The Chamberlain Chronicles

When it hits you...

2010-05-11T17:51:00.001-07:00

Feeling bummed...

Well, it hit me like a ton of bricks for some reason just now. I miss all my family sooooo much. I think most of the time I don't think about how much I miss them. If I did it would crush me all day, everyday. Sometimes I just sit down and think about all of them and how much I love each one and I feel 400 lbs heavier. I wish I could show each one of them how much I love and care about each one of them. I hate that I can't play, hug & kiss, and just be there for my babies (nieces & nephews). Makes me sad that most of them don't even know who I am when I come to visit. I know that will change when they get a little bit older. Hopefully I will be able to make a big enough impression on them during my visits that they will remember and know how much I love them.

Good news is, I get to see them in July. Oh I can't wait.

On another note, I had a dr's appointment today. Baby is doing great! Hearing the heartbeat never gets old or boring. I'll find out next week the sex of the baby. Hopefully I don't pass-out with anticipation. I envy those of you that can wait until the baby is born. I just don't have the patience. I was never good with waiting for surprises, waiting to give gifts, or keeping secrets.

The dr gave me a belly band and it has really helped with the pubic and tailbone pain. This is a new one for me, never really experienced this kind of pain with my other pregnancies. Glad I was able to find something to help relieve the pain. My nauseousness is still pretty bad. Haven't really found anything that contributes or helps. No food really sounds that good so I force my self to eat a few bites here and there. Watermelon and apples are easy to keep down. I go through about 3-4 apples a day! The lady at Safeway laughs at me cause a couple times a week I just stop to get apples and its always 10-12 at a time.

Well, I have along day tomorrow and an interview with a parent for one of my open slots in the evening, so I will leave it at that! Good night all.

April 2010

2010-04-27T09:51:00.001-07:00

Okay so I've been getting lots of old friends asking what's new with me and then I realized I stopped blogging. Soooooo. I am going to try and be really good and begin again!

The biggest news most recently is that we are expecting a new baby in October! Everyone is really excited! Mariah has made the occasional comment that she wishes she could be an only child, but I think we are about 9 years past that possibility. Everyone is hoping for a boy. Every time we go to the store Olivia keeps picking out boy outfits. I tell her we need to wait to see what the dr says but she insists its a boy. One day I asked her how she knew. She says she asked Mariah's magic 8-ball if it was a boy, and it said "without a doubt". LOL.

I've been feeling pretty yucky with this pregnancy, but nothing compared to how sick I was with Olivia. I've only had to go to the hospital a couple of times this pregnancy, as with Olivia it was a trip a couple times a week. I can't believe how much sooner I am starting to show with this pregnancy. I already can't wear my jeans and went this weekend to the motherhood outlet to get a couple maternity outfits.

To be honest I can't believe we decided to have another. I was pretty content on being the mom of the three I have now. I feel so blessed that god has entrusted me with another precious soul and I am excited about all the love I still have to give.

We have been talking a lot about names. Jackson and I have our heart set on Tennyson Walker if it is a boy. But it is still early and with my decision making it could change at any moment. Jackson and I both like Hadley, Rowan, and Quinn for girls names. We are hoping to find out my next appointment on May 14th what the sex of the baby will be so we can start narrowing the names down to one gender.

As for other Chamberlain news, Aiden's birthday is this coming Saturday. I can't believe my little man will be 9. Jackson is gone on a work trip for two weeks so we went to Williamsburg last weekend to celebrate as a family. We will have a little get together for cake and Ice cream this weekend. He is getting so much more mature and it is great to see such a change in him. His grades were great and he is making much more responsible decisions.

