We had our wonderful across-the-street-neighbors, Freddy and Christie, over to watch the game last night. We had a great time visiting while attempting to avoid eye contact with the horrible carnage happening in New Orleans.
One of the things we discussed was our New Year’s Eve nights. They told us that they had another couple over, who commented when they walked in, “What’s up with your neighbors?!? It looks like they got overrun by a swarm of Minivans!!”.
Now we all know the minivan stigma. You know, loaded down with kids, no fun, total “Mommy and Daddy” mode.
But, for the record,
Who went to sleep before midnight?
That would be the couple with no minivan and no kids.
And whose last guests pulled away in their minivan at 2:15AM?
Uh huh. Minivanners can have fun too.
Not that I’m ready to take on that stigma myself, but I’m just sayin’. . .
Minivanners everywhere, Unite!!(I would do the minivanner’s gang symbol here, but since I’m not in the club yet, I don’t know it.)
I’ve never understood the parting of hair. As a child, it confused me greatly. Apparently, crooked parts were a pet peeve of my Mom’s, and so she was always telling me to “go fix your part!”. Since I didn’t know how, I would just go look in the mirror, brush my hair straight back, and miraculously it would somehow fall into a straighter line than in which it started.
Enough to satisfy Mom, anyway.
She also used to tell me that I had a double crown, and that my Great-Grandmother said that everyone that had a double crown in our family was rich. First of all, I had no idea what a double crown was (I’m still not too sure, but I THINK it means that I have two circles on the back of my head), but I always liked thinking as a kid that I was “destined” to be rich.
I’ll let you know if that happens.
Anyway, I’m still not the world’s greatest hair parter. My bangs never want to cooperate with where my hairdresser showed me to part my hair for optimal style, so I’m constantly licking my fingers and sticking them back into place (I know, spit is super expensive hair “product”. But if the product doesn’t work, ya gotta resort to what you have with you!). Every now and then, they actually work right and it never fails that someone asks if I got my hair cut or if I’m doing something different with my hair. I have to admit that no, today was just the one day my hair decided to do what it was supposed to do!
Ali also has a parting quirk. In the morning, her hair is parted on the left side, with all of her bangs swooping to the right. I put her bow in to keep her increasingly-growing-longer bangs out of her eyes. At naptime, I take her bow out. When she wakes up, her hair is always the opposite. It is parted on the right with all of her bangs swooping to the left. So, alas, her bow goes on the other side of her head.
In fact, you might can even tell if a picture was pre or post naptime by where her bow is in her hair. I went back into my picture archives, and was actually able to find illustration (believe it or not, it took a while to find two pictures in the same day on either side of her nap):
Pre-nap: Post-nap: Alas. . .quirky parts run in the family.
We had an absolutely AWESOME time with our Small Group on Wednesday night. We had them all over to our house for a casual New Year’s party. All of the couples came but one, which added up to 10 adults and 11 kids (it’s always great to be outnumbered). However, all of the kiddos were in bed by 8:45, but not after having a bunch of fun.
I used my juicer to experiment with my current favorite treat, Moe’s Tomatillo Salsa (I’ve already informed Chris that the next time I’m pregnant, this is what I will crave). I got a list of things that go into Tomatillo sauce off of the internet and just mixed them until it was somewhat right. . . and it wasn’t too bad!! Here’s what it looked like: hmm. . . it tastes better than it looks on camera. Trust me.
The boys, of course, loved Ali’s train set. AJ got comfy in the chair: Brooks and Claire cooked us a delicious dinner: I love how all of the kids arrive pre-jammied. It’s like having a pajama party!
AJ and Benjamin had a terribly dangerous game of “push the ball two feet back and forth”, and Titus showed off his amazing hair with his shampoo commercial head shake: Our living room takes on a whole new aura with 11 kids running around: But no one noticed. After all, all the adults retreated to the kitchen: So after we got all of the kids tucked in to every crevice and hole in the house, we set off to adult activities.
That’s right, Wii Fit.
