Merry Christmas

I hope your Christmas is enjoyable and magical!

delirious

Currently I have 2 or 3 (depending on how ambitious I am tonight) scrapbook projects to make tonight for gifts. Then I have 12 SEWING projects to do for Christmas. Fortunately all those gifts won't be given until January 1st when we celebrate with my side of the family so I have extra time. However, next week is booking up fast so the more I get done before the 25th the better off I am. So far this week I have created 9 scrapbook gifts, baked treats for our neighbors, and hosted a gingerbread party today. Most of our gifts aren't wrapped either. I did manage to mail or deliver all the gifts that needed to go. I really have a lot to do ... I should be stressed but I am rather calm. I haven't had any breakdowns. I also have only had 8 hours sleep in the last 2 days (3 on Sunday night and 5 on Monday night). I really do love giving handmade gifts ... hope my recipients enjoy getting them. I do wish I would start earlier on them. I am enjoying this Christmas season just as much as last year's. Mostly I think it has to do with keeping a positive attitude and listening to Christmas music on pandora during dinner or it could be that I am completely delirious at this point.

1 Hour

I have one hour before Christmas break officially starts. I should madly working on my Christmas to do list but instead I decide to decompress by blogging. I feel like not much was accomplished this week. Reese is still not herself which I am praying is from not feeling good/taking a ton of meds as opposed to it being the new norm of her two year old self. She is a one grouchy girl! Caden is sick today and he is not alone 10 kids out of 22 were gone this morning from his class as well as the classroom aid. As I left, another little girl was saying she was sick and that she threw up last night and then a mom I walked out with said her daughter had thrown up last night too but she thought it was from eating junk.

I did get my handmade cards done this week and they are in the mailbox.

I cut back on my list and only made 40. I used to send 75. That was crazy and time consuming and expensive.

I like making them when there's 40, not when there's 75. Check your mailbox to see if you made the cut!

I also made homemade gingerbread cookies.

The dough tastes better than the cookies.

We plan on baking some treats for our neighbor gifts this weekend.


I got the preschool photos taken, printed, picked up, and came up with an idea for their art project.

We got them done and I was able to attend the little Christmas party they had.

They had fun singing jingle bells,

watching a movie, and

exchanging gifts.

Hopefully there will be no sick kids so Aaron and I get to go Christmas shopping as planned tomorrow and then attend his work's Christmas party. We have no time left to do our shopping and I need time away from the kiddos this weekend before we are together day and night next week with the excitement of Christmas running strongly through their bodies. I have crafts planned for next week for them to help keep the TV off. I'm sure by the time Christmas arrives I will be down on my knees praying for more time to finish (or start) many of my gifts ...

do people take rain checks for Christmas gifts?

It's the most _________ time of the year ....

Oh can you believe there are 11 days to Christmas? I can't. I have SOOOOO much to do. Like shopping for the kids (mine and neices and nephews) and making about one million things plus my Christmas cards, I have one done, ONE and I only have that one done because I have to give it to my cleaning lady tomorrow when she comes. Last minute, every time. If I told you some of the things I still have to make in the next 11 days you'd be like, "WHAT? Have you lost your mind?" Yes, I have and I will get them done. Of course, the kids only have 4 more days of school left and if they would quit being sick and sleeping in my bed it would be better. I took Reese in twice yesterday on a Sunday. Once to a clinic that I will not take my children back to again then to the ER where she was diagnosed with croup as I had told the first place and double ear infections (the first place said her ears looked good). She is now on 4 medications and eye drops ... Addison had a fever today too ... I am doing a project at school with the preschoolers that requires me to take photos of each child. The plan was to go today but 2 sick kids prevented that. Oh yeah and did I mention I haven't really shopped yet and I have lots of sewing to do? I did? Oh, I'm trying not to feel stressed though, one day at a time, remember to breath. It will get done, I will probably have to give up some sleep but I'll wait until the last minute to do that.
But this may put me over the edge....

that's our cat IN the tree. I couldn't get a good photo but this photo is of the top third of our tree. She has started climbing from the bottom up and then once high enough she pokes her head out, knocking off ornaments, pulling out limbs, tearing down the lights and garland. She has a death wish. Snoopy is definitely on Santa's naughty list ... no gifts for her!

And here's a guy that's on the nice list:

I hope your holiday season is more wonderful than stressful.

Dear Santa

For our advent calendar activity yesterday, we wrote out letters to Santa. This year I let the kids talk and I wrote their words exactly. Here's Reesey's:

Dear Santa,
I tell Ho-Ho puppy.
Good Girl.
The end.
Love, Reese

Elfie takes our letters to Santa and of course, Santa writes us back!

