Update

I have been pretending to be really busy lately and not "had time to blog" (although, I can see that I'm not alone, ahm Marcie, Nicole, Nichole and Jenna). We are leaving for Christmas in Michigan this afternoon, hopefully the kids will see some serious snow. I plan on getting some really fun footage of them meeting that side of the family and turning into popsicles, but until then peep my UF graduation on the 18th.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Trick or Treat!

Last weekend Aleks took Allison and Gabriel to block party on Central Ave so Allison could dance to Thriller (my wisdom teeth still had me out of order). MJ came at Gabe like a zombie and he hid by Daddy's leg, Aleks said it was really funny. There is a commercial for Party City that has the cast dancing to Thriller and Gabe always screams for me to come see it...

Mikey and Justin came to Trick-or-Treat with us and we had a really nice time. Remember that last year we didn't get to do this, we'd just met and had a supervised visit at a "Fall Festival" with a Jesus monster truck. Allison saw lots of kids from school, Gabriel and Justin were afraid of most the yards and we now have more candy than any household needs. Perfect.

Allison is 11

Allison's birthday was Thursday and Aleks got tickets to the Rays game from someone at work, so it worked out that we'd go there then do the big rat on Saturday with friends. The Rays game was awesome from the first second. We entered at a gate where the coolest Rays Girls were and got a picture with them (Allison loves anything cheerleader-esque) and told them that it was her birthday. They said they'd come see us in our seats and they actually did. I also think they were behind the promotion lady picking Alli and Gabe to sing the 7th inning stretch rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ballpark". We were on the Jumbotron 2 other times, too. Chuck E. Cheese's was exactly what you'd expect so I'll leave you to making up your own commentary on those pictures.

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Back to school

I got lazy about saving photos to the computer...and maybe a few other things too. But we did have swine flu (type A for all the PC people out there) and had to go back to school myself. So, is that an excuse? Aleks was on first day duty and I think he did a great job!

Another Family Pic

Laura and Brad got married!! This was my first wedding as a bridesmaid and it was very exciting. The reception was beautiful and worth every minutes of planning that went in ;) Shae snapped a great shot of my darlings and now I am sharing with you, enjoy.

Toothless Wonder

Well, Gabriel was going to call 911 on me for pulling his tooth out, but I showed him Izzy's post about her first tooth and he felt better. He already lost his bottom teeth, but the trama of his first front tooth was still very dramatic. When he was screaming I asked him if he was in pain and he shook his head no, but continued to cry for like a minute. Like I said, Izzy's post really helped him turn his frown upside down so we have to post one, too.

Independence Day!

On New Year's Eve we found out that the kids really love fireworks (who doesn't?). I spent the day with the rascals making burgers, getting burned, and smearing patriotic icing everywhere.

*Aleks has a tradition of playing golf with a good friend on the 4th, so he was with us in spirit :)

Summer Fun: Field Trips

The kids are going to R'Club right now, which is driving me crazy because I am home! But then I see how much they like it and it makes me feel better about sending them and Gabriel really shouldn't stay home all summer then start kindergarten in August. Paying every week is getting to me, too, though. So, I came up with a plan. They are both going to stay home 4 weeks, the maximum amount of vacation time in R'Club rules. During those weeks, so far, we have been doing special trips to pass the time and allow me to actually be a mom.

One day we went to Adventure Island with our friend Angelica. Our kids are really water babies!

We enjoyed a day at Heritage Village (after we were lost for like 2 hours getting there:/) I love history and I think that is going to rub off on the kids. Gabriel enjoyed hanging the wash and completing other domestic chores. Any lady will be lucky to get him!

The beach, of course!

Summer Fun: Dallas

I am not quite sure who has enjoyed getting a break more, me or the kids?! Lying, it's me:) Anyway, I am a total bum and haven't posted in for ever, so I am going to try to catch up.

June 11th we flew to Texas to visit with Aleks' dad's family. The children have already met Doc and Mom Mom, but Granny, Uncle Rob, Aunt Donna, Cousin Kenya (who I think they were calling aunt?), Ray, baby Kolton, and friends Jilly Bean and Callie were all new. The visit was really about seeing family, but I couldn't have the kids in the middle of the Dallas/Fort Worth area and not do a little something touristy. We went to the old Fort Worth Stockyard area. Cow poop was on the street, a longhorn was available for photographs, a dude was dressed as an Indian with his pony that had hand prints painted on it...perfect lesson for the kids. Texas=lil' dohggies. That was all I wanted.

At home in Mansfield Gabriel and Allison got to become bikers with Doc, be totally spoiled and loved by Mom Mom, eat really good Mexican food, play with Wolfie and Maggie, and play Scrabble with Granny.

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Adoption Day

After lame classes taught by a total wet blanket, months of harassing case-workers, a few let downs, multiple paperwork disasters and seemingly endless trips between the "new mommy" and the "old mommy" we FINALIZED our adoption!! On May 28th at 2:00 in the afternoon we testified that Allison Elizabeth and Gabriel Joshua would be our children forever. It was emotional and amazing. Gabriel shook his head no when the judge asked him if Allison is a good sister. Allison tried to make Aleks say that her name would be Allison Elizabeth Carrie Ann Preston II. The next morning Allison was sitting with my mom at the breakfast table and said "this doesn't feel any different", it starts...

4 Years...seems like more...

Aleks and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary yesterday. I think it seems longer because it really has been, we dated for 6 years before we got married. Yes, that said 6 years. So, when I think of our 10 year anniversary coming up in 2 weeks that makes much better sense than this 4 year nonsense.

