Well the kids are all in bed and DH is at a hockey game with work people so I guess I have a little time on my hands...whatever shall I do? Clean up - NAH! Laundry - NOPE! Sleep - LATER! Waste time on the damn computer - SOUNDS GREAT! ;-)
This was at our holiday party. I made his moms famous pumpkin pie and told him I needed a picture of him enjoying it like it was the first time. Everybody looked at me like I'd been tippin back the wine in the back room or something. The reason was that I had made the pie originally for Thanksgiving because we spent it in LA with my aunt and uncle. He made the comment some time before that "it just ain't Thanksgiving without my moms pumpkin pie". So I secretly got the recipe from her and took all the ingredients with me. He never had a clue until he came looking for me that morning and weirdly found me in the kitchen! He saw me with a big ol bowl in hand and spices around me and guessed that I was up to something! It was cute though...he was very suprised and loved it. BUT I DIDN'T GET A PICTURE. Yes . . . I wanted a pic of him enjoying the pie for me scrapbook :-/ So at the holiday party I kept bugging him to let me get a good picture and I missed it! So I made him get a second piece and told him "and look like you like it damn it!" - this pic is of him telling me in a very pitiful little voice "but I don't WANT any more pie! I feel sick" - but i got the pic didn't I >:-)
I turned the ripe old age of 29 this year. My mom watched all four kids for us so we could go out and have a nice dinner just the two of us even though it was a Monday. We were going to go to my fav place Rosewood but they just opened this new brewery here in town that was supposed to have just awesome food and drinks. Well - they were ok. A little pricey and the food was eh. The drinks were POWERFUL though! I wasn't even knee deep into my 'pomegranate martini' when I started feeling pretty goooooooood . . . and the 'holiday martini' sealed the deal! I tried it just becase it had white chocolate liquer in it but all I could taste was the courvassierre (SP?) man! WHEW! It was funny cause I was tipsy and DH kept saying "You're so cute when you drink :-)" - I knew I loved him ;-) BUT OH it was so great to get that time out alone. I miss going to dinner just the two of us and sittin all cozy at the bar...sigh.
It must be the loudest toy Costco has ever made. She loved it though and is so cute pushing it around. It was weird this year. All of our older kids were with their other parents until the morning. So we didn't have any of the leaving cookies out or watching for Santa or up late wrapping gifts, which I kinda missed. Mad isn't yet at the stage where she gets excited over this kinda stuff yet or even cares. That was good in the morning though cause she didn't think twice about waiting to open presents until her brother and sisters got home - next time that could be a problem!
I still get so excited that I wake up all night long and can hardly contain myself by 6:00! So I was fine with it when she got up at 5:30. We got up, made coffee, finished a couple gifts, opened our stockings (we had to cause I put something naughty in his ;-), and left separately to get our kids. Me and Mad went to the girls' dad's house and saw Mike my ex-father-in-law. He had a plate full of cookies and a little present for the baby and a gift card for each of us! He is just the sweetest man ever. I've always felt like a real daughter to him. He's always been there for me for ANYTHING, even after the ex and I split. He joked with me one time and said "if I could I'd keep you instead!" So she got her first taste of opening presents and LOVED IT. She RIPPED into it! And loves the little Dora doll he got her.
It was funny how it looked like so much under the tree and DH said, like he does every year, "you know, you went overboard on them this year" - and yet it took NO TIME AT ALL to be reduced to a pile of paper. They had so much fun though, it was exhausting just watching them! Then Mad laid down for a nap and I did too ;-) DH started making food since the moms were about to head over. WOW - and he thought *I* went overboard! These two grammas went crazy! The kids had so much fun ripping into stuff all over again. All the stuff went out on the porch and it looked like a toy store exploded! I made both moms these BEAUTIFUL accordian albums filled with pictures of the family and again I forgot to get a picture first! They loved em though. And Mad's favorite toy was - and still is days later - a set of stacking cups :-D
The rest of the day ended up pretty crappy and all due to some drama from a friend and his wife but I don't even want to think about anymore or I will hate them more than I already do and I might let a few more explitives fly. Anywho~over all it was good and that is what I will keep telling myself until I convince myself :-)
Well I wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year and I hope you all have a great time tomorrow night. We are supposed to go to DH's boss's house so I guess we'll see how that goes!
Well I finally figured out how to upload my Christmas pics from my new camera so I figured now would be a great time to write about it.
