Cece Can't Sleep

The hat

We finally found Marik a Santa hat.
The best part is that it's made of satin and we found it at Victoria's Secret!
Playa!

It's like I'm a Neanderthal

In preparation for 48 kid free hours in CA, I decided a pedicure and manicure were in order. My fingernails are natural and I trim them using my teeth. With zero skill in nailpainting, my fingernails go bare. Since I was getting the manicure, I decided to heck with it, might as well put some color on them jagged claws of mine. I chose a dark burgundy. No shimmer. Know what? The color keeps catching me off guard. For instance last night, I was snacking on some pomegranate arils and I kept trying to EAT MY FINGERTIPS because I thought they looked just like my food.

Greenbacks

This is what was on my bedside table when I woke up to the other day. Mike left it for me before he went to work. It was for gas and a pilates class I signed up for at the gym.
The day before, I woke up to $25 in singles on my bedside table. Now THAT one made me laugh.

Can You Be Trusted With A Chocolate Advent Calendar?

Most people can't.  We were just discussing that yesterday with a neighbor who gave us one.  It's so true!  I remember having those when we were growing up.  My sisters and I had to share one.  Why this was, I will never know.  Why didn't we each get our own, what are they, a DOLLAR? 

Tonite our Elf On A Shelf makes his first appearance.  He was so difficult to find last year in the stores, and this year he's all over the place.  Dont have a clue what I'm talking about?  Educate yourself here. 

This year they added Elf plushies as well as a dark skinned Elf.  So cute.

                                                      
 

See how my Christmas Card rack needs some fillin' up?  Yucky Iphone pics, I know.

Also threw up the Decor Elements Christmas Countdown (Stampin Up, I can order you one).  I placed it on the bottom half of our front door so the wee ones could have something at their level.  p.s. Mike says we are getting a new front door as this one is all sorts of yucked up, can I hear a YAYYYY?!  

Because I don't follow application directions, I had the pleasure of picking out ALL of the polka dots out with my thumbnail.  And yes, I plan on fixing that area on the bottom where the vinyl doesnt go with the flow of the door panels.  

But now, now I have to find my advent house.  It's somewhere in the garage, in a box.  Mike did a heckuva job organizing the garage this weekend.  The goal is to park my car inside sometime this month.  You are all welcome to come pick thru boxes of crafts, stamps, home decor, Longaberger baskets.  Ok, I'll probably want to sell the baskets, but the rest...free.  It isnt junk, its just that going from a 5300 sq ft home to a 2200 sg ft home, well, we dont need to be stumbling around it all. 

BTW, it is 12:26 am and Nolan just woke himself up to try and eat the first chocolate.  Yep, looks like I'll  be needing 4 more calendars.   

still cuckoo

I generally welcome the time my kids spend off-track.  But this first week (of 3) has thrown me for a loop.  Not once did I take a nap.  You may say, boo-hoo I dont feel sorry for you.  Let me make my case...Mike and I go to bed between 12:30-1:30.  And lately we cant seem to get decent rest.  We're up at 6 going to the gym and getting Al and Nolan up for school, etc, etc.  So, yes, I take a nap during the day.  But this week has been wrought with morning commitments and naps just didnt get taken.  And to some degree I almost felt like I didnt need them as much.  I also ran quite a bit this week, and I wonder if thats another reason I didnt nap.  All I know is my Aden+Anais muslin napping blankie doesnt even recognize me anymore.  

After weeks of trying to get together with my cousins for lunch, we finally made it happen.  Normally I am not afraid of having to take my kids to lunch with my friends.  They're pretty well behaved and if not, I get all drill sargeant on 'em and everything's good.  This time, not so much.  There was myself and three cousins, who each brought one of their kids.  Their kids were really good, stayed in their seats, ate nicely, or slept.  Mine made me a little nuts.  I became that mom who lets her kids walk (ok, run) around willy-nilly.  I usually hate that mom.  Marik even grabbed Val's chocolate covered strawberry off her plate and ate it.  I even let them play with my iPhone in an attempt to corral them to the table.  And you know what they did?  Made videos of themselves fake injuring themselves.  

Gwen wasn't a problem that day at lunch.  The last few weeks she has been crying on a daily basis, missing Nonna and Vittoria.  Since it has become a very regular thing for her, I will probably look to see if there could be a different way for us to help her with her grief.  So sad. 

She also breaks down in tears when she hears songs.  I might have mentioned that she can barely listen to Michael Buble's slow songs.  Which I kinda sorta can get that.  The kicker was when she totally cried as Kelly Clarkson's My Life Would Suck Without You came on!!   "This song just touches my heaaaaaarrrrrttt." slobber slobber snort snort. 

