Christmas--my FAVORITE time for decorating!

Not much to say this time...I'm EXHAUSTED from cooking, cleaning and DECORATING!  All 50+ boxes are unpacked and I got 2 big trees up, plus one for each bedroom (the kids decorate their own!).

 Elfie Angel Snowflake made her return trip this year bringing the advent of Christmas books--there are at least 24+!  We do a welcome back breakfast for her.  She also brought along 2 other elves that were mine as a child!  The kids decided that they are Elfie's cousins.  I told them that she needed help to watch their behavior.

  

 
I had a lot of help with the big tree!

 My main theme is Santa, and my collection grows every year, they exploded all over the book shelves.

On the bar, I keep a collection 
with a tiny picture frame each 
year. 

 I made this advent calendar and it lines the stairway, along with Christmas cards.  My friend Michelle gave me a GREAT idea that the child who has the best behavior each day gets to open the prize for the day (some are to share, some are good deeds to do, activities, etc)

 

 Here are the 2 trees.  One is 9 feet tall and mostly RED.  The other is in our front window, it's more formal (all the nice ornaments go over the carpet), shorter and all white and silver.  The kids love the train that winds around it.

Sarcastic Thankful List (White Girl Problems)

**This is a JOKE, do not take me seriously!!!**

I love reading everyone's Thankful updates on Facebook each day of November.  But sometimes it's just too much and the other people are just so happy and blessed and perfect that it makes me feel snarky.  I tried doing mine a few years ago because I really have plenty to be thankful for, but this year I'm just not feeling it.  So, I decided to do my own take on a Thankful list, full of sarcasm, bitterness and silliness.

Day 1:  Today I'm thankful that Halloween is over and I have 8lbs of candy to try to hide from the kids (and myself) since the Hubs wouldn't let me throw it away.

Day 2:  Today I'm thankful that I get to go to work for the 6th day this week and get away from the chaos that is my house on the weekend--tball, volleyball, cheerleading and a birthday party all in one day!

Day 3:  It's Sunday but its Daylight WASTING time now and I'm so thankful that my wonderful kids woke me up super early so that I can take full advantage of my extra hour to do the cooking, cleaning, dishes and laundry that fill my joyous 1 day off.

Day 4:  I'm Thankful for Mondays so that I can get up at 5am to workout and then get 3 kids ready and to school on time so that I can stumble into work...AGAIN!

Day 5:  OMG I'm so happy to see every store decked out in red and green, to see that my perfect neighbors have Christmas lights up already, and the wonderful flipping Christmas commercials, music and movies already.  It all makes me feel like I'm already behind and need to be Christmas shopping, and it's only November 5th!  We still have 7 more weeks of this fun!

Day 6:  Thankful for the stupid Credit Union where I applied for a car loan that is making me run all over the place getting documents together so that I can get my new car.  Great service always makes me happy!  NOT!

Day 7:  Today is Thursday and I'm sooo thankful that it's picture retake day for my 4th grader as we never take good school pictures in my family.  Plus, it's really fun to fight with your daughter on 6 different outfits and then do her hair while she screams and cries and then race her to school so she's not late.  Oh, and I'm so thankful that we have tball and volleyball practice tonight, racing across town in traffic and throwing food at the kids before racing to practice is always the highlight of my week.

Day 8:  Thankful for Fridays so that I can spend my weekends resting and recharging--ha ha, wouldn't that be nice?  SAID NO MOTHER EVER!

Day 9:  Today I'm thankful that the hubs is taking son to his tball game and I only have to cart the daughters to 5 places before dumping them on my Mom for 2 hours to go to an engagement party.  2 WHOLE HOURS FREE WITH NO KIDS and free food and WINE!!!  Oh, but just for karma's sake, our dog died today, so just when I was so excited to catch a break, that happens.  And of course the vet is closed so we are left with a body bag to have to deal with.

Day 10:  Thankful for a Sunday that again involves cooking, cleaning, dishes, laundry, organizing and general slave labor.  And for the fact that the 3 rugrats can come and undo everything I worked on in 30 seconds flat.

Day 11:  SOOOO thankful to live in one of the hipest, top of every list, beautiful cities in the country.  LOVE all the looney people moving here and the wonderfully chart topping traffic.  SO thankful to spend more time in my car each day than at home.

