The birthday girl crashes...

Here is a small video of Khiara and some of the kids in our group gettin their skate on...


Khiara didn't get hurt, so this video turned out cute :)

Birthdays Parties!

I just needed to post a pic of baby girl :)

Me, Jacks and Vegas.



My big kid Joe

Jadah trying to skate

Joe gettin in a bit of practice before hitting the big kid rink

The bday girl Khiara and Jadah

Joe and his cousin Mija

Jacks and his cousin Jadah

Wow. I'm such a slacker! I've been meaning to post this forever. I'm pretty darn caught in the holidays this year! I usually am, unless I'm pregnant and in which case I don't dig it at all! Speaking of, 2009 has been a really crazy year for me - full of glorious moments and accomplishments. Mainly, 2009 is the first time since 2003 that I haven't spent all/some of the year pregnant or giving birth. For those of you playing the home version: 2003- pregnant with Joe, 2004 - had Joe, 2005 - got pregnant again (miscarriage), 2006 - pregnant with Jacks, 2007 - gave birth to Jacks in March and was pregnant again in December, 2008 - had Juliana. But, I digress/ramble.

This past week we had a ton of fun with birthdays of people we love! Khiara (family friends) turned 7 and Heather (sister in law) turned 29! 29 I said!! I didn't grab any pics of Heather's celebration, but it was fun. My brother Mike knew he'd be out of town on that day to India for work so he set up for me to take two of the kids and my other brother Paul to take two of the kids so she'd have a nice, quiet, relaxing day. Every Mom's dream, right? Best. Present. Ever! We made birthday with my kids, and their awesome cousins, before we dropped them back off around dinner. We had cake and presents with her and Paul's family, which was really nice! Darn me for not having my camera!

So, for Khiara...

Her birthday was midweek and she had a small get together at Dave and Busters. We didn't have anything to do that night so I thought, why not? We had fun (even though it was frickin freezing out) and I swear the next time I go to Vegas (if I ever decide to gamble that is) I'm TOTALLY taking my Jacks with me. Lucky kid. He kept hitting jackpots on every game, was beating me in some and at the end of the night had 1200 tickets. He's 2. Amazing.

Then on Saturday she had her roller skating party! So much fun!! None of my kids had been yet, but Aunt Stacy kept Juliana and I took her 2 year old Jadah. No way I could have helped the boys from breaking their necks with Juliana there. And she would have been so hacked to not be on the skates like the "big kids." Joe did awesome and within minutes he was out of the kiddie ring. Jacks did very well too, and wanted to go to the bigger rink but again...he's 2. Jadah? Well...she tried. before we left I took some video of them dancing to some electronica song and Jacks pulled out his best break dancing and Jadah rocked the robot. They are so funny, especially together.

K, I know I should have done like 3 seperate posts here, but I'm a single mom with three kids and a mortgage. Don't judge me!

*I wonder how much longer that "excuse" will work for me LOL*

Black Friday!!

These posted backwards, but I will figure it out. Above is Juliana's new holiday dress...also what I would call the deal-o-the-day. after we went to Walmart, we went to "Once Upon A Child" which is my fav resale shop for childrens items. Everything was 50% off between 6am and 8am. We got there around 7-ish and there still were tons of deals to be had! This dress, although in a resale shop, still had the original tags attached with a price of $45. I paid $5!!! The black is a velvet material, and the swirly design has a silvery glitter on it as well. very pretty!

Here is Heather after breakfast posing in front of our loot! The third row of the Suburban was down, and boy was that thing packed to the roof!! Once I took my stuff out, it didn't seem nearly as bad :) It was Heather and Nicole's first BF and I really hope they join in next year!! I had SO much fun with them!!!!

Another steal were $3 pj's. I bought the boys some and as soon as I got home they put them on (around 1030am) and have yet to take them off (now 9pm) We had a pajama party today!

Ok, so I really don't remember WalMart being this bad last year. But, I was also waaaaaay more prepared for BF08. Although it seemed pretty crowded, we didn't wait one second in line. Awe.Some. I had my list of things I had found, and only bought a couple more items so I stuck to my list very well. It was really fun to see Heather's eye's light up when she realized the original price vs. sale price. She really saved at least $200 on her purchases. I saved almost $100.

I can't put into words how much fun the kiddos had with Lizzy!! Juliana was thrilled to have another girl around! She was dancing on the table...which is totally her new thing. If I can't find her, chances are she's standing on the kitched table.

It took the effort of many people to make Black Friday such a success for me this year! Thanks to everyone that helped in their own way - whether coming with to entertain me, babysitting or whatever role you played! Thank you!!!

Thanksgiving!

Wow, what an awesome day!! It's been a few years since I've seen such a spread! I think I might say that every year, but for some reason this just seemed special. We missed Uncle Steven but understood he had a Cowboys game to attend. Heather had the arrangements all nice and homey and even helped the girls arrange a treasure hunt for the kids after the food! They had fun shooting rockets with Uncle Mike, and although after four stores me and Nicole couldn't find a Black Friday ad I would still call the day a success. The food was awesome, the company was great, no blood was shed and my kids had so much fun. I'm sure there was a toilet or two that suffered at Mike's house, but nothing it hadn't seen before. Later on in the evening I took the kids to visit with their others cousins (ok ok ok...I wanted to see them too AND see if they had somehow managed a Black Friday ad or two) then we went back to get Lizzy. Lizzy graciously offered to stay the night at my house and watch my kids so I could spend the morning at Black Friday. They really, really enjoyed having her here. We will have to invite her more often! Check out a few pics (and video of the Jackson-Antoine Clan on the trampoline!) Enough of Thanksgiving...and read on for the really good stuff...BLACK FRIDAY!!!

Go Jayhawks!

This year Joe started playing on a basketball team! He's the youngest by far (most of the other kids are in 1st grade) but he still holds his own pretty well. Although I'm not a huge sports fan, I really enjoy watching him play basketball. WAY more than baseball which was like watching paint dry while you sit on a bed of nails having your eyelashes pulled out one by one. The only thing I wish is that their practice arena was more condusive for the babies. They don't want to sit for an hour and watch big brother have all the fun, and don't understand why they can't go play too. There just isn't any room at all in the small gym for them to run around so it ends up stressful for me sometimes. I've discovered the coach doesn't like them tripping the players or stealing their ball. What a pill.

His coach is pretty tough, which I like. He's very good at giving tons of compliments as well so there's a nice balance. when Joe did a good lay-up the coach said "Atta Boy Joe!" and Joe told me on the way home, "Did you hear what Coach Jerry said to me? he said 'Atta Boy Joe!' I think he likes it when I make points." I had a little video, but my camera ate it. here are a couple pics, and I'll try to get a video at this weeks game.
Go #30!

Ode to Hawaii

A while ago I went to Hawaii...it was the best vacation ever! EVER! I thought it only fitting to do a post dedicated to how awesome Hawaii is. So...here you go. 4 of my favorite things about Hawaii:

1. Me looking fabulous

2. Huli Sues

3. Akaka Falls

4. The life-changing views

I've gone mainstream

Well, I have finally broken down and created a blog. I don't know why, but I just feel like a piece of me just died. I guess I really can go and buy that minivan that would be so comfortable for my family, but I just could never bring myself to purchase.
More cute stuff to come when I am done mourning.