Mariah is doing AMAZING. She was picked for the all-county chorus. Was voted by her peers as school president and a peer mediator. She is in advanced language and math and is super social. Of course she is in the tween stage and has a bit of an attitude at times but has a great head on her shoulders and when it comes down to it, she is a great kid. She is quite the comedian and is so pleasant to be around. (When she is in a good mood)

Olivia is doing just great. She loves the weekdays cause all her friends come over to play. (All her daycare buddies). She always loves to be outside and loves to ride her bike. She seems to have developed a bit of her dads clumsiness and always seems to have a scraped knee. We have gone through plenty of band aids and neosporin since the weather has gotten nice. Funny thing is she seems to be fine when she's climbing, riding, or running. Its the walking that always finds her falling down. LOL. If you know Jackson, she definitely got that from her daddy. She turned 4 in January and she thinks that everything she knows now is because she turned 4. The other day we were outside and she said "look at the moon, it is round, sometimes it is smaller and it is called a crescent. Mom guess how I knew that?" I responded, "how?" She just held up 4 fingers. I love her so much.

That is it for now. But I promise I will blog again in the near future!

sick and bored....

2009-02-24T16:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess I can officially join the list of bad bloggers. My parents finally flew home on Saturday after a two week visit. We had a great visit and saw sooooo many cool things. It was a very emotional trip for me and I realized how proud I am to be an American even in the financial crisis our country is in.

The first week they were here we went and saw Arlington Cemetery, the Museum of American history, and the National Archives. Both of those places were very cool. To see the original Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence, was very cool. Along with the original flag that Frances Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner about.

On Wed my dad drove down to Daytona Beach, FL. For those of you that don't know my dad he is a die-hard race fan, in every sense of the word. Going to the Daytona 500 was one of the things on his bucket list. He got back the following Monday night so why he was gone Mom and I just hung out and did some fun stuff with the kids. We went shopping for the kids for Valentines Day. I don't usually do much for that holiday but since my mom was here we went a little overboard.

On Wednesday night after dinner we drove down to DC and actually found parking right next to the Lincoln Memorial. That was amazing too! It was very cold but at least it wasn't too windy. We walked to the Vietnam Wall and the WW 2 memorial and then walked to the White House. It was a perfect night to walk the streets of DC.

We decided to keep the kids home from school Thursday and Friday so we could do more sightseeing without having to try and catch the Metro back and forth to get home in time for the kids to get off the bus.

Thursday we went to the Museum of Natural history (Where the hope diamond is) Then we went to the Air & Space museum and the Ford Theatre (where Lincoln was shot) They just opened it after a long renovation so that was cool.

Friday we took a tour of the Capital Building and they just happened to have the room open where the first senate was. I guess it usually isn't open to the public. We then hit the Museum of American Indian and then finished it up with a tour of the Washington Monument.

I am surprised about how well the kids behaved, we had a few whines and gripes about being tired, but for the most part they were "angels".

My parents flight left Saturday evening out of Baltimore so we went there for the day. Its about a 30-40 minute drive from where we live. We started out at Ft. McHenry. The Ft where Frances Scott Key was held captive on a British Ship and he wrote the Star Spangled Banner poem about the "HUGE" flag that was still flying the next morning. At the beginning they show a little video about the whole story and then the curtain gets pulled back and you stand there looking at a flag on the same pole in Ft McHenry while they play the Star Spangled Banner. I completely lost it and cried all my mascara off! Its amazing and I think everyone needs to go see all that stuff just to remember the real sacrifices that were made so we can be American.
If anyone ever is in the area. I highly recommend Ft McHenry especially for the kids. At the beginning they give them a scavenger hunt. They have to answer a bunch of questions that they find throughout the fort about the battle there. After they are all done they get a Jr. ranger badge. Mariah and Aiden loved it and Aiden insisted on wearing it every day to school so far this week.

After that we went to eat. My dad is a huge food network fan and saw two places to eat there on their show of hole in the wall places to eat. First we went to Faidley's and got THE BEST CRABCAKES I have ever had in my life. Then went to Chap's and had the best BBQ Beef sandwiches I have ever had. Then we drove my parents to the airport and came home a crashed at like 6pm.

I posted a bunch of pictures on Myspace and Facebook you can check them out if your interested.

Monday I ended up coming down with a flu so I have been sick for two days now. I am feeling better this evening so I am now need to get everything in order for or trip to Oregon in a month. I am so excited we will be there April 1-13th!

Tah! Tah! For Now!

on my way to the airport.

