Jan 7, 2019 | Uncategorized |
I love how AB mispronounces words. Nativity became “activity.” Penpals is now “pen paddles.”
“Mom, what do you love best after God?”
“I love you and Daddy. What do you love best?”
“I love appetizers.”
On a night she was having trouble sleeping.
“I know why I can’t sleep! It’s because I’m not a jew!”
“These cats are a serious ball of arms and legs!”
As she gets ready to go to swimming lessons.
“I can braveness and strength in my feet.”
“Mama, how many is a dozen?”
“Twelve. So if you have a dozen apples you have twelve apples. If you have a dozen doughnuts you have twelve doughnuts.”
“So, a dozen is thirteen?”
We’re planning on doing foster care and Annabelle found out before we intended her to. She’s had several questions.
“How do you get a foster care baby? Does a foster care lady or man or whatever it is, do they hand out babies or do you have to go to a factory for one?”
(If babies could be gotten at a factory, I’d be a frequent customer.)
Telling a story about how her friend offered to help her up the steps.
“I told her I didn’t need help. I’ve been climbing stairs for YEARS!”
Jan 1, 2019 | Uncategorized |
It’s that time again. Instead of listing out the best moments of my year, I’d like to discuss what should not be part of my world in 2019.
+. Using the letter V instead of ”very”. “It was v. good.” “I’m v. cold.” WRITE THE WHOLE WORD. It’s not that hard!
+ The reappearance of shoulder pads in jackets. Kohl’s had an entire section of shoulder pad jackets and it brought me back to some dark days of my youth.
+ All white homes and decor. Colors were made to be enjoyed! Add some color to your home instead of making it look like everything was dipped in bleach.
+ Taking videos while driving. This particularly applies to Instagram. It doesn’t matter if you’re recording while sitting at a red light. I guarantee you can wait another 10 minutes to share a link with the sweater you wore to the party yesterday.
+ Being sent an email confirming I unsubscribed after I went through the work to unsubscribe.
+ Let’s simmer down with everything being mermaid-themed.
+ Being gluten free by choice. As someone who eats a 90% gf diet because I am genuinely allergic to wheat and rye, I feel qualified to speak on this. It’s not cool. I don’t know why anyone would WANT this lifestyle. Take advantage of all the wheat full opportunities you have. You only live once so you might as well eat that box of pasta. Don’t get me started on dairy free by choice. Long live cheese!
Dec 31, 2018 | Holidays, Uncategorized |
Here we are, two days before the new year and I’m just now getting around to blogging about Christmas. I’ve followed this same timeframe for the last 10 years so why mess with tradition now?
Mom and the twins arrived at our house the night before Christmas Eve. I treated them to a Hallmark movie that night because what says Christmas like a predictable love story and fake snow?
We went to a Christmas Eve service this year. I didn’t go to church the night before Christmas until I was married but I think it’s a beautiful new tradition. We planned to attend a service I thought was at 5:30 but found out at 4:50 was really at 5 o’clock. Since we ended up with a few extra minutes I had Aaron take a family picture of us. I love Aaron but he is not a skilled photographer. He points the camera in the general direction of the subjects and pushes the button. It was a horrible angle and I looked awful. I hadn’t tried on my outfit before that night and thought I looked awful but I didn’t have any other options so I had to wear it. I have been so self-conscious lately about how I look. I took one look at the picture and started to cry. And cry and cry. I wanted to be thinner. I wanted the rest of the family to be here. I was having a third Christmas without a new baby. It was a straw that broke the camels back situation. This is just the holly, jolly Christmas recap you came here for!
I pulled myself together and we got to the service with a few minutes to spare.
My dainty daughter hiccuped and coughed through the entire holy service. A lady on the end of the row in front of us heard the commotion and all my shushing (the whole church did) and passed us a box of mints. This was the first year Annabelle paid attention to the candlelit portion of the service and needless to say she had a million questions. How would it be lit? Would the whole church burn down? Could she take the candle home? Would I have a candle too? Did we have to share candles? Would it be hot? Could she hold it? Who was going to lit it? Would it hurt when it was lit?
