Almost done.

The year is almost done. It's altogether surreal and relieving at the same time. It does seem, in retrospect, that time has flown. But thinking of all the hard times where the minutes dragged, it is nice that those are behind us and there are better times (and possibly worse) ahead. Either way, we know not what the future brings and the prospect of a brand spanking new year awakens an air of expectancy. Some things will definitely be different this year. For instance, it is not always a wonderful thing to be the one who eats the most black eyed peas on New Year's Day. Especially if you forgot the Beano. We got a new vehicle, after the December debacle. So there are no impending repairs looming over our heads (or under the hood) with their money hungry claws and disconcerting clunks and grindings. Just a long line of payments. But we are thankful that they are within our reach.

Erin and I had the stomach flu before and after Christmas, and my HC had half of the stomach flu earlier this week. Ian missed it and I am thankful for that as well, since I'm not as confident that he would have made it to the bathroom to retch as successfully as Erin did. Erin is more of a take-action person, where Ian just kind of freezes and stares. For example, if my HC jumps out and scares them, Erin will either turn and run away and hide under the nearest surface or run at him screeching back and jump on his head. Ian will stand there and scream like he's the lead in a b-movie. One long, shrill scream, feet planted. There is no obvious remedy for this.


Now I am waiting until the end of the week, when I can start taking down the Christmas stuff. We really enjoyed our gorgeous hand-me-down fiber optic Christmas tree this year (thanks Mimi and Grampa!). It is enormous and shimmers. It doesn't need any garland and all our ornaments fit on it without looking like a flea market stall. It was well worth driving from FL in July with the giant box strapped to our roof. Our yard was also one of the drive-bys with our new lawn ornaments and lights (complete with Santa, sleigh and reindeer). It was exciting for the kids to drive home from Wednesday church to see all the pretty lights coming from OUR yard. ;) (We have gotten lots of compliments on our yard, thanks to the creativity and industry of Mimi and Grampa!) It makes it even better that they remind us of one of our favorite places in Florida. I'll bet it's the first time any of those ornaments have seen the snow we got last week. haha.
We are trying to make it through our last week of Christmas vacation before the Spring semester of school. Ian and I are doing great. He is staying in his pajamas all day as late as possible and I am getting some extra cleaning, organizing, reading, websurfing done. Erin is overset. Her routine is completely messed up and we need to get back to work as soon as possible. She's not used to having Ian in her way every time she wants to watch something or play with a toy. Siblings!
We are also still waiting to see what will happen with the new boss that was elected in November. He officially starts on Jan 3 (read December 31, or earlier, since almost everyone has either gotten a pink slip or a phone call confirming their continued presence; everyone except for my HC!). Then the fun really starts as everything is restructured to his liking. It is always the hope of politics that the things that work well will be retained and the things that are broken will be fixed. It has been our experience that most campaign promises go out the window with the first enormous paycheck. We are more interested in who the new supervisors will be (and if my HC still has a job, of course!). Either way, it's always interesting to see how things work out.
I hope everyone else is having a nice settled, sick-free week and I wish you could see our Christmas lights. :) (or you could wait until next year)

Easter

We had a pretty good time this past Easter weekend, even though we missed the family. Saturday night we colored our eggs. We told Ian that if the Easter bunny liked our colored eggs, then the Easter bunny would leave treats. And in our house, the Easter bunny hides the baskets, because bunnies are skittish and like to hide. And Lily sleeps inside, though she sleeps hard enough that we could hide the basket under her, but she would smell jelly beans and go nutso. She has acquired a real taste for jelly beans. The Starburst kind. If you trick her with generic, she tastes it and will spit out a sticky, goobery mess wherever she happens to be. And people tend to step on sticky, goobery messes around here. Namely me.



On Sunday, we had our Easter dinner (our piglet ham, I meanly called it. I apologize. It turned out to be a good, solid ham and I shouldn't have mocked it.) And, of course, The Hunt. The kids and I put a bunch of plastic eggs together inside while HC cleaned up the yard (a constant endeavor with an energetic young dog). We got 55 plastic eggs assembled and counted and waited inside, where every second seemed like an hour. Finally, Daddy was ready! And then Mommy had to take pictures. Groan!





