Just when I thought I was ready, ... BLAM!

So I thought I had gone through everything I needed to get situated for our upcoming school semester scheduled to start on January 6th. Yeah, that's a week away! Little did I realize a process that still had to be gone through before any of our financial aid money will come through. I figured I would get a letter, an email, or SOMETHING that would tell me if I was on Financial Aid Probation or something like that because I didn't do well in two of my four classes.
Oh, no.
I found out because a friend of mine told to double check my Financial Aid status to make sure I was good to go for next week. (I guess that would have been an obvious thing to do, but I didn't think about it!)
Turns out, I'm not so much, ready. I have to go through an Appeals process with the Financial Aid office at the School before I will POSSIBLY qualify for financial aid...



Wait... What?! STOP, Rewind and Repeat...

"Before I Possibly qualify..."? You mean I may not qualify?!...

I know last semester sucked, but I thought I could still make up for it and do better next semester. Oh dear, oh dear!

Well, here I am after Midnight still putting together the information I need for the appeals process. I must show what circumstances that led me to do poorly this semester (with 3rd Party Documentation) and why I will be able to successfully complete all future semesters. I think I have put together a pretty good letter outlining all of the fun we had this fall. Plus, it was my FIRST semester back to college after a long break and with 5 little children at home. I feel that I have learned many lessons (see those in a previous post...) and am ready to continue with my school successfully. Especially because I DO NOT want to have to repeat classes again! And, yes, I want to earn my RN ... before I die!
Here's to hoping I can get it all taken care of and have our Financial Aid disbursements come sooner rather than later!

Have a good night y'all!!

My Gav Man is Three Years Old Today!

Today is is Gavin's third Birthday. We got a cake and invited a couple friends over for dinner and cake and ice cream. Gavin loves Spaghetti, so we had our version of Chicken Parmesian. Then we sang Happy Birthday and let all the kids have at the cupcake cake.
We forgot about the ice cream until Uncle Aaron stopped by with his kids and then we all enjoyed another sugar rush. We took some great, messy pictures, but the camera has died, so I'll post pictures later.

Just wanted to say Happy 3rd Birthday Gavin David Tilton!!

...And the results are!...

I got all A's! Yeah!!!

Well, I guess not all A's. I got an A in my Nutrition 1020 class and an A in my Psychology 1100 class. Next semester, I am redoing the Math 1010 class and Biology 1010 class. I had already chalked up my other courses as a learning experience.
The lesson's learned:
1- Do not EVER take a Math class strictly online. Especially if it is your first Math class since High School. Not a good idea!
2- When a class says "Self-Paced" truly make sure you pace yourself. In other words; do the work throughout the entire semester instead of letting it get further and further behind so you get stuck doing an entire semester's work in a few weeks... or less. (They tell you that at the beginning of the course, but with 5 kids and a bunch of life happening, it's easy to continually put it off.)
3- I can really do this! Regardless of what's going on, so long as I suck it up, do the work, and don't let anyone or anything make me think I can't finish. I KNOW I CAN!!!
Good lessons in my book!

So, school for the kids starts on January 4th and school at UVU starts on January 6th. I do have quite a load of classes next semester, but I am confident that I can do it. I am retaking my Math (not online) and Biology (not procrastinated) along with First Aid, Swimming, and English 1010...
Yes, I said English 1010. When I was an English major at college originally, I took upper division classes. I never had to take what used to be English 101. Well, those upper-division courses do not count towards the English 1010 prerequisite for the Nursing program at UVU. So here I am, a published writer and I am taking a Beginning Writing Class. Oh, well! I still think it's going to be fun, and probably not too hard for me! We'll see.

Drumroll Please........Christmas!! It's Finally here!

The children all woke up sooner than Mom and Dad did. ... Well, kind of. We heard them awake and told them to steer clear of the gifts until we got out of bed. You parents out there know that Mom and Dad get to stay up and help out Santa sometimes. So we were seriously tired! We finally decided to drag ourselves out of bed at the late hour of 8am, but we had to keep the kids at bay while we waited for Grandma and Grandpa to join us from next door. It was so hard for them to wait! But they did. They're good little people! They had; however, managed to have gone through some of their stockings. We figured that was OK, and they did try to put everything back in order before we came downstairs from our room.



