Other Random Birthday Pics

Olivia!

D with the puppy.. lol

Olivia, Tehya and Hailey

Riley and Ethan!

Olivia is now 7!

This past weekend was my oldest, Olivia's 7th birthday. Yes, I know I am getting completely old.
I told her that she was getting old, I mean she is 7 now. I said before you know it you will be 10..
and her reply was.. yeah but not as old as you.
Kids! lol
So instead of having a huge party we decided to let her have a friend overnight and then take them and do something fun. So she chose her friend Tehya and then of course her cousins, MaKenna and Gabby were there.. Below are some pics from our bowling outing.. lol..
It was hilarious.

Harrisburg Angels

I am going to post some pics of the football team practicing..
I can't wait for the season to start!

Thats me in the blue adidas pants with the yellow stripe.

5 year old!

On to bigger and better things.. Hailey Marie is now 5! Wow can you believe it.. It makes me feel very old. Her party was great.. there were a ton of people there and she got a ton of presents. I just can't believe that my little Hailey is 5 now.

Slacker

Ok, I know I am completely a slacker.. I dont know at this point if its being a slacker or just not having the time to post anything. Or just a combination of the both.
Work is going extrememly well for me.. and football also, we are still practicing like crazy anticipating our first offical scrimage which is sometime around the end of February.. SO thats definitely exciting.
The kids are great.. bad as ever.. Their christmas was amazing. They made out like bandits as usual. I think that for about three days you couldn't even walk in our living room because there was so much stuff everywhere.. and thats even being nice about it.
Christmas Eve D worked so I had my entire family over for dinner. We had a great time just being together and dinner was great. I didnt burn anything.. lol
Christmas morning I had to keep the kids at bay long enough for D to get home from work.. They were less then thrilled to have to sit and look at their presents without actually being able to open them. Riley was the only one that slept in and the only reason he slept in is because I could not COULD NOT get him to go to sleep on X-mas Eve. I tried everything and at 1:30 AM! he was still awake. So little man actually helped me carry the presents out from the office (Santa's Workshop)... He wasnt very thrilled that he wasnt allowed to open them right then and there.. lol
So christmas day was pretty much the same old same old.. family dinners, presents etc. I got a ton of Colts stuff! which was great.. and a good book. D got a chainsaw and a new cell phone.. he actually made out great.

Riley got these hands from the Fantastic Four for Christmas.. They are so cool and big and evertime he punches someone or something they make noises like breaking glass and stuff... They are very neat now if I could just get him to stop hitting his sister with them.

The rest of the Holidays were pretty calm and quiet. New Years was just a nice time with family, no wild parties or anything.. I love the holidays but boy am I glad they are over!

Funny kids stories

Ok.. So I have two hilarious.. Did they just say that.. Stories from the weekend.
The first one we were at sheetz getting gas and I was in the car with the kids and D ran in to pay. Well he was taking forever so I said out loud to the kids.. What do you think hes doing in there? and Riley (as cute as he is) said to me.. "oh hes talking to woman"..
I was like .. what? he was so insistent and it was hilarious. He cracks me up

The other one was from Hailey. I got her some new jeans and Olivia had made the comment that she wont wear jeans unless they are boot cut.. So later on in the evening Hailey brought her jeans out to me and told me she wouldn't wear them. I wanted to, of course, know why.. and she said "Because they arent boob cut" I had to ask her twice what she said but that was it.. It was hilarious. I tried not to laugh at her because I know she is sensitive about her speech and just didn't realize that wasn't what Olivia was saying.. But it was funny none the less..

SO that's it for my kids stories for today.. Everyone have a safe and happy holiday!

Christmas Time!

