December 04
My mom doesn't have Windows Live Writer on her laptop, so bare with the typos and what not...
SO after Jerry left on Sunday, we have hit the road running. It snowed on Monday. Not a lot, but enough to go play in. Elijah really liked it. Until his feet started hurting. I'm a bad mom... poor guy was wearing boots way too small for him. totally didn't think about it. So I ended up piggy backing him up the mountain to my folks driveway. I just couldn't carry 37 pounds on my back any farther (or is it further...i always got those mixed up... i think that farther is the distance...right?) ANYWAY, we nipped that in the bud. We exchanged them at a place where my folks volunteer. SO now his feet won't hurt in his boots.
Tuesday we went downtown Black Mountain for me to meet up with a friend of mine. It was good to see her and chat. We did that and then came home for a bit.
On Wednesday, my folks watched Elijah in the morning and I crashed for 2 hours with Grace. Neither of the kids had been sleeping well and I was exhausted. When we got up, mom, Elijah, Grace and I went out for lunch and then went to get a Christmas Tree. It was really fun. They get their tree from the fire station. The fire man that helped us let Elijah go see the trucks. Made his day!!! After a good nap we decorated the tree. Elijah LOVED that. I'm pretty stoked that Elijah is getting into Christmas this year.
Today, mom and Elijah and Grace and I walked up to the coffee shop to meet with mom's group of friends. I ate the best broccoli corn beard there... yyyyyuuuuuuummmmmmoooooo!!! Elijah and I wandered around downtown for a bit and then came home and played.
Tomorrow we'll go to Holly Jolly downtown. Just a night on the town where all the shops are open and having goodies. Should be fun. Then Saturday we'll go to the parade in the afternoon. That's about as far as I've gotten.
I'll post some pics now... OR not... WTF... this new crap is messing with me... so no pics until I get home and can deal with this. I can't get pics to turn the right way... sigh... oh well... maybe i'll post with pics later, but the girl child is on my chest and not so much right now...
December 19
So to pick up where I left off two weeks ago...
We went to Holly Jolly and waved to Santa. Elijah is still not too fond of actually speaking to Santa, much less going anywhere near him, but I'm okay with that. If he wants to have a distant relationship with the big man in red, I'm fine with that. I have no pictures of me with Santa and I don't think that it's the end all be all if he doesn't either. We talk about Santa daily and Elijah has taken to wearing a Santa hat and his new galoshes and calling himself Santa. He goes around saying, "HO HO HO!" He's attached a chair to his scooter and it has become his sleigh and reindeer. To me this is way cooler than sitting on Santa's lap. ;) Anyway, Saturday we went to the parade. I have never in my life seen so much candy. Luckily we had a plastic bag in the diaper bag, so we took a ton of candy home with us! We got a Christmas tree from the fire station and Elijah helped decorate while Grace and I supervised. I went shopping in downtown Asheville and mom took Elijah to see a gingerbread house display. It rained a bit the rest of the week. I made some cookies and mom played with Elijah out in the rain.
A low note of the vacation, well there were two. One was grace's eczema. For some reason it really flared up while we were there. Maybe it was because it was so dry. It did seem to get better once the rain came...but who can say. Anyway, the other low note was the fact that I left my cell phone in my jeans and then proceeded to put them in the wash...sigh. My folks have a front loader, so even when I realized what I had done, there was nothing I could do. Sigh. I dried it out, but the microphone didn't work. We got another one in the mail yesterday, but it was odd being without for so long. I was nervous being without it with just me and the kiddos. But we survived.
Mom and I did Christmas in the Valley Arts and Crafts show. While I didn't do as well as I wanted I did better than I expected. The economy is really taking it's toll. Mom said she did SO much better last year. But it was fun. Mom and I hung out with Grace all day. Jerry, Dad, and Elijah hung out together. It was good experience. I realized what sells the best, so that's good to know. I got a little spending cash and that's good too.
I sent out our Christmas cards earlier this week. We went with e-cards again this year. We do this for a few reasons. 1) it's super easy. 2) it's free! 3) we never have stamps that are the right denomination since we do almost everything online. 4) it's more environmentally friendly. I don't claim to be some environmentalist, but I like to save money and if I save the earth a little too, BONUS! Having said all this, I do enjoy getting Christmas cards in the mail and I reuse them as tags on gifts, so I guess that's recycling too! hehehehe!
