Another odd photo

This is an orange stuck into the exhaust tube of my shop-vac. Once again, my one year old can be thanked for that. If I had turned on my vac with the orange stuck in it, the vacuum probably would have blown up (OK, that's quite dramatic, but it would have died).

She's been very busy lately.

The Pen and the Toaster

This is my daughter's work. Really, it's amazing we haven't burned the house down. I was cleaning the toaster. It needs to be done once in a while and I was dumping all the crumbs into the sink. I could hear a strange noise, but I didn't think much of it. As I was putting the toaster back into it's normal place on the counter, I happened to look into the slots and I saw something purple. With the use of a knife and two forks, I was able to dislodge a very melted pen. The pen has been tossed. The toaster is working again, clean and debris-free.

Almost Christmas

Christmas with the kids is always funny and tiring.

*We've had our tree fiasco's, but those are mostly over.
*I've had to re-wrap a few presents thanks to a busy one year old.
*We've attempted driving to look at lights, but that hasn't gone so well. (the kids fight the whole time)
*We've gone caroling to about 10 people.
*We have not done Secret Santa drops like we've done in so many past years.
*My 11 year old is driving me nuts.
*My one year old loves to see the lights on the houses, but her favorite thing to see are the lit up snowmen.
*Because of our location in the world, the weather has been quite mild and the youngest kids have been spending their Christmas break outside riding scooters with no shoes and no coats. It's made caroling very pleasant.
*We hung lights on the house, but they look pretty pathetic as every strand has only half of the lights working.
*I took my two youngest kids to Target early one morning and let them play in the toy aisles for about an hour. My 4 year old son would finish looking down one aisle and ask me if we can move on to the next "island".
*My 6 year old has had to re-write her wish list several times as she keeps loosing it. Good thing it's short and easy to remember what is on it.
*We've had two Secret Santa's visiting our house for over a week now. One of them is feeding our spirit with a piece to a Nativity set each night along with a poem or story to go along with the piece. The other Secret Santa is feeding our taste buds as they have provided us with very tasty treats. I have no idea who is doing either and I don't care to find out (I love not knowing). I just wish I could tell them thank you.
*We are working hard to clean because grandparents will be arriving tomorrow night.
*I'll still have a grocery trip to make tomorrow or Thursday for those last minute things.
*Did I mention my 11 year old is making me crazy? He is. I hope this is a phase that he is going through. My biggest worry is that the phase is called "pre-teen" and it's going to be worse when it becomes a teenage phase.

It's my last Christmas with a one year old. It's sad, but I love how into the Christmas lights my little Peanut is. Watching Christmas through her eyes is really exciting.

Ooo

I must introduce you to the word "Ooo". It's like "boo" but without the "b". It is a short word. Almost like you've been punched in the stomach. Ooo. Got it?

This word is my four year old son's creation. It began who knows how many months ago when he was three years old. It is used constantly. I've had to ban the word from the dinner table. Here is how to use the word, Ooo.

I want a glass of Ooo.
You are an Ooo.
What do you want for Christmas? I want Ooo.
Let's go for a ride in the Ooo.
Rudolf the Red Nosed Ooo, had a very shiny Ooo.
Once there was an Oooman....

The possibilities are endless for this word.

Think back to the Smurf's cartoon. Remember how everything was just Smurfy? It's a lot like that here. Everything is Oooy. Now, my youngest, my 20 month old, is slipping Ooo into her everyday speech. She sings, "A, B, C, D, E, F, Ooo" or "Oh boy, I've got Ooo."

It's funny and annoying at the same time. I don't know where my son got the idea for this word or why it has stuck. I don't even remember how many months it has been going on, but it's been many, many Ooos, I mean, months.


PS, the spell checker doesn't like the Ooo word. :)

Sweetest gift

My six year old daughter want to give everyone a Christmas present. Today she asked if she could give Santa Claus a present. I told he we will leave him some cookies.

"No," she said, "I want to give him a present. I want to give him the scriptures. Then he can read them to his elves and his wife."

I'm smiling big, "I think that is a very sweet gift."

Days go by

I have so much running through my head, but none of it seems interesting enough to blog about.