Tonight Gwen couldn't seem to find anything to do.  Everyone else was doing their own thing and relaxing.  We gave her endless ideas of things to do but she really wasnt interested in them.  She preferred lounging on all of us.  It was not fun after 20 minutes.  And then a miracle happened.  The phone rang.  It was Rory and Natalie calling...for GWEN!  Could she spend the night?  I had her packed in 3 minutes flat!  Gwen told Mike her plans about 5 times.  She's been gone for an hour now and only called once (so far).  "Does Daddy know where I went, I dont want him to worry."  Oh, Gwen, we are all aware of where you are, trust me, nobody is worried!  

I celebrated Gwen's sleepover with a huge bowl of Cap'n Crunch.  Now I am sick to my stomach. 

It's That Time Again....

Oh Sweet Sadie is at SoDa Row in Daybreak.

See you THERE!!

It is my dream to work at this boutique. Dani, you listening??

Before I implode from kid overload....

It's been a mind numbing coupla weeks.  Here, laugh at my pain.

Originally we were supposed to be on 'vacation' this very moment.  Borzoni family vacation consists of this..

*drive 750 miles to CA, straight thru, 7 of us in the Suburban.  (Up until this latest trip, its been pretty tolerable, thanks to DVD players, Nintendo DS and the miracle that is the iPhone)

*7 of us stay at Mike's dad's place with a dog that, upon getting the slight bit nervous, piddles on the spot.  That being said, its great that we have a place to stay.  The kids get to spend time with Paolo, Mike's dad, and that's what we are there for.

*Visit with family and friends.  If we can convince anybody to visit with us at Sky High (trampoline wonderland) or Great America or Dave and Buster's, then we consider that a double bonus.

*At some point in this trip, I am able to escape alone for a few hours and my sister Cari drives up to troll the grounds of my alma mater, Valley Fair and it's satellite campus, Santana Row. 

We still have oodles of friends and family in the area and you might wonder why you haven't seen us when we are in town.  It basically comes down to this.  If your name ends in Borzoni or Marchini, you will probably see us.  If you have ever been to Utah and stopped to see us, then you will probably see us.  This is not to say that we dont want to see everyone.  We do.  But when we have 6-7 days, two of which are spent traveling, we have to be very selective with our time.  The trips where we drive all over to meet up with a ton of friends, make for a fun but super exhausting 'vacation'.  We are still learning how to vacation as a family, and even though we would love nothing more than to go somewhere relaxing, we have a hard time skipping visits with Mike's dad and family.  Plus, I grew up visiting Utah as my vacation.  It was dandy, dont get me wrong, but we hope to expose our kids to more of the country as a family. 

Ok, so you probably know that our vacation didnt turn out as planned.  We ended up going to CA two weeks early for Mike's nonna's funeral.  Which meant that trip turned out to be our vacation. 

Here are is an interesting snapshot of some of the events.  

*ate ourselves silly at the first Jack In The Box we came to.  Winnemucca.  Tacos, curly fries and Oreo Shakes, come to Momma.  I can feel the acid in my throat as I type

*Attended a 5 hour long viewing and rosary for Nonna at the mortuary.  More Jack In The Box.  Finished up the night at In-N-Out.  Upon arriving at the viewing and seeing Nonna in a casket, Marik sobbed for 30 minutes straight.  At the end of the rosary Gwen took her turn and howled.  Loudly.  The amount of time they both cried took us by surprise. 

*Attended the funeral for Nonna where Gwen continued with the howling.  Only stopping for the limo ride where she got to guzzle Pepsi.  We let the grand kids ride in the limo.  On one of the legs, the driver took off with just the kids inside, no adult.  That was funny.  

*Two nights we spent at Mike's uncle's home.  One night in a hotel.  Hawthorne Suites.  Very nice.  I will return, they had free laundry.  The other two nights we stayed with Sharon, Jerry's mom.  This is where it gets spicy.  The first night we stayed there, Marik threw up all over her couch, and tried to blame it on the dog.  It was so bad that not even Sharon's dog would lick it up for me.  The second night Nolan scared Sharon's dog so badly (NOLAN!!) that the dog was jumping around squirting pee and shooting pellets of poop, he was so scared.  Later that evening Gwen semi-woke up and threw up in MY suitcase.  I feel so badly, poor Sharon welcomes us into her house and bodily fluids are all of a sudden out of control.  Sharon if you are reading this I really, really hope you were able to get someone to properly clean the couch.  Send us the bill.  You are an angel. 

