How's the new year treatin' ya so far? :-)

We're staying busy here, as usual! :-)

I'm working on early early spring cleaning around the house, got a new bookshelf  a few days ago for the piano room where the kids hang out to play, set up a new reading area with lots more space. Love watching the kids sprawled out on the pillows/giant stuffed animals reading to themselves or each other. Does this retired reading teacher's heart good! :-)

Big news so far--we're going on a cruise in August! I can't wait! :-) It's the biggest luxury ocean liner *in the world*, called the "Allure of the Seas" from Royal Caribbean. DH and I took a honeymoon cruise when we first got married (4 days, 3 nights, then another 3 days in Florida back then) and we loved it soooooo much, we've been wanting to go on another one since then but of course so much has happened over the years and we either didn't have time to go, or financially we had other things to take care of (Australia/India trip).

This time it was my turn to choose the vacation, and when Kate Gosselin tweeted a few weeks ago that she was going to host a cruise(AND a personal tweet from her inviting me and Maya to go! :-), I thought, how cool is that! Not really thinking about going at all, but thinking, I'd love to meet her and my fellow cyber BFFs from Twitter in person! ;-) Checked out the travel agency site, then the RC website, and saw that the prices were doable for us! It's in August, the absolutely hottest month of the year here in Texas (thank GOD for air conditioning!) for 7 days, 6 nights, so that's perfect. A couple of ports we'd visited before, some are new to us.

Bazillion activities for the kids to see and do? Check. Cool engineering stuff for DH to ogle over? Check. ;-) Time off for me and DH? Check! ;-) Then the travel agency offering a dozen or more activities with Kate? KEWL. Maya and I were talking about all the fun stuff they've got planned and she said she would love to meet Kate too...later on was telling DH about the cruise and he rolled his eyes at first about meeting Kate (not a celebrity person unless it has to do with sports, LOL), but when I described the ship and activities he really started to listen, and he told me to check into the pricing and airfare, which turned out to be a deal we couldn't beat! ;-) How much would round trip tickets normally cost a family of 5 from Texas to Fort Lauderdale, Florida? Cheapest we could find was $1260, not counting baggage fees, taxes, 9-11 fees, etc.! YIKES!! :-O

DH quickly checked his miles on our credit card, and was surprised at how many he had...all that traveling he's done all over the world has added up! Using just a *portion* of his miles, our entire family's roundtrip airfare comes to...are you ready for this???

ZERO dollars. $0000. NADA. Free flights for all of us, plus he still has plenty of miles left for a free round trip ticket in case he needs to go to India in an emergency! Beauty mate! ;-) And THANK YOU, JESUS! :-)

He's had some deadlines the past few weeks, so late hours at work, so we hadn't had a chance to sit down and compare prices with a cruise without the KG stuff until last weekend. He was pretty much sold on the idea of the cruise itself, and the ship...after we got comparable prices from a different travel agency, there was only a couple hundred dollars difference! Even he was surprised, because he thought celebrity cruises cost a lot more. He said, call Charlene (great travel agent sponsoring the cruise who really worked with us to get a great deal for the whole family!) and make this happen! Turned out the 'cheaper' price was $1575 per person. The travel agency's rate came to $1660 per person! Of course, only Maya and I are going to the Kate activities, by my figuring that came to about ~$35 or so per event. We've gone to book signings and shows that cost a whole lot more than that! Thanks to God for working this out for all of us to have a great time! My family gets a vacation, we get to meet Kate (God willing)and her "Tweeties" ;-) and Kate gets to earn some extra income for herself and her family. Win-win all around!

