Prayers are Needed

Your prayers are needed. Some of you know that Chris (Christina's dad) had surgery to remove a kidney about 7 or 8 years ago.

Since that time he has been struggling with an addiction to the pain pills. Long story short, last year he got off the pain pills, but turned to alcohol instead. He has been in rehab several times, the last one this past summer. In Dec he was doing well, but fell off the wagon in January. It has been downhill for him since. He is now in the hospital in Full Renal Failure. His one kidney that he has left has failed him. His liver and pancreas has failed as well. He has been in ICU at John C. Lincoln since early Wed morning. They are doing dialysis on his kidney, and bringing in a cardiologist as well, since he is not improving. I'm asking everyone to please send him your prayers and positive energies. He and his family really need them right now. So does Christina. She is having a hard time accepting this, and understanding what and why this is happening. ************************************************************************************ Its still cold out! Last night it got into the 20's!! Freeway normally loves being outside. But I no sooner let her out, before she realized it was cold and windy. She's pleading with me to let her back in.

I did of course, and then fed all 5 a treat that I got FREE in the mail from the surveys I do.

Caleb was playing with his space shuttles and came up with the idea of using his baseball popup toy to shoot the rockets into space. How clever!

The boys are getting old enough for some chores, and Zachary likes to vacuum, so he vacuums their playroom while Caleb holds the cord out of the way. Teamwork!!

Sunday night we had a small Super Bowl Party. We had our friends Diane & Al over, and Christina had about 8 of her friends over. We had a nice time until the end. Poor Cardinals.

Notice my kitty sitting in Diane's lap. He loves to sit on companies laps. Gramma Ann will have to SHOO him away! Diane knew how much Caleb loved her chocolate cake she had for Al's birthday, so she made sure the cake she brought had chocolate.

The Pinewood Derby is this weekend. The boys gave the car one more coat of white paint, and Zachary wants me to paint it like Jeff Gordon's Car. But with the number 21 for his birthday.

I will try and post updates on my blog about Chris and his recovery.

Again, Thank You for your prayers.

Let em Eat Cake, but Not On My Newspaper

The kids had no school on Monday or Tuesday, so the 3 of us went with Mikey to his work and to one of our fav hotels. Christina and Katelyn stayed over at Katelyn's uncles house. Look familiar? It has actually been pretty chilly in Central Florida recently. Highs in the low 60's or high 50's. YUCK! It was warmer further south, so it was nice to get away. I took these pics from our room balcony.

Unfortunately I forgot my phone when I went down to play golf too. Zachary hit a ball into the pool. Then... "hey, this pool is warm! Lets go swimming!" When the boys decided to swim, I ran up and got my phone so I could have some pictures of the boys swimming at 9pm in January!

Notice, I did say, "the. boys." Not me. Not Mikey. Nope. Just. the. boys. They love the water so much. They swam for an hour. Mike and I are starting to plan our Daytona 500 trip. Last year when we went we had read that NO platforms were allowed. Then we arrived only to discover that MOST people that tent camp HAD them. We have the dimensions of the site (20x35), and all the sizes of our tent and 2 canopy screen covers. Now Mikey is designing our platform, that will fit over our truck that is big enough to have 4 chairs, a tv, and a table for snackies. I'm just a little nervous.

The boys set up their playstation to play NASCAR. Caleb was kind of getting the hang of steering with the regular game controller, when Mikey hooked up the steering wheels for them. Caleb had a hard time reaching the 'gas' pedal since he has little hands. When his driver *Bobby Labonte* wasn't driving, (since Caleb wasn't holding the gas down), he said, "Bobby must be tired of racing all morning. I think he is taking a nap."

Yesterday FINALLY started to warm back up. Thank goodness! Its supposed to be high 70's. The kids spent most of their day out side. Notice my plants in the background? I didn't cover them, and they are probably dead. I haven't learned what most of these trees/plants are yet, so I didn't realize I should of covered them since we had freezing temps 2 nights in a row. Mikey is filling the birdhouse my brother Frank gave us. The boys have a neighbor girl over. Saturday night we went to our friends Diane and Al's, for Al's birthday. It was alot of fun. Mike kicked butt playing Ping Pong against Al, his sons, Kyle & Nick, and Al's Cousin, Randy. They also had WII. So the kids played bowling on that. Randy and his wife Susan have 2 girls ages 8 & 9. They got along really well with the boys.

