Oh dear, you are not going to believe this one. Well, if you have been reading for a while you actually might!

This is how it went down…

My kids have been sick for 10 days now and trapped in the house! I FORCED them out this afternoon to take the 2 older girls to softball. We packed up all the little kids scooters and planned on playing in the empty parking lot at the softball fields.

As soon as we pulled up, my eagle eyed children (also the same children who can hear you open a candy wrapper from a mile away) spotted a cat under the truck of the girls softball coach. There are ALWAYS stray cats at the fields.

They piled out and started calling for the cat. The cat sadly limped over to my kids, it was pathetic. Only trying to walk on 3 legs and clearly hurt. The kids all started crying, begging me to help it.

WHY ME!!!???

It’s 5pm. Rush hour traffic. I toss the kids and pathetic cat into the car and set off to find an open vet. Thinking to myself the entire time, “why am I spending money on a cat that is NOT mine!”

We find a clinic inside Pet Smart. Wait for an hour, and finally see the vet. After an exam, x-ray and antibiotic shot, the verdict is….

The cat has a broken TOE!

For crying out loud. So the kids are thrilled he isn’t going to die. The vet keeps commenting on how nice and clean and NOT pregnant this sweet cat is. Doesn’t even have fleas. Dang, looks like we have a new pet I am thinking. I have to keep the cat immobile for 2 weeks and then come back to the vet to see how it has healed.

We get home, and my husband takes one look at the cat and says, “who’s cat did you steal?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Sweetheart, this is someones cat, it’s not a stray! Look at it, its clean, no fleas, looks like it had a collar, and stray cats just don’t run out to a group of kids. It probably belongs to someone who lives over there, got out, stubbed its toe, you kidnapped it and took it to the vet!”

OH MY GOSH! What do I do now! I think I just stole a cat!

The other night we were celebrating my daughters birthday, she is 4 going on 40, I mean 5. I stood in my usual place with the camera ( because I don’t really exist, at least there is no photo proof of me for the past 14 years) and my husband in his, lighting the candle.

Thankfully, I was already snapping photos when I saw this happen; my husband realized her hair was draping across her face and the cake, and would have come close to pulling a Michael Jackson. With the speed and precision of a NINJA, he pulls a rubber band out of NOWHERE and quickly pulls my daughters hair back into a ponytail.

It just made me laugh for a minute, I remember when our oldest daughter was little and watching him SOOO awkwardly try and put a simple clip in her hair. Now, I swear he carries rubber bands in his pocket, and can whip out a pony tail faster than the speed of light!

**Don’t tell him I posted this, I am not sure that this is something he wants advertised!

O.K. Friday (TODAY) is the last day to vote. My daughter Andie, has made the top 20 in the search for the next Soft Baby Model for 2011.

They reset the voting, so if you have voted before you can vote again. If you can take a second to run over to Facebook and vote for her I’d appreciate it!

Go HERE and click “like” up in the top right. Then find her picture, the one above and click on her. Then, “like” her picture, if you have time leave a comment! Should take 30 seconds! Thank you in advance!!!

It’s only 10:54am, and this is how my day is going, illustrated in numbers:

**Update at 11:34am** 6 – The NEW number of kids that have chicken pox!

5 – The number of kids that have come down with chicken pox in the past 24 hours.

4 – The number of kids in my house that have not come down with chicken pox…. yet. I have my 2 nieces visiting, one has chicken pox along with my kids.

3 – The number of kids who stood outside my door while I was trying to take a shower and banged on it saying things like, “can I have yogurt?” and “Tucker took my blankie AWAY!!” and “MOOOOMMMM the phone is for you!”

2 – The number of boxes of cereal they ate for breakfast.

1 – The number of window panes that my son just broke in my play room with an out of control basketball.

The day is still young, wish me luck! 🙂

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was amazing! I know that for the next few years it is going to just be a blast! The kids are all the right ages and the anticipation is sooooo cool! We had my husbands Mother here, and got to do a lot of fun things that I will post about later.

Here are just a few pictures from Christmas morning.

BTW, someone remind me to tell you the story of the HUGEMONGO television that I now have in my living room…. all my 13 year old said when he walked in and saw it was, “We look like a family that likes to read.” LOL

LOVE Amazon, got the “replacement” castle on Christmas Eve! I love the face the baby is making and her little finger in the air, like she is telling the kids it is hers! “Ya’ll better keep your grubby hands off my castle, you hear me? Or I’ll spit up all over you!”

