Uh, Oops.

Well, I posted this on accident. Meant for it to got to my blog, but enjoy anyways!
Amy, Roger and the family.

At It Again!

Turd Furgeson is at it again! Yesterday while baking treats for the neighbors Max got into the flour and ate it, YUCK! It ended up all over him before I even knew what he was up to. He has also been tearing apart my tree since I put it up. I redid it on Friday and actually took the time to WIRE most of the ornaments onto the branches in hopes that it would last the next three weeks. Well, I thought I was doing well when I didn't see even one ornament out of place - UNTIL yesterday. Turd Furgeson managed to tear off at least 5 ornaments before I even realized what was going on. All my hard work for nothing!!! Here are the pictures to accompany said stories, and one more showing you his "personality" shining through! Little Turd!

Merry Christmas . . . just in case!

In case I get too busy (too lazy) to make up Christmas cards this year again, I wanted to wish my family a Merry Christmas from the Sivill family. Finally got an updated picture with ALL of us. Poor Isaac.

Hello from Spanaway Land here in WA

I realized today that I havent updated you all on ...well, ANYTHING! Alyssa Mae Eaton was born 12/21/08 8lbs 5oz. She is now 7 months old and all over the place! She is a wonderful child, so joyfull and full of wonder. I hope you all enjoy the pictures! I will pop in from time to time and update a little more often! LOL
Take care everyone! Hugs,
Beth

Got Back from Utah's Dixie

So we got back today from St. George (or Santa Jorge as Peggy puts it). We had a lot of fun hanging out with mom and dad. Unfortunately for Peggy, the kids are both sun risers and they LOVE their Aunt Peggy so much!! They just had to let her know it at 6:30 in the morning.

It wasn't too hot which was a plus. It was warm enough one day to take the kids down to downtown's splash pad. What a disappointment. The stupid thing only squirts water for like 30 seconds and then takes like 1 1/2 to 2 minutes to recharge itself. Lucky for us, there was a stream feature behind that that flows water constantly and the kids had a blast playing in that. They had so much fun in fact that they both pitched royal fits when we left.



We won't talk about the house models we looked at while we were down there because there is absolutely nothing to say about it so I won't.

Arrivederci Mi Familia

Okay- just in case you HAVEN'T heard...


I would like to announce that come May 27th, I will no longer be in this country! Nope, I will be teaching English as a Foreign Language through the use of the creative dramatics and theater... in ITALY!!!

I will get to travel all over the country, throughout the summer, one week staying in Rome and the next in Tuscany, the next Milan and so forth!

I will start my journey in a small coastal town called SAN REMO, which is a small coastal town that is very close to Genoa (look at the map).







I am so excited! I hope to see much more than just Italy when I am there, but all in all it's going to be a life-changing summer for me, and I can hardly wait!

Wow we suck -- Let's get on the ball!!

Ok so happy birthday to the following folks for March --

Madeline - turned 4 this year
Jack -- says he's old enough
Doug -- doesn't care how old he is
Emily -- sweet 16!! (now everyone off the roads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Love you guys!!

Introducing...

I want to introduce the family to my baby girl, Alysia Mae Eaton! I am 5 months pregnant and am doing well so far. Ryan and I are looking forward to December when we can welcome our child into the world. My official due date is December 27, 2008, so hopefully it will be around there! We ask for your prayers for a healthy baby and pregnancy.
Thank you Whitney for sharing your wisdom and encouragement with me! It really helps!
Take care everyone!
Beth

So with no one posting I will . . .

post a random thought for the day! I just realized that Maddy, Isaac, Jack, Amy Jo, Brad, Mom and Dad and me are all going to be at Disneyland 3 weeks from now!!!! Yay!!

Here are some fairly recent pics of the kids:


Go Cougs!

























Be dilligent young gaming Padawan:

Back again

Wonderful changes to this blog! I really like it! Nothing really new to report on this end of the world....Chirstmas was uneventful around our house. Thanksgiving went well. We are totally remodeling our bathroom - gutted it and installing all new stuff from the floor up (including the floor!). Its the only bathroom in our house and it should be all worth it. I can provide some pics later.

I have gotten to know Whit and Peggy a little and I would really like to get to know the rest of my extended family, so anyone who would be interested I would love to hear from you! :)

Take care everyone!
Beth (Ted's Daughter)

It's A Deming Family Christmas 2007

MY PROMISE TO YOU

Okay family- i promise to all of you that with the changes of the look of this here blog that i will also do a better job writing to all of you-- including new anecdotes and what nots about my life regularly. i think all of you should do the same.

mom and dad... i think you should get a brand new blog and start including pictures and things about your new theater group.

everyone else- you should continue to write on your blogs too.

that is all.

love and miss you every day!

