Thinking, not doing…yet.
My weekend started like this…
A surprise Taylor Swift concert for Hannah.
My weekend ended like this…
With my girls coloring together. Hannah’s idea. My babies. Loved it.
Yesterday afternoon The Man’s mom reminded me that this is the last weekend we have at home before Thanksgiving. We’ll be traveling to Ohio again as it’s become our yearly Thanksgiving tradition. This is the 3rd annual 22 hour drive that is somewhat traumatizing and yet worth it once we’re there with our family. I said all that to say that since this is the last weekend before Thanksgiving it means that it’s Christmas decorating time. I’ve done this the past 2 years before we went to Ohio and it’s the most awesome thing to come home from an exhausting trip to a beautiful, decorated Christmas tree. Y’all know me and the holidays. But with decorating comes organized chaos so I’m choosing to spend this week relaxing and pulling a bare minimum week because from Saturday on, we’ll be busy until New Year.
That is not an exaggeration.
Sidenote: Hannah turns 9 next month. NINE.
Moving along…
I have Baby E 2 to 3 days a week. Livie was jealous of him for like the first week but since then? She’s all about “the baby”. If he drops his toy, she’s right there picking it up for him. If he cries even a little Livie’s all “MAMA! Baby’s crying!!!!” I remember when Livie was just born, Hannah thought she was a better mom to her than I was and constantly told me if Livie even made a peep. Livie? She’s the same way with this baby. While we’re done having kids, it’s nice to see that if we did ever have another one, she’d be a sweet big sister.
Lots of planning going on in my head about our drive to Ohio, Thanksgiving spent up there, Hannah’s birthday, and of course Christmas. Going to spend the week thinking and not doing…yet.
Thanksgiving is in 2 weeks and this one can’t stop talking about turkeys.
She’s a smart girl.
Christmas recap
Someone recently asked me why I don’t blog from home. I had mentioned that I only blog when I’m at work and this person asked why. The reason is quite simple….I sit in front of a computer all day at work. When I get home I want to do anything BUT sit in front of a computer. My thoughts are clearer when I’m at work suprisingly…not because I’m not swamped because believe me, I am. I think it’s because at home I’ve got the girls to tend to and dinner and baths…my evenings are busy. I like to blog when I’m at work and not when I’m at home. I said all that to explain why there hasn’t been a post here since days before Christmas and I’m ok with that. It’s nice to have a break every now and then and I spent all those days at home with my girls. I told a friend today that I had 5 days off at home and I can’t think of the last time I did that that didn’t involve having a baby. Anytime I have days off like that it’s because we’re going somewhere. I’m never just at home and off work.
I loved it.
I told y’all that Hannah got horseback riding lessons for her birthday from her Nana.
She’s been going for about a month but Thursday was the first time that we’ve been able to go with her. The Man and I stood at the fence with the baby and watched our other baby gallop on her horse and smile and wave. I’ve never seen a kid with such a passion for horses. It’s meant to be.
We countried it up for this lesson too. Plaid shirts, cowboy hats, denim jackets with jeans…we embraced it.
I spent Friday wrapping gifts and cooking and cleaning my house before the flood of gifts arrived later that night. We spent our evening at The Man’s sister’s house with his family…both sides, divorced or not.
Walking in to the pile of presents made me smile. It reminded me how truly blessed we are.
Hannah stood by them the whole evening while we ate and talked waiting to open her presents. When it was finally time, it was like someone said “GO!” and the kids went crazy ripping wrapping paper and ooh’ing and ahh’ing and yelling “MOM! LOOK!!!”
And Livie learned how to unwrap a present. I was so proud.
It was the kind of magical Christmas Eve night I dreamt about as a kid. Call me cheesy, but it’s true. Finally have my 2 girls…married the man of my dreams…have the best in laws…since I like to be here and not back at home in Ohio for Christmas it’s truly a blessing to have such great in laws to spend Christmas with.
We headed home late that night and tucked the girls in with promises of Santa coming after they’re asleep. And that he did.
The next morning we were woken up by wide eyed kids ready to run downstairs and see what Santa brought them.
He brought Hannah a Wii. That’s what she asked for. I had to remind her that the other gifts were from us because in her head, everything was from Santa and I was not going to have that. Who wants their kid thinking they were jipped by their parents?!
