the 12 Days of Christmas ( my version )

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

A baby with RSV

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV


On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Four letter naughty words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV


On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Five unwanted pounds!
Four letter naughty words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV


On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Six stockings to stuff
Five unwanted pounds!
Four letter naughty words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV


On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Seven letter free shipping codes
Six stockings to stuff
Five unwanted pounds!
Four letter naughty words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Eight work/school/church/white elephant parties
Seven letter free shipping codes
Six stockings to stuff
Five unwanted pounds!
Four letter naughty words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Nine neighbor gifts
Eight work/school/church/white elephant parties
Seven letter free shipping codes
Six stockings to stuff
Five unwanted pounds!
Four letter naughty words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Ten times hearing “You’ll shoot your eye out”
Nine neighbor gifts
Eight work/school/church/white elephant parties
Seven letter free shipping codes
Six stockings to stuff
Five unwanted pounds!
Four letter naughty words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV


On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Eleven times I’ve procrastinated
Ten times hearing “You’ll shoot your eye out”
Nine neighbor gifts
Eight work/school/church/white elephant parties
Seven letter free shipping codes
Six stockings to stuff
Five unwanted pounds!
Four letter naughty words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school
And a baby with RSV

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Twelve hours baking
Eleven times I’ve procrastinated
Ten times hearing “You’ll shoot your eye out”
Nine neighbor gifts
Eight work/school/church/white elephant parties
Seven letter free shipping codes
Six stockings to stuff
Five unwanted pounds!
Four letter naughty *&!@ words
Three attempts for pictures
Two kids home from school

And a baby with RSV


May your Christmas season be unmedicated and stress free!

My new hiding spot

My cute little block picture holder thingy disappeared today. I knew exactly who took it since the evidence was laid out so nice and evenly on the couch right below where the picture holder was sitting.

I asked him if he knew where my picture holder went. He replied, "Hmmmm. Let's see?"

Yes. Let's see.

We then proceeded to play the "Where is it hiding?" game for the next fifteen minutes as we aimlessly walked around the family room, kitchen and living room while he curiously exclaimed, "No. Not in here." We even looked in three closets. Nothing. I hoped he might remember where he put such an odd looking, memorable object seeing that he remembered where he put the TV remote the last time he hid it on the bottom shelf next to the cereal boxes in the pantry. Or Lauren's sports bottle he stored in a bookcase.............for a month.

No such luck.

It wasn't until tonight as I was preparing dinner and opened the freezer that I realized where my picture holder had been hiding all day.

Wedged nicely between the frozen celery and home made enchilada sauce.

So then it dawned on me. I've got a few Christmas presents that need a good hiding place. Too bad it's not big enough to hold a bike or two.

Or a Wii.

JUST KIDDING! If I were getting a Wii, I wouldn't put it in the freezer.

seriously.

Who would have thought it was a good idea to put the children's department at Macy's on the same floor as the fine china and crystal? Which is on display right off of the escalators? And you have to walk through them to even get to the children's section?

Obviously someone who doesn't have kids.

I got a new vacuum!

Creating a new branch in the Hoover family tree while still adhering to the company's reputation for innovation and quality, this is the ideal machine. It's a sleak upright design with a HEPA ( He Eats Paraphernalia Always ) filtration system. It is light weight at only 20 pounds. It is designed to smoothly glide across your floor while picking up more dust and debris in corners and along baseboards. This latest advance technology ensures the highest, most efficient pick-up across all floor types.
As you can see, mine is a slightly older 8 month model. While mine has the old rear bag design and not the new bagless model, it still works like a charm!

Something new I discovered

Something I forgot to mention about our Tombstone trip.

I guess because we are a family of six, we are now considered a "group" at restaurants. Who knew having one more child would end up costing us so much more money this early in the game.

_____________________________

At least that's the way it happened at the restaurant we went to in Tombstone. It seems they counted the baby as a real food eating human body as well.

