Tag Archives: gifts

December 20, 2011 · 2:33 pm

One Christmas Down …

One Christmas down, two to go.

We spent last weekend visiting with Doug’s family.  I do have to say I had a blast!  I spent some awesome time with my sister-in-law, Sherri.  Doug and I got along wonderfully (not always the case when we travel haha).  The kids were all spoiled rotten – exactly what is supposed to happen when they visit grandma’s house.

I wish I had some profound post today.  I wish I had a direct link to say what I was thinking.  Truth is, I’m not sure what I am feelings these days. Perhaps I’m numb.  Perhaps I’m being protected by prayer and God to enjoy this holiday.

One thing I’m learning is that the days that I think are going to be the hardest are usually not.  It’s the days where grief hits me by surprise that I hit rock bottom.

I keep looking for some pain that will vibrate through my soul.  I sat with Sherri one morning and watched a bunch of videos of Owen I found randomly on the Flip we brought.  I almost forgot how really doe-like his eyes were.  He would look up at you with these dark, calm, big eyes.

Watching his face have life in movies hurts more than just looking at his photo or his hand print.  It’s the evidence that there was once life that stabs me.  I physically feel the poking at my chest.

The memories of his life are becoming more grey.  They were vivid.  Like when I think back to yesterday, my memories have bright colors, sounds and smells with them.  When I think back to when Owen was rolling around on the living room floor, it’s more still images.  Muted colors.  Not sure what I might hear.  The memories aren’t really fading, they are just changing – becoming more concrete in time.  Stone like.

Perhaps it’s the stone memories that I feel these days.  I’m sure I will be ripped open again – without warning.  The wounds fresh and raw.  But for now, I am able to enjoy the Christmas with my boys – all of them.

Just a few more gifts to wrap – a few more sweets to bake.  Christmas is almost here! I am looking forward to spending time with my family – and having Doug home from work for a few days.

Sending Christmas blessings and prayers to all of you!

Love, Mel

Auntie Sherri & Logan

Jaden with his gift from Great Grandma

Logan’s eyes are hilarious in this one!

Grandkids with Grandma

The triplets got a sugar cookie as dessert for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Doug brought 16 lbs of cheese (or at least it seemed like it) – here he is cutting up a buffet of his cheese. So serious ….

A Bissing Christmas tradition – pickled Herring – never understood it … but I tried it this year.  Just a little bit.  It’s not horrible, but I don’t think I’ll ever get excited over it.

Jaden took a traveling troll with him from 4K.  Here they are right before handing out presents!

Mom Bissing’s beautiful tree :)

Jaden practicing his photography skills … no too bad!

Weston looks up to no good!

Logan’s face is hilarious!

Weston & Logan got chairs, just their size and in their colors.

The FEAST of food before we started ….

The FEAST after … I swear we all stuffed our faces!  Doesn’t look like we even dented all the deliciousness.

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May 10, 2011 · 9:36 pm

Mother’s Day

This mom of four boys had a great mother’s day!

I woke up to the babies and hopped up to start feeding.  I got done feeding two babies and Jaden woke up.  He said he wanted to make me breakfast so I “suggested” he wake up dad.  wink wink  Doug got up, wished me a happy mother’s day and fed the third child.  Then he got to cooking while Jaden and I played Lego Star Wars (the video game Jaden earned all on his own by doing chores).

All of a sudden Doug was yelling that there was a stork in the backyard and we should come and see.  A stork?  We got up to see what it was all about and wouldn’t ya know … Doug got me a fire pit!  It was propped up against the gazebo.   Can’t wait to break it in!

Then we packed up the boys and headed over to my parent’s house.  Rae & Dad made us a wonderful meal!  Mom and I got to sit out on the deck (also called Mexico) and enjoy some of the sunshine.

Rachael helped change the boy’s diapers before a feeding and brought them back out with new outfits!  The triplets had “I love Mom” onesies and Jaden had on a “Mom’s Home Run Hitter” shirt.  SO ADORABLE!