Day 12:  I'm thankful for the chance to bust my butt continuously and sit in traffic for 15 hours a WEEK to get to work (work is supposed to be my down time)--only to then deal with people that yell at me over things I can't control and put me in a horrible mood.  So thankful for the privilege to work, thanks all those women's lib ladies, you really helped us Mothers out!  Now we HAVE to work and CAN'T stay home!  And, we are underpaid, over worked and under appreciated (and still treated like we should be at home anyway).

Day 13:  Thankful for the small town cop that pulled me over at 5am for swerving and interrogated me for 10 minutes thinking he had a DWI on his hands.  I swear I was half asleep in 32 degree weather trying to get to flipping BOOT CAMP and couldn't think of any excuse other than that I was tired...thanks for only giving me a warning after searching my car and asking me at least 20 questions.  Thankful that he didn't make me walk the line though, not sure I could have at that time of morning.

What Happened to Thanksgiving??

I hate to skip Thanksgiving decorations because I LOVE the meaning of Thanksgiving but it's sure tempting to get out the Christmas stuff when there are already Christmas commercials & cheesy Christmas movies on tv and all the stores are decked out in red & green.  

I personally hate the fact that the consumer has now caused retail workers to have to work on THANKSGIVING!  I refuse to shop (except maybe online) on Turkey Day.  I will admit that I have, in the past, succumbed to the Black Friday allure and run out (not at 4am though) to grab a deal or two--but nothing I really wanted was there.  I guess they only stock 5 of each item to tease us and get us into the stores at all hours of the holiday, those clever Marketing people!

Of course, I have to work that day anyway, so I'm not making it any worse by shopping on a holiday...but if you do run out to grab that fabulous deal, make sure to say THANK YOU FOR WORKING ON YOUR HOLIDAY to the all too chipper employees!!  I always comment how no one says that to us when we work the holiday.

Anyway, with a quick switcheroo, our house goes from scary Halloween to festive Turkeys!  Here is how I changed the house (in less than 1 hour including outside stuff) from Halloween to Thanksgiving!  

I'll give it a few weeks, but get ready because all it will take is a 50 degree day here in Texas to make me want to dig into the trees and ornaments!

Kids Say the Darndest Things, cont.

I was leaving the Pre School today and they director stopped me to ask if the teacher had told me what my (almost 4 yr old) son did yesterday.  Of course I'm thinking, great what horrible thing did he do this time (you know how a Mother's mind wanders and worries).

But she starts laughing and pulls out a picture.  Apparently the teacher had given all of the kids in the class magazines and ask them to cut out a picture of their favorite food.  Most kids cut out candy, cake or cookies she said.  

But not my son...and she showed me the picture of 2 champagne/wine flutes full of white wine or champagne.  She said the teacher thought that sure was different.  So she asked him, "oh, like apple juice".  "No," my son said, with his hand on his hip and a grin on his face.  "It's WINE, silly!" 

You can imagine I was laughing but also thinking that the pre school must now think that I'm an alcoholic!!!  I told her that my husband doesn't even drink and I drink maybe 1 glass a week...embarrassing but HILARIOUS!!

IT'S FALL Y'ALL!!

As soon as the calendar says First Day of Autumn, or as soon as I feel a chill in the air--which here in ATX means it's under 75 degrees in the morning--I want to get the FALL decorations out of storage!  I LOVE FALL, It's my favorite season!  I love FOOTBALL, pumpkins, cooler weather, the crisp smell in the air, Thanksgiving, EVERYTHING pumpkin or caramel or chi latte flavored (or scented), I LOVE FALL!

Sunday was one of these glorious days--in the 70s and cloudy.  So, I opened the doors to let the cool air in the house and lugged my 4 boxes of Halloween/Thanksgiving crap out of the garage.  First, I had to pack away my box of seashells and starfish and beach stuff and my wonderfully tacky turquoise SUMMER wreath.  And my Summer flags and giant metal flower yard art--you get the picture.  Notice that I replaced the Summer wreath with my huge, tacky homemade Halloween wreath!  I started making wreaths a few years ago and now have a HUGE tacky one for each Season/Holiday.  AND I love them!!

I also popped the Apple Cinnamon Crumble wax into the Scentsy to get the smell in tune with the decor and mood.  The kids immediately started looking for the apple cider and pumpkin ANYTHING--bread, muffins, SOMETHING MOM!!!  Bummer, no today I'm just decorating!

