Speed Bump

We made new memories last Saturday. Somehow we found a day when everyone could get together to make Christmas cookies. We were three generations in a place that has been my family's home for at least that long, and all was right in the world. Mom was having a good day and was energized with all of her family at home. KU won a big basketball game earlier in the day making everyone, especially my Dad, happy. The girls made cookies while the boys played basketball on an especially warm December afternoon. Our cookies weren't Pinterest-worthy, but they were delicious. Mom was much more interested in taking care of her newest granddaughter, 5 month-old Hartley Paige, than in helping decorate cookies. She lights up and is her happiest when around the baby. Hartley has this effect on all of us. Any hint of sadness gets snuffed out with her around. Baby smells, baby sounds, a touch of her soft skin, those big eyes smiling up at you - that's all a person needs to fill their...

I pull myself out of my warm bed and shuffle in the dark towards the kitchen to make a pot of coffee - a must before braving the frigid morning air to walk the puppy. Dim lights from a holiday wreath blink from the living room wall and I realize I forgot to turn the lights off the night before. The batteries that power the string of lights in the wreath are from last year, replacing them is on my to-do list. I decide I like the softer, muted effect on the lights and I’m not going to replace the batteries just yet. It’s December. That crazy time of year when my kids run on candy canes and sugar cookies, and each day they wake with the hope that an overnight snowfall will cancel school. They are 9 and 7 this year, old enough to know Santa isn’t real, but still wanting to believe. My son differentiates what he calls the “mall Santas” from the real thing - proving to me, and to himself, that he still believes. The season is filled with the promise of magic and the innocence of believing....

Ryan's surprise 40th birthday party. Check. Tree up & decorated. Check. Star family gifts delivered to the church. Check. December birthdays with my side of the family celebrated. Check. If I had even a quarter of Charlie's energy, I wouldn't need a weekend to recover from our weekend. This is such a perfect picture to depict our moments at home, no matter what we're doing. Charlie never stops moving. 

It's fall - sweater weather, pumpkins, falling leaves, hot cider, and Halloween. I love it all. With kids, this time of year means we have to start thinking and planning Halloween costumes (and allow for Charlie's last minute change in plans), make a trip to a pumpkin patch, and do something special to mark the season. I've written here before about how I'm craft-deficient, but I am also stubborn and foolishly optimistic when it comes to making things, always hoping my inner Martha Stuart will finally and at long last appear. This always leads me to take on some craft/baking endeavor with the kids that always fall short of my expectations, looks terrible, makes a huge mess, and leaves everyone in tears - including me. But not this year. This year I have looooow expectations and nothing is getting me down. I now know to plan the activity in advance, have things assembled for the kids to quickly jump in, and that after 15 minutes (if I'm lucky) I will be fin...

Charlie has been talking about going 'skiing' since he saw the ice rink open at Crown Center several weeks ago. We promised we would go this past weekend with all of his cousins and he asked me if it was our 'skiing' day every day for a week. Of course, with all the warm weather we've been having, our luck turned at just the wrong time and it was really cold and windy Sunday for ice skating. We didn't dress warm enough (and we made the mistake of walking over from our loft with the kids in the stroller. They were nice and cold before we even arrived at the ice rink). On top of that, the kids don't have gloves. Epic Mom fail. Somebody was cold and grumpy. Next year, she can lace up a pair of skates, too. Charlie wanted to skate on his own, like his cousins. But after three trips around the ice, he was ready to pack it in. Then we attempted a family Christmas photo in the freezing cold, which I hope was not a total fail. The weathe...

How is it possible that we are already at the end of November? I had such good intentions this year of having my Christmas lists done early, decorations up, holiday plans in place. And yet once again, here I sit behind the eight ball. No lists, no decorations, no plans.   But it's not December yet - I can still make a come back. If I only knew where to start. I'm not sure how to approach the holidays this year since we're displaced from our home. With 5 years in our old house, we had established some traditions as to where to put the tree, how to hang the stockings, and have just the right amount of decorations to feel festive but not cluttered (Ryan would disagree on this last point). But our stockings are in storage along with our Christmas tree skirt and all our other holiday gear. So I'll have to get creative and see what I can do with some twinkle lights and a paper chain or two. I like a good challenge.   Since we don't have a yard right now and there...

Thanksgiving is next week! Can you believe it? If you are hosting, is your menu planned? If not hosting, do you have a signature item your family expects you to make and bring? I'll be making my Grandmother Helen's Pumpkin Chiffon pies  - it wouldn't be Thanksgiving in my family without them. I've never hosted the whole shebang - but thinking ever so optimistically about being in our forever home by next Thanksgiving - Ryan has offered to host in 2013. He had better start taking notes now! (Did I adequately distance myself from this task?) Speaking of our forever-home building  nightmare adventure, we're hoping to finalize plans with our second bank this week and get on with it (C & Iz are learning new words at home like insomnia, stress, and self-medication). We are so ready to get on with it. We'll be ready to build finally, so bring on Winter!* *Never sure how well sarcasm translates in cyberspace, so that was sarcasm folks. Painful sarcasm fu...

It's always so fun to see all the kids dressed up at school. They could wear costumes or pj's to school today. Charlie had pj's on under his costume so he was doubly prepared. I'm always amazed that everyone has a completely different costume. There was one lion and one tiger and that was as close to a repeat as they came. C-Rex was definitely a hit with his friends. Charlie kept telling me to please tell his friends to be gentle with his tail so it wouldn't come off. Perhaps I've warned him too much about not destroying his costume.   By the time I made it back over to Izzy's classroom they had stripped them down to paint some pumpkins. Talk about messy fun! After awhile, Iz was more interested in painting her legs (and the wall) purple. I think our last minute, hand-made dinosaur bone for her hair turned out pretty well. Thanks for leaving it in long enough for a picture Iz! We're trick-or-treating at c...

Happy late 4th of July! I hope everyone had a great, abbreviated holiday. We celebrated Roxie's 10th birthday with a Dog Party, it was lots of fun (and very hot!). I will post more pictures soon. So, turns out my husband likes to blow things up. And he is very excited about instilling this love of loud and noisy fireworks into our son. As the smoke clears from the yard, Charlie with his popsicle face Run Dad! Hands behind his back, cautious like Mom. This parachute went straight up into the trees but eventually made its way back down. The question is, will Dad teach Izzy about fireworks? Girls wanna play too! She's Daddy's girl, so I imagine she will get fireworks if she wants them. It's going to be another hot weekend, stay cool and have fun! On Monday I'll be posting about our new Fitbit pedometers. You are so going to want one!