Post Christmas

I finally got it right! My kids were so excited by their gifts this year, there wasn't a 'oh...umm.... thanks' at all. Not once. YEAH!!
Christmas eve we let the demons open one gift and then the rest on Christmas day. On Monday we went out to Chelle's and visited for a couple hours. Mikey started playing poker and I took the kids home to get ready for the big fat mans visit. As soon as we got in the van to come home, Bubba asked if we could check to see where Santa was on Norad's website. We checked it out (all the while I am praying that he is not over Iowa cuz I gotta get 4 of them to bed). He was in South Carolina so we had time to make the reindeer food and sprinkle it outside, get jammies on and get everyone settled down. Then I had to move Mister because he is wound like a top and needs to be separated. 411 went out like a light in 2 minutes. Bubba comes around and says that he can't sleep, I told him it hadn't even been 5 minutes, he needed to go try again. 20 minutes later he comes back and says he still can't, I told him he had to try, try counting back from 100 with his eyes closed. Then I heard him crying so I asked him what was wrong. He told me "I am afraid I am going to ruin everyone's Christmas because I can't fall asleep". Talk about melting my heart. So I found him a tylonel and told him it had sleeping stuff in it. within 10 minutes, he was out.
I woke up at 4:30, I was so excited for the kids to find their stuff. Chick was up at 5:30 (because she set the alarm on her phone) and woke 411 up. By 6 everyone was up; Chick carried Bubba out to the living room because her wasn't moving fast enough for her. My mom got down here about 7:30, I was surprised. Later in the afternoon we went to see Mike's mom. Then we came home and were bums the rest of the night. I loaded Mike's MP3 player for him and he went to bed. I watched TRANSFORMERS with Bubba, what a cute movie. Of course, I remember Transformers from my childhood so it was kinda different for me. There was a scene or two that struck me as hilarious and me and the kids had to pause it because we were laughing so hard.
So today I get to clean up the house and try to get things back to normal. Yeah me!

purple polka dots

Most people think about what they are thankful for at thanksgiving. Not me, just shows what a weirdo I am. For some reason I think about it around Christmas, how lucky I am. I have compiled the top five list......

5. My home.
I have one. It may be a pig sty half the time, cleaning it my be like shoveling in a snow storm. But I have a warm place to sleep,eat,be. And I have been lucky enough to put things in my home that makes my life easier.

4.My health.
I don't have any diseases, heart problems, ear problems, lung problems. I have all the limbs and organs I was born with. So does my husband and children. That right there, I have come to believe, is a minor miracle.

3. My friends.
I am terrible at making new ones and really not good at maintaining long distance friendships. I know that the friends I do have love me and I can count on them to help if I ever need it. Ones I made at the age of 12 or 30, they will be there.

2. My husband
Despite the fact that he delights in making my blood pressure boil, he is a good man. He loves me and tolerates my wackiness (not without comment though).

1. My family
I know there is hostility throughout all families. This person is mad, that person started whatever. I have a brother that lives in Woodbine that refuses to acknowledge his mother and by extension any of his siblings. You take the good, you take the bad. My belief is that your family is always going to be your family and will be there in hard times (and good mostly). You can count on it and know that you will always be loved. I am so lucky to have such a broad based support system, I truly appreciate the love I feel. And to know that my kids are being raised with such a large well, it is amazing.

argh

We bought Blondie a MP3 player for Christmas and since she won't be here on the day of, I let her open it last night. She was very excited about it and wanted to fill it up as soon as possible, so we got on the puter and hooked her up. That made me think, HMm, I haven't added songs to mine in a long time, there is a bunch I need to add. So I get mine and make my sync list and down load it to my player. I thought. I went to look for a song I had just downloaded and it wasn't there, none of them were. So I went back and tried to do it again, the computer said these songs are already on the device. Well, if they are they are hiding. So this morning I dug out the driver disk for the player because I got to thinking, that used Musicmatch to download it the first time, maybe it isn't compatible with Windows media. So, I tried that. It had instructions to install to windows 98. That right there made me nervous since we are operating on Windows Vista. yeah, guess what? no dice. So I am going to go to the Philips site and see if there is an upgrade so I can load songs through vista or if I have to get a new Mp3.