Well it is officially christmas time in the Pratt Household! There is decorations and cookie baking and all that good stuff.. christmas music and three page long christmas lists. We took the kids to see Santa on Saturday. The girls immediately ran to him, sat on the lap and told them all about what they wanted to Christmas. And what did Riley do, you ask... well he hid behind the stroller.. I asked him why he didn't want to go sit on Santa's lap and tell him what he wanted for Chritmas and he replied.. "becuase I was bad".. well then at least he realizes it. Though I will say that hasn't changed his behavior at all, he has still been unbelievably rotten.
So only about a week and a half until christmas. and you resident procrasinator is still not even close to being done with shopping. In fact I have only bought a few things and the girls presents for school.. I know I know! What am I waiting for. And on top of that.. my office is officially moving between christmas and new years so things have been crazy with packing, organizing etc there.. NO time to do anything.. when I get home I just want to go to sleep..
And watch Nip/Tuck which is getting so good. The two hour season finale is on next Tuesday night and they are unmasking the Carver.. can't wait!
Football has also been picking up.. the pre season officially starts in February so we have been practicing and haveing meetings and classes and fundraisers galore..
I love the holidays but I almost can't wait until they are over and I can just breathe. The only bad things about that is right after christmas I have three birthdays.. Hailey (jan 9) Olivia (jan 29) and Riley (feb 20) Fantastic!

Everyone have a safe and happy Holiday!

Snow Snow Snow

Wow.. the weather man was actually right this time. We actually did get snow this time and a whole lot of it! I would say that we got about 7 inches or so. It was amazing waking up. Not so amazing shoveling out though. I hate shoveling.
Our 1/2 mile long driveway wasn't plowed yet but I took a chance and tried to get down the driveway. We didn't hit any problems until the steep part when we started to slide. It was like being on a ride LOL.. the kids were screaming and I think that even I was a little freaked out and I never get that way driving in the snow. But the good news is that we made it, in one piece. I am sure that getting home will be interesting.

In other news there was a shooting near my house. Now we moved away from the city because we felt that we wanted to get away from people and shootings etc. Perry County is a fairly calm place as far as violence goes, and I feel very safe in my house. But the other night that was pretty much shattered. Click here to read the whole story. Basically an armed gunman broke into a house about two houses away from me, kicked in the door.. demanded money and then shot the two people inside. They still have no captured who did it. I have been extra cautious lately.. locking my car, locking my doors etc. I have never had to be scared before and I dont like having to be now, but whats a girl to do.. so I just act like nothing is wrong and have told the kids, who were petrified, that they have already caught the guy. So hopefully they will.

Only about three weeks till christmas, and I am not even close to ready. No tree, no decorations and very little shopping started. I am such a scrooge this year! Bah Humbug.

Wow

Aren't the Holidays so busy. I have barely had time to do anything more or less actually take the time to update this. Things are going well around the house. Snow on the ground, getting the Christmas tree this weekend. Got to finish the shopping (yes, I know I always wait until the last minute...)..
So when I have more I will update..

FOOTBALL!

Ok, for those of you who know me you know that I am a fairly huge football fan! D is a huge football fan etc...
Also, for those of you who know me you know that I always enjoyed contact team sports.. I was never much the cheerleader type.. I was always a little bit more agressive then that. So this past Saturday I tried out for the Harrisburg Angels. What is that you ask? Well, the Harrisburg Angels are the Harrisburg area minor league or semi pro womans football team! I am also very excited to announce that I mande the team and will probably be playing a defensive lineman, though that could change. How cool is that! The tryout and practive on Sat killed me and I am so sore today I can barely walk, but its a good pain.. Its a finally getting off my butt and getting back in shape pain.. So I will make sure to post more about this and our schedule when the time comes!