We got our Christmas tree on Sunday. The place we went only had 9+ foot trees. So we thought it would be okay, but we got it home and in the stand and WAY TO TALL! So we cut the top foot off. It looks a little funny, but it's still pretty. Then I got the lights on the tree and plugged them in... and NOTHING. Lesson learned. Always check the lights before putting them on the tree. So Jerry went to Target, which was out of white lights. So he got the icicles instead and I gotta say, they worked really well. Now our tree is all decked out and ready for Santa!
Yesterday, our playgroup had a Christmas party. It was fun and almost everyone came by at some point. The weather is insanely warm this week, so it was fun playing at the park. We didn't get home until 2:30!!! oops! It was worth it though! 'Tis the season and all!!
Which brings us to today!! It was 77 degrees today, so we spent the morning at the BEACH!!!! It was perfect. Not crowded, warm enough to be bare foot, and free parking!!!! We built sand castles and flew a kite (until it broke!) and played with friends. It was awesome. While it's hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it's 77 degrees out, it's been nice to be out of the house and playing in short sleeves.
So I have added pictures. There are some turned on the their side and I'm sorry for that, but my computer (for some reason) will not allow us to rotate pics and this new upgrade that MS has done doesn't allow for editing...sigh... so sorry... but enjoy!
December 23
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! (thanks Amy for sending me this!):
Dear Santa,
I've been a good mom all year. I've fed, cleaned and cuddled my children on demand, visited the doctor's office more than my doctor and sold sixty-two cases of candy bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on the school playground. I was hoping you could spread my list out over several Christmases, since I had to write this letter with my son's red crayon, on the back of a receipt in the laundry room between cycles, and who knows when I'll find any more free time in the next 18 years.
Here are my Christmas wishes:
I'd like a pair of legs that don't ache (in any color, except purple,which I already have) and arms that don't hurt or flap in the breeze, but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle in the grocery store.
I'd also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the seventh month of my last pregnancy.
If you're hauling big ticket items this year I'd like fingerprint resistant windows and a radio that only plays adult music, a television that doesn't broadcast any programs containing talking animals, and a refrigerator with a secret compartment behind the crisper where I can hide to talk on the phone.
On the practical side, I could use a talking doll that says, "Yes, Mommy" to boost my parental confidence, along with two kids who don't fight and three pairs of jeans that will zip all the way up without the use of power tools.
I could also use a recording of Tibetan monks chanting "Don't eat in the living room" and "Take your hands off your brother, "because my voice seems to be just out of my children's hearing range and can only be heard by the dog.
If it's too late to find any of these products, I'd settle for enough time to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the same morning, or the luxury of eating food warmer than room temperature without it being served in a Styrofoam container.
If you don't mind, I could also use a few Christmas miracles to brighten the holiday season. Would it be too much trouble to declare ketchup a vegetable? It will clear my conscience immensely. It would be helpful if you could coerce my children to help around the house without demanding payment as if they were the bosses of an organized crime family.
Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer is calling and my son saw my feet under the laundry room door. I think he wants his crayon back. Have a safe trip and remember to leave your wet boots by the door and come in and dry off so you don't catch a cold.
Help yourself to cookies on the table but don't eat too many or leave crumbs on the carpet.
Yours Always,
MOM...
P.S. One more thing...you can cancel all my requests if you can keep my children young enough to believe in Santa.
*Santa has asked that this gets passed on to all the mommies you know.
December 25
We'll start with yesterday. We went to the park in the morning to meet with Rachel and co. to exchange gifts and play. We came home and Jerry came home from work for the day!! After a nap, Elijah and I made cookies for Santa:
Then I made some sugarless cookies for Jerry's dad and yummy full of sugar cookies for his mom and siblings. Before going to bed we made sure the cookies were out for Santa and a carrot was out for Rudolph. After a seemingly endless night we awoke to find this:
And unwrapped gifts such as these:
After a relaxing morning of, um, hair styling: 
We traveled to Jerry's parent's house, where both kids received a TON more gifts which I totally forgot to get pics of, but will tomorrow and will post them. We then went to visit Jerry's dad in the hospital. He's recovering from really bad arthritis in one of his hands. He is doing much better and it was good to see him in good spirits. Matthew played cars with Elijah while we visited. Jerry got pics of the rest of the family, but Matthew's head got chopped off... Sorry Matthew!
