thoughts

Noel, noel!  A little sad Christmas is over, but I'm still enjoying this final week of 2010.  The hubs is home, and in good time to get all those things done that we pushed off since mid-November when company started arriving -- new car battery, cleaning!, shopping belated Christmas gifts for family (eeks), etc etc...  Should I take the white mini-tree down?  Or the red and white Christmas tree decorations?  Maybe after new year's. For now, I'm still holding on to the bright reds, golds and teal blues of yesterday...

Eliz turns 2 tomorrow.  She's talking up a storm!  She is such an adorable, chatty, goofy little girl!  I'm not looking forward to those shots, but it's great to finally be at this milestone and realize how fast those 2 years really flew by!  I only wish she ate more than 5 things, and that she would sleep through the night.  I hope by next year, these sleepless nights will have been a distant memory... We decided not to do a huge party for her, but to celebrate with just us.  It's all good.  Next year she'll get the big bash...  :)

i. saw. it.

the mouse poked its head out... from. inside.the.burner.in.my.STOVE....

ARGHHHHH!!!!   i feel soo violated.

so. grossed. out.  we set the traps, and the bait. 

hope i wake up to a dead mouse tomorrow morning.  :(

catching up on way too much stuff

the children's sing-a-long at CBS -- so cute!

my silly, goofy girl!

Celebrating my FIL's 62nd birthday and Eliz's 2nd birthday...

My SIL and her financee stayed with us as well... it was a FULL house for 2 weeks!!

Em's preschool sing-a-long, as they entered the room full of expectant parents!

More sing-a-long...

The girl will only eat icing off cupcakes - go figure!

Christmas 2010

Silent night, holy night... Eliz was obsessed with touching the ornaments!

Well, she touched them as much as she could, before this happened...

Ahh, so sad!  Uur trusty tree of 4 years finally gave way, just a few days before christmas...

Was i heartbroken?  Nah...  it was just a fake tree.  We'll go back to the real thing next year.  :)

In the meantime, the kids had NO problems enjoying all the goodies from santa, grandma, aunts, and mom & dad!  She got the entire barbie princess set from my dear friend (thanks girl!), and santa found her this wooden barbie townhouse (fully furnished) for $35 on CL - yeah!

Having fun w/grandma!  We loved having my mom here for 2 days...

And I got a little carried away with penguins this year... lol

And Daddy got a little carried away doing gymnastics with the kids (yikes!!)

It's the little things, right??  The dollar section at Tarjay is so awesome...  :)

But the biggest hit by far were these remote control control ladybugs from the Discovery Channel... they had so much fun!  And for $10 each they were such a steal... I'm so glad the kids had a great Christmas...the first one they'll probably remember, at least...

That's all for now folks!  Night night!

sky blue

i remember a long time ago, when i was a little girl, my dad made our family's christmas card one year.  he carved an intricate design out of a block of wood, inked the wood, and stamped it onto light blue card stock.  he then had the image professionally printed.  i remember that card.  it was an abstract design, with many lines and white spaces.  in the right hand lower corner, in cursive, was our last name.  at the time, my ten (or so) year old mind didn't see the purpose, the beauty, in doing such a laborious thing.  why go through so much trouble, to do this, and then and drag your whole family that one winter afternoon, walking through long hallways of that building, to to pick up the finished project?  i remember being very annoyed that day.

fast forward to tonight, about 25 years later.  and i find myself staying up late, hand assembling some christmas gift tags -- black and white polka-dots on the front (with a red, snowflake sticker in the corner) and the same, sky blue paper on the back.  staring at that paper just now reminded me of that card, and of my dad, who is now half way around the world and unable to spend christmas with us this year....

merry christmas dad, if you are reading this.  i guess i am a lot more like you than i ever really knew!