The holly and the jolly and all that cheer

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Sherry

Nothing like waiting until five days past Christmas to update about how your Christmas was, right? In my defense I’ve been really busy. And by “busy” I mean I’ve been playing the Wii, lounging on the couch, sledding, and other time sucking joys. You know. Busy!

In summary though, Christmas was wonderful. I think it may have been one of the best ones thus far because not only did Santa bring the kids exactly what they had asked for, George and I managed to give each of them a gift that brought about high pitched screaming of happiness.

As always, our Christmas is never just a one-day event. This year it actually started on Christmas eve because our good friends asked them to come over and join them for dinner. It was so nice and I enjoyed myself so much. It was also helpful because it gave the kids an energy outlet which allowed them to fall asleep somewhat easier at (their later than usual) bedtime.

Christmas eve with friends is awesome:

After the kids opened their traditional Christmas eve pajamas, I shooed them off to bed and once they were sleeping we put all of our presents out under the tree. I headed off to bed in the usual divide and conquer manner. Every year we split up and each of us sleeps in the same room as one of the kids. This year I squashed myself into Hayley’s twin bed. With all 572 of her stuffed animals. And all her bony elbows and knees. That was … not restful.

Then again I never sleep well on Christmas eve. I always jolt awake suspiciously at every sound wondering if one of the kids managed to sneak out to poke around or if the dog somehow magically opened her cage and was ripping paper off of everything. It didn’t help that because of where Hayley’s walls are situated I could hear the neighbors up talking until THREE IN THE MORNING (in that Charlie Brown “mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa” voice that all the adults use) and the water flushing through the pipes whenever someone downstairs used the bathroom. Alas. I did eventually fall asleep.

We ended up not waking up until 8:30 which is pretty nice. I had to laugh when my mom told me that my dad woke her up at 7:30 to open presents!

The kids were very excited on Christmas morning.

Santa brought the walking dogs they wanted!

They also got a game for the Wii (25th anniversary for Super Mario), the Crayola spin-magic glow kit from George’s friend, Breanna got the Dora playhouse, and Hayley got a new stereo. However, the best was saved for last and we’re still a little deaf from the reaction we received when the kids each opened a DSi.

I also got a nice gift from each of them. Hayley got me a soap and cream set with a green tea scent, and Breanna got me a set of fancy bath soaps. Meanwhile, Breanna got George a huge wine goblet and Hayley gave him a cool candle. They were both really happy to go shopping to pick something out for each of us.

Even Winnie got in on the action, opening her own presents.

That wasn’t it though! After that we threw coats on over our pajamas and headed over to see George’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law.

I can’t even remember everything. The kids got some great stuff (including the above joke gift of cereal which cracked them up) – clothes, a projector book set, a candy apple kit, beading set, all kinds of stuff. George and I each got some nice clothes as well and we got a nice new dish set. We left the kids there and came back home to unwind for a bit and to let me take the dog for a good long walk before we headed back over for supper. Supper was DELICIOUS.

We were all quite tired and I think everyone slept well that night. Which was good because Christmas was NOT over. On the 26th we were up at a decent hour so we could drive out to see my parents to enjoy the holiday with them too.

Again I know I’ll forget something but George and I got a few clothing items (and I got the world’s most ridiculously comfortable bathrobe, I LOVE it) and a mini food processor. The kids got some Pillow Buddies, a wolf dressed like Michael Jackson who sings and dances to “Thriller” (that would be for Hayley), and some other toys. My sister and my brother-in-law chose some neat gifts; Hayley got a make-your-own fairy tale kit, Breanna got a decorate-your-own dog purse with a little stuffed puppy, and they gave us a gift card for a restaurant to have a night out. Very cool!

In the end, by the time all three days were over, I sort of felt like this:

Especially since my living room looked pretty much like this until I got it all cleaned up yesterday:

But it was a really, REALLY good Christmas and I’m so very happy and grateful.

(The full photo set is over here)

Catching Up

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Sherry

Even though I’ve only missed one day since Holidailies started I feel like I’m so far behind on keeping up to date on stuff. I don’t want to let my advent activities slip away without remembering them so I’ll just fill you in on that.