Did I mention that while we caused all that ruckus at Sharon's place it was her BIRTHDAY?!  Yeah, we're classy like that. 

*While we thought we might stay longer, we ended up heading home early.  Mike had totally tweaked his back while jumping at Sky High and since the kids were taking turns passing the vomit crown around, we called it quits and drove home.  The kids weren't really ill, per se, but we had been eating out every single meal.  And..since we left early on November 1, the kids didn't eat any of their own Halloween candy, thus pigging out on candy from our CA friend's stash. 

*Our kids have become so horrendous and nutty when we all drive together (near and far), that Mike and I vowed to not make the trip in a car with all 7 of us for a VERY LONG TIME.  You would not believe the goober/noobicus behavior that comes out of these kids when we are all in the car.  Even NOLAN!!  Yes, Nolan.

I have lots of pics from the trip.  I'll post them later. 

And so, one week after the trip, I am at my limit with kid's jokes and the like.  I don't really see any relief in sight in the near future.  Today I made cookies and I know that a piece of the butter wrapper went into the batter.  I didn't even remove it.  I am that far GONE.  I weighed in today and hello, that was crappy.  I went to pick up at carpool and all the kids had left school early.  I went to pickup an online order because I was too cheap to pay for shipping, and the joint was closed.  There was a lot of traffic and I brought Nina, Gwen and Marik along and WOW was that insane.  Not the Nina part, but the Gwen/Marik part. 

Yesterday was Mike's birthday.  The kids had a good time telling him he was turning 12 for the third time.  We had hoped to eat dinner with friends of ours but it didn't work out.  So Mike thought we should take all the kids to Tepanyaki.  It was a good idea at the time.  But Marik got all Wolverine happy with the chopsticks.  We ordered 3 adult meals and 1 kid meal for the kids to eat and I think they ate about 2 total.  We listened to Michael Buble's new cd on the way home (birthday boy loves him some Michael BUBBLE) and Gwen cried because the songs 'touched her heart'.  Since my mom zip drive is at capacity, I was annoyed with that.

I just got a text from my niece Kylie saying they are coming over.  That means some temporary relief is in sight.  If you havent found any of this post funny yet, here are two quotes to tickle you.  

Gwen says to me, "The pilgrims came from Mouse-and-Cheez-Its."  Girl knows her geography. 

and from Marik, "That is a 'mean toad' (nematode).  They live in the sea.  They will eat anything.  Even pineapple houses."  See, Spongebob CAN be pre-school curriculum!

  

500+ pieces of candy

Full size candy bars have jumped in price this year. I usually give out full size Nerd Ropes, Tangy Taffy, Nestle Crunch, 100,000 Grand, Butterfinger & PlayDoh minis (weird I know, but some of the kids get so excited over that). Wasn't sure how I could pull it off this year with the higher prices and my tiny, Barbie sized wallet. And then I hit upon a great idea. Soda! I picked up root beer, orange and Cherry Pepsi for $.30 a can. And I was able to find the candy bars at $.40 a piece. $.15 over previous years. We had 161 pieces of candy/cans of soda. We were cleaned out by 8. The soda went super fast, so next year I'll really stock up- good thing it was the cheapest, hafta put that in my Halloween primer for next year.

This was the little(r) kids' haul. I love to take these pics just to see how much they collected. Biggest take home so far. Nolan went with friends in our old neighborhood. That area is heavy on the full size candy bars. Think he got 5. There is also a home over there that opens up their garage, throws in picnic tables and serves up hot dogs and drinks all night to the trick or treaters. I absolutely love that.
Nina and a friend scored their own full size bars in our new neighborhood. And she said that there was one house that made you do 5 creepy things in order to get a bag of chips. Scaredy cats could pass and walk with a tiny piece of candy.

My own Halloween goodies came from the mall. I took my five kids and also my two nieces to the mall to pick up some clothes for the kids for the funeral. It wasn't as crazy as you might think. Between Allison, Natalie & Kylie helping me choose the clothes, and Nolan and Nina wrangling the other two-it really worked out well. Between the 8 of us, we gathered the needed items lickety split. We even bought stuff from the Sephora vending machine, COOL! Ok anyways, some ladies were passing out free kid meals for Chilis and TGIFridays. I think we amassed about 15 free meals. That was my Halloween happiness.

While at the mall I ran into the nail salon to get my eyebrows waxed. They stopped short of of scalping my eyebrow skin. Some seriously scalding wax. Blisters. On my eyebrows. Above and below. Lesson learned.

I have a few pics of the actual costumes that I'll upload later. Right now, I have to pick up some dress socks and undershirts for the boyzzz.

how do you calculate this kind of postage?

this letter says it well, I think..