Liv got lots too but she was not in the picture taking mood so I only snapped a few pictures of her. It was so fun to watch her though because after each gift she’d want us to open it and take out the toy and then we’d hand her another gift to open and she’d set the previous one down and open THAT new gift and then want THAT one out of the package. At the end of it all she had a lap full of unopened gifts and this look on her face like “Now what?!”
And I’m sure we can all agree about how fabulous Selena Gomez is. My girl has good taste. I bought that CD for her with the intention of burning every song onto my iPhone.
Shortly after we opened gifts at home we went to The Man’s mom’s house for Christmas breakfast. The girls are pretty spoiled and so they get gifts from Santa there too AND we all get stockings from his mom. That part I do love, I must say.
Liv got this car from Santa. She loved it and pretty much sat in it the whole morning.
The girls banked this year. I can’t even begin to count how many times I smiled and said “Ohh how cool” or “Ooooh so pretty” and hugged and kissed and snapped pictures. I’ve always loved Christmas and after I had kids I loved it even more. The Man and I didn’t even get gifts for eachother this year because money was tight but that didn’t even matter. Seeing how happy the girls were was all that mattered to us.
I hope you all had a VERY Merry Christmas just like we did.
A special birthday/Christmas weekend
When I say we were busy this weekend, that is an understatement. Did I finish Christmas shopping? Nope. Have I wrapped ONE SINGLE GIFT? Nope. And yet I feel like we were non stop all weekend long. But it was a good non stop filled with family…
and famous people.
I’ll start with the famous part because I love y’all and I won’t make you wait til the end to read about it! I told y’all that we were taking Hannah to a broadway dance show. It was called Burn the Floor and it’s like a live Dancing with the Stars. We knew Mark Ballas from dancing with the stars was going to be performing in the show. In case you don’t know who he is, I’ll refresh your memory (if you even watch the show). He’s the one who won 2 seasons, one with Kristy Yamaguchi and one with that gymnast girl Sean. I don’t know her last name and I’m too lazy to look it up right now. But you remember him, right?
The show was AWESOME to say the least. Just amazing and the talent these dancers had was phenomenal. After the show we saw a group of people waiting at the stage door outside. I’ve never thought to do that before but we figured we’d get to see some of the dancers on their way out. Then it occurred to us that maybe Mark himself might come out that way. We met a few of the dancers and took some pictures and 45 minutes went by with no Mark. Just as we turned around to leave, we heard people scream and clap and sure enough, there he was. We waited patiently til he made it to us and when I say he is SO nice, I mean it. He talked to us and took pictures with us and was so freakin friendly. And my little Hannah was so starstruck and shy.
After we took this picture she told me “I think I love him more than Derek” who is her favorite professional on the show. We were all smitten by him though. He was so cute and sweet. Meeting famous dancing people FTW!
That just kicked off a mostly good weekend. Besides being peeved about The Man having to work ALL day yesterday unexpectedly, it was pretty fantastic.
I played dress up with Livie because she makes it so easy.
And Hannah had her birthday on Saturday.
We went to see Christmas lights last night, something we do every year with all the cousins. It’s always a big to do and we look forward to it.
So I’ll leave you with this video of Livie with The Man’s step dad as the videographer. She heard someone say “yee haw” on a song while we were waiting outside our favorite steak place and decided to say it over and over again. I’m proud to say, I’m raising a little Texan.
It’s almost Christmas!
Christmas continues
Our family is huge. We have a lot down here and also in Ohio. Since we don’t go back home for Christmas we don’t have QUITE as much family to see for Christmas but with that said, we still have a lot down here so we try to split up the events with different sides of the family so that all the kids can still get gifts and us adults can do fun things like white elephant gift exchanges.
Oh yeah, can’t forget to show you the outfit I had on Liv. My Etsy addiction is still in full force. I’ve given up trying to let it go.
So the kids opened their gifts and laughed while throwing wrapping paper everywhere. Few things in life are as fabulous as watching kids’ faces light up as they tear open their gifts.
I love that after things settle down and we’re back at home they still wanna be together.
Yesterday it was time to see Santa and it just so happens that The Man’s mom’s sister in law’s dad (did you catch that? lol) looks just like Santa and actually is hired for Santa gigs throughout the season. We usually go see the mall Santa but this year they had a big milk and cookies day with Santa and I couldn’t pass that up. Not to mention the fact that Hannah insists that HE is the real Santa and the one at the mall is just his helper. You can imagine how excited she was that she was going to see the real Santa after not having seen him since she was 1. She knows he’s in the family and she thinks it’s really cool that he’s around all the time off season and drives a blue truck and wears regular clothes. You would think that this would make a kid unconvinced. Not Hannah.
