All the "holiday" flap

A few of my Facebook friends have recently posted links to blog posts with titles like "Can we tone down the holidays, please?" and other things of that nature.

It's March, Easter is coming up, if you don't have kids in school you may wonder what the big deal is. So here it is... St. Patrick's Day. Once a day when you just made sure your child (ok me, I was that age) wore green when they walked out of the house so they don't get pinched? Now a holiday. Not a holiday in that kids are out of school, but a big celebration with green food, Leprechaun trap building, etc. Then there are the complaints of what some kids are handing out for Valentine's Day - fancy little bags of goodies instead of just a card. Take it back another few weeks to Christmas and everyone points to the "creepy" new tradition of Elf on the Shelf. Some have even started complaining about Advent calendars - which are not a new thing and I loved mine as a kid.

Well I have already blogged about the supposed "creepy" Elf on the Shelf. Basically we bought it and love it and don't find it creepy - which seems to be the key word people use who don't buy in. "It's creepy."

I am a big fan of holidays. Love them. In today's day and age with so much crummy news and things we need to shelter our kids from, I am all for embracing the fun and frivolty of a handful of days a year to celebrate random things.

We aren't really Irish, though the red hair tricks many. More Scandinavian and my red hair (hence my kids' as well) comes from my Swedish grandmother. But St. Patty's day? It's a hit here. The kids love corned beef, which I fix once a year on March 17th. They love building leprechaun traps and they get more elaborate every year. This year my son's was rigged with motion sensors - making things pretty interesting...

Fun. It's all it is.

We pick and choose with holidays. I get tired of all the freaking candy at holidays and my personal annoyance is when every holiday becomes a gift giving occasion. My kids get "presents" on their birthdays and Christmas. For Easter they will get small little things I don't think of as presents out of the dollar bins in their baskets - chalk, jump rope, a stuffed rabbit (for Skadi). For Valentine's Day, my daughter got a pink teddy bear, because she loves that stuff (and her chocolates still sit untouched). I don't have time to spend hours working on Valentine's, so my kids picked out the ones with a card and a piece of candy attached. And so far - neither the nearly 6 year old or 8 year old has complained at all. I like to think they know better.

Back to my point... the blog posts asking to scale back the holidays.

You don't like it? Don't do it! Quit succumbing to parental peer pressure and the assumption that if it is posted on Pinterest that "everyone" else is doing it and your child will feel left out if they don't have baggies of rainbow licorice and gold coins for St. Patty's Day. Your kids will deal.

St. Patty's day? I cooked dinner. My kids built their traps themselves (ok, dad couldn't resist in helping Skadi incorporate her ceiling fan into hers) as they have been doing since they were 3 years old in preschool with access to paper and tape. And that was that.

And you know what, if my children EVER complained that they don't get to do all the stuff their friends do they will get a stern lecture.

My son at chess club (over Christmas) told one of his friends about the underwear episode with our Elf, Mina. (Mina decorated the untrimmed tree with his underwear.) The boy told his mom in my presence and she looked at me, rolled her eyes (not in a horrible way, we have been acquainted for 1.5 years now through the boys) and said, "oh you are one of THOSE moms."

Yes, I am one of those moms who loves to have fun and do silly things with my kids that make them laugh and adds to their magic of the holidays. That when they are 28 will look back and laugh and say to me, "mom, do you remember when you, I mean the Elf, decorated the tree with my underwear?"

Yep, I am one of those moms.

The saddest children's book EVER!

Ok, maybe except for that Robert Munsch book - "Love You Forever". Do you want to turn a new mom to mush in 60 seconds or less? Give her that horrible book!! (Ok, so it isn't horrible... plenty of people think it is beautiful...)

I don't often order from the Scholastics Book flyers, but I noted recently that we had very few books about my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. So I decided to stock up on some fall and Thanksgiving books through the monthly book orders at the kids' schools. I suppose this is where the problem started. Because if I had ordered from Amazon I would have read a synopsis of the books before ordering.

But nope. I saw Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie and thought in my head... girl theme... apples (my daughter's favorite)... a cute little girl kind of like my own on the cover... and PIE (my families specialty)... no brainer!

But little did I know what awaited me under the cover.

Tears!

See Amelia Bedelia was spending the day with her grandma and grandpa and she and her grandma set about making an apple pie.

Right there my first thought... My mom was THE pie maker and if you have read my blog in years past, or if you know me, you know the importance of homemade pie in our family. My little girl won't ever get to make pie with her grandma. And teaching the art of making a homemade pie was extremely important to my family.

Of course I could wallow in this and feel sorry for us and let the tears keep rolling as I read it.

And yes, I did let the tears keep rolling as I read the book. But I know my charge. I know that it is *my* duty to teach the art of pie to my daughter (who appears to love to bake as much as her grandma).

My next charge is to get rid of that horrible, awful, sad book!

(Ok, so it really isn't a "horrible" or "awful" book. It is quite charming. But it doesn't belong in my house.)

How to catch a leprechaun!

Ranking right up there with Santa, is...

Larry the Leprechaun!

Leif's teachers have this tradition that has captivated my son something fierce for the last few years. The kids all get to build a trap to catch a leprechaun. And not just any leprechaun. LARRY the leprechaun. Leif has been talking for months about his plans for his trap.

And now the day is just around the corner. Leif's plans to catch Larry are nearly all we hear about.

"You should see my trap," Leif carries on, "and Parker and I are connecting are traps together to make one massive trap and we are putting it on Mrs. S's desk because last year the leprechaun tipped over her chair!! And he left his shoe behind on the window ledge!"

Seriously the fact that her chair was tipped over was HUGE.

See Larry breaks into the classroom during one of the outside times and wreaks havoc tipping over chairs and disturbing things. Every year Larry leaves some small memento behind that the kids find in the room. Evidence that Larry WAS there!

And just maybe, one of the traps will catch him! Though none actually have caught him in the three years that Leif has been in the room.

"And you get to keep all his gold!" Leif tells us, "but I heard one time that if two people catch it they get to share the gold." Apparently he and Parker have decided they will deal with having half the gold by teaming up and putting their traps conjoined in the most obvious place to catch a leprechaun - his teacher's desk. "Because doesn't every leprechaun want to dance on the teacher's desk?"

This is the first year I am fearing massive disappointment because Leif knows he will not be there in the class next year. It's his last chance to catch Larry. And he is SO determined. SO SO SO determined.

"Mom, what if they don't try to catch Larry at [public school]?" he asked me today.

"Well they probably don't, you might need to ask C how they celebrate St. Patrick's Day," I told him.

