One of my favorite days....

...is the day after Thanksgiving...and it's only 43 days away! You may be wondering what is so special about this day. Well, let me tell you...it is the only day of the year that I get to get out of bed at 4:30 am, skip a shower (an interesting thing to do with naturally curly and totally out of control hair!), buy a delicious vanilla chai tea from Starbucks (skinny, of course!), shop to my heart's content with my most crazy fun little sister, and indulge in a big breakfast late in the morning....all with NO CHILDREN!!! My sweet sister, Katy, and I spend hours on Thanksgiving Day scouring all of the sale ads and planning our shopping route for the next morning. I usually manage to complete 95% of my Christmas shopping on this day and am completely exhausted by the time I go home to my family (usually by 11 am). It's great...and I can hardly wait!

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Let's see....what have I not done lately. Now that I think about it, there are lots of things that I...um...didn't do lately. For instance, I didn't get totally mad at my sweet husband for refusing to take the day off last Thursday when Megan was sick. AND I certainly didn't think of a million and one excuses about why it was too late for him to change his mind later that evening when I realized that a day off would actually be a nice thing for me (even if it meant using some precious vacation time!).

It most definitely wasn't me who snuck a cute shirt for Kellan in with my groceries (gotta love WalMart!) so Marc wouldn't get annoyed with me for buying more clothes for our darling children. (Have I mentioned how good Kellan looks in blue?) Ha!

And, when Megan coughed really hard and threw up a little bit in the bathroom wastebasket, I didn't sort of leave the basket by our back door for Marc to notice later...so I wouldn't have to be the one to clean it out and replace the bag. That would be an awful thing to do to somebody I love so much!

And now, I might go munch on the mini cherry pie that I did not buy ...along with a People magazine...when I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some sandwich bags (which I forgot when I went shopping at WalMart this weekend) on my way home from work today. Sheesh...did you forget I'm on a diet?!

Cookies

Good news....Miss Megan is feeling better! In fact, she is back to her happy little self! Kellan and Jacksen both have quite a cough, but no fever....so, I'm not sure if they caught the swine flu or just a cold. Let's hope they caught a very mild version of this flu...and that's all!


We spent a quiet weekend indoors. Helena broke records for cold temperatures over the last couple days so it was just fine to stay home! We watched a lot of movies, took some good naps, and enjoyed some time together. Megan and Kellan actually made it through the weekend with hardly any bickering (very unusual!) so I bought them their favorite holiday sugar cookies when I went grocery shopping yesterday. I feel like I'm cheating when I feed my children any cookies that are not made from scratch, but they just love these things!




Okay, okay...I confess, I kinda like them too!

Swine Flu

The swine flu has come to the McCauley house! I got a call from the nurse at Jim Darcy School Wednesday morning so I had to go pick up our girl. She was absolutely miserable with a fever, sore throat and cough. After a couple days of alternating Motrin and Tylenol, I took her to the doctor this morning. I don't know why I was surprised about the diagnosis of swine flu considering Helena has been experiencing quite an epidemic the last couple weeks....but I was pretty surprised. She seemed to be getting much better this morning, but is back to feeling a little miserable this evening. The worst of it seems to be her sore throat....she is having a hard time eating and sleeping (and, by extension, so are Marc and I!). So, if you have a few minutes, could you please say a little prayer for my sweet girl? And, while you're at it, could you please add a little prayer that the rest of us don't catch this awful virus?

Funnies

Our Kellan has been really funny lately...well, he's always very entertaining, but recently he has been downright hilarious! While I was getting dinner on the table last night, he disappeared into our basement. After a few minutes he came bounding up the stairs dressed in a Halloween costume from a couple years ago.

He stood at the top of the stairs looking around, said "Let's see what this baby can do!" and took off running as fast as he could through our house. Funny!

A bit later, during dinner, he dropped a little applesauce on his shirt. He asked me if it would stain and I told him I didn't think it would. Well then he launched into a full-fledged commercial for Oxi-clean! He explained that I really need to use Oxi-clean because it gets out tough stains if you just rub the fabric a little bit. Very funny coming from a 4-year-old!

Whatever would we do without our little comedian?

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

As for what I have not been doing lately...

Well, I think I may have previously mentioned my many failed attempts at losing weight. This weekend I did not bake the best chicken noodle casserole this side of the Mississippi...and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies...and lasagna loaded with cheese. For pete's sake, who would do that when they have spent the last week pretty much surviving on yogurt and skinny chai teas?! Not me!

This weekend, while cleaning and organizing our master bathroom, I did not hear my two oldest childen screaming like little deranged lunatics while beating the snot out of each other...and decide to just ignore it. Some may consider that lazy parenting...I might consider it more of an opportunity to encourage the art of compromise and negotiation. Well, I mean I would think of it that way if I were ever in that situation...but I wasn't. Not me!

Finally, I did not spend my weekend checking Facebook every 15 minutes to see if I had any new friend requests. Anybody that obsessed with Facebook needs to get a life...and some real friends. Yeah, but I do have friends and a social life...so I don't really care about Facebook...not much...Not me!

And now...I gotta go put my kiddos to bed so I can watch TV...er...work out, I mean...I certainly wouldn't watch TV when I could be getting some much-needed exercise...Not me!

The Weekend

Fall is definitely in the air - it's been chilly and windy this weekend. I don't mind, though. I made chicken noodle casserole for dinner and then the kids and I baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies last night. Here is a link to the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Chip-Pumpkin-Cookies-2/Detail.aspx?strb=1. These might be the best fall-ish cookies ever!


On another note, Kellan played a tough soccer game yesterday. He still managed to score five goals, though. Only a couple weeks of YMCA soccer left...we may take a little sports break over the holidays...unless Megan ends up signing up for basketball. Megan plays soccer this afternoon so I'll have post about that game this evening!


Auntie Ami and Chris joined us for dinner last night and they brought their new puppy, Rusty! He is a red/blue healer/collie cross and he is adorable!

Other than all of that, it's been an unusually quiet weekend. Now that I just said that, I'm sure Kellan will come up with something...um...interesting to entertain himself!