Greg showed us his moves with a Hula Hoop. He definitely needs to audition for a night job of belly dancing. Chuck dominated in Soccer ball heading. Along with a few cleats to the head, of course: We had to move the balance board back for Jarrod, or the light fixture would have definitely come down: Lydia soared in the ski jump with her perfect posture: And David showed off his manly strength by doing push-ups. And, as we always try to provide a safe and edifying environment within our small group, Greg and Julie worked out some natural marital stress with the help of Wii Boxing: It was fun enough that Chris and I didn’t get to bed until 3AM! Graciously, Ali let us sleep in until 9:45. I do love that kid!
After finally dragging ourselves out of bed, we headed to Mom and Dad’s for a traditional New Year’s dinner.
Ali and Eli had a great conversation about the ins and outs of doll-housing: . . .until I interrupted to snap some photos. “Moooooom, can’t you leave us alonnne?!?!?”
We took a lovely walk after lunch to see a new discovery of their property, a rock overhanging the creek about 30 feet up. It’s amazing how much motherhood changes your perspective. Three years ago, I would have boldly walked right out to the edge of the cliff and sat down with my legs dangling off the edge. I adored heights.
But instead, I found myself standing there, scared to death and holding on for dear life, envisioning every terrible thing that could happen to my precious baby.
Luckily, she didn’t inherit my daredevilish streak. The whole time we were on the rock, she was saying, “be careful, Pop. Pop sit carefully. Be careful.”
I know, I’m cutting it really close here to starting the new year off on the wrong blogging foot!! I have about a half hour left to get this post published! But we’ve had a busy couple of days, which I’ll fill you in on tomorrow.
But for now, I needed to do a cliche New Year’s post. The force was too strong to resist.
I have been thinking about 2008 and all that happened throughout the year for the past couple of days. Reflection is always helpful for planning and goalsetting for the next year.
So obviously, my goal for next year is to stay out of the emergency room. And to be in good health on all holidays and birthdays.
But, from my reflections, here are my top 6 and bottom 4 moments of 2008. Oh yeah, and the top 7 most bloggable moments of 2008.
Top 6 of 2008:
Ali getting a new cousin, Eli! She so dearly adores him – after we had Christmas with all of her second cousins, she was jabbering on and on about each one of them, and so I asked her who her favorite cousin was. Without missing a beat, she shouted, “Cousin Eli!!!”.
Ali learning to walk, and the hilarious events that finally brought it to fruition. It proved that my child has a bit of her mother’s stubborn streak. Oh yeah, and a double dose of that perfectionism streak from Mommy and Daddy. It’s less of a streak and more of a double yellow line.
All of our great friends that we have grown so much closer to this year. I look back 5, 10 years ago (and really even 3 years ago!), and we had hardly any close friends. Now we have an abundance of such rich relationships. I am so thankful for these!
Blogging. Wow – it has added so much to my life. It’s crazy to say that – it seems so shallow. But the depth of thought processes it has brought out, the family records that are even now books (the closest I’ll ever come to scrapbooking!), and most importantly, through the daily connections that I have with other people (something that I missed terribly when coming home to be a SAHM) has enriched my life more than I can express!
Mine and Chris’ trips by ourselves – they were so awesome! We went to Kiawah Island for our Anniversary and Atlanta twice. Especially the first Atlanta trips, with our multiple adventures!!
We had some great beach trips as a family this year, especially the ones that were enriched by going with other people. We went with David, Ashley and AJ on one trip, with Chris’ Dad on another trip, and of course had a few great trips down to visit with Kitty and Leo. They were all such awesome trips!
My record number of ER visits this year. Three. All on major holidays, of course. Can you count them? One, Two, Three!!
My Birthday. I really look forward to a good, special birthday every year, and spending this year’s barely being able to move after the torturous ravaging of a stomach virus was NOT my idea of a good birthday.
7 Most Bloggable Moments of 2008:
Although my ER visits made it into the bottom 4, My extreme sleepwalking injury and corresponding 3AM ER visit still has to be the most bloggable moment of the year. I mean, how many people does that happen to?
The “Crazies” and the Greek Adventure from our first Atlanta trip. I know, already mentioned in the top, but our adventures there were just too rich not to be in this list as well.
Chris has this quirky habit of when he is pointing to something (especially to something on a piece of paper), he uses his middle finger. I have noticed that his Dad does it too.
Chris says that it is more comfortable, especially when moving your hand around large drawings (i.e. at work). A bit weird, if you ask me.
