everyone else is doing it

Since everyone else is doing it, I guess I'll do MY Christmas recap with a few of the million pics I took. :D

Well, we have definitely had a BUSY last 5 days. AWESOME, but busy.

Wednesday, we went to this free family event that was sponsored by the local churches, called "The Arctic Express". It was fun and the kids had a really good time.

Thursday we had some fun checking out the lights (see the video in my last post), after opening some new Christmas PJ's.

Christmas day was awesome, of course! We did just what we ALL wanted to do. We stayed home and enjoyed the day playing with toys, visiting with family and eating! The kids LOVED all their gifts. We had a yummy dinner, of which, there were NO leftovers! (I'm thinking about going and buying another ham so we can have some "leftovers" lol).

Saturday morning Josh's dad brought gifts over and we had a nice Christmas visit with them.

TANGENT:I think that my father in law is the best "receiver" of gifts that I know. No matter what it is, he is always so thankful and appreciative of it. I know that's a strange thing to say, but I always think of that because I hate when you think you got someone something they will like and they are just like "eh". He is never like that. He always recognizes the work that was put into something etc.

Also Saturday afternoon was my dad's family Christmas party which was lots of fun. There were quite a few people missing, but also some out of towners that got to be there, so that was really nice.

Sunday we went to my moms house for our Christmas visit. We got to see my Grandma (first time since June) so that was really good. And everyone got some really nice gifts and had some good food.

So the next couple days are going to be spent finding places for the new toys, getting rid of some old ones and catching up on the laundry (for me) and playing with new toys and watching new movies (for the kids). I hope everyone had a WONDERFUL Christmas!

Some awesome Christmas Lights

This year, we spent our Christmas Eve checking out the Christmas lights around here (after putting on new Christmas Eve jammies :D). A couple of houses were AMAZING and I took a video of the one house. Enjoy!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Not wrong, just different

• Why do some people have the "my way or the highway" mentality? Just because something is different, doesn't make it wrong.
• Why do I HAVE to do things the way you did them?
• Why must everything I do be taken as a personal insult?
• When will it be OK for me to raise MY CHILDREN, MY WAY?
• Why would a 40-something woman liken herself to a 90-something great grandmother, just to prove a point?
• Why would a grandma THREATEN to move 12 hrs away from her grandchildren, or never get them Christmas gifts again just because she can't get her way?
• Why would someone accuse her own daughter of not loving her?
• Why would someone keep herself from seeing her own family on Christmas out of sheer stubbornness?
• Why would someone who supposedly "hates" the way her mother acts, act THE EXACT SAME WAY?
• Why, would you act like a petulant child because everything can't be the exact way you want it?
• Why wouldn't you just enjoy the second best option and make it as nice as possible?

These are the questions plaguing my brain for the last couple of days (among many others). I guess there are some people that I will never understand. People that need to control everything and everyone and have everything THEIR WAY, or just not at all. I feel like I can't make everyone happy, no matter what I do. So I've chosen my children, my husband and myself. I've chosen our happiness over hers. And I still feel like a failure. But I'm a failure either way, so...

The Best Christmas Movies

I've been called a Christmas fanatic, a Christmas-aholic and a Christmas freak (upon many others, I'm sure lol). So I'd like to share some Christmas wisdom. And what do I know more about than Christmas?...MOVIES of course! So here are some that I watch at Christmastime (or all year long lol). They aren't in any particular order, just what I thought of when I started typing. If you feel that a grave miscarriage of justice has been done because I've left off one of your favorites, let me know, I may have just forgotten it because I've had a long couple of days. And also, if you haven't see ALL of these movies...WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR...CHRISTMAS?! ;-)

Christmas with the Kranks

The Santa Clause

Elf

The Polar Express

Miracle on 34th St (the original, but preferably in color)

A Christmas Story

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

The Family Stone

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

A Christmas Carol

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation

Home Alone (I will include 1 & 2, but NOT 3)

Frosty the Snowman

A Charlie Brown Christmas

It's a Wonderful Life

The Family Man

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Jingle All the Way

A Christmas Carol (the one with George C. Scott. all others suck)

Deck the Halls

Jack Frost

Scrooged

Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer

Comfort and Joy (this a made for TV one, but it's one of my faves)

Twas the Night Before Christmas (the animated one with the mice and the clock)

Annie*

While You Where Sleeping*

Serendipity*

The Holiday*

Last Holiday*

Love, Actually*

We also like to watch some religious ones at Easter and Christmas. Some of our favorites include...

