Becky needs...

Thanks, Lydia...this was fun!

Go to your favorite search engine, type in your first name and then "needs" and see what you get!

Here's mine:

1.  Becky needs a little taste.  (of what?)

2.  Becky needs to listen to "Kareem Abdul Jabbar" by Kevin Devine and to laugh about it.

3.  "Miss" Becky needs a change with pictures, videos, personal blog, interests, information about me and more.

4.  Becky needs free download, freeware and shareware.

5.  Becky needs a friend.  (How sad.)

6.  Becky needs jd's special c-tex in port boliver tx (huh?  Sounds kinky.)

7.  Becky needs a psychiatrist!  (Probably true!)

8.  Becky needs a friend.  (Wow, it's also #11 & 13.  Becky must be REALLY lonely!)

9.  Becky needs to blackmail a friend to get information about her blind date.

10.  Becky needs the AEROBO machine.  (Again, probably true, although I don't know what the heck this is!)

What Becky really needs?  For the kids to go back to school.  AAARRGGGHHH!

For Hire

So my kids haven't been to school for a full week since before Christmas.  Between MLK day, teacher in-service days, a nasty stomach flu bug and now, our first decent snowfall of the year, my kiddos have been spending quite a bit of time at home (AND we're only in the 4th week of the new year!)

I have to admit, I do love a good dump (I'm actually referring to snow) and it helps to be able to send the kids out to play.  Before I let them play, however, I asked the boys to help me shovel the driveway.  You would have thought I asked each of them for a kidney.

Why, oh, why can't my boys do an ounce of work without wither complaining or fighting?  They are ALWAYS keeping score on who has done more work.  Apparently they had a scale outside measuring the weight of the snow each had shoveled as they were quick to tell me that this one had shoveled "20 lbs." and the other "a million pounds".  Better than a snow plow, I tell you.

By the way, he's for hire.  At a million pounds a half hour, I should be able to bring in some serious money.  

In the meantime, the girls were thoroughly enjoying themselves on the "hill" in the backyard. Rachel did offer to shovel the driveway, but since she could only handle a sand shovel, I let her off the hook.

Life is good...

when your brothers are shoveling the driveway.

It's currently pouring "freezing rain" and we're expecting another 3-5 inches of snow on top of that.  Sounds like my boys will be kidney-less after tomorrow.

Priceless

I have tried to get these videos uploaded straight to blogspot, to no avail.

To see Hannah's fabulous performance (pun intended) and the kids reaction to their Christmas present, click here...

http://gallery.mac.com/thestansburypatch

Sunblock:  $8

Underwater cameras:  $30

A week on the Disney Magic with 20 members of your family:  Priceless

Thanks, again, Grandma Connie for making it all possible!  :)

P.S.  I promise I'm not a scary stage-mom like I sound in Hannah's video!

Santa Came to Town

My kids were very lucky that Santa was in a good mood on Christmas Eve.  You see, when he checked his list, he couldn't find several of our kids names on the nice list.  Instead of taking the time to check his naughty list (he was on a tight schedule), he decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and assumed their names were simply hiding from him.  Knowing that this clan of kids was receiving a great present from their parents (the best ever, as a matter of fact), he decided to leave them just one gift each, so as not to spoil them too much (too late). Grandpa Russ and Grandma Leonore did spoil them with a karaoke machine (I will post video of Hannah in her debut performance later).  This has been much fun as well as the Dance, Dance, Revolution Santa left for Hannah.  Even Timothy, who refuses to ever sing or dance, has been known to cut loose on both the dance mat and the microphone.  Maybe, just maybe, our kids will learn to keep a beat and carry a tune!

Oh, I can hardly wait.  Tylenol, anyone?

She doesn't even own an Easy Bake Oven.  She has to borrow Hannah's.  Poor kid.

Probably the best gift of the day.  Well, maybe the second...

The best gift of the day was a bunch of letters taped to clues.  The kids had to solve the puzzle.  Getting closer...

Solved!  I'll post video of their reaction to this one too. 

Christmas Traditions

Aren't you so glad I'm stretching Christmas into the middle of January for you?

I have to admit, I'm the kind of gal that LOVES December 26th.  I get to take down all of the Christmas decorations and get my house back in or

der.  I have decided that next year I am going to limit the decorations to our tree, stockings and maybe an advent calendar for the kids.  I am NOT the type that loves decorating for Christmas.  All it does is cause me stress.

On that lovely note...

We don't have a lot of Christmas traditions in our household, but our favorite (of which I am lacking a picture) is turning out all of the lights in the house and reading a Christmas story each night under the lights of the Christmas tree.  The kids get to take turns picking a book out of the basket and I have to say I do like this one as it calms everyone down before bed!

At some point between Thanksgiving and Christmas, my kids insist we make a gingerbread house.  I think they don't like making the house as much as they love stuffing their faces with fists full of  candy!  I do love that I can pick up a "gingerbread house kit" at Costco and that I don't have to worry about doing any of it myself.  Presenting this year's version...

A full pound of Wonka candy.  Now that's something my kids get excited about!  Can I just ask what you're supposed to use Pixi-sticks for on a gingerbread house?!?

I guess Rachel came up with the answer...

This year the paste, I mean frosting, didn't work so well.  We had to keep readjusting the roof, which didn't work so well either.  We even tried to make some supports for it (as the box instructed--maybe Wonka knew about the faulty roof), but to no avail...

Apparently the kids didn't care too much.  I guess Rachel thought the rest of the candy belonged in the same place as the Pixi-sticks.  It certainly didn't make it onto the house!

The sad, pathetic, looks-like-it's-been-in-a-California-earthquake result...

Adding insult to injury, our hometeacher stopped by the next night with this beauty...

I'm sad to say it was completely homemade.  A project he completed with his 23 year-old son. Note the 4 Gene Simmons' ready to devour it at one fell swoop...

Since I know you haven't had enough, I am also crazy enough (simply because I feel the pressure from my darling husband) to make Christmas cookies with the kids.  This always makes for an interesting experience as it always makes a huge mess and induces fighting amongst my sweet children.  "I wanted that angel."  "How come she got the snowman?!" "Mom, he stole my sprinkles!"  Don't let this picture fool you...

Happy (Belated) New Year!

Boy, do I have some catching up to do!  It has been a crazy month+, but I have to admit it has been good too.  We have spent a lot of time together as a family and have been doing a lot of fun things.  Let's just put it this way, we still haven't sent out our Christmas cards.  Now that the New Year has passed too, it looks like everyone will be getting a Happy Valentines from us!