Dec 3, 2016 | Holidays, Uncategorized, What's going on |
Watching: the Gilmore Girls movie. Obviously. I liked it but didn’t love it. I felt like they weren’t really in the groove until 40 minutes before the show ended. But those 40 minutes! Luke’s speech in the kitchen! I would have accepted a proposal from him if Christopher wasn’t sitting next to me.
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| I don’t even like phone calls but I’d answer for Luke. |
Feeling depressed about: My current size. My pants are bigger than I’d like them to be and none of my exercise and healthy eating is doing anything to fix it. Last night I set myself up for failure by looking at the tiny skirt I wore for our rehearsal dinner. I lay on the bed and bemoaned my hip size for the one hundredth time this month. When I sat up the button on my pants broke off and flew across the room. So that did absolutely nothing to help me feel better.
Reading: Home Fires Burning and A Day in the Sun with Olaf. I barely have time to read the former because I spend so much time reading the latter. I almost have it memorized.
Not reading: the I Heart Organizing blog. I followed it for organizational tips but I’ve barely read any posts. Annabelle’s closest floor is proof of that.
Looking for: Baby Jesus. Annabelle is very into playing with her Little People nativity set. The first day I took it out for her she said maybe our landlord’s father Mr. Jim would like to play Baby Jesus with her. He was over doing yard work today so he came in to visit her. The four wise men and two camels were there in all their glory but Jesus was no where to be found. As Mr. Jim put it, “All the supporting cast is here but the main attraction is missing.” AB asked Christopher if Baby Jesus was in his belly. I think Jesus is probably hiding under the couch with all the other lost toys. There may not have been room for him in the inn but there’s plenty of room under the couch.
Collecting: all the little Christmas trees. I only meant to buy one for Sesame’s room but I got sucked in by sales and ended up with three mini trees of varying sizes. That lead to me buying multiple boxes of fairy lights and a glittery gold deer decoration. The Christmas decor slope is very slippery.
Buying: Christmas cards. I LOVE cards, specifically photo cards. Growing up I was always the first to the mailbox at Christmas time so I could open the cards. We’d tape Christmas cards around the doorway and I loved looking at them. Now that I have my own home I hang Christmas cards from my snowflake garland then move the photos to the refrigerator for the rest of the year. I’ve conducted a ongoing study since getting married and concluded that people don’t send cards out like they used to. I don’t understand non-card senders. Who wouldn’t want to send a little holiday joy? I start planning my cards in September. It’s serious business! This year I ordered some laser-cut cards from Tiny Prints. I was torn between the laser-cut and the glitter cards but Christopher doesn’t love glitter the same way I do so I went with the more conservative option. I’ve already decided 2017 will be the year of the glitter card.
Annabelle requested this card to send Prince George. I hope he remembers to rsvp so we buy enough goldfish.
Mar 28, 2016 | Holidays |
Yesterday we took Sesame Pie to a children’s museum to celebrate her birthday weekend. It was a HUGE museum dedicated completely to play. I She was very excited. Her favorite parts were the Sesame Street exhibit (which is interesting because she doesn’t even watch SS), riding the train and playing in the grocery store. Each child got a cart and could pick five items at a time then ring them up at an actual cash register. It was my childhood dreams come true. She headed straight for her favorite foods- a box of cheerios and two gallons of milk. She would have cleared the shelves of all the milk if we let her.
Customer service at this place was really lacking. Not only did I have to put the food on the belt, I had to ring it up myself while the cashier watched. She didn’t even give me my receipt.
In keeping with tradition, Annabelle’s Easter basket was assembled last minute. We gave her a set of Frozen utensils with Elsa’s picture (“But where’s Anna’s picture, Mama?”), a burlap bag with bunny ears, a set of ladybug bows and a new plate. The utensils and plate were necessities but they’re exciting to her.
She was too focused on stepping daintily to smile for the camera. Normally she’d wear a smocked dress but I bought this at the PX over a year ago and have been waiting for it to finally fit. I can’t get over how precious she looked.
In years past we’ve spent holidays at our families or with friends stationed in the same place. We couldn’t do that this year so we spent the day just the three of us. Honestly I wasn’t expecting much out of out the day but it turned out well. The sun was shining for the first time in weeks which felt like a small miracle. We went to church, had a small dinner and took AB’s second birthday pictures at the park. Have I mentioned her birthday is tomorrow? I need to go to bed before I start crying about her getting so old.
Dec 29, 2015 | Holidays, Uncategorized |
In keeping with my personal holiday tradition, I’m posting about Christmas while everyone else is gearing up to celebrate New Year’s and choosing their word of the year. (I don’t choose a word of the year but if I did it would be sleep.)
Much to my relief, both trees made it through the holidays without crashing to the ground.
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| We forgot to trim the top of the deer tree. Too late now. |
On Christmas Eve we put on our finest clothes and went to church. Annabelle couldn’t believe we were going to “sing Happy Christmas songs about Jesus” in the middle of the week.
I know I keep saying it over and over, but she’s getting so big. I almost cried when I looked at these pictures because she’s grown so much since last Christmas. It’s a real shame she has no personality.