Now to get myself back in shape...NOT that I want to wear a bikini, LOL.  It's been a long journey these past 17 years, too much extra weight due to all the autoimmune issues/Hashimoto's, infertility meds, miscarriages, pregnancies, surgeries, etc. Can't wait to be able to stretch without hurting, and to run in a spring fun run with Maya! With this extra weight dragging me down, it's hard to do all the physical things I want to do.:-( Waiting to hear back from dr. about b/w from a few days ago, we had a nice talk about the best way to lose weight (I originally wanted to try Medifast, but he said why spend all that money on something you can do yourself? True!) and it's early but I think the suggestions he gave me are working, I'm a couple pounds less than I was earlier this week already! And now much more motivated to lose weight instead of just being a mom for the kids; looking after myself for a change and I feel pretty good about losing even those first few pounds! :-)

My goal weight is to get back to where I was when we were married in '94,  and when I got to go to India for the first time around 140-145 lbs. That's where I felt my best, and where many of my clothes are waiting for me in the closet! Looking forward to heavy duty exercising again at 24 Hr Fitness too--I finally have feeling in the nerve endings around the surgery/C-Section scars and I can actually tuck in my tummy for the first time since the twins were born and do basic stomach crunches! Not much, but it's a start. One step at a time, one day at a time! :-) Haven't decided if I want to hire a trainer or not yet though, to help me reach these goals.

Here's a picture from our Indian wedding reception, one of my favorites, not full length, I need to find my picture album with the rest for my goal pic. I also need to find my album from our honeymoon cruise, a couple of those pictures will be my goal pictures too! :-)

Okay, breakfast and catching up time is over, got some laundry (as ALWAYS!) to fold and put away, then a bunch of paperwork/mail sorting...looks like another spring-type day here, gonna take the kids to the park in a little bit and let them run amock there as they are wont to do, LOL. We so love our big park in our front yard!

Again, all the glory to God for all the blessings He has bestowed on me and my family! :*) And as always, praying for those who have not done well/are not doing well with their lives and need God! Praying they find Him soon. :*)

By the way, here's the links to the travel agency for the Kate Gosselin cruise on the "Allure of the Seas"... http://www.kategosselincruise.com  Maybe we'll see you there in August! :-)

Happy New Year 2012! :-)

Hope everyone had a wonderful and safe New Year's Eve celebration with your family and friends! May God bless you and yours most abundantly in the upcoming year. :-)

The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make His Face shine upon you
And give you Peace
And give you Peace
And give you Peace forever!

UPDATE: A miracle of sorts!!!

Finally have time to update after a busy past few days. Here we were grieving that the kids were about to lose their paternal grandmother in India any day...when we got good news from DH!

He flew back to his childhood home to visit with his mom, thinking it might be his LAST visit with her, and while he was there, they learned that some new tests she'd had at the hospital showed SHE DIDN'T HAVE CANCER, Stage IV or ANY kind!! There had been some sort of mixup at the hospital lab, her records were mixed up with another patient with either a similar or same name...shaking my head at all the pain and suffering she's gone through! She didn't need a mastectomy, which means she wouldn't have broken her shoulder from falling on that side, she didn't need to emotional grief of thinking she didn't have long to live...praise God we know all this now, and we are so grateful for this miracle! Although she still has a lot of health issues and needs a lot of prayers still. We are also praying for the person who was told they did NOT have cancer, who will find out now that they don't have long to live. :*(

Some people have said they should sue, but unfortunately India isn't like America and cases like this drag on for years because of corruption, and are very VERY expensive for regular people to fight. Sadly, probably nothing will happen to help my MIL out, I hope the hospital at least will give some free treatment or something for her from now on!