Let's see:
-Christmas tree is up, lights on the house are up, presents are wrapped and sitting in my closet, Christmas music plays almost constantly from my computer. There is even a touch of snow left on the mountains from the snow storm three weeks ago. Yep, it's Christmas time! The kids are very happy. They have only one week of school left, well, three and a half days to be exact.

-I have a fear of the post office in December. I haven't gone in the last few years. Presents from me to family members are usually late. Well, I discovered the tiny town up the road from me has a post office. I went there today. I didn't have to wait! No line. It was wonderful. As I was driving away, a car passed me. The man in the car tipped his hat at me. I don't think anyone has ever tipped a hat at me. I've only ever seen that in movies.

-I have a one year old with anger management issues. When she can't have what she wants, she grabs anything within reach and throws it and if there is nothing in reach, she will pinch and scratch me. I've got a few bruises on my neck from her pinching and a large scrap on my arm tonight from her angry cat-like claws. Thank goodness I know this is a phase that will eventually pass.

-I bought a floor loom on Craigslist. I'm so excited. Unfortunately, it is in the Dallas area. My good brother picked it up for me and is storing it in his garage. I was hoping my parents could bring it out somehow when they come at Christmas, but I don't think they will. In fact, my mom is pretty upset with me for buying it. Well, I'm excited and my good hubby supports me on this. If they won't bring it next week, I'll go to Dallas and pick it up myself in a few months.

-It has taken over an hour, but the kids are finally in bed and most of them are asleep. We've had a stomach bug going around our house. As of this evening, my four year old son and I were the last healthy people. As of about 15 minutes ago, I'm the last healthy person. Well, it seems to be a fairly short lived illness and we should all be well by Thursday.... Wednesday if we are doing really good.

-I'm walking to Rivendell again. This is a venture I began back in 2006. I made it about halfway and quit. I joke that I got stuck in the bog. The walk is 458 miles. I'm down by three. I need to get working on this. I would like to have it completed by July 1. I would need to walk about 18 miles a week. I can do that. If I do 3 miles six days a week or four miles five days a week, I'll reach my goal with no problems. So far I've done a mile a day. Time to kick things into gear. I'm going to see the elves this time. No bog will bog me down!

Getting ready for Christmas

I past three hundred post with my past entry. How fun. Or maybe how sad. I guess it depends on how you look at it.

And now, the obligatory photo. That is my cell phone, sitting in a sandbox filled with ice water. It went missing last Monday afternoon and I figured it was around the house somewhere. On Tuesday morning, as I was admiring the snow on the mountains I saw my phone at the bottom of the pool. It sat there for about 12 hours, overnight, while it rained, snowed and iced. I let it dry for a week. It isn't working. Thanks to Peanut for that mess.

The Christmas season is turning out to be interesting, but if it wasn't interesting, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

It has snowed twice in one week here. Long time residents tell me that hasn't happened in years and it probably won't happen again for a long time. That's OK by me. I love seeing the snow on the mountains. Its a nice change from the usual drab brown color that the mountains are. But I'm glad I don't have to deal with snow on the roads.

Our Christmas tree is up and is suffered a bit the first 24 hours it was up. Peanut pulled off many ornaments and managed to break 5. She also pulled the tree over one time. It's a 6 foot plastic tree. It didn't suffer much, but some of the lights and ornaments did. So, after two days, I took off every ornament that wasn't made of felt, cloth or foam. She still pulls them off the tree, but she can't really hurt them. Usually we put presents under the tree as we wrap them or if a friend gives us a present it goes under. Not this year. Nothing will be put under the tree until Christmas eve. Even then we are going to have to watch them closely. Peanut loves to unwrap presents.

We had a pie party with some families we have never had over. That was fun. One of the families had two teenage daughters. They were very nice girls. They sat on the couch and tolerated us fuddy-duddies while we talked about 80's music.

My four year old son has really be loving Tom and Jerry cartoons the last few weeks. I love them too. My brothers, sister and I grew up watching them. So, it's nice. There is nothing worse than your kid loving to watch something over and over that you hate. We can all agree on Tom and Jerry.