We started out our Christmas Morning Merriment in an organized fashion...



But as things progressed...



We slowly disintegrated into total and absolute madness!...



The end result being that you can barely recognize our furniture, let alone our entire front room.
Is this a garbage heap, or the Tilton's house on Christmas Morning? I'm not entirely sure. You tell me...



Either way, Christmas this year was absolutely Spectacular! Thank you to those of you who helped us make this day amazing for our little ones. We love you all and hope you had a great Christmas day as well.
And now, it is with mixed emotions that I get to say, It's all over. Merry Christmas!
Next up, Gavin's Birthday in three days. Yeah!!

Christmas Eve 2009

This year, we did a big dinner for Christmas Eve with our "little" family and my Mom and Dad. We had a turkey and most of the fixin'. It was yummy and the lot of us scarfed it down like we usually do!
Following the filling of our tummies, it was time for the kids to open one of their presents. This is an annual tradition, and one that I intend to keep living on forever. Just because it's fun. The kids always hope they get to pick out which present they get to open, but, hmmmmm, not so much. Mom or Dad, or even one of the Grandparents gives them out. The older kiddoes are starting to figure out that it's ALWAYS new PJ's. Even though we've got pictures of the whole night, we'll skip each one of them unwrapping and go straight to the "after" photos! ...And here they are! The Tilton Children adorned in their Holiday Evening Attire...



Now, off to bed they go! Awaiting Santa Claus's visit to our humble household. One by one they drift off and undoubtedly dream of the wonderful things they hope to get upon awakening tomorrow. Gavin took the longest to get to bed...as usual, but we finally made it. Now, here's our blessed little tree on Christmas Eve night, before we all "settled our brains for a long winter's nap!"



Merry Christmas Eve Everyone!

Almost Christmas...

So we're on the downward slide towards Christmas Morning. Yeah!!! We have a few presents under the Christmas tree from my brother and sister-in-law for the kiddoes, but even those aren't safe right now. Peyton and Gavin will probably have them unwrapped sooner rather than later. Ahh, there goes one of them down the stairs. PeyPey is a pretty good throw. I hope there isn't anything breakable or fragile inside that package for Mikayla. If so, it's probably not still intact.
My other grand adventure for today is to continue with the various baking Mom and I have been doing. Yesterday, we did Caramel Krispy Treats and Haystacks. Then Mom did some oatmeal cookies with a variety of chips. (Variety because of some little helpers at her house who emptied all her bags of different types of baking chips into one container...at least those chips they hadn't already eaten!) Today, I baked a bunch of Snickerdoodles, and made my Grandma Stillman's Smitty's Christmas cookies. I had also made our Yummy meat rub in advance and have some of it jarred up to go out with treat plates too. I am going to include the recipe so everyone can enjoy this FANTASTIC Meat rub.
Mom and I still have Pretzels and Peppermint Sticks to dip into three different types of Chocolate and Caramel. We are also planning on Pumpkin Bread, and some Spritz cookies. And then, I think that's all we're doing for our treat plates. I think that's enough. Oh, but Matt just suggested I get some square caramels and dip them in chocolate too. I asked him if he had a specific treat he wanted and, well, that's what I get for asking.
Here's to a late night of baking and wrapping... Yes I get to help Santa wrap some gifts tonight, so we'll probably be up quite late. Fun Fun!! Merry Merry!! See ya soon!

Family Pictures, check. Dive bomb off the stairs...Wait, is that part of Christmas?

The day I decided to take Family Pics was quite an eventful one. Not only did the day start out hectic and stressful, but it ended the same way. I got us all Red shirts to wear and made each of us an off white scarf. Ya know, to be cute and matching and all that stuff. I even made scarves for both of the Doggies! In our haste to get ready, my darling, clumsy husband tried putting his jeans on while approaching the top of the stairs and fell face first all the way into the kitchen. OWWW! He not only knotted up his head, he really got his shoulder good. He was in Tons of pain, but we had to do pictures. We had all the kids ready and everything! Matt was really working to gain his composure...



