Getting in the Holiday Spirit

...and in no particular order here are some highlights of my family getting ready for Christmas.  This year was a concerted effort on my part to be better at the holiday spirit thing...you know Fake it until you make it!  Anyway, this year we put the tree up almost right after Thanksgiving!  Unheard of I know but why not start there along with putting up all kinds of other things to get in the spirit!  I'm actually pretty proud of myself if I'm being honest.  I also learned a lot more people pay attention to...well I don't know...but like I put my tree up early and people commented on how early it was for me.  My 'normal' has been like the 22cd or so to put the tree up.  Caught me off guard that people were paying attention and a friend of mine said it was because they care about me...touché!

 

Some of these picture are also from the Paulson family Christmas party that they have every year...and every year Santa comes to our party!  Aren't we lucky! I know I don't have everyone sitting with Santa but I had some camera problems and something about a full disk (who knew my disk would hold 2000+ pictures?? I had no idea!) so I have some and not others...guess really it's only Lee...I digress.

 

We also take pictures around the tree when it's done...enjoy!

 

 

Dru and Santa 

                    The boys around the finished tree and yes Lee is smiling a decent smile!

 

Lee

                                                                              Ian

                                                                          Eli

                                                                Eli at the Christmas party

                                                                              Dru

Ian and Santa

                                                               Eli and Santa

Hope everyone had a Great holiday!

(whose ready for school and work to be back in session?  I am after I get back from my girls weekend!)

2000+

OK seriously!!

I have a computer now and I'll be doggoned if I know where to start or what to say or!!!!  Right now I'm just going through pictures and trying to figure out how to get them into folders so I know what month they go in!  And for the record...Windows 8 is a bit ridiculous! I'm not sure I'm going to figure it out...BIG learning curve! 

OK so I have some random photos...like flowers and things that I've impressed myself with.  Remember it's all about me! HA!

This one totally looks like an aquarium picture from the computer...like a screen saver.

 Love it when they strut around like this!

 My boys!

Yak!

 A very snobbish, stoic fellow

 Just really like flowers and gardening so I love taking pictures of them. 
Cacti flowers

 OK so there are a few pictures and a small update...I'm hoping to catch up...might all be in reverser or a jumbled order but it's going to happen!  So help me!

 

Black Angel

There are some things that just don't ever change and this is one of them.  My husband for as long as I can remember...and yes it's not been that long...like 13years but you get what I mean, has been making black angel cookies.  This has been happening long before he ever met me.  He was so funny...he put the icing on and then promptly declared that "There! I have decorated a cookie and I'm done!" What a goofball!

Sadly, however as I was moving cookies and plates and mainly getting ready for tomorrow at Grandma Great's house for Christmas Eve, and I hit my plate on something and about half of my really good cookies came off the plate and fell on the floor!! Including the black angel!! Oh I could have cried...seriously that was where I was at that point.  There is a reason I only do cookies with my kids once a year!  Ugh!  I really need to get better about letting the boys in the kitchen...they need to start learning to cook things...at least Ian, he's 10 for heaven's sakes!

Sigh...It has been a series of long days of shopping, cooking, lack of sleeping, cleaning...and I'm sure you all are doing it too.  Who has wrapping gifts left?  Has anyone started?  I haven't and I'm really not looking forward to it.  I'm not opposed to just throwing it all under the tree and calling it good.  When they wake up in the morning just say Merry Christmas and what'd you get? :) 

Well with that update I should also say I have a computer...THANK GOODNESS!  So I'm hoping to have more updates and blog posts...and seriously having some back logged posts from this summer!  I haven't been able to blog about a darn thing!!! 

If I don't get on again, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year!!
 

Things Have Gone To The Dogs!

Hello out there! 

So I have a few moments I'd thought I'd share my crazy dogs with you.  How these dogs managed to get into our lives I have no idea..and how they manage to fit in with the rest of the nut jobs is beyond me!  Charlie here likes to eat my doormat...yup...just out right eat it!  What the heck!?!  Then there is Mighty who insists on eating paint chips!?! 