The weekend was pretty quiet though I did take Olivia on Friday night to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.. It is a must see for anyone who loves Harry Potter. The movie is really long 2 hours and 50 minutes but well worth every minute. Livi and I went to the late show starting at 8 and she actually stayed awake up until the very last 10 min. So now I am torturing her by not telling her who actually dies at the end. Sorry no spoilers here! Go see it for yourself!
The theater was packed, we actually ended up sharing a seat! But we both could see good so it all worked out. It was probably the best Harry Potter movie so far. This is why I love having children! I can take Olivia to see movies like this that I also want to see without looking like to big of an idiot.. lol.
Hailey spent Friday night with her Pappy, they went to the annual Block Shoot out at the East Salem Fire Company (yes, we truly are hicks!) She actullay goes every year with him because it seems that my little red headed princess is quite the lucky one when it comes to the paddle wheel. In fact, this year again she proved herself by coming home with a ham and a turkey!
Riley went to D's mom's (nene) and hung out with her and Pop pop and the dogs. He enjoyed himself and was completely asleep by the time I got there to pick him up.

Sunday was pie baking day at the Pratt house. I actually made the pies from stratch.. from a pumpkin! If you can believe that. my mother and father in law actually cooked the pumpkins and cut them up on Saturday while I was at football tryouts. But on Sunday I took the pumpkin and cooked four pies.. and they are mighty mighty good if I do say so myself.
WInter is coming to Central PA.. I actually heard that it is supposed to snow tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday.. only about 1-2 inches but still.. Living where I live it will be interesting to see just how well my van will do in the snow.. lol..
I am sure I will be snowed in more then once this winter.

Everything else is good. Olivia got her report card and as we suspected she is doing excellent in school. She always has. Hailey also got her report card. She isnt doing as well. According to her teacher she doesnt know how to count to ten or how to say her ABC's. Now I know this is completely not true since I listen to her tell them to me all the time. I think that the teacher puts her on the spot and with her speech she gets uncomfortable when she has to talk in front of people. So I think she proabably just didnt do it. Needless to say D and I are taking this very seriously and have since gotten her into the doctor to get additional speech help and Sylvan leadning center to potentially try to help her with the things that the preschool is obviously not teaching her. I am just worried that when she hits kindergarden next year that the teacher will have trouble understanding her and they will pop her into a special education class, which is not what she needs at all. She is shy because of her speech and she knows that the kids have trouble understanding her. So I feel really bad. I suppose as a parent all I can do is try to teach her what she needs to know. It breaks your heart though when you kids are having social problems and she is only 4! Not to mention she is a red head and the middle child! She has been practically doomed from the beginning.. lol
Well I doubt there will be an update before Thanksgiving! SO everyone have a safe and happy holiday!

Bears Vs. 49ers

Here are a few pics of the Bears Vs. 48ers game that D went to this past weekend in Chicago.. The Bears of course won... I knew they would.. thats why I got tickets to that game.. lol
Go COLTS!

Wow I can barely believe that Thanksgiving is right around the corner. It seems like summer was just yesterday. Everyone is doing well and extremely busy. Riley is as crazy as ever. Although I have found that he has been taking his punishments really well when he does something wrong. Unlike the girls who usually kick and scream and slam doors. The other night Riley got in trouble for hitting one of the girls and was in his room .. So his five minutes was up and the timer went off.. Literally he was not out of his room for 30 seconds when he went into the bathroom and flushed the plug for the sink down the toilet.. He seems to be wanting to flush everything down the toilet these days! I try not to laugh at him, but some of the stuff he does is hilarious..
He cracks me up sometimes.

Hailey is doing well in school and so is Olivia. All they do is fight anymore so I am so not looking forward to them actually becoming teenagers and fighting more.
Last Saturday I took them to see Chicken Little! It was hilarious. I love kid movies.. The girls laughed so hard, Hailey even stayed awake for the whole thing. Boy, only a mother would be satisfied spending a Saturday night with her girls seeing Chicken Little!
There are a couple movies out on DVD that they want to see this week.. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.. Madagascar.. but since Riley poured juice into the Playstation 2 that we were using to play our dvd's since he shoved cheese into the original DVD player we no longer have any equipment to watch dvd's on.. SO those movies will have to wait until 1) Riley can stop destroying things and 2) until we get a new DVD player.
Olivia reminded me the other day that Christmas was right around the corner. They have been pulling out the Toys r us catalogs and Sears etc.. circling and re circling what they want Santa to bring them.. Boy.. you gotta love Christmas!


