Saturday, December 26, 2009

Saturday Funnies

First of all, I hope that you had a fantastic Christmas holiday! We had a fun day, especially the part where we went to my sister's. The kids are in heaven there with their Tantie. I will blog more about Christmas later and may even wrangle some pictures from my brother to post (since I didn't break my camera out). For now a few funnies to share.

Let me preface with the fact that my sister has a really big dog. Said dog only has three legs. He's always only had three legs since my sister got him and that was long before Zion came along. Apparently this went unnoticed to Zion. We had been at my sister's for a while and Captain, the huge Akita/German Shepherd mix (I don't know how you can miss that a dog that big hops everywhere) was standing in the middle of the room. All of the sudden Zion gasps and shouts "Oh no! He's missing a yeg!"

Later while we were opening presents I tried to quietly and discretely stop Gabe from well, doing something not so proper. He doesn't really get the discrete part though and turns and loudly says to me "I still pick my nose but I don't eat it anymore." Nice. Lovely. Now go get a Kleenex.

Lastly, this morning we are all enjoying sleeping in. As usual, Gideon is the first to wake. He is soon to be 20 months old and has been making leaps and bounds in the language area. Apparently the humor area as well as we are fairly certain that he was making an attempt at telling knock knock jokes in his crib. We heard him say "kno' kno'!" ... "there?" then gobbledygook, blah blah blah and some such nonsense. Over and over again. What a comedian.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Not Me...

I've never participated in MckMama's "Not Me Monday" (Yeah, I think I'm the only blogger left in the world that had not) but last night, well, based on something I most definitely did NOT do (are you catching the sarcasm there, friends) I couldn't resist.

OK, here it goes:

Last night, I most definitely did NOT wake up my oldest son from an extremely sound sleep in order to ask him where he'd left his Nintendo DS so that I could play Zelda and the Phantom Hourglass. Would most definitely SO not do that. Because that would be inconsiderate to him and might indicate I have some sort of addiction. *snort* Imagine!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

5 Outta 6 Ain't Bad

Tuesday I took the kids to the mall for a photo op with Santa. The first thing that struck me was the stark contrast to last year. I'm reading my post from last year and realizing that I didn't really write much about how horrible the weather had been. There was a ton of snow on the ground that day. The mall parking lot had been plowed very, very badly. Which really meant that there was less parking because spots had been taken up by piles of snow and the rest of the lot was frozen ridges with deep slush in between. It was awful just trying to get into the building. This year it has been cold but no snow, just clear blue skies. That was nice.

Last year there was a tremendous wait to see Santa, then a wait to view pictures, then a wait to receive what you ordered. This year I got there at opening and and we only had to wait for a few families that were ahead of us.

Last year all three kids smiled beautifully. This year, not so much. The second Gideon's bottom hit Santa's leg he started screaming and reaching out to me. Not matter what we tried. Oh well. I knew the smiling streak had to end some time. After all, this is our sixth year doing Santa pictures starting when Gabe was 9 months old and this is the first time any of them have cried. So, 5 outta 6 ain't bad.

(So we had to get a new router when our other one died and this one's performance has been less than stellar. Most of the time it does not recognize that we have a printer so I can't scan or print. Bummer. When I can though I'll get the Santa picture online.)

Saturday, December 5, 2009

The Fair, The Great and the Terrible

The Fair - Gideon woke me up at 4:30 this morning having such a hard time breathing I was mentally preparing to take him to the ER. He was staying pink and seemed in good spirits otherwise so I waited the few hours to take him to our pediatricians urgent care clinic instead. They confirmed my suspicion that he has croup and sent us home with a prescription of prednisone to take down the inflammation. So we spent half our Christmas decorating day in the doctor's office but it could have been worse. Gideon should be right as rain in a few days and in true Gideon style he hasn't let him bring him down at all - and, we still got our tree today (the house smells fantastic!) and got a start on decorating.

The Great - Rob and I got to get away tonight to our church's Christmas dinner which included a performance of It's A Wonderful Improvised Life by the Taproot Theater Touring Company.

It.

Was.

AWESOME!

I've always wanted to be on Who's Line Is It Anyway? and this was my chance! The players were just great and I really did shout suggestions to their requests and they acted them out and it was hilarious. The real It's A Wonderful Life will never be the same again. I will never forget that in our version George saved Harry from dying by tap dancing on a light bulb, that Mr. Potter wanted to turn the Savings & Loan into a skinny jean factory and that every time a doorbell rings an angel gets it's wings.

