"We're through!!!! And I'M keeping the stamps!!!"

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far far away....

It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spouses, striking
from a hidden store of hatred, have won
their first victory against
the evil marriage wrecker, World of Warcraft.
During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the couple's
ultimate weapon, the MARRIAGE RETREAT, an armored cabin in the woods
with enough massage oil, whipped cream, and Kenny G
to destroy an entire evil Arena team.
Pursued by World of Warcraft's
sinister intentions, Princess
Wife races home aboard her
Vespa, custodian of the
precious plan that will save her
marriage and restore
freedom to the galaxy of her home….

Unfortunately, wife found her husband playing World of Warcraft instead of packing for the marriage retreat and their union was over.
Just kidding : )
I once ordered denim squares on Ebay and they arrived in this box. It was fascinating. She had paid for postage with dozens of highly collectible stamps! How could she commit such a sacrilege just to mail me some denim squares? Why? What was the thought process? Were these her stamps or did she raid her husband's stamp collection? Or was it a star wars collection? I have thought about this a lot. I love this box. My friends James and Tammy once suggested that maybe she and said hubby were -ahem- no longer together, and in revenge she bitterly used his beloved (and as I said before, highly collectible) star wars stamps on this box. Which is why I wrote the above scenario. I thought about throwing away the box, but it's not time yet. The mystery lives on : ) I still love the box. Yes, Melanie is a dork because she loves a box. It was the real prize, not the squares : ) Maybe I will save it all my life, and my grandkids will wonder at what point in her life did Grandma have a mental breakdown to save an empty box for 60+ years? (Wait'll they get a hold of my journal, that will really blow their minds : )

May the divorce be with you.

My new skinnymelanie blog!

Hola everyone!
I have started a new blog. Ok, I started right after Joe got his weight loss surgery, and then I promptly abandoned it. ANYWAYS....I was all set to blog like crazy when I was working out before, and then I kept on working out and didn't blog about it! But that's ok. Given the choice between blogging and being amazingly hot, I'll pick amazingly hot, hehe. So, its been 6 weeks since Daisy was born, and I am ready to hit the gym again, starting tomorrow! Heck yeaaaaah! I want to lose 40 pounds by this summer. Our family is going to Mount Rushmore, and so of course naturally Mount Rushmore makes me want to get fit. Didn't make any sense? Yeah, I was just kidding. But it would be nice to have at least one vacation photo of me that looks good. We want to go in June, so if I lose 7 pounds a month I can reach my goal weight. One thing I have heard motivates people on their weight loss endeavors is to start journaling about it. Thus, my new blog. Skinnymelanie. As in, skinnymelanie.blogspot.com So, if y'all want to hear my weekly humiliating confessions as to how much I really weigh, and all my fascinating thoughts on the gym, then check it out! Otherwise, it will be just for me and I will get hot. Hopefully I will achieve hotness ANYWAY, but this way we can all cheer my pudge-ness out the door! Bye pudge! Never come back! We WONT miss you!
Alright, 2010 is skinnymelanie's year, baby!
Ciao for now!
Melanie

Kurt's Christmas Program

So, having our first kid in school has been very crazy, a lot to get used to! But I LOVE all the firsts! Well, most of them. I wasn't too crazy about the first time one of our kids got hurt at school (fell off the jungle gym) and having our first encounters with ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN words and I CANT BELIEVE A KINDERGARTNER KNOWS THAT (and is telling that to my child) were both firsts I could have done without. So I LOVE most of the firsts!

I loved Kurt's first Christmas program.

The snazzy outfit we got him! Kurt walking around the whole week before the program practicing his songs he was learning. Watching him sing those songs that night! One of my most favorite memories, EVER.

Joe was out of town (thank goodness for camcorders!)

so Grandma and Grandpa Segalla came down to help

me and the kids get to the school.

Otherwise, it wasn't going to happen!

Thank you guys soooo much!

We love you!

Yes, very blurry : )

Let's play Where's Kurt, can you spot him?

Sweet angels : )

AAAAGGGHHHH!!! Look at this kid!!!

What a hottie!!!

Christmas 2009

Christmas this year was really fun!

We did a ton of stuff!

As always, a ton of pics coming up!

On December 19th we had our Segalla family Christmas exchange. We went to see the lights after it was over, but there were so many people I couldn't even take the time to snap any photos! And a lot of my pics of the family Xmas exchange turned out blurry, but here are the ones I got.

