Christmas if Coming

So, Christmas is coming right around the corner and the excitement of the holidays and spending time with friends and family is wonderful and a bit overwhelming all at the same time.  The vacation that Mike is taking from work will (fingers crossed) prove to be a time for me to get some much overdue blogging done, along with the mass amounts of housework and rest that I sometimes require.

I do apologize to those few but loyal blog stalkers that there has not been a post since September, but there are more to come!  With that, I will let the suspense drive you insane until I post again.  Muhahahahahahahaha...

Out With The Old, In With The New...

So, we finally gave in and replaced the Grand Am (Blitzen as we called it). Fearing that it may not make it through another winter and not wanting to pay to fix it up at this point, we figured it was time.

Blitzen when we bought it February, 2004.

As old as Blitzen was, it was a great car. It was surprising how hard it was to trade it in. After owning it for nearly 10 years, it has been like a member of the family. They say stuff is stuff, but it was still hard to say goodbye to it. It had taken us on so many adventures and to different parts of the country. We also brought our first 2 children home from the hospital in it. Up until the need for a larger vehicle, it was our primary means of transportation for a long time.

After searching around for a new car, we decided to go with a Hyundai Elantra. We first bought a blue one and we loved the color, but we were just not feeling the beige interior as much after driving it a couple days. So, we took it back and picked out a gray one with gray interior. The dealership was great in making sure we had the one that we wanted.

So here it is. We haven't decided on a nickname yet, and we're still getting used to the idea of having a new car.

Stress

It's not a big secret that life is stressful.  There are so many demands on each of us for our time and energy.  The real key to handling stress is...  Yeah, that would be good to know, right?

I'm certain that at some point in my life I will be able to fully complete that statement.  I'm just not quite there yet.  Being a working mom now and still trying to find time to do everything else has not been the easiest transition in the world.  When I finally began to realize that the balance of everything was off, I began to ask for help.  The usual call to a friend, Facebook status with a bunch of suggestions (some of which are helpful and some of which are not), and then the prayer.

The moment when you realize that you can't do everything on your own no matter how hard you try is the moment when you find yourself muttering words in the dark at your bedside and pouring your heart out to the Lord along with a lot of well earned tears.  Well, at least that's how it was for me.

What's my brilliant answer to relieving MY stress?  For right now it's setting small goals for myself and completing them.  I can't do everything, but I can do something.  Doing something and completing it will help me to build back my knowledge that I can, in fact, accomplish things and do them well.  Once the ball gets rolling, the items start flying off of the check list!  I had a successful day today and accomplished many things.  I did not get everything done that I might have needed to, but I tried my hardest.

Ears

Once upon a time my parents told me that I couldn't have my ears pierced until I was 18.  Then, it was until I was 16.  I'd talked them down to 12 and then something magical happened.  My Grandmother bought me a fancy nice pair of earrings for my birthday and I did not have my ears pierced.  Fearing that I'd offend my grandmother by not wearing the lovely gift I was given, my parents promptly took me in and I had my ears pierced just after I turned 10. 

A few of my nieces have had their ears pierced and I've sort of put it off.  It's more work for the parents then most people think it will be and it's actually quite expensive given the cost of everything including a bunch of earrings to wear later!  Mike and I talked about it and decided that when she started asking for it and when we thought she would be ready for the responsibility of it, we would give in and do it.

We'd promised her that we would do let her have her ears pierced.  Then, like any good set of parents would, we delayed and put it off and made excuses because WE just weren't quite ready yet!  Low and behold, the waiting period is over and the ears now have sparkly little pink diamonds stuck in them.  She was super excited and did a really good job listening, holding still, and being brave! 

The nervous anxious smile...

the marker dots to place it in the right spot.

She took this big anticipation breath and it totally reminded me of myself when they take blood!

The finished product!  There will be many more pictures of her with her new earrings in the future.

Someone Had a Birthday

It's only a little late, but better late than never, right?  Ha ha!  I finally found the pictures from Eryn's birthday!!!!  They managed to get copied into a folder and since there was all ready images with the same numbers on them they became images with the names like "IMG_8725 (2)" which made them hard to find and camouflaged them with the others so well that I was convinced that I'd lost them.  Finally, I got lucky and found them while searching for something else!

Prepare yourselves for the Pink Nightmare...   

The birthday girl.

The sparkly super pink cake she wanted.

More than anything she wanted her cousins to come over and play and make bracelets with her!  She really love to make things.

The candles bring out the glittery sparkles on the cake better than I'd expected.

I tried to make a cake that was white, light pink, and dark pink so that it faded into the color.  It photographed a little red on the bottom, but it looked really great!

The little sisters made some bracelets too.  The older girls were pink and sparkly and the younger ones were purple and sparkly.

Pretty easy craft that wasn't very expensive either.  Thank you Pinterest!  Here's a link if you'd like to try making one yourself.

http://kerraftycreations.blogspot.ca/2012/05/easy-bracelet-tutorial.html

1 year older and about 10 years bossier!  Ha ha.  I'm so proud of my little stinker who reminds me all the time of what's great and terrible in myself all at the same time.

