Just the Two of Us

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Friday was a blast... The day that Jaina was born, my mother-in-law bought tickets to the AC/DC concert in Dallas as a Christmas gift to Tom and me. We had great seats and my ears are still ringing! The intro video to the concert was hilarious and ended with a giant train with devil horns appearing behind the band. Too cool :-) They played a few new songs as well as a lot of their hits, including my favorite, "For Those About To Rock." This was the first time we have gone anywhere without any kids in a long time.... For a breastfeeding mama, it seemed like an eternity! I was worried that she wouldn't take a bottle, but Jaina did great.



Here are a couple pics from the concert:

Interesting

I took the Jung Typology test for giggles and grins and here is what it came up with:

Idealist Portrait of the Counselor (INFJ)

Counselors have an exceptionally strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others, and find great personal fulfillment interacting with people, nurturing their personal development, guiding them to realize their human potential. Although they are happy working at jobs (such as writing) that require solitude and close attention, Counselors do quite well with individuals or groups of people, provided that the personal interactions are not superficial, and that they find some quiet, private time every now and then to recharge their batteries. Counselors are both kind and positive in their handling of others; they are great listeners and seem naturally interested in helping people with their personal problems. Not usually visible leaders, Counselors prefer to work intensely with those close to them, especially on a one-to-one basis, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes.

Counselors are scarce, little more than one percent of the population, and can be hard to get to know, since they tend not to share their innermost thoughts or their powerful emotional reactions except with their loved ones. They are highly private people, with an unusually rich, complicated inner life. Friends or colleagues who have known them for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that Counselors are flighty or scattered; they value their integrity a great deal, but they have mysterious, intricately woven personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.

Counselors tend to work effectively in organizations. They value staff harmony and make every effort to help an organization run smoothly and pleasantly. They understand and use human systems creatively, and are good at consulting and cooperating with others. As employees or employers, Counselors are concerned with people's feelings and are able to act as a barometer of the feelings within the organization.

Blessed with vivid imaginations, Counselors are often seen as the most poetical of all the types, and in fact they use a lot of poetic imagery in their everyday language. Their great talent for language-both written and spoken-is usually directed toward communicating with people in a personalized way. Counselors are highly intuitive and can recognize another's emotions or intentions - good or evil - even before that person is aware of them. Counselors themselves can seldom tell how they came to read others' feelings so keenly. This extreme sensitivity to others could very well be the basis of the Counselor's remarkable ability to experience a whole array of psychic phenomena.

Mohandas Gandhi, Sidney Poitier, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Goodall, Emily Bronte, Sir Alec Guiness, Carl Jung, Mary Baker Eddy, Queen Noor are examples of the Counselor Idealist (INFJ).

I found the test here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

New Year, Renewed Hopes

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's Eve! I had a good one at home with the family. This year we bought a little party kit with hats, noisemakers, and leis which the kids enjoyed. All but Alex and Jaina were awake to ring in the new year! That means that Alex was bright eyed and bushy tailed at 7:45 am this morning. While I cannot say the same for myself, I was however awake as well :-)

I want to apologize for not being as active lately online as far as keeping in touch goes... The month of December kind of took me by suprise, keeping me constantly moving with last minute Christmas shopping, school plays, wrapping (which took lots of time considering we have 5 kids with at least 10-15 presents a piece), working on our house in Abilene (still not rented) and various illnesses and appointments. This is the first time I have been able to really sit down and write anything. The fact that our internet was down for a few days didn't help matters much either. I'm just glad that I wasn't in school and that I was taking a break from my Creative Memories business at the time otherwise that little outage would have hurt!

Next, a couple updates... Jaina had her 2 month checkup in December and weighed 13lbs! She is 95% for weight and 75% for height. Pretty good considering she's not bottle fed :-) The pediatrician told me not to worry about her weight, that it's pretty common for breastfed babies to be chunky monkeys now and then thin out around their first birthday.

Alex has been quite the handful considering he can run and climb, making it hard to keep him out of things and from jumping up and down on the sofa. He's actually fallen a couple of times but do you think that stops him? Heck no! He climbs right back up there and resumes his jumping. He's also talking a lot more. Right now his favorite word is "cool." Anything he likes he will point to and say, "Cool!" He's also eating everything that we eat with the exception of tomato sauces. His tummy doesn't like them for some reason. He will also point to Jaina and say "Sissy." If you ask him to love on her, he will lay his head next to her and sing, "Love" in his pretty little baby voice. It's too cute :-)

Myranda is doing great in Kindergarten. She is learning how to read and while she gets frustrated at times and wants to give up and go play instead of working on her words she eventually learns them. It's so neat to hear her randomly call out words that she recognizes when we are out and about. She has been getting a little mean streak lately but I think its a little phase that she is going through and she is just testing her limits. She has a best friend named Dennis that she plays with at school but don't dare call him her boyfriend or she will scold you LOL.

Andrea is doing very well at school. So far she has had all A's on her last couple report cards and competed in UIL Music Memory. Her team took 2nd place! At home she has been singing karaoke with us when we play Karaoke Revolution and Singstar and has been doing really good. She has an ear for music and I have noticed that she sometimes picks up harmony. She can belt out a Hannah Montana song with the best of them!

Samara is doing great in school too. She's been a straight A student all year. She competed in UIL Art Apreciation and her team took first place with Samara taking first place over all!!!! She also had the lead part in the school play as the grumpy elf (think Scrooge) and did wonderfully.

I am so proud of all of our children :-)

Christmas was great. The kiddos all enjoyed their presents as did the grownups. I was happy to expand my collection of Phantom of the Opera music boxes and Tom was happy to finally get that set of Cowboys floor mats for his Tracker that he had been wanting.

If you have read this far, thank you! LOL

I also want to let you all know that I am back to being a Creative Memories Consultant. Thanks to my wonderful upline, she explained my situation to home office and they were more than happy to reinstate me. If you want more info or anything just send me a message with your email...

Well, I guess that's it for now. I'm sure I left out a ton of stuff but for now that's all I could think of. Take care and Happy New Year!!!