2009-02-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

Well this weekend has been a crazy one already. Mariah is off to a weekend sleepover. (Tiara's mom must be crazy to have 7 girls stay the night Fri and Sat night and all day Sunday.) Jackson and I spring cleaned the house this week. It feels so good to know that their aren't even any dust bunnies and even under all the furniture has been vacuumed! I have to say cleaning today really made the day go quickly. I suggest it to anyone that wants time to go by quickly. LOL.

I am taking off here in about 15 minutes to pick up my parents from the airport. I AM SO EXCITED. At the age of 16 I never thought I would be so happy to see them, but I guess I am not the only one. It drives me nuts to live so far away from all my family. Although, I love that I get to travel alot.

They will be here for two weeks. We have held off alot of sight seeing since we have been here so that we dont have to visit twice. So I am really stoked to see all that DC, VA, & Maryland have to offer.

It is about a 45 minute drive to the Baltimore airport from here and I am so anxious, it will probably seem like 3 hours. Since it is so late, Jackson is going to stay here at the house with Olivia. Aiden is going to go with me to the airport. I am so excited to have just one on one time with him. Poor guy, being the only child means he doesnt usually get that one on one he deserves. Okay well I am out of here. I will post some more blogs soon with our adventures and pics!

snow

2009-01-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

Well, it snowed here finally! It snowed pretty much all day the first day so we got a good 4 inches. The last two days it has been ice rain, which scares me more than the snow. We have been cooped up in the house for 3 days now and I am beginning to go nuts. Not that I had anywhere to go in the first place. Just not having that option is a bit maddening. I am hoping that the kids go back to school tomorrow. A lot of the ice and snow melted today. Although, I am not so sure considering it is supposed to be back in the twenties tonight and it everything is really wet.

Of course the kids had a blast. Olivia made about 50 snow angels and the Mariah and Aiden were getting upset with her because she was ruining all the good snow for their snowman. She then thought it would be fun to pelt them with snowballs since they wouldn't include her in the snowman making process. Fortunately for them she couldn't really make much of a snow ball. They learned just to ignore the snow flying over their heads until they realized the snow balls she was throwing were getting bigger. (I was making snowballs for her) It was so fun to watch her throw it and turn and run. Of course her all bundled up looking like a pink marshmallow man and running was hilarious. Especially when she would fall over mostly from laughing so hard.

Of course as soon as we got outside and playing for 15 minutes Olivia says. I gotta go potty! Urgh. So we had to come in un-bundle in a hurry and then bundle back up! I was kind of wishin she had still been in diapers. LOL.

My next exciting thing will be my parents get here a week from Saturday. I am so ecstatic, I can hardly sleep at night! I am hoping the weather will hold up so we can see all the sights in DC without getting hypothermia.

Catchin up

2009-01-22T14:26:00.001-08:00

Well it has been awhile so I thought I'd catch everyone up. Olivia turned 3 on Tuesday. We had a lot of fun. Jackson and the kids were home from school and work that day. Being so close to DC it was just too crazy so most of the schools and most government buildings were closed. We had a really lazy day. We just hung out and watched the inaguration on tv. After Olivia took a nap we took off to Chuck E Cheese. She had an absolute blast. It was just Jackson and I and the kids, plus Sydney our neighbor and Mariah's best friend. We had dinner and did all the games and stuff. It was pretty cool, Olivia was playing a game and hit the jackpot twice!! So she got over 400 tickets. After we were all done we came home and we sang happy birthday and ate her Dora cupcakes. (At her request, cupcakes with pink frosting) I was a little worried she would change the color of frosting she wanted since every day she has a new "favorite color". Fortunately she didnt even say anything about it. We then opened presents. We got her one of those 3 foot stuffed horses, some new PJ's, a Diego bath towel and bubble bath, a my little pony, and a Dora mermaid for the bath tub. It's nice that they are so easy at this age as far as shopping goes. About this time it was about time for bed so she took a bath with her new bubble bath and used her towel when she got out. She put her new jamjams on and headed to bed. Of course we had to hawl the big horse upstairs and make a bed for him. (First she wanted him to sleep with her but there was NO way)
On another note Jackson got offered a really cheap deal to go to Italy and disney world. Pretty hilarious considering we just decided to renew our vows this summer. So we haven't made a definate decision but I think we are going do the vow renewal next summer instead. Which I am actually pretty excited about having a whole extra year to plan it. That way I will be able to put more time and money into it to make it super! We are going to buy the Italy tickets and go next spring. Then we are going to take the kids to Disney World this year probably spring or summer. Jackson has to figure out what days he can take off. I really want to go visit Oregon so I am considering taking the kids by myself. Maybe for spring break.