During the solemn playing of Silent Night, an alarm went off on my phone reminding us to put the trash out by the street. I wish I learned that the phone being on vibrate doesn’t apply to alarms anywhere but in the middle of a church service. I was thinking, “How rude of someone to not put their phone on vibrate” when I saw my purse glowing.
Annabelle wrapped and labeled Christopher’s gift. She’s practicing her illegible autograph for when she’s famous. All three times we’ve been to the garden center she’s pointed at a little stone owl and said, “Daddy! Daddy! For Daddy!” He’s now the proud owner of a garden decoration for the garden he doesn’t have.
Oma and Opa came up from Texas to spend the weekend with us. They win the award for most popular gifts of the year. Not only did they give Sesame a cash register, they gave her a shopping cart and groceries. It was all my childhood dreams come true. I hope my other childhood dream comes true next Christmas and I she gets a puppy.
Dec 23, 2015 | Holidays, Uncategorized |
Listening to: Josh Groban’s Christmas album. Have I mentioned I love Josh Groban? I DO.
Cooking and baking: Chicken soup, oreo balls, fudge and peanut butter pie. Long live dessert.
No longer loving: my Christmas tree. It’s probably unChristmas to say that but it’s true. I swear the trees in the living room are getting bigger and taking up more room every day. The branches are flimsy and the ornaments are constantly sliding off. They’re shedding like a dog. Saddest of all, neither tree smells like a pine tree. I have to burn my pine tree candle to make the house smell like a Christmas tree.
Watching: Cheesy Hallmark movies.
Loving: My tiny poinsettia plant
Sewing: Christmas pajamas for AB. Hello, last minute. Nice to see you again.
Playing on repeat: This Adele parody. French fries forever.
At my wits end about: Annabelle’s nightly sleeping habits. She went from being asleep by 8 at the latest to still being awake at 10:30-11 every night. I can’t even talk about it or I might cry. Send large amounts of ice coffee.
Decorating: A gingerbread nativity. I can’t tell you how holy I felt decorating a nativity instead of a gingerbread house.
Sleeping: Not enough.
Dec 17, 2015 | Holidays, Sesame, Uncategorized |
The week Annabelle was born, a girl from church came over to visit. She followed me into the bedroom to change the baby’s diaper and asked me what my favorite part was of having a girl. I didn’t answer that it was the chance to bring up Prince George’s future wife or, a church answer at its best, the opportunity to raise a girl for the Lord. I said it was dressing her up.
That was my answer and I’ve stuck to it.
And so I present my second annual Parade of Christmas Clothes.
She’s smiling because I said either a) we were going to the pet store b) we were going to story time or c) I’d give her a snack if she stood still and smiled. I’m going with C.
She wore her darling smocked stocking dress to see Santa.
It’s the same exact dress and bow she wore on her first Christmas. She was so tiny, toothless and bald! I still can’t get over how cute she was.
Christmas jammies for the win! I want them in my size.
I told her the ornaments on her romper are called baubles. Besides it being adorable to hear her say, it sounds more British. I hear Prince George calls them baubles and you know what they say- as do the royals, so do S and AB.
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| Of course it’s smocked. Would you expect anything less? |
Dec 14, 2015 | Holidays, Uncategorized |
I started the week off feeling festive and in the best Christmas mood. I played Christmas carols all morning and made AB a felt tree to decorate. I wrapped gifts and watched a Hallmark movie.
Then Thursday rolled around. I spent all day trying to get my nativity characters to stand up instead of falling onto each other and Jesus. I was so fed up with my tree being crooked that I tried to fix it and the whole thing went crashing down. It was like a slow-motion scene in a movie. I saw it falling and my arm went out to stop it three seconds too late.
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| “Oh dear. Oh dear. What a mess, mama. Oh dear.” |
What’s that they say about Christmas being all calm, merry and bright?
Saturday we went to a Christmas cottage to see Santa. Annabelle wasn’t feeling her best but the celebration must go on. We waited in line for about twenty minutes while I talked up the cottage and how fun it would be. We could almost taste Annabelle’s excitement.
The cottage was beautiful. It was about the size of a postage stamp and decorated from top to bottom with snowmen, reindeer, a mantle and stockings, a tree and a train chugging around a track attached to the top of the wall. Unfortunately I didn’t get to take it in as much as I wished because AB, who kept telling us she was going to see “San-ta Caus”, got petrified the second we walked in the cottage and wouldn’t let go of me.
I find this picture much more entertaining that I should. Poor Belle Belle is saying, “I DOE YIKE IT! I DOE YIKE IT!” Santa is looking at us like he doesn’t get paid enough for this (it was a free event so he didn’t get money from me) and I’m all “This is so fun, AB! Look at his beard! Look at his pretty suit! Smile for the picture!”
(Speaking of his beard, in an attempt to get her to stop crying I almost pulled Santa’s beard. I was this close to reaching out and pulling at it. I don’t know what came over me. Noticing that he had glittery eyeliner on to make his eyes sparkle startled me into good behavior.)
It may not have been as picture perfect an event as last year but it was memorable.
