The perfect tree

My mom's trees, every year, stood short and stout and were overloaded with ornaments of every size and shape and color. It was okay because it was the family tree, but I expected that when I moved out and had a tree of my own, it would be *the perfect tree*. Only specific colors, no colored lights (mom loved the colored lights) and only "pretty" ornaments.

I moved out in 1999, but I don't think I had my own tree until 2001. It was perfect. Red and gold ornaments only, ball garland, white lights. It was a thing of beauty.

I kept that up until 2005-ish. My future mother in law me bought an egg Christmas ornament that, while gorgeous, was not in my color scheme. I couldn't exactly turn it down, but I put it toward the back. No harm.

2008 brought children, and 2010 brought more children. Children brought ornaments that they picked out, ornaments that they made, ornaments of their pictures. 2010 I gave up on the perfect live fir tree and ordered a nine foot
prelit Christmas tree.

 

The year Henry was born - New baby and big brother ornaments

Spencer decorates his own 

 Last year my mom brought me a box of ornaments from her tree, ornaments of mine through the year. This lollypop was made in 1991. When she gave them to me, I wasn't exactly excited to put them on my tree. Who needs a bunch of old ornaments? Me. I need a bunch of old ornaments. It was lovely putting part of my past up on my own tree.

(this is a photo ornament of Spencer the year he was born, and behind it is a star I made in pre-k. PRESCHOOL. 1984.

 Salt dough ornaments from last year's advent activities.

There are ornaments given to us by family and friends, and ornaments that remind me of old friends.

And now, now my tree is absolutely perfect.

If only I could really have Liam Hemsworth as a babysitter for reals

I did not blog yesterday, and therefore I suppose that means that technically I failed NaNoBloMo. However, since my goal this month was blogging Mo’, like, More, I think I’m still on track. This is post 24! In 25 days! My last 25 posts took me … 2.5 months. So there.

Anyhow, This weekend was so busy that when the alarm went off this morning I really thought it was Sunday. Where did my weekend go? We are normally busy but somehow. Yeah. I want more weekend. It also didn’t help that when the alarm sounded this morning I was in the middle of a dream where my twitter friends and myself were interviewing babysitters and Liam Hemsworth was a candidate. It was a good dream.

Saturday we went to a birthday party at 9am (yes, that’s right) and that’s where the dock/fishing photos on Saturday’s blog were from. The boys enjoyed fishing a lot (except for having no patience for actually leaving a line in the water for more than half a second) and my dad messaged me on Sunday to let me know that he had picked up fishing poles for the boys last month for Christmas, so that’s funny. Hopefully he’ll take the kids fishing too, because I’m not a fan.

I got my tree up Saturday afternoon too – that lone wolfing thing that was supposed to happen Friday night didn’t happen, which I should be happy about but I really wanted to get things done that C didn’t want to deal with quite yet, so instead I had to request from a grumpy C to get the tree from the attic. I made up for it by letting him spend *four* hours cleaning and waxing his car. He was a happy camper. And I got to listen to Christmas music in an otherwise quiet house, so I think it was a win-win. Henry’s asked approximately 1,871 times where the star is, so I guess I need to decorate it today (I put on this year’s Disney ornaments and it’s a pre-lit but an otherwise naked tree).

Saturday night C and I got a date night, and celebrated it at Mitchell’s Fish Market for dinner (I had the Seafood Americana, which is not exactly something I would normally order in case it was spicy (description: Georges Bank sea scallops, Cajun shrimp, spinach and mushrooms sautéed in a shellfish butter sauce and served over roasted redskin potatoes) but good Lord that was a good dinner. My two cocktails were fabulous too. We then went to see Catching Fire, which was also amazing – I’d say it was a pretty successful date night. (Catching Fire also made me excited about my reading goals for next year, which I can’t remember if I’ve blogged about yet. Will check back and then do so if the answer is no. But I want to re-read. Must. Re-read.)

Sunday we decided to see if there were any pre-Thanksgiving deals at the outlet mall (a resounding NO) and we got some warm clothes in proper sizes so the boys don’t have to wear all their small long-sleeves from last year. I assume it’s probably silly to wear long sleeves that aren’t exactly Long Sleeves anymore. I got some good deals at the Loft Outlet, which made me happy (yay new clothes!) I’m going to have to ignore the size I just bought new pants in though. We spent a few hours at Disney, but it was swamped and cold and we opted out of staying too long.

TODAY I have to do my Thanksgiving food shopping because I forgot this weekend and goodness, I should probably stale that bread, yes? And the boys are getting their flu shots so I hope for no adverse reactions to that. And I’m going to locate the ornaments in the attic (this sounds like our attic is huge instead of a glorified crawlspace, yes?) and listen to Christmas music while I decorate and happy holiday season!!