So, we got it together and ended up taking some pretty good pictures. I have been trying to decide which one to use for our Christmas Card...if I ever get them out! I have two favorites. One that you can see our dogs in and one that you cannot. I think the family looks much better in the one without, but it's our family to a T in the one with the dogs. What do you think?...

With the Dogs!



Or Without the Dogs!



Either way, at least we got some Photos taken this year that were a little more formal than last year's. If you remember, Matt wore pajama pants, so yeah. Not formal at all!
After the fun that was our family photo shoot, Matt went to the Hospital and was diagnosed with a severe contusion. Though they said there may be a break but all the swelling makes it hard to tell. He has a sling for his arm and is supposed to be VERY careful because the injury could get worse. This is what his shoulder looked like after some ice at the hospital...



So ends our adventurous Family Picture Extravaganza. Did any of you have as much fun with Family Photos as we did?
Only one more Week until Christmas. Boy, we're Sooo not ready!

Christmas Tree up, Check...

We finally got our Christmas tree up and we think it looks Great! The only problem we are having is that Peyton keeps taking the ornaments off of it. He pulls them off and takes the top off of them as well so I have to find each piece of the ornament before putting them back up on the tree. I think I have finally decided to leave the lower ornaments off of the tree until Christmas Eve night, at least the one's PeyPey has taken off. Then I'll put them back on for Christmas Morning since the kids will be too busy with the festivities of the day to pay attention to the Christmas tree ornaments. Only 14 days left...Are you ready?!?

Who Let the Dogs In?...Oh, yeah. We did!

Well, after checking everywhere, posting lost signs online and around the neighborhood, and checking the shelter everyday, we have come to terms with the fact that Neiko found herself a new home. We are sad to have lost her. She was a sweet dog!
But us being a fast movin' crazy household, we have already found another Doggy to be Butch's best friend, ANGEL...



We found Angel on KSL. Someone was having to get rid of her and she was within days of going to the pound. We are so glad to add her to our Insane family and keep her out of the Animal Shelter. Butch and Angel are getting along GREAT! In fact, they keep kissing each other. I think it's super sweet and the beginning of a Beautiful Friendship.



Angel is 8 months old so she still has some growing to do. She is already nearly as big as Butch, and they are very similar in coloring. She is a bit more Grey and some of her spots are bigger, but they look quite similar. She is 1/2 Great Dane, 1/4 Pit Bull and 1/4 Rottweiler. We can definitely tell she's a Great Dane and you can see the Pit in her, but we haven't been able to see the Rotty in her yet. We'll see as she gets older.
Well, now that our household is once again feeling really full and complete, it's time to take our Family Christmas Pictures. We should be doing that within the next couple of days. We'll see if we can get all of us to hold still to get a picture, including the Dogs!

Gotta love that toddler Independence!

Well, as any of you parents out there know, young ones quickly move into a stage wherein they CAN and WILL do everything on their own. My little Gavin and Peyton are there. Well, more like Gavin is there and Peyton has recently begun to follow him around and do everything his big Brother is doing...


Here's my Little Men exerting there independence!

They each got dressed themselves and of course, Gavin put on Peyton's clothes and Peyton put on Mikayla's PJ's top and his cousin Matthew's slippers. So then Matthew was really excited to get in on the fun as well.




Then, in a picture taken later, you can see that Peyton likes to choose where and when he lays his precious head. In this instance, Butch appears to have been chosen as the designated pillow...


Even though these times can get a bit frustrating, it does make me melancholy to think that these wonderful little people are going to grow up Sooo fast. Then they'll become even more independent, and a bit crazy too, I am thinking. We haven't made it to puberty with any of our kids yet, but I know we're close. Mariah wants to be so grown up already. I miss everyone being tiny babies. Don't get me wrong, I love them at the ages and stages they are right now. I just do love that little baby smell right after a bath, and how they just will lay with you and snuggle forever. My kids are all still really physically affectionate so we do get snuggles a ton. I love it!
OK...
Now that I've had my moment, it's time to get my last little person off to bed. Good night!