The Greatest Story Ever told

The Passion of the Christ

The Ten Commandments

Merry Christmas!!

*These are not necessarily Christmas movies, they are just set at Christmastime and I always watch them at Christmastime.

The Nutcracker

One of those awesome traditions that comes with Christmas, is that my mom takes my sisters and I (and next year the girls!) to see the Nutcracker Ballet at the Palace Theater (which is soooo gorgeous and filled with awesome history BTW. if you ever get a chance to see anything there, do it!). It was awesome, as usual. However there was a slip-up that involved a male dancer, a female dancers head & a wall. yah. I would have LOVED to be backstage after that one....LOL.

I can't wait to take the girls next year. Sophia was DEFINITELY not ready for it this year and I didn't want to take Maria without her, so we just decided to take them both next year so they can really enjoy it. I don't want to be like the crazy people that bring babies to the ballet and then of course, they scream and are miserable the whole time. And it always amazes me how many people get there late. Ugh. It's so obnoxious. People pay good money to go there only to miss the whole first act because people are late and can't find their seats. Then their kids scream, talk, whine etc. through the whole thing because they aren't ready for it. blah :-P. I told my mom that when we are rich we'll by 3 rows of seats then we wont have to worry about the people around us LOL.

So, here are some of the pics I got. We always take a pic of us girls and this was the first time I took any during the performance because I was never sure how they would come out without the flash. But I have to say, they are pretty good and next year I'll probably try to take some of the parts I missed this year. Some of them are kind of blurry because they were moving so fast, but otherwise good. A bunch of the costumes were new and a few things had been changed up, so that was nice. Also, this year we were in the balcony, which we actually liked better than the floor seats we usually get. I got another ornament...and yes I forgot to take a pic of it, sorry. All around it was a really great day with the girls.

I can hear the music in my head when I look at this pic.

Everyones favorite "the big dress lady".

All of the "toys".

These two were definitely the best we've ever seen

This was all the leads getting flowers at the end.

Mid-preschool crisis

So, I'm pretty sure that Maria is having a midlife crisis...or mid-preschool crisis as it were. It seems like the last couple weeks, whenever we talk to her about something exciting that's going to happen, she's running down all the possible ways it could go wrong. This morning I said "why are you so worried all the time. just enjoy life, like the rest of us. you're going to give yourself an ulcer" To which she began asking "what's an ulcer? why i gonna have one? I don't want to have an ulcer..." (good one, Renee!)

Example A:
Me: If we get enough snow, we can go out and sled down the hill! :D
Sophia: YAAAAHHH!!!!
Maria: But Mommy, we don't have enough "slides". And there's not enough snow. I don't want to fall out of the slide. It's too cold so my hands will get cold. I can't find my gloves or my hood. Where you put my snow pants?

Example B:
Me: Do you guys want to go see Santa!?! :D
Sophia: YAAAAHHH! I wanna see santa and his beard! (said more like bird) lol
Maria: OK. But how we gonna get there? He can't talk because his beard is on his face. You tell him he have to wear pants* and his hat...and his coat. But he can't have a beard because then he can't talk.

Where, oh where, did my innocent child go. Over night, she's turned into a 45 yr old man who needs Cymbalta.**



*This is because my little prude did not take too kindly to the Rockets, during the Thanksgiving day parade, only wearing "santa's shirt, but not his pants and I don't want to see their knees". yah...I suppose that one could have been Example C.

**Don't worry, I would never put my child on drugs. :D

Best Christmas Tree EVER

Ok, IDK if that's actually true, but it's what my mom says EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR. so I feel a need to keep the tradition alive.

As I was thinking about what to share with you all today, I remembered that I hadn't shared the pics of our tree with my blogger friends who are not also my facebook friends.

