookbook comes out, so I'll let everyone know, might as well drive here, you won't wait in a massive line to get your book signed!

STOP!

Don't throw your Christmas Cards away! I guess this was the year of good ideas for Christmas Cards. What do you do with other people's cards? How do you display them? We used to have this cute little mailbox tree we put them on but it was short lived. So my first inspiration for the Christmas Cards came from this fellow blogger...

I should've taken a picture before I just took it down, I loved seeing all the cards while I cooked in the kitchen.

Well, then I was throwing out my cards and on Facebook saw this post. So I quickly took the few cards from the trash out and put them in this bag so we could pray for a family a day in 2012. Who doesn't need some prayers going up for them! What a fabulous idea! It's so much better then just tossing the cards too! Those things cost money people and although I'm a horrible with coupons, I hate wasting money!







So thank you Allison and Jenae for great ideas for Christmas Cards this year!

Makes a difference

When Santa knows your name and that you love Thomas the Train....



Amazing what happens when Santa is Granddad's best friend!

They boys sent this to Coach for Christmas....



They think they are so cool....(if you're wondering this is only about half the team)

Annual Christmas Card......


This is the second year in a row we've sent out basketball cards....next year maybe I'll be in the mood to lobby for something different......and if you're wondering that's part of downtown Newkirk in the background....such a cute little downtown! (Yes, I am aware of how huge I am, lovely isn't it?)

Somedays

This is the only answer....



Today is one of those days.....

The North gene....

I say it's the North gene that comes out when the hubs comes home and says we are having a team dinner and one mom is going to bring water with flavors and all the boys are supposed to bring a finger food. Teenage boys are not the best at informing their parents of things. So I quickly offer to take care of dessert items, thinking that way they can focus on other things. BUT when you have a kid ask if they can bring popcorn I start freaking out and think they aren't going to have enough food. So this is what I ended up with....












Sugar Cookies, Cheesecake bites, cake pops, and brownies for dessert...these were great cause I could pre-make everything but the brownies cause I like those fresh! Then my OCD North gene kicks in and I run to the store to get stuff to make this....



Sliders....



And French bread pizza I cut into strips. So of course there was enough food for us to save some and feed them after they play Friday, but it's a rule in my family, better more then not enough! Overall my babies were happy cause they got to eat then run all over the gym to their hearts content and I was happy because I was able to socialize with a few of the moms I've become friends with; (which I didn't think I'd ever do, being friends with players parents, it's tricky) without watching a game while we are all stressing out! So I guess my lesson here is I should just trust a little more that things can work out without me doing everything!

3rd Games a Charm!

Jeremy got his first win tonight! It was a good win and I'm so proud of him and the boys. These kids have come a long ways! Their highest scorer ended up having surgery on Wednesday and what we hoped would be 2 weeks ended up being 3 months. But we believe that God is good and it'll be a shorter recovery time. So in the mean time it's going to make these boys stronger and we hope tonight is the beginning of a wonderful season! (It'll be wonderful no matter what!) so here's to the coach, we are so proud of him!
Post Game Radio Interview


Two proud kiddos!



(isn't Maddie's little cheerleading uniform the cutest thing you've ever seen?)




Santa Visit

Saturday we took the kids to Wichita, KS to see Santa, go to the Mall, hang out in Wichita. Maybe we didn't go to the right places, but I gotta say I wasn't overly impressed with Wichita. We visited both malls, Towne East is definitely the better of the two, got Maddie some pretty sweet Jordans, and let the kids see Santa. Although we had to bribe Cooper with he could ride a motorized toy (someone is making a fortune off those stupid machines) if he smiled for his picture with Santa. This is what we best we got.....

with this being a close second.....

Apparently we forgot to bribe Maddie. I'm sure next year's picture will be great with 3 of them, but we'll have to find a different Santa, this one couldn't handle Cooper and the escapee. My parents and Aunt Sue saw Santa in Macy's in NYC, their picture somehow turned out much better. I'm sure it was my uncle Chuck who was making faces off to the side for them since he didn't want to be in the picture with Santa.

