me to a T - Tracey Odachowski

Mom has one of these wooden trees, and Gabe loves the thing. He always talks about going to her house over the holidays just so he can turn it on. That is, until I broke the news to him that they sell them in Michaels. So he made me get one so ‘we’ (translation: mommy) could paint it ‘together’ (translation: he helps the first 15 minutes, then starts playing Star Wars Legos with Daddy til I finish). I thought it would be cool to do pink and lime green; he wasn’t buying it. So this is how it turned out. A little ‘countryish’ for my taste, but still pretty cute! I dressed it up w/ some Hambly rubons, so I’m happy. And he’s thrilled that he gets to turn it on every night!

Gotta love the simple pleasures of kids.

I think I’ll have to do another week in pictures soon. There have been a ton of big events in the Odie house, but I”m just too lazy to download the camera every day, you know? And since we’re about to have to battle this crazy NorEaster to get to Baltimore for some turkey, I don’t feel like doing it now either. But I will say this…

Em is in her BIG GIRL BED!!!!!!!!!!

REally, I can’t wait to load the pictures. They are priceless! Hard to say who was more excited, Gabe or Em. So, sorry, you’ll have to wait til Sunday (or later, knowing me), to see the pics, but I thought I’d give you a teaser.

Happy TG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup. You heard it right. The tree is up. It’s totally undecorated, but it’s up.

Chris and I bought a fakey last weekend. This was a huge step for us. I loved having real trees. But last year’s was a nightmare - HUGE dryout, so we finally decided it was time. Anyway, I think the box of it in the garage was eating at us, and we just HAD to put it up yesterday! We still haven’t gotten any of the decorations out of the shed, and probably won’t until next weekend, but that’s ok! I have Christmas lights! And a red berry wreath on the door that I bought on Friday, and a painted wooden tree w/ lights in the Dining Room. That last one is going to have to be a separate post…there’s a whole story behind that one!

In other news, I decided to finally announce a little big news that I have coming up. No, I’m not pregnant. In January, and the Craft and Hobby Association’s Winter Show, I will be debuting 2 new paper lines for a new company, Uniformed Designs. They specialize in military papers. I can’t show the papers yet or their subject matter, but I just HAD to share!!!! It’s pretty big news!!!

Like our new door???? (never mind the mess. I’ve come to accept that this is the best it will ever look.)

It’s taking a LOT of getting used to. It was finally installed yesterday after paying a grand total of $1400. Yikes! WE had french doors there that were AWFUL. They had builder syndrome - you know, the one where the builder uses the absolute cheapest materials available on the market? I think our house got the cheapest of them ALL. The old door was a meer 5 years old, at it was literally falling apart. We even had to take the mechanism out of the handle just to get the damn thing to close. Yeah, there is NO love loss on seeing that puppy go. Pretty sad when the installers are actually laughing at your door while removing it.

So anyway, we decided to switch to sliding doors. And, since we were replacing french doors, they had to be special ordered b/c this one is much larger than a standard size.

Hence, the black hole.

There is SOOOOO much light that comes through this thing! And at night, as you can see, there’s so much BLACK! I feel like our house is an open book to the back neighbors right now. So, I’ve begun the quest to find so shimmering deep brown fabric w/ which to make curtains for it and the windows. And, PLEASE GOD let me find a chandelier that I like; the days of the pain in my brass ugly one need to be coming to the end. Thining about replacing the even worse flourescent light with some recessed lighting above the island and around the cabinets. The only good thing about a flourescent is the amount of light it puts out, so I need to find an equivelent light solution for that side of the kitchen.

But hey, at least I can actually close and open our door now! WOO HOO!

On Saturday, Chris and I celebrated 10 years together. No, it was not our wedding anniversary; that was in May. This is our Metaversary. Met-a-what? Yes, we still celebrate the day that we met. In fact, I think we celebrate it bigger and better than we do our wedding anniversary. Veteran’s Day has changed our lives in many ways, but the one in 1996 started it all.

Go ahead. Laugh. Tell us how sickeningly cute we are. I don’t care. I’m totally fine with the thought that we will be ‘that’ cute couple that still holds hands when we are 80 years old.

Friday night, Monica and Wayne were sweet enough to let the kids have a sleepover with John and Alex so we could have the entire evening to ourselves. We knew we wanted to go to dinner, but we wanted to get away from our usual fare. After emailing a few friends that live in Norfolk/Virginia Beach, we took Pat’s suggestion and went to Magnolia Steak. It was the perfect idea. Nestled in the historic part of Norfolk, it was definitely different than what we normally get here. And much nicer than the restaurants we get to visit with the kids.

When our waiter first came to the table, we told him we were having a night away from the kids, and that we wanted to prolong our dinner as long as possible. He gave us our drinks, and we ordered the most FABULOUS appetizer EVER. It was goat cheese w/ roasted red peppers and an olive puree, served on a bed of mixed greens with slices of toast. YUUUUUMMMM. I would drive back there again just to have that appetizer for a meal. Seriously. Then we took a little break from eating; Chris had a beer and I had a glass of reisling. One of the few wines that I can actually drink. Then our meals came. Steak. It’s been too long since we’ve had good steak. Chris had a ribeye with some sort of molasses glaze, mine was a tenderloin. It was a wee bit overdone, sadly, but still quite good. And the twice-baked potatoes and carrots with carraway seeds more than made up for it.

After nearly two hours of dining, we even ordered desert. German Chocolate PIE. Our sweet waiter brought it to us and said it was on the house because of our special occasion. How did he know?? We hadn’t told him it was our metaversary. He said any night away from the kids is a special occasion. Now THAT is a good waiter.