However, it must be genetic. Ali has started using her middle finger to point to things. She points to things on paper just like Daddy, even though I don’t think she has seen him do it (as he has broken the habit quite a bit in the last few years, which I’m sure has nothing to do with me teasing him about it).
She decided to ramp up her pointing skillz while we were bike riding the other day, She was pointing to people, while talking to them, with her middle finger.
Nice.
When doing the Punnett’s squares and figuring out what our child would be like, I never considered the middle-pointing-finger gene.
Ali discovered an old chunky Lip Pencil long ago, and has always pulled it out of my drawer and played with it while I put on my makeup in the morning: She calls it “Ali’s lipstick”, and pretends to put it on. Since it is pretty dry and her lips are always very wet, it’s never stuck. Just a “pretend”. Until yesterday: Her demure makeup model pose: And although her lipstick skills left a lot to be desired, I was relieved to see that she was still her organized little self when I came into the room and found her play-doughs arranged by color and categorized by whether they had words on the top or not: Oh yes, she’s my child alright.
Check out my Other Wordless Wednesday at B-Sides!! Check out everyone else’s at 5 Minutes for Mom!
As I told you yesterday, we haven’t made any sort of resolutions for the New Year, but have found ourselves enjoying being healthier due to a couple of Christmas Presents that we received. Yesterday, I wrote about my super fun juicer. Today, I’m going to write about Chris’ Wii Fit.
Kitty and Leo gave the Wii Fit set to Chris for Christmas (and, ironically, we gave one to them – both by request of course), and we have been LOVING IT!! It is actually so much more fun than I thought it would be – I have to admit I’m more than a little addicted to it.
In an attempt to be a bit less wordy than I was yesterday, I am going to do it in the form of top 7/bottom 2:
Wii Fit Top 7:
The games are actually fun – not just working out. Games like soccer ball heading, tightrope walking, hula hooping (which I’m the Queen at right now – my record is over 3000 hoops in 10 minutes – “Calorie Incinerator” – That’s me!), and silly games like being in a penguin fish and having to slide back and forth to catch fish:(That’s Chris’ Mii in the Penguin costume, by the way.)
The games that are more traditional exercise, like running and step aerobics, are made much more fun by having all of our Mii characters doing it along with us. For instance, we’ll be out on a “run” around the island, and since we had 20+ Mii characters made (of all of our friends and family) before we even got Wii fit, they will run past us, be cheering from the sidelines, trip and fall on their face, etc. These aren’t the greatest pictures in the world, but for instance: Nick in the left corner, me in the green shirt on the right side: AJ coming up on the left, Christie passing Chris on the right: This is the final picture of everyone greeting and cheering, including me, Papa (Chris’ Dad), Mammaw, Brad, and Ali:
FEEDBACK, FEEDBACK, FEEDBACK!! Okay – you know how I love my charts and graphs. This game has amazing charts and graphs of your exercise, weight, BMI, activities – everything you could want. But better than that is the feedback you get while exercising. The Balance board is extraordinarily sensitive and can tell if you are doing the activities just right or not, and gives you immediate feedback and points based on your actual performance. That way, you learn to do it better than you could ever do by being at a class or watching a video.
Competition – It keeps the top 10 spots and lets you see who’s the best. Being that we are a very competitive family, this keeps Chris and I busy always trying to knock each other off the top spot in each game.
Ali thinks its a great TV show to watch! Especially with all the Mii’s – she recognizes them and loves it! This morning, the first thing she asked to do when we got downstairs is to “watch Mommy play Maro” (All Wii is Mario to her). She even requests specific games, like “Hit soccer balls!! Catch fish!! Dance with Daddy! Hool Hoop!”. It’s a much needed break from Thomas and Friends for me, as well.
It works – I’m super sore!
It’s hilarious to watch each other play. L: Like my hula skillz? Here’s Chris and Ali dancing in the background after throwing me all of my hoops:and. . .
Wii Fit Bottom 2:
Almost all of it is one player at a time. But that’s not too bad, because like I said, it’s fun to watch each other play, and you really need a break after some of the more vigorous exercises! We take 15 minute “turns”.
I’m sore!!! Oh yeah. . . that was a top 7 one as well.