How was your weekend?

Just a minute

Tonight my mom watched the boys so C and i were able to do a date night. We went to Mitchell's Fish House (delish) and saw Catching Fire (amazing). If live to have something fun and witty to say, but it's 14 minutes before midnight and Henry won't sleep, so I have but a minute and all I can do is post some pictures from today's instagram feed (that you've probably already seen):

Friday Bits and Pieces

I have been out to eat every single lunch this week. I never go out for lunch, or if I do it’s maybe one time. Every day. I’m trying not to add up how much that is. Jimmy John’s, Chickfila, the downstairs café, Cheddar’s, Panera. Good grief. (Not gonna lie, it’s been a tasty week though)

I got these Christmas earrings from Spencer’s fundraiser, and I got to wear them today. They are Christmas without being CHRISTMAS so I feel I can wear them before Thanksgiving. Not like that would really stop me, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I’m very serious about pulling down the tree from the attic while lone wolfing tonight. Also, I may have gone a little nuts.

I’m trying to break in some of my flats that I don’t wear very often. I wear the same ones all the time because I have sensitive heels and it seems like they rub and hurt too much to break in. I have prepared myself with band aids and it seems to be working. I love these shoes. It’d be really nice if I could add them to my usual rotation.

Last year I bought a bunch of holiday movies, and this year I want to buy a few more. We have all the Home Alones (did you know there were four? No, you don’t want to see the fourth), Polar Express, (Love Actually for me), Muppets Christmas Carol, and maybe something else. I can’t remember. Anyhow, I think I want to get Nightmare Before Christmas and Elf this year. Anything else we shouldn’t miss?

I found this at Target. It is marvelous.

I've wanted to make a cloth or felt pocket advent calendar but now that it is a week until December I think I'm just not getting there again this year. But by next year, I really want to make on like this one:

And I noticed this photo that I've had attached to my desk at work since I started at this company. It was taken circa June 2003, I believe. We were such BABIES (and my hair went to my butt)

I'll take "no more children" for $800, Alex

So I'll start this post off with TMI: Somehow I forgot to pick up my birth control this month. I don't know how this happened - it's on auto-renew, and I picked up my anti-crazy meds so you'd think I'd have gotten it but no. And then when I realized and really needed it, I kept forgetting and now it's too late and I've just decided to wait until next month and start it clean.

So of course there's that little niggling thought about having more kids (don't tell C, he'd shit a brick). It's not that I want another baby, or even another kid - I love my children dearly but my are they a handful and I really don't have the brainpower to answer eight million more "Why?" questions. It's just ... baby. Baaaabbyyyyyyy.

Anyhow, tonight was Reading Night at the school. C does not go to these things, so I take the kids. Me and the two boys went to Cody's (I'm not changing the grammar on that, I'm just going to watch while you take a red pen to your computer screen) and I had a nice although slightly exhausting dinner with them, and then I picked up the boy whose mom works through Reading Night and I became Single Mom with Three Boys for an hour.

Holy horse shit, that's not happening.

Henry sat on my lap and let me read to him while the two older boys (the extra kid is in first grade) raised a little hell and I whisper scolded them to sit down and read and no you cannot throw that paper airplane you made from your homework pass and damn it sit down and read or wearegoinghomethisminute. It wasn't that bad but man, it was exhausting, and 49 minutes later when we got back to the car I told them that next month, next month they will sit and read.

Tomorrow C is taking his mom to the car show and I will be lone wolfing it for the evening. I'm making pizza, and it's movie night and am I being too optimistic to think I might be able to get the nine foot Christmas tree out of the attic on my own, since C doesn't want to think about these things quite yet?

Christmas

I have a general idea of what to get Spencer, but I have no idea what to get Henry. Tell me things to get a three year old when he already pretty much has all his brothers stuff already?

Procrastination

Spencer has never had an issue going to bed. Whenever we set his bedtime, he's also within minutes of going to bed (much like his father, really). There was a couple weeks when he was three that he would wake up and try to climb into bed with us but it went away almost as quickly as it started. With the time change we moved his bedtime earlier and now my nearly 6 year old (ack!) Goes to bed between 7:30-7:45 through the week and 8:00 on Fridays.

I've mentioned that Henry has been waking in the middle of the night, and that has gone down to about twice a week (last night three times) but also since potty training has started he gets up immediately upon going to bed to pee again even though he goes five minutes earlier. Tonight he also needed his bedding fixed because it was "tangled", peed three times, and twice just stood in the hallway like a Chucky doll.

He probably should go to bed later, but it's just not possible to give a three year old a later bedtime then a five year old. Right?

In the meantime we'll just put him back to need eight times while he procrastinates on sleep.