So after a wonderful meal came the great part. There are so many little things in our life that have such meaning. Like God sends little reminders to us that we really are meant to be together. This one was the bill. Something so insignificant turned into a powerful message. The bill was $90.04 (hey, it was a big meal). I’m always the one that does the tip calculating. Chris likes to make everything an even dollar amount, so I said, “Make the tip $19.96″. That’s just what I had calculated it to be. No big, right? And Chris says, “That was a good year”. Suddenly we looked at each other. Our tip had calculated out to be the exact year of the one we were celebrating that very evening. 1996. A huge smile came upon my face. Yes, that MUST be the tip amount. Yet another little sign in our life.

1996 sure was a good year. And I’ve had ten wonderful ones since. Thank you Hunny Bunny. I love you.

Love, Sweetness

I’m in the mood.

I’m sitting here listening to Christmas music. Have been since we discovered last Saturday that the 107.7 (the lite rock station here) is already starting to play Christmas music. My van radio is already tuned in for the season. Bing Crosby is playing right now on Yahoo Music. And is there any voice MORE Christmas than his????? hehe - just realized that he’s singing, “It’s Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas.” Totally a coincidence that it is playing when I decided to post this.

Does it look like Christmas yet? No. But I’m feeling it. I love Christmas.

Ok. I finally slowed down long enough to get on here and write about the last week and a half. Yikes! So many pictures, so little time. But I just have to get this down so that my awful memory doesn’t forget! Here goes:

Thursday, October 26:

There’s that big gap I was telling everyone about. Isn’t he just too darn cute w/ that gap? Crack me up. I’ll have to admit, for the first few days that it was missing, I just kept looking at him talking, and I’d break out in a giggle. He looks so DIFFERENT! And, dare I say it, grown up. Such a sad and happy thing, all at the same time.

the complete story is this: For weeks, Gabe has been wiggling all of his teeth, begging to find one that was loose. About every other day, he’d come up to me to say that he found one, only for me to find that it really wasn’t. A few weeks ago, he did the same thing, but this time when I wiggled it, I thought it *may* be loose. But I dared to say so to get his hopes up. So I just told him, “Maybe it is, buddy!” and that was enough for him. At his soccer game on the 14th, he bit into an orange at half time and cruched it just right to really make it loose! Yippee! Except then for the next week and a half I had to watch him wiggle it back and forth…and make me sick to my stomach. (how come that was soooooo cool and not gross when the loose tooth was in my mouth? Perhaps b/c I didn’t have to LOOK at it???) Anyway, the night of the 26th, he was eating a plum before bed. I was sitting in the living room, Chris in the kitchen, when suddenly Gabe yelled out, “My tooth came out!!!!!!!!” Lo and behold, it had! Of course, scrapper mom made him write a letter to the Tooth Fairy, and she was even kind enough to leave the tooth for my scrapbooks (in case I dare to save it!!!)

Saturday, October 28th

Yes, my kids are STILL getting birthday presents, despite the fact that Em’s bday was 2 months ago, and Gabe’s one month. Rob, Deb, the kids, Cathy, Steph, Billy, and Memom came down last weekend (mainly to bring Memom so she could spend the week w/ us). We had a little party, and Rob/Deb brought the bday presents for the kids. Gabe got Over the Hedge DVD, and Emily got the best present ever - dress up shoes. She won’t take them off! He faves by far are the fuzzy pink Cinderella shoes, but she’s not too picky.

Monday, October 30:
This year’s Halloween pumpkins. For Gabe, a ghost:

For Emily, Dora (of course):

Tuesday, October 31 (Halloween!)
The costume breakdown:
Chris - Aang, the Avatar (a Cartoon Network cartoon. His head was perfect for this one. Although I realize now that I didn’t really get any good pictures of it).

Me - A fairy. Gabe said I was the tooth fairy. All black w/ HUGE (and I mean a span of about 6 feet) purple wings. And, of course, I painted my face again:

Em - Tinkerbell. She thought she was hot stuff. And upon seeing Mommy’s face paint, was required to have some herself:

Gabe - an Astronaut. He couldn’t really decide what he wanted to be, and this was accidentally mailed to us about 3 years ago, so it was a good standby. Except that the pants were about 4 inches too short on one of my two mega-tall kids, so he had to wear his snow boots w/ it.

Emily after the festivities. She thought that it was pretty cool that people kept calling her ‘pretty’ and giving her candy. And she was NOT giving up the bucket. (there was aLOT of screaming at bedtime)

Tuesday October 31 til…..
I started refinishing the top of the kitchen table. It’s now black. No pictures, just something that I’m proud that I accomplished. Also started painting our bedroom finally. In the end it will be ‘James River Gray’ and ‘Charlotte Slate’, or, in other word, blue-gray. And maybe I won’t get it in my hair this time.

Saturday, November 4
Fall Fest at Gabe’s school. I’ll just leave you w/ a few pics since my hand are super tired of typing…

Gabe at the rock wall:

Em’s face painting:

And a cute pic of Chris and his Mommy, courtesy of Miss Em:

Yes, I still have to post pics. No, I haven’t forgotten. It’s been a bit crazy. I refinished our kitchen table in the past 24 hours, and started painting our bedroom. And I have 6 scrapbook pages to finish by Friday for the mag. Trying to get things done while Chris’ mom is here this week. Don’t know why - I’m hurting like the Dickens this week, but I just want to cross some things off of the ‘ole to do list, y’know?

So bear w/ me. Pics are coming!!!