The Terrible - The only thing that brought our special night down was that my thoughts kept turning to a friend of my sister's who I have also gotten to know. She is the gal who generously offers her property to host Jameson's birthday party every year. Sadly, tonight when she and two of her daughters returned home they discovered their house was on fire and their dogs perished within. I am waiting to hear from my sister the extent of the damage, how long they will be out of their house and what their needs are. Please pray for Carol and her family and the heartbreaking loss of their home and pets.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Mrs. Gabe?

Today Gabe and I got in to a conversation on marriage. I can't remember who it started. I think it was when he had said that he didn't want to get married because he didn't want to leave our family. I told him that his daddy and I met, were friends first, then we dated and eventually got married. Then, I explained, I became part of Rob's family and he became part of mine and no matter what he would always be part of our family. He suddenly brightened and got excited and said he was going to marry Emily from school but that he was going to just skip the rest. Whoa, dude! No jumping forward like that!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Who Knew?

That my kids would find it so darn exciting to go car shopping. Seriously enjoyed. Like they were at Disneyland.

We didn't want a new car. I loved my Freestyle . Really, really loved it. It was stylish and fast, lots of storage room, seated 7. It was paid off which made it even more attractive. Sadly, we had to come to grips with the fact that it was no longer going to suit our needs. Granted, we have a few more months before it was truly no longer going to work but once we realized it was going to be necessary to trade it in we just did it. *sniff* I now drive a *gulp* minivan. Still seats 7 but has the three-seat row in the back and captains chairs in the middle giving the kids and us easy access to those in the back who may need help with carseats (or who fall asleep and need to be carried in). The Freestyle had the three-seat row in the middle and you have to fold down part of the seat to gain access to the back. We had Gideon on one side of the middle row and Zion and Gabe in the back row. We could still fold down the seat and let the kids back.

So, why, you ask, if it was working did we have to get rid of it? Well. Why do you think? Come June (or maybe July) we'll need to add a fourth carseat. *grin*

As I said, the kids really enjoyed car shopping. Gabe fell head over heals for the first one we test drove, a Chrysler Town and Country. He cried when we told him we were going to keep looking but he got better each time. The kids jumped on every seat of each car we looked at, squealing in laughter. The Town and Country was beautiful and had tons of cool features. It is pretty much the same thing as a Dodge Caravan however and I really hate those. Won't go into why. We also checked out a GMC Acadia. Hello, Gorgeous! I was in love. Sadly, while the seat arrange for 7 was better that the Freestyle there is absolutely NO room for say, a stroller. Almost no room even for a diaper bag. Whilst at the GMC lot we also looked at the Yukon Denali. Bigger but the same problem. (How can these beasts be so BIG and have NO storage I wonder.) So I could have looked at bigger, those Suburbans are pretty handsome these days (and I just noticed coming home today a BRAND new shiny black one in my neighbor's driveway across the street). But Rob doesn't like to drive bigger and bigger just means more expensive, both initially and in gas. So no, not really interested.

After that we went home to nap the kids and I poked around on line (some more) and read about the Honda Odyssey. Aside from still having a hard time spelling it (um, double D single S or vice versa and, really, TWO Ys?) I learned it is the highest rated minivan out there.

Long story only slightly shortened at this point, we bought one and said Adios to the Freestyle (still holding back the tears). A 2006 which happened to come with a DVD player and navigation screen. Naturally the kids are thrilled with the DVD player. Funnily enough Gabe said he liked this one better because of the small storage compartment next to where his booster seat sits. Crazy what kids end up loving. So the T&C had a few nicer options but all around the Honda seemed a better quality vehicle and had some nice features itself.

Last night is when we brought it home. I told the car it was going to take me a while but right now I didn't love it. It's going to take me a while. I may never love it, in fact. But sometimes you gotta do for family and I did what I had to do.

So, now the cat's outta the bag. I knew I couldn't keep it a secret once friends started seeing me in my new ride. Anyone who knows me well knows how I feel about my cars and how I feel about minivans. The jig is up. And me? I'm exhausted, hungry most of the time and have been dealing with stomach aches but no real morning sickness. Only a little nausea and smell aversion. Counting down the weeks until June. :) Oh, and I apologize if you're family and finding out this way. We're trying to let the people closest to us know personally but, like I said, rumors were about to start flying and I couldn't deny any questions.