| Caitlyn | Andrew | Chris | |||
| Playmobil Safari | $29.99 | Megablocks Banshee | $6.49 | ||
| Power Wheels Lil Quad | $59.99 | Serpant Pirate Ship | $17.99 | Nerf CS-6 | $12.99 |
| Callico Cottage | $79.00 | Mega T-Rex | $39.99 | Halo R/C Ghost | $29.00 |
| 150 Crayons | $23.49 | Halo Spartan | $14.99 | PSP | $129.00 |
| Disney Music Instruments | $3.50 | Ninjago Blacksmith | $19.99 | PSP Lego Indiana Jones | $9.99 |
| Disney Makeup | $3.50 | Nerf CS-6 | $12.99 | COD3 Guide | $20.00 |
| Barbie Makeup | $3.50 | Schleight Knights Collection | $16.99 | COD: Modern Warfare 3 | $59.99 |
| Disney Lip Gloss | $3.50 | Schleight Knights Collection | $19.00 | Air Hogs Hawkeye | $49.00 |
| Calico Families & Access. | $88.00 | Xbox:Rise of Nightmares | $29.99 | UNSC Falcoln | $38.85 |
| Karaoke Machine | 59.99 | Markers | $10.00 | Electronics Kit | $79.00 |
| Crayons | $6.99 | PSP Star Wars: BR | $16.98 | ||
| TBD | $30.00 | Xbox: Left 4 Dead 2 | $28.00 | ||
| $323.48 | $218.92 | $479.29 | |||
Average for 3 children = $340/child. Ava hasn’t been shopped for yet since I have no clue what she’s even interested in since she plays with all the toys we already have. Andrew gets one more item to keep it “fair” because he’s too young to realize cost of items, but rather, quantity (which I’m sorry, all kids are about!). Chris was overspent on by accident not realizing how much things cost. The average is spot on, but you can see Chris has an unfair disadvantage with cost, and it won’t happen again.
I’m trying to keep the grand total for everyone under $2,000 this year. I hate Christmas for the commercialization of it. When I was a kid I was lucky to probably get $150 in gifts. Of course, now every toy on the shelf seems like it’s at least $29.99, and as I said, it’s “quantity” over cost that matters to a kid. Matt and I don’t exchange gifts, I see no point. I love giving to others most of all, but kids just naturally don’t appreciate any of it, so in reality I would rather get them 3-4 quality things. Since they all still believe in Santa, it seems like we have to get them more to cover our bases.
There was a couple requests that were just too outrageous to honor this year. Chris wanted an electric scooter, as well as the Megabloks Halo Falcon, which is A) $90 and B) A million pieces that will just get lost and never found again in a week. We’ve bought those expensive Lego sets before and that is exactly what has happened, at least within a week of painstakingly putting it together. Kids don’t understand, you can’t get much lasting enjoyment from these sets. You put them together, and unless you plan on disassembling all that work you just put into it and rebuilding it, you’re done. You can’t really play with them unless your extremely careful, or you’ve glued it really well, which has never worked for us. Santa at Fantasyland was right this year, get a regular Lego block set, it has much longer playing and lasting value.
Only 15 days until 2012. As much as I want the new year to arrive, it scares the bejesus out of me. You just have no idea what can happen from January 1st – Dec. 31st each year. In the beginning of 2010 I would have never guessed I would have had another baby and such a health scare. At the beginning of 2011, I would have never guessed my year would have turned out so badly. I was sort of preparing myself for my grandma’s passing, so that helped, but everything else that has gone wrong sucked. I can end it on a few positive notes, including that *as far as I know* my mom is done with cancer treatment, though still very immature financially with no hope for growing up. All the kids are doing well in school, I’m doing well with my meds I was put on in April for ADHD of the brain, and I only survive on Ambien to put me to sleep. I haven’t been to the doctors/hospital in 3 months, which is by far a record this year. I haven’t done anything stupid since August, and I plan on being stupid-free in 2012. I did almost fall down the stairs today and Caitlyn hit me in the hand really hard with my metal strainer, and both of those will leave bruises on me for a while. I’m still sporting bruises from August which is hard to believe, but I should take pictures. They have significantly lightened, but my god. I have never had bruises last that long. Mercy should be ashamed if not for everything else, for that alone.
I was a little too ambitious with my post-weight loss body trying to do things I shouldn’t, like swinging from branches, ice skating, and taking my first and last drink. I naturally have no balance so I shouldn’t do anything involving the possibility of physical inury, lol. I know better now.
There isn’t really too many goals I want to accomplish in 2012. I guess #1 is to stay healthy and keep my weight in check. #2 is to make sure I go on at least one vacation. #3 is to keep up on the photography. #4 is to save way more money and finally #5 in general is just to make sure everyone else is happy. I am scared of 2012, I can’t help it. So much can go right, and so much can go wrong.