How does one manage to get pets like this you ask?  I have no idea...all I know is we fly our freak flag HIGH!

Poor Charlie!  He got some ink done to him while I was gone for a few hours...I can only guess at how long Eli had the marker and where he got it from and for how long he was using it.  I won't think about all the other things I think he might have 'colored' on...and do use that word loosely!  Eli is looking at these pictures and he's just so proud of himself.

....and then we have Mighty!  For those of you who don't know a few months back we got a new puppy...this is Mighty Wicket Paulson, he's 8 months old.  Look at what his big brother Charlie showed him to do...precious!  I have no flowers that will grow in that pot...for 2 years I've been waiting...nothing.  I think it's time to give that dream up...

Well that's it for now. Hope all are having a good week.

Happy 12/12/12...I join the masses for one day ;)

Rough

Well today and lately most days have been rough around here.  Really more so for Buzz and Woody...strung up by their toenails.  Wonder just what they did or said to Eli to warrant such punishment!?!

So now it's my turn to have Blogger be difficult...it just told me that I was over my picture limit...stupid!! So now I have to figure out how to to deal with that or fix it...I'm sure the price they want me to pay is more than I'm willing to pay.

Well we have our tree up and decorated I might add.  I believe most of the decorations have been put up except for the lights.  This weekend we...and by we I do mean the royal, will be learning to make Lefsa from the Great Grands...well they are just Grands to me and Frank but the Greats to the boys.  I'm looking forward to it...not so much maybe the massive amounts of kids running around like crazy people but all the same I'm sure it will be fine...I think.  I'll take pictures but no promises since this silly site is telling me I've hit my max.

I do hope you guys have a good weekend

Christmas Budget

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Isn't that title the funniest!?! 

Every year I say lets do a budget...it never really happens...it kinda does but not really.  Some years it's interesting to me how different Frank and I grew up and other years it's nothing but frustrating!  He grew up so different in some ways than I did...kinda like the other side of the train tracks you know!  Every year we struggle with how much to spend on the kids, how much the Santa gift should be...and we ALL (don't care WHO you are) have our idiosyncrasies/neurosis..and for Frank that is, that the kids all have the same number of gifts under the tree.  I didn't grow up that way and I personally find it extremely exhausting...just outright exhausting.  BUT..because it's important to Frank we make it happen...which is how sometimes the budget gets blown out of the water.  Now don't get me wrong...I'm not blaming this all on Frank...I have been known to just go all out and we'll figure it out later.  Not such a good way but I've done it.  In the past we've done where they get a Santa gift, and stockings...and then 3 gifts from us...Frank hated it and I loved it...because let us not forget the gifts they get from family and possibly friends...it gets to be too much and trying to figure out just where to put all that stuff is enough to send me screaming from the room!! Frank likes to get them exactly what's on their list...and I never made a list when I was a kid...however, I do find lists helpful from the kids...but more often than not I don't buy off them.  I prefer to do event type gifts for a few reasons.  Some are that it's one less things to try and find a spot for, most of the time they can do something with their family or as a group, and like we've taken the kids to a baseball game...well that's an event and then sometimes they get to take a souvenir home...small one.  I guess when you look at it that way they are still bringing/having something brought home...I don't know.  See rambling are never good...you start seeing the flaws in your own thinking/reasoning.  Dang it!

Anyway, then you have the kid who has the champagne taste on mom and dad's beer budget...we all want to get our kids what they want...other times trying to reason with them about why I won't buy it for them is difficult too.  If they don't take care of what they have now why on God's green earth would I buy a way more expensive item of the same thing?? I don't get that thought process but I don't think I'm suppose to understand a 10 year old and why he thinks that way. 

