Band Concert

Madison had her first 7th grade band concert on Thursday evening. All of the kiddos looked so great dressed up and ready to impress. The kids did a great job! Months ago they were learning how to assemble their instruments and all we heard were squawks and squeaks. They have all come a long way.

Broken Rules

So after my last post I received more comments than ever. Maybe I need to vent more often, ya think? Anyway, I have already broke two of my rules of things I wasn't going to do, the Christmas letter and Christmas cards. I like receiving the cards and I figure someone out there does to, so it is MY JOB to ensure that they get more Christmas cards. I see it as spreading good cheer. As for the Christmas letter goes, it was short and simple and I am only putting in those cards for family and friends that I haven't seen or talked to very often.

While writing out cards we watched to classic Christmas movies. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Madison thought is was really cool because they are reading the play in school and she is the ghost of Christmas Present.

After that we watched another classic, A Christmas Story. I LOVE RALPHY. I don't think we actually watched the movie, I think we just recited it. We enjoyed some ice cream from Rusty's Frozen Custard. By the way, ice cream in December is just not a good idea = freezing!

All in all we had a good family night and enjoyed our time together.

I'm Over It

I have had this post circling around in my head for quite some time now. So hear goes. Christmas for many of us is a romantized holiday. We all think that this is the best holiday ever and we have wonderful family time and traditions. We remember Christmas as it was for us as a kid, happy, mysterious, full of surprises and lots of memories. Unfortunately, I believe that most of us as adults feel (but won't admit) it is excessive and don't enjoy Christmas as much as we think we do. For example:

1. Christmas items on shelves the day after Halloween (I HATE THIS)
2. "Holly Jolly Christmas" being played over the load speaker of your favorite super-center, mall or department store before Thanksgiving.
3. Black Friday - which has now really turned into Black Week. Deals galore the days before Thanksgiving, the frenzie that follows on Friday and the insanity of it all.
4. Attending your Christmas party, your spouse's Christmas party, kids Christmas parties.
5. Playing Silly Santa, Dirty Santa, Secret Santa or any other kind of Santa other than the one that arrives on Christmas day.
6. Bringing a dish for the office pot-luck.
7. Getting the Christmas photo taken.
8. Getting photo cards taken.
9. Writing out the annual Christmas letter.
10. Stuffing an envelope full of photos, letters, cards and then yes - LICKING the ENVELOPE. Seriously haven't done that in years. The thought of the Seinfeld episode still lingers in my head.
11. Baking cookies and breads for every single person under the sun. I love to bake, love to bake, love to bake. But I'm OCD, I want everything perfect, which means no helpers in the kitchen.
12. Buying teacher gifts, office mate gifts, and day care teacher gifts.
13. Eating way too much. Think about the enormous amount of food that is constantly around from Thanksgiving through Christmas partially due to #11. Don't get me wrong, I love to eat it all, thus, the problem.
14. Spending, spending, spending. Does anyone make a budget anymore and does anyone really know how much they spend (see posts above on all the little things). Small gifts add up quickly when you have buy for 10+ people. Baking ingredients are expensive when you bake for a small army. Photos, letterhead and OMG the cost of Christmas cards.
15. Christmas lights. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the lights. I am taking about the one neighbor (or more) that everyone has that is related to Clark Griswald. Enough said?

SO NOW WHAT?

If you have read this far and if you were in the holiday spirit, you are probably not now. NEGATIVE right? Not so much. Maybe you do some of these things. Maybe you do all of these things. Maybe you are able to go through this month with all of the excess and never get stressed out. Well, for me I am making POSITIVE changes. So, now what?

This year we are going to:

1. We are NOT going to do most of the things listed above.
2. Make cut out sugar cookies with the kids. They cut out whatever they like, decorate them however they like and eat them while they are still warm.
3. Buy gifts for our family and family only.
4. Curl up on the couch and watch the great Christmas movies together.
5. Drive around and look at the Christmas lights, even all of the Griswald families out there.
6. Make hand-made ornaments.
7. Wrap gifts together and however the kiddos want (even with an excessive amount of tape)
8. Sit with my family on Christmas Eve and listen to Christmas music.
9. Assisting families that are need of help, we all know lots of them are out there.
10. ENJOY Christmas for what it is.

