While the mice are away....

I have been on vacation all week, and last night the kiddies stayed overnight at grandma and grandpas. So, I find myself in the very rare experience of being home all alone! What to do, what to do? Why is it that I feel guilty no matter what I choose to do? If I decide to be very productive and get tons of stuff done, I feel guilty that I didn't take the opportunity to just relax and enjoy my REAL day off. If I lay around the house all day "relaxing", I feel guilty that I didn't take the opporunity to cross off lots of things on my "never have time to do" list. I'll let you know what I decide.

Eight Years!

 

A Day For Exchanging

Note to self...next year do not give out a generic Christmas list to everyone! With four of five Christmas celebrations completed, we now own three Chicken Limbo games, two Dora Candyland games, two Dream Life games, two Battleship games, two Incredibles DVDs and two Aly & AJ CDs. Fortunately, I am a crazy person who enjoys doing returns and exchanges the day after Christmas. It's like shopping without spending any money! 

Merry Christmas!

 

 

The princess

Kennedy woke up to a present underneath her pink Christmas tree this morning. A new dress to wear to her preschool Christmas program. She looked so beautiful while she sang. She was a sheep in the Christmas play!

A Surprise Visitor

Good ole St. Nick himself stopped by our Christmas party tonight. Hopefully everyone in attendance was on his "nice" list. He is still watching you know!  

I have a confession

Having a tendency to be slightly anal when it comes to organization, it might surprise you to know that I never take out the recycled cans. I will delicately balance can after can on top of each other, being careful not to topple over the ensuing aluminum tower, before I would ever consider taking the sack out to the garage to empty. What does this say about me?

5 Going on 13

This was my conversation with my daughter yesterday at 5:10 pm.

Kennedy: Can I have my snack now?
Mom: Just a little one because it's almost supper time.
K: Can I have an M&M cookie?
M: Just half, you can eat the other half after supper.
K: Can I have chips, you can't break them in half.
M: You can have two chips.
K: That's all?
M:Yep, or half a cookie.
K: Well, can I have a little bowl of ice cream?
M: No, it's almost suppertime.
K: (Crying now) That's not fair if everybody else gets a big snack and I just get a little one.
M: Well they ate snack two hours ago.
K: Well if you would just let me have a big snack I would stop crying.
M: If you KEEP crying, you can go up to your room.
K: I could just sneak out of my room and get a snack.
M: Then you would get in big trouble.
K: What would you do to me?
M: I would spank you on the bare butt.
K: Well I could just move away cause I hate my MOTHER!
M: Kennedy go to your room.
K: You're gonna be sorry!

Jam Packed

It was a busy weekend at our house with Sunday School program practice, a birthday party, Christmas shopping, and picking out the kids' ornaments on Saturday and church, brunch with friends, Christmas program and a hockey game on Sunday. Also squeezed in there were two very important Gopher/Sioux hockey games and a Vikings game. I also managed to get some laundry done, make Christmas curtains for the dining room, and go to the grocery store. I have no photos of any of the weekend's activities because it seemed like we were always rushing and running late, and there was no time to snap any pictures. I just can't wait for January to roll around so life can slow down a bit.

Sticker Shock

I took Katelyn to get a haircut last night at a local hair salon. Normally, I just cut her hair myself, but I had a gift certificate to this particular place so I thought I'd treat her to a fun night out. We decided to do a all-over color also since half of her hair was a brassy yellow from a 6-month-old highlight, summer and chlorine, and the other half was her natural ashy brown. The stylist colored her hair and gave the ends of her hair literally a few clips and when we went to pay, I handed her the $25.00 gift certificate and she said, "Okay, your remainder will be $50.00." GULP...huh? To color and trim a 10-year-old's hair? What do you say? It's not like I can go..."Oh, that's too much can we return the color?" So I wrote out the check and walked out thinking...Merry Christmas Katelyn, hope you like your present! Note to self...next time go for the bottle of Clairol.

Blackout

The lights went out in our part of town last night....conveniently at bedtime. Of course, the kids thought it was fantastic to take showers and eat snack with flashlights. After we finally got them to bed...we got a good taste of what it would be like if we ever followed through on our idea to go one week without any television. We had trouble lasting for the one hour before the power came back on. When it did, all the lights flashed on, the radio started blaring, the furnace started up...it was almost as if you could hear the song Hallelujah playing!