I told him we could set a trap at home, but so far no leprechauns have made an appearance at our house, no havoc has been wreaked. (I might have to rectify this...)

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Yay me! This is post # 1400!

Random Stuff on New Years Eve

I love my daughter, she says the funniest things.

Skadi: "Is it today mom?"

Me: "Yes."

Skadi: "YAY! I am so glad it is today!"

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I am drinking my last pumpkin spice latte of 2010.

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I bought that remote control helicopter mostly for Leif. I am just so thrilled I bought it for LEIF. I am getting very tired of being chased by it by my husband!

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53 weeks remaining of my 30's.

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One year ago today was the last day my kids saw my mom.

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We made lefse today. It is delicious. The last time I made lefse I made a huge batch and mailed half to my mom since it was about the only thing she was enjoying eating.

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I am looking forward to friends coming over for a game night tonight.

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I used to love downhill skiing. I didn't love it yesterday. It is awfully hard wrangling two young children on the ski slopes.

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But those little bitty things sailing down the slopes with ease are so freaking cute.

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My legs hurt. It is probably good that I didn't ski more than a few runs.

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Pumpkin spice lattes are very, very yummy and it is very, very cruel that they are only available for a few months a year.

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My jeans are feeling a bit tight after all the food over the past few weeks. Maybe it is good pumpkin spice lattes are only available three months a year.

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There's that stupid RC helicopter again.

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I wonder how it would fly if a rotor were missing?

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Lemon meringue pies are a serious pain in the rear to make.

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I don't think I will ever master meringue. Like ever.

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Chain restaurants that sell meringue coated pies have some serious molecular gastronomy thing going on.

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Must remove rotor.

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Speaking of molecular gastronomy, was Top Chef not on this week?

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It's like a hummingbird. And I despise hummingbirds.

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They scare me.

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When I was a kid my grandpa sent me outside to stand next to a hummingbird, I willingly went. I was wearing a sundress. I was attacked. I was never the same.

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Oh, THERE are the sleeves I bought for cds and dvds!

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Must set up my new digital frame tomorrow. I am so excited to get one for my office!

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Wonder how the twins are doing?

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I need to boil down all those chicken and turkey carcasses for pot pies. Tomorrow. I will do it tomorrow.

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The last two weeks have gone way too fast.

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I remember when I was 13 and stayed up till midnight at my best friend's house in Casper. Right after midnight I called my mom to wish her a happy new years! She was sound asleep and so not happy with me.

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I can totally understand my mom right now.

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Wow, I must be really old to need a latte at 6pm to stay awake past 10:30pm.

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I have no idea what to get AB for his birthday. Does the 3 night vacation skiing at Silver Mountain that weekend count?

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Yep, I think I am going to put both kids in ski school when we go to Silver in 2 weeks and go back to the condo and read. The.entire.time.

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How am I EVER going to put down The Girl Who Played With Fire and read The Alchemist for book club next Friday. (Sorry RAB.)

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Love the fact that the RC helicopter has a short battery life. Silence. No hummingbird hovering over my head. (No husband standing around the corner laughing.)

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Wow, that pumpkin spice latte went fast.

4.5 Days Remaining

We are on the downward slope from 2 weeks off. The kids are still enjoying their time off as am I. I haven't reached that point yet where I am longing to get up and go in to my office.

Before the two weeks off I made a list of what I planned to do, let's check the progress:

Organize recipes - Does it count that all my recipes are in one general location?

• I have recipe boxes from my grandmother. They are old metal boxes with recipes unsorted into categories. Not to mention, that they are recipes that I am unlikely to ever make. I like having them for the attachment to the past. My grandmother was not organized, nor was she a cook. She was a master of one dish casseroles and spaghetti sauce made from tomato soup and Velveeta cheese.
• I have one recipe box that was my mom's and it is the opposite. Neatly written out cards all organized carefully. When my sister asked me for a peanut butter pie recipe and key lime pie recipe, I had my hands on them in a matter of minutes.
• My recipes fall somewhere in between. My large box crashed and burned and not knowing what to do with the gazillion cards at the time I put them in a Ziploc freezer bag. As long as you don't jiggle around the bag, they are still reasonably organized.
• Anyways, obvious that I haven't figured out what to do with these? I am not sure I want to intermingle the eras yet. So for now, the recipes will all sit in one area in my pantry.

Finish quilt - yes, the one that I started, sure I could finish in three weeks, then the dog broke my sewing machine and I had to replace it - the sewing machine, not the dog - and then life got in the way.

• I am happy to report that the quilt top is DONE!
• I am thinking I might venture to JoAnn's today to get fabric for the back and batting.
• I am also thinking that since my new machine has a little opening and this is a huge quilt that I will be handquilting this one. Any advice? I have only handquilted one quilt to this point.

Make salted English toffee.

• Done and it is freaky delicious. I am partial to the sea salt version while my husband prefers the almond one.

Digital Music (I am sure I am supposed to organize it, organize my playlists, upload my cds or something here. My digital music simply needs attention)

• I was funny to think I would get to this... Maybe it will be a goal for February?

Make lefse

• Plan to do this on New Years Day, I think.

Make and decorate sugar cookies

• Done and do I admit that they are very nearly all on my thighs right now?

Take kids to see Tangled

• Done and it was a great flick. Even Leif liked it and talks about it. Skadi's favorite part was "all of it".

Take kids to open gym one (or more) afternoon at Garlands

• Done once and not relishing the thought of doing it again. In fact, I haven't even told them this is an option. Love Coach and talked to him for a bit while there, and it was super that one of our friends brought his daughter with. But there were A LOT of kids there and I spend much of the time fretting about where Skadi was. I couldn't see her around all the equipment. The kids don't even realize going another day would be an option.

Organize Kitchen Desk and Desk Cupboard

• Done, done, done! Yippee yay yay! And I even found the long lost address book and at the last minute got cards out. Phew!

Catch up on our recorded shows

• We are working our way through this season of Glee and AB is anxious to get to the Halloween week themed one. (Hope he doesn't read this and find out that his secret is out!) We have not watched any Boardwalk Empire though because it appears that our DVR has been spotty with recording it. Sigh.
• We did however, rent a movie! Actually I have seen two! Tara and I rented Sex and the City 2 which was a fun and lighthearted movie. I enjoyed it. AB and I rented Inception and it only took me three nights to get through it. Very good, but I kept falling asleep in it. Irony?

Drink

• See my thighs.
• AB's orange Turkish coffees are amazing. So were those couple bottles of wine we delved into. And my Ruby Red martinis...

Wear my pajamas past 7am.

