I'm baaaack.

Ok, so promised I'd be back and I am. Christmas is put away, school has resumed, life is slowly returning to normal (outside of dieting and potty training). Our Christmas break seemed like forever, which is good I guess. We didn't kill each other so thats a start. I'll give a quick ( probably not) recap of our christmas season, for memory keeping sake because it was full and fun. Although I will admit as I look back and examine my heart, something was missing, something didn't feel  right. We weren't crazy busy, we as a family don't get caught up in the gift giving santa thing too crazy. We do it, but we don't emphasize it, the kids don't really ask for anything or maybe even know to ask for anything. They genuinely are so excited even to get a $5 little star wars action figure or board game they have been eyeing, even a light up magnifying glass. So that is nice for us, no pressure to find that one perfect gift. Just lots of fun little things. Santa around here only brings stockings and some few little things strewn around the room, but it is still fun and exciting for them. And this year all the adults woke up before the kids. We set our alarms for 7 and told the kids not to wake up before 7:30. Parker of course was awake, but the others kept sleeping. So I had time to get breakfast in the oven and coffee made. Kinda a nice change of pace. We read the story of Christ's birth while they are still in bed, we thank God for the perfect gift of his son Jesus and for every gift that is from above. They surprsingly don't find this to be torture.We then storm into the Christmas room, open stockings. Always lots of chapstick, tissue paper, sam is crazy with walnuts and oranges which is great cuz those take up a lot of room in the stocking, I throw some candy around the floor and have normally hit up the dollar store the night before. Its always a real chore trying to keep the stocking items hidden or secret cuz those are from Santa. Parker always seems to overhear some comment or randomly sees something that I meant to be from Santa. And I try to keep things from Santa not from Old Navy or other familiar stores. I think I pulled it off this year. After stockings we have Jesus' birthday cake, which is monkey bread every year and also my egg casserole. It is super yummy and easy way to put on a birthday party. We then commence with gift opening. But despite the under emphasis on Santa and even the little birthday celebration, plates and all for Jesus, He was definitely missing from our holiday season. We had such a travel filled december and because I am lazy, we just didn't do much in the way of advent celebrations, no jesse tree (which is a great way to count down days and trace the lineage of Jesus). No advent wreath, no scripture readings. We have this silling little advent story book we read every night about this little bear on a journy to bethelem, it is sweet and the kids like it, but it  isn't necessarily based on Scripture and just has feel good truths throughout. I myself did not spend time to be still and quiet and reflect on the incarnation of Christ. Truly the highlight and solitary moment of this was at my kids pageant the week school let out. Parker is in Ms. Kathy's class this year and for years I have heard about Ms. Kathy's christmas pageant that she wrote herself. Parker had been memorizing lines, memorizing songs, it was like a 4 page draft he had memorized. Ms. Kathy is a stickler on details so I knew it was going to be good. I also had heard it was a tearjerker, and I normally cry at the drop of a hat anytime children are singing or doing anything remotely close to worshipping. Anyhoo. parker was a shepherd, as he was in our church's make shift but still special pageant. Good news cuz we already had a costume. My sewing glue is running low :) Anyhoo, this pageant was beautiful. They sang every special carol imagineable, including Oh holy night, and even Silent Night in German! (thats for your Keri). Then they had a few grown women with amazing voices join them. This is where the tears flowed. One little child wheeled out the cross and another  brought baby jesus' manger over to it and placed it under it. And the woman with the beautiful voice along with the children's choir behind it sang Here I am to Worship, Here I am to bow down, oh man, I was sobbing. I mean really, do you think anything is more beautiful to God's ears. It was just so special. I am so glad my son now knows all these rich carols/hyms and scripture. I really was the spiritual highlight of my season, and one of the few times I paused to consider the birth of jesus. Now Parker's show was followed by Coopers hysterical little musical he does with the kindergarten class. So picture 40 kids in matching shirts ages 4 and 5. Doing hand motions, riding pretend camels, shame shaming King Herod and singing the hallelujah chorus. My  normally publically introverted Cooper was put next to wild and crazy Logan, this brought out the wild and crazy Cooper, but it was all good, he showed life and gusto. Most of the kids were picking their noses at some point, some were faced backwards. One girl right smack dab in the middle of the group up and left the show to go potty, when she came back she ran up to the conducter to get her to snap her pants, then she resumed her prime spot and belted out. Again, so sweet to see these kids in all their glory giving glory to God in only the way they can. Sooo, this post is getting kinda long. Should I keep going only to bore you or attempt to come back and post more, knowing I may never. Ok, I'll keep going in a new post, but here are a couple of pics.