At Disney last week I was sooooo tired the whole time. I take coffee intravenously now, so I was really needing a fix. We were getting dinner at the Magic Kingdom and I told Aleks I wanted cookies and coffee. You who know Aleks at all know that he is a total health fanatic and would never approve of such a meal. Look what I came home to last night...

DISNEY!!!

We did it, we made it through 3 days in the most magical place on Earth. We saved Animal Kingdom for the last day because it closes early and we wanted to get home at a reasonable hour...yeah, Gabriel was asking to go home by 3 o'clock that day. They were super tired and for good reason.

On Friday morning we set out for Orlando. Allison usually rides the bus and Aleks drives Gabe, neither of them brought up the fact that we all go into the Camry (Aleks in shorts vs. slacks and button-up). Somewhere on 275 N Allison asked if they were driving me to work and we confirmed, she never said anything else about it...for 70 odd miles the girl said nothing. As we got closer I did distract her from the signage by making her take her biography project out. When we got to the All-Star Resorts she asked if I had a field trip, um, yes Laura and I have a field trip. Not "Holy Toledo, we are at Disney and I am getting suspicious", but "Can I see your class?". Okay. Aleks checked in and got our tickets while we waited on the bench along the wall, not even the uber pale Europeans in sandals with socks tipped her off! I made a fake call to Laura asking her to ride the bus with my kids b/c we were running late and in turn "Laura" told me that she couldn't wait any longer and we'd have to meet her there...where ever 'there' was supposed to be. Allison blindly got on the bus that was plastered with the mouse-nothin'. After we got in Magic Kingdom Aleks told her and she was crazy excited.

Uh, some highlights and picture explanations (you'll fully understand when you watch the slide show):
-Gabriel loves princesses and Aleks said that his look in the Belle pic looks like "I'm gonna put you in the trunk..."


-Allison is a total ham and tries to do what the princesses do in the photos

-Gabriel makes friends with random strangers (girls with autograph book waiting to meet Mary Poppins)

-Teacups are gross

-Allison loved the Swiss treehouse, so booyah ( we have been making the kids watch tons of Disney so that they'd recognize everything-Swiss Family Robinson was $13 so I got it and we all watched it Wednesday night and Aleks was saying it was terrible and cheesy, but Allison loved it she was screaming and laughing the whole time, she even said she would love to live there etc. haha so she majorly appreciated the real thing in Adventureland that she would have otherwise not felt particularly attached to)

-after 3 days at Disney we are all ready for a vacation ;)

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Adoption

We got a date, May 28th at 2 p.m. the children will be ours officially. We are going to Disney for the weekend to celebrate so I'll make a good post after we get back...sometime.

It has been awhile...

We have gotten caught up in normal life with Allison and Gabriel. Aleks is working a ton, Allison's science project is due in a few weeks, Gabriel is doing well at school and enjoying our neighbors' friendship. This morning the kids had to find their Easter baskets that the Bunny likes to hide and Gabriel checked on the carrots that we left out to find a messy trail and chunks of chewed on veggies. We are going to start the finalization paperwork on May 4th, so hopefully court will be a few weeks after that, cross your fingers!!

There are also some pictures from the Lightning game we went to on the 7th, darn Penguins won in the end but we played hard and the refs didn't take back a super bogus goal, so....Allison got really into the game, just like when she really got into XiiR. She was makin' some noise when the jumbotron demanded it and she chose a favorite player right away. We had a good time, but didn't really get such great pictures :( Oh well.

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I Need Next Week

I figure that since I haven't really posted much this month I should explain. Grad school, PTA and homework are killing me. We have something to do every single weekend, like "beautifying" Fairmount Park yesterday. Today I am going to be elbow deep in hair b/c there is really no way that we could squeeze another week out of Allison's last do. Friday night I went to sleep at 2:40 (remember that Saturday we went to FPE at 8 a.m.!) because Allison and I went to Hot Topic for the midnight release party of twilight on DVD. That was special because she loves everything Twilight and we bonded early on over the books (unreal she readily reads the 600 page books to herself now b/c she loves them so much). She was caught in the hype and beaming the entire time we were there. Of course we had to watch the movie as soon as we got home. By watch I mean fall asleep on the couch 45 minutes into it, but hey. I tried to get a picture of her in line and donning her new Edward shirt and pillowcase, but the camera was dead and I didn't realize until I already had the perfect shot :( I still might be able to catch her surrounded by Twilight stuff and get a pic to post later.

She was so hyper, it was fun. We are officially Twerds=Twilight nerds, Fanpires= vampire fans and Team Edward players.

Little guy is doing well, but nothing out of the ordinary has been happening. He does say really funny stuff all the time...I hear it and think I should write it down so I don't forget before Aleks gets home.

And I am doing The 3 Day this year!! My family has had many run ins with breast cancer, so I feel strongly about the cause. If you are so inclined you can donate at www.the3day.org/goto/carriepreston . Every little bit helps, I know times are hard.

####################UPDATE###################

OMG, this is so funny! I planned to update this post once I got a few pictures of Allison all Twilighted up and we just got more wild Fanpire news about 2 hours ago. The Hot Topic release party had a drawing to enter to win an autographed picture of Taylor Lautner (Jacob) or a cut out of Rob Pattinson (Edward). We actually won the Jacob picture and got to go claim our prize! Very fun and you should have heard the screams, she is psyched :)