Stay At Home Mom No More

I apologize to my few, but faithful, blog readers who has been struggling with the same post on here for far too long.  This time, I'm not just too busy with life, but seriously too busy with everything!!!!!!!  Ha ha.

The end of April and the start of May brought forth a transition from my "Stay At Home Mom" status to "Working Mom."  Yep, I have reentered the work force!

I was hesitant to announce it or make much of a big deal about it, because the few people I had told seemed to give me such mixed responses.  Everyone has different reasons for wanting a job and just supporting a choice of someone to seek and obtain one is the best route.  No need to question why a person would want a job.  For me, I wanted a job to be able to contribute to our family, to society, and to my skills and abilities to have a job in case the time would ever come that I was needed to be relied on as a source of income.  Brushing up my skills on the computer and in interviews was important and now having a job and doing my very best at it are also important.

After a bump in the road with weird scheduling for training, I am now settling into my normal schedule for work and family life, mixed in with a little photography on the side!  Staying busy and productive is a big part of who I am.  Many women are content to stay at home with the children and not have a job outside the home (and that's great, I did it for 6 years), but I just needed the change.  The social outlet, the going out of my comfort zone, and the learning of new things with all the drama and excitement that come with it are reason enough for me!    

Fun at School

The kids were supposed to dress up as a nursery rhyme character and say the rhyme for their class.  Yes, any excuse for playing with the spider, this girl decided to be Little Miss Muffet!

They also do an Egg Drop where they come up with a way to try to protect their boiled egg from cracking when it's dropped from the roof of the school.

She was pretty sure that the tupperware and the cotton balls would do the trick and so were Mom and Dad.

Low and behold, the Principal doesn't just drop the eggs from the roof.  He threw them with ALL of his might as high as he could into the air and they then plummeted to the ground at near terminal velocity speeds.  The egg broke and she cried.  I felt so bad for her, but quickly pointed out a bunch of other kids who their eggs had broken too.  In the end, she decided that she's going to help her sister and brother when they are in kindergarten so that their eggs won't break like hers did.  THAT made me more proud than anything.  She took her frustration in stride and vowed to help others not have to have the same heart break that she did.

Gossiping and Rude Comments Tangent

Lately I've not had much time for writing anything on here that's much for content.  A few pictures and a couple of captions (which is great) but I feel like I need to write a little bit of what's been on my mind lately.  So, prepare yourself for my tangent.

(This should come with a disclaimer that most likely anyone who reads this is not an inspiration for my complaining.  Just thoughts as I am raising a couple of girls and trying to make it through life as a woman.)

I've never really been the girl who hangs out with other girls.  It has always been easier for me to go play with the boys than fight the social battle of mind games and verbal fist fights with the girls.  Women are just older girls.  Not a lot changes from when you are 5 to what you are 30 in the girl to girl relationship department.  Some of us have lots of friends and some of us have a few.  There are girls who like to talk about other girls.  There are girls who say stupid things and have no clue that they are stupid things.  There are girls who are generally stupid and because they are "cute" or "popular" people either don't notice that they or their actions are stupid.

On more than one occasion I have found my foot in my mouth.  I think that we are all guilty of it at some point.  Taking a stab at someone or saying something that you might think is funny can be taken the wrong way very easily.  It's interesting to me what some people think is funny.  Personally, I love a good story that involves my kids screaming and running around embarrassing me.  That's life.  I like to share our adventures with our kids because we're not perfect and I want other moms to know that we aren't.  You have to look at it in the moment and laugh a little or you'll just cry and want to run away and hide!

There are some people who make comments that are not appropriate and it's just not funny.  It's important in that moment to take a few things into consideration.

1.)  That person is probably an idiot.  Seriously, sometimes people are just dumb.

2.)  That person has no idea what YOU are really like or even who you are.  This is my go-to for biting my tongue.  It's like, "If you really knew me, you'd NEVER say that to me!"  Think it in your head and plan your revenge for later.  Muhahahaha...  Oh wait...

3.)  Consider who else is a part of the conversation.  It's interesting to me to see how certain people will say certain things only when with a particular group.

As each of us has to interact with others in this life, I hope that we realize that we can land on either side of gossip or an inappropriate comment at any point.  Just because you are usually the one who doesn't get offended, doesn't mean that you won't be.  Likewise, just because others offend you constantly doesn't mean that you have not or won't offend someone in the future.

The key to all of this tangent is how we react to the situation.  Personally, I'm a big fan of dirty looks, weird faces, and the ever so subtle, "Yeah, and so's your Mom!"  Ha ha.  Seriously though, I have been thinking about this a lot lately and it's a never ending battle.  We have to try our hardest each day to be kind to each other even when others are not kind to us.  In a perfect world, no one would be mean to anyone else.  In the real world, we need to be careful of what we say and to who and also be able to brush off a lot of what others say to us.