“Mom, he’s got real Santa glasses and a real beard. You didn’t think I’d know that but I do. I’m smarter than you think.”
She spent a good 20 minutes telling him thank you for sending her that video a few weeks ago and asking him how the reindeer are and how the elves were doing. I love that she still believes in him. That’s the magic of childhood that I so enjoy living through again and it makes me wish it was Christmas time all year long. It’s so magical.
Something else I find magical: How quickly Livie can go from happy and content to fired up and crying and upset.
We knew she’d cry this year. She’s at that age. It was still funny though even if we did expect it.
See? Magical.
Happy Christmas
Totally off topic but that John Lennon song “Happy Christmas” is one of my favorites. If you don’t know what it is, look it up. It’s fab.
Anyway, Christmas is a month long celebration in our family and since I adore Christmas, I love it all. I love that we do something every weekend for Christmas. I love that I ordered the cutest clothes for the girls on Etsy for Christmas to wear all month long. I love all the Christmas trees and decorations and Christmas foods. And this year I’m even loving that I’m shredding through the Christmas season because I swear I’ve munched and snacked much more than normal but how can I not when people walk around with delicious goodies EVERY DAMN DAY?! I’m still losing weight amazingly so even though I hate her, I love her, that Jillian Michaels.
Saturday was Hannah’s birthday party. Her birthday isn’t until the 18th but like every year, I like to have her party a few weeks before her birthday so it’s not right before Christmas. I like to separate her birthday from Christmas. It makes it more special.
This year for the first time ever I didn’t have her party at our house or my MIL’s house. She wanted to invite her school friends and it’s just too hard to have all those kids there AND family crammed into our houses. Plus this made it easier on me to not have to prepare much ahead or clean up much after AND it was 2 hours and bam, it’s done. At home parties end up being 6 or 7 hours because you decorate before and clean up after.
As always she made out with tons of gifts, including this gift we got her. The Fur Real Go GO pup that walks and barks. She’s been asking for this for months. She was so excited.
Yesterday we took the annual kids’ Christmas pictures. Every year I take about 100 pictures and maybe 10 are usable, good pictures. The rest are hilarious and we look at them over and over and laugh. There’s always a cryer which before Livie was born was The Man’s cousin’s kids but now that Livie is here she’s joined in with the cryers. There’s always one or two kids looking away and another picking their nose or grabbing their head. They’re classic. I usually don’t post pictures of other people’s kids on my blog but sometimes I have to make an exception.
This is one of those times.
This was the 1st picture I took. Right off the bat, Liv is screaming.
I love this one solely because Hannah’s head cocked to the side like that was so stinkin cute and SO her.
I really like this one of the girls and now I really wish I would have waited to design my Christmas cards til after this shoot. I assumed that I wouldn’t get one good picture of them together but I was wrong. I’m considered ordering wallets of this shot and putting them in with my Christmas cards but then I thought that 98% of the people I send cards to are on my Facebook anyway so they’ll see it.
And you know she couldn’t let the shoot go without at least one picture of that sassy face of hers. Too bad she doesn’t realize that I actually love it when she makes that face. It makes me laugh.
I hope you all had a good weekend and that you’re taking pictures of your kids this month. They’re only young once and you won’t regret having them when they’re grown.
10 days later
I had 10 days with my family. 10 days with my girls. 10 days off work.
They were a good 10 days.
The usual stresses of being back home were still there. I was annoyed at times and tired most times but it was still a good vacation and I’m already looking forward to the next time I have off work which just so happens to be Christmas weekend (5 days off for me!) and we all know how I feel about Christmas. As I type this there is Christmas music blaring and I’m humming along. I’ve been stressed at work today trying to catch up on work but I just keep singing along because it’s Christmas and dammit, I’m not letting work or stress steal my joy.
Thank you all by the way for your awesome, sweet comments last week during my meltdown. I blog for reasons just like that…because y’all swooped in and picked me up when I didn’t think it was possible to be scraped off the floor. And so with that energy I did what I needed to do at work and packed Friday evening. I will say that driving to Ohio will not be done again for LONG time. Unless there is an emergency, God forbid, I think we all agree that yes plane tickets are expensive and we DID have to drive but driving is up there is NOT happening again for a long time.