Christmas is my favorite time of year. I don't know what it is about the music or the cold feeling in the air or the decorations and lights but I just LOVE it. In fact I made DH take me to Disneyland when we went to LA for Thanksgiving because that place is just MAGIC at Christmas. I took my two older girls there a couple of years ago the week of Thanksgiving and it was just amazing to me. So even though he could have cared less about the place and we wasted a whole day there fighting crowds and a cranky baby - we went and had the BEST time - later after we dropped off the baby with my mom :-D So basically I am one of the people who CHEERS when I see the Christmas decorations go up in July. I start thinking of all my preparations at least in October and refer to the "holiday season" the day after Labor Day :-)
Each year I take the kids to the store and let them all pick out an ornament for the year and pick one for the family to sort of symbolize something we did or went through that year. This is the kids decorating the tree and munching on some Christmas cookies. We put up the tree I think the Monday after Thanksgiving since we didn't have the kids until then. They had so much fun and I loved telling stories about each ornament. I used to have to fill it up with bows or balls but the tree is almost full now with just our special ones! Each year we get at least 6 new ones so I guess it's going to be full fast! This year R picked a jeweled snowflake, M picked a Nascar thing, B picked a snowflake (HAS to be like R), and Mad got a Mickey ball to symbolize her first trip to Disneyland. dh and I picked a frame and put in a picture taken of us on our first anniversary and I chose a glass angel ornament for the family that says "The love of a family is life's greatest blessing" - I chose this more so to remind myself ;-) I might need to find a place for it somewhere in the house.
This picture is the kids making these gift jars that we gave out as gifts this year. They each got to choose a recipe for their teachers, mom or dad, grandparents etc and measure out all the ingredients themselves. Then they got to decorate the jars. They had so much fun with it and the jars were quite a hit!
Then there was dh's work's Christmas party. It was a nice excuse to get dressed up, get out of the house alone, and as it turned out get a night away! His work bought rooms at the Sheraton for a major discount so people didn't have to worry about driving home that night. There was a shuttle to and from the party too. We took this picture in front of the tree in the lobby at the hotel before we left. Poor Honey had the flu SO BAD we almost couldn't go. But we had already paid for the hotel and were so damn excited about getting a night to ourselves we went anyway - he's such a trooper ;-) The party sucked since the only entertainment they offered was Kareoke and they didn't offer enough alcohol to make it entertaining. So we left on the first shuttle back. We had a great time though. Our hotel room was gorgeous and we hadn't had a night alone since our wedding night over a year ago so we could have been in a cardboard box and been excited about it ;-) So we made the most of our time. We even got up early and sat on the little porch overlooking these beautiful ponds and fountains with our coffee and just talked for about 2 hours! It was so good for us.
On December 23rd we had a holiday party for my 'sisters' that I've known since I was 6 and their families. I LOVED decorating and being hostess :-D DH cooked a turkey and all the trimmings and it turned out great, I think everyone had fun. I made little mini scrapbooks called paperbag albums for each of them full of pictures of the three of us and they came out soooooooo damn cute I wish I'd taken a picture of em! And yes, I took a picture of my table - I need it for my scrapbook! ;-)
And I think that will be all for now...it has taken me TWO HOURS to get these few pictures to upload to this damn thing. I HATE DIAL-UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I guess I will just have to work on getting Christmas Day stuff up tomorrow or something. Whatever. What else is there to do when the baby gets you up at 5?
My beautiful, sweet, angel baby has FINALLY been kicked to the curb! ;-) Meaning she has finally been moved out of our adjoining room! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! Wow, only a year and a half later!
She has by far been my most challenging kid and has always had sleep issues. Nothing dramatic really, just waking up constantly in the middle of the night. I go back in, lay her down, tuck her back in, and MOST of the time that would be it. But lately, the last couple of months I guess, she doesn't always go down without a fight. If she knows that ANYONE is still in the room she cries like the world is coming to an end. So most of the time, DH (dear hubby) and I just head out to the living room and he takes the couch and I get the chair
>:-/ He just bitches too much about his back if he sleeps in the chair. So this has been putting quite the strain on us. We are constantly walking on eggshells when we go in our room. Can't watch TV, can't take a shower, scared to flush the toilet even! All for fear of being kicked out of our own room by our baby! Now, if you know me pretty well, that just ain't gonna fly. But for so long we just put up with it because we needed SLEEP. I've basically become accustomed to waking up at least 1 or 2 times a night to lay her back down, and then get up with her at 5:30am - but now this adding of insult to injury and being sent to the living room - OH NO MISSY.