• This one was easy to accomplish since the kids have given us a reprieve and have been sleeping in until 8am most days. *I* have been sleeping in till nearly 8am.

Watch entire movies, not just bits from the kitchen, with my children. (I am allowing magazines or Kindles to be in my hands through this though.)

• Yes, I have done this. I am all the way through my magazines and have a new high score on iPhone SkeeBall.

Plan my house projects for 2011

• Done

Other things that have popped on the list? We are headed up skiing tomorrow. I am tackling Christmas decorations today. Walks on most days. Phone calls with family. All the stuff that matters!

The Zone

I have learned, during my days off over the holidays, that I really am not a good candidate for a work from home gig.

When I was a grad student I attempted to write my dissertation from home. That didn't work. I could not force myself to sit at the computer and write. Instead I cooked and baked, I took the dog for walks, I watched bad daytime TV and I called my mom. I cleaned. I would look around and see things that needed to be done and instead of doing what I really needed to do, I would get up and clean the catbox, or the fridge, or vacuum the apartment carpet that never seemed to get clean. Not to mention the internet... I would surf the net.

If I wanted to finish my dissertation I had to give it all up. I had to get up and go into my lab each morning and sit at the computer and write without allowing myself the pleasure of browsing the internet (huge time suck). I gave up my discussion board for a few months too. I had to finish that 300 page tomb.

Since then I have never really attempted to work from home. Sure there were days when one of the kids was sick and I would come home and put them in bed or in front of the TV and I would work.

That is so so so different from having two, very healthy children who play and fight and bicker and want to do art and play Wii and play on the computer or need a glass of apple juice or can I have this snack? and never at the same time.

There have been a few fires that have needed put out at work the past few weeks. Really, everything was semi-typical and all in the course of a normal days work. But doing this all from home? Really not my forte.

I suppose that it is easier if both kids are say over the age of 5. Leif is pretty independent and understands that "mommy needs to take this phone call now". But Skadi just does not care. I was attempting a three way phone call with two male coworkers and ended up saying, "not now honey" and may never hear the end of that.

Something happens when I get work on the brain. I get in this zone. It is like I am a race horse with blinders on making me incapable of hearing or addressing things going on around me. I am normally a good multi-tasker - able to handle lots of projects and WORK issues at the same time. This does not extend to home life and children.

I get the work groove going, my blinders are on and until whatever issue needs to be addressed is solved, my pace quickens, my mind races, my food goes untouched and my heart beats a bit faster.

Thankfully last night when I started getting e-mails from my east coast client (at 6:15pm), AB was there to jump in and save our children from starving and to let me pace the house with my phone in my hand, my fingers texting, my laptop remoted in.

And until things were solved (sorry to my coworkers I was texting at 9pm) to the level that I was satisfied and the product line notified on the latest actions, I was in the zone. Could.not.extract.myself.

And in the end - I was terribly pleased with myself for handling the issues that needed to be dealt with.

I know people who work from home, and quite effectively at that.

Not me. I need the serenity of my office with a door I can shut (and a window overlooking the river for occasional daydreaming) with little guilt. Guilt that comes from my own head as the zone pulls me from "make your own pizza night". Guilt that I place on myself for dividing my attention with an unfavorable advantage towards my work.

Merry Christmas!

We had a quiet Christmas. It is the first Christmas in years that we have not travelled. I used to get a bit bent out of shape about always traveling for the holidays. Annoyed that no one would come to us for holidays. Now the fact that we are home is a bit bittersweet. In one instance I am relishing being in our own home for the holidays, while the next instant that fact is soured because the reason we are not traveling is that my mom is no longer with us. It hasn't been easy.

Little events have brought loads of memories. I normally do Christmas cookies early so that we can enjoy them through the season. Doing cookies this year was a bit tough and I procrastinated them until just a few days before Christmas. Memories of Christmas both as a child, as a teenager and adult flood through of doing cookies with my mom.

When I was a child my mom would cut them and bake them - making sure to never put different shapes on the same cookie sheet when baking so that they would all cook evenly. I thought she was horribly boring that way. Guess how I do them now? Yes, the exact same way.

Memories of "retarded" angels. No, I don't really mean to be anti-PC here - but back in 1980, "retarded" wasn't a horrible thing to say. When I was a kid we would always try and put faces on our angel cookies. My mom would laugh and tell us that was definitely a "retarded" angel.

As a high schooler, my mom would try to cut corners and change up the labor intensive cookie recipe that was my great grandmother's. It wouldn't take so long if we did this other recipe she would tell us. And my sister and I would roll our eyes. Because they never TASTED as good.

And as an adult my mom would wait to do cookies until we arrived in town and then we would go down to my sister's house and decorate them with her kids and occasionally my aunt and cousins would come down too.

Our Christmas Eve tradition was always to eat seafood and open one gift. Those lean years where we didn't have much, we would still have snow crab legs and my sister and I thought we were the luckiest kids alive. I made a friend's boulliabaisse recipe this year and it turned out fabulous and we were lucky enough to have king crab shipped directly from Alaska to put in it.

My kids had their one gift to open on Christmas eve which surprisingly turned out to be pajamas! (Do you know how hard it is to find Christmas - not winter - themed pajamas for boys in size 7??) Skadi cracked us all up when she opened hers, jumped around the room with a huge grin squealing, "It is EXACTLY what I always wanted!"

I may be deluding myself, or maybe it is what I need to believe to make things easier, but I believe that this was the first year that my mom was in our house with us on Christmas. I felt as though she was here watching all these traditions and partaking with us.

The 23rd already?!

Day six. I can pretty officially say that the holiday is in full swing. My work e-mail has dropped off to nearly nonexistent - I did get two e-mails from one client this morning. I replied with a note of thanks for letting me know and Happy Holidays. You know to acknowledge that I am here for them, then to remain open to all denominations and all, but to mostly say "HELLO I AM ON HOLIDAY!"

Yesterday there was a flurry of work activity again that sent me scampering on the way out to go see Tangled with the kids. At a recent review in Washington DC I had dropped my business card in many people's hands, like I am supposed to do. Normally I never hear anything back... but every once in awhile...

It was a visit request from a high ranking military official. I quickly replied back that I would be happy to arrange the visit and copied it to many levels of my management, like I am supposed to do. Of course pretty quickly thereafter I got a note back from the sector saying that this request will require extensive sector involvement and that they will be providing assistance in scheduling this visit and even went so far as to suggest that maybe we should suggest holding the meeting in Seattle to minimize potential weather interferences and travel difficulties on their part. We want to make sure there isn't ANY reason why they aren't able to meet with us. I will be working dang hard to keep my foot in this...