Maybe ever.
The girls fought in the back seat. Hannah complained about not being able to get comfortable. The baby whined because she couldn’t sleep well. Someone even got road rage for no reason against us and ran us off the road. It was eventful and crazy and LONG (22 hours) and yeah…not happening again for years.
But we got there safely and visited and laughed and ATE so much (gained 3.5 lbs while I was gone. HEH.) and then Thanksgiving came and went and it was fabulous.
And so after drama on our way home that involved major traffic and our trip being delayed by hours I extended my vacation one more day and took the day off yesterday. I needed it. I didn’t unpack. I didn’t clean my house. I sat around and caught up on TV shows. I even attempted some cute Christmasy type pictures in hopes that Livie would cooperate because I had this grand idea that OMG if she cooperated that I’d get Hannah in a cute Christmas outfit and attempt a cute Christmas card picture. I’m giving myself a break this year and not sending out cards but I still wanted to make one to post on Facebook and send to my mom. Well, Hannah did awesome.
But when I threw Liv into the mix…
Disaster.
So that was the end of that. We’ll try again later this week.
Maybe.
Just a quick short post to let you know I survived my trip and I’m slowly settling back into our normal. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!
Seize the day
Today has been hard for me. Anxiety levels are rising as I think about all that needs to be done at work and at home before we leave Saturday for Ohio. I’m trying to breathe through it but it’s not always that easy. I’m trying to take it one thing at a time but again, not always that easy. And so I spent my weekend among those kind of feelings. Sometimes I was laughing and breathing and taking it one thing at a time. Sometimes I was having little mental breakdowns and holding back tears thinking about how there is never enough time and I only have two hands. This whole being a mom and a wife and a secretary…trying to balance everything out and split my time…well it’s hard y’all. Very hard. I have friends tell me they have no idea how I do it all. Honestly, I have no idea either. I’m tired ALL the time. I’m stressed out most of the time. I just try to push things things to the backburner and keep on keeping on because when I look back at my life I don’t want to only remember the big stress ball that I was. I want to look back and feel proud of myself…feel like I did the best job I could most of the time with my girls and that I seized the day instead of let the day seize me. Today I felt like the day was seizing me. And at that moment I pushed work aside and edited some photos for this blog. I blog when I need to release emotions and the words just flow without much thought. So that’s what I’m doing now. Flowing. Seizing the day.
My baby is trying to write. She gets a crayon out and colors on whatever paper or in this case, dry erase board, she can find.
I see her watching Hannah all the time. She mimics her reading her books or coloring and even talking. It seems like she’s doing everything sooner than Hannah because she has Hannah to watch. She wants to be just like her. Isn’t that how it always ends up?
Of course Hannah takes her own liberties in being the big sister and I let her when it comes to trivial things like giving Livie bunny ears. Rite of passage, right? I never had a big sister. I’m the oldest so I don’t know what it’s like but I imagine that it must be pretty cool to have someone who may pick on you but loves you as much as your parents do and looks out for you just as much without all the mom and dad responsiblities like punishing you or making you do chores.
And among the photo shoot and our date night out, we found time to decorate for Christmas.
Oh yes, you read right. I realize it’s only the middle of November. But we are leaving for Ohio this weekend and we won’t be back til Sunday afternoon NEXT weekend. The weekend after that is Hannah’s birthday party and another photo shoot. That would have put me to December 11 to have time to decorate and um yeah, that’s WAY too late. So we did it early again this year.
I tell you what. There is nothing like having the tree shining in the living room. Last night we had all the lights off except the tree, turned the fire on, and cuddled on the couch with wine under the blankets as our babies slept upstairs. It was so cozy and comfy and MAN I live for nights like that. My favorite kind of nights.
By the way, Livie is scared of the Christmas tree. I knew it’d all be new to her this year because last year she wasn’t even a year old. It’s amazing how much they grow in a year. She spent the evening hollering at the tree and saying “HOT!” and “UGHHHHH” and pointing to it while babbling in an angry tone. It was hilarious and also a relief because we worried she’d be destroying the tree the second we turned our heads. That’s not the case. It’s quite the opposite.
So while I was busy this weekend, I lived this weekend. We all did. And while I’m so excited for Thanksgiving next week and Christmas next month, I’m glad we found time for this:
I hope you did too.
Subscribe
You Know You Want It
I support
