Quick Update

I am in the middle of editing all of our Christmas photos so that I can share them here. I have lots of cute stories as you can imagine. We had a wonderful holiday with Grandma and Grandpa! So, keep your eye out for that post in the next day or two!



What I'm really here to tell you is that I'm moving the design aspects of this blog to its very own blog so that this blog can get back to its original purpose - OUR FAMILY. This blog will focus primarily on our family, what we're up to, photos, digital layouts and so forth. The majority of the posts related to my new design venture will take place on my new blog - Designs By Amy Melniczenko!!! I will warn you that it is still a work in progress, getting the blog the way that I want it but it is ready enough for company!!! So, if you're interested in my designing (and by the way, lots of new, exiting stuff coming on that front so keep an eye out!), check out the design blog.


In addition, as most of you know, I'm pretty obsessed with reading and have been sharing a lot of stuff here on Melniczenko Musings about books and reading. Well, all my reading and book posts also have a new home at my book blog - Amy's Book Obsession! This is where I'll be sharing what I'm reading, reviews of things I've read, updates on book challenges I'm participating in and so forth. I've been doing some really fun book challenges and getting involved in some fantastic book groups over at Goodreads so I'll be sharing a lot of book/reading related 'stuff' on the new blog! I am still building the blog so it will be more and more filled out as time goes on but I wanted to make you aware of it so that you can follow me over there if you're interested in books and reading posts!

Well, that is it for tonight! I'll have a nice big Christmas post coming soon as well as news about what we've been up to and what we've got planned for 2010!

Layout Musings

Just a few recent layouts since they also help tell the story of what we've been up to ...

November/early December Musings

Still on my catching up spree ... I don't have photos so this won't be a long, involved post. So, bear with me.

We stayed in St. Louis this year for Thanksgiving. We were sad to not be with our families but we had a nice, low-key holiday. We stayed in our pajamas all day (the best part of not going anywhere or having guests). Paul made us a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner! My husband is quite the cook! We ate lots of yummy food and just enjoyed one another's company! I napped periodically because I wanted to be out of the house at 3 a.m. to go do some Black Friday shopping before heading to work at 8 a.m. (by the way, note to self: don't plan to work after getting up at 3 a.m. to shop!). I headed out dark and early and hit Kohls, Target AND Wal-mart before heading into the office. I got almost everything I wanted to get from the Black Friday sales so I was happy with how it ended up! Since we were able to leave the office early, I was able to head home and nap that afternoon so it wasn't all bad!


Early December was going along fairly quietly until the week before last when I got SICK. Not just a cold or the flu but sicker than I've been in ages. Going to the Emergency Room sick. Having a CAT scan sick. It was horrible. I woke up at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday morning feeling VERY sick. I thought it was the stomach flu or that maybe I'd eaten something bad. So, I soldiered through, got ready for work and headed to the office. I ended up having to stop several times on the way to work to find a restroom which is never a good sign but I really didn't want to use any PTO days if I could help it. After a few hours at work, I told my boss that I just couldn't stay. I wasn't getting much accomplished and just felt wretched. The stomach pains were severe - it felt almost like I was being stabbed in the stomach. Terrible. So, I headed home and slept for over 24 hours straight. The only time I wasn't in pain was when I was sleeping. Then, I began to have some other symptoms that were not normal and Paul convinced me to call my doctor. She immediately got on the phone and told me to head to the Emergency Room right away. So, off we headed to the ER. Eight hours later, they discovered I had a badly infected colon and that the infection had caused my colon to be 3 times its normal size. They wanted to hospitalize me but I begged the ER doctor to let me go home and promised to come back if anything happened. They gave me heavy duty antibiotics, spasm medication to help with the sharp pains I was experiencing and lots of pain medication!  I spent the next 4-5 days taking pain medication, sleeping and trying to get through it. It wasn't until Tuesday of this week that I began to feel remotely better. I'm now back to normal and officially BEHIND SCHEDULE for Christmas. I just don't think I'll get the Christmas cards done so I'm sorry if you don't get one from us this year! We are only finishing up the tree today. Our decorations are woefully behind schedule. We've yet to make cookies or the gingerbread house - maybe tomorrow. And, although my shopping is 95% done, I have yet to wrap a single present! YIKES. So, Christmas is going to be a bit more low-key than I'd planned. We'll get it done but we're just trying to enjoy doing what we can with the kids and looking forward to Grandma and Grandpa's visit next week! I'll be back with photos as we get some of our holiday stuff done ... Hope you are having a happy holiday season!