_____________________________

And what do restaurants typically do with groups of six or more? They shrewdly add an automatic 20% tip. Now normally, I wouldn't mind but this time, it was a little ridiculous. First of all, our "six" was a seven month old baby. And all he ate were some Cheerios which most of those ended up on the floor. So technically, we were a group of five. And the other reason is that the service was horrifically slow. It took us an hour and a half to get in and out of the place! Now moms with little kids know that you can't go anywhere unless you know you'll be done within 30, 45 minutes, TOPS. Otherwise, chaos in sues. So, imagine what it was like entertaining four kids for an hour and a half. I mean, there comes a point when the novelty of the boys/girls bathroom wears off.

_____________________________

I think what was the kicker was when we asked when the apple crisp that we ordered twenty minutes before would be out and she said, "Oh! I just put it in the microwave. It should be out in a few minutes."

_____________________________

Restaurant? Apple crisp? Microwave? 7.99? 20% tip?

_______________________________

Then only to discover that the "apple crisp" was the same concoction I've made at home using yellow cake mix and peaches/apples/cherries.

_________________________________

So the service we received to justify the automatic 20% tip was the pleasure of being gawked at ( yet again ) by old people, wasting an hour and a half of our already shortened time there, a really bad apple crisp, a majorly slow waitress, and saved us the need to figure out what 20% of the bill would be.

Can you tell what this is a picture of?

It's a still security camera shot of my husband at Piccadilly Circus in London standing to the right of the light post while on the phone talking to me.

Makes it seem like he's not really seven hours ahead and over 6000 miles away.

Can the creativity gene skip a generation?

Do you think my daughter inherited my Martha Stewartish knack of creativity?

I'm thinking sadly, it may have skipped a generation.

If you can't tell from looking at the picture above, then let me explain how I came to this conclusion.

My daughter brought home from school a piece of paper with a turkey on it. She was told she needed to decorate the turkey in a disguise so that it wouldn't be recognized and eaten for Thanksgiving dinner.

Creative, Martha Stewart me, thought she should glue a piece of white material over the turkey cutting out holes for just the eyes and letting the feet poke out from the bottom as if the turkey was hiding in order to avoid being the guest of honor at a Thanksgiving feast.

The next thing I knew, a box of Cheerios was out of the cupboard. I thought she was going to have herself a bowl as a snack. But alas, they were going to be used as part of her mixed media creation.

Notice only one Cheerio is ever so slightly colored in.

Here we have the head of the turkey and its blue/green framed glasses and gobbler which would make for excellent camouflage in the wild.

Next are the shoes in disguise as paper towels painted in brightly colored purples, oranges and pinks. All of which capture the colors of fall.

And to add the finishing touches, what incognito turkey wouldn't be complete without a floral headdress to adorn its feathery tail?

And one perfectly placed star for all to see.

My version of the "Mr. Turkey" song:

Mr. Turkey, Mr. Turkey,

Are you hiding under there?

Are those Cheerios for your belly?

And material for your hair?

Mr. Turkey, Mr. Turkey,

Do you really think you won't get caught?

Cause with a disguise just like that one

You for sure will get shot.

( If anything, just to put you out of your misery )

Sweet.

That's about how I would describe it.

This Dodge Grand Caravan is S.W.E.E.T. It's so sweet that it's the reason I haven't posted in a week. I've been too busy having fun.

I mean. When was the last time you got in your car and had this happen?

What? You've never seen this picture before? Let me point some things out for you:

Notice the kids sitting in their chairs quietly particularly the two year old? Notice the two children in the back seat not touching each other? Notice the 24 oz root beer in a cup holder? Notice the Nintendo being played?

Heaven I tell you. This is what it was like on our little road trip we took to Tombstone over the weekend. Pure Heaven. My husband and I talked while listening to either the songs from the Big '80s or the Hair bands stations on our Satellite radio. Yes, it had satellite radio but more importantly, we actually were able to "talk" without being interrupted a thousand times by a child saying, "He's touching me!" or "She's copying me!"

We reminisced about the days when we were young and piled seven people and luggage in our wood paneled brown Country Squire station wagon with brown vinyl seats and drove cross country to visit grandma. We talked about the dreams we have of one day taking the kids on road trips across the country to visit National Parks, Historical places in history and big balls of rubber bands. We knew we could totally do it if we had a car just like this one. We don't know how we even survived those trips when we were young without a TV and only AM radio. I'd pay for the extra features like the dual TVs and video game console plug ins. I figure, it would cost less to add those features and be able to drive and see more things than it would be to fly six people to one place......once.

