Good Morning Sunshine (cleaning)!

I love being a mother.  I LOVE it.  I cherish every mother-ly job I have, everything I have the privilege to do for my kids...except one thing.  I think, even if I had 10 kids and had been through everything under the sun, I would still loathe the job of cleaning up vomit. 

Here comes the "too much info" part -

So Nolan came downstairs this morning.  He wasn't in too good of a mood, but that's not terribly unusual for my little non-morning person.  I went over to give him a hug and realized there was dry, crusty, STINKY stuff all over his pjs.  I said "Nolan, what's all over your pjs?"  He started crying and said that there was dirt in his bed.  The poor little guy!  But for the life of me I couldn't figure out what kind of "dirt" it was.  I asked him if he had thrown up, he said he didn't know (gotta love the 4-year old non-awareness), I asked if he'd had the scoobies - the Havener word for diarrhea - he said he didn't know...after getting him changed and cleaned up, I ventured into his room to see.  I nearly tossed my muffins.  Projectile vomit ALL OVER THE BED, THE WALL, THE FLOOR, THE STUFF UNDER THE BED...it made me want to just buy a whole new house. 

So I came back, armed with cleaner, a roll of paper towels, Lysol, those yellow gloves...plastic bags...the works.  All I kept thinking about was the movie "Sunshine Cleaning."  It totally felt like that - sort of.  If you've never seen it, I recommend it, but please read a review or something first so you know what you're getting into.  I was equally depressed and grossed out for an entire week after watching that one. And speaking of grossed out for a week, I think I'm in for another one after this morning.  AND, I'm pretty sure it was one of those darn cats.  Nolan seems fine. 

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas!  I will be back to my blog after the excitement and busy-ness of this week & next dies down...with lots of pictures!!!

To Do: Friday

- get boughs off the front porch & out of the car & hang on fence...before Christmas is actually over

- take stuff to the attic/basement...now that The Child (beloved stepson) has cleared a walking path from his door to the attic door

- change out the kitchen shelf-y thing...replacing our stupid-looking shoe rack (I really do think it's a shoe rack) with a pretty, respectable-looking shelf - thanks Mom.  Since there are no actual storage elements built into the kitchen.  And I am not frustrated at all by this, not at all.  Old houses are so darn CHARMING!


- finish the candles in the windows...since last night I was too afraid to go up to the dark attic alone - I swear I heard something up there!!!

- hang the mistletoe ball...after I *find* it

- plan next week's meals (did it - mark that one off the list)

- pick out cookies to make...not a clue what I want to do.  But I'm having a cookie exchange at my house in a mere WEEK and it would look pretty pathetic if I didn't have any made

- grocery shopping...don't forget the cat litter

- Jo-Ann's...for fleece, floral wire, silver thread (yay, fun!!!), & kids crafts


- the kitchen store in the mall...to replace my crappy, wooden, 10-year old, dollar-store rolling pin that now officially does more damage to the dough than good...maybe a nice heavy marble one won't be as expensive as I'm thinking it probably will be. Here's hoping!

SO...off I go.  Wish me luck!!!  

Alone Time

Whew.  (I don't know if I said this before, but it really seems like ALL of my entries could start with the word "whew.") 

Abby at school (after a 2-hr delay)...check.
Greg & Nolan out the door to do a little (or a lot?) Christmas shopping...check.
Me, ALONE in the house...check!!! 

Oh yeah.  It feels so good.  I am just enjoying the silence.  I really am.  Not to mention the ability to be on the computer without every person in the house, big and small, hanging on the chair and asking me what I'm doing. 

LEST anyone think that I have fallen off the "month of advent surprises for the kids" wagon, I'm happy to report that I have not!  I just haven't gotten on here in a while to post about any of it.  Hey, I've been busy, OK?  But the kids have been really enjoying their daily Christmas-y treats!  Let's see, what have we done so far....after the big Rudolph night, we....

made "bark" - and it's already all gone.  I got the stuff to make more, but on my own...because well...it'll look prettier and I want to give it to our neighbors.  The kids will never know.  Bless their little hearts.  We did have fun making it though and it turned out super-yummy!  They each got a couple sleeves of saltines and got to line their own cookie sheet, then I poured the butter over top, then they got to crush the heck out of some candy canes and sprinkle it on the melted chocolate...I am telling you, that stuff did not last in our house for much more than a week!  And I do believe I have pics....

So...then we got a Christmas tree - a live one! - which I love so much I just never want a fake one again.  No "fluffing" of the branches, no messing with the stupid lights that never work all at once...plus it was a lot of fun to pick one out.  And it smells marvelous. AND, the guy let me take as many cut-off boughs as I wanted!  I got about 3 armfuls, and while I haven't DONE anything with them yet, I plan to - maybe today - and he said if I wanted more I could come back and get more.  That is awesome.  I'm sure you'd pay a lot for fresh greenery at a nursery and I'm totally getting it for free.  I love that!