Well that is it for now. I need to go make dinner.

The Greatest Idea

2009-01-09T09:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I've really been thinking about this vow renewal ceremony and wanted to do something really special for my wonderful husband. I've been racking my brain about an anniversary gift that I can give to him at the reception. If any of you know Jackson, you know he isn't much of a material person and he has a hard time not loosing stuff! So I was trying to think of something I could do for him. I thought about singing something, but I knew I would never be able to make it through the song without falling apart. Then at 2am in the morning I got it!!! I am going to surprise him with bagpipers!!! He is in the military and VERY patriotic. The times we have gone to parades and the bagpipers play and whenever he sees the American flag he tends to get a bit choked up. So I thought this will be perfect! They could play America the Beautiful, or God Bless America for him. In addition, I wanted to recognize the people that have been an integral part of our marriage and family that wont be with us. (My son Ashton and Grandpa are both passed) I thought they could play Amazing grace, one of my favorite songs as a tribute to everyone that has passed on, that meant something to us. I really want to drums and all, so I may have just blown my budget out of the water!! But I think it will be worth it.

So much to do....

2009-01-06T16:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I made a list of everything that needs to get done for the renewal and felt a little overwhelmed for a bit. Then I decided, if I'm not enjoying it, its not worth doing. So I am just going to take it one step at a time and try and enjoy it. Good thing for me, Jackson doesn't really have too much of an opinion about most stuff.

My colors are going to be either clover green and hot pink, or clover green and orange. I know I am going to use Gerber daisies for the main flower. Mom and I discussed it and we are going to order the flowers wholesale and make the centerpieces and bouquets ourselves.

Since this isn't a wedding and I don't have a MOH I can't pawn tasks off on her! LOL. JK. Since we are doing it in Oregon and I am here in Maryland it looks like my Mom and Dad will have to do a lot for me. I know they love me and this will prove it! We probably wont get there to Eugene until a week or so before hand. So going and checking out venues, and meeting with any other vendors will be on them if I can't resolve it by phone or email.

Now my task it to stay under budget! Can anyone recommend a good cake vendor? Some place not too over priced. I want a simple two tiered cake . Possibly with white fondant and then I will add some simple ribbons and flowers myself. Then we are going to just do regular sheet cakes. Maybe a cookie bar.

Well that's it for now. Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year!

2008-12-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I am so excited. Jackson and I are going to renew our vows this summer. We never ended up having a "wedding" so nine years later, we are going to do something. I have started gathering some ideas. I can't wait to celebrate how much I love him with all my family and friends. We have been looking at venues in Oregon and have narrowed it down to Mt. Pisgah and Belknap springs. (I think)

Mariah and I went to David's Bridal today and tried dresses on. It was alot of fun. I narrowed about 10 dresses down to 3. One is a more traditional style A-line wedding dress and the other two are the empire waist dresses that have a "lingerie" look. My mom is coming out here to visit in February so, we will decide then.

We decided not to do the whole wedding party thing, but all our imediate family (our kids, parents, bros, & sissy) will be involved in the unity candle portion.

The vowel renewel part will be pretty short, with the unity candle lighting, a prayer, reading of our vows (ive already started writing mine), and then a closing prayer. Then a huge party for a reception.

Here is the website with my 3 favorites. Take a look and tell me what you think. If you have any other advice or ideas, please share!

http://www.davidsbridal.com/favorites_public.jsp?id=ABACMKIFAH

Oh this is going to be so much fun!