Oh that's right... we aren't talking work now. We are on holiday! And vacation! My focus is not work!

Tangled! Yes, we went and saw Tangled yesterday! It was very good. Really well done. Even Leif liked it. Skadi was mesmerized the entire time and announced her favorite part was "all of it was my favorite part". Truly well done and I highly recommend it.

AB and Leif played their parts (Innkeeper and Shepherd) in the Living Nativity. 12 of 15 shows down as of tonight. They are finishing the shows off tonight and I look forward to having my family home with me in the evenings again. Whenever I start feeling selfish I read the posts from local friends on Facebook who rave about the experience. Then pride swells. Leif has been great. He hasn't missed a show and has worked hard at his character role. I am proud of my husband for handling the torch well and "hip-checking" the donkey into place and not butchering the cranky camels. I am not sure camel would taste good...

Skadi and I have enjoyed our evenings together with Aunt Tara too.

My accomplishments:

Butter Toffee - Check!
Sugar Cookies Baked and Decorated - Check!
Divinity - Check! (Attempted at least, so it ended in the trash...)
Wrapping - Check! (AMAZING!)
Laundry - Ongoing Check!
New Tires for my Car - Merry Christmas!
Fish Stock made for Bouillibaise - Check!
Organize kitchen desk and cupboards - Check!

That list of things I want to do? (Quilt, Organize Recipes, Address my Digital Music...) It's moving up in ranks.

Day four

Today is my fourth day of two weeks of vacation. I have learned today that "working from home" just isn't really an option at this point in my life. My 6 year old views it as an option to prey on my weakness of needing time on my laptop by requesting computer game time on NickJr. I have a hard time saying no, because it keeps him well occupied for when I need to be on the phone with a client. But there is no such negotiation with my daughter who simply sees my being on the computer as "not being with her".

And as we all know, 3 year olds are the most self centered human beings ever. It is ALL about them.

It was a rough night since Skadi has decided again that sleeping through the night really isn't a great idea. Leif then got up at 6:06am. Then once in our bed, under the covers, he fell asleep again. But I was awake.

I got up and finished off cutting out Christmas sugar cookies.

Then things started going haywire at work and I just had a horrible time dividing my attention between my one needy daughter, my tuned out son and work.

Then I tore myself away from both and snuck out and had lunch with a coworker.

Then ran home and grabbed the kids to head to Open Gym. On the way home I was impulsive and stopped and grabbed a Starbucks - which I have been avoiding lately both for a calorie and cash perspective. But I decided I deserved it but was disappointed to find out that pumpkin spice is already passe at this Starbucks, but they decided to gift me with whatever option I wanted instead. So it only cost me the calories.

We ran out and picked up our farm share and I am excited by the assortment in our box.

I am four days in and my to do list is nowhere to be found. Things that I have wanted to do? Not done at all. Things I have needed to do at home? Not done. I still have a stack of gifts - mostly for Skadi - to wrap. She loves to help wrap and since I resist in allowing her to wrap her own gifts, I still have a stack of Skadi gifts to wrap.

Today was AB's last day at work and so I am somewhat optimistic that my success in getting our house ready for Christmas at least will start. We need to score a few things for Christmas dinner. I need to get a few stocking stuffers. And I am hoping to send that last deliverable off.

Overall, the kids had a good day - lots of fun at the Open Gym. I got a really nice note from a coworker friend who helped remind me what the really important things are in life - he came by to get our cosleeper last night for their brand new twins who will hopefully be out of the NICU for Christmas and I handed him dinner last night too. It hadn't been much for me to double my batch of soup and pack it up with all the fixings. But it made a big difference to them as they travel back and forth to the hospital every three hours day and night for feedings.

It reminds me that so far this week, I have done the important things. I built a snowman. I made soup for a new family. I kept my mom's tradition of making sugar cookies - I am quite confident she was there rolling out the dough with me. And I did my best to balance life at home with my kids and things that need to be done at work, striving not to let my team down or my family down.

Multi-tasking fail

Famous last words - "I am going to work from home some next week."

I have a big deliverable due Monday cob. (Do you know how long it took me to figure out what "cob" was when I started working here? Like forever. For those of you like me, that would be "close of business".)

But I needed time off. I needed a full two weeks off. Not 4 days and a week. A full two weeks.

Today I worked on laundry, I folded laundry, I spent lots of hours remoted in to my work computer, I made Christmas cookies, I played in the snow with the kids, I watched movies with my kids.

While this sounds productive, it is not.

See I did like one load of laundry and never got it it moved over to the dryer.

I started folding the five baskets of laundry in my bedroom and got like one load folded.

I did deliver the two major components (of three components) to my client. All the while ticking off at least one or two team members.

I burnt two batches of cookies while on the phone with a coworker and my daughter squealed in both our ears. And I called him "honey". Actually I called my daughter honey, but then had to answer when he said, "did you call me honey?"

I watched movies from the kitchen and listened to them on my computer.

But I DID play in the snow with the kids and get a snowman built.

And as AB reminded me, I did get dinner fixed (and half of it packaged up for my friend who just had twins) and it was yummy.

I am hoping for more success tomorrow. Though I am not terribly confident. I still have that one deliverable component pending, lunch with a coworker and then I promised the kids I would take them to open gym.

We will see if things loosen up then.

Progress

Nearly two days marked off of my two weeks "off". Not that I am counting, or anything. No, I am not anxious to go running back to my office. Yet.

That said, my company has unveiled a lot of remote working technologies recently that enables me to use my kitchen table as my office easily. I can remote directly to my computer and get stuff done. Which has been vital in my taking two weeks "off". I have a large deliverable going out on Monday and no intention of setting foot in the office.

Anyways, my evenings have been quiet. AB and Leif are performing nightly in our church's Living Nativity. They volunteered to be shepherds and AB was suddenly - the night before the media performace - promoted to Innkeeper. They seem to be enjoying it despite the long hours every single night until the 23rd.

Skadi and Aunt Tara and I have spent our evenings watching movies and hanging together. Skadi, I believe, has really enjoyed this one on one time.

Saturday I decided to start out my days off on a good note by getting up and mixing up divinity.

Then we went to the last swimming lesson of this session - since it had snowed two inches that morning, the kids were the only ones at their respective lessons and lucked out with private lessons.

We went and saw Dancer and Prancer at Beaver Bark. Leif asked - as he does everytime we go there - if they have a Venus Flytrap plant. (Still no.) Then we headed to Leif's last basketball game. It is always nice when these YMCA team sports come to an end. We are ignoring the existence of Indoor Soccer next month. Shhh.