And the best gift of the day was pictures with me and my boys.  I’m always behind the camera.  We actually pulled off a few really good ones!

and a not so good one — but this is what I feel like when all the boys are crying at the same time.  Makes my eyes cross and my face contort …

Mom has been talking about these chairs for a few weeks now.  I have to admit, I wasn’t on board.  Thought they were a little nuts.  But they actually work out really nice!  It still cracks me up to see all three of them in a line.  Wonder if that will ever change?

/

Owen doesn’t look that thrilled in the picture, but he fit in the chairs pretty well.  His feet touched the ground and he “filled” out the chair the best.  My chunk!  (I should be more careful with these chubby comments or he’s going to end up with a chunky monkey complex when he gets older.  I just can’t help it with all of his rolls!)

Weston found a way to “recline” in his chair!

Jaden is growing into such a little man.  My heart melts at him touching the side of my face in this one.  I love it when he wraps his arms around my neck from behind and kisses me on the cheek.  He’s a little charmer.  Ladies watch out!

Here is Owen on Uncle Jake’s lap, learning how to text.

I had a really nice day.  Hope all you mothers out there enjoyed your day as well!

Love, Mel

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May 5, 2011 · 10:01 am

Teacher Appreciation Week

If you know anything about me, it’s probably that I rarely say “no.”  And this is how I found myself helping with Teacher Appreciation Week.  You might also know that I don’t know how to passively help.   haha  So here I am neck-deep in mailbox gifts, gift baskets and “why we love our teacher’ books.  But I’m loving it!

Here’s a peak at the mailbox gifts we put together for the Teachers at Willow Springs.

I did get help from thedomesticatedlady.com  What do you think?  I hope they enjoyed these as much as I got a kick out of making them!

Love, Mel

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January 28, 2011 · 8:57 am

Baby A-B-C Photo Shoot

All during the pregnancy, the triplets were called Baby A, Baby B and Baby C.  My sister made some cute onsies with the same names!  We had a photo shoot with them this week.

Logan = Baby A

Owen = Baby B

Weston = Baby C

Weston’s SuperBaby pose (above)

I wonder what all the babies are looking at to the left … Apparently I’m not all that fun since I couldn’t get them to look at me to save my soul!

Ahhh haha Owen and his buldging eyes!  I think we get one of these faces in every photo shoot!

There were so many feet kicking about and so much grunting.  Got me to giggle out loud, all by myself at times!

This face is a perfect example of why I call him Oh-dee-doh-dee! (above)

When all was said and done, the babes were all back in their seats –  I was sitting there and had an “ah ha” moment.

So many times my life feels surreal – I mean, come on, who has three babies?  It becomes motions – just doing the same thing over and over again.  And every once in a while, I have these moments where it feels so real.  Where I can feel how important my job is – raising THREE lives at once.  Raising four boys (including Jaden) to be good men, to love their wifes (or husband), to love the earth and to love others.  They all depend on me.

They all will look to me for guidance and encouragement.  I’ve got love – plenty of love to give out!  But what I fear is the discipline that they’ll need.  Will I be strong enough to dish it out when they need to learn?  How many moments of “ugly mommy” will I have?  Will they look back on their childhood and think they had a crazy mom or a fantastic mom?  (I hope a little of both)  I’m so lucky to have a childhood where I think my mom was SuperMom – I was the luckiest kid in the whole wide world!  Stop it mom – you were AMAZING!

What I pray for at night is that my kids get to learn who their mom is (or at least who I try to be) – silly, goofy, giving, loving, stubborn.  I want them to look back on their time when mom stayed home with them as so much fun!  I want to do crazy things like turn the upstairs level into a giant fort and leave it up for two days.  I want to do funny things like cut their toast with cookie cutters and surprise them with a new shape each morning.  Do you remember Toaster Strudels?  When getting ready for school, my mom used to surprise my sister and I with a different picture on our strudel each morning!  Sail boats, trees, hearts, her signature ‘cloud face.”  And for the longest time I thought that applesauce was supposed to be served with cinnamon sugar and a cherry on top!

These are the simple gifts that MY mom gave me and I only hope that I can give to my boys!  I love you mom!