I'm a Bear

Winter is not my favorite and I know it really just finally arrived in the Midwest but for the last couple weeks, all I want to do is eat and lay in bed after the kids go to bed. I can't stay up much past 10 these days when normally I hardly ever go to bed before 12 or 1. I'm not a morning person but when it's cold, I'd rather not get out of bed at all. I'm not a fan of winter clothes and we all know how I feel about dressing 4kids in winter gear to get out the door.

Maybe I'm part bear and should just hibernate. Maybe we should move to a warmer climate. Every evening I think I'm going to work on my dozens of homemade Christmas gifts and every night I just go to bed. I wish I could get started during the day and maybe that momentum would cause me to keep going in the evening but it seems as if every single day we are gone most of the day then when the older kids are home from preschool, forget trying to work on anything that doesn't involve getting them snacks, doing projects, getting redressed to go outside, or putting in a DVD.

Today was their first snow day. Even Aaron's work cancelled work! So we stayed home and I made breakfast

and we decorated wrapping paper, made some gift tags,

had our kids practice being mules,

went outside in the freezing cold, Aaron did card tricks (?),

taught Addison and Caden about War and Go Fish, made vegetable soup, and I did more laundry than should be humanly possible. There's still more to do. A few months ago I decided I would start doing laundry once a week like I hear other people describing .... conclusion: this does not work for us. In one week there is at least 9+ loads of laundry. It's too much for me to get done in one day because it's not like I can just do laundry, there's too much other stuff going on here. So it takes me like 3 days to get it all done and then it's still not all done, a vicious cycle. I'm going back to doing a load or two every day then usually on the weekend I don't have to do any.

I had plans to work on all my projects

this fabric is washed and ready and calling my name but after all that laundry and the fact that it about 10 degrees in my home ... well I'm calling it a day and this mama bear is going to bed ... maybe tomorrow.

LOST Obsessed

Do crazy people know they are crazy? If the answer is yes, then I might be crazy. Maybe "obsessed" is more the word. I look for lost stuff more than anybody. I'm not even counting the stuff the kids lose every 18 minutes, like "cowboy" (Woody's hat). I'm actually pretty good at finding that as well as other stuff, that no matter how hard my children and my husband look, can't see 12 inches in front of their face.

I usually am looking for stuff, I've put somewhere. This is why I hate cleaning. I can tell you where most stuff is in a total mess, if I start cleaning then I can't find anything. Weird and really annoying. I lose my keys a lot, and yes I have a designated place for them; however, with 4 small kids they don't always make it to the key basket when you are carrying 3 book bags, 3 lunch bags, some coats, shoes & socks, purchases, the mail, my purse, my phone (which I also lose), and kids in the door all at once. When something is lost I can't stop looking for it. I mean, I really can't stop. Even if it's not that important, it drives me crazy. Sometimes I think maybe I'm on a TV show (like the Truman Show) and don't know it and things have been misplaced on purpose to see how long I will look for it. I'm sure if that's happening I'm close to getting a world record for it. No one really helps me because no one here puts much of anything away that way they can be innocent if something is lost.

Currently, I have lost a big thing, Ethan's hearing aide. It's a huge thing to lose. First he needs it for school and he's been without for about a week and half. Second it has a pretty price tag, $900. I'd like to blame it on him because he does tend to throw it down on the floor when he's tired of wearing it, usually at home or in the van. However, remembering back to the Tuesday before Thanksgiving he had a check up at the audiologist so we had it that day. I'm pretty sure I had it the next day, as we had eye doctor appointments and a day from Hell. I'm pretty sure I threw it in my purse that morning as we headed out the door, a little late. It was a hectic day of Ethan hating the eye doctor and taking 3 people to hold him down for an exam ... having our insurance coverage being turned down at at the doctor's office for eye glasses ... driving around for 45 minutes looking for a place that would take our coverage only to find out I could only pick out glasses out of a box she kept under the counter for both Addison and Ethan that didn't come with warranties and didn't fit Ethan correctly at all ... having to take a break at the eye glass place because he wouldn't let the lady measure his eyes ... rushing back to pick Caden up from Preschool. I'm pretty sure it may have been lost in that huge mess of a day. I never gave it much thought because it was Thanksgiving and Reese's birthday and he doesn't really wear it much at home. I thought about it but figured it was in my purse or in the van. Then I started to look for it. The obsession began, I looked everywhere at least 3 times. I called several places that we were in those 2 days, just in case. Let me tell you don't call McDonalds if you lose something there, they told me they didn't have a hearing aide in their lost and found before I got the question out.

I keep looking in odd places it would never be, just in case. I think I've searched my scrap desk a dozen times because everything in the free world seems to be there. But I haven't worked at my scrap desk since October. I think it's gone.