We hid and hunted eggs until everyone was tired of it (it was rather windy; a normal spring Oklahoma wind of 20-30 mph).

And later, my wonderful HC started tilling my garden plot!!! Woo hoo!

Drippy Eggs--Part 2

As a little add-on to the last post, this is a pic of my new, beautiful niece, Aislynn, who has just completed her first month on the Outside (of the womb, that is). I think it's just no end of funny that the Easter Basket is bigger than she is. She's probably eyeballing all that chocolate and thinking "Just you wait, next year, I'll be all over you!"

Of course, her cousins Ian and Erin would be more than happy to help her right now with all her Easter Candy.
Upon seeing Aislynn's pictures, Ian's first response was a look of pity. Then he spoke up. "She doesn't want to be a baby. She wants to be big. She NEEDS to be big." Clearly, he's happy being 4. Erin just points and says "Baby!"

Drippy Eggs

Eastery Sunday was pouring rain and 40 degrees. We had to practically swim from the parking lot to the church. Ian and I had wet shoes and legs and Erin's face was buried into my shoulder trying to keep rain out of her eyes. It was not fun.
But I did have a chance to try to take some pictures.





For those who think it's completely necessary for kids to have their eyes open, I finally figured out how to turn off the flash. So there. At least some eyes are open.
We played Candy Land after our big Easter dinner of ham and asparagus, though Erin was only interested in the Hawaiian rolls. Erin got an Aqua Doodle and she loves it. This is a wonderful thing, since she has adorned almost every surface of the house with ink, crayon and/or colored pencil. Erin also got a coloring book, an Elmo movie and a book to read. Ian got a HotWheel, a Matchbox play scene and a book on Outer Space. There was a little candy involved and a small chocolate bunny, but we are overflowing with candy from the egg hunts we went to. These pictures have disappeared from the camera due to a mysterious removal of the battery (bad picture maybe?). Oh well.
Tonight we are having Hawaiian pizza with leftover ham. MMMmmmmmmm!!!!

Bunny Ears

Today was Easter Fun Day at school. Everyone had to bring 6 candy-filled eggs, their Easter Basket and a happy smile (due to the cancellation of naptime for holiday festivities). Ian complied. He returned home with an insane sugar high, a little crankiness (happy smile suspended after the end of cancelled naptime), and these cute little ears.

Immediately, the kids sat down to examine the loot and open those filled eggs. Daddy added a little bug juice in case Erin felt deprived at being too young to go to school.







What is that on Ian's shirt? It goes with the cock-eyed ears...










Awwwww, it's a little bunny tail!!! And it came off about 2 seconds after the picture was taken. "I don't wanna wear the tail anymore, okay? I frow it in the trash."




Meanwhile, someone else was more than happy to play with Ian's discards, candy included...