This is a funny picture because if you look really close you can see our dog in the middle of the yard.. but he looks so much like a deer its hilarious..
I wont mention the fact that after this picture was taken I spent an hour running around the yard trying to get him to come in..!

More Halloween Pics

Much needed update

ok.. so now on to the much needed update. I realize that I havent updated this blog in about a zillion years, or at least it seems that way. So here you go....
Things have been crazy since I started my new job, crazy in a good way. Doing more, making more money and liking it a whole lot more. I am still in real estate and selling and doing marketing, but have added about a million more things to my job description for now. Which I like. There are days where I dont even realize its lunch time until 3 o clock or so.. lol.. I like it that way!
Halloween went well in the Pratt house.. we had a little devil, a fairy and a clown.. they were adorable!

WOW

ok so where do I start.. its been forever.. literally.
Well lets just let it rip..
I put in my two weeks notice at my job, but not before I received an offer on another job that I had been inquiring about.. it was a good offer, trust me..
SO I put in my notice.. it did not go well at all, needless to say I think that my boss might have sprouted horns when I told her.. and her face well it was actually quite commical.. I didn't really want it to happen that way, I suppose deep down I thought that they would be happy that I was moving on into a fantastic opportunity for me.. guess I was wrong.
So basically Monday I put in my notice.. monday they told me to leave.. fantastic!
So I called my new employer who is the coolest ever and they wanted me to start right away. So tuesday I went to York to train and meet the other people. I am still in real estate.. working for Coldwell Banker Commercial Bennett WIlliams.. very cool company..
So thats it in a nutshell.. things have been crazy.. they are only going to get more crazy.. I am just now starting to get the office set up and organized.. (it is so not at all) and hopefully will have more time next week to tell some good kid stories.. I have a ton..

So, this is the bunny. He looks a little psycho (I haven't figured out to work the red eye on my new camera yet) but as you can also see he is absolutely adorable. Olivia (who is holding him here) loves him to death. His name is Cadbury (we didn't name him)...
He is very friendly and cuddly. D, hasn't exactly warmed up to him yet.. but we'll see..
I have been trying to keep the dogs away from him since Bandit always looks like he wants to eat him. Tiller on the other hand jumps and runs everytime Cadbury moves (which is hilarious).
This picture is Bandit watching him from the kitchen, like he wants to eat him.. LOL
Hailey looks cute, as usual. So she started dance class on Wednesday night. She loves it! Its a beginner class that is a combination of tap, ballet and jazz. The teacher said she did really well for it being her first introduction to dance. Its nice to see her getting involved for once. She has always been the baby (even though she is technically the middle child)..
They are all growing up so fast..

Last night was Hailey's preschool open house. She was dressed and ready to go as soon as I got home from work. D decided to stay home with Riley since he usually takes her to school and picks her up.. and has been to her classroom to talk about fire safety.. he already knows what she has been up to in school. So Olivia, Hailey, my mom (nanny) and I headed to her open house. It was a nice little event where we got to see some papers she has done over the last month as well as her classroom. On her seat in her classroom was a book that they had done that was all about themselves. Hailey drew a picture of herself, her sister, her family and what she wanted to be when she grows up which was the funniest thing of them all. She wants to be a lifeguard! Who would have ever thought that, it was adorable.. The pictures were cute and Hailey was very happy to get to show off her stuff to me and her sister.
Tuesday they are going to a pumpkin farm on a field trip.. D is going as a chaperone.. that ought to be interesting.
Nothing much else has been going on around the Pratt house. We spent a lazy lazy weekend laying around watching movies and football. In fact Saturday I didn't even get dressed all day! Just stayed in my night clothes.. I love days like that.
Can you belive it is October already, halloween is just around the corner. I have to get pumpkins, halloween costumes etc this weekend. Also Hailey is starting dance tomorrow night and the Strawberry Ball is next Saturday. Lots to do!