This was the fifth year in a row AB wore this dress. I’ll make her wear it until college.
Growing up we always did the same thing for Christmas. We went to one uncle’s for Christmas Eve and a different relatives house for Christmas Day. I felt almost lost trying to decide how to make our own traditions. One tradition I carried over was making artichoke dip. It isn’t a holiday without hot dip! After the service, we ate, played games and played music together. Aaron played the keyboard, Christopher played the drums and Annabelle passed out instruments for the music basket for the rest of us. I don’t want to boast. But I’m a mean tambourine shaker. It was so fun.
For Christmas, Annabelle made Christopher a little book about their Saturday morning tradition. Almost every week they go to Daddy, Daughter Breakfasts while I sleep in. It’s a tradition we all enjoy. She wrote the pictures and told me what to write on each page. Look how she’s looking at him! It melts my heart.
One page in the book was stickers that reminded her of him. “I think Daddy needs a bear sticker because we’re a bear family. And a soda sticker! Are there any library stickers? But Dad doesn’t go to the library because he reads books we already have and read them on his phone and the couch and, yeah. I think a movie sticker is good too. Can we buy some stickers for me too?”
Last year Annabelle started asking for a marble track. For whatever reason we didn’t give her one last year so I wanted to be sure we did it this year. We also got her a bike. We have a large yard but much much for her to do outside. We don’t have a place for her to do chalk and no paved driveway for her to drive the tricycle. She can ride this bike on the dirt patches and, bonus points, stick her babies in the little seat in the back and take them for a ride.
For Christmas dinner, I planned on making our traditional four-course Italian meal. Turns out it’s easier when there are seven aunts around to help. I made antipasto, chicken soup, and ravioli and saved the roast beef for another night. I use only the finest family heirloom dishes.
Just kidding. They’re from Dollar Tree.
I hope your Christmas was full of joy and cookies and free of tears. I ate more cookies than should be allowed but Christmas comes only once a year so I live it up while I can.
Dec 23, 2018 | Holidays, Uncategorized |
I almost gave up on Christmas decorating this year. More accurately, I decided it might be easier to skip on by Christmas entirely.
I ADORE Christmas. I always have. Last year, my cozy New York house was a new high in Christmas decor. I loved how everything looked. It was glowing, sparkling, and smelled with happiness.
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| Back in the glory days of my favorite house. |
This year I had boxes of Christmas decorations, fake trees, bags for Goodwill, Amazon boxes and laundry lined up behind the couch in the living room. I couldn’t find half the things I wanted. I couldn’t get any of it under control. I can’t make heads or tails of decorating in this house on a good day, let alone December. I don’t have a mantle or even stairs to hang stockings on. Things literally fall off the walls. I’m a perfectionist by nature and it always gets worse around holidays. Everywhere I looked on blogs or Instagram I saw perfectly done houses and mine felt like a wreck. Not many people here put up lights so yet another tradition (driving through neighborhoods while drinking hot chocolate) was falling apart. So I gave up for a few days. I didn’t have the energy or the desire to do much of anything. Eventually, I pulled myself on by my bootstraps because stuff had to be done and I want to give my family a nice Christmas. I’m not in love with how things turned out, but I’m so glad I made myself do it.
For our theme tree this year we chose to make an Amelia Bedelia tree. We combined the two trees we saw in her books- one with pompoms and lots of round ornaments, and the other that had a mirror on top with a sign that said “see the star” underneath. Our first mirror broke and I didn’t make a long enough pompom garland so it’s a bit wonky, but Amelia Bedelia herself is the definition of wonky.
Our regular tree has more ornaments every year. I read an article about a woman who has 400 trees and we might have her beat in a few years if we keep collecting ornaments at this rate. One of my favorite things to do this time of year is sit near the tree in the living room with all the other lights off. It’s so peaceful.