Anyhow, I just realized that 90% of my post from the other day is missing!! It’s like I start to write and then abruptly end it. It sounds like I’m on crack or something, lol. Something went wrong with my website this week and I think “bits” got lost in cyberspace. There is a lot of work and a lot of programming behind this website and it was not easy to put together. I still have work to do in my photo and video galleries, which some are still incomplete. The simplest mistake, and the whole website is kaput. What’s hard to believe is I wiped out my own site 3 or 4 times without backing it up and had to rewrite it each time. For every time I lost my site, that was weeks worth of work gone. I backup nightly now 🙂 I also have my other sites to maintain and work on. I’m working on monetizing a couple of them because they have valuable names. Advertising pays, and I may as well jump on the bandwagon! There just isn’t enough time in the day anymore, so it will be a while before I’m done. I have slept better lately, but I can still go stretches where I don’t sleep for 2-3 days if I have my mind worked up on some idea.
The great part is Matt has no idea how *smart* I am, and can deal with the inner programmings of websites like this that deal in javascript, jquery, css, php, etc. So it’s shocking to him I can even do anything like this. I have hidden the *smart* me for a long time, but events this year have brought *me* out, with a vengeance. It only takes me a week or so to figure anything out, so watch out, lol.
I got a new drivers license last week. I paid the $45 to get the enhanced license that allows me to go to Canada and Mexico via land crossing. Yay I can go to the casino again in Windsor 🙂 I had to get a new one because my old one got washed and faded, and nobody would accept that it was me in the picture, which was a good and bad thing. I have no idea if I’m even brave enough to cross with Matt, it seems like for no reason we get targeted every single time we cross for a secondary inspection, despite driving a family minivan and looking like normal humans. Maybe that’s the defect, we look too normal, so we must be up to no good, who knows! I think it’s funny Matt got the severe detainment in January because he *forgot* to declare his OTC Tylenol from Canada!! Well, they questioned him til he fessed up, which is so hard to even begin to imagine them doing to him, lol. That was right after I fell badly ice skating and desperately needed something that worked and didn’t want to call my doctor. Even before this we were routinely inspected at customs and had never done anything deserving of it!! Oh, but god that was a horrible fall! Imagine skating fast on slick ice, then catching the front of your ice skate in a rut in the ice, and coming to a dead stop, falling forward and slamming chest first into the ice at a rapid speed. I couldn’t breathe when that happened and nobody even realized I was laying there half dead!! I can only laugh about how kids skated around me and and stared but the ice rink staff just didn’t even bat an eye (all on video!). This was one month after my c-section, so it’s a good thing I didn’t split open from my vertical wound and pour out my innerds all over the ice. Just thinking about last November and Matt with Canadian customs brings back all of that, so I had to write it again 🙂
Not much new going on otherwise. I can’t wait to get this horrible excuse for a Christmas tree down. I think Caitlyn and Ava have cleared it of all my jingle bells. I have found several chewed to death by the dog (even though they are metal). Lights are hanging off one side from the baby pulling on them. Worse yet, is the whole 6ft tree is on a table to elevate it from the girls, so that makes it look even worse. I get to stare at the bottom of it all day long.
Christmas plans are pathetic. I think we might go to Old Country Buffet for Christmas Eve, because nobody has to cook! I enjoyed putting on my Thanksgiving feast, but I feel like being lazy this Christmas. Christmas morning we always end up at Denny’s, maybe this year too.
I thought one of my cats was dead today. Mim is like 1,000 years old. Mim who was born a girl in 1996, and later discovered to be male, named Missy shortened to Mim after the sex change, looks female, acts female, and turns out, only got a partial fixing, which has probably caused mental kitty gender confusion. There has never been anything normal about him, his tongue hangs out 6 inches, and snots everywhere. Now he’s blind and walks in tight circles all day long, like a Roomba robot. He keeps turning and when he hits something he moves a little further in the right direction. He falls of furniture all the time when he’s sleeping. Here (s)he is:
So anyway, I’m sitting here today reading stuff online and I hear the loudest thud. I looked over and Mim was spread out collapsed on the floor after falling off the couch cushion. He didn’t wake up for that fall. I looked over and couldn’t see him breathing, so I jumped up, yelled his name and pushed him with my foot and he awakened as if “how dare you disturb me!”. I was like, “you dumbass”. It was funny, but one of these days it will really happen. He is afterall going on 16 and you can feel every bone in his body. When you pick him up by the mid-section, you feel stuff cracking, it’s gross. It’s just his time, so whenever is fine with me. As long as my other kitties stay with me forever. This cat has been sneezing in our food for the last 6 months and it’s just his time, now. LOL.
Enough for tonight, I should wind down early!