This was one of those slow but busy weekends. Funny because I felt like it was go-go-go but we only left the house once!

Since the hubs was working out of town I kinda took it upon myself to declare this weekend a "jammies til noon if not later" weekend :)

And we did.

I had a LOT that needed to get done this weekend though, and it actually GOT DONE which was AWESOME. Lil Miss needs to have her Valentines ready to take to class on Monday so once I finally decided what to do it was time to get to work!

It was good though because it gave the two of us something to do together.

On the Boy's weekends when the hubs is working I have to make a little extra time for Lil Miss. Since the Boys is almost 13 {omg} he doesn't really have a lot in common with her. She BEGS him to play with her but he would rather be out skateboarding with his friends. Which is totally understandable.

To help her deal with it, I've got to have distractions ready to go at a whiney moments notice.

So I had her help me with her class Valentines.

They came out SO CUTE! These are for the girls ...

And for the boys ...

I posted about them here, I just LOVE how they came out! They were relatively inexpensive and easy and she LOVES them :)

Today we did some baking :) Besides doing her Valentines, I needed to finish up Flower Child's costumes for her play, and I decided to take a break when Lil Miss started complaining about the Boy not playing with her.

We were out of granola bars and had some bananas that were JUST RIGHT for muffins so that kept us busy. And gave me a nice excuse to get away from all the tulle lol

The Banana Cream Cheese Muffins I had pinned were givin me the stink eye so we made em ;) The recipe is for bread but these came out pretty good!

And I FINALLY FINALLY finished Flower Child's costumes :) Since her part is part of a quartet singing part, it was kind of important that costumes matched. And since the GATE program doesn't get much funding, the costumes are up to the kids {read: PARENTS}, I told the girls I would make all of their costumes so they would match :)

This is my sweet girl's costume and I am just SO excited to see her in it tomorrow!!

This is her OTHER costume since my little one isn't content with ONE part ... she wanted two ;) I'm lucky that we were able to come up with a costume that could double though! In fact, all of the costumes were her idea right down to the colors. She was VERY PARTICULAR in what they should look like ... I just made em ;)

Tomorrow should be fun ... busy, as in NON FREAKING STOP, but fun :) Can't wait to see my performer up on the stage!

This afternoon I was treated to a meal at the Cafe De Lil Miss.

After quiet time, Lil Miss asked if I would come and eat at her cafe. I went up to join her but she was still busy making out her menu. She looked up at me and gave me the o.O look and said ...

"Um ... can you change into something ... pretty? You need a dress ... and a necklace ... and high heels."

I asked if I could just put on a necklace, but the heels were a non-negotiable. So after I was appropriately dressed, she runs an UPSCALE cafe don'tyouknow ;), I was escorted into the cafe where I was informed of their cell phone policy ...

"Now, please turn off your cell phone because it's annoying to the other people. If you need to make a call, make it OUTSIDE." - LOL

Then she handed me the menu ;) Normally her handwriting is better ... she was in a rush lol.

After ordering the "meat meat" I looked over the dessert menu and ate my pretzel appetizer. I then had to reselect since they were "all out of the meat meat", I chose the "chicken beef" ;)

My lovely meal :) and notice the fact that the "chicken beef" is invisible, which makes me laugh because the "meat meat" would have been too ... and yet "Sorry, we're all out". LOL!

Hard at work on the bill ... to which she made clear I was to use "REAL MONEY, PLEASE".

She is ALL about the details ;)

Making a lovely raspberry cake for dessert :)

Normally, patrons are discouraged from taking pictures of the waitress, but she made an exception for me ;)

Love that silly funny crazy girl of mine!

I swear I couldn't tell you whats been going on around here for the last month if I wanted to. Looking in my photo folders on the computer, there's a serious lack of proof that we did anything beyond lay around the house in our jammies.

I've been going through some stuff. Some things that piss me off, some things that make me sad, some that do both. And I don't always see how things are affecting me until they all come to a head like they have this week.

You know, when all of the stuff you thought you were handling and then a bunch of NEW crap come together and you just feel like you JUST CAN'T TAKE NO MORE. Yeah, like that.

It just sucks all around. To make matters worse, the hubs has been working non stop. I mean, that sounds great, and it IS great that he's working, but unfortunately it's just not that simple.