Slow re-entry.

I promise i haven't left you forever. the fact that all my christmas decor is still up, including a live tree that hasn't been watered in at least 2 weeks, shows you that i am just about behind on everything. I finally went to the store today, so at least we have food now. I'm also waiting for my husband to load all our pictures from his expensive fancy camera onto my computer. His camera takes such great pictures, but you would never know cuz we never get to see any of them. I hate when i rely on his camera and leave mine behind. So anyhoo, i will be back. i may just act like the holidays didn't happen, or maybe I'll do some recapping. I may even try to do some crazy crash 5 day diet or cleanse to lose the 5 lbs I gained last month, we'll see, if I do, no telling when I'll be back cuz my brain might become starved. Ok, so anyway, talk to you soon!

Hide and Seek, little Cable style

On Monday nights Parker is at the beloved scouts, which leaves a rare opportunity for Cooper, Sophie and I to play. The sweetness comes out of Cooper as he gets a chance to be the caring big brother to Sophie. Anyhoo, hide and seek has become our go to game for this night and for these two ages. Candyland ended up in Sophie moving our pieces around non-stop and Trouble just meant over and over again popping. So hide and seek it is, no clean up and lots of fun, cable style. Here are highlights of how we roll.
-After I count to 20 and Cooper is hiding I pretend to look for him all the while I am checking my email or just sitting in the counting chair for a breather, hollering, where are you in the confines of my spot.
-I always choose my spots in comfy places that allow me to just chill out for a while, cuz it takes Cooper forever. Under the duvet in my bed is my favorite spot.
-I also have learned to choose places in dark rooms, because Cooper is scared of dark rooms and doesn't come in them, thus affording me longer chill time. I"m such a good mom aren't I.
-Sophie loves to hide now too, she always hides in the last place the most recent player hid. And she normally crawls into place right in front of you. Quite funny.
-Cooper I think caught on to my dark room trick and brought around a spatula with him so he could reach the lights, darnnit :)
All in all it is lots of fun, lots of laughs. The kids are learnig to count to 20, learning to be creative and quiet, and I am getting some alone time :)

Off for now, (Cooper is still under the bed, just kidding) I"ll post about our pageant fun soon. My favorite part about Christmas with little ones. Oh and I'll leave you with a picture or two of Sophie and one of her many outfit changes. Notice anything wrong?

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If you have 5 minutes

Ok, so I stole this entire post from my recent Real Simple magazine. But as I read through this list, I kept thinking, man this article knows my world. So thought'd I share. I challenge you to do 10 of these things! Here is the premise. Pick a task, any task. These mini chores will give you that juicy accomplishment buzz while making the most of sudden-and fleeting-downtime. Gold star for you!

Call your dad (wish I could)
Refold your sweaters and stack them by color
floss your teeth
sew on a button (Ritchey didn't wear his favorite pants for 6 mo cuz I never got around to this)
pitch 3 old items from your fridge
put to-be donated clothes in a bag by the door (mine are in a bag but have been sitting in my closet for a year, I don't think that counts)
Find that evening bag, scarf or top that got lost in the closet
test pens or markers and toss the dead ones
arrange your hangers so they all face the same way (oh and I hear this trick of hang them the wrong way starting out, then by the end of the year any clothes still hanging that wrong way should be tossed into that donated clothing bag by your door)
clear off the  top of the fridge (I am personally saving all that dust for parker's future science classes)
Remove gum wrappers, receipts and atm slips from your purse.
Scan your medicine cabinet and throw away any expired prescriptions, sunscreens and vitamins (I probably should throw away the painkillers from each birth, i was saving them just in case)
Shred something, anything.
Write a thank-you note you've been putting off.
Walk aroud your house with a small can of white paint for touch-ups.
Download the pictures in your camera to you computer (that one is for you janet, who just buys a new card when she runs out of room :)
Paint your toenails
throw out expired coupons
scan your sock drawer and put any one-offs in a basket. If their matches don't turn up after another load or two, toss them.(I could probably fill a landfill with all of our onesie socks)
Open your file cabinet and get rid of five old files. (ritchey and I fight about this every year at tax time, cuz basically I have no files)
Return the netflix movie. (ok, we suscribed to netflix this summer, we literally still have DateNight on our counter from that first week, unwatched)
Match tupperware with lids, if one doesn't have a lid, pitch it. (This alone could lead to world peace)
Look in your shower stall, ditch any shampoos or body washes you haven't used in forever (or in our case that have been empty for over 2 months but still sitting there)
neaten up the freezer.
Sweep under the kitchen table.