The 4 boxes of crap are now nicely spread around the house and porch as you see there is much more in the yard).  Those 4 boxes have nothing on the 4+ Christmas trees and 30 boxes of Christmas crap that will have to be lovingly unpacked all too soon.  I go with mainly pumpkins and all non-scary Halloween stuff (I really don't want a dead looking skeleton on my yard, just my preference.  Plus with toddlers, no need to scare them!).  The pumpkins stay up until Thanksgiving and I just add in some turkeys and put up the other Halloween stuff as soon as Nov 1 hits.

Now, the forecast still shows 90s all week in the afternoon, but it's officially FALL at our house!  The kids wore jeans to school today and we are not looking back ;)

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

This is my homage to Bill Cosby—The Cosby Show is still one of my all time favorite tv shows (and I’m a TV aholic!)—the Cosby’s are the best tv family because Dr. Huxtable always found a good solution to the problems that also taught the kids a good lesson.  I especially love the episode where they sing the song to the grandparents for their anniversary and Rudy is just sooooo cute.  And the episode where Theo decides he will move out so Dr. H takes out the Monopoly money and shows him how much things cost—classic!! The Hecks of The Middle are also a great tv family because they are much less perfect and true to life and so funny (check it out if you haven’t)…one of my favorite lines is “he’s the 3rd child, he’s lucky we feed him!”  If you haven't watched either of these shows and you are a parent, you really should check them out.


Anyway, here is funny stuff my kids have said lately:

Oldest (daughter), 9—I told her she needs to write thank you notes for all the fun stuff she’s done this Summer to the various family members I begged to keep her and take to do fun stuff since we were working our tails off all Summer.  She asked me, “like text them?” no “like Facebook them” NO—like get out your stationery and write a note BY HAND (she tried the “I’ll type it on the computer and email it”) and thank them for taking you all over God’s creation so you wouldn’t have a completely pathetic Summer since all your parents did was work all Summer—and address it BY HAND and stamp it and mail it.  She looked at me like I had 6 heads!  It took 2 weeks, but I'm happy to say we got those in the mail yesterday!

I was talking to my girls about going to school and how we need to get up earlier next week and I said I’ll walk you in the first day of Kindergarten, so the Oldest says “but you’ll be in your nightgown!”  No, I said, "I won’t actually go inside the building in my nightgown, just in the car line…"  Thanks for calling me out on that one honey!!


Middle (daughter), 5—she’s really pretty good at sports and as the Hubs takes out our son to play catch in anticipation of his upcoming Tball season, she wants to play catch too.  She comes in and announces “I caught the ball and threw the ball a MILLION times!  I’m an expert now!”  LOL

Now daddy wants her to play tball too, so I asked her if she wanted to play baseball too.  Her response cracks me up!  “well, what do we wear?”  a uniform  “is it pink?” no  “can I wear a dress” NO “can I wear a crown” NO.  “then I guess I don’t play baseball!”  That’s my GIRL!  


Youngest (son), 3—his sisters had been out of town with Grandma for a week and he was super excited to tell them all about what they missed at home.  He hadn’t been feeling good, saying his tummy hurt all day.  He was on my lap cuddling b/c his tummy was hurting and suddenly puked—just a little but all over me of course.  We cleaned it all up and both changed, etc.  Then about 2 minutes later, he jumped up and said “I’ve gotta tell Sissies!”, ran into the other room and announced in his nanny-nanny-boo-boo voice “I threw up” complete with tongue sticking out.  Like they would be jealous…

I have lots of pictues, all over the house, not too many new ones (on my to do list), but lots of old pictures, like of us in college, wedding pictures, etc.  Son looks at one up high and asks me who that is, so I get it down for a closer look.  He says "I know that's mommy, but who is that man?"  I said, "that's daddy", he said "HE HAD HAIR??!!"

Photo Editing

I had to add one of my daughter in an equally precious shot while I was trying to calm her down during the same photo shoot (didn't know we were being photographed on this one either).  

I saw this saying on Facebook today and was reminded of this picture of me and my son.  We were doing a family photo shoot and he was GRUMPY.  I picked him up to see if I could cheer him up, and he said "Mommy, I just need a kissie".  We didn't know she got this shot of us, but how sweet it is--I had to add the sweet saying.  Take your favorite photo and add a sweet quote over the top, comes out so cute!!  This one's going on the wall at home!