He's rarely home and when he is, he's stressed out. Despite all the work, there is still issues with getting paid on time, or at all, and that is BEYOND frustrating. Plus, I miss him like crazy.

Anyway, just had to get a few things off the chest without actually saying anything lol.

I have been busy with a few things like making costumes for Flower Child's upcoming play :) Her, and her 3 friends who have a singing part together lol. So that's kept me busy. Plus there's the gym, and all the pinning ... THAT can be an issue!

I have taken a few pictures though :) Teen curled Lil Misses hair one afternoon (I love that my girls have sisters, makes my heart smile :)) it was ADORABLE. It took her an HOUR lol. But it was SO cute that I want to make her do it everyday :) It made it just a little bit harder to be mad at her ... and I'll take all the help I can get ;)

The weekend we had rain here, first and pretty much ONLY this year so far, I pulled out something I picked up at the dollar store! These ADORABLE little cardboard doll houses! They made for HOURS of entertainment :) Although, some of those hours were spent arguing over who owned the Tea House since there was only one and they had to share. To fix the arguing problem, I pulled out my head phones and watched an episode of Alcatraz on my computer :) PROBLEM SOLVED.

*P.S.* SUPER AWESOME SHOW YOU MUST WATCH IT SO IT STAYS. Monday Nights on Fox :)

Last weekend we had an Anti Super Bowl Party. It was Teen's idea. The hubs was going to be working out of town and it was the girls weekend so it was just gonna be us chicks! Since none of us, including the hubs, give a flying crap about football I thought it would be fun to do girly stuff but still have the snacks ... cause we ALL KNOW, it's all bout the snacks :)

So we did some Valentine related decorating and activities, and decorated using Valentinesy colors (contrary to my crappy cameras crappy photos).

We made Valentine cupcakes, had Valentine candy, chips and a meat and cheese tray, plus some REALLY awesome stuff I baked with recipes from my Pinterest Appetizer Board :D YAY PINNING! It was fun. We ate, we watched commercials, and the best part was, it was close enough that it doubled as dinner :)

We also went out to dinner! Which might not sound like much, but round here, we just don't get to do that. We rarely EVER go out, and when we do, it's not with the kids. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW THESE PEOPLE EAT!! It's too expensive, so usually we just don't ever go out.

But since I seriously couldn't remember the last time we had, I felt it would be a good time to! Plus the hubs was leaving until Monday night so we thought it would be fun to do before he left.

Not a great picture, but proves we were there ... and not in our jammies ;)

My favorite thing about Christmas is that the kids get so distracted by the new toys that I actually have moments of QUIET that I don't have to sell my soul for.

Teen went to a friend's house so it was just us girls most of the day and it was actually quite lovely! In the morning we purged their closet and Lil Miss was surprisingly helpful! She pointed out the games that had missing pieces or that she just didn't play with anymore so we were able to get rid of those. I also helped them organize and make pretty the rest of their room while putting away all of their new toys.

Then I made a deal. I told Lil Miss if she "gave her salon to a sad little girl who didn't have one" = donate this HUGE AWFUL looking plastic thing that she never plays with, then I would open up this "color me playhouse" she got from her Gramma. Well ... I had no idea what I was in for.

OH.MY.WORD. It's huge. It's 3 feet x 5 freaking feet and 4 feet TALL. It's tall enough for Lil Miss to stand up in. It's big enough for all 3 girls to sit in comfortably. It's so large, one of them may have to move in and start using it for a bedroom.

On the bright side though, they ADORE it. They had SO much fun playing in it that it's hard to hate the thing.

Well ... it WAS hard to hate it ...

Until they started to color it.

Oh how my OCD hurts.

Seriously. Thinking about possibly putting this monstrosity somewhere I will have to look at it and knowing that it's appearance is in the hands of a 6 year old who thinks the Gingerbread House Look is CLASSIC is making my eye twitch.

I had hope at one point. DH can't walk away from an artistic opportunity ;) So when Lil Miss was getting ready for bed, he got out his sharpie and decided to give the house a "distressed cottage look" with some "exposed brick and broken stucco". I heard "cottage" and thought HEY! Maybe this won't be a total eye sore!

And they were so cute working on it together :) I had visions of adorable cottage looking playhouses running through my head. Until Lil Miss decided she liked the Gingerbread House Look better ...

And started to color EACH SHINGLE A DIFFERENT COLOR.