Love, Mel

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January 11, 2011 · 5:11 am

Gifts for a Baby Girl

One of the disadvantages of being a Bissing boy is that you still need to help model Mom’s girl creations.  A good friend of mine is having a girl and I wanted to make her something special … so I made some head accessories for her.  A bear hat .. with a flower of course!  Jaden was really jealous that I was making someone else a bear hat so he made me promise that I’d make him a bear hat too.  In fact, if I don’t have brown yarn in my hand, he gets upset and asks me where his hat is.  I think he’s hungry for a little attention these days … I wonder why?  haha

Then I made some headbands with big … no wait HUGE flowers!  First was pink … lots of pink!  I think the flower is bigger than Owen’s head!

Now Moushie isn’t a girly girl and I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about all the pink … so I also made her a black one too.

And the best part?  They are interchangeable!  You can wear the black flower on the pink headband or the pink flower on the white headband and so forth.  Since I don’t have any girls of my own I think I went nuts, but it was so much fun!

Doug is probably going to give me a hard time about dressing up Owen in girl stuff and then posting it to the web.  But they are just babies … besides it’s GREAT amo for when he has girl friends!  That’s what a good mom is supposed to do, right?

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December 30, 2010 · 12:15 pm

Christmas Day 2010

Jaden woke us up nice and early!  So excited to open presents!  It was sort of nice cuz he woke us up before the babies woke up for their breakfast.  The three of us were able to open up gifts and I could fully focus on Jaden.

Santa brought gifts for all the kids, but Jaden had no interest in opening up the baby’s gifts.

Mom andDad Bissing were going to be down at 2pm but Eric and Sherri came over at 10am.  I made a brunch for us.  I’d never had Monkey Bread before but heard how easy and delicious it was.  OMG there are not words to explain how fantastic it is!  I think we have a newly added tradition – not to replace the Breakfast Casserole of course!

Who is having more fun – Eric or Jaden?

Another outfit a la Rachael!  Weston (middle) looks like he is up to no good!  Plotting against the world …

and now he’s pissed!

Opening up gifts from Grandma and Grandpa – Jaden got 17 POUNDS of Moon Dough! Ahh haha  Jaden loves the stuff but Doug HATES it.  Let’s be honest, it makes a HUGE mess.  I think I sweep up more of it than put it back in the container.  We sent the boys down to the basement to watch a movie while Jaden, Laura and I played with it on the dining room floor.  Wow-wee did we make a mess but Jaden had so much fun!  AND I made sure to have it all picked up before Doug could catch us.  Not even a picture to incriminate us!

Proud Grandpa

Look at all that food!  We pigged out for two days straight!

Does this capture Doug’s booming laugh or what?

This picture looks like Jaden is having fun in the shower – WRONG!  I believe he is yelling at me that I was using the wrong camera.  He wanted me to take video and not still pictures.  That kid was whining and crying the whole time.  He was itchy, spoiled and over tired!  Pretty awesome picture tho!

Day after Christmas – everyone came back over for lunch and an afternoon of hanging out.  Mom and Sherri went right for the babies  :)

Notice the leftover Monkey Bread on the counter – not much left.  That’s because I inhaled it the night before giving me guy rot in the middle of the night!  I don’t think I’ve eaten myself sick since I was a kid.  Embarrassing …

Jaden got to playing Wii – what a game face.  That kid takes it so seriously!

All three girls right after a feeding.  On Christmas day every time Laura held, touched or even looked at baby they seemed to loose it and cry – poor Laura!  The next day was MUCH better!  Logan looks pretty darn happy snuggling in Laura’s tata’s – atta boy!

It was a great Bissing two days!  LOTS of loud laughing and joking.  I found out how small my house really is :)   But then again no matter where we have our get togethers I think it would always be loud.  I honestly had so much fun.  How did I get to be so lucky – triplets AND amazing in-laws?  Dang!