Good news is we get help with some of Ethan's equipment like eye glasses and hearing aides from DSCC (Division of Specialized Care for Children) due to his prematurity and birth health problems. But I don't know how keen they are on helping us buy a new hearing aide when the mom lost it. He was going to need a new one next year anyway because it's almost 5 years old. He also needs new glasses right now too -- so double whammy. His old ones are being held together with scrapbooking tape. I'm having trouble getting those paid for because we have Aaron's insurance, All Kids, and DSCC. Looks to me with all that, the glasses would get paid for but because we have too much coverage no one wants to pay so they pass the buck (or the bill) in a never ending circle that means we have to pay for them. So tomorrow I get to call our DSCC case worker and see if Ethan can get glasses and a hearing aide. I'm going to be on the phone for a long time and probably not understand anything they tell me.

Well, maybe I can just admit the hearing aide is truly lost and stop crawling around on the floor with a flash light looking under every piece of furniture we own and if I stop looking it will turn up along with Reese's other shoe .... how do you lose just ONE shoe?????? Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of "How Long will She Look" to see if I win the world record.

Visiting Santa

Our first visit to Santa this year was last weekend at the Festival of Trees. To some people this may not be a great photo but all FOUR of them are looking at the camera -- that is HUGE to their mommy!

For Aunt Keely

Once he discovered the fisherman outfit, he was all about it. He even took it to bed and came out the next morning wearing the hat and carrying the fishing pole. "I love fishing!" he proclaims.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

around here. The *new* advent calendar I made is up.

It's just various little stockings with number tags added held up on a ribbon with clothespin. Each day there is a note in the stockings that lead us to an activity or small prize. Our first day was getting reacquainted with our elf, Elfie (he had also brought us a little treat too).

He watches us and reports to Santa each night. Each day he's in a different place although this morning he must have overslept because Caden could have sworn he was in the same place as yesterday when he went downstairs with Daddy before work. Then he crawled back in bed with me and when he work up the second time he was sitting on the tree .... hmmmmm ... puzzling.

Reese and I put up the tree and lights yesterday and our advent calendar told us to decorate it. They did such a good job.

I really didn't have to do much. I have a lot more decorations to go through. I don't put everything out every year.

I just pick and choose what I am really liking at the moment. I think I may do something with our dining room table and our light.

We are all in sick mode right now. Some strange one day, throw up thing. First Caden on Tuesday, then Aaron missed work yesterday and started to feel better just in time for Reese to start throwing up and Addison stayed home today and almost threw up. So just Ethan and me to go. I sure hope my weekend isn't spent sick. I have a lot of sewing projects and other Christmas things to get started on.

TWO!

I can't believe Reesey turned two yesterday!



We had a little family party .... a pink puppy party because she LOVES dogs so much and it had to be pink because I could make it girly.

It was fun and all 11 of her cousins made it.

We played games that made my kids cry ... but I think they had fun. Pin the tail on the Puppy was a hit! Musical dogs maybe a little too stressful for the 5 and under crowd.

We had hot dogs and chili and puppy chow and scooby snacks and pink cherry fluff.

I made paw print cupcakes and a pink puppy cake that looked like a pig for a while before it was all finished. Opening presents was crazy and very LOUD, my MIL said it sounded like there were 40 kids there not 10. I would have to say Uncle John is the hit of the kids party with every kid even ones he's not related to.


She got the cutest tulle tutu skirt from Aunt Monica and family and she got 3 baby dolls, one almost as tall as she is. Of course lots of cute clothes and other fun toys.

She was so excited for her Puppy Birthday and I think she had a great time! We love you, Reesey!

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was great!

I did almost all my cooking the days leading up, a couple things everyday so there wasn't much to make except the giant turkey my MIL bought. She got some super deal, a 19 lb turkey for about $8.

Of course as normal I realized that 5 days is not enough time to defrost a giant turkey even when it spent 3 hours in a cold water bath to speed up the process. Next year I'm adding 2 days on to my defrost time. So even though I added 45 minutes on the cooking time that was recommended it still took an extra 45 minutes to cook so we ate late.

But we ate and ate.

It was just us, my in-laws, and my dad.

I made a ton of food and my kids as normal at next to nothing, they're wasn't much left except lots of turkey.

I thought I must have read my mashed potatoes recipe wrong thinking maybe it said serves 6 when I rechecked it said 12 so we just stuffed ourselves silly. My pies turned out good and my inlaws couldn't compliment me enough.
We wrote little cards to tell why we were thankful and I want to make a little book to put out next year (add that of my list of leisurely projects to do ....) It was a great day with NO stress and I love to cook especially when it turns out yummy.
I'm grateful for these four little turkeys:
:
and this big one!

(the husband not the actually turkey ... although I do love turkey!