Video of one of the houses

2008-12-23T18:10:00.000-08:00

This house was pretty cool and I decided to take a video of it.

Christmas Lights

2008-12-23T17:29:00.000-08:00

Last night we drove over to Arlington, Virginia to look at the top ranked XMAS lights. We had sooo much fun. I can't believe all the time, money, and effort people have put in. One guy said in the newspaper he spent over $5000 just in electricity to light his house for the season. A couple of the houses are set to where you tune into a specific radio station and then the lights dance to the music as it comes across your car radio. SO COOL! Well, worth the drive. It was Mariah's idea to go do it. My dad "Pappa" always took my kids on Christmas eve to look at houses in Eugene and she asked if we could follow the tradition. I did my research and two of the best houses weren't going to be lit on Xmas Eve so we decided to do it early. I added some pictures of some of the better ones. Hope you enjoy. There is another blog with a video of one of them that I took. Merry Xmas!

This one was cool. They had a little train set the kids could ride thru the yard. They had a donation box you could make donations of toys or money for toys-for-tots!

This one had so many inflatables. Last year there were 75 and I guess they have added more since this year.

This house is across the street from the house in the video in the other blog. I guess the two neighbors have a contest every year. This has been going on for 17 years. The public votes and takes donations and the money goes to the voted winners charity.

This was one of the ones that was set up to music. You cant even see half the lights in this picture. This was voted the best by our family. Wish I could have gotten better pictures of it. The yard was massive and even all the grass was blanketed in lights.

Baking cookies

2008-12-14T13:32:00.001-08:00

Well, yesterday the kids and I made sugar cookies to decorate today. It was fun. Olivia insisted on cracking the eggs. Which meant I spent 10 minutes picking out eggs shells from the batter. The kids picked which cookie cutters they wanted to use. It came out to about 12 cookies each that they would get to decorate today. After I got the table all set up to decorate, they got to work. Olivia ate one, decorated one, and spilt sprinkles ALL over the floor. Then she was done. Aiden only wanted to do 5 and Mariah did just about all 12 of hers. Which means, I was left with over 20 to decorate myself! LOL. I hadn't intended on decorating any. O

f course the cleanup is always more time intensive than the actual decorating. I had to follow Olivia's footsteps to get all her little frosting fingerprints wiped up.

After I got all done cleaning up, Jackson walks in and says, "that wasn't too bad, why were you procrastinating and complaining about that?" I raised my eyebrows and gave him the look! I responded with "well, you get to do it next year!"

I got all the gifts wrapped and packaged up that needs to be sent out next week, along with the kids pictures. Of course Olivia had to help me wrap presents. She was the designated tape girl. To those of you that receive a gift from us, sorry about all the tape! I am glad Jackson forgot to put the cardboard out for recycling the last month. LOL. I had a wide selection of shipping boxes and packaging material to fit everything perfectly! I just have a couple of presents I ordered online that I should get on Monday, so I can ship everything on Tuesday. I am so proud of myself. Last year I was waiting in the LONGEST line at the Post Office at the last minute.

I can't believe how quickly Christmas is approaching! The kids are excited for xmas break to start. It begins the 19th. To be perfectly honest, I am kind of dreading it. They are so used to being able to play all day, all year round, in Hawaii. Here, they are outside for a half hour and then they come back in to thaw out. I think I am going to have the kids pay me a quarter every time I hear an "I'm Bored" while on Xmas vacation.

Well, its time to start dinner! Shrimp and chicken past primavera, Yummy!

Kids have their way...

2008-12-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

Well, my husband came home yesterday pretty stressed. He's been going to this school since the end of Septmeber. It is a really difficult class and this week and next week is testing. I believe it is 16 modules of testing. You can only fail 1 of the modules and still pass. Yesterday he barely failed one. Without him even saying anything Olivia runs over to him and says "Daddy,Daddy, What's wrong?" He keeps reassuring her that he is fine and that everything is okay. She can tell something is wrong though. She snuggles up on his lap and is loving on him for awhile. Then she pops up and says "We could sing, that would make you feel better" She sits down at her keyboard and starts singing him ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Itsy Bitsy Spider. She can tell he is still upset eventhough he is smiling. She insists that he sings too. He begins to sing the songs with her. (If anyone has heard Jackson sing, he cant carry a tune to save his soul) But we love him anyway. She doesnt settle for that, he has to sit on the little stool and play the piano with both hands and sing into the microphone. I was able to get the end on camera. I was laughing so hard I almost peed my pants. At the end, I asked him, "Do you feel better". He responded annoyingly yes. It's amazing to me how kids pick up on stuff and how they have the ability to help you overcome it.