She was 93.  We used her first name for Allison's middle.  Marina.  She was so very generous to us. 

She owned a few apt complexes near her home.  When Mike and I were dating we would go over and push out the HUGE apt garbage bins for pick-up, she wouldn't let us leave without paying us.  So, yes, you can imagine that we were always trying to find a reason to visit :)  Even our good friends Mario, Jared and Jerry got in on the action because she would serve up heaping plates of homemade spaghetti or ravioli.  I tried documenting her ravioli /sauce procedures many times.  But I never could really duplicate it.  Nonna wasn't big on measuring. 

You needed to be prepared to eat at her house.  A true Italian woman.  You could tell her that you had just come from a restaurant.  Didn't matter.  She would sweetly tell you to sit down and then she would lay on course after course after course.  Or she would trick you and say she was only serving spaghetti.  And before you knew it, she would get up and bring on the next course, wearing this mischievous smile the whole time.  Here is one of Nonna's sneaky meals...

two-liters of 7-Up and/or orange soda bought on sale and stockpiled for a long time.

a baguette of french bread (always had to be baguettes)

some cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto

angel hair spaghetti w/red sauce

a green salad

fried zucchini

sliced potatoes baked in MUCH butter (this was never a problem for me)

polenta and/or stuffing (her stuffing was green and sliced in a circle shape)

steak 

some dessert cake she picked up from Safeway's bakery

coffee

at the end (!) she would bust open a huge tin of Danish cookies.  Dont try to leave until the cookies come out. 

If you tried to do the dishes she would tell you to leave them because she has nothing to do during the day.

We will miss her comments.  She always called me 'Chris' or 'Connie'.  Connie is Raina's (Mikes only Borzoni cousin) mom's name.  And she's a classy gal, so I was totally fine being called that.  But really, the best ones were her plain honest comments that always sounded a little off, due to the fact that she wasn't big on speaking English.  Our most favorite is 'becafuuu'.  For YEARS she would tell us this.  "Becafuuu, Maiko."  Mike thought it was some Italian phrase.   A version of 'I love you', maybe?  It wasn't until after we were married that we realized she was actually speaking English.  "Be careful, Michael."

She worried a lot.  She would let you know if she thought you were overweight.  Each time we told her that I was pregnant, she would give us this lecture.  Holding each of our hands tightly, "Maiko, Chris, you have (2,3,4) butifuu childre, why you wanna make a new one?  Migh' come outta hannacap.  You a luck now.  More childre, maybe no so luck."    

Love that woman.  

It's no fun losing anyone you love.  But as a mother, it's so much more difficult to watch your children experience all of this, don't you think?  We've had our fair share of loss the last little while.  And I dont think we're through the woods yet.  I'm just trying to gather things and experiences from these loved ones. 

Now go hug someone :) 

Getting Our Money's Worth

Earlier this fall, our pocketbook was pillaged and plundered by Lifetouch.  Some of you may know this as....school pictures.  They are a necessary evil.  I do not do the traditional pictures for our family.  And I never kept up with the newborn, 3 month, 6 month, etc pictures a loving mom does with her newborn.  I was barely able to keep up with immunizations.  And even then, I remember having to take Nolan in for repeat injections because I had failed to stay up-to-date.  Oh well, our kids are still alive and relatively healthy. 

In recent years I have become good at getting a summer foto taken.  And really I can't take credit for any of it.  It's Darby who looks after my children's memories and comes to town each year to document their growth.  Thank goodness for her.  She will come to your town, too, just ask.  

This past week, I finally received the last of the kids pics.  I always take Marik in for the sibling sittings, so all the backrounds look similar.  I will say this about school pictures.....I think we have had some good luck with them.  Most of the time when we get back a not-as-cute-as-I-thought-it-woud-be picture, its mainly due to a particular child's smiling habits.  You may notice Nina and Gwen have very peculiar smiling habits.  And that's the beauty of the school pic.  You pay thru the nose to get the certain sizes and amount you need for family, etc. and in return you get a kid who wont show teeth and a kid who all of a sudden has a lazy eye??  What's up with that?  Oh well, I have this dream of one day putting a year-by-year picture timeline together made up of these school pics. 

And without further ado, I present to you, the wallet busting, school pictures featuring the Borzoni kids.

 

 

 

The fake tie on Marik didn't turn out as fun as I had hoped, and Gwen's t-shirt was far too plain and big, in my opinion.  But I've learned Im never going to get it all right, there's just too many kids.  There's always next year!!

Borzoni, out!