The straw that broke my back though, was that recently she started waking up when we were . . . being intimate (that sounds so gay) and that was becoming a real problem. We are a pretty active couple, always have been, and that neven woke her up before so we counted ourselves lucky! But lately we've both been so stressed out and afraid to wake her that it's really taken a toll on us both. We NEED that time to be together to be a couple and be loving together. It's been a rough road adjusting to being single, then dating someone with a kid(s), then getting pregnant and having a baby, moving in together, getting married and becoming a stepparent with four kids - all in the space of 2 1/2 years. We don't get much time alone together anymore since we don't have many babysitters so that time alone has become EXTREMELY important. I've noticed that we both get pretty snippy toward each other and the kids if it's been more than 3 days in between! But when we have time together, even just to talk or watch a movie cuddled up or have a glass of wine - ALONE, we are so much more loving with each other. We communicate better, touch and cuddle more, and just enjoy each other more. Which in turn makes us better parents too. We are more patient and less stressed out and on edge. It's real easy to snap when four kids need your constant attention and you've had no sleep and no sex, believe me.
So last night after we went and spent an hour in the Sprint store trying to change out our NexTel service we decided to eat out somewhere. One of my favorite restaurants was right there in the area, Strings. We used to go there all the time when we were dating cause they had my all time fav wine that NO ONE had. So I was saying how we could unwind and have a glass of wine and she could have pizza cause she LOVES that. He brought up that maybe we should just go to Round Table cause he'd rather be in a pizza joint when she freaked out (as she usually does) than in a nice restaurant. I decided he was right so we headed over. We sat down with our beer waiting for the pizza, holding hands, looking into each others eyes (the baby was quite for the 3 minutes that took place) and we both said, at the same time - "I wish we could move her out of our room" - funny. So we started talking about it. Our house has two bedrooms upstairs (the kids' rooms) and the master with retreat downstairs so we really didn't think we had any options. Then we decided that maybe she could just sleep in his son's room since he is only here half the time. He sleeps so deep that I don't even think she COULD wake him up. And if she did, we could just transplant him to the couch and he wouldn't even know. Plus, half the time she would be alone anyway! We looked at each other like "How did we not think of this before?" So we debated and ended up decided to try it out last night.
We got home and changed her for bed. Moved all her stuff upstairs and took her too. We tiptoed downstairs and waited. Nothin. Then we went in our room and almost cried with joy! We took a shower, watched some TV, had a glass of wine, got dirty, and went to sleep - it was like we were on vacation! It felt like we were staying in a hotel or something, the room just didn't feel like ours. It was wonderful. Oh it was just heaven. She did wake up around 1:00 and still got up at 5:30 but it didn't seem so awful somehow. Now she is taking her nap upstairs and I have the freedom to put away my laundry in the bedroom or do the dishes or WHATEVER I want because she won't hear me! YAY! I'm already planning out something for tonight, maybe light some candles - something we used to do all the time before she came. The first and last time I tried it the smoke alarm went off in our room, right in the middle of things, and she didn't sleep again for the rest of the night!
Wow I'm long winded. So that's it for now I guess, no morel to the story or anything, just a happy ending for last night anyway - but I'll take it! Iit feels nice to share :-) So thanks for listening...or whatever ;-)
Well I guess I don't really know what to write or how to start this whole thing. Let's explore the 5 W's - Why, What, Who, Where, and When...
My friend recently moved and has also started a blog. Through her site I've been able to see pictures I wouldn't normally have seen or hear stories I might have missed. I can feel connected to her and it's almost like she's here/I'm there. It gives her friends a family a way to keep in touch and updated. I love that idea. I also love that she has an opportunity to express herself. So yes . . . I totally copied her ;-)
So I guess this is my attempt at staying connected to people. I am a stay-home mom and that has been a HUGE adjustment for me. I have almost always worked and taken care of myself and everyone else. And I will admit it, I need attention. I am a storyteller, I love to talk to be listened to. I love to make people laugh cause it makes me laugh. And unfortunately, unless I make fart noises, my kids don't think I'm very funny ;-)
I guess that's my selfish reason for doing it. As far as I am concerned that's just fine. I spend the majority of my time taking care of everyone else so if I can take a little time for myself and tell a story or vent or post a picture or WHATEVER - then I say GOOD FOR ME! I DESERVE IT DAMN IT! :-)