Thanks to all of you who were praying for my MIL. Prayers came true, although not in quite the way we were expecting! God is so good!! :-)

Post-Thanksgiving Ruminations & Musings

We survived another Thanksgiving! Maya was adamant about being in charge of the cooking this year since we were going to be home for a change. She wrote out her menu, gathered everything she needed when we went shopping at the grocery story (so cute to watch her comparing prices and quantities of various items!), did some preparation on Wednesday evening, making some pies and cookies, then on Thursday getting the turkey all ready for cooking and making stuffing and misc. vegetables and rolls for the dinner. Planned it for 5:30 or so, and kept to her timetable! Her friend helped out a lot with both the food prep AND playing with the twins who think of her as "another sister", says Sarah, LOL. Turkey turned out perfect (never used this brand before, but it was great! "Honeysuckle White") and the food and desserts and company were just wonderful Only thing missing was DH! :-(

"Nana"

He has gone home to India to be with his parents. His mom's cancer is out of control, and the hospital where she had been for awhile has sent her home for hospice care--meaning, they can't do anything more for her, no chemo, no radiation or anything. Pain meds and a 24/7  nurse are keeping her 'comfortable', thank God. Please keep her and my FIL (over 80) in your prayers as they deal with this final stage of her life. Even though she and I were not close as far as mother and daughters in law go, I do love her and wish that her transition from this life to the next is as painfree and non-traumatic as possible. Pray for my DH as well, this is overwhelming news to him, on top of his very busy work schedule. You always assume your parents are going to be there forever in some little childish corner of your heart, don't you? Seeing the truth is going to be devastating to him, I'm afraid. :*( I just wish we could be there to comfort all of them, but we'll have to pray from this long distance. Pray also for Maya, she loves her Nana and is very upset that she'll never get to see her again. The twins don't remember her, but we have a lot of videos and pictures from last year's trip to India to share with them when they are older, thank God!

Around the house, working on a MAJOR project--sorting through double-digit tubs of clothing and baby items to donate to a family in need...whenever folks would send us clothes, etc. that the twins couldn't wear yet, I'd just put'em in a tub, and store'em in the nursery closet...now that the twins have had a growth spurt in the past month or so, I wanted to pull out 'new' clothes for them to wear...what a mixup of sizes in all the tubs! Then I had Maya go through all her clothes and pull the ones she's outgrown or won't wear...got them all down in the family room so I could separate them out. With the holidays it's taking me awhile, but nearly finished! After catching up on this blog, I've got about an hour or so of folding and putting into tubs to go, then the clothes that are too small for the twins will go to the needy family, and the rest will go back up into the nursery closet, this time in labeled tubs so we don't miss out on all the cute clothes waiting to be worn! I just hate coming across some outfit that I love that was misplaced, and now can't be worn, wah!

Pebbles is calling me...she's turned into such a spoiled girl, LOL. Only took her over a decade to decide, hey, those people are planning to keep me around and spoil me! :-) Sarah really loves her kitty cat, loves listening to Pebbles 'sing' (purring) and Sam enjoys watching Pebbles when she's struck by a silly mood chasing a string or toy around. ;-) Hard to believe this cat will be 15 in February 2012!!

Good night, sleep tight, and if you survived Black Friday today, God bless you, I hope you got a lot of good bargains for your trouble! ;-)

I'm Thankful For...

My precious, God-given family. They are all gifts from God to me! :*)

My handsome husband & me

We finally got around to getting some professional family pictures taken last week! They turned out really good! Got our Christmas photocards made at the same time, now all I need to do is get some Christmas themed stamps and address all the envelopes, and we're good to go! :-)

My early Christmas gift is going to be a large picture of the 3 kids together, framed in a lovely white wooden frame, to put over our fireplace. Can't wait until it's ready to pick up! I'll try to scan some of the other pictures when I can, the kids are just way too cute in them! :-) I have such a perfect family and life, thank you, God for Your many blessings! :*)

Best.50th.Birthday.I.Ever.Had :*)

DH just gave me a dozen yellow roses, this romantic birthday card, and this bracelet and earrings he purchased when he was in Singapore a few weeks ago...those are silver with real pearls and semi-precious stones! Beautiful shades of purple, pink and white variety of beads and gems and pearls. Wow. I'm gonna have to hide these from Maya, I can already tell! Maybe even Sarah, because "Purple is my favorite color!" Of course, EVERY color is her favorite color, LOL. Both girls love gemstones, though, so now we have a new family heirloom to share.