So – I highly recommend it! It’s TONS of fun, and a great workout!
I am not one to make health-related New Year’s Resolutions. I sometimes do write an all-encompassing goal sheet for my life in the upcoming year, but as far as saying “starting January 1st, I’m going on a diet! And exercising!!” – That’s not me.
However, Chris and I got one Christmas present each that have become immediate motivators for a healthier lifestyle, and at the moment (four days after Christmas, albeit), we are super pumped about them and the possibilities that they bring to the table.
So I’m going to tell you about them, one at a time.
Today is my present: a Juicer. Chris’ Mom and Dad gave it to me, and I have become increasingly excited about it since I received it. When coming up with ideas for Christmas presents, I put that on my list, because it had been something that I was mildly interested in as an idea. However, now that I actually have one, I am hooked.
The idea of a juicer is that fruit and vegetable juice loses it’s nutrients (and flavor) quickly, so the fresher you make it, the more nutrients you’re getting. Plus, with a good juicer, you get much more of the fruit made into the juice (and it is juice, not pulp), so it is very filling as well.
And, it is fairly easy, because for most fruits and vegetables, you stick the entire, whole fruit/veggie into the juicer, seeds and all.
So today, I have my first few juicing experiments and corresponding results, in pictoral form, of course.
Here is my beloved juicer: And my pile O’ produce (ironically purchased at Wal-Mart. Though I have a juicer, Hippy I am not. Yet.) My first juice consisted of an apple, a pear, an orange, and a handful of grapes. You put the fruits in, softest to hardest. Here’s my grape juice coming out: The orange juice coming out onto my grape juice (aren’t all the colors pretty?) And my final mixture: Ali was more than willing to give it a try, and she immediately proclaimed it yummy. I then took the pulp – what was left over after every milliliter of juice was squeezed out – and attempted to make homemade fruit roll-ups. My mom made these when we were kids with her canning leftovers, so I thought I’d give it a try: I was very proud of myself that the only product I wasn’t going to be using out of my fruits was the orange peel, and this pile of leftovers, which included a hard part of pear skin, the pear stem, and the plastic label that I apparently forgot to peel off of the pear (oops):And, although my fruit roll-up came out beautifully, it didn’t taste good at all. Juicing Lesson 1 learned: When juicing, oranges don’t produce good pulp, because everything comes out tasting like bitter orange seeds. Ah well. At least the juice was delicious!
So then it was time to try some Veggie juice. Now Chris liked my fruit juice, but I figured he may or may not like the veggie juice. However, I love juice, including vegetable juices like V-8, so I was looking forward to trying it. So I got out my next set of ingredients: And went to work. Pretty tomato juice: Pretty cucumber juice: Very orange carrot juice: And mixed together, they made an unappetizing, somewhat dirty putrid orange/brown color: And, although Ali and I drank it and Ali even proclaimed it “deelishus!!”, I was disappointed that it wasn’t that great. I mean, it was drinkable, but I wouldn’t call it delicious, by any shot. Chris tried it and said it wasn’t terrible, and that he would drink it medicinally if called for.
The next day, I very scientifically juiced them all separately again, then did different mixes to try and figure out what the offending agent was, or what the magical mixture was: Again, I was unable to find a suitable mix.
However, I am very happy to report that less than an hour ago, I discovered the secret to yummy vegetable juice: A lemon!! Oh my goodness it was so much better. It was actually delicious! Just what I had hoped. Lesson #2 learned (and, by the way, thanks Kitty and Leo for leaving me those lemons from your tree – they were my veggie juicing lifesaver!!).
As far as my veggie pulp, it’s going into a baggie for Mom’s Chickens (assuming she wants it or doesn’t have a better idea of what to do with it: So, in wrap-up, my favorite item in juice so far – definitely a pomegranate, especially mixed with grapes, apples, and/or blueberries: Lesson #3 learned: don’t juice frozen blueberries. They will not juice. But if you do juice frozen blueberries, don’t put the slush back through the juicer again in hopes that it will come out as juice!!! Your kitchen will be entirely and completely covered with blueberry shrapnel: And finally, since I’m sure you’re wondering when I’m going to wrap up this post, no infomercial is complete without a video testimonial:
Hi, my wonderful readers!! I’m so glad to see you back!!