Halloween at the Sivills

Um so blogger in all its finickiness is NOT letting me post pictures. It does this sometimes where it will not let me view or make comments to blog posts. I think it has to do with the fact that these functions are considered pop-ups and blogger and my computer do not agree about the usefulness of pop-ups. So instead I will update the kid's individual websites with the few pics I have of this year's Halloween.

http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/m/madelinecrackers/

&

https://www.babiesonline.com/babies/b/babybean2/

A Day in the Life of a Wheeling Momma - Part One - The Awakening

Jack's alarm goes off at 6am and even though every rational part of my brain tells me I should get up with him because that will give me an extra hour or so before the kids get up, I pull the cover back up to my chin and fall to sleep. I justify this by saying to myself. I need to make up for the 20 minutes it took me to get the baby back to sleep this morning at 4am. Despite my best efforts to go back to sleep, Jack comes back in at 6:45 to kiss me goodbye which sets off a lovely chain of events. This wakes up Isaac who now thinks its time to play, and Jack's walking out the front door wakes Madeline up. So we're a merry bunch in my bed at 7am - bright and early. Thank heaven that either Dora the Explorer or Go Diego Go! comes on right about then because I can have Isaac amused by Maddy and Maddy amused by cartoons (hey Dora's educational - she teaches Maddy to speak Spanish) while I pull the covers back up to my chin and doze for another lovely 20 minutes.

By the time I'm back to conciousness again, Dora's over and Maddy wants breakfast and Isaac is back to sleep. This next part is always interesting. Maddy can hop out of bed no problem but I usually have to roll to the side to push myself up, but the baby is laying right next to me. The dilemma - do I push him over so I can sit up with the added consequence of waking him up or do I somehow manage to grab the edge of the nightstand with one hand, wedge my elbow between my body and the baby, attempt to sit up with all the grace of a beached whale, also with the possibility that I would wake the baby because of my awkward shuffling? I opt for the awkward shuffling since I know for sure shoving him over would wake him up, and luckily this morning the bassinette is sitting right next to the bed. So I manage to get halfway up when an inadvertant loss of balance swipes my elbow across poor Isaac's head. He stirs as I hold my breath. His eyes flutter open, look up at me, and as his eyes slowly close again he gets a small dimpled smile on his face. First obsticale to getting out of bed accomplished.

I face my second obsticale - the wheelchair. In it of itself, the object looks innocent enough. But lurking just below the surface is a cacaphony of noise-making, baby-waking potential. This, I feel, is one of the Quickie Titanium's fatal flaws. Every adjustment of weight, every turn of the wheel, every push extracts a veritable symphony of cracks, squeaks and mettalic pops. And the overature to all this is the wheeze and snap of the air cushion. I manage to get in without too much noise, although the baby does stir a bit. Turning the chair around (crack, crack, pop) and then heading to the door to get out (push - squeak, push - squeak, door open, turn - pop, crack) and I'm out. Success! Baby is asleep.

I sigh as I survey my house for the day. The good idea I had last night of tuning out the 2 1/2 year old while I tried to work on my online store doesn't seem like such a good idea this morning. Clothes, toys and food are scattered all over. I don't think any obstical course at the Para-lympics can match the gauntlet created by a 2 year old. I already know what her bedroom looks like. When I went in to check on her before I went to bed last night, my off-roading over her bedroom floor resulted in a decapitated doll from McDonalds (not a huge loss), a page being torn out of her Clifford book and a near-beaning as I roll over a Mr. Pototo Head body part. It is so tempting right now to spend the rest of the day on the computer but I know that if I let Madeline run amok again today that my house will look worse, I won't be able to get to her fast enough if she tries to break something, and I will feel worse. My grandma-grippers are for some reason in the kid's bathroom and as I'm retrieving them from under a pile of laundry, I hear Isaac screaming for me in the bedroom.

Next time - The Cleansing

Jack's Mom

Kenny, Manee and Jack in Thailand

As most of you know, Jack's mom, Manee Sivill, passed away on Thursday, September 6th at around 10:45pm in Las Vegas.

I don't have many memories of Manee. We didn't see her much, but I do remember the first time I met her. It was a few months after Jack and I were married and I remember that she came up to me and gave me a huge hug. She always called me 'honey' and was always so concerned if I was doing ok. She and Jack hugged and hugged during that time because it had been a long time since Jack had seen her. The next time and I believe the last was right after Madeline was born. She was so excited to meet Maddy. I remember she laid Maddy in her lap with her hands cradling Maddy's head and talked to her softly in Thai. She kept saying how beautiful she was. I could tell that she loved her grandchildren very much.