On day 7 the activity was one that sounds strange at first: Putting shoes by the door. Although we’re not German, many years ago I “met” a lot of moms on a big forum that no longer exists, and we all picked up different things from each other. A friend of mine whose family is German told us all about Saint Nicholas Day where children lay their shoes by the door and in the morning they find some small goodies in them. Now in all honesty we were late – the day is actually the 5th but we were lucky because the elves left the kids some very nice things. They woke up in the morning to find hair accessories, notebooks (a hot commodity around here!), and of course a bit of candy.

Day 8 was one of those days where I was trying very hard to embrace winter since we have a lot of it left, so I planned for our activity to be good for a little post-sledding. That was fun and went well. When we came in, the advent revealed that we would have big steaming mugs of hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows.

Day 9 kind of slipped by quickly so I made the activity a quiet one, reading some Christmas books in bed which was nice. Alas, I have no pictures since I was busy reading.

Today was day 10 and I decided it was a good time for something very straightforward and simple. On the one hand it’s Friday so we can hopefully sleep in at least a little bit tomorrow but on the other hand it’s also the end of the week and we were all tired. I ended up choosing to put on a Christmas special in the evening and we all watched it before getting the kids to bed. I tossed in one of my favorites, the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and it never loses its charm.

We should have some good advent stuff this weekend if everything goes well.

*******

I ended up enjoying myself so much as I watched Winnie run free at the park that I did it again yesterday and today. I made sure to bring my cameras with me and I got some pictures and video. I was pretty nervous doing it all by myself but she did great. The fact that I brought cheese encouraged her to come back when I called too.

I even got video showing her mad running skillz.

Today was even better. We were alone again and running, playing, and throwing sticks when all of a sudden I saw her dog friend from the other day coming out of the woods. Winnie didn’t notice at first since I was busy holding a stick but when she turned and saw the Mastiff her body tensed up in that “oh my GOD!” kind of joyful way, then she pretty much hurled herself across the park; I’m not entirely convinced that her feet touched the ground.

Even though Ginger the Mastiff was already tired from a long walk in the woods with her owner, they both played for awhile and spent some time lazing about in the snow.

It’s been fabulous seeing how easy it is to wear her out with just a nice walk, a wild romp, a lot of snow, and a walk back home. Between that and the fact that it’s almost 11 pm and Winnie’s not a night owl, she’s passed out directly behind my chair and I think she might actually be snoring.

Which is my cue to go chill out a bit and then think about bed!

Advent: Day 3 & 4 and a whole lot of holly jolly

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Sherry

December is just flying by so far, I can’t believe it’s already the 5th of the month! On day 3 of our Advent activity calendar was a candlelit bubble bath for the kids. Most of our activities are the same as last year and they thought this one was great – adding candles makes it very different from your average bath. I figured it was a good weekend (Friday) night activity since I knew they would want to stay in for awhile and this way I didn’t have to worry about rushing them to get them to bed for 8 pm.

It just goes to show that the activities don’t have to be expensive or complicated for the kids to enjoy them!

Saturday came around and our day 4 activity was a family game night using the Wii. I do like board games too and we’ll probably bring that one around on another weekend, but I love the Wii. I suggested that we’d have more fun if we got two more remotes. Last year when we did this we had to team up and share our two remotes. It was a great idea because playing four people at once is awesome.

We moved the coffee table over to one side of the living room and started with some carnival games which were good but ended up moving on quickly to the newest game that we had, Mario Party 8. THAT was fun. It’s like a board game with little mini-game challenges in between turns and it was a blast. It took about 45 minutes for us to play a ten-turn game but we had such a good time that this morning George suggested that we play again before lunch.

Today’s day five but our activity won’t be until after supper so I’ll save that for another post. Holidailies starts tomorrow with participants posting (almost) daily from December 6th until (I believe) January 5th, so there will be no shortage of blog posts for the next month.

In other news, our Christmas decorations are all up and it looks like Christmas threw up all over our living room. I love it! Our friends gave us a spare tree that has pre-strung lights and let me tell you something, I hope to never have to string a tree with lights ever again. It was fantastic to just need to plug everything in. The best part though is that it’s so much bigger than our old tree. We’ve had a 4-foot tree for the past 12 years (I bought it when I moved in with George and found out his decorations amounted to a 12-inch tree that sits on a desk. Um, hell no.) and I’ve always wanted to have a bigger one. This new one is 6 1/2 feet high and looks amazing in front of our living room patio doors.