It has been one of those weeks. Boy am I glad that it is Friday, and maybe even more so this week. It all started on Monday when while running late for work, again, I ran over Olivia's bike in the driveway. She was completely hysterical about the whole thing. I tried to explain to her that I was sorry, but that was exactly why I always tell her to pick it up and put it where it belongs. But she wanted none of that. Later that night I looked at it, and it is definitely broken, unridable. I feel really bad, but she was told about fifteen times to pick it up. So now I suppose we know what Santa is bringing her.
The rest of the week work was stressful and busy. There are a few changes happening around my office, along with the fact that a close friend is leaving, and it stinks. Basically the changes leave me in limbo as far as where I am going etc. I suppose only time will tell.
Tuesday morning I got up and my van quit running on me about 1/4 mile from my house, luckily my neighbor was coming by or Olivia and I would have had to walk the whole way up our driveway. To the average person that seems like nothing at all.. But considering that our driveway is about 1/2 mile all uphill.. I was not prepared to walk it in the rain and in suits and heels none the less.
Riley has been a little blister all week. He refuses to listen to anyone or anything making every evening stressful and diffucult.
On another note I did get the kids a bunny. His name is Cadbury.. He is all white with one brown spot and brown ears. The girls love him. He is cute and soft and cuddly. D, of course, was completely annoyed by the prospect of adding another pet to the already growing population of two dogs and a fish, but oh well! The girls have been doing a great job taking care of him. I will post pics as soon as I can.
Everything else is ok, other then the rain. It has been raining and cold all day today. I know we need the rain but its miserable. Its one of those days when you just want to lay on the couch in your nightclothes and watch old movies on USA or TNT all day. definitely not the kind of day that you want to be out and about working in...
Hopefully the weekend will bring something fun (an no rain)....
I also have to give a shout out to some of the blogs that I read on a daily basis.
Trent at Pink is the New Blog where I get all my celebrity gossip (what can I say I am a sucker for drama)
Monica at Pieces of Us just because she seems really cool and I think that our daugters were seperated at birth.. LOL
and finally Amanda at Rhapsody in Blog just because she is awesome and rocks and I am going to miss her as an office mate. Plus her blog is very cool...

Homecoming

So this past weekend was fairly uneventful, well as uneventful as it could be around our house. Saturday was my old alma matters homecoming. Which is a huge deal and a ton of alumni try to make it back every year. I went to Milton Hershey School which was origianlly started by Milton Hershey as a school for orphaned boys. Obviously it evolved since I am neither an orphan or a boy. The school is a boarding school that offers a good experience and good education. So seeing your 'brothers and sisters' again is a huge deal. I, being the slacker that I am, have not been back in about 6 years. This year I made an executive decision that I was going one way or another. D was, of course, working so I had to take the kids alone. I was not looking forward to that. It actually went relaitvely well, other then Riley. It was nice to see a few old friends and just catch up. The girls were on their best behavior, for the most part.. but Riley, well he was being Riley, of course. He was running around and throwing rocks and just being bad. As usual. We ended up leaving after about two hours which was actaually ok beacuse I was tired of talking to people and they were just tired. It was a beautiful day though which made it nice too.
Saturday night I was supposed to attend the alumni banquet and then head out with some old friends for some much needed 'adult' time. Well on the way home Riley woke up in the car crying, then threw up all over the place. He threw up and ran a fever all night Saturday night. I couldn't even put him down to do anything, more or less leave him to go to the dinner. So I was stuck, again. But whats a mom to do. He was up most of Sat night sick and seemed to be feeling better on Sunday, though last night he was running fever again. Hopefully (cross your fingers) whatever he has isn't contagious.
I watched a ton of good movies over the weekend. Man on Fire, the new version of Psycho, Honey.. I am such a tv addict. With the NFL ticket we get all the movie channels, so I have been watching every movie I can find on.. With winter coming its going to get better because then I won't feel so bad about not getting any outside work done.. LOL