Ok, those are your tasks. Now seriously, don't those resonate with you. I really would feel like I climbed a mtn and had the most productive day if I just did a few of those. Instead of killing all my time reading blogs or posting, oh wait....

Christmas Home Tour

Christmas Home Tour of Alexandria.

Thought I'd give you a Christmas tour around our Griswold house. Actually I think we are the opposite of Griswold, cuz he goes overboard and I go way underboard. This year is especially pathetic because we are only in town in the Month of December about 1/2 the month between Aruba and being in TX this year for the holidays. But I supressed my lazy scrooge and on a 70degree day in Saturday we put up the tree and decorated. I normally decorate both living rooms and mantles, but we put it all in one room this year. So here is a tour of our tree and the random things around the house. The first picture below is Ritchey reading like a week's worth of advent storybook readings, since we were gone the first week of advent. I think the 3 of them lasted in that chair together a total of 5 whopping seconds.

Lets take a closer look at this sweet little tree. The year we went to a Frasier Fur, my favorite, we went smaller because they are more expensive, I love small little trees now, although this may be our smallest, standing a whopping 6 ft. This is also our most random tree, I describe it as a crap gun going off on it. But nobody is coming to visit us this year, I am not hosting a party this year, so we just let the kids go crazy, even helping with the lights and choosing whatever they wanted to put up. I didn't do ribbon, or coordinating bulbs and I tried hard not to rearrange what they put on, although I did just a couple times when I found 3 on one branch. I know someday when they strip my tree of all their ornaments for their own homes, I will have that oh so chic tree, so for now I love my toddler tree. Ok, Lets take a closer look and tour some of the time honored ornaments.

Aah, here is me in my brownie uniform when I was 10 I think. See Scouting does run in the family! Carrie I hope you still have yours.

Here is Ritchey in college. My crafty roomate Rachel made this of Ritchey at the time. He's in a bumper car in case you were wondering and wearing Revlon lipstick I believe. This is one of my favorite ornaments so I always put it in a prominent, gaping hole spot.

You think this is Sophie's don't you, nope, Ritchey's. He had a crush on Ariel, in elementary school actually thru college, at which point his parents bought him this ornament for him to admire on a daily basis. Ritchey did actually get to meet Ariel in Disneyland when his family visited (while they were college aged :). She was kinda scary though, very large busted, with very large seashells, so he kinda got over her and then met me :) But each year the boys make fun of daddy for liking a girl movie.

This is our newest ornament. We try to get an ornament from wherever we travel. We are sorta good about remembering to do that. This was a cute one because Santa is snorkeling, and so did we! I'm so intentional about my design like that.

Here is the bottom bough, which you can tell one of my midget children thought was a great spot for many ornaments.

Each one of my kids has an ornament from their first Christmas, this is sweet little Sophie.

Here is our first Christmas together ornament. Look at the love.

And finally, here is the best part of our craptastic kid tree, the handmade crafty ornaments from the kids. It is true that our tree is pretty random and a hodgepodge, but these really are the best part, although this one is actually rather large, therefore perfect for barespots, but still large for basically a piece of construction paper. But those angel wings are Parker's handprints. There are many more such ornaments on the tree. Ok, finally just a couple shots from around the house.

Another tacky but oh so cute handmade Christmas mobile. I think Cooper actualy made this. Which is great because Parker's crafts far out number Coopers.

The boy's private own little nativity outside their room. I can't believe we actually still have the baby Jesus on this one. It is the true Christmas miracle.

Here is the grown up nativity that I just love. I don't do the best job displaying it, but I still love it. This was one of those gifts Ritchey got me early on in our marriage, the first and last time he listened to all my hinting and figured out what I wanted for Christmas. What is missing is this ginormous camel that he added to it, it literally is 2x the size of Joseph, so we leave it out.

This sweet picture of Parker when he was Sophie's age,caught our eye last night after we came home from a party. We just stared at it, laughed and reminisced. We then went and kissed each kid as they were sleeping. 

And finally our paired down Christmas mantle. I just didn't have it in me to fill the vases, put out the candles, yada yada yada, but hey, all of this isn't so shabby for a 2 week December. I guess we're done having kids, there isn't room for more stockings :). Ok, well that is the only home on our tour this year, thanks for visiting, and come back next year when there will be a whole nother year worth of crafts on our tree.

A brief conversation in our home today

Here is just a brief post and a brief convo in our house today during 5 o'clock clean up.
As Parker passes by cooper he punches him in the stomach. Cooper starts to whine and cry.
I tell him, "I think you'll be ok, you're a tough strong kid."
He keeps half-crying.  "he's mean"
Me to him, "yeh, but you're kinda a whiner"
Parker pipes in, "yeh, you're a whiner"
Me to Parker, "heh, only I'm allowed to call him that".