It started....




Basketball has officially started, the season didn't quite start like we hoped. Jeremy's best player hurt his knee in practice the day before the first game. The boys didn't have a lot of time to adjust. We are hopeful it's just a sprain and he will be back next week, but we will find out soon. So pray its just a sprain.
Also, Cooper has taken up golf, Wii golf that is, this is what I see often in the living room now...



Maddie is his little cheerleader, it's pretty cute! But his Dad taught him how to aim, now he just aims to get the ball in the water. Go figure....

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving break....Jeremy got to play cards with his friends, I squeezed in 2 photoshoots and a trip to the doctor, and we saw our first movie all before Thursday. I guess you can call that a break?
Thursday we ate lunch with Jeremy's family in Texas and came back to Mama Jo's for Thanksgiving #2 and our annual gingerbread house decorating contest. (Which is the only thing I took pictures of) When my mom got them out all the little kids, being Cooper (3) Jackson (2) and Maddie (1) all sat at the table and were ready to start. Which is really what we needed a picture of, I was too busy holding my sweet neice Charlie. Maddie was so funny, my dad helped her decorate, as in he did the icing and she put everything else on. She was very serious about it, we all got a good laugh.





Friday we enjoyed some shopping and really all the places weren't too crowded. We didn't brave any crowds early morning hours, thought about it, but I was so tired it didn't happen. Jeremy and I even made a trip to the new outlet mall, it wasn't crazy busy. Then we finished the time in Edmond off by seeing Breaking Dawn at the Warren, in the Balcony, where they have the best cheese fries! After a Gelato treat, it was the perfect day.

To cap off the weekend I made 8 lbs of pasta, 5 lbs of meatballs, 5 lbs. of meat sauce, 2 salads, and 4 loaves of garlic bread for the Season Kickoff Spaghetti dinner for the basketball team last night. Because I'm crazy, and this will most likely be the only time I actually host the team I decided I'd do ice cream cake rolls for dessert. 17 showed out of 25, and really there wasn't a ton of left overs, these boys can put it away, and if they all showed, I don't think I'd have any. So if you don't hear from me til after March, it's because JV starts today, Varsity starts tomorrow and basically we have 4 games a week hopefully all the way up to March 10th.....then there is the whole baby thing happening. Time is going to fly by!

Reunited......and it feels so good!

You could say there are good and bad things about moving around. It's great meeting people where ever you go, but it is always sad and hard to say goodbye. It is no secret that I love all the people at Kiowa Church of Christ. They made my first transition as a head coach's wife so easy and fun, when the job wasn't always fun. We all miss them dearly. But, it's great because occassionally we will get to see them again. We saw a few at Homecoming and since OC had a game in Alva, "Nana" who's actual grand daughter plays for OC was going to go to her game. She brought a couple of girls along for the ride and they made a pit stop at our house yesterday afternoon. My kids were so excited to see them, and so sad when they left. I got to enjoy some adult conversation with Nana (Nana was Cooper and Maddie's "grandma" for all purposes at Kiowa) and the kids got some lovin' and playing with Lily and Callie. Everyone had a good time!
If I could steal Callie from her parents I would; my kids do everything she tells them to do, I don't know how she does it, maybe I need lessons for her.

And I made this for them while they were here. Go make this now....you won't regret it, it's rich and amazing and everything a pumpkin pie should be!


(Pic from Tasty Kitchen website, I didn't serve mine with ice cream, but it would be good with some, or whip cream!)

