Quotable Christmas

A few quotes from our house the last couple days that make me smile and that I want to remember ...

Last night at church during the candle lighting portion of the service, Joel looked at the candle in Alyssa's hand and proclaimed "ohhhh! HOT!!!" in a very loud voice. I heard quite a few giggles from behind us.

Tonight I was letting Alyssa do my make up with her make up kit that Santa brought her. When she was finished, she proclaimed that it was my turn to "decorate" her.

I'm not exactly sure why, but I always remember an orange (or maybe in a pinch an apple) being stuffed into the toe of my stocking on Christmas morning, so Santa does that for Alyssa and Joel, too. This afternoon Alyssa told me that she had been worried because she forgot to tell Santa that she wanted an orange for Christmas and was quite relieved that he had put one in her stocking anyway. Whatever, weirdo! ;)

Even with the "low" this morning regarding the basketball hoop, overall we had a pretty great Christmas. Lots of wonderful gifts from friends and family, yummy steak and potatoes for Christmas dinner, the entire family got to take naps this afternoon, and a day where I didn't worry about cleaning or laundry (much). Just a day focused on really doing nothing but enjoying Adam and the kids and the blessings that we have in our life; and that's a great day in my book.

Merry Freakin Christmas

To the jackasses who bought the Little Tykes basketball hoop/set before us and then felt compelled to take the toy out of the box, fill the box with your cigarette-smoke-smelling trash, and then return it to the store so that I could unsuspectingly purchase it for my son for Christmas ... screw you!

I don't know if I should be more angry or sad, but either way I want to march into Toys R Us and rip the first employee I see a new one. Or just burst into tears and start wailing about how they ruined my and my family's Christmas.

Thinking of the "season", I'm trying to be a good person by thinking about how fortunate my children are that they have numerous new toys, books, movies, etc that they don't really notice that they can't play with this one specific gift. And I know that I as a parent would do almost anything to give my children anything they want and maybe the actual toy brought incredible joy to a child that would normally not get a Christmas/birthday/whatever present.

Or maybe they are just jerks. (I really, really want to curse, but since my mom reads my blog, I'm using more PG language).

But now as I look back at the pictures from my parents Christmas last night where I see Joel so proudly pushing his huge, wrapped present into the living room to unwrap, the pictures of Alyssa and Joel sitting in front of the unwrapped box in awe and excitement at getting to play with a "real" basketball hoop, its tainted for me. Instead of seeing the excitement and innocence and happiness of my kids when I look back on those pictures in years to come I'll remember the confusion, anger, and eventual sadness that came when I actually opened the box up. I guess some things are better left unopened.

I already have proclaimed that I hate shopping at Toys R Us. It seems like I have never had a good experience with them - rude employees, false advertising, the list goes on. I am already dreading the process of taking this gift back.

Wishing I could clone myself

I can't remember the last time I felt this queasy/nauseous. Last night Eric and Hope came over for supper/Wii playing, which was oodles of fun, but about 20 minutes before they left I started feeling very "gurgly" in my stomach. By the time I went to be I was shaking violently, so I'm assuming that I was running some sort of fever. I don't think I really fell into a deep sleep and was up about every hour for a trip to the bathroom. Then about 4 this morning (I think) I found out that Adam had been up several times to throw up. I am sooo thankful that I haven't thrown up, I'll take the "other end issues", although part of me does wonder if I would feel better if I did throw up.

I don't think I'll experiment.

So here's my dilema ... I'm supposed to work from 12 - 4 today. 1. I'm not sure if Adam will be able to take care of the kids. 2. I cannot even think about food without wanting to throw up and/or my stomach starts cramping violently. Probably not going to be a good shift trying to sell Omaha Steaks products. Although it is getting late enough in the season that probably a majority of what I'll be doing will be track packages.

So - I go in and suffer through it - although I don't know if I can be away from the bathroom for the 20 minute drive in. Or I cross my fingers and hope that what I have is a 12 hour thing and I'm feeling immensely better. And then there's always the "can Adam handle the kids while he's sick" option. Or I don't go in ... but then I lose my attendance bonus (an extra $1 an hour for all the hours I've worked in the last 3 weeks) and I wouldn't be eligible for the rehire bonus next year, which would be mean that I would be out that $200 and would have to do a week long training again if I wanted to work there again. So just by not going in today for 4 hours, I would be out probably around $300. Talk about your rock and a hard place.

If only I had a cloning machine.

Snow day thoughts ...

I was very glad to get the e-mail last night that Alyssa didn't have preschool today so that I didn't have to venture out in the world this morning. I feel like all I've been doing this week is running in 15 different directions and I'm ready for some down time.

I've been feeling slightly guilty about my lack of blogging lately. I don't have a whole lot to say, but here's a few thoughts for today.

First an adorable story about Joel, though. His newest thing is that if you say "Who wants to _____" when he's within earshot, he'll immediately yell "ME!!!". Who wants to sleep with Lexi? Joel! Who wants to go potty with Alyssa? Joel! Who wants to take a bath? Joel! Who wants to do the dishes? Joel! Until last night when I asked "who wants some veggie pizza?" and heard a very loud and firm "NO!" coming from my sweet little boy. We tried every variation of the question trying to get him to say "Me!", but as soon as they boy heard the word "veggie" he was not having it.

And now for snow day thoughts:
1. I picked the wrong day to volunteer to scoop the driveway. I figured it would be an easy way to get my cardio in for the day, but damn ... two inches of ice followed by 2-3 inches of snow does not make for easy drive way cleaning! Thank goodness for next door neighbor Robb and his arsenal of ice chipping tools or I would have been out there for hours!
2. Today marks the first time I have had the opportunity to bundle up two kids in their new snow pants and boots and an odd assortment of coats, mittens, hats, etc ... I wish I could way a magic wand and cut down on the actual "prep" time.
3. I want new boots. Should have added that to my Christmas list.
4. The neighbor kids have an inflatable sled. That's so much cooler than the circa 1985 red plastic sled that my kids inherited from my youth.
5. I hope that playing outside this morning wipes my kids out so that they'll take a looonng nap this afternoon. Now I've probably jinxed myself and it will give them some strange super-energy.

Basement Project 2.0

This section took more than just an afternoon; more like one afternoon and one morning. I would say that I've now tackled probably about 1/2 the basement. Feels really, really, really good to be able to look at before/after pictures and see my progress. And I wanted to post these so that my mom knew that I was still working on it even though she isn't here to crack the whip. ;)

Only "bad" part is that now I really have the "finish the basement" itch because I'm starting to be able to imagine what it would be like to have real walls, flooring, rooms, etc. Just need about 10K to drop out of the sky ... that's not too much to ask, is it?

Warm tummy, warm heart, and a new tradition

Tonight we loaded up the kids in their jammies in the car (with new fleece snowflake blankets toasty warm from the dryer), picked up some hot chocolate from Starbucks, and drove around looking at Christmas lights. Joel was highly impressed - he "ohhhhhhhhh"ed all around town. Alyssa had fun, too. She loved pointing out the different Santas; we'll see how she feels about the "real deal" next week at the mall. I had a great time, too - my tummy is warm from peppermint hot chocolate and my heart is warm from creating a special memory with the people I love most in the world. My hope is that it will become a yearly tradition.

PS ~ Dee, you GOTTA take your kids to see the house in the picture ... they have every Christmas character you could imagine, plus several non-Christmas ones like all the Sesame Street gang (aka big yellow duck or whatever it was - ha!), every inflatable you could think of, and lights that are coordinated to Christmas music on a radio station. Its awesome!

I missed the memo

That says that you should always have one arm posed above your head when having your picture taken ...