Baby kitty

2008-12-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

Well, last night we got our first snow! I am so excited it stuck for awhile but by morning it was all gone. It was kind of fun it flurried from 2:00 pm until about 11:00 pm. Although, the snow can be a bit cumbersome with all that the kids track through the house and the extra loads of laundry, how cool would it be to have a white Xmas? I haven't really been able to get warm since the temperatures dropped a month or so ago. I think it is the Hawaii blood still left in me.

Yesterday evening I braved the cold weather to go check on some kittens that I saw in an add on craigslist. They were all so stinkinn cute. Jackson is lucky I made it home with only one! She has such a cute adorable personality. She is this little tiny black furball with a very BIG personality. She is very inquisitive and very courageous for her size. The first night was a bit rough though. She was up most of the night. She was being very inquisitive checking every thing out in our room. But if she got too far away from me she would start meowing until I came to rescue her. I think she must have been looking for her littler mates or momma! When the search failed she would cry out and settle for me. We tried putting her in the bathroom of our room but she just wailed forever. She finally found a comfortable spot to crash under the covers against my stomach. Then I had trouble falling to sleep. One because I was scared I was gonna smash her and two Jackson had a few drinks before bed so his snoring was even louder than normal.

She woke up this morning and has been investigating her new surroundings. She is all tuckered out now and sleeping in my sweatshirt pocket. This 2700 sq foot house is alot of investigating for a little 1 lb kitty! You should see her go up the stairs. She does this little hop thing to make it to the next step.

We haven't picked a name for her so if you have any suggestions, let me know.

A busy Tuesday,

2008-12-02T09:53:00.000-08:00

Well today so far has been a busy day. Mariah had an orthopedic appointment for a check on her broken arm. Fortunately it has healed nicely so instead of having a cast for another 4 weeks, she got a removable splint she is to wear for 3 more weeks. She was very excited she wont have a cast for xmas and her birthday. Her arm looked so disgusting, tonight we can soak it and get all that dirt and extra skin off.

After I dropped her off at school, I stopped by the store to get celery and carrots for turkey soup. I chopped up everything and put it in the crockpot. Although, we are all turkeyed out, it smells REALLY good.

I got the 4 loads of laundry that were folded sitting on the couch for the last two days put away finally. Uggh, I despise laundry! I picked up the house and got Olivia down for a nap. I am finally sitting down, taking a bit of ME time. Then I need to go iron Mariah outfit. She has her holiday choir concert tonight at 6pm. So I have another hour before the chaos begins again.

I keep thinking about when I was single with no kids. How in the world did I occupy my time?

I heard great news this week. My youngest brother Shane is going to be a dad to a sweet baby BOY! Aiden was so excited that he will not be the only boy now. He has felt kind of left out with all the cousins be girls so far. I absolutely love being an auntie. I just wish we lived closer so I could be around them more. Just a few more years, I HOPE!

Well, I better be off to the shower, before I lose my window of opportunity.

Hopefully , I'll be able to get some decent pictures tonight so I can post them.

something to think about

2008-11-26T09:10:00.000-08:00

Well, today is a super busy day, getting ready for tomorrow, as most of you are. I dont really have much time to add a full blog but, I thought I would share this that I received in an email.

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world, I will marry you.'
One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend. He asked her,'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?' The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.
Her boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.'
This is how the human brain often works when our status changes. Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who was always by their side in the most painful situations.
Life Is a Gift
Today before you say an unkind word - Think of someone who can't speak.
Before you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone who has nothing to eat. Before you complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone who's crying out to GOD for a companion. Today before you complain about life - Think of someone who went too early to heaven. Before whining about the distance you drive to be with your loved one, Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet and have no one to love And when you are tired and complain about your job - Think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job. And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on your face and think: you're alive and still around and your loved. If you truly love someone, make sure you love them by showing them, not just saying it. Life is too short my friend, just know your blessed to have a family friends and a loved one.

