Today is My Sister's Birthday

We celebrated Penny's birthday on Sunday at their house with the family. They had a clam bake for those who like clams and grilled steaks for those who don't like clams. (Like me) Today, my parents, my sister and I went out to lunch to celebrate the actual day.

Penny is a really cool person. She has like a bazillion friends, so they must all see what we have known for ever. She is an awesome Mom, and the best sister. I am really lucky to have her. And, she has the most killer wardrobe you have ever seen. I rarely see her in the same outfit twice. Her shoe collection rivals that of Imelda Marcos. The people at Nordstrom know her by name. When she walks in they kiss her feet and they hire a Chinese man to cart her around in a rickshaw while she piles the clothing on top of him. The other shoppers think she's famous. Then you visit her house......What can I say that would do it justice. It's like walking into a page of Better Homes and Gardens while they are featuring the top 10 decorated houses in the country. It's sick, and I hate her. Just kidding. I love her.

Happy Birthday Penzoil!

DUH!!!!

Today I drove half way down our street with the back door of the car swingly wildly open with Nicholas strapped in the car seat gasping for breath from the blast of cold air.

Pumpkin Carving

Halloween Cookie Decorating

Tonight the kids decorated Halloween cookies. It is a huge mess, but they look forward to it every year. Isabella enjoyed mashing her dough on the counter and kept calling it pizza. Nicholas picked up a big piece of dough and tried to jam it into his mouth as fast as he could before I noticed and took it away from him. I'm not sure how much he swallowed. Hopefully raw egg is not a problem for 8 month olds....

Taylor's Masterpieces

Shea's Masterpieces

Isabella's Masterpiece (Raw cookie dough shoved into a sprinkle jar)

Go Browns!

Nick finally has a kid that will support his football team. For years he has been trying to get Taylor and Shea to root for the Browns, but they won't go against their Dad's New England Patriots. (I think it also has to do with rooting for a winning team versus a losing team) Isabella will root for whoever we tell her to so long as she gets to wear a cute cheerleader outfit!

Happy Birthday Heidi!!

We celebrated my sister-in-law's birthday on Saturday night. She was P.O.'d that I was putting her on the blog, but tough tooties Heidi. Nick's brother, Joe made steak sandwiches and a very delicious chocolate cake. I got to take a large portion of cake home and eat it all weekend. I will never say no to chocolate, so when they offered to send half the cake home with me, who am I to say no.

Happy Birthday Heidi! You have a full year before you are the center of attention again.

Yesterday we played outside almost all day. I let everything go in the house for the day and just had fun with the kids. Nicholas took a 3 hour nap, so I brought the monitor outside and Isabella and I played all morning. We had a picnic, and I let Isabella choose all the food that we were going to pack. She had about one bite of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a couple bites of turkey breast, 3 grapes, 2 bites of an apple, a handful of goldfish, and most of her My Little Pony fruit snacks. She had so much fun sitting on the blanket eating. This morning when she woke up, the first thing that she wanted to do was go on another picnic.

After dinner, the 4 kids and I went on a walk down the street. Isabella decided that she wanted to ride in the stroller, so Nicholas got to ride in the pink bug car. He didn't care. He thought he was big stuff hanging onto the steering wheel. Shea whizzed back and forth on her scooter, and Taylor and I had a nice conversation about anything and everything.

Pretty soon, we will be holed up in our cold house and it will be dark by 4:30, so I want to enjoy these last few days outside as much as possible!

We are Ready for Halloween

The kids and I enjoyed decorating our house this weekend for Halloween. Isabella does not think anything is unusual about the spider webs and and big hairy spiders all over our house.

Hopefully when Halloween is over, I will be able to remove the webs from our rhododendrons or I will have to hear the squawking from the husband.

My Second Favorite Season

I am definitely a summer person. I love the heat and I love the sun. I would be very happy if we lived in the South so long as my family followed us there. I know that is not going to happen, so I guess I am stuck in the cold 6 months out of the year.

However, I can't be too disenchanted about fall beginning when this is my view every day. All the leaves are changing and our yard looks really beautiful. And for now, I get the best of both worlds; it has been in the high 70's for 4 days.