We got back and unfortunately the divinity was still the texture and consistency of marshmallow cream. (Not terribly surprising. I bat about 50% with candy.)

We mixed up sugar cookies. My great grandmother's recipe that is tempermental at best - but I have mastered it. And my kids will also master it. Skadi was a bit disappointed to hear that the dough needed a full 12 hours - no shorter - in the fridge and it would be tomorrow before we could roll it out. Leif was just disappointed there was no chocolate in it.

Sunday I decided to tackle the kitchen desk (worst ever design idea in the world... I would far rather have extra counter/work space than a desk in the kitchen. I organized that space and cleaned out the cupboards above.

It's the cupboards above I am struggling with. I don't know what to put there. I do realize it is of huge benefit to actually have empty cupboards in my kitchen. But I have plenty of things that NEED spaces. It is just a decision to decide what to put there. The cabinets are not terribly easily accessible. (They currently hold the phone book - who really uses that anymore? As well as light bulbs and vitamins, essentially.)

What would you put in cupboards above a desk in a kitchen?

Oh and the last thing I did today before leaving the kitchen a mess and landing on the couch with Skadi for our evening movie?

Butter Toffee.

I am fine with the 50% batting average with candy, as long as the butter toffee turns out. And oh wow, it did. Wow.

Butter toffee, English toffee, Almond Roca, whatever you call it.

Delicious.

I did half a batch with sliced almonds and the other half with sea salt.

Sea salt butter toffee. This is where my hips grow a few inches.

On the 2010 Holiday Season

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. It is about food and friends and family and bringing everyone together to be thankful for what we have. One of my most favorite memories of Thanksgiving was the one when I was about 8 years old, in the kitchen helping my mom cook. I loved that she baked homemade bread for Thanksgiving and I loved having my own little ball of dough to shape and bake. Thanksgiving… I expect won’t be an easy time for me because I have so many memories of the holiday as spent with my mom. This will be my first without her.

I am normally the go all out person for Thanksgiving. This year it will be truly impossible since I won’t even have been at home for the 11 days prior to prepare. AB’s sister and mom will be here and aren’t expecting much. We have prepared them for the fact that there will be no cooking at the Thanksgiving magnitude done on Thursday. I am not sure what we will do. However, we WILL cook our Thanksgiving meal on either Friday or Saturday. This is going to be good for me this year to do something completely different for the holiday that will likely remind me the most of my mom.

Christmas will be in our house! AB and I have agreed that we have no intentions of traveling for the holidays potentially ever again. At least until our kids are grown and we travel to them. We have traveled for so many holidays and have done our share of it. I don’t really expect anyone to come to us, it would be nice, but I won’t be disappointed to host Christmas for my family here in town. I am thinking I will be taking nearly two weeks off and keeping the kids home with me. Yes, my sanity may be called into question at the end of this. I am looking forward to a real Christmas tree, lights on the house, Mina the elf making her appearance the day after Thanksgiving, shopping, planning our Christmas meal, the Living Nativity, Christmas Eve service and teaching what the holiday means to my kids.

Skadi has asked for a “big doll” and I haven’t started looking for one yet, but I have ideas. Leif asked for Wii games and I might have made a mistake in redirecting him. AB rolled his eyes at me when I suggested that maybe he should consider something other than Wii games since he has a lot. Something like maybe a Nintendo DS, for example.

All that Valentine's Day Flap

One thing you tend to hear a lot about this time of year is what a racket Valentine’s Day. The camps are split and it seems like nearly an equal divide (completely unscientific assessment) on what I am seeing among friends regarding Valentine’s Day.

The “anti” camp in past years has seemed to be made up mostly of those who unfortunately don’t have a significant other at the time and may sport a little bitterness, which sucks and is understandable. This I buy and I understand.

But lately, ok, the last decade or so it is also made up a lot more of people in relationships. One sentiment that seems to be embraced by this “anti” camp is that it is retail driven and they refuse to celebrate their love because the retail industry tells them to. Is this really the point? I have to admit that this week when I have seen this on Facebook - yes all.over.Facebook - that I roll my eyes.

When I hear this I always wonder if those same people celebrate Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and the like. Ok, so Christmas and Easter are religious holidays and aren't really comparable. And I do agree that Christmas is really over commercialized and I see a backlash against this and I applaud the more creative gifting (homemade gifts) and charitable donations as gifts.

But what about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day? If anything, these holidays are less rooted in tradition as Valentine’s Day, which was actually established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD.

Mother’s Day is actually only about 100 years old in the United States and was created to honor mothers and family relationships. Mother’s Day is, according to the National Restaurant Association, the most popular day of the year to dine out, also the day with the largest volume of phone calls placed and the busiest single day for florists. Obviously people are celebrating Mother’s Day! Assumably these people who boycott Valentine's Day are celebrating family love on other days.

I am not one of those die-hard Valentine’s Day nuts. I don’t plan a date usually since I hate trying to eat out or go out when there are crowds, or the fight to secure a babysitter. This year AB is getting a book and a box of candy (don’t worry, he never reads my blog). The kids got little boxes of chocolates and each a little something – Starbucks travel cups for their coveted hot cocoas, Leif got a Lego set and Skadi got the second Tinkerbell DVD. Honestly I wouldn’t have gone with the toys, but I had the DVD leftover from Christmas that I didn’t give her then as she had a large excess over Leif. So I decided it was time to dole that out and to make it fair, Leif got two new Star Wars Lego kits.

I don’t need much and AB tends to overdo Valentine’s Day with flowers AND top of the line chocolates. But who am I to complain?

On Valentine’s Day we will recognize the love between my husband and I, the love we share for our children and for our parents and grandparents.

Remember Valentine's Day when you were a kid? I loved decorating my shoe box and reading way more into the Valentine's from the boys in my class gave out. It wasn't my favorite party day at school, but it was fun!

My kids received a Valentine’s Day package from grandma and grandpa yesterday and could hardly wait to get into it. Leif got a card and two games (and then he stomped us at Trouble last night). Skadi got a card and a skirt and leggings set that she wore all evening and then to school today with her kitty cat rain boots.

Leif sat down to finish off his Valentine’s last night and I was happy I had bought a box of them for Skadi too. She wanted to send hers out. Her first plan was to send one entire stack to grandma and grandpa. I reminded her we had sent them cards and artwork earlier in the week, but I would be happy to send more Valentines too! Uncle Andy and baby Annika topped Skadi's must send list - but it quickly changed to her classmates as she listed off all but one classmate (yes, I walked into the classroom this morning and said, "darn it"). ;-)

Sunday we will enjoy a homemade turkey pot pie and then I am attempting chocolate melting cakes. All food made with love, like every other single meal (even frozen pizza night).