I put the tree up on Friday evening so that Winnie could get used to having it around in the hopes that she wouldn’t start trying to pull the decorations off later. On Saturday afternoon George was out for a few hours and since he isn’t super interested in decorating (see aforementioned 12-inch tree) I figured that was a good time for the three of us to go ahead and go nuts. I blasted Christmas music on iTunes, made myself some minty tea, and we set about dressing up our tree.

I love our tree.

And apropos of, you know, nothing…

Now for supper so I can get ready for today’s activity!

Party girl

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Sherry

As I mentioned in my previous post, my little baby turned five on November 20th and although I neither understand how nor gave my permission for her to grow up so quickly, here we are at age five.

This was the first year Breanna really got into the birthday party thing. She enjoyed her parties in the past but this year she kept a close eye on the calendar. Each morning for about a week and a half she would wake up, tell me what the date was and then she’d go out and look for it on the wall calendar. Then when she’d get in to bed she would tell me what the date was going to be the next day. She could hardly wait and the fact that her actual birthday and the day of her party were one and the same was almost too much for her.

She woke up at about 7:30 on Saturday and she was groggy for a moment when she suddenly realized – and announced – “it’s 20 today! It’s my birthday!” That was it for staying in bed; we were all awake and up in the living room to do presents having decided we’d give her our gifts before the party.

She wasn’t eager AT ALL.

Hayley had gotten her a tea party set for her birthday after I suggested it; the day before Breanna had been playing tea party with random items because some of the cups she had before had broken. Breanna loves tea parties with us or with her stuffed toys so she was pretty happy.

Then George and I gave her the gift from us. She has a good idea of what she was getting but she wasn’t 100% sure until she opened it. She was thrilled to get what her big sister got back in September.

The two of them immediately set up side by side to play Club Penguin on their laptops at the coffee table. This was great for me since it made it easy to clean up in peace for the party.

In addition to that, in the late morning my sister-in-law called because she was in town for a work conference. Having Saturday afternoon off she wondered if she could take them both out for lunch so I dressed them and happily passed them along so I could do more party prep in peace (well, if you count blasting Shakira as “peace”).

It was a very stress-free party. We decided to start it at 6:30 so there was no supper to prepare. Breanna had requested chicken legs in the oven, rice, and corn for her birthday supper so I made that and quickly cleared it away and once people arrived I set up the table with snacks. We served chips, pretzels, cheesies, cheese, crackers, pate, tomato pizza, a vegetable platter, fruit platter, and of course cake. There were also juice boxes for the kids and beer or wine for the adults.

Breanna was so happy to have her friends over that she barely even ate her cake (chocolate cake with blue icing and a dolphin on top, just as she requested) but I’m sure she’ll eat the rest of it over the coming days.

It’s fun to have friends for the kids and friends for the adults all at the same time. I love our parties.

She got some great gifts including a fuzzy sweater that she loves, a gift card to Toys R Us, some money, and the Littlest Pet Shop Rescue Center with extra animals on the side. I’d say she was a very lucky girl for her birthday.

The party went until past midnight at which point Breanna was literally falling asleep on my shoulder but before she nodded off I managed one picture with the girl who was once only 8+ pounds.

Happy birthday Breebies.

(Full set over here)

A day in the life

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Sherry

It had been ages since I had done a photo day in the life post so I thought I would do one on Sunday. I had intended to post them all on Monday but Hayley stayed home from school because she wasn’t feeling well (fever and sniffles, etc) so I put it off until today.

Here’s how my Sunday went.

As much as I’d like to say I slept in until this time on a Sunday, well, no. I had been awake for awhile but I managed to stay in bed by tossing some books to Breanna while I laid there and…

Checked my mail on my iPod Touch. It’s a bit of a compulsion, I have a habit of doing this first thing in the morning before getting out of bed.

Once I finally got up it was time to let Winnie out of her crate and take her out for a potty break, as well as a trot around the (big) block to stretch out her legs.

Reward for stumbling around the block with my eyes at half-mast? Coffee!

Breakfast time! I made waffles for the kids, and that’s my toast you see in the toaster. George took care of his own breakfast, he rarely eats first thing upon waking.

Once we’re all done eating, it’s Winnie’s turn. I rarely need to feed the dog since both kids love to do it, especially Breanna.

I made a quick call to my mom; we were going to see my parents in the early afternoon so I just wanted to let her know when to expect us.

Okie dokie, time for me to hop in the shower and get all cleaned up.