Halloween Musings

Better late than never ... here are the Melniczenko twins on HALLOWEEN! They were so cute (and sooooo excited). They are really 'getting' everything holiday related this year. It's so much fun!

First up, Meighan got to wear some of Mommy's makeup and boy, did she think she was hot stuff! We put on some blush, some sparkly eye shadown, some mascara AND lipstick! She was over the moon excited!

Alex's costume was a bit easier but he had a blast buzzing around as Buzz Lightyear with his jet pack!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, we headed out for some trick-or-treating! There were many surprises awaiting us ...

 

Surprise #1 - The Big Bad Wolf joined in the fun!!!!!!  Grandpa went off to the side to get his own costume on and jumped out at us. The kids stood there staring for a minute, not sure what to think, when suddenly they screamed 'GRANDPA - that's YOU, not the Big Bad Wolf' and spent the rest of the night telling everyone we met that that wasn't really the Big Bad Wolf but really just Grandpa! So funny!

 

The kids with our neighbor Nathan who they adore and think is the best little guy ever! He was so adorable as SpongeBob! By the way, Nathan was not a fan of the Big Bad Wolf. He cried if the Big Bad Wolf came too close ... making the adults fall over with giggles!

 

The Big Bad Wolf snuck up on Little Red Riding Hood and Buzz Lightyear ALL night! 

 

Some of our neighbors get together and put this big display up every year - lots of fun stuff for the kids to check out! 

 

After getting home, the kids decided they wanted to try on the Big Bad Wolf persona for a bit! Hilarity ensued for us all  ...

 

 

At this point in the evening, me and Paul snuck out to have a nice, romantic dinner with no kids! Our first in ages! Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa who took the kids to McDonald's and got them into bed for us! And thanks to Stephanie who gave us a very nice gift card so we could have some yummy food ... It was a wonderful night out - I've missed just hanging with the hubby at a restaurant, talking and enjoying each other's company. 

Worst Blogger EVER = ME!

I've been such a terrible blogger for the last few months. I'm SO sorry! Please forgive me and know that I am really going to try to do better in the new year. I have been bad about taking photos and about blogging. I've just been focused on other things - nothing special, just life. So, this post will be a BIG update to get us all up to date and make my family stop talking about how they keep checking my blog and there is nothing here!!!! And then I'll try to post AT LEAST once a week in the future. I will still be doing an occasional book review so ignore those if you're just interested in the family stuff or enjoy them if you're a big reader like me! 

Okay, let's see ... where to start ... if memory serves, I haven't done a family post since October sometime so, we'll start with some photos from September and October. Yikes.

September was a pretty low-key month for us. We didn't do a lot of fun, exciting stuff. BUT, it was the month of TOY STORY for Alex. He became obsessed. Watching it as much as we'd allow him to, pretending to be Buzz Lighyear, using other toys as a Buzz Lightyear, etc. And, for the FIRST time, he asked Grandma and Grandpa on the phone for something - a BUZZ. (Meighan tends to make requests more than Alex so it was kind of cute to hear him actually ASK for a gift LOL) So, soon after (thank you, Grandma and Grandpa), 2 lovely packages arrived for our two little guys ... as you can tell from the photos below, they were very excited!

 Meighan was beyond excited to have a laptop of her own to play with and Alex has not been without Buzz since the moment he opened the gift!

And, on to October ... October was ALL about Halloween. Deciding what they wanted to be this year, getting them costumes, etc. As you can imagine, Alex came up with his costume fairly easily - BUZZ LIGHTYEAR. Meighan finally decided on Little Red Riding Hood. Alex's costume ended up being store bought but Meighan gave my mom the opportunity to whip up a beautiful hand-made costume! And, boy, did she deliver! The costume was amazing! Meighan loved it and was so excited the day that it arrived. And there were a couple of surprises for both kids so everyone had a blast Here are a few photos from the day that it arrived in the mail -

 Is that not the most beautiful Little Red Riding Hood you've ever seen? Well, I'm a bit biased but I think she's without a doubt the most beautiful girl I've ever seen!

And, to make Halloween even better, Grandma and Grandpa came out to visit and go trick or treating with us! (And give me and Paul a chance to go to dinner ALONE on Halloween night! - THANK YOU).  More on that in the next post! I'm going to give Halloween its very own POST!

Thanks for sticking in there with me even if I'm the worst blogger EVER! I'll work on being better!