No, I don’t need a retail industry to tell me to celebrate the great loves of my life either. Neither does my husband, I feel loved on the other 364 days of the year. But as with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, why not celebrate your love and do something fun (and eat some chocolate)?

Mina is back!

That’s right, Mina the elf made his/her return right after Thanksgiving.

I was quite impressed with Leif that he remembered the elf, remembered the routine AND the rules. I purposely hadn’t filled it in his/her name on the line in the book because I wondered if the same elf would return each year, or if the kids would latch onto a new elf being assigned.

When I suggested that it might not be our old elf, Leif latched onto this in a not so great way.

“It’s BOOK!” he cried. “Cate’s elf came to our house instead, I know it! I am going to tell her that her elf came to our house!!”

This had disaster written all over it and AB and I both sensed it simultaneously as we both jumped on the “you know, it looks like the same elf” and AB was busy saying, “I think it is Mina again!” (Thank you AB for remembering the dang elf’s name.)

We then all settled on agreeing that it was in fact Mina visiting us again and reviewed the rules (for the less rules inclined member of the house…) and Mina went about her way observing the kids’ every move and then flying all the way back to the North Pole every night to report to Santa.

There was the one day when Mina played a HUGE trick on the kids and went back to the EXACT SAME SPOT as she had been the morning prior.

And then there was the morning where Mina hid in a really, really hard spot for a 5 year old and he was certain that Mina was spending a little extra time up with Santa reporting how wonderful they had been the day before.

Mina has been helpful to me in more ways than just keeping the kids behaving slightly on the better than bad side. Leif normally comes and complains about every.single.thing that Skadi does that isn’t to his liking. Well lately he just goes and tells Mina so that she can pass it on to Santa. Wheee!

Skadi isn’t so good with the rules yet. One morning Mina was hiding in a particularly hard spot for Leif – like umm, right in front of his face as he went into the bathroom. He had given up finding her and here Skadi came running carrying Mina and squealing, “I FIND MONA! I FIND MONA!”

Yes, she calls her Mona.

Mina (or Mona) is a funny elf and hides in hilarious spots. Like hanging from Daddy’s dinner table chair. There was much concern all through dinner last night that Daddy might accidentally bump Mina and not get any Christmas presents. The kids both determined that there is no way that they want Mina to sit on their chairs as that is too big of a risk.

And then there are the crazy concerns:

Skadi: “What if Mona knocks the chair over? And it makes a loud noise? And she hurts herself? And she no come back?”
Leif: “OR she can’t fly back to tell Santa we were good!”

And the things I hadn’t really thought about:

Leif: “Mina is going to be so lonely when we go to Colorado! She won’t see us and what if she tells Santa we just went away!?”
Me: “Well maybe Mina will come to Colorado.”
Leif: “How will you pack her, you can’t touch her?”
Me: “Well maybe she will leave and fly there the same night.”
Leif: “But what if she can’t find us?”
Me: “We can make sure to tell her exactly where we will be.”
Leif: “How will she know where grandma and Bompa live?”
Me: “I will tell her the address.”

And then there is the just plain cute:

Skadi: “I want Mona hug me.”
Me: “We can’t touch Mina.”
Skadi: “I want a hug her.”
Me: “Well let me talk to her and see if she will accept a hug as nice.”
Skadi: “I love Mona.”

Truly this has become one of the funnest things to do around the holidays. I recommend the Elf on the Shelf – or even just buying a little elf and doing it yourself without the guidance (and commercialism) of the book.

A trip to the cabin

We all have been looking forward to a trip to the cabin over on Hammersly Inlet - the south end of Puget Sound - for much of the winter. We had hoped to go to the cabin earlier, but didn't dare leave our house that we are listing FSBO. Well we finally got a lockbox and an MLS number and left for the 4th of July weekend to meet AB's dad and girlfriend and the rest of the clan (huge clan) over at the family compound. I have never liked it to be called a "compound" and I kind of cringe when I mention it that way, because it reminds me of Waco... but it's not. It's just a series of 5 cabins on one lot owned by a large Norwegian family.

Oh and just for the record, wouldn't you know that within 8 hours of leaving our house, we got an offer on the other house? We so should have gone in May when we were kicking the notion around.

Anyways, back to the 4th. We decided to drive over on a Wednesday. We arrived about 5pm and made a quick stop at the grocery store for some groceries and then we headed to the cabin - about 30 minutes outside of town.

We had the cabin to ourselves for the first two nights, which was great. Then Friday and Saturday we shared with family. And Sunday it was ours again.

Of course this also meant we got the vast majority of the clean up.

Once down at the cabin we discovered within hours that Hans' second cousin was flying in from Cambridge where her husband is a post-doc. For a few years we had somewhat half heartedly tried to visit at the same time as her if only because we have children the same ages and genders. Truth be told I hadn't gotten along with her before this point and so we never pushed it too hard.

This is one of those weekends that goes to show that first impressions aren't always right. Or that people mellow after having kids.

Because seeing the cousins latch onto each other softened us both into piles of mushiness.

So many of the kids at the cabin are older - teenagers, a few tweens and a bunch of early 20's-ish kids. There are very few little kids.

Leif and his cousin Hugh spent the vast majority of the weekend together. Hazel and Skadi eyed each other and fought over toys. They ran races and gave hugs too. They will be friends. I envision cousins that will unite every year at the cabin for lots of fun.

And what was surprising and refreshing was to find out that their mom - wasn't the wacky out there mom I was expecting. We actually agree on a lot of things. Once we confirmed the kids didn't have any life threatening allergies the kids ate at each other's cabin (whichever they happened to be at when meals were served). Naptimes someone usually took the boys out to play so the girls could sleep. And we all bent the rules on the night of the 4th and didn't blink an eye (probably breathed a sigh of relief) when the other admitted that we were abandoning bedtime rules "just this once".

We and the kids had such a great time that we have actually kicked around trying to make it back to the cabin before they head back to Cambridge in August. It may work. But it probably won't. But we WILL be planning our visit for next summer to coincide with theirs.

The highlights:

-The little cousins.
-Digging clams.
-Playing with the very active Geoducks on the beach.
-Beachcombing - I love beachcombing.
-Seeing the neighborhood harbor seals up close on the dock.
-The fireworks.
-The 4th of July meal on the beach with the extended family.
-Hanging out with my FIL and getting to know his girlfriend.

Oh and the offer on the house. It was a low ball offer - frighteningly low ball. But we have countered and are waiting for their response.

Pictures next.