EYE.TWITCHING.

On the upside, it might fit right in. It looks like the only place in the whole damn house where this thing will fit would be where the Christmas Tree goes in the living room. So next year we might just be decorating and singing carols around the Christmas Playhouse instead of the tree. But hey if we add a wreath and some lights to the GIANT GINGERBREAD HOUSE we could always take family pictures in front of IT and use it as our Christmas card.

Christmas morning came oh so quickly to our house!

We set the alarm and woke the kids up at 6am so they had time to open stockings and Santa gifts before heading to their other parents' homes.

Lil Miss didn't seem to mind ;)

After opening their gifts and DH left to take The Boy to his mom's, I started the cinnimon rolls (our standard Christmas tradition :) and the kids started playing with their new toys. I LOVE Christmas for that! The kids will just play and play ...

and play ...

and play! ALL DAY! I barely hear a PEEP out of them!

Poor Flower Child was fighting a pretty good fever and was pretty beat, but she seemed to perk up after awhile.

Meanwhile Lil Miss curled up with daddy ...

and he played with HIS new toy too ;)

Just before my girls left to go with their dad I had DH take a few pics for me ... I can't believe how big they're getting :) They are so beautiful and I just adore them so.

And shortly after they left I had my annual Christmas Meltdown, complete with tears. I don't know what it is, but it get so quiet and I realize that they are off having Christmas with another family, and they aren't HERE ... with ME ... where they SHOULD BE. It's totally selfish and I don't like it, but there it is. I get all sad and cry and overwhelmed with the craziness of the house even though it didn't bother me when they were there :-/ Egh ... it just sucks. It's hard to explain.

So I poured myself a glass of champagne, changed into my jammies, and took a nap LOL

It helped ;)

Christmas Day for us came a day early this year. Today DH went to get The Boy early and I finished up some last minute gifts.

As soon as the men folk got home, I sent all the kids to get dressed and we commenced with present opening!!

Lil Miss just about broke her face from smiling so much when she got this color-your-own playhouse from her gramma :)

Flower Child is loving that she's starting to get 'older kid stuff' and LOVES her bracelet ... and the money ;)

The Boy enjoyed his Air Hogs aaaaaaall day ...

And Teen literally CRIED when she opened her phone :)

*I* literally cried when I opened this :)

It's my grandmother's wedding ring. She and I were VERY close and I used to LOVE trying on her ring. She would let me dress up in all of the family's wedding dresses and wear her ring :) She died about 13 years ago. She and my grandpa had the most amazing relationship. It's something I've always looked up to. Recently I find myself in a very similar life situation as what she had. I've felt very close to her, come to understand her in a way I couldn't before. My mom had her ring but couldn't wear it so this year she finally passed it on to me :) I just can't express how much it means to me :)

The kids ran through their gifts and finally got to MY gift to them :) I made each of them a blanket. Now, it wasn't a hard blanket to make, but I did OBSESS over each one to the point of exhaustion so it means a lot to me ;) I had them each open them at the same time and it was SO cute! They were SO happy with them! It made me so happy to see each of them look at their blankets and know how much thought and time I put into each one :) They are GREAT kids!

Lil Miss playing with her stuff :)

My pretty simple table set up.

I have been pinning and pinning and pinning all kinds of ideas for Christmas tablescapes and THIS is what i did lol.

It's not bad I guess, just kind of ... boring. Maybe next year :)

MMMMM one of my favorite things about Christmas is PRIME RIB!! DH asked if I wanted to just do turkey this year to save money and I think he must have looked over at me because he said "I guess not then." lol I am just SO DONE with turkey lol

My sweet baby girl :)

After dinner and some yummy pumpkin pie, the kids got wrapped up in their new jammies and it was about time for Nana to head home. I'm so glad she's able to come out for Christmas :) Hopefully this time next year, she'll be living in town!

Then it was time to get ready for Santa! They each picked out a good to put out for the big guy and it was time to head to bed! Another thing I love about our set up this year is that all of the gifts are DONE except the stockings and Santa's gift so I only had 2 things to wrap and I was DONE!! I filled the stockings, set out the gifts and was ready for be bed! Which was a good things since we have to get up at 6am Christmas morning to make sure The Boy is off to his mom's on time :-/

It was an AMAZING Christmas :) I couldn't ask for a more sweet and loving family, this was the BEST year yet!