Fold My Laundry Please

A long time ago on a blog post far, far away…

I am officially done with my Christmas cards!  Yeah, you heard me, I’m awesome!  I got most of them done the day after Thanksgiving, but there were a few that I needed to get updated addresses for and today the last one is going out in the mail!  Yay me!  I used to get all my cards done the day after Thanksgiving every year.  Then I had children and I would do a few the day after, some the next day, some more the next, etc.  until I was mailing out the last of them in the last day or two before Christmas.  This year I was determined to get them out of the way so that I wasn’t mailing cards that had jelly smeared on the envelopes again.  And I’m done!  I had a lot of "help" from the peanut gallery, but I also have several cards in my card stash that no longer have envelopes to fit them, so I let the kids do their own cards while I did mine and I was able to get them all done in one fell swoop! 

When I went to the post office to buy stamps, I fully expected to get some sort of Christmas theme stamps like I do every year, but this year they offered me these really cool DC Comics stamps and I just had to get those instead!  Aren’t they awesome?

Now its time to get my decorations up and get Christmas shopping out of the way.  Is it odd that I love to give presents that people will love, but I hate doing the actual shopping?  We’re heading down to Idaho Falls today to take Ethan to Toys R Us so that he can pick out a birthday present with the birthday money Grandma sent him.  Maybe we’ll stop at the mall and see about getting a picture with Santa while we’re in town.  I’m not sure how Aurora will react to that, though.  She’s pretty skeptical of strangers still, but we’ll see.  Have a great day, everyone!

If it wasn’t bad enough that Ethan is getting ready to turn 5 years old this Saturday, he just informed me that one of his teeth is loose.  I gave it a little wiggle and it’s definitely coming out soon.  When did my little baby get so big?  It seems like just yesterday that Andrew and I hung around the hospital, nervously haunting the NICU while Ethan lay there in his basinette with tubes and wires sticking out of him all over.  When he was a week old, we had 7 rolls of film developed, all pictures of our new little boy.  We would spend hours happily sitting on the floor with him picking out toy after toy and watching his little round face erupt in grins with each new treasure.  I remember watching my little 10 month old boy standing in the library’s reading room next to his little girlfriend while the two of them happily clapped their hands and danced along with the songs the librarian sang to the kids.  And now suddenly he’s going to turn 5 years old and lose his first tooth.  When did he even have time to get so big?  And what’s the going rate for the Tooth Fairy nowadays, anyway?

I just took a peek at the temperature outside before stepping out to get some milk out of the refrigerator in the garage.  It’s 2 degrees outside!  Two!  And the high for today is supposed to scream all the way up to 19!  Break out the suntan lotion everyone, it’s gonna be a scorcher!  Yeah, I don’t think the snow we got yesterday is going anywhere until spring.

…And on your face, your hands, your shirt, and your high chair!

Snow is coming down hard and fast outside today and I’m feeling very Christmas-y today.  I saw this Meme on Txmommy’s blog, Too Many to Count, and had to do it, too!  Feel free to join in!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Definitely both!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrap…it’s no fun if you don’t have paper to tear off.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?  Colored!!  And twinkly!! 

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.  Too many little people in the house for mistletoe since it’s poisonous and I don’t like the way the fake stuff looks.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Right after Thanksgiving.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Mashed Yams

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Waking up at 4 am on Christmas morning and sneaking out of my bedroom to get my stocking and bring it back to my bedroom, stopping for a few minutes to look at how beautiful the tree looked, sparkling in the dark with tons of pretty presents underneath it.

8. How and When did you learn the truth about Santa? I don’t remember a specific moment of revelation.  I guess I kind of still believe in him!

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Colored lights and a mix of ornaments gathered over the years.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it! I grew up in Phoenix where snow is a fairy tale that mothers tell their children about at bedtime!  Now I live in Idaho and get my fill of it every year.

12. Can you ice skate? Yes, I used to skate competetively when I was younger.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? The best gifts are always the fun ones!

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Being surrounded by the people I love.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? The cookies!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Helping Santa Claus set up the presents under the tree on Christmas Eve.

17. What tops your tree? A star that lights up.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? I love giving, especially to my kids.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? O’ Holy Night, sung by just about anyone!

This is one of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes.  And after seeing all the yams Aurora ate yesterday (it was, in fact, the only thing she would eat yesterday) I can safely say she loves it, too.

Ingredients:

• 1 29 oz. can of yams
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup cream
• 2 large handfuls of small white marshmallows

Directions:

• Put all ingredients into a large saucepan on medium heat.
• Use a fork to roughly mash up the yams and to mix up the ingredients.
• Cook until butter and marshmallows are all melted. 
• Put in a serving dish and sprinkle some marshmallows on top to make it pretty.

Can I just say that I am totally excited about this movie coming out?  I AM TOTALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE COMING OUT!!!  This book has been my favorite in the series so far and I’ve been waiting for this for a loooooong time!  In fact, I’ve had the release date (July 13th, 2007 for you muggles out there) marked on my calendar for quite some time now.  And today I found out that the teaser trailer for the movie has been released!  WOOHOO!  So here it is for all to enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I managed to get all my cookies done yesterday.  Yay!  5 different types of cookies all to be lovingly enjoyed by friends and family today!  We’ll be going over to Andrew’s parents house today along with his sister, Stephanie, and her husband and two children.  It’s going to be a lot of fun and the kids all have a blast whenever they have a chance to see their cousins.  Here’s some pictures of all the cookies I baked over the past few days because you can never talk about food too much on Thanksgiving Day!

Angel Kisses:  Meringue cookies with a Hershey’s Kiss hidden inside

Black and Whites:  Chocolate cookies coated in powdered sugar before baking

Chocolate Covered Cherry Delights:  A chocolate cookies with a cherry pressed into it and then covered with chocolate sauce.

PB & J Cookies:  Peanut butter cookies with your choice of jelly flavors in the center.  These are apple and strawberry.

And of course, you gotta have Chocolate Chip!

And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here are 5 things I am thankful for:

1. My Family
2. Pumpkin Pie
3. Parades
4. Snow
5. All of you!!!

Have a safe and blessed holiday weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

I. am. tired.

I ‘ve been baking cookies what feels like non stop the past three days.  In between I’ve had to fit in trips to the doctor, the video store, the grocery store, etc.  And when your 4 year old begs you to help straighten up his toy closet, you know its in bad shape!  (My darling little baby girl loves to take all of the perfectly organized bins and dump them on the floor, making it both easier to see what’s in the bin and harder to walk into the closet!)  We also decided to rearrange our living room this past week, which meant an entire day was spent dusting behing things we couldn’t reach before, vacuuming under things the vacuum couldn’t get under before, and finding new homes for all of the junk we had stored in different places.  Generally it was a whole lot of huffing and puffing and there is still a small pile of things temporarily lying next to my desk awaiting their final destinations.  Today’s agenda includes finishing up two more batches of cookies, vacuuming the upstairs finishing up the laundry I started yesterday, cleaning the kitchen (baking wreaks havoc on the kitchen), and cleaning up the den area.  Somewhere in all of that, I’ve got to fit in preschool for the kids (today we’re learning about scarecrows and turkeys and all things Thankgiving).  All so that I can wake up tomorrow morning and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade without even thinking about having to cook (except for the mashed yams to bring to my mother-in-laws house, but that’s quick and easy…and it involves marshmallows!) or having to clean. 

I. am. tired.