My oldest daughter showing off her ipod and docking station. I.E. alarm clock so I don’t have to wake her up…

This little girl is our “only child” or thinks she should have been. She is very funny and came up to me and said, ” I have told so many people and Santa that I want a DSi, so when I get a bunch for Christmas, should I donate the ones I don’t want to other kids?” Poor girl only got 1! Look at her face, she was soooo excited, even if it was green ( she wanted red, but hey the best deal was on the green one!) I got her a red case.

This picture is of my almost 9 year old who has a KILLER sense of humor, she can even leave her Dad speechless. She is very musically inclined and wanted a piano, I, I mean Santa, got her a large keyboard. This is when she was opening it and realized what it was! She screamed, “OH YEAH BABY!”

Now the following pictures, had I had this on video, would have gone viral on You Tube. My oldest son had been asking for a Playstation 2, only because he thought it was a safe gift. He really wanted a PS3, but since they cost so much he figured he wouldn’t get one and was asking for the PS2.

I guess Santa thought he had been a good kid, in spite of the garbage incident from the other day. He starts to open the box and this is his face as he realizes it is a PS3!!!!

He starts SCREAMING and CRYING, then running around the house screaming and crying, he ends up on the kitchen floor crying!!! Saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!!”

The reaction caught my husband and I by surprise. He was truly surprised that he got it. By the time he was done freaking out, both my husband and I were in tears! At that point I would have paid $700 for the stupid thing just to see that reaction again!!! That I didn’t get it on video kills me, we will be talking about the “PS3 freak out” for years! It was really a great morning!

If you have any pictures that you have posted of your Christmas that you want to share, leave a link in the comments! I’d love to see yours!

Things have been a little slow on the blog that last few days, I have been spending needed time with my kids and company. I plan on firing up ready to go on Monday again like normal!

I want to take just a second to wish you a Merry Christmas. I really mean that, I hope that you have the most wonderful Christmas this year! It’s not all about the deals (in fact, take a few days off! Pay for cereal full price even!) I really feel like I have a little family here, and really appreciate each one of you who have time that is precious, but yet stop by and take a look everyday and say “hi”.

Please be super careful if you are traveling and stay safe. Give all your Litter’s a hug and kiss from our Litter and have a WONDERFUL weekend!

Merry Christmas!

Tiffany and Family!

Breath. Breath. Breath. Do not kill the child. Breath.

In order to fit all the Christmas items in the playroom and around the house, I had to rearrange some things. I took some of the bulkier things out of the kids playroom and set them on the driveway up by the garage. We have a VERY long driveway. I asked my husband when he had time (later in the day) if he would please put it all in the garage for the remainder of December and I would pull it back out in January.

The next morning I asked my son to make sure that the trash was taken down to the curb as I could hear the garbage truck on the street behind us.

A little while later I hear….

“Mom, why is that woman taking our dollhouse?”

I run to the window just in time to see a woman slam shut the back of her truck loaded with all my kids playroom items! She drives off as I am trying to get the front door open and run to the street.

I instantly knew what had happened.

My son, who at 13 has become, let’s say fairly lazy lately, actually decided to go the extra mile and haul EVERYTHING on the driveway down to the curb! This woman probably drove by and thought, “Holy cow, what a bunch of great stuff, I can’t believe that someone would throw it away…” and loaded it up.

I am still sick to my stomach! Not only are all my storage drawers gone, but my girls wooden Melissa and Doug dollhouse castle, that they play with EVERY DAY, all day long, plus a number of other precious toys.

I really have not gotten an answer from him, as to why in the world he would EVER think we would throw away that stuff. I am new to this teenager stuff, maybe they really are brain dead?!

P.S. I paid way over $100 for the castle, it is currently $54 on Amazon today, I paid the $3.99 extra to have it here by Christmas. I am a sucker for 4 crying little girls! BTW my son offered me some money when he saw that I had ordered it. I have almost forgiven him 🙂

On a whim I entered Andie into the Soft Baby (brand of clothing) cute baby contest, to be the next Soft Baby model. As I type this out, I do want you to realize I know how silly and ridiculous it sounds, I am not the type of Mom who enters my kids into cute baby contests, I am not sure what came over me!

But… she made it to the finals and they are having people “vote” on Facebook for their favorite. Yep, so I am asking you to go vote for my “cute” baby! I used the picture above, so you can find her that way, and you just “like” her photo. I am warning you… there are some CUTE babies on there!!

We have been searching for the baby boy or girl who can be the next face of SOFT Baby Clothes. We have received tons of submissions. We need your feedback to help us select the next face of SOFT. “Like” the model that you think can best represent the brand and tell us why. The number “Likes” will help us narrow down our search.

** You have to go HERE to the main page and “like” them first, then go to the first link and “like” Andie… thanks guys!