Hope and Disappointment

We started our new year off with a frenzy of house cleaning, in preparation for a much anticipated visit. We called to check up on our visitor late afternoon and were informed that they weren't coming. Nice, huh? We made the necessary emotional adjustments and explanations to Ian and enjoyed our clean house. And wondered what we were supposed to eat, since we had emptied our freezer in anticipation for promised seafood, deer meat and pork to be delivered by the visitor. Oh well. It gives me something to do tomorrow.
We had our black-eyed peas and ham (with rice for my insatiable family; I really miss potatoes!) and went out to pop our poppers. It was cold and fun. Even though I popped my first party popper into my palm. It hurt! Ian thought I was funny, for once. Erin didn't care about the poppers as much as she did the sidewalk chalk. And I think she thought she was doing something naughty because when I went to draw with her, she threw the chalk to one side and ran off. I caught both of them and we drew some before Ian tried to run us over with his bike ("I was running over poppers, Mommy. I not hit you.") We chose life and moved anyway. We burned a little bit of trash and I pushed the kids on the swings. My HC went to work. I installed some child-proof cabinet locks in the bathroom and on the computer desk. Yay.
That was our first day of the new year.
On the hope side of this year, we are hoping with all our might for a new baby announcement. Don't get all het up now, because it's not going to be MY baby. Please keep reading before you grab the phone and start gabbing. The baby (or babies) will be the long awaited offspring of my dearest friend Rachel. After a heart-wrenching 2008 of disappointment and disillusion, fundraiser after fundraiser, prayer after prayer, the IVF process has yielded that much coveted little red line on the pregnancy test. And there may be more than one in there. Shoot, there may be three!
It is still in the early stages, but they are there. And darn it, nothing can take that moment away from her. So we are hoping with all that we have and praying with all our hearts that God will give her a safe and successful pregnancy and that she will hold her babies in her arms this summer. Then let the fun begin. I think I should send her some under-eye concealer, just to get a head start on those eye bags. :)
Her first ultrasound is very soon, to determine how many little miracles are in there.
In other news, school starts on Monday!! Ian is very excited, though he will miss watching movies every night before bed (this is a weekend/vacation only activity), he misses his friends and teachers more. He misses his circle time, recess and exercising. He has tried to demonstrate the exercises they do in PE, but it involves a lot of flailing and rolling around, so I'm not exactly sure. But I know that Ian loves it.
Erin is battling through another round of cold/sickness. With the breathing difficulties, every cold lasts for weeks. We are finishing up a round of antibiotics for ear infection, but we are still having congestion, runny nose, phlegmy coughing and extreme irritability. Sigh! Daddy is the only one that can make my little niblet smile. I am just there for on-demand holding, feeding and drink stealing.
One thing I'm happy about. As of tomorrow, the world restarts. No more holidays for a while (at least until the 19th), Walmart will be a little less dangerous, and things will start to get back to normal.
My HC asked me about New Year's resolutions. I've never really been one to make those, but when I have, they've seemed kind of generic. And ongoing. And unchanging. Uh...things like 1)getting more sleep (Whaaaaaaa-hahahahahahahaha), 2)shaving more often (Hoho hohohoho hahahahahahahaa), 3)keeping the house a little cleaner (my sides are starting to really hurt), and writing more (I sincerely wish this last one happened more). But a lot of my wishes and intentions (including the amusing ones above) are realistically, well, unrealistic. The most important thing I can do is to take care of my HC and my kids, because this stage in our lives is not going to last forever and I am determined to enjoy every little bit of it. So there. My New Year's resolution is to enjoy every bit of this year. To revel in the good parts and to learn from the bad ones. And to keep the peace, I guess I will try to shave a little more. Or pray for a gift certificate for laser surgery. :D

Christmas is over? Now what?

Today was the day after Christmas and there was a definite feeling of uncertainty in our house. Ian seemed to have a sort of "uh, that's IT?" mentality. And at the tender age of 4 realized that Santa had not gotten him Everything that he had asked for. He had been a good boy, he assured me, but Santa had forgotten to bring him the Wall-E movie. "Well," I told him, "you have that gift card from Pop-Pop and you can buy Wall-E with that." He seemed satisfied. "Or you can get a new game for your new Leapster." He brightened. "Yeah!!!" And that was the end of that conversation. I'm sure we'll get something completely unrelated to both of those when we go to Wal-Mart, but at least he's thinking about it.
Erin is just really enjoying her new toys (and Ian's Legos) and has spent considerable time with all of them today. And she has joined in the rest of the family as we inhaled countless Hawaiian rolls. (Well, not countless, we only got a 24 pack, but if you ask anyone how many they've had, they'll just look sheepish and confused and say "I dunno. Why?"
So without further ado, here are our Christmas pictures. They would have been More and better detailed and better thought out, but the kids were lightning fast and ready to get down to business. Ian didn't think he needed to look at name tags and Erin was just trying to stand up on top of a couple big ones to see out the window. She put her foot through one box and it had to be doctored up a bit (Ian didn't care, but he was upset that she was allowed to stand on them and he wasn't).
So after our offspring's 8 minute frenzy under the Christmas tree, this was as good as I could get. :D
For our Christmas breakfast, the only picture I made it into, we made waffles.

















