Sunday, December 27, 2009

Baby Envy

All my (kid) life I wanted a Baby Alive doll. So, so much. Each and every time I was told no. Actually I was told, "I don't need one more thing that eats or shits in this house." So since Baby Alive both eats AND shits, I was out of luck.


Call it mellowing, or call it payback, my mom bought Janey and my niece Eliza a Baby Alive this Christmas.

They we so EXCITED!!

The next day Janey poked me awake at the crack of dawn to see if we could feed her.


Both she and Julian were fascinated by the fact that she was REALLY eating.

Then they couldn't wait to see what happened next.

Oh, the horror!!


This is their favorite part of feeding her! Goofy, goofy girls!

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Winner!

The Christmas Elf has come to share some good news! WE HAVE A WINNER!
I had Elf Julian write down the entries. Two for everyone who guessed right.

And a lot of you did guess right! It was snow on my gutter.
With the snow storm we had lots of drifting snow that made for some cool photos.

We also have icicles everywhere.

All the entries ready to go. I could have used random.org, but this was much more fun!

Elf Janey got to pick the winner.



And the winner is....


The SILVA'S! Megan, send me an email and I will get it right out to you!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Yippee!! A CONTEST!

Ok, my first contest. I know you just can't stand the excitement! I will be giving away one child of your choice a $25 Target gift card to one lucky winner! All you have to do is guess what this picture is.Anyone who guesses, gets an entry. Those who guess correctly get TWO. Contest will end midnight December 23 EST. Winner will be drawn sometime on Christmas Eve between cooking, wrapping, cleaning, and trying to buy Valium on the street corner. Good luck, and good guessing!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Snow, snow, and more SNOW!!!

Oh, this is gonna be a good Winter!

Again, for me, not Steve the snow grinch.
Today the news dubbed this "The Blizzard of '09".


We have had a great day. Making Christmas cookies. Reading books.

Playing out in the snow until I had some little frozen snowkids.


Shoveling, shoveling, and more shoveling.


The new puppy, Roxy, loves the snow too!



She has had great fun playing outside with Algae, who was glad he did not have to go to work today.


Thankfully Steve DID go to work. And brought home the snowblower too!



And after it is all said and done, a nice nap.




And enjoying the snow from INSIDE the warm house.



PS- The first picture of my patio umbrella was taken about 6 hours earlier. Now the snow is up to the metal joint!!! Yay! I *heart* snow!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Let it Snow!


We got out first real snowfall last week. I love, love, love snow.
My husband does NOT. Not even a little.

There is nothing like waking up and seeing everything icing covered and beautiful.
The snow motivated me to get moving on Christmas decorating and baking.
Pictures to come soon. Not only for your viewing pleasure, but to prove I am not lying!
Hoping for a white Christmas. We had one a few years ago, so I think we are due.
Also hoping for LOTS of lazy snow days this winter. Sorry, honey.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Dog Days

Last weekend was a bad one. Steve's first border collie, Moss had a stroke on Sunday. Moss was 14 and not in the best health. He had worked hard up until last year when we retired him due to arthritis. We put him to sleep on Monday. He lived a good, long life.



Monday we all stayed up late to watch the Raven's lose. Tuesday morning came too soon and we were all tired and running late. When I went to let Lucille out of her cage it was apparent there was something drastically wrong. She was non-responsive, and her cage was covered in blood. This was a dog who was perfectly fine the night before.
Steve ran up to the school to get Tucker (she is his dog). Within 15 minutes of finding her we were at the vet. She died minutes later. We are not sure why. Probably complications from her stomach issues from a few years ago.

Moss was old. Circle of life, and all that crap. Lucy was not old, not sick, and this has kneecapped all of us.

My house is too quiet.
I walk the girls to school, and open the back door to feed Lucy.
I come in from shopping and hear her quickly jump off the chair; her nails click-clacking on the wood floors.
I see her waiting patiently to go outside.


She is under my feet as I cook, waiting for me to drop something.
On cold, gloomy days we sneak a nap in the morning. Me on the sofa. Lucille on the back of the sofa keeping watch out the window.
As I work on the computer she lays under the table and I scratch her with my feet.



When I make school lunches Lucy runs in as soon as she hears me get the bread out. She knows she always get the ends of the loaf.
When Steve comes home from work, she joyfully greets him. If he does not respond quickly enough, Lucy will grab his pants.
She sits on command and gives you one paw, then the other, and the other, back and forth as long as you will let her.


Lucy may only weigh 17 lbs, but she kick's Algae's butt! They run through the house like crazy kids. Lucille always wins. She cheats a little, because she stand on the sofa to get to Algae.
She is a big dog in a little body.
And she should still be here.

I have no answers for myself or my kids. One thing I do have is great family and friends. My mom sent flowers, goodies, balloons, and some cute stuff. The delivery man put on a good face, despite my puffed up face and snotty nose.
Lisa and Zach dropped off Pumpkin bread and a sweet note.
Sigrid made us dinner-mac and cheese, salad and brownies.
So many sent kind words and hugs via email and facebook.
It helped so much.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Tis the Season!



So, I have all my shopping done. Just finished decorating the trees, and my presents are all wrapped underneath them. It is so pretty at night with all my outdoor lights lit, and the cookies and goodies make my house smell soooo yummy.
Ummmm...yeah. Okay. Back to the real world. Where VERY LITTLE of that is actually true. Well, none of it is, if you MUST know!
I did have time for an easy craft. I found it in a magazine the other day when I was lucky enough to spend all day in doctors waiting rooms for one thing and another.
Take your old bits of broken up crayons and take the paper off.
Put them in a silicone baking pan. You can use any shape. I happened to find this one in the dollar aisle at Target. Similar ones were $10, so trees it was.
Put in the oven at 400 degrees until liquefied (about 5 minutes). I've never used silicone baking pans before, and I DID put them on a baking sheet. The silicone was much too flimsy.
While I am sure it would be VERY amusing to watch me jumping around with hot wax all over, I opted out of that step!
Cool, and pop out of mold.
Magic- NEW CRAYONS! If you mix a bunch together, they will come out rainbow-y. Janey wanted to sort them into similar colors. So we did.