If you are traveling, I pray for safe travels. Hope everyone enjoys their wonderful holiday and I cant wait to hear everyone's great Thanksgiving stories.

Much love,
Bellece

Motivated Saturday

2008-11-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I got alot done with the chores today pretty early and have the rest of the afternoon to enjoy the day.

Jackson helped me hang the bulletin board in the play room, so that room is already for when my daycare starts. After 11 years of working outside the home, I have decided to stay home and work! I have absolutely loved the last few months spending it with Olivia and just cant bring myself to leave her again. Besides with how much childcare costs here I would be paying well of $1,500 a month for my three kids. Then alot more when school is out of session. I am going thru all the Maryland hoops to get my license and should be open by January 1st. I have done some advertising and already have a set of 2 year old twin girls enrolled to start in January. Olivia will absolutely love that. She has really missed having friends around her age, since leaving daycare in Hawaii. Whenever one of the older kids have a friend come over, she greets them at the door, "Will you be my friend? Wanna play Dora?" I designed a really fun curicuulum and cant wait to get started!

The kids did awesome today with their chore list. After all this time, I think they finally realized they can knock it all out and be done or drag it out and make the day miserable for everyone. I know Aiden had an agenda today! We let him put the old game cube up in his room so he was all excited to get his room cleaned and chores knocked out.

Mariah's new best friend Sydney always calls Saturday morning and Mariah knows she can't play until her chores are done. Some how she always convinces Sydney to come help her with her chores. I guess it's the same as "its more fun to clean someone else's house than your own!"

Olivia, my clean freak, is a dream child when it comes to cleaning. My husband was helping her pick up the toys in the playroom today, and she was telling him what bins the toys go in and that he wasn't doing it right. He asked " are you gonna be this clean when you grow up?" She said "yep, I'm gonna grow big and then I can see the cookies" (She gets so mad that I put the cookies on the top shelf in the pantry and she can't ever reach them.) Too funny. Anyway, I hope the cleanliness sticks with her the rest of her life!

Can't wait for next weekend, we get to put up all the xmas decorations! Last year I got a bunch of decorations after xmas super cheap. I forgot exactly what I got. It will be like xmas before xmas!

'til next time, Peace!

Something new...

2008-11-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I think I am going to try this blog thing. With family and friends so far away, I forget on phone calls, who I said to what. Hopefully, this will cut down on the repeatitiveness. For those of you that I only talk to once ever couple weeks you will be able to stay up on the Chamberlain Happenings. Feels like I will be writing the recap of the Chamberlain soap opera. LOL.

Today, Olivia and I are trying to stay warm. I have to be honest after our first winter electricity bill, now I understand my parents all those years ago. I keep telling the kids, "if you are cold put more clothes on." Poor Olivia, our Hawaiian baby, doesn't like to wear clothes. I keep putting clothes on her but 5 minutes later they are back off. I have learned to be careful when she comes and climbs up on me. WATCH OUT FOR THE COLD TOES! That will give you a serious shock.

I got some Christmas shopping done the other night. I have just about everything for Olivia. I forgot how easy 2 year-olds are to shop for. I have to say I had a moment of good karma. I paid for my stuff and then loaded the stuff from my cart to the car. Later on that night after the kids went to bed. Jackson and I hauled the presents up to the office, when I realized I didn't make it home with Olivia's new Dora Bike! I checked my receipt and I paid the $50 for it. The next day I called the store and they said I had left it at the bottom of the cart, out in the parking lot!!! Someone found it and returned it to the store! OMG, I was so surprised. Whomever it was could of had a free Dora Bike and no one would have ever known.

Well, its time to put Olivia down for nap and vacuum and pickup the house before the kids get home. Hopefully it wont be much longer than a couple days before I blog again.