***UPDATE***

Well I am home.....6 hours of sitting in a museum like house, 1 congealed re-heated pre-made Bob Evans turkey dinner, 2 Nati lights, 4 hours in the car with 3 whiny tired kids.....sigh. At least it is over...for 4 weeks until I have to do it again for Christmas. Gotta love the holidays.

The year the circus stole the last day of Thanksgiving break.

Ahhh the last day of a five day Thanksgiving break! A day to sleep in and lounge in your pj's all day. Pumpkin pie for breakfast and leftovers for lunch. Time to get a jump start on Christmas decorating......OOOPPPS HALT NOPE not this year. This year we have to pack up 3 kids and drive TWO hours to have Thanksgiving with Chris's relatives. Couldn't they have done it another day where we didn't have to worry about school and work tomorrow morning you ask?? Well my in-laws have this weird affinity for Circus's. They will drive 100's of miles to see small town circus's just because. They did that this year for the whole break except today. Never mind they only live 8 miles from us and could have had Thanksgiving at their house. Never mind they only see their grand kids maybe 4 or 5 times a YEAR. Seriously I think they identify with the sideshows. If that isn't' it I wonder what the reason for the obsession with the Circus could be???
I will have to update later after my long day ahead. Not only do we have to drive 4 hours round trip but we have to spend 6+ hours sitting in a showplace home with nothing at all for kids to do and if they touch things there will be hell to pay. A fun day ahead!

Ariel and the Christmas lights

Chris decided today would be a good day to put up the Christmas lights. This is interesting for two reasons. One, we have never put lights up outside in the six years we have lived here and two it is only ONE day after Thanksgiving and the so called magic of the season has not hit me yet. Chris went and dragged everything out and started working on creating a wonderland of lights.

Meanwhile the girls were watching the new Ariel movie. Amelia was inspired to dig out her Halloween costume which happened to be a mermaid outfit. She had me do her hair up and was way into character when she realized Chris was out working on the lights. She ran out to help him and totally refused to put a coat on. She threw a MAJOR mermaid fit. I said "Amelia it is cold out." She said "But mom I don't want to cover the beauty of the costume"...hmmm who can argue with that logic??

So the mermaid helped hang the lights in all her glory. Shivering and with blue lips but with a smile on her face.

Home for the Holidays: A bottle of Wild Vines raspberry Merlot (eerrrpp) and a can of SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

Number crunching.

(( I got this idea from my favorite blog http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ ))



3- Number of times our dryer has broken in the past 6 years.


20 - The amount of minutes it took me to find 3 pairs of matching socks for the girls
today.


240- The number of months Chris and I have known each other.


170- The number of months we have been married.


4 - The amount of times Amelia watched her new Strawberry Shortcake
video so I could exercise and watch my soap opera uninterupted.


10- The number of times Caroline has asked me to take her to Planet Smoothie in
the last three months.


0- The number of times we have actually gone there :)


2- The number of Thanksgivings we have to attend in the next week.


1 - The number of Thanksgivings I WANT to attend.


3 - The number of bottles of wine I will drink to get through the one I don't want to go to.

Not ME Monday!

There is no way I ate 5 cookies (that had been knocked on the floor by the cat) yesterday just to get them out of my sight. I could never have woken up at 7:29 today and rolled out of bed when I should have been up at 7. I certainly didn't dig out my "vintage" aqua JLo velour pants because all my jeans were in the wash and probably wouldn't button anyhow. Nope not me!

I didn't nod my head and smile when someone was telling me something important this morning while thinking about something totally unimportant.

I didn't take out my purely decorative Christmas tea set and let Amelia and my two nephews use it to have a tea party with hot chocolate just so I could sit in front of the computer and order my Christmas cards. It would have been just plain silly to let them continue the tea party after the teapot began to leak out the bottom and the paint started to melt off.

My darling husband could never have promised he would only be traveling FOUR days the month of December only to change that to way more then FOUR days. NOPE that would NEVER in a trillion years happen!

A Thanksgiving thought

Sometimes it is hard to see how much we truly have. We have a warm house and food to eat. We have toys to play with (both kids and adults) and we have clothes to keep us dry and warm in the cold.
I got an email today that really made me think hard and appreciate every single thing that I have. The email was from an acquaintance who does some charity work and she quoted a child saying that they have gotten used to the cold because the one and only blanket that they have in their house keeps his little brother warm at night. This made me start to think about what life would be in a house that had one blanket. What life would be if MY children lived in that house. Which led to the thought that my children need to know there are kids just like them who live in those houses. I collected some blankets and am going to donate them but I need more then that to make the image of the child shivering at night to go away in my head. I just need to figure out what. I do know I am truly thankful this year. It has been a rough year for us in our own way but this definitely put everything into perspective.