Mr Christmas Program

This year Mr has a new preschool teacher, Miss Stephanie. It is her fist year teaching and let me tell you, I am very happy as a parent with her skills with my son. Since he is the fourth of my kids to go to preschool, I have dealt with a lot of different teaching methods. He loves her and is wanting to go to school to see her and do work for her.










Last night was the preschool's Chrstmas program, which is a first as far as anyone can remember. Mr was a Christmas tree....












Here he is in the actual play, he is in the back, you can kinda see him turning his head...
My camera died about 2 minutes into it so I didn't get very many shots and I was really REALLY bummed, it was so cute!!

The other day this was the view from my deck. I didn't add a color filter or retouch it in anyway, isn't it pretty?

YYEEEHAW

I am done Christmas shopping. Finished, finito, aint doing it no more. It feels so good because usually I am trying to grab that one last thing the day before and this year, I am ahead of the game. I can enjoy the rest of the season without that particular stress. Yippeee.

We watched 'Pursuit of Happyness' last night. I had avoided watching it because I had heard so many mixed things a bout it but everyone agreed it was a tearjerker. It was. If you are in the mood to bawl, it is a good choice, right up there with 'I am Sam'.

I ordered our Christmas cards, nothing like waiting till the last minute. I might have time to mail them out before the holidays. I just got the email saying they are ready to pick up. I am kind of disappointed in them, I should have taken the time to play wiht the picture more but they will work. Speaking of mail, my car loan company is like freaky fast with payments. I mailed a check on Thursday, it had to go to somewhere on the east coast, anyway, it was posting to my account by Sunday night. I have had debit transactions take longer. Weird.

Speaking of weird, Bubba has developed an allergy of some kind. He did it twice in one week a month ago and hasn't done it again. He complained of a tummy ache and then turned bright red and itched from hair to toes. We ran him to the urgent care and they said it looked like an allergy but it could be stress related the first time. The second time we took him to the er, which of course, by the time we got there, he was mostly over it because the benadryll and prednisone we had on hand from the last time had kicked in. Scary stuff. So I call the allergist to find out what the heck is going on. He doesn't have an available appointment til Jan. Of course not. It is crazy.

ok, ya'll know how I surf CNN and find stories that piss me off? Well, today I have a homegrown story. There is this guy, we'll call him... Phallus. Now Phallus had six children by six different women by the time he was 30. Then he met a girl recently graduated from high school and convinced her that she was the love of his life. Here comes baby number seven. The local tv station decides that this is interesting and asks for an interview, which he happily gives. When the reporter asks if he has thought of getting fixed, he was offended, why should he? Hmmm, because you aren't supporting your children that you already have, Phallus. Then the man complains because he has to pay too much (doncha just feel so sorry for him?) Well, the girl realizes that she isn't happy and Phallus doesn't want anything to do with any of his kids, including her baby so she leaves him. Apparently, that isn't acceptable because Phallus decides to punish the girl. He waits until she is in a new relationship and has a new baby with this man before he takes her to court for visiting rights. That's right, people, Phallus has decided he can't live without her baby in his life even though he has six other kids he has nothing to do with and there is a rumor of another on on the way from yet another woman. So, he is awarded one weekend day visits 9-4. The first day he was scheduled for a visit he doesn't show up till 9:30. For some strange reason, the baby (who is now 2 and doesn't have a clue who he is) doesn't want to go with Phallus. SO he tells the girl she needs to take the baby out and adjust the car seat and make it easier on him to take the baby. She tells him to quit traumatizing the baby and just leave. Which he does but ol' Phallus isn't done yet, he goes and gets the police because he is supposed to have visits and she can't keep him away from his baby. Forget the last two years apparently. (Here is where my blood pressure elevated) The police make the girl put her baby in his vehicle so he can leave easier even though the baby is screaming and crying and begging her mommy no. I know they were doing their job by upholding his court order but I think that is just cruel.