Jewelry "Collector"

Yes, I have a self-admitted LOVE off all things jewelry--earrings, necklaces (the bigger the better), bracelets, watches, rings, pins, etc.  Call it an obsession if you want, I like to think of myself as a collector!  If you've ever read Fancy Nancy to your kids--Collector is fancy for Obsession.  I especially love the hunt--coming up with something that I'd like to have and then looking at every shop in town for said item.  I usually then turn to Etsy or Ebay to find those little treasures I can't find locally.

I come by this honestly--my Mom before me was/is a collector, and my grandmother before her was a HUGE collector.  Grandma had us all beat with an entire 5-6 drawer dresser full of baubbles, beads, and pearls.  What we can't find we also make--and Mom has a whole closet full of "findings"--jewelry making supplies.  It's a female hay day!

Anyway, I digress...so I recently found myself with 2 WHOLE hours to myself!  "What to do?"  I thought--I knew I didn't want to waste the time and had to tackle a project at home that needed no little distractions, so I went on a search around the house.  Keep in mind, there are about 150 projects that need completing, but my jewelry stash was getting to really be a mess, so I decided that's where I'd focus my free time.

I bought several pin/bulletin boards at Hobby Lobby and Kohl's.  Then I bought a package of pearl topped pins in the wedding aisle of Hobby Lobby to use to pin all of the necklaces.  I already had several pin boards of necklaces but they needed some help and I had bought a new fancy one to add...so that took quite a while but now it looks like this--all organized into sections.  I did one board--the fancy one--with all my big statement necklaces.  Texas girls like me LOVE their statement necklaces!  Another board is misc, one more is pearl necklaces (another staple), etc.  You can organize by color, style, length, etc--whatever makes sense to you.

Then, on to earrings.  I have an ornament tree I saw years ago in a catalog and thought it was perfect for hangy earrings--and organized them by color.  Then, I bought an empty frame at Hobby Lobby and cut a piece of styrofoam to fit--it's perfect for all my studs--you just poke them into the foam.  I hung a few of my tiny dainty necklaces from the pearl topped pins at the bottom.  And then I also have a spinny dress form from Michaels that holds some more of the dainty tiny necklaces so they won't get tangled.

I hope I've inpired you to go out and COLLECT some new pieces, and then hopefully put them together on display in your bedroom too!  How do you organize and display your collections??

Summer Camps

There are so many things for kids that I feel are designed for the Stay at Home Moms—play groups, bouncy places with weekday discounts, mom’s day out, PTA activities, Junior League, I could go on—but Summer Camps really burn me.

90%+ of the super cool, awesome, fun, educational Summer Camps that my daughter brings to my attention are half or partial day camps.  That’s great if one of your parents is home for part of the day and can drop them off at 10am and be back to pick them up at 2pm.  But, WE WORK, so I again have to tell her “sorry that won’t work”.  Then I hear for the millionth time “I wish you didn’t have to work”…don’t even get me started on that one.  My reply is usually “I don’t HAVE to, I WANT to work” when I really just want to say “I don’t want to work either, let’s just blow off all the bills so I can drive you back and forth to camps…and by the way, I can’t pay for your college!”

So, we have a few other options—send her to her Elem School all day like Extend-A-Care (how awful) or outdoor camp (in 100+ degrees)—which she doesn’t want to do.

I found a few other camps but the hours are like 9:30-4—now how is a working person supposed to get 8 hours in at work and still drop them off and pick them up on time??  So they have late pick up ($50 extra per week)—late pick up means that she can sit and watch the next group perform—she’s not even supervised, and can’t do anything but sit there—and I have to pay extra for that?! Seriously, I end up spending over $200-300 per week for these camps!  I guess that’s nothing compared to these fancy overnight camps that everyone on Facebook brags about—seriously if I had $3,000 to send my kid to camp, I think I could afford that nice vacation we’ve talked about.  Maybe that’s not bad if they only go for 1-2 weeks, but I have 12 WEEKS to cover!

I called this week’s camp to ask about late pick up since it’s literally out in the country and pick up is at 4:45.  The lady acted like I was crazy.  I asked her “don’t any of the other parents work?  I mean, how can I get from my work downtown to your location 30 miles away by 4:45pm?”  Not to mention that it doesn’t start until 9am each day…again, she acted like no one else had asked for this.  So again, daughter sits there and waits for her late Mom to come get her after everyone else.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only Mom that works full time and has these issues.  Maybe it’s because my husband actually works a full schedule too…well I guess he works more like 80 hours a week, but who’s counting?!  What if I was a single Mom?  Then I guess my kids would have to sit at the Elem school at Extend-A-Care where they already sit for 12 hours a day during the school year?  What a fun Summer!!