We went to a different place this year to get our tree, and I think it was a winner. It might be our new "place". However, the girls did not feel that the woods surrounding this particular tree farm were adequate for their urination needs and they refused to go, even though they swore they could do it, pulled down their pants and squatted....for a full 2 minutes...in the cold....true story. Aaaanywho, needless to say, they each put about eleventy billion ornaments on the same branch which brought the bottom half of the tree to the ground, so momma had to help them out a little bit with their dispersment lol. And then Josh came lifted them up so they could put some on the very top, which they just loved. They did the same thing last year, so we were not all that surprised. And when they do it next year (plus 1), we wont be surprised then either. One of those memories, I just love about the holidays. However, teaching Jackson that crawling all the way under the tree and subsequently sit up and/or grabbing anything he can find, is not a good idea....not one of my favorite memories from this year. Though, when he's 15 and wont let me kiss him in public, I'll probably cherish it. Until then we have a tree that is strangely bare on all of the very bottom branches. Well, enough of all that. here ya go...

Josh and I joked that the light in this pic was God saying He approved of our choice. lol

They've been sitting there or in the chair beside the tree or in the loveseat beside my Christmas village, just watching. I love it. Simple pleasures, I guess.

And the finished product....basically. It's one of MY Christmas traditions to rearrange the ornaments all season long (It must be genetic because my mom does it too).

Oh and for those of you worrying (I know it was keeping you up at night) over the family pic in the last post...we "sort of" solved the problem. You'll see if you give me your address so I can send you one. :D

Christmas Questions

We've been gearing up for the Christmas holiday in this house. Josh has the benefit (ha!) of being married to a self proclaimed Christmas freak! I love everything about it and I refuse to wait until after Thanksgiving to start the fun. Sooooo in the preparations, I have had to answer a few questions from the girls. The best of which came from Maria... "How can the reindeer fly if they don't have any wings?" The second came from Sophia..."Is it time to go to Christmastime NOOOOW?"

Oh and as an added bonus Maria tells me this "hold on Mommy. I gonna go get my costume so I can be ready for Christmas" She comes back wearing a jack-o-lantern headband and proclaims "Now I'm ready for Santa!" I think we have a little work to do before we are ready for the upcoming holiday season.

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas

Ok, you're right, no it's not. I really don't know why I do it to myself every year. I start obsessing about Christmas starting in the summer. And to be honest, I have no idea why it happened so early this year (I usually at least hold off until Christmas in July). All it takes is one Christmas episode of Friends to start the Christmas train a rollin'. So, to add fuel to my holiday fire, I'm going to post some pics of Christmas' past. Enjoy. :D I know I'm already making lists. lol.

2003
2005
2007

2008

reindeer poop, anyone?

This story is about 5 months late, but just as hilarious today as it was back then.

Around Christmastime I found these stocking stuffers at walmart that were really funny. So I bought 2 of them. It was a little plastic reindeer that held brown jellybeans inside of it and when you push down on the reindeer's back he "poops". (yes I am well aware that this is childish toilet humor, but it doesn't make it any less amusing). I put one in Josh's stocking and had the girls give one to my dad. They were a riot.

So the day after Christmas Josh was playing with his, with the girls. Maria has her hand in her mouth and I said "what's the matter maria" she exclaimed "I HAVE REINDEER POOP STUCK IN MY MOUTH!" we were rolling laughing. I said "well that's one statement I never thought I would hear....and not scream in horror".

As if that wasn't funny enough, today I found the reindeer b/c I've been cleaning to get ready for my garage sale this weekend. So there it is on the coffee table and Maria walks in the room and yells out "oh mommy! I want reindeer poop! I love eatin' reindeer poop! it's nummy yummy!" (Josh says num yummy all the time b/c of that commercial where the guy gets a new name tag on his cubicle that says num yummy b/c he loves soup or something).

So then after her begging me to let her eat reindeer poop a bunch of times. I said no. So this is what she says to me "fine, mommy. you no let me eat reindeer poop then I ask daddy when he come home from work. how 'bout that." ("how 'bout that" is her new favorite saying...yeah)

What am I, the poop nazi? Anyway that's my fun story for the day.

Ohmigosh! Wait. I think I actually have a picture. Let me go see....

Yes folks. That is, in fact, my father looking up a reindeer's ass....while holding my children.