Do you hear what I hear?

Silence. Oh the luxury of silence!! After a snow day (well, ice day really) with all five of the sweet blessings and Mikey, I am thoroughly enjoying the lack of noise. Not that it was too bad, except the night before both Mikey and Chick had the flu and I had been up most of the night earning my Nightingale badge. Then you add in it is soooo hard for 5 kids to have the desire to let alone BE quiet, it made for a long day. They are in school and work now though so all is right in my world, 'cept for the hours of housework I am avoiding.
My mom called me, she is going to go spend the weekend before Christmas with my brother and his kids and then come down and spend Christmas eve/day with my family. That is of course weather permitting. And this is the woman who used the "jet stream" excuse. I spose I should explain that. When I was pregnant with Chick, I was staying with my sister in law that was about an hour and a half away from where my mom lived. It was 20 minutes off the highway to go to my grandmothers. Anyway, she hadn't seen me since I left for Korea 5 or 6 months before and was on her way to G'ma's. She said sure they would stop but never did and the next time I talked to her, she said the jet stream had interfered with their plans. You know the jet stream, the air currents a ways up. Yeah that was her excuse so until I see the whites of her eyes I don't get too excited, or at least try no to. Especially after Thanksgiving.
I have to take the 5 demons shopping today after school; Blondie has a Christmas concert tomorrow. I am not sure there is enough Prozac in my world for this but I am not left with many options. Hopefully she will fall in love with the first thing she sees. Yeah that's something to hope for.

Unloading the camera

Hey look what I found, Mr Big Head eating a bomb pop!!
Here is double trouble....
Here is a picture of our friend, the big eared bastard.
If you look really hard, you can see the effects of these cool glasses that I bought the kids...
And here is 411 all dollied up for her Christmas program.

I am ready

For some down time. It seems like there isn't enough time to get it all done. Now I find out that my children are being graded on how they dress for the Christmas program at school. In 2nd and 4th grade. It isn't such a big deal for me, I usually try to make sure they are presentable. Left over instructions drilled into my head from when I was in school and girls had to wear dresses and boys had to wear ties. But we all know there are families who really don't have the extra leeway to dress their kids up because their dress clothes might be a good pair of jeans. I think it is ridiculous that the teacher is mandating a dress code that not all kids are going to be able to follow and then downgrading them if it isn't to her standard. I really hope that part of the story isn't accurate but it is hard to tell since the woman hasn't sent any info out to the parents, is relying on the children to get the message to their parents.
I went to lunch with my mother yesterday. That was kinda nice. My Aunt Kathy had visited for a week or so and Mom is missing her something fierce. They are both in their 60's and she was telling me stories of them walking through the cemetery looking for places to jump out at each other. They are quite the pair.
Didn't someone once say never volunteer for anything? I know that is a written in stone thing for the army, you would think I woulda remembered that. My goofy butt volunteered to do the shopping for the Sweet Shoppe. It made the most sense since I have a few hours everyday during the day in which to get things done so off to Walmart and Aldi's I went. It wasn't too bad, I really need to get out more though, I was getting excited over all the little deals I was getting. That was till I went to Walmart. Why did I think going into bedlam was a good idea? Crikies, what is it about the holiday season that makes everyone so rude? It is all done now though so all we have to worry about it baking. Like mad devils. and dipping, can't forget the dipping.
I have Mr.'s x mas DONE. Chick needs sox and underwear and she is done. I even have Blondie down to sox and underwear. Bubba and 411, however, I am in trouble. I have bought everything on Bubba's list that I could find and I need a couple more to make things even. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find SIGMA 6 guys? I know, I know, toysrus prolly has them but UGGG! I hate that store. HATE IT!
I almost have Blondies stocking done, the kids are getting antsy. I told them I am not hanging stockings until I have hers done so everyone's can go up together. SO now my kids are riding me, got it done yet? got it done yet? I would like to think they are looking out for her. :)