That is parenting at its best folks.

Aruba, Jamaica ooh I wanna take ya!

That song has been going thru our heads for the past month. So here is my Aruba trip blog. I'll probably blog thru pictures and captions to help jog my memory. Cuz let me tell you, as a parent of young children, you forget all about your vacation on day 2 of being home. Ok, so here we go. This first picture is taken in Miami at a yummy cuban cafe. We had to get up at 3:45 a.m. to make our flight out of houston. Ouch, but after sleeping on the whole flight, we were ready to eat, even in the airport. This is cafe con leche and some kinda spicy potatoes. Oh, I"ll warn you, I love food, and this trip was all about food. Mainly because it was an all inclusive and unlike other all inclusives, this food was awesome. So I ate and ate and ate. Literally had 2 breakfasts a day, two lunches... cuz it was there and free. Bad news for a foodie like me.

Breakfast was amazing, please let me tell you. There was a smoothie station where you could give this sweet woman any fruit and she turned it into a smoothie. Then there was an egg station, a carbs/fried food station, yes that is a homeade hot donut on my plate next to a fried plantain (cooked and carmelized banana), at this spot was also hot off the griddle pancakes, how you like them, banana pancakes, chocolate chip, whatever, with french toast, waffles, and oh yes, a big vat of Nutella, my friend emily and kelli always go on and on about it, this was my first experience and I literally covered an entire waffle with it. There was a bread area with any loaf of anything, a fruit bar an oatmeal, yogurt and hot chocolate area, espresso area, you name it. Ok enought, but like I said, food was the highlight of the trip. Not cooking and forcing food down 3 little ones, not cleaning up, not ever getting to eat sitting down, made this a vacation. Oh and lunch was so yummy too, there was always a station with some sort of ethnic food, the first day was a delicious paella!

We celebrated my birthday at this quaint little restaruant off the grounds that literally sat in the sand. Lobster that night, and chocolate mousse with a firework in it :)

Here is a view from our room, gorgeous. Aruba is a dessert island (despite the fact that it rained a ton while we were there). It is also like the wind surfing capital of the world cuz it is so windy there. I thought maybe it was a fluke, but no, super windy, but that means it kept you cool while on the beach. The first day we just spent by the pool and the beach. I even did a pool aerobics class and we played bingo. People watching on a beach and pool, especially one with a bar, is lots of fun. Let me tell you how american I felt in my "tankini" while even the heaviest and oldest of people are sportin their string bikinis. That water aerobics class was scary, one false move and huge bosom could be flung out for all of us to see. Speaking of which there was one solitary topless woman. I get that other cultures are down with that, but when you are absolutely the only one a beach with tons of people, I mean c'mon you know she had to feel a little odd.  More power to ya sister, I guess.

Another highlight of the trip was a catamaran and snorkeling cruise. It was a rainy morning but the last hour it got sunny. The boat ride was fun, lots of fun people on it, good food, gorgeous blue water. We got to snorkel at 3 different spots, but one of the spots was over a sunken ship. It was really kind of freaky, it came very close to the top of the water, so when i looked down some mast or something was right there, like a ghost ship with all these fish coming at you. Ritchey loved this part as he is fascinated with history and things gone by.

The last day we were there it rained all day, so we hopped on the public bus to go into town shopping. Aruba is a great island, very clean, wonderful people, 100% employment there. It is a dutch colony, but almost all the way to south america, they speak spanish, dutch, english and their own native tongue.

Oh, here is a picture of the hotel where Natalie Holloway stayed. That abduction took place 5 years ago, and is like the last murder they had. Super safe place and that poor incident hurt people's perceptions of the island. Ok, this post was really boring. I'll leave you with a two more pictures. One of the book I devoured while there and a funny picture from the arubian airport. I rarely read books, partially because I am an all or nothin kinda girl, like with food or t.v (why we don't have cable). And when I get into a book, there is no putting it down. This was a fantastic book.We had to wake up at 4:30 the day we left(2:30 LA time), but I slept on almost every flight. The sign below was posted in the Arubian airport, random. So now it is back to life here in cold Louisiana. It is very hard to get in the Christmas spirit when you are gone the first week of December and are leaving before Christmas to celebrate somewhere else. I so desperately want to go get a little charlie brown christmas tree and not do much else. But Ritchey probably wouldn't let me get away with that, and I would be eaten up by mommy guilt, so we'll see.