So anyway...today was a big milestone for me, 50 years old! I remember when I was a kid, writing down dates and figuring out how old I'd be in the year 2001, 2011--all the decades ending in '1' like my birth year. I remember thinking how very OLD 50 sounded...but now that I'm here, it doesn't FEEL that old! Guess 50 really is the new 40? ;-)

The day started out great. Maya greeted me with "Happy birthday, Mom!" Of course the twins, who love birthdays now, started shouting, "Happy birthday, Mom!!" too...Sam wouldn't stop, even after I kept saying thank you, then I realized what he was waiting for..."Happy birthday, Sam!" He smiled a great big smile and went to play with his trains after that, LOL. Mission accomplished! ;-)

The twins had a really good day! They are so much into imagination games now, I crack up silently listening to them sometimes. :-) Sam loves shows like "Wonder Pets" and "Kai Lan" and "Blue's Clues" and I'll hear him say, "Let's play a game, Googah! I'll tell you the clues and you solve the mickery!" (They can't say their s's, so that's what mystery comes out as)...then they are both busy busy kids 'solving their mickery'. Too cute!

Maya came home with more birthday greetings (BTW, the kids got me one of those Scentsy-type candle burner thingies, only the generic version, I love it! Got vanilla wax too, so homey and lovely smelling!), and as usual was very helpful with the twins...both of her neighborhood best friends came over with gifts for me, which I wasn't expecting. One brought a very nice leather purse with lots of storage pockets, which I always need; the other brought a beautiful delicate vase full of a variety of lovely flowers she had picked from their garden. So sweet of them to remember me! :*)

Later we were going to meet DH for dinner at Chili's...waited awhile, then learned he had a last minute emergency meeting (he's a muckety muck in his company and can't just leave the office at 5:00, unfortunately), so the kids and I headed over to Chili's on our own. Got the best waiter! Tony, who was so very nice to the kids, and to me when Maya told him it was my birthday! He asked Maya if she wanted the waiters to sing to me and of course she said YES! very quickly, LOL. That's okay, I don't embarrass easily, and I was feeling like the special birthday girl there because of the royal treatment! :-) The kids all loved the singsong waiters when they sang happy 21st birthday to me, bwahahaha! (Maya whispers afterward, "Mom, they got your birthday wrong!" and I said, "No, I don't think so!' ;-)

Coolest thing this evening was getting a happy birthday shoutout during dinner from my "cyber-BFF" (LOL) Kate Gosselin from "Kate Plus 8", how kind of her to acknowledge my special milestone birthday on Twitter! :-)

Ordered steak and potatoes and steamed broccoli (which Sam ate most of), while the kids had their favorites, corn dogs and mandarin oranges and french fries (Maya got the grilled cheese sandwich, her fave)...very nice atmosphere and the kids behaved SOOOOOO well. Sarah was a little chatterbox as always (just like her mom!) and I even caught a video of her singing "Happy Burpday to you!" I'll try to post it here tomorrow! ;-) So cute and sweet, I almost cried.

After dinner we came back home and got the twins to bed (they'd fallen asleep in the van) and helped Maya pack for her school trip the next couple of days. She fell asleep almost immediately as soon as she lay down too. ;-) Started cleaning up our old couch that the charity will pick up tomorrow, when DH came in with all the aforementioned goodies! :-) And now, it's after midnight and my 50th birthday has come to a close. Yup, today was the best 50th birthday I ever had! Here's to 50 or more more! Thank you, God, for Your many blessings and gifts for me that I never deserved! I never imagined my 3 miracle children, my wonderful husband, my awesome home, my precious little cat Pebbles, all those years ago when I was a kid figuring out my age over the years. I can never thank You enough for loving me and blessing me like this! Amen! :*)

PS: Thanks to the 'non-friends' who wished me a happy birthday as well! I appreciated it! ;-)