Every year it seems to get harder and harder trying to come up with something substantial and fun and that will last  along time and not wrecked in the first 5 minutes of it being opened.  And lets face it $20 doesn't go as far as it used too...unless of course you have a baby...you can get away with a whole lot.  We did that with Eli on his first Christmas...he got a small toy from Santa...a car seat from us and maybe one other thing and that was it...he was a month old for heavens sakes...what was he gonna do??  We have Eli figured out at least Santa wise...possible Dru Santa wise...as for the other 2??? I was just asking Frank how old they are when they stop asking for toys and start asking for things like Boom boxes...I am SO tired of buying toys..toys that last for a month or so or until some older or younger person breaks the toy. I told the boys last night that believe it or not one of these years they are going to ask for a $50 pair of jeans or $100 pair of shoes...they SCOFFED at me!!  You know they really do believe I just fell off the turnip truck you know! When they start asking for those things it will be interesting to see how Frank deals with that or what he chooses to do...

We will be writing Santa letters this week...I'm so glad our Post office brought out the mailbox for the kids to mail their letters to him!! What I love about our town or whoever does this...but when you write a letter and 'mail' it...someone takes the time to sit down and respond to those letters to the kids and sends them a short note and something special like a coloring page or something...one year they got a small ornament...how cool is that.  Maybe someday I'll figure out who does that and see if I could that...but man can you imagine the sheer amount of letters you could possibly get...eesh!

Well there's my ramblings for the day...nothing astounding is it?  I am going to write my own letter to Santa I think...of course my list has the potential to be super long...something about asking him for a new computer...I swear I've been good all year long Santa!!  Scouts honor!

Time Crunch

Hey everyone!

So I have a few minutes left on the computer here at the library.  Sorry no pictures today...unless I get creative...which I may.  No holding your breath though!

So we had Thanksgiving...that was a good we stayed at home this year.  There was drama mostly on my end about that holiday but I think I've moved on.  Just rough dealing with family and the intricacies of it all and invites versus no invites and trying to figure out just what the hell is going on and what you did or just what the hell is wrong with you or your family.  REJECTIONS was the biggest issue and that's something I need to deal with.  But I think at this point I've dealt with it and am working on moving on and being OK with where things are and my part in it or the lack of my part in it.  You can only do so much before you become someones doormat and I am NOT  doormat.  And that is taking some learning...I'm 30+ and just now learning that...what a journey and I'm pretty sure I'm not even a quarter of the way through it.

On the upside I went to a Thanksgiving get together and I got to see my handsome nephew and I made sure to tell him his Auntie loved him to the moon and back and that someday when his mom and dad said he was old enough to stay with me that I would come get him.  His daddy was shaking his head yes while Samuel was emphatically saying no...that is until I said well the boys would be there.  I think he pondered this for awhile and then agreed that would be alright!  Love that boy and miss him so much!  How do people deal with family living so far away...and I get that they are only 6 hours away but it really might as well be across the pond distance wise.  I'm guessing it doesn't get easier but I just HATE the fact that he's growing up and doesn't really know him nor I know him well...I guess I just make up for it when I get that time with him.

We are now into December and I am working super hard at having a better holiday spirit this year.  Something has to change and it has to be with me...I don't see anything or anyone else changing it...it's my choice to change.  So in that vein we have started putting the tree and several Christmas decorations up BEFORE the 22nd or 23rd...and yes I have done that and then took it ALL down (except lights on the house) the day after Christmas...by that time I'm DONE!  With it all I'm just done.  I am working at finding my Christmas spirit...it's like that song that Cindy Loo Who sings (spelling?) from the movie 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas-Jim Carey version) "Where are you Christmas"  that has been my song since as long as I can remember.  I could seriously skip from Halloween and go straight to January.  Even then I could skip that and go to February...that's a generally safe month.

So with that being said I think I'm well on my way and things are going OK...still going crazy dealing with the kids and that stupid tree and between them and the dang dogs touching the tree and ornaments and the dog chewing or wrestling (that could go for boys too) under the tree.  I've only threatened at least once a day that I will take the tree down until next year...so I'm down 2 less times than normal...PROGRESS people! 

Well I have hit my time limit and need to get a few things done and head out from the library...the glamours life of being mom is screaming at me!