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· 4:52 am

Christmas Eve 2010

First Christmas as a family of six!  We usually spend Christmas day with my family – but since we weren’t going to be able make it to GB this year, we spent Christmas Eve with my family and Doug’s family came down for Christmas day.  We got to Mom’s right away in the morning after we got all the kid-os packed up.  I tried to think of everything we could possibly need for a day long visit.  We had three bags for just the babies!  One for my pump and bottles, one for diapers and such and one for extra clothes.  I might have over done it a tad, but I wanted to be sure I didn’t forget anything!  I think the day is best told in pictures (taken with my new Nikon D90 of course!)

Breakfast casserole … I LIVE for this Christmas breakfast tradition.  I think we’ve been having this for breakfast since I was in middle school – that would be since 1997!  A thirteen year tradition.

The feeding party!  Takes an army to feed the Bissing boys!  Uncle Jake – looking like a pro!

Do you SEE that bald spot!  It’s huge!  And Owen is the only one that has one.  Is his head shaped that differently from his brothers?  I know that babies loose their hair a lot of the time from laying in their cribs but dang! It kind of reminds me of the bald spot I got from being in the hospital after my car accident … only my head is a lot bigger than Owen’s and my spot was a lot smaller.

Drunk on milk …

Super Weston to the rescue!   Doesn’t his bib look like a superman cape?

Jaden got Snail’s Pace Race – the game where no one wins.  Now what kind of game is that … honestly?  No one wins?  Why bother playing?  But my Jaden LOVES the game!

Jaden is so excited to open up presents from his Emily!

He opens a Spiderman puzzle and slams is against his head – “I already have this one!” he says!  We are still working on the present opening manners.  We sort of got the hang of it after a while.  He opened a deck of cards from YaYa and Pa and mumbled.  When I said “Jaden …”  he perked up right away and said “Thank you” is his nicest voice.  What a stinker!  At least he shows signs of being trained.

A while later, he opened a box of PJs, a coat and a fleece from YaYa and Pa.  He rolls his eyes and goes “oh man … you spent too much money on me!”  Does that sound like anyone you know?  DOUG!  Like father like son!  The best part?  We got it on tape!

Emily meets the babies!

Mama holding all three.

Family shot – Jaden KNOWS he’s the cool older brother in this one!

TiTi bought the triplets a Christmas outfit – picture doesn’t show it but the sleepers say “Auntie’s nice list”.

Owen (left) is flexing his muscles for all the pretty ladies!  Check out that double chin!

The whole family!  I learned how to set my timer for this one!

YaYa told Jaden the Christmas story and about baby Jesus.  Jaden later told me how “the angel said do not be afraid.”  It amazes me how Jaden has a natural interest in Jesus.

Dad’s famous grasshoppers.  If you haven’t had one of my dad’s grasshoppers then you have not had a real grasshopper!  These have been apart of my Christmas Eve memories since … well … forever.  In fact dad used to make a kid’s one (non-alcoholic) when we were younger.  One year he got creative and made them red (turned out to be more pink).  It was that year I found out he didn’t even put mint in kid’s ones!  Are you kidding me?  I had been eating them for YEARS and had always thought they were minty.  Then to top it off, Rachael told me it was Miss Piggy puke (since it was a pink color that year).  Ruined the whole thing for me.  I couldn’t finish mine.  Now I get to have the adult ones tho … and I KNOW those ones have mint in them!

Our kid’s gift exchange – boys vs girls.  Doug and Jake ended up trading gift cards to Game Stop!  They are so original!  I, on the other hand, got trifty and made Rachael a bunch of “head accessories”.  I made her a bunch of headbands and clips with flowers and such.  Rachael got me a few kitchen gadgets.  You know you are getting old when you enjoy getting kitchen gadgets as gifts!  She also got me this amazing coffee mug, a scarf with hood and mittens!  She didn’t like the plain black gloves I was wearing from the Dollar Store.  You know the stretchy kind we wore as kids?  Yea … Rachael has always been cooler than me.

Nada and Lindsey came over to see the babies too (and have a beer).  What a combo – beer and babies!  My two favorite “B”s!

When we got home Jaden put out cookies and milk for Santa.  We fed the babies and all got a good night sleep.  It was a great first Christmas with the babies!  Next year will be a whole new story – hoping we make it up to GB for Great Grandma Van’s celebration.

Love, Mel

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