It was alot of fun. Of course, now all 3 of them are begging for a WII.

Al is the guy in blue behind Caleb. One of his sons is next to him. Caleb was SOOOO excited for Al's Birthday Chocolate Cake. Just look at that face! He ate 3 pieces. I now know what to make him for his birthday cake! The entire time he was eating, he was saying things like, "mmmm this chocolate cake is so good. mmmm. I love chocolate cake. yummmm. I want to eat chocolate cake everyday. mmmmm, this is soo yummy mommy. mmmmmm. When can you make it? mmmmm"

Zachary doesn't like Chocolate, you can see whats left of his plate. So Caleb ate that too.

Mike and I made the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper on Sunday! I emailed the picture to them, he contacted us, and here we are!

The only thing wrong is, he thought we released the fish. By the time I got back to him, it had already gone to print, so I couldn't correct him. (We ate that fish!!! Yummy!) He wants to publish the boys fish picture next month.

My Uncle Bruce married Mauri on Sat, Jan 24. Congrats!

Many Happy Years to You two!

Cardinals & Obama. It IS a good 2009!

WOW! Who would of thought that the

AZ Cardinals would be in the Super Bowl?!

I bet there will be so many Super Bowl parties going on there!

We will have one here.

Too bad they missed hosting their own Super Bowl by 1 year.

Last week the kids got out of school early, so Wed we went to Universal Studios.

We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The kids meal included seeds for planting a Quaking Aspen tree. Caleb planted them all by himself. He dug the hole, dropped the seeds in, covered it up, then watered it. Thursday we took the kids to all the stores they had gift cards for.

It was Christmas all over again in our living room. Here is one thing they bought. They love to color these, and it takes them a long while. I woke up Saturday morning surprised that it was 9am. I never sleep that late. I came out into the family room to this scene. They had been coloring QUIETLY all morning!

We went to KSC. They have a ride there called the Shuttle Launch Experience. The boys were too little (48+in) to ride, so Mike and I took turns. It was pretty cool. The boys got to watch in the observing room.

Zachary's Boy Scouts are having a PineWood Derby on Feb 7, so Mike and Zachary went to work on their car. After Mike gets all the special effects done on it, I will paint it. Zachary (MIKEY!) wants it to be painted like a NASCAR. And Bobby's new number. 96. Zachary helped drill holes in it, and helped some with the dremel. But mostly he just supervised. It took the better part of the day to get it done exactly the way they wanted it. Its getting there... Check out what Mikey built for me to paint the car. How Genius! Zachary got his report card.

Language Art.....B Reading.....C Math.....A Science.....A Social Studies.....C He is still in tutoring, and special classes for his speech and language development. Caleb really enjoys preschool. I bought him a kindergarten letter book on Saturday, and he completed it last night. He loves to write. I am so surprised because when I was trying to teach him, he had no. interest. at. all. But since he has been in school he has really taken to writing, reading, and math. Its so cute, he will ask Zachary..."Whats 2+2?" And Zachary will hold up 2 fingers on each hand, put them together and count them out loud so Caleb will learn. Zachary loves math, and loves doing it in his head so he will have Caleb give him hard ones. He gives Caleb an answer, almost always correct, and Caleb will say, "yes that is right!" Today is Martin Luther King day. Tomorrow is the inauguration of our nations First Black President, Obama. We have come a long way as a nation. I look forward to the first Black Lesbian President.

I may not of voted for Obama, but I am looking forward to watching him run our country and make the CHANGES he so promised us.

Since there is no school today or tomorrow, Mikey, the boys and I are going to Boynton Beach to our favorite hotel. (its on the inner coastal way, heated pool, and putt putt.)

Christina and Katelyn want to stay home.

Go Cardinals!

Go Obama!