The Mall.

I think it is interesting how the mall cycles with life. Babies hate to go to the mall..they are trapped in strollers and overcome with noise and bright sounds. Kids who are 4 til about 9 will go only if they are promised a snack and a toy. When they hit 10 or 11 they BEG to go to the mall to troll around to the tween stores and count out their coins to buy small treasures. Around 14 or 15 they go with their friends minus any parents and enjoy the freedom to hold hands with their boyfriends and text each other across the store. Around 18 or 20 they get jobs IN the mall and use their store discount to purchase the newest trends. Once they hit 25-30 you really only go to the mall if you have something specific you are looking for and can run in and out quickly. After 30 the mall becomes a serious annoyance that they (meaning ME)try to avoid at all costs. Problem is by then you have kids in their tweens begging you to take them to the mall. A vicious mall cycle.

My sister started a blog. It is pretty cute take a gander...

Preschool moms: an observation

Have you ever noticed the other moms when you are standing in the HOT hall waiting to pick your child up from preschool. There are 3 types of moms. The first is the granola ,super crunchy preschool mom...they are hippy, organic serving, green ,frizzy haired, Montessori loving, home school wanna be woman who hold their kids up on a pedestal above everyone elses. The second group are stick up the butt, prissy, prima donnas who feed their kids a hot breakfast daily and teach them to read at 3 and constantly mention it. They volunteer constantly and are overly passive aggressive to induce guilt to the THIRD group. Group three are the making it through day moms who let their kids dress themselves even if the clothes don't match. They feed their kids mac and cheese and cold pizza for breakfast and forget to take the papers from yesterday out of their kids backpacks. Their kids show up to school with their coats unzipped and two different socks on. These are the moms who don't care if their kids get paint on their clothes or play dough in their hair as long as they are having fun and busy. I like to think I am in the third group. What about you??

Quote of the day

"Hey Aunt Abby...your popcorn and your toast are so much gooder then at my house, I love to have them when I come over !!!"

Said by Amelia while visiting my sister today. The funny part is the reason she thinks that is because at our house we have 94% fat free popcorn and Smart Balance light margarine. I deprive my children I guess :)

Wordless Wednesday

Random thoughts

You can worry and stress yourself silly but in the end it is what it is and there isn't a darn thing you can do about it.

Ten year old girls are still kids no matter how much they try to convince you that they are not.

Laughing at your 4 year old because she really is funny usually backfires and causes her behavior to get worse. But gosh lets face it who can hold their laughter in when she says things like "I hate your hot smelly breath mommy can you move it away please?" SIGH.

Sometimes it is beneficial to smile and nod instead of scream and cry.

I have a love hate relationship with the holidays...

I love love love certain things about the holiday season. I enjoy the first snow and the hot chocolate that goes with that. I enjoy the decorating and the Christmas cookies. I adore the excitement the kids have over all our special holiday traditions and how they remind me of each one like I have forgotten. I don't even mind the present shopping or the wrapping. However there are things about the holidays that make me want to jump off a HIGH bridge. I can not stand having to compile lists of toys for the girls to give my in-laws who have absolutely no clue what they might want since they only see them 4 or so times a year despite only living a few miles away. I hate having to schedule time with Chris's side of the family when they are so inflexible even though we are the only people with kids. I really really detest having to scrub my house from ceiling to floor to invite them over just to have them act as if my paper plates and buffet style are below them. I will do it all though because I love Chris and I know that he loves them. See. Love. Hate.

Not ME Monday!

This is a fun little Monday game I learned from my favorite blog: http://www.mycharmingkids.net/

I definitely didn't just let my 4 year old have 5 pieces of candy to keep her quiet while I created this blog. Nope not me.


I certainly didn't let said 4 year old watch Sponge Bob in the car this morning just so I could drive through the neighborhood looking for houses for my sister.


I didn't sit drinking a cup of coffee and watch my nephew and 4 year old throw things down the laundry chute just to see what would happen ..OH and they didn't drop a whole bottle of kids mouthwash through and watch it explode..nope didn't happen.


Lastly I don't back out of the driveway and purposely run over the lawn just to bug my husband. I would certainly NEVER do that :)