A very confusing topic - Holidays

The period between January to Easter is a very difficult time for Leif. We go from having some fun holiday every month or so, to nothing.

There's Valentine's Day in there. But to a little boy, Valentine's Day isn't overly interesting. There's mommy's birthday and daddy's birthday and even Skadi's birthday. But once again, no big fun holiday until Easter. But even then, Easter doesn't hold a candle to Halloween for Leif.

He loves Halloween. Every Tuesday is "movie day" at school and the kids can each bring in a movie to be voted on by the class to watch.

Every Tuesday for the last few months Leif has hauled in "Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie".

The class has watched it zero times. Still Leif is determined and not deterred in his goal to make Halloween a year round event. He has decided this year that not only will he have a birthday party, but somewhere he got wind of a costume party and has decided that everyone should wear a costume to his birthday party.

I refuse to do this to the other parents. Yeah, not only do you need to go out and buy a present, make time in your weekend for a birthday party and get your child there, hang out and then leave with a child hyped up on sugar? But yeah, also, put them in a costume.

Umm no.

I thought about letting Leif wear a costume. Or saying "costumes optional", but that puts pressure on the parents too. I think we will go with just no costumes.

Not a day goes by that Halloween isn't mentioned. Including the drive home last night.

Leif: "How many days till Halloween now?"

NM: "Oh about 7 months to the day."

Leif: "How about 7 days instead."

NM: "Nope, months. About 210 days." (I thought about reminding him that his birthday comes first, but then we would have gotten back onto the subject of costume birthday parties - a notion I am trying to squash.)

Leif: "Hmm."

NM: "But Easter is in 12 days!"

Leif: "How about 2 days."

NM: "Nope, 12 days."

Leif: "How about 10 days?" (He is learning the fine art of negotiation thanks to dinner time.)

NM: "Everyone celebrates Easter on the same day." (Yes, I know Eastern religions are a week later, but I wasn't going there.)

Leif: "Who says?"

NM: "God says."

(Silence from the back seat.)

Leif: "So the bunny belongs to God! I finally figured it out!"

He gets it from me...

Leif has apparently inherited my "overzealousness" for the holidays. I just finished singing the "12 Days of Christmas" book to him. (He picked it out.) Then he turned around and sang it to me. I loved it.

Leif: "On the first day of Christmas someone sent a package to me, mommy what is this again, an ostrich?"

NM: "It's a partridge, a smaller bird than an ostrich."

Leif: "Ok, they sent me a partridge and a pear. On the second day of Christmas someone sent a package to me..."

I seriously busted up at the "eight mooses probably for Halloween".

The topic of Christmas has come up this weekend because AB and I have been talking about what a good gift might be this year and the fact that I am chomping at the bit to get my shopping started. We tossed out ideas today on a gift/gifts for each other and the family.

A Wii was mentioned. Leif and I went to friends' house this weekend and played for a couple hours. I was surprised how he seemed to be picking it up by the end and that I had to pry the "remote-thingy" out of his hand. And I was also surprised how much fun I had.

We also mentioned an HD TV. AB talks about and oogles the TVs at Costco, but neither of us could bite it. Our TV watching has dropped off to nearly nill since AB works out of town, long hours and goes to bed right after the kids are out.

I think we have both fallen out of the habit. We are Tivo-ing Entourage (love that), Survivor, Grey's (though we missed the premier somehow) and I Tivo Amazing Race. We struggle to get through those. Oh but we did actually watch a whole movie this past weekend - Love in the Time of Cholera. And no it isn't that one with Ed Norton where the guy goes to treat cholera patients, brings his wife and she dies. That one sucked. AB and I, though both tired and sick from our colds, sat mesmerized and wow'd by the movie. It was awesome and I highly recommend it.

Ok, so we nixed the idea of an HD TV. I am still voting for waiting until our TV dies since we watch so little lately and I am not buying a new HD TV for Wall-E (DVD on order). AB is probably more of the opinion that we will get a new one when we move.

Tonight AB mentioned an idea... "we could go back to the waterpark for Christmas". Hmm... he might just be onto something there...

So before we should start talking about Christmas we should get through Halloween.

My love for Halloween is also something Leif gets from me. Today he told me that I could be a chef for Halloween if I wanted to. Think I can stretch it far enough to infer that he liked my cooking tonight? No, probably not.

Last year I told AB as he was tossing things up in the attic willy nilly-like to leave the Halloween stuff accessible as I know that there is no way he will want to retrieve my Halloween decorations when I want them. He never likes crawling into the attic when the time comes to do it, but he will. Today he admitted that he's pretty sure my Halloween decorations went into the attic even though I suggested the garage, "and do you really need them the first weekend of October?"

He will be retrieving them next weekend.

Leif is all hyped up over Halloween and every evening goes out on the back porch to practice "trick or treating". He's got it down - even the "smell my feet" part.

Tonight we were singing the song I invented, "This is Halloween, this is Halloween, Halloween night."

Ok, so I didn't invent it.

I just am prepping Leif for the day when I pull off of the shelf one of my favorite animated movies ever. I have also maybe encouraged him just a little in watching "What's This" on You Tube.

Still, when we were singing our "This is Halloween" song this evening, I was quite surprised when Leif took off singing, "I am the one hiding under your bed!"

My guess is someone at school is watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Still though, I will wait at least another year before sitting down on the couch with him in front of the movie.

Oh and I officially get my Star Wars Halloween. Leif has his Anakin Skywalker costume and Yoda fits Skadi perfectly. And they are both perfecting their Jedi skills with lightsabers recently released from long term time-out. (My bribery offer for agreeing to the Anakin costume over Boba Fett.)

Happy Valentine's Day part 2

I have to share what made me giggle this morning (aside from the weirdness of doing the Avent calendar with Leif on Valentine's Day)...

We were driving to work/school and I saw the kids walking to grade school. The girls in their red and pink dresses and tights and their neat bags of Valentines.

Then the boys... dressed normally with their bags of Valentines probably signed by their mothers - I discovered the past few days, boys have no interest in helping with Valentines. I tried. I really did. But it kind of makes me laugh when thinking about how much I put into getting a Valentine from the boys I liked... and how they must have painstackingly picked out specific Valentine's implying lifelong love...

Anyways, I digress. There were the boys swinging their Valentine's bags at each other and hitting every post they walked by with those poor bags.

Just another observation for nature versus nurture.

(Not quite sure what this says about my husband though...)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am a holiday person, I love birthdays and nearly every other holiday out there. We put window clings up and I sometimes go a little overboard in decorating for holidays.

But that said I am not a huge Valentine's day girl.