What I am Thankful For....Travel Version

I am thankful for:
1. a van that will hold an enormous amount of stuff
2. coffee
3. iPods
4. mother nature provided clear skies and no bad weather for the travel days
5. my own bed with my electric blanket
6. visiting family that you haven't seen in a long time
7. lots of good food

8. watching cousins play
9. diet Dr. Pepper

10. fabulous in-laws
11. Taco Johns

12. a van that can play DVDs at the push of a button

13. the Disney movie Cars ("ightning mckeen" and "mater")

14. multiple bathrooms

15. a fantastic brother and sister-in-law (Kayla you rock, even with a nasty cold)

16. a fourteen year old nephew that chose to stay with his family instead of go to a movie with his friends

17. Spencer NOT falling down the stairs and requiring a trip to the ER

18. Spencer NOT breaking anything from all of the balls thrown in the house

19. casual pictures

20. Spencer learning LOTS of new phrases, "AHHHH, MAN"

21. an awesome house-sitter

22. an oil-less fryer

23. a husband who braved the 14 degrees to cook the turkey

24. pumpkin pie

25. two happy, wagging tails to greet us at the door and who showed their love

Packing

When we are getting ready to go on a trip, I tend to annoy the living daylights out of my family. I get stressed, very stressed. Adding to that stress is trying to pack for a 2 year old. One which requires an insane amount of extra things. So, there I sat in his room carefully planning out his outfits for the week. As I laid them into the suitcase, in went Spencer. He decided he was going to help me pack.
He decided that his goal was going to be plan out the number of diapers he would need for the week. So, in went his little arm into the drawer and he began to bring me diapers. I brought them into the next room where is diaper bag was and began to pack. He on the other hand, had a different idea.

He decided to line them up all in a row.

After this shot was taken, he added about 5-6 more on both ends. He eventually moved the laundry baskets and the magna-doodle out of the way in order to squeeze more in. He was VERY proud of himself.

After the packing, he worked up an appetite, so he decided to feast on some chips and salsa. Ah, can't find good help these days.

A Great Arm

Out of the hundreds of toy options that Spencer has, his favorite is a ball. Any kind of ball. He is simply fascinated by them. He has no qualms about throwing them either. He will throw them in the house or outside. He will throw small ones, medium ones, large ones and balls he can't pick up he will kick. If it isn't a ball, but it can be thrown like one, it will be.

Upon picking him up from daycare one of the dad's comments to me was, "he has a really good arm! I have never seen someone so young that can throw like he does." Great compliment right? My response was, "Do you know how many times he gets put in a corner everyday for throwing?" Unfortunately, it is true. Timeouts don't work. The nose in the corner works for a bit, but not long. The boy doesn't get it or simply doesn't care. He is going to throw anything and everything that resembles a ball.

This weekend's paper was filled with the toy catalogs from Target, Walmart and Toys R Us. I thought it would be fun to start looking through them for ideas for Spencer. I sat at the table with sharpie at hand ready to circle away. I came across a Weeble set. Cute, age appropriate...wait, he would throw the weebles. Nope. Every possibility that I came across, my mind immediately looked for the parts that could and would be thrown. Our wish list was limited to books, a sit and spin and legos. Legos technically can and will be thrown, but since he actually builds and stacks them, I let that one slide. I did find the perfect gift for him..... a nubby sensory ball.

A Very Dark Halloween

We started the afternoon cooking a big pot of chili. About 5:15 the power went out. We decided to go ahead and get the kids ready, hoping that the power would come back on. Spencer was hysterical when we tried to put on his puppy costume. He ran in terror, so we improvised with regular clothes and he went as a golfer.
Madison was not trick-or-treating this year, but wanted to hand out candy with her best friend Alexis. So Madison was the patient and Alexis was the doctor. They were hilarious!

We took off trick-or-treating while we still had some daylight and after about 1 block, we headed home. It was simply too dark. No street lights, no porch lights, the only light was flashlights or some lighted candles. It made things very difficult.

Spencer has already figured out the candy thing. The candy bowl is now on the top of the refrigerator: out of sight, out of mind. All in all, not a very good Halloween.