This is Joe with our niece Megan. She loves her Uncle Joe, and he LOVES his Megan! Her mom better watch out, I know Joe wants to sneak her home one day!

Awww...baby Daisy with Aunt Misty, who moved to Modesto today!

We miss her a ton already!
Presents!!! Whoohoo!!!

This is what Suzy made me, isn't it awesome! Misty made me something cool too, so I will post that soon. I have such crafty sisters in law!

Magic and Mayhem!

CHRISTMAS EVE 2009

This year on Christmas Eve we went sledding! We went sledding last year at Christmas too, I think we are going to make it an annual tradition! The boys looked so cute in their snow clothes!

I only got pics of the boys playing on a mountain of dirty snow, and not actually sledding, as I had to stay in the car with Daisy! Oh well, next year!

Doesn't Kurt look ready to go snowboarding?

Our sweet little Cleve, he LOVES the snow, and HATES snowball fights!

Later when we got home from sledding we decorated gingerbread houses! Other than actually baking the houses with my mom and making the frosting, my boys did these all on their own! Aren't they so creative?!

Of course Cleve thinks EATING the houses are the best part!

Such a cute decoration for the house!

CHRISTMAS!!!

I thought our decorations looked really cute this year!

Now its time to start the countdown to decorating next year!!!

Christmas morning! For some reason I had my camera on some weird setting and the pictures turned out really blurry! Oh well, there are my (blurry) kids on Christmas day!

Blurry perfection! I love my sweet family,

even blurry they are the most beautiful kids in the world!

Losing interest in the photos....."Come on mom, PRESENTS ALREADY!!!"

Stockings, whoohoo!!!

"TIC-TACS!!! HECK YEAH!!!!!!"

(Tic tacs are Cleve's favorite treat from the store)

First year that Kyle really, really got into Christmas!

SANTA IS AWESOME!

This was mom and Dad's Christmas present this year : )

Christmas Carnage

(and Dad doing what MILLIONS of Dads

around the country were doing at the same time)

Time to play with the loot!!

(And call people to tell them Merry Christmas)

I guess using the flash actually works sometimes......

It was a great day.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Happy 2010 everyone!

Daisy's blessing dress

Before I knew I was having a girl, before I was pregnant even, I found a blessing dress on Etsy. A woman by the etsy moniker of Dbinky handmakes the most exquisite dresses I have ever seen. I knew if I ever had a girl I would buy one of her dresses. And the rest is history. Daisy is here, and I bought her one of Dbinky's dresses! It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I am going to have pro photos of her taken in it with her brothers, and then have the dress framed, but for now, I took some way amateur pics of it myself so I could put them on my blog here. Is she not the sweetest, most precious girl you have ever seen? Below these are some more randome shots of her, including one of her with her big bros who absolutely LOVE her!

Such a sweetheart,

only 5 weeks old and already smiling!

Lovin' Miss Daisy!

Check out those huge eyes! She looks at everything with these eyes this big all the time!

Daisy with the stuffed animals my mom MADE her for Christmas!

(More on those to come in another post)

We love you so much baby girl!

Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving this year was a day of giving thanks for our new family member! Since Daisy was only 5 days old, we scrapped our plans to go to Sue's house for Thanksgiving and just stayed home. We shopped for the food the night before thanksgiving (we also gave thanks that Joe made it out of the grocery store alive) and dug the thanksgiving decorations out of the garage 30 minutes before dinner! And yes, I know that this year we were a motley looking crew, but hey, We were giving thanks that no one has to hate us because we are too beautiful! Just kidding : )

Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween 2009

This year for Halloween, Kurt was a black "ninja" (I could only find a black G.I. Joe costume, but hey, he thought it was a black ninja costume, and that's all that matters, right?)

Kurt would not smile for the camera because according to him, Black Ninjas are serious folk.

I concur.
Cleve, pretty much the most adorable child on the planet, surpassed even his own adorableness when he became a white ninja. (For some reason I could find a white ninja costume. Life just isn't fair sometimes!)

And my skeleton. My cute little skeleton who is not in fact a size 24 months when it comes to Halloween costumes. Yet the sausage look of his legs popping out of his too tight nylon skeleton leggings were on their own completely adorable!