I got the little houses on sale at a thrift store for 75 cents each. Don’t say I’m not a big spender!
I love creative little salt and pepper shakers. Christopher gave me these penguins a few years ago.
I bought this set as a Christmas gift to myself. I don’t care about cars but I love red and green pickups at Christmastime. Sadly, the cats are no respecters of my beloved items and they broke the truck this morning.
Speaking of Linus George and Lucille Barbara, they’ve figured out how to climb the Christmas tree. They were not part of my original theme.
Dec 21, 2018 | Holidays, Uncategorized |
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| Cinnamon playdough and cookie cutter gifts for her school friends. |
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| Linus and Lucy, always on high alert under the tree. |
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Sesame had been asking for an elf all season and my aunt mailed her one as a surprise.
She loves it. |
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| All ready for her first school Christmas concert! |
Dec 15, 2018 | Currently, Uncategorized |
Pondering: Jesus’ mother Mary. People often talk about how she had to tell Joseph she was pregnant, but I’d like to hear how the conversation with her parents went down. “Hey Mom, here’s the jug of water you wanted oh and btw, I’m pregnant and if you can tell Dad so I don’t have to that would be great. K, thanks bye.”
Proud of: Annabelle and her desire to help the less fortunate. I gave her a quarter to give the Salvation Army outside of HobLob and the action really stuck. When we got home, she collected four baskets (she wanted all the coins to be separated), found her jingle bells and walked around the yard looking for people who would give her money for the poor people. She asked if we could walk around the neighborhood and knock on doors. It was so sweet. As much as I want to encourage her generosity, I was not about to knock on rednecks doors and ask for donations. Instead, I told her she can collect coins she finds in parking lots and donate that money.
Saving: money. I am very thrifty. Outside of groceries, I seldom buy items without coupons or discount codes. I have swagbucks, ibotta and several money-saving apps. I saved up my Walgreens points and got $50 worth of free products. I love a good deal. I was listening to a podcast and they had an excellent deal for The New Yorker magazine. It was something like 50% off plus an additional $10 off PLUS a free tote bag. I all but pulled over as I drove so I could get the deal before it ended. Then I remembered I don’t even like The New Yorker. In my attempts to save money, I almost wasted money on a magazine I don’t read because it was 75% off. I cannot pass up a good deal!
Reading: Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips. I started it at 1 in the afternoon and stayed up until after 1:30am to finish it. I couldn’t put it down. If you’re like me and ever wondered what you would do if there was a shooting while you were at the zoo, this is the book for you. If that sounds like a terrible story then move right along. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve considered where I’d hide during a zoo attack and it all played out in this book. Some of it was a little wordy (something crawled over the mother’s foot which led to several paragraphs down memory lane blahblah) but overall it was engrossing.
Apologizing to: the mother’s from AB’s school. When I dropped AB off at school on Wednesday I asked if she’s been behaving well. They gave a glowing report. When I picked her up, Miss Shiela pulled me aside and said, “Annabelle blurted out to the whole class that Santa Claus isn’t real.” She gave me a look that said I needed to get my truth-spreading child under control. I apologized profusely. The day before Annabelle was at swimming lessons and made the same announcement to the whole pool. I thought I had gotten through to her when I said she couldn’t say that in public because other children might not know. Now I keep my eyes averted when I see a mother from her class.
I was starting to regret telling her if it meant she’d ruin other children’s fun, but she told me “I’m glad you told me because I was wondering why I’ve seen so many different Santas out there.”
Protecting: Linus and Lucy. If they don’t make it, it will be because Sesame loved them to death. She’s trying to teach them how to play patacake and do the cooking game on the ipad. They’ve been dropped, squeezed, kissed, wrapped in blankets, made to dance and treated like babies. She loves them. They tolorate her. It’s an arrangement that’s worked well so far.