I am not on the anti-Valentine's day bandwagon that says you shouldn't have to have a holiday to tell someone you love them (my counter to that group is what do you do about every other holiday on the calendar - Mother's Day. Father's Day...). I am not anti-consumer holidays necessarily either.

I am just not a big Valentine's day person. I don't insist on flowers or chocolates and usually am ready to strike a deal with AB that we don't do anything for each other for Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day comes on the heels of our three pack of gift giving holidays - Christmas, then my birthday and then AB's birthday. By the time it arrives I am out of gift ideas! (And usually realizing I have had far too many sweets the last 8 weeks...)

I do always make sure he has a card and a little something sweet. (The kids get a touch more spoiling.)

AB agrees to this and nods his head... then goes off and does something on a much grander scale. Last year it was chocolate truffles (to satisfy my pregnancy cravings) and flowers. This year he has something up his sleeve... but I don't know what.

Upon discovering that something was in the mail and him "hoping" it arrived by today, it sent me scrambling at 10am this morning to get something in the works for him.

Kind of takes away the romance though when you have to call your significant other at work and make sure they don't have anything on their schedule tomorrow so he can go get a massage for his present. Nothing says "last minute" more than that phone call ON Valentine's Day...

He was thrilled.

I felt like a dode.

Next year I am not going to be a Valentine's Day slacker!

So onto the meaning of Valentine's Day. Love.

I am so very lucky to have AB and am so thankful for our relationship. We rarely argue, we respect each other, we have two beautiful children and respect each other as parents, we value each other's opinions and we love each other still after nearly 8 years of marriage and 6 more on top of that of hanging out together.

Happy Valentine's Day AB!

Catching up, taking a breather

It seems as though the past week has been a whirlwind of activity. All good. But it isn't slowing down.

We carved the pumpkins tonight. Then after bath and I got Skadi down I sat down with Leif to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". I have always been a huge Charlie Brown fan, related well with him for some reason, and was very excited this year that Leif is to the age that he will also enjoy it. I was bummed that it didn't come on though until the night before Halloween. And since we were pushing the bedtime deadline, I didn't even have the luxury of Tivo'ing it to fast forward through commercials. Wow are commercials brutally painful when you haven't watched them for a few years.

Oh and then there was one that was just so highly inappropriate during a kid's show that I am thinking about contacting the TV station. It was about meth recovery and a woman who lost her child and would sit in front of his school at 9pm strung out. Oh but all is better now and she has custody of him. I sat there saying, "what the?" to AB and he yells back from the kitchen, "during a kid's show?" Umm yeah. Leif is also not to keen on commercials. Every time one came on he said, "I want to watch it again!" Referring to the movie, not the commercial.

There have been a whole slew of funny comments the past few days. I asked him if he wanted me to wash his hair tonight since he was floating on his back in the tub and he told me, "no, we don't have time for that tonight".

He has a few favorite songs lately, but unfortunately XM radio is also not like Tivo and I can't just rewind. He is fond of the two Cars songs, "Life is a Highway" and the one by Sheryl Crow. I can hum and mumble most of the songs, but come up with a name? Got me. The one that was nearly Leif's breaking point the other day though was Jack Johnson's "Upside Down". There were tears over not being able to listen to the Curious George song again. Must make a cd. And another new development? My son has fine tuned his hearing and realizing mom really does suck at singing. He now politely requests that I not sing along with the songs.

Oh then there was the funny one that came out of our friend's son and not Leif. We have been suspicious that J is the other child who is not napping at daycare. School has mentioned in passing "there is another child with a napping problem like Leif". The mom mentioned to the dad within earshot of J, "so evidently there is another child that doesn't nap with Leif". And J piped up, "oh that's me!"

They are so honest. I am loving this stage where I can ask Leif, "did you have a time out at school" and he will answer me honestly. If it is yes, he usually follows up with "But but..." or "Because cause..." and he goes on to explain his case. Which is never one-sided at all. Ever.

He has had a chocolate fixation lately. According to the teachers, so has the rest of the class. He got in the car the other day and told me, "mommy, you need to tell Ms. R about chocolate. She doesn't know about it." They made an effort to remedy the situation by giving the kids hot cocoa for snack that day. When I asked Leif about it he said "no, we had lattes".

So tomorrow is Halloween and I think I have Leif thoroughly amped about it. When cutting the pumpkins open the other day Leif told me, "oh mommy, I bet there is a camera inside!" He has been talking about asking Santa for a camera like N's that is "blue and not pink". Because you know Santa might make a mistake and all. Evidently Leif is stuck somewhere between Halloweenland and Christmasland. He hasn't really sorted out the two holidays and I am sure The Great Pumpkin didn't help tonight!

Tomorrow night AB will take Leif trick or treating while I stay home with the Beaner in her ladybug costume and hand out candy. Protecting my giant jack-o-lanterns and all. (Thanks to all our friends who have helped with lifting and moving them. Please help me to reign in my husband who is threatening to sabotage my plants next year!)

Thursday AB's dad and girlfriend arrive. Friday we are taking off and running around with them. They are wine fans, so we have a few wineries on the list, but not too many so as to bore the kids to death. They will stick around for swimming lessons on Saturday morning and then head back over the hill for my FIL's reunion.

Things start to calm down after that and my countdown begins. Countdown to my full week off over Thanksgiving. Every year I save my personal holiday days and revel in an entire week off. I usually leave Leif in daycare for much of it so I can get things done. This year in the name of saving money and to afford me some one on one time with Beaner, she is staying home with me all week. I am starting my list of things I hope to accomplish.

Skadi is nearly on the move and isn't scared of falling on her face in her attempts to crawl. I keep thinking her movement is just around the corner.

AB has succumbed to my Jedi mind powers just the last month or so after working on him for the past year and has said we can get a kitten in December. I nearly had one fall in my lap and all. I am 90% commited to taking one providing I can get a female and they are healthy and not wild things. And the coworker who has them gets over herself and her fear of children and let's me bring Leif over to see them soon. They just opened their eyes.

So my Christmas present is a kitten. Cheap present until you talk about the automatic litter box, a new carrier (because Calley's old carrier won't do), two vet appointments at 8 and 11 weeks, spaying and declawing. AB is reconsidering his reluctant yes after I called the vet and priced this all out. But he knows he really can't recant it now. We have been talking about names with Leif.

Only one name works for him. Sophia. Also the name of my mom's cat. And he knows this. We need a Sophia too. He told me last night we could name it something else but he was calling it Sophia. Sigh. I asked him if there wasn't any other name he liked. He told me "Brown Ghost" is ok.

Double sigh.