I am so low-maintenance with my hair. It’s a bit of a miracle that I use gel at all, and I almost never dry it all the way because my patience levels for fiddling with my hair are way down there. This is why I get the cut I normally do, because it’s very wash and wear.

Bed, all made. It was getting cold at night and I don’t like to leave the heat up overnight, so I threw this sleeping bag over the comforter and it keeps me toasty while I sleep.

Once I was done with everything else, it was time for some primping. This probably looks like a lot but in reality it takes me all of five minutes to put my contacts in, throw on some eye shadow and liner, curl my eyelashes, and slap on a coat of mascara. Again, pretty low-maintenance. More than five minutes of prep time requires a special occasion.

(Alas, the picture I took post-primping was SUPER blurry so I didn’t bother.)

The girl who gave me Winnie said that she loved driving around so we took her for her first drive with us when we went to see my parents. They were very excited to meet her and she was pretty good. She was a bit agitated on the way out but then I realized it was because she wanted to lie down more towards the back, so the drive home later on ended up being much better.

It wasn’t a particularly great day but at least it wasn’t raining. It was pretty chilly though!

One of the reasons we were going to visit my parents was because they still had Hayley’d birthday present waiting for her; it’s just gotten too hard for my dad to manage the four flights of stairs at our place so they weren’t able to come for her party. They got her some plush toys from Club Penguin – both the kids LOVE to play Club Penguin. Hayley was very excited and based on Breanna’s interest, my mom knows what to get her for her birthday next month!

We had a nice visit for a few hours. Then on the way home we stopped for some groceries.

George and Breanna went in the store while Hayley and I waited in the car with Winnie. Winnie was not pleased that two of “her people” went in the store, she seemed very nervous as to where they were. She was very happy when they finally came back out.

Putting stuff away.

Clearly visiting people is EXHAUSTING because as soon as Winnie got upstairs she did this for quite some time.

I threw some vegetables into a pot and got some water boiling to make rice so I could get supper going.

Nom nom nom! General Tao Chicken on basmati rice with some vegetables on the side.

After supper I took Winnie for a good walk and when I came back I found that Hayley had borrowed George’s guitar to practice what she had learned at her guitar lesson last week. I think she’s really going to enjoy this course.

Meanwhile, George and Breanna played with the new foosball game my parents gave us. They had bought it a couple of years ago and only played it once so my mom thought we’d enjoy it more. I love that Breanna’s right up on the table to play!

And while everyone else amused themselves I … well, I washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. Whoopee, talk about exciting!

Once the kitchen was cleaned up it was time for Hayley to hop in the bath and have her hair washed (they get a bath on alternating days because putting both of them in the tub at once usually means more water on the floor than in the actual tub). Then I dried her hair, gave them each a snack, and sent them off to use the bathroom and brush teeth. THEN it was time for them to get into bed.

George had gone to the store and if no one is around to supervise while I put the kids to bed I always put Winnie into her crate (just like I do when we go out or overnight). This saves our shoes, the garbage bag, and the kids’ toys. It’s just a better way to set her up for success – she can’t get into trouble this way. She doesn’t mind the crate and all, and I let her out as soon as I come back out to the living room. Where I get the Crazy Face.

I hate putting school lunches together in the morning so I do as much as I can the night before. I got her drink, snack, and dessert all ready and put them in one spot in the fridge. Her actual lunch was going to be leftovers in her thermos, so I left that for the morning (and then she ended up being sick on Monday so it didn’t matter anyway).

With everything tidied up, the kids in bed, and George back home working on some music down the hall, I decided it was time for me to relax with some refreshments, some television, and some blog reading.

Winnie snoozed a bit longer (still worn out from visiting!) but then she rolled around and gave me this face and she was too cute to resist so I played with her for awhile.

Fluff explosion! I went to the kitchen for a minute and in that time she managed to completely un-stuff her brand new toy that my parents gave her. What a goofball.

After one last trip outside to do her business, I put Winnie to bed for the night. Then I headed to the bathroom to take out my contacts, remove my makeup, wash my face, and brush my teeth. Sometimes I wait until I’m so tired that it feels like a huge chore.

I should have gone to bed a little earlier than this since it was a Sunday night but c’est la vie.

Good night!

Chaos Theory

Category Archives: Photo-heavy

The holly and the jolly and all that cheer

Catching Up

Advent: Day 3 & 4 and a whole lot of holly jolly

Party girl

A day in the life