Pumpkin Picking

Shea's Cross Country Meet

Shea just finished the season with her last meet yesterday. She did such a great job this year. Her time for the 2 mile improved by 3 minutes from the beginning of the season. This is the first time she has ever run before. When she came home from school last spring and said that she wanted to join the cross country team this year, I was a little surprised. She has never run before. I would never had said anything to her, but I really questioned whether or not she could do it. 2 miles is a lot! She started practice in August and has run 2 miles every day since then. I am really proud of her for trying something different and doing her best! (And her legs are like steel now!!)

2 Year Old with a French Manicure

One of the many benefits of having a 14 year old sister.

Purple Chicken

I tried a new recipe for a chicken dish called Coq au Vin. The recipe caption said "This rich burgandy sauce will impress your guests and family" I did not have any burgandy wine, so I used Merlot. I didn't think it would be a big deal to use a different wine, but clearly it was. My chicken turned purple. Shea initially thought it looked good until she discovered that it was chicken and not beef. They were less than thrilled to try my new dish, but I promised them that the chicken was not contaminated. They ate it, but did not go back for seconds. I don't really think I impressed anyone with this one.

The Great Escape

Nicholas tried his hardest to get to the stairway before I could catch him. Not this time buster!

To Keep the Child Home or Not to.........

I have not yet mastered the the ability to determine if my children are too sick to go to school. Even though I have been home for 2 years, I am still a fairly new stay at home mother when you consider that I worked from the time Taylor and Shea were 2 and 4 until they were 10 and 12. The man I used to worked for was an Ogre. He had no thought or consideration for any one's personal life. We were there to work, and we were there to work hard. Family was secondary to all else. Therefore, in order to keep the peace and refrain from getting verbally attacked, unless someone was profusely vomiting, I used to call my mom at 6:30 in the morning and ask if I could bring the kids to her house. She was always willing to drop everything and help me whenever she could, to which I will always be grateful. 2 years ago, when I quit my job to stay home with the kids, it became very easy to stay home if you were the kid, and very easy to keep the kid home of you were me. I was getting completely taken advantage of. So, last year, I decided to be a little tougher. If they didn't have a fever, or weren't throwing up, I sent them to school. As a result, usually 1 hour later, I would receive a call from the nurse asking me to come pick up my sick kid.

This year, I need to find a happy medium. Shea has stayed home twice already, and school has only been in session for a little over a month. There is no doubt that she didn't feel that great when she woke up, but I also think that she probably could have survived the 7 hours at school. The next time she is sick, I might just have to send her and hope for the best. It might teach her a lesson. And at least if I get a call an hour later, I'll know that she REALLY is sick!

Homecoming

This weekend was Taylor's Homecoming Dance. She and her friends had a blast. I know I am bragging, but she looked gorgeous! The whole day went off without a hitch too, which NEVER happens!

Taylor and her friend Stephanie got there hair done at the same salon, and from there, went to my mother in law's house to get dressed. We took some pictures there, and then the girls met their other 2 friends at a Japanese hibachi restaurant. After they ate, we took more pictures at the local park The girls felt like movie stars, and had so much fun posing! The dance went from 7-11, and Taylor said that she and the girls danced the entire time!

I took so many pictures that I couldn't choose which ones to put on the blog, so I created a website on Shutterfly to view all the pictures. Here is the link - http://thewootangclan.shutterfly.com/

It Stinks to be the Youngest

School Spirit

We live in a big football town. Everyone loves High School football here. This weekend is Homecoming weekend and the High School has a huge assembly today to boost the spirit before the game tonight. All the kids were instructed to wear their school colors, which are red and black. When I pulled up in front of the school, every kid was wearing red and black in some form. I noticed a certain buzz of excitement while everyone walked into school. There was a large group of kids tailgating in the student parking. They had a grill on the back of a pickup truck and were grilling hotdogs. How fun is that??

When I was in High School, there were the cool kids, and the not so cool kids, and no one ever mingled. Nothing has changed since then. But for today, it doesn't matter if they are a football player or the nerdiest kid in school; they all feel the same way. They love their school, and want to show their school spirit.


P.S. I will let you know how the dance goes for Taylor tomorrow night. She is going with a few girlfriends. So far we have only had one minor meltdown involving the hair appointment, which was rectified shortly after. If you read my earlier post on her O.C.D. problem, you will appreciate how miraculous that is.

Taylor Cheering on Her Team

Is She Cool or What??