Right?

This was my view from the back bench seat. I got to watch Spongebob Squarepants.

So people were pretty impressed with the ride. Men were jealous of the navigation system, tailgating bench option, automatic start button on the key fob and Sirius Satellite radio. Women were jealous of the fact that kids could watch Disney channel or Nick Jr. at any time and that the seats were made out of leather which cleans up those chocolate milk spills and projectile vomiting messes pretty easily.

Both were equally impressed with the rear-view security camera, swivel seats and the back bench that folded down with a simple push of a button.

The day came though, when I had to give up my ride. I thought how heartless and cruel it was for someone to dangle this thing in front of me for a week and then just take it away like that. I went through withdrawals. I started out not sure I'd even LIKE a minivan since I've driven an SUV for the last six years. I was afraid I'd be labeled a "Soccer mom" or that my SUV driving mom friends would shun me for going over to the dark side. But, I got in my Tahoe for the first time in a week and it felt so......so.......blah. I shamelessly admit that I fell in love with a minivan.

My poor son. Yesterday after we had to give up the van, he got in our Tahoe and said, "Where's the TV?" This afternoon we saw a comerical on TV for "our" car. The kids excitedly pointed out the cool features that we were able to experience for ourselves as we took a little trip down memory lane and fondly talked about the memories of "our" car.

sigh.

I can't wait until we replace the Tahoe.

Halloween 2007

Is it just me or is Halloween night nothing but chaos?

.

I would almost prefer going through security at the airport with four kids, two strollers, six back backs, a laptop, making sure the kids take off their shoes while digging for the quart size bags holding 3 oz bottles of liquids and/or gels.

Almost.

After the last child comes home from school it's almost pure torture to try and get them to focus long enough to get their homework done right before a semi-nutritious hot dog dinner so that they can put on their costumes and go mooching for candy.

There's generally make-up that needs to be put on or touched up, Velcro and snaps that need adjusted, clothes that need to have the smeared candy leftovers from the school party cleaned off, and oh yeah......forgot about the trick-or-treat bags. Gotta dig those out of the closet.

Then there's always the one child who throws a fit about their costume five minutes prior to heading out. Notice Erik in the background flipping his noodle over wanting to be a turtle now instead of a dinosaur.

But give him a treat and that usually does the trick.
















Then there was the costume that didn't get much thought until it was too late. Is it a butterfly? Or a fairy? Do fairies wear headbands with antennas? I'm thinking it's a butterfly. But she wants to be a fairy. So we shall call you.....a Butterfly Fairy Princess. Daughter responds, "Oh! Like from Fairytopia!"

Yeah. Just like that.............






Jack was a Ninja Turtle. Pretty self-explanatory.







Ian was the token baby (so the parents have an excuse to get a bag of candy) and went as a ferocious, drooling, snot-running-down-his-face, get-me-the-heck-out-of-this-sweaty-thing tiger.

















The kids usually have more fun passing out the candy than trick or treating themselves. Our house was a hit, by the way, since we were passing out real life size bags of Hershey's Kissables seeing that we picked up a few gazillion on our Disney trip. It was fun hearing the kids say, "No WAY!" "Cool!"


I'm just glad to be rid of them.

And of course, after the kids got home, and looted their stash, then went to bed......... Mom took the good stuff out and saved them for herself in her secret hiding place. MmmmWAaaaHAhahahaha!

I am evil. I know.

Edited to add: Lauren just came home from school today and told me that she asked her teacher what she would be for Halloween if tomorrow was Halloween again ( at least that's the story I'm hearing from a seven year old so it might be a little skewed ). She said her teacher would go as a "Nippy".

A Nippy? What's a Nippy?

She said, "You know. People who lived like 60 years ago......or maybe a 1000 years ago and dressed kind of funny?"

You mean, HIPPY? Like from the '60's?

"Yeah. Hippy".