Manee had been sick with kidney failure for a while but at the beginning of August, she collapsed and had been comatose. On Thursday afternoon, we had gotten a call from Laura, Jack's sister, saying the doctor's were saying it would be best that she be taken off life support the next day, on Friday night. Thursday evening Jack and I were hurrying to get things ready to go to down to Las Vegas first thing the next morning to be with her. I guess she decided she'd rather go her own way because she passed away at the hospital with Laura at her side that night.

The funeral was on September 11th in LV. It was a Buddhist ceremony. Buddhists (as far as my limited knowledge gathered) believe that the spirit hangs around the body for seven days, not really knowing its passed on. The monks, along with help from the immediate family members, say (or rather chant) prayers letting the spirit know that it is time to go to the next life, whether that be heaven or to their next reincarnation.

When the monks arrived at the funeral home they set up a table near Manee's casket with a statue of Buddha. They attached a piece of string from the Buddha to Manee, representing her ties to life. Then the head monk got up and explained about the ceremony and the prayers they were going to chant. After the prayers had been said they brought with them special straw like flowers. I missed what they represented (as I was wrangling a screaming, exhausted Madeline in and out of the chapel through the whole thing) but everyone in the chapel was invited to come and receive three of these from Laura and place in them over Manee. Then you could wish her a final goodbye.

After that was complete, the men in the family including Jack's brothers Kenny and Willy, step-brother Jim and brother-in-law Juan escorted the casket out of the chapel and down to the crematorium at the far end of the mortuary parking lot, while Laura carried the string. Once inside, another prayer was chanted and the lead monk cut the string with some scissors, representing Manee's ties to life being severed now. With the help of the mortuary staff, they placed her casket in the kiln and then together, Kenny, Jack, Laura and Willy all pressed the firing button together, which is the custom.

Being christian, it was interesting to see a different religion's perspective on death and I appreciated the simple beauty and symbolism of the ceremony. Manee looked very peaceful in her casket and the staff at the mortuary did an excellent job of making her look so. They had even painted her nails red like she used to like them. Her spirit was strongly felt there, especially at the end when all her children had to commit her body to fire. They grieved the most strongly then, and I think she was trying her best to comfort them.

In remembrance - Manee Sivill - 1944 to 2007

HAPPY B-DAY FRHITNEY!!!!

hey dude- i love you. i love your babies. i love that you are my cripply.

please go HERE to see a more in-depth coverage on your birthday wishes.

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDEE!!!!

Happy Birthday, Whitney!

We want you to know we love you and your little goombas. Even your big Goomba, Jack! We are so glad he joined our family. You are an absolutely amazing mother and I don't think there is one person in our family who is not in awe of you and all that you are able to accomplish. Rock on, Girlfriend!
So make sure you take a minute to enjoy this the 31st year of your life. You're awesome!

The past re-invented

Today I was organizing my closet when I came across the box I keep my wedding dress in. Out of curiosity to see how well it had been preserved, I pulled it out. It has yellowed some, that was to be expected, but amazingly it was still in pretty good condition.
Emily tried it on and it fit perfectly. I have to tell you, it sure was something to see. She kept saying, "Oh my gosh, Mom, You must have been a stick!". Yes, yes, I did have a figure once. LOL.
Of course, Emily would never consider wearing my wedding dress when she got married. It was, after all, yellow. But also because she said it was "way girlie". She wants to wear something a little more sophisticated. And that is just fine.
This whole adventure got me to thinking about how fast time flies by, and also, how it will not be too long before she will be leaving our home and moving on to her new life and family. She graduates in four years. Holy Crud!
So, we will enjoy the now, not worry about the fast approaching future and have a lot of fun reminiscing, telling old stories of when Mom and Dad were young, skinny, and bright eyed and bushy tailed. Even that old story about the whiplash kiss (Don's first kiss to me) was retold. For the 50th time.

Happy Late Birthday, Peggy!

Oh my gosh....we have no excuse. But we love you Peggy! You are the awesome-est, coolest, goofiest, dramtic-est, funnest, adventure-est, hippest sister/aunt that we know. Long live the Pegster!

Love,

Don, Susan, Ben, Jared, Sam and Emily.
(Your adoring fans)

Happy Birthday!

Hey Peggy!! Glad Whit said something! That way I have a chance to say HAPPY HAPPY Birthday!!!! You and Whitney have been really great to me and I have come to really love you both! All the happiness in the world to you on this, your birthday!
LOVE and HUGS!
Beth