It was a bit chaotic, especially since everyone kept changing positions, but I'm positive that my HC was there, doing crowd control.
















The Leapster. (crowd roars) Thanks Gramma, Papaw, Mimi, Grampa, Great-Granna and Great-Papaw!
















What do you mean, I hafta wait until she's done?! We could be here for hours!
















Thanks, Auntie Jacque and Uncle Jeremy! This is a Berry Doll, sorta like a Popple.















Thanks to Auntie Jacque and Uncle Jeremy again, the Fridge Phonics WordBuilder is a huuuge hit with everyone.
















These are a few pics of Erin and Daddy playing with his boot inserts.


















Thanks to Great Granna and Great Papaw for the neat helicopter. There were some Hot Wheels in need of rescue....
















This is another one of Ian actually opening something slowly.
















Oooh, what's in here? It's a Leapster Game and a charger (thank you so much to Gramma, Papaw, Mimi, Grampa, Great Granna and Great Papaw...what a huge deal)!
















And every little girl needs a Raggedy Ann dolly. Thanks Mimi and Grampa!



And if anyone is curious about the cup and saucer above, Santa got egg nog and turtles for his snack. We also spread the glittery oats in the yard (a gift from someone at school...sheesh). It's a good thing that Santa likes egg nog, because I sure don't. But I do like the turtles.

Even a Mouse

The Christmas program at church went very very well. Ian decided that being a mouse was not so bad, especially when he got to put on the entire costume. These are the only pictures we got of the program, since we were in the church gym and the lighting wasn't conducive to picture taking and everything was so far away it would only have looked like black with white dots.

But everything went very well and the set was wonderful. There were plenty of mice on a rug, listening to the Gramma Mouse tell the story of Christmas. The dialogue was a recording, so the actors just went along with the recording and acted it out. To keep all the young mice ON the rug and relatively quiet, a brilliant mom decided to get yarn, big, blunt needles, and boxes upon boxes of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks. Then they set all the kids up and had them make Froot Loop strings "for their Christmas trees," though most of the kids treated it like a huge candy necklace and kept eating the cereal off of the yarn. Ian was so engrossed in this, I had to pry him off of the rug long after the play was over. The other kids were gone and he was still there, crowding Loops onto his yarn string. We brought it home for him to nibble off of the tree in the middle of the night when no one is looking. It does seem to be getting suspiciously shorter....
Thursday was "Wear your PJs to School Day" and the kids watched the Polar Express and had hot chocolate and popcorn. It was a hectic morning, I didn't get a picture, but boy was everyone excited. I picked Ian up and he still had the chocolate ring around his mouth. It took a while for that sugar high to crash and when it did, well, let's just say he fell asleep last night with the lights on.
But before he did that, he had another round of "Ian the Photographer." Pictures are worth 1,004 words, so here they are. We'll hear all about the class Christmas party when I pick Ian up this afternoon.