Halloween

Yes I know, I'm like a month late, but just to document the event, we did dress the kids up for Halloween. My mom came for the day, ate lunch with us, hung out, and went trick-or-treating with us. Our plan was to take Cooper to one of Jeremy's fellow teacher's house, but he was so into it, they had to go to more houses. So months ago, he decided he wanted to be an owl for Halloween, a brown owl. So I looked online and he picked out this little costume that didn't look too hard to make. With the help of my parents we pulled off a brown owl for Cooper and a pink owl for Maddie. (I really wanted Maddie to be this pink pig that I found, the costume was so incredibly cute, her father did not think that was a good idea.) The pics aren't great, but they were a little wound up that day. I thought about trying to take some more pics, but who am I kidding, working, cleaning, cooking, 3rd baby, yeah I'm pretty much spent!




Busy bees

I know it's been a while since a blog, but things have been crazy busy since we returned from our vacation. For those that don't know, I'm a "work at home mom" meaning I do have a "part time" job I do from home. My brokerage has a ton of work so I've been squeezing in more work then I used to. Good job security! Last weekend we did make a trip to Edmond where we watched Jeremy's first scrimmage at Mt. Saint Mary's, went to my mom's clinic, I went to a friend's surgery Friday AM (she is doing awesome now if you're wondering), ran errands, had a engagement shoot, enjoyed dinner with some friends, prepped for my cousins
Baby shower, ran the kids to the
First half of the OC girls ball game to see our friends from Kiowa, hosted shower #1, attended a fun wedding for a long time friend, went to Church, hosted shower #2 for sis in laws brother, ran to shower #3 during shower #2, took the kids to visit said friend who had surgery, then finally drove home. Yes, I told Jeremy I didn't want to be that busy for a long time! The only pics I have to show for it are these beauties....



Push Up Cake Pops....how cute
Are they? And if I ever can figure out how to steal a frame off this IPhone video I'll post a picture of the kids from Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving

My family was kind enough to wait for Jeremy and I to return Monday evening for dinner and pumpkin carving. Jeremy was supposed to be back at school on Tuesday, but I had an ultrasound on Tuesday so he was able to take a day and go to that!
Here is the yearly pumpkin carving for the North Family...




Vacation

Trip: Going to a different city/country, having a packed full itinerary, seeing sights, walking, a lot of walking, tours, soaking up the local culture.

Vacation: Laying around, reading books, sleeping, and eating.

Last weekend we took a long weekend and had a true vacation. It was just what the doctor ordered, at least for me. I think Jeremy rather enjoyed himself too. We had an excellent time, got in early, enjoyed a magnificent lunch then retired to the beach (after changing in a luggage holding area since our room was not ready) for reading, sleeping, and relaxation. It was everything it was supposed to be. The best part, I didn't even need to spend the $10 bucks on a maternity suit, which I did wear one day, but amazingly my other one fit. (I do not know how that's possible, I am 19 weeks and huge!)


Where I read, and drank my share of Pina Coladas (*no worries, these are pregnancy approved drinks)
 


Our room, not going to lie, I miss that king size bed and jacuzzi tub, and room service


Right outside our room

If you're wondering here is what I read, I'd recommend all of them!

If you need me.....

We will (Jeremy and I) be here, relaxing for just a few short days. But you gotta get what you can between kids, work, basketball season, oh and that new baby coming in March.....so hope you enjoy your Fall Break, and don't worry I'll probably eat enough for 20 people. Oh and what about our kids, they are enjoying some Grandparent time in Edmond! I think it'll be good for everyone!!

Keeping with the theme

To go with my planner I also ordered a little something to help with chores for the kids (mainly Cooper). I saw a post about Fisher Kids on this amazing blog! So I ordered one, we start using it on Monday. We will see how it works out. Cooper seems excited about it!


This is the chart



The chore list



Paycheck Pad (they suggest using stickers for younger children, but Cooper is totally into coins)



Chore sticks, everyday he'll draw 2 chores. We choose pictures of
the chores for now. When he can read that will change.




Although I'm not crazy about the look of these bags, I love the idea.
This teaches children to learn how to spend their money. Cooper's favorite
color is green, so he's been putting his coins that he already has in that pouch.



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