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. 

The week in review

Finally, our internet is back up!  And we didn't get such a bad deal for the inconvenience...we were without service for a week, but Verizon is giving us a month's credit on our account.  I can deal with that!  But now that I am a "blogger" (sounds so nerdy), it was a pain not being able to update my little site.  I had so much to talk about.  I'll give the quick rundown....potential titles only; the content can be up to your imagination:

* Underwear shopping with Nolan, or, "Mommy, you're fat! Hahahahahahaha!!!!"

* Why do old people think they just rule the world

* There's a fine line between "chic" and "1st grade arts & crafts project", and I'm teetering on the edge

* Choco-NOT-a-lotta

* I have more clients now than I did when I was actually working

 * The Makeover

I'm so excited about the makeover one, I'll give you a hint!

Friends & Coffee

To do: call people about cakes, clean floors, Big Lots (?), get stamps

Not an exciting to-do list, but I'm not bored by it.  I'm so thankful that I'm able to be home and get these kinds of things done. And the fact that Abby has a day off today makes it even better!  I love having my little drop-out wannabe home for a change.  Parent-teacher conference tonight - whoa.  It's hard to believe that I have a school-age kid.  That's so "old"!!! 

Yesterday was such an emotionally "full" day.  It started with a nice little tiff with DH in the morning - over coffee.  Ahhh.  Gotta love the Sunday morning tiff.  Nothing like it to really prepare me to go worship God at church, right?   (We're buddies again, fyi.)  But it was difficult, because he was on his way to more training in Monroeville, and stayed overnight last night...so that was the last real interaction we had before he left...which stinks. 

After church, it was just the kids & I...I was using my Sunday afternoon to be totally lazy - we were all very tired.  Well I picked the wrong day not to vaccuum, because I got an unexpected (but pleasantly so!) visit from a friend bearing chocolate.  After a little small talk, she really hit me with some heavy stuff.  Our little afternoon social call turned into a major heart to heart, which I am so glad I could be there for. 

Then it was my turn...during AWANA Sunday nights, I've taken to going to everyone's favorite over-priced coffeeshop and relaxing with an engrossing book for an hour or so.  I really love that time that I have all to myself.  But I love it even more now, that some of my friends have started to join me!  I've had more amazing, uplifting, satisfying talks over the last month than I may have had all year.  That could be an exaggeration, but not by much!  I hope they continue...and that I can be as good of a listener & friend that my 3 dear friends were to me last night.  Thanks girls - I love each one of you!!!

Halloween...check.

Whew...whew.  I like to be festive, but I am so glad Halloween is finally over.  I'm just TIRED!  I think we did way more holiday-related activities than a day like Halloween deserves.  But it is what it is.

The whole Halloween-fest '09 started Tuesday, when the kids & I ventured downtown via the much-begged-to-go-on Johnstown Inclined Plane.  Truth be told, that was pretty much our favorite part of the outing.  The kids got to give the man their tickets themselves, which was just adorable.  Then I got to hide my own terror/nausea/panic and pretend that it was great fun to ride down the world's steepest incline from Westmont to downtown. Actually, seeing the kids' faces, and their total fascination with the whole experience, made it really cool.  The parade itself was fine, but we left a little early because frankly, I think even the kids were bored, and miffed that the candy thrown at them from the floats was mostly just those gross, fake-tootsie roll-flavored chewy things.  Seriously, people.  Give them something that won't sit in the bottom of the Halloween candy bowl for months and months until I finally throw it away.  Also, it was raining pretty steadily, and we were wet, tired, and cold!!!  But the kids were troopers and we had a good time.

Then it was on to Thursday, with each of the kids' Halloween parades at school, and to a pumpkin farm that evening.  By then it had stopped raining - yay! - and it was a really fun day, although packed full.  First was Nolan's preschool parade.  I sewed him a pumpkin costume that I was sure was 100% unique.  So when the kid came out the door wearing NOLAN'S COSTUME, I thought, "oh no!  they got the costumes switched...what is Nolan going to come out as???"  I put his name on the bag, but not in the costume itself.  Darn it!!! But then, another kid came out in the same costume....then Nolan came out in his costume!  I guess Simplicity 2788 is a lot more popular than I realized.  :)  Next was Abby's parade, which was too cute...it's so strange, she's such a "big girl" all of the sudden.  There she was, walking through the school's parking lot with a bunch of "big" elementary school kids - and looking like one of them.  Hard to believe.

 

THEN it was on to a local farm with a corn maze, hayride, and all kinds of fall fun.  I was so glad it didn't rain, because I'd already told the kids we were going.  We went with some of my MOPS friends and kids, and if that was the only thing we did all fall, it would have been perfectly great.  Moms & kids alike had such a great time.  And I learned that picking out your own pumpkin from a pumpkin patch is really overrated.  YUCK!  Our shoes got encrusted with mud, and we really had to pick through the pumpkins to find a decent one that didn't have "goo" on it (as Nolan liked to say).  But everything else about the little farm trip was great.

I'm getting tired just trying to recall all this.  The rest is short and sweet: we went trick-or-treating with Tyler & Uncle Mo on a VERY chilly night with two not-in-the-greatest-of-moods kids.  You do the math.   But you can't say they weren't the cutest little trick-or-treaters out there...