Busy Changing

We've been busy changing around the living room.  No big before and after pictures yet, but a couple of sneak peaks in here!  I figured I'd better post a few pictures on here so that I don't fall too far behind.

Ian playing with the blind.  He didn't seem to understand why I kept telling him not to, until...

Ahhhhhhhhh!  I'm blind!!!!!!!

 Sort of random, but we had burritos the other night and of the 3 children, he was the only one who held it all wrapped up and ate it without making a mess.  So proud of that little guy!  He's not going to waste the good food!  (Just throw the Cheerios ALL over the place...)

Eryn LOVES library day and reading her books to Brooke.  It's really fun to watch her try to read the words and then just start telling what's happening in the pictures.  Like her Dad, Eryn really enjoys weather.  She likes to read books about storms and storm chasers.

The kids all sitting on the floor with their drinks and popcorn for our first "Family Movie Night" with our new furniture.  We watched, "Wreck-It Ralph."  Great movie, but our little Wreck-It Ralph didn't make it through much of the movie before he was too tired.

As much as changing around things drives me insane, Mike enjoys it.  A new coat of paint and a few things swapped out here and there can really change a room.  We've all ready noticed with more furniture in our living room that we sit around and just talk to each other more.  Even the kids are not as eager to turn on the TV constantly.

The Fuzz Balls

My Fuzz Balls are very different, but related to us in many ways.

The local consignment store and boutique that I can't seem to get enough of lately had a sale on colored jeans.  Eryn snagged a pair in yellow and in red.  She likes the yellow ones better.

Brooke's just too famous for me to take picture of her lately.

Then snotty little Ian is like, "Wait if I wear glasses, you'll take my picture?  Oh yeah...  Rockin' the shades!" Except he looks more like Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory than really cool, but hey...  He's still adorable!

Time keeps flying past me and even though it's been colder lately, I've managed to squeak out a few jobs here and there taking pictures.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'll never get rich as a photographer, but just a little bit here and there just when we need it sure helps!

Christmas Morning and others

This guy makes the BEST faces!  He's definitely related to MY side of the family.  We're all face makers and can spend hours in a mirror.

Eryn hugging her new dress.  (I found a couple really great deals on Black Friday sales on JCPenney's website and thanks to Grandma & Grandpa they all got at least 1 really nice new outfit!)

Ian got his very first tie!  Welcome to being a guy and getting a tie for every present holiday.

She had to pose and show off her new dress.  It's a mint green with ruffles and black tiny polka dots.

Ian discovered that Santa put Skittles in his stocking and then no longer wanted anything but those.

Brooke in her Brave dress. (Which she wore for the next 3 days straight.)

No idea why, but Brooke really wanted a Lalaloopsy this year.  They proved more difficult to find than we thought.  I'm not a huge fan of them, but she sure loves it!

It's amazing how a couple of lip glosses from the Dollar Store can make Eryn so happy!

Although this picture doesn't show it off well, I bought a shelf just for the stockings this year.  They were all displayed nicely on stocking holder hooks and not tapped to the wall as in previous years.  It's the little things that make me feel more "high class" like not using duct tape in decorating for the holidays.

Mike was so excited to play Legos with his son!  Ian pushed this box around with his blocks and plays with them all the time.  Sometimes I just hear them smashing together in his room and then him laughing.  It always makes my heart melt.

One of our children has OCD and the other doesn't.  Wad of Blankets bed on the left belongs to MY child and the neatly made bed with decorative pillows and a collection of stuffed animals belongs to Mike's child.  Ha ha!  Mike doesn't have a collection of stuffed animals, but he does like the bed to be made neatly and I could honestly care less most of the time.  It's a funny observation, but one I thought that my mother would appreciate.  All those years she tried so hard to get me to make the bed...  For some kids it just comes instinctual and for others Wad O Blankets is perfectly acceptable.

THIS is what the holidays are really all about, right?  Ahhhhh...  Cold pumpkin pie for breakfast covered with whipping cream and some nutmeg.  Oh it's so good!

I still have a few pictures from Andrew and Dayna's wedding to post, but that can wait until another time.  No point in getting all crazy and neglecting my ability to procrastinate, right?  He he he...

Christmas? Yep...

Because I'm just a little behind here are some of the events of December and Christmas all thrown together and not in order.  Muhahahahahaha!

We made Christmas Tree ornaments together with felt and some buttons.  It was really easy and the kids liked it, even though they couldn't use the hot glue gun.

 This is what they look like closer.

We also made pink bulb ornaments out of felt to give to the cousins that we drew this year.  My Grandma Crawford always used to give ornaments as gifts attached to packages and even though others might not think that they are very special, I like to give them to honor her tradition.

 These 2 are trying so hard to be friends and nice to each other praying for LOTS of presents!

I took this on Christmas Eve of the 3 kids getting ready for bed and looking at the tree.