After the big tree day, it was just some stuff like, the kids got to decorate their rooms with window decals and mini-nativity sets (which Abby calls her "Jesus set" - how cute), I gave them little dollar store gifties, and last night was Charlie Brown night.  Thank goodness it was only 1/2 hour, because the Biggest Loser finale was on and that's one of my fav shows.  :)  Watching Charlie Brown, I was surprised that they're still showing that on TV.  Glad, but surprised.  I was really expecting the Bible part to be edited out.  I'm glad it wasn't, don't get me wrong.  It's just kind of sad that you hear all sorts of words that you NEVER used to hear on TV, but you don't at all expect to hear Scripture being read.  It is so backwards.  If swear words and God's name being used inappropriately sound normal to me, and a Bible passage reading sounds strange and out of place (on TV, that is), that is just sad...scary...a big wake-up call.  Look how things are getting in the world!!!  :( 

Well anyway, as much as I would love to squander the rest of my undetermined amount of time alone here on the computer, I am almost finished with "Toy Purge 2009" and I really want to just be done with it.  Plus, I should probably get out of my PJ's.  Then I can move on to other things - probably starting on the sewing for some presents my dear ones will be getting this year!  Totally excited about that.  I would post pics of the things I've already made, but uh....I don't want to ruin any surprises!   ;)

Is it 8:00 yet???

We heard this question every 10 minutes or so last night, from about 6:20 to 7:54.  Let me say that I am convinced (anew) that you don't have to spend a lot of money (or any at all) to make your kids happy!!!  They anticipated their "Rudolph night" with great excitement!  It was just adorable to see.  Abby was thrilled at getting to stay up late (their usual bedtime is 7:30-ish, so this was a pretty big deal) and finally get some answers to her (many) questions about Santa's most famous reindeer.  I think Nolan was just happy to get to watch TV instead of going to bed.  I asked him this morning what his favorite part of the movie was, and he said, "I liked the part when his nose was lighted up red."  How adorable is that???  Abby, on the other hand, seems to have a more multi-faceted view of the whole event.  Just a smattering of the MANY questions she asked....

"Which one is Rudolph?"
"Where did all those other little reindeers come from?" 
"Why is the abomomobomable snowman there?"
"Is he mean?" 
"Why are all those elfs singing?" 
"How did everyone get on that island?" 
"Is that a jack-in-the-box?"
"Is this fiction?"  (my personal fav)
"Are they flying all the way to the moon?" 
"Why are they going to the moon?" 

My answer to most of these questions?  "Just watch.  You'll see."  I watched this movie every single year as a child, and I swear I do not remember thinking any of these questions, let alone asking them.  But I don't mind; that's Abby.  :) 

So now I have to think of something to do for today.  I didn't exactly have anything specific planned, so I told the kids that they would get to find out their surprise at 3:00.  Hmmmm.  Greg's not home until 7:30 tonight, so dinner can be super-easy....if I can get everything done (like, instead of frittering the morning away on the computer) then maybe we can make something yummy - at least to eat a little and then freeze for later.  I got a candy thermometer and I'm all excited to use it.  I'll have to see...

So far so good

What a slacker I have been with this blog!!!  Hey, I was away for a week.  Can I blame it on that? 

Last Christmas, (I gave you my heart, but the very next day...)

ahem.

Last Christmas was probably the WORST Christmas ever for me, as far as being ready, prepared, relaxed, etc.  Everything was totally last-minute and instead of having FUN picking out gifts, decorating, baking and stuff, it felt like a big race that I was totally behind in.  It caused a lot of stress and really bummed me out.  I was so glad when it was over, and I hated that!  I vowed, NEVER AGAIN would I wait till the very last minute to do everything!  I made a point to have everything done and taken care of by Dec. 1, so I could actually enjoy the Christmas season and spend that (somehow elusive) quality time with my kids, baking cookies and all that stuff that you envision yourself doing with your kids when you first become a mother and you still think that it will be easy. 

So...it's December 1.  While I don't have everything done, I'm proud to say that I'm way more ahead this year than I've pretty much ever been.  At least I have a plan this year.  Maybe the gifts aren't all bought/made yet, but I know what everyone is getting, and that's gotta count for something, right?  It is so much easier to plan when you're not all stressed out.  I'm incredibly thankful that this year, for the first time in a very long time, I'm not all stressed out.  I'm cool.  Life is good. :)

But getting back to December 1.  Thanks to my mom, the kids have advent calendars, because goodness knows I can never remember to get those in time.  As I was writing out Nolan's preschool tuition check this morning, I realized what date it was, and actually remembered to do the advent calendars!  The kids thought it was way cool.  They wanted to open all the flaps and I think it gave them a thrill to find out that they had to wait. 

In addition to the fridge calendars, I thought it would be really fun this year to give the kids little surprises every day until Christmas, too.  Not necessarily material gifts, but just little surprise things they get to do, or make, or whatever.  Today just so happened to be a gift.  I found these acrylic frames and put their names on top (in glitter of course - I totally love glitter) ...now they can choose ONE piece of artwork they would like to display on the fridge and put it in their own frames.   The idea is to prevent the fridge from getting so covered in paper that we can't find the appliance itself - it happens all the time.  Not beautiful, but the kids thought they were pretty cool. 

So here are some other ideas I had...and I was going to go through the calendar and see which days would be good for each surprise.  And we're not doing something "big" everyday because I just can't do that; I'm not that organized.   But here were some things I came up with:

little gifties (little. like pencils. that sort of thing.)

go to see Santa

decorate the tree

stay up to watch "Rudolph" on tv (tomorrow, as a matter of fact!)

bake Christmas cookies

make candy

do Toys for Tots shopping (they each get to pick out a gift or two and put it in the box)

pick out the Christmas tree

make ornaments - I just found out about these awesome kid-friendly cinnamon ones that smell so goooood

do gingerbread house(s)

read a Christmas book (this will be one that we can do several different days)

read a Christmas passage from the B-I-B-L-E (again, several days)

go shopping for Daddy's presents

decorate their rooms

Kids like to have our time.  We do all this stuff for them, but I really feel like I want to do more things with them.