We plan on playing tomorrow and going to the beach again on Saturday (supposed to be 75 degrees again!!) While I'm not thrilled about not having cooler weather right now, might as well make the most of it.
I think that I will probably post like this until we figure out the picture thing. It's kinda fun, and for the time being works well.
I hope that everyone had as fantastic a day as we did! Merry Christmas!
December 27
Of course it is...but we went to the beach today... Elijah and Jerry were in shorts and I was barefoot. So, ya know...
Anyway, wanted to start with the gifts from Grandma and PopPop's house:
Elijah's favorite thing to do is start at the top of the driveway and throw his feet up and ride down down. It isn't motorized but has the sounds, so he pushes the button that makes it sound like it's revving and goes. It's pretty funny to watch. Grace likes to watch him go as well. Grace is attempting to start to pull up on things. She scoots across the floor on her butt and rocks on all fours, so it's just a matter of time before the crawling happens...sigh... but what she really likes to do is stand up. She can be in a full blown screaming-crying-life-is-not-fair tantrum and you stand her up and it's as if you gave her all the chocolate in the world! So this little table is good for her! Now if Elijah would leave it alone...
Back to today. When I woke up I was a little bummed. It was REALLY foggy. I was skeptical about going. Jerry said we should go and if it was too cold, then we would just come home. I'm so glad we went. About 5 minutes after we got there the sun came out and it was warm and really nice. There was still a fog bank to our left and right and out over the ocean, but it was GREAT! Here are some pics:
So now Jerry and I are watching Burn After Reading and relaxing. I love having him home for extended periods!!!
December 29
So this morning was spent in the toy room. We decided a while back that Grace and Elijah would share a bedroom, so her bed is already in there. We changed her bedroom into a toy room. So today, I took out Grace's dresser (which was in the closet in the toy room) and all her hanging clothes and moved them into the bedroom. Elijah helped make a HUGE pile of all the toys in the middle of the room. While he did that I moved the bookshelf and all the books into the closet. Then I sorted through all the toys. Got rid of a bunch that he hasn't played with and then split the rest in half and put them in containers to rotate out. I did the same with Grace's toys.
I really hate defining them as "Elijah's" and "Grace's" toys because they are both of theirs. It's been interesting watching Elijah want to play with the baby toys that he hasn't played with for a couple of years. And Grace LOVES anything that Elijah plays with, especially if it has wheels. Anyway... I cleaned up in there! I have my old toy box and I use it as a place to store dress up clothes. I would really like to take the top off so that it is open, but I can't figure out how to do that...the hinges are put on with some non-screw type things... hmmm... Elijah got a doctor's set and a tea set and Grandma got him some pretend food. So those are all in the dress up area. It just would be easier if the lid was off...I'll figure it out though.
I got a call to confirm Elijah's birthday party today! I'm really excited. It's a Curious George goes to the Fire Station party! I found some great sites with things to do. So all the gift bag things are going to be crafts that the kids do at the party. I think it'll be fun. we are having the party at a local fire station. My friend that made the train cake last year is going to make us a fire engine cake and I'm going to attempt a Curious George cookie to "ride" on the fire engine. I love planning birthdays! It's so fun for me. My mom says that I have been doing this since I realized what a birthday was. She says that the evening of my birthday party I was planning for the next year! It's not the gifts (our group doesn't do gifts), it's just a party! And that's fun! Maybe it's a sickness. I know that Grace's first b-day will be at a park, maybe the beach park and the theme will be 1st b-day! I know that next year we're going to have a Where The Wild Things Are b-day for Elijah... It is a sickness...hehehehe!
This afternoon Elijah put on his boots and we went out and jumped in puddles:
Afterward we came in and made dinner of beef stew and cheese biscuits. While I did that:
Elijah saw Peter and The Wolf ballet the day after Christmas and he LOVED the twirling and the tutus. I know the quality is not good, but it's funny to me. He's fine at the end. He totally got up laughing.
And my little miss?:
So a good productive day!