Just for clarity, the last one is Ian's drink...tea, ice and straw. :D

Getting My Husband Out of Jail

Today was finally Saturday, the day of the Christmas parade and the school Winter Carnival. We bundled the kids up and walked to the town's main street (which is not Main Street, ironically. Main Street is a residential street that ends at the train tracks. Don't get me started on street names how half of them change names anyway if they do go over the tracks...). We only got a couple pieces of candy this time. Clearly we need to stick to the other side of the street. But we did see some cute little floats and some frozen kids from the local Head Start who were strangely catatonic for a trailer full of 3 year olds. This year there were only 11 fire trucks, as opposed to last year's 15 minutes worth. They only blared a little bit, thankfully. The band ended up playing at the end of the street where no people were (??) and not many people smiled or waved, but Ian didn't care. He really liked those fancy cars that had pretty girls on the tops. What? Girls? No, he liked the cars. And the truck that had bows all over it, but that was more of a mocking type of 'like'. But Ian saw Santa on the back of his fire engine and waved like a loon. We decided to skip the line of crazy, mean, rioting parents (and the innocent kids who just wanted to see Santa) and just see Santa at the school carnival.
We walked home from the parade, attacked the kids with tissues (that wind was Cooold) and drove to school. At first we weren't sure where to go, but then we found The Line. The Ticket Line, to be exact. And it was a whole lot longer than it looked from outside, but it did happen to snake past the water fountain and the bathrooms, so that was good. We finally got to the table. The tickets were 25 cents a piece, most activities took 2 tickets. Santa and the concession stand took cash. Excuse me? Santa is HOW MUCH? $5 for a picture with Santa? No personal photos at all? They let Ian and Erin talk to Santa (a REAL looking Santa with the real hair and beard and little belly! He was such a nice guy.) and sit on his lap, but it was a let down that we didn't have the money to pay for pictures. Ian chattered away to him and had to give him 2 hugs. sniff sniff. Erin wasn't so sure and would only get close if Daddy held her. Maybe we'll go on over to the mall and get some pictures there. Because we sure missed the freebie after the parade. Sheesh.
We talked to Ian's teachers for a bit and I admired their camera (it was so beautiful; Rachel, go ahead and drool).
Then we hit the games. Most of the games were 2 tickets. We did the Alphabet pond (think Duck Pond, but with floating letters) and the bean bag toss, where Ian kicked booty (clearly he got his coordination from my better half). Then we did the Yum Yum tree, where you pick a sucker out of the tree. If the stick has a mark on it, you get a special prize, but none of ours did, so we got to keep the sucker and get a piece of candy for trying. There was a kissing booth, where you closed your eyes and chose a Hershey kiss from a bowl. If you chose a red or green one (most of them were silver) you got a prize. Ian picked a green one, but he was more interested in eating the kiss. He still picked out a prize. And he got a stamp on his hand (he looked horrified when they offered to put it on his cheek) of a red kiss (kissing booth, get it?). There was a Pop Walk (pop as in Coke), where you do musical numbers. When the music stops, you stand on a number. If they draw your number, you get a 2-liter bottle of soda. Ian won on his second try. There was another, harder bean bag toss that Ian kicked booty at and won a beanie baby. Erin stole it and wouldn't give it back. It was a cat. She hugged it and talked to it for the rest of the afternoon. Then Ian got a spare at the bowling booth and got another beanie baby, a hammerhead shark this time. He hit the fishing booth and the cake walk (no luck there) and we started hearing the loudspeaker announcing that there were "warrants" for certain people. We had noticed a little corner that had been made up into a jail. With bars and everything, and two little old guys dressed up like cowboy sheriff's with badges, red bandanas and cowboy hats. It was great. Evidently, for one ticket (1 Ticket!) you could 'issue a warrant' for anyone of your choice. Then a 'deputy' would go find this person and escort them to jail, where they would serve their 2 minutes. We were getting Ian's face painted (I sneaked over to the concession stand to get a drink) when my HC's name was called over the loudspeaker. There was a dead silence, then a lot of laughing and vengeful snickering. I wasn't too happy because he transferred all the candy, prizes and 2-liter bottle over to me to hold and I was already holding Erin. He went and did his two minutes. When he got back, he counted our remaining tickets and started figuring how many people he could get into jail for paybacks. Later, we were standing in line at the cookie decorating table (4 tickets got you a huge Christmas tree-shaped sugar cookie, a little tub of green icing with a popsicle stick spreader and another tub of sprinkles, stars and a small red licorice string). Of course it took an ice age or more for all the kids to get it done, but it was so cute. Ian was working hard on his when the deputy went and got my HC AGAIN. This time he was really contemplating revenge. That jail was only about 3x3 and it was pretty full almost the whole time. I think a lot of people went by a few times just so they could laugh at my poor HC. He was giving the evil eye a lot, too. hehehe.
Funny part: Ian was decorating his cookie and there were two little girls across from him. One of them was in his class and they were chatting. She was having a hard time finishing her tree because she kept tasting the contents of her little tub of 'decorations.' Her friend kept tasting the icing. We had helped Ian with his icing so he could place every tiny sprinkle (clearly we would have been there for hours otherwise!) and he found his little candy star and put it at the top of the tree. The little girl in his class looked at Ian's star, then looked at her friend's star on her tree and then started digging around in her little container looking for it. "Where's my star?" she asked. Her friend crowded in to help her look. Ian glanced over, then resumed sprinkle placement. "Where's my star?" she repeated a few more times, each time more shrilly. She dumped the entire contents onto her paper plate, but to no avail. Her star was not there. Big gasp from her friend. "I don't see a star," I said, willing to go ask the teacher for another one to avoid a disaster. She took a deep breath. I cringed. "I guess I ate it," she said in a normal voice, and went back to decorating her cookie. After a minute, I laughed my head off.