Sometime, I guess you just can’t win for losing!

Boys vs Girls

I have 2 daughters and a son, and they are glaringly different so far (he's only 3).  My son has a much sweeter and calmer temperament.  He gets his feelings hurt quicker but also loves to be rough and throw things across the living room.  My girls are both high drama and they are growing up so fast that they just don't need me as much.  My son is not dumb, he's just so much more simple--he throws fits but not over his outfits or his hair.  He is remaining a baby WAY longer than my girls.  They are 9 and 5 but act 16 with attitude and eye rolling.  He is just sweeter and somehow more kind.

A few months back, I was going through my morning routine--which includes frantically trying to make myself presentable for a sales job where I have to be presentable EVERY DAY (ugh!).  He kept coming in and saying "Mommy, Mommy"--I was kind of ignoring him as I do most mornings, until he finally stomped and yelled "MOMMY!"  I replied (more than a little annoyed) also in a loud voice, "WHAT?!"  He then said really quietly "you look pretty today."  Tears started to fill my eyes and all I could do was grab him in a hug and say thank you.  I commented on Facebook that day "I saw God today" (as the song goes).

It's the little things like that where he sets himself apart.  Part of it's his age but I love that he still wants to cuddle and still carries his blankie around (calls it his "deetee" after our friends' 3 yr old told him that is what he called his blanket) and misses his "sissies" when they are gone.

This picture is special not because it's a great shot (it's not), but because he has adopted a routine at Preschool drop off every morning.  I was highly annoyed by it at first but have grown to not only tolerate it but to LOVE it.  He wants about 5-10 hugs and kisses before I can walk away and he most of the time still throws a fit when I leave.  I should be rushing to work as the traffic is horrendous and I hate to be late, but for 2-3 minutes each day, I give in to his needs and we hug and kiss and hug and kiss.  He says "one more huggie, one more kissie" and I indulge him.  You see, I'm still a hero to him and he loves me so much that my heart just bursts when I pick him up and he screams "Mommy" and runs to hug me and we are reunited.  

I linger there too long because I love it and I know that one day he won't want those huggies and kissies and he will all but run from me at drop off.  I stay because I want to hold on to the brief moment of him as a toddler and take a mental snapshot of how perfect he is.  I thank God for giving me a son (finally) because he's teaching me so many things my daughters can't.

New Blog "I Don't Know How You Do It"

I got the idea to start a blog because I often feel like someone is watching me and throwing things at me like in Truman Show--my life could be a Sit Com!  I thought about calling it Varsity Mom but I'm by no means any better at this scary parenting thing than anyone else, I just have 3 kids to give me more experience.

We are a family of 5 living in Austin, Texas.  I'm a working Mom of 3 wonderful yet challenging children--2 girls and a boy ages 9, 5 & 3.  My husband works 4--yes 4! jobs and our life is hectic and crazy and beautiful all at the same time!

I hear "I Don't Know How You Do It" from friends and family all the time, which cracks me up since I feel like most of the time I'm failing at this whole Mom thing.  

I'm starting this blog for several reasons:  to help me vent my crazy feelings, to make someone laugh (at me), and to let others that may feel the same way know that we I can commiserate with them!

Please leave me comments or funny stories.

Let Us Know If There's Anything We Can Do

So my brother in law passed away recently, it was sudden and very sad.  But, in the coming weeks, my husband and I found humor in the variety of reactions from our friends.  

From Facebook to texts, all we heard all day was "Let Us Know If There's Anything We Can Do".  I've said this (even yesterday) and I completely understand the feeling of wanting to help.

BUT, what does that really mean anyway??  If I really want to help, I will offer dinner or to watch their kids or I send a card or a donation or something.  But the blanket statement "Let Us Know If There's Anything We Can Do" is really funny to us now after hearing it soooooooo many times.

By the way, noone did bring dinner or offer to watch the kids...so, we started coming up with responses like "Dinner would be nice" or "Yeah, how about $20" because we felt like people really weren't offering help--they were just feeling bad and wanted to throw out an offer.  Of course we didn't send any responses besides "Pray for us" or "Thanks!" but I really wonder what people would have said if I had said "Hey, what's for dinner" or "Watch the kids for me"...LOL!

Just food for thought:  the next time you really want to help, just DO SOMETHING--drop off cookies or send a card--let's vow not to say "Let Us Know If There's Anything We Can Do" unless we are willing to actually do something!