A lot of you have been gone for some or all of the Christmas holidays, but I’ve been as overly chatty as ever (despite the overwhelming echo around here – I’ve missed you all terribly!! **sniff sniff**). So I figured that you probably don’t all want to go back and read EVERYTHING I’ve written (but if you did I would just be flushed with flattery), so I decided I’d give you a short summary of what’s been posted in the last week so that you know what you’re missing, and if it sounds interesting, you can go check it out!!
#1 post that I’d say is un–missable: All I Want for Christmas is Some Toenail Art. That’s right, if you’ve been reading for a while, you’re familiar with the toenail art saga. This post has this year’s addition, and the artist of the work might surprise you.
As far as news flashes go, be sure to go here to find out the latest goings ons in my family/friend’s lives. Including news of a new family member on the way!
Gagging at the Gifts includes a recap of the “gag” game of Dirty Santa that we played with my extended family. There were some pretty entertaining gifts, so I’d say this post is readable.
Here’s an overview of the Red Mountain Music Concert last week, starring Ashley (AJ’s mommy). It was a great show!
My Wordless Wednesday post had some random picture stories, mostly holiday related, and hopefully entertaining.
Thankful Thursday focused on how and why we should Honor Christ and thank Him for His gifts.
This post shows some of Ali’s Christmas “artwork” in the form of quite scary Christmas Cards.
Of course, there was the ever-necessary and blooper-filled Christmas Recap post.
A short post about what we did with the beautiful day that was Saturday.
I’ve been trying to decode a very important and urgent sentence that Ali has been saying all weekend long. She is quite insistent that we need to understand, and we can’t figure it out for the life of us.
It’s kind of like trying to figure out a vanity plate on a car – it’s just out of reach of putting the puzzle together and making perfect sense.
Tissue with mine?? Miss you with mine?? Kiss you mith mine??
The first time she brought this urgent matter to our attention, I had asked her to repeat it about 20 times when she finally shook her head in frustration and surrender and said, “uh uh. All done.”
Ali is typically not a very mischievous child. She rarely outright disobeys, doesn’t put things in her mouth that aren’t supposed to go there, doesn’t run away from me when we’re out in public, doesn’t spill things, and is very careful in general.
For some reason, though, she had a very mischievous day on Saturday.
It started out after breakfast. I was cleaning up, and Chris was also in the kitchen. She informed us that she was going to go play Thomas in the living room, so we said okay and didn’t think much about it.
She came back in the room 5 minutes later, joyously proclaiming, “AJ’s!! AJ’s!!”
I turn around from the sink and see that she had AJ’s Christmas present, completely unwrapped, proudly displayed in her little hands.
Now obviously, she knows that she isn’t allowed to unwrap presents without permission, and she also knew that the particular present she unwrapped was for AJ (before and after she unwrapped it). It is one of those puzzling moments as a parent, because you’re trying to figure out what motivated your toddler (as if it was going to be logical or something) to do what they did. Due to the fact that she wasn’t hiding her deed – she was quite proud of it in fact – we couldn’t help but think that she thought she was doing AJ a favor or something. Or maybe the joyousness of opening presents just caught her in a stranglehold and she couldn’t resist.
But of course, she had disobeyed, and so we reprimanded her and explained that she wasn’t supposed to do that and why, etc.
She was very remorseful and apologized to me and Chris and gave us hugs, then went back into the living room. She came back a minute later and said, “Told Oreo sorry too.”
To skip ahead to today for a second, several times throughout the day, she said matter-of-factly and confessionally, “Ali opened AJ’s present.”
Back to Saturday night, her impishness flared again while we were out to eat with Amanda. Chris had gotten Ali some little pickles in a plastic cup, of which she ate voraciously.
She wanted more pickles, and so she was thrusting her plastic cup at me and saying “More pickles! More pickles!!”. I can only hope that her hand got ahead of her coordination, and she managed to splash ALL of her pickle juice ALL OVER my face. Total coverage.
I’m hoping that was some sort of natural beauty treatment also.
It was so hilarious that I couldn’t help but laugh, and everyone else (including her) joined in.
I mean, if you can’t laugh with pickle juice dripping off your face, then life just isn’t worth living.
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