A List of Lists

Countless women I know, myself included are compulsive list makers. I got to thinking about the importance of lists the other night when I was trying to enjoy the Blenders concert and not even the music could drown the sound of that little voice inside my head (you know the one) that repeats the perpetual list of things I need to get done. This time of year especially, there are post-its sticking to many of the surfaces surrounding my desk. If you ask someone why they make lists, they will most likely tell you so they don't forget to do something. That is true for me also, but my reasons for writing them go beyond that. That little voice in my head that repeats itself over and over is quieted when I write down what it is saying. All of these things I need to remember that are floating around in my memory are much more tangible when I can see them written. Plus, I love the part where I get to cross an item off my list. I have been known to write down a task I have already completed just so I can cross it off. Do Dishes...Check! How's that for needing extrinsic reinforcement? I find that I am much more likely to complete a dreaded task if I can cross it off a list.I don't think men can quite comprehend what it is like for us women to be burdened with these constant mental to do lists clogging our brains. Not to sound sterotypical, but I think most men focus on the task at hand, and when they are finished they may or may not look for another task to complete. I am so addictied to making lists that I actually have categories and subcategories of lists. There are the running lists of items need from the grocery store and Target, lists of schedules, lists of due dates for bills, lists of passwords for online accounts, and even lists of movies I want to see. There are also the endless TO DO lists broken down into categories, such as "Today" : do art project, order computer ink, finish folding laundry, attend daycare training, think of something interesting to blog about; "This Week" : fill out daycare relicensing paperwork, get laminating done, clean bathrooms, rotate toys, call for furnace inspection; "Before Christmas" : all the usual things just like your list; and my favorite list "When I Have Some Extra Time" : clean out closets and mudroom and organize rummage sale items, finish coverting home VHS movies into DVD's, update kid's scrapbooks, finish 2005 scrapbook, make kitchen curtains. If I get to cross an item off of THIS list, the satisfaction is great! I have also been interested in putting together an "In My Lifetime" list. This would include the big picture things I want to accomplish such as take a trip to Hawaii, go on a mission trip to an orphanage in Africa, attend the Oprah show etc. Do you have a lifetime list? Have you been able to cross anything off of it lately? If you have, let me know; I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Tired of Being Tired?

How much sleep do you get every night? The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults get atleast 8 hours. Children age 3-5 should be getting 11-12 hours and elementary age kids should snooze for 9-11 hours. Getting to bed earlier is always on my to do list... unfortunately it's usually at the bottom underneath everything I have to get done before I can go to bed! I usually try to get to bed by 11 pm and get up about 5:30 every morning. Six and a half hours isn't cutting it. My Real Simple magazine had a article on Power Napping this month...something I have bought into for a long time. Short naps in the afternoon can be a great benefit to those not getting enough sleep at night. The tough part is getting over the guilt of actually taking a little siesta. Sleep is now thought of as a luxury rather than a neccessity and in order to successfully nap, you have to believe that you deserve it. So think of it as a favor to your body, mind, and overall health and nap away! Apparently our kids are not getting enough zzz's either...the photo is of Carter one night waiting for me to get supper on the table.

Was It Fun?

The girls of this family set off on a weekend trip to the cities to visit Grandma and try to have a little fun. That was the plan. Is it fun to try and find a parking spot downtown Minneapolis, fight the shopping crowds and carry coats, hats, mittens and scarves around the mall? Is it fun to wait in line behind thousands of people to see the Cinderella display at Dayton's? Is it fun to wait on a street corner in freezing weather and snow to catch a glimpse of a lighted train? Is it fun to hear your girls bicker and fight every other minute for sixteen hours in a row? This is what us grandmas and mothers of the world endure to try and provide our precious, horribly behaved children with some fun and fond memories. You know what is funny...if you were to ask either of my girls how their weekend was; I would venture to guess that their reply would be a resounding "FUN!" 

It's Christmas Time in Fargo Moorhead

You know it is officially Christmas time when the Blenders come to town. I went to their concert tonight with a couple of girlfriends and they were fantastic. Some might say that you've seen one Blenders concert and you've seen them all....and that may be true, but I don't care. It is a Christmas tradition and I could listen to them sing the same song over and over, Christmas time or not. The thing I love most about them is that you can tell they really love making music together, which makes them even more fun to watch. The best part about this year's concert was the little skit they performed as group called The Folkers. They did a funny little politically correct rendition of Mr. Grinch...singing about how he was just misunderstood, he really had good intentions and that it was too bad he was beaten as a child. They even have a real CD out titled Another Folkin Christmas. If you get a chance to see them this year I would highly reccommend going...they are at the Fargo Theatre until Sunday. I am off for the weekend to take the girls to the cities to see Cinderella at the downtown Dayton's (or is it Marshall Field's?) and to the Hollidazzle parade.