Finally my Cute Convict got out of jail and raided my pockets for remaining money. He bought more tickets and used them all to place his acquaintances (anyone who could have possibly done it to him) in jail. Then we left.
Ian was not pleased. He really wanted to stay and play everything again. I just wanted to put Erin down and go to the bathroom.
Ian wasted no time in eating his cookie (though he did share a small chunk with Erin). I'm just glad that everyone is out of jail.

Week in a Flash

Okay, fine, so it's been more than a week. But hey, it's been chock-full of all sorts of things. First it was the Thanksgiving holiday where Ian didn't have school for a week or so. Then it was picking up Gramma and Papaw from the airport and driving home to set them up on our not-so-comfortable sofa bed. They braved it (and the whole sharing-one-bathroom thing) like champs. And had a great time with the kids in the process.


Then it was that frantic, nerve-wracking "Oh-no-I'm-a-grownup" revelation you get when you realize that you are solely responsible for Thanksgiving and even if your helper and confidence-booster (I love my Mom) happens to make a boo-boo, it happened at your house and will be remembered for all time as YOUR boo-boo. But we didn't have any boo-boos at all, unless you count my really runny sweet potato bake (okay, fine, so I cheated and used canned sweet taters instead of fresh).
But it all turned out swimmingly.


And it happened to be my honey's birthday. We just loooove pumpkin pie.



I don't really remember what all happened after that, other than a visit to McDonald's so the kids could pig out on Happy Meals and play with their puzzlingly annoying Happy Meal Toys (Shrek the Halls was SO last year, and what is it with the Madagascar talking figures? Thank the LORD they come with an off switch!).

Sunday it snowed. And we went to Devil's Den to cuddle up to the fireplace in our gorgeous cabin.



When the snow finally melted a little, though the temperature never felt like it went up any, we went for a hike to see the caves.



Devil's Den itself was closed due to the hibernation of endangered Ozark bats, but

there were several other caves, crevices, etc for us to explore. Once we thought that Chris was stuck but he explored a cave that came out at a cave we had been in previously and had to hike back to where we were. He got to carry the baby backpack, so I think it was his way of demanding a break. The kids and I waited for he and JD to explore and sat out of the wind eating snacks with Gramma.

It took a while to recover after that hike, but at least we had a nice cozy cabin and some stew in the crock pot to go back to. Aaaah.
We left early Tuesday and then had to take Gramma and Papaw back to the airport. The house was bigger and a lot quieter after we got back, but that may have had something to do with the earplugs I had jammed into my ears after having endured that many hours in the car with the kids. Anyway, Wednesday was back to school and back to the routine. And back to doing laundry. It is still a mystery to me how we can be gone for 2 days and come back with 7 loads of laundry. No, really.




Tomorrow is the annual Christmas parade, which Ian would rather watch than be in (the church float) and then the school's Winter Wonderland Carnival, where we will see Santa. I am curious to see what Ian puts on his list.