Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to 2008!!! As you can see - Padme is looking forward to it....her ears are perked up to ring in the New Year!

I've started training the dog...if I can just get her housetrained, we'll be much happier with her. However, she does have a cute trick that she does. I'm teaching her come and sit. She has combined the two, especially in the house - kind of. She gets a running start in the living room, slides across the kitchen floor, bumps into my feet, slides herself backwards and then sits at my feet, and anxiously awaits her treat. I'm just trying to figure out if she's abusing the system....considering that she has to sit down anyway after clearing the fuzz from her brain because she just slid into my leg....I would sit too.

The boys had a great Christmas! Cody ripped into his gifts, Andrew tore into his as well...meantime, Nathan was determined to tear off one small 2x2 piece of paper at a time from each gift. Yes, Mr. Careful himself thought it would be wise to just tear little pieces from the present at a time...afterall, we all needed more wrapping paper to clean up after.

And so what do the holidays have for everyone??? - a common issue for all of us around this time of the year???? Yes, folks, you guessed it...weight gain. I've gained a few pounds over the past two weeks...but that's okay....my New Year's resolution is to finally cleanse my body of all the ichy stuff. So while my friend Amie has lost poundage prior to Christmas...I'm going on a full body cleanse after Christmas. It will not only help with holiday weight loss, and the last few pounds I had to lose prior to the holidays, but it will clean my system of 30 so years of toxic trash (high fructose corn syrup, nicotine, etc...). It will start January 1st with a mild cleanse and then a more severe "Master Cleanse" after that. Should be interesting...or painful...or reinvigorating...we'll see. Pray for my family while I do this b/c it's bound to test my every emotional nerve....

What happened here?

We've been enjoying our new dog immensely, however, I think we broke her (see pic) - either that or she's learned how to play dead on her own! Not sure....you be the judge (she's actually sleeping in this picture).

Cody had his 9th (le' sigh) birthday recently. Instead of doing a family affair and a separate party for just him and his friends, Dan and a friend of ours took Cody and four other of his friends roller skating. They came back to the house for cake, ice cream, and present opening. Fun was had by all...and Dan and Tim had their hands full of boys (there were 5 total, so I guess that wasn't too bad.) Cody's theme was Dragons. He got a lot of great gifts.
We wish all our friends and family a very
Happy and Blessed Christmas!

Nicknames....

Ok people, don't get the wrong idea about the heading at all. I thought this was interesting as I thought about it today, so...here we go.
When our children are born, we frequently give them nicknames. Many times, it's quite deserving, other times they only deserved the humiliation of that nickname once in their lives...but they have to put up with being called that the rest of their lives....let's take a look:

1- "Bug" - Nathan - we have called him our little bug from the start. He was the smallest of our three (only by a fraction of an ounce as compared to Andrew's birth weight) and he was our last born child. He's the baby - as he says, "Yup, Mommy's baby!" So Bug it is. Now, it has come to my attention that bugs are not cute, and I tend to think Nathan is just the most beautiful two year old out there (sorry other mommys). The idea of Nathan actually looking like a bug is disconcerting to me - but for now, he's the tiniest of the three - although he is catching up to Andrew's size VERY quickly. (the above pic of Nathan...we were yelling at him frequently for sitting on the couch like that - however, one day I asked him what he was doing - he said "motorcycle, vroom, vroom" and then picked up his play cell phone and proceeded to "call Daddy" to tell him about his new ride).

2- "Monkey" - Andrew - as you can well imagine, Andrew earned his nickname from a young age when he decided to climb - EVERYTHING. And if he couldn't find a way to climb something, he would start moving furniture around so he could climb to where he wanted to go. He is also the craziest and wildest of our brood...and would bounce off the walls if he was made from rubber.

That leaves poor, poor Cody.....who absolutely abhors his nickname...he didn't really earn it, nor does it describe him, I suppose, but it's been his since birth....

3 - "Booger" - Cody -----ummm....enough said.

Ha-Ha

Ha-Ha. I'm posting, yea, I'm posting. Yea, who's posting? - me!

Ok - sorry - got a little carried away there. I'm giving you some new pics of the newest Woolverton - Padme' (uh-hum- pronounced "pad -may - as Cody tells people). She is now 8 weeks old. No closer to being housetrained, but definitely closer to being more comfortable around us and being totally, ummmmm, totally spoiled - there I said the "s" word (hello - she sleeps in my lap while I'm typing on the computer and watching tv). She has also started to bark occasionally - and tee-hee...low and behold - she yips. She's a little yippy dog. It's funny, but not as funny as her percolating. Yes, the dog sounds like she's purring at times or percolating like a coffee maker at times. It is absolutely hilarious!!! You would think it's a cat purring...and if that weren't funny enough, Nathanael imitates her perfectly. As a matter of fact - we can't tell if it's the dog or the child making the noise at times!

Needless to say, we're enjoying the newest member of our family. She's been sleeping through the night mostly - waking up around 3 am to go pee...which Cody gets up and takes her. Ahhhh....I love, absolutely love, having an older child!! Now he can take on some of the responsibilities of having a pet!

So.....again, my fault...

I guess it's really a good thing that I don't have that many readers on here, b/c I certainly don't post enough anymore to keep people interested. Things have been....better and worse...and are seemingly getting better again. As Christmas time rolls around again, this time of the year brings forth so much - ummm busyness. Finally got all the kids' presents taken care of...now, the impossible task of buying for the husband.

So what exactly is it that makes it so hard for us women to buy for our men? Let's see....I've been with the same man for 12 years and he still won't just come out and give me a list, even though I practically beg him for one EVERY year. What do you want? "I dunno." Is often the only answer I get. This year, I've finally had it - I gave him an ultimatum that many women in our church would've cringed at.

"Either you give me a list, or you are not getting anything at all."

I have enough stress in my life without worrying or trying to think on my own as to what it is he could possibly like to get as a gift. I just can't - le' sigh - take it any more. We'll see....he's thinking of ideas and he knows that "D-Day" (also known as the roam the mall until you find some for Dan day) is coming up soon.

And.....now introducing the newest member of our family ------ Padme (pronounced "pad-may") - Cody named her after one of the characters in Star Wars. She is currently only about 7 weeks old and has become quite the lap dog. Currently, she only weighs about 2 lbs. and shouldn't get over 20 lbs. or so...we're hoping.

And as for my friend Amie - who is so determined to lose 6 more lbs. on her chocolate diet...oooo...did I say that? I support you whole heartedly in your endeavor and will encourage you as much as possible! And if it works - I want to know what you're doing so I can lose those last few lbs. too.