Christmas

The pictures are pretty self-explanatory, so I'm not going to say too much about them. We had a wonderful Christmas. I even really enjoyed being at Church at 8:30 Christmas morning. They had a beautiful program and even had me wishing that Christmas was on Sunday every year because it brought the perfect spirit to the day. My parents were able to be with us and that made it extra special.
The kids got to open their Christmas pjs from grandma and grandpa on Christmas eve plus the presents that we all bought for the person whose name we drew. At some point in the night Santa came and filled the stocking and left gifts for all of the kids. Nate got a computer game and a glow in the dark ant farm (we are waiting for his ants to arrive) Bryce and Abby both got a 3DS. plus Bryce got a pogo stick and Abby got a game. Gracie got a real guitar and a camera and McKay got a tent and a pogo stick. Santa was I'm sure very grateful that nothing required assembly. After ohhhing and ahhhhing over what Santa brought we opened the rest of our gifts to each other. Sammy got some new golf clubs and clothes. I got a hand gun, ya you read that right, and a supper cute pair of new running shoes, oh and a safe for the hand gun. Nate got a .22 rifle (also not a typo, I'm not sure what has come over us.) Bryce got a 3 wheel skate board thingy. Abby and Gracie got jewelry boxes and McKay got a remote control car, just to name a few. So as usual we were all completely spoiled but I have to say we really were good this year.

How did we accomplish all of this and make it to church by 8:30, with the girls hair curled might I add? Well we were awake at 4:30 am, I guess we were too excited to sleep!

In January 2010 I vowed to find my inner runner. I caught a few brief glimpses of her that year, but in 2011 I think I actually found her. Now, don't mistake my having found her with my having gained a firm hold on her. The fact is she's fickle and illusive, but I now have concrete proof that she does exist, and for now I'm considering that a success. 333.1 miles of success to be precise. I didn't make it to Salt Lake City, but I made it well into Utah and that's pretty far. I'm changing my goals a bit for 2012. Due to a foot injury I will be taking it easy with the running for a while, and recommitting to aerobics. I still want to run at least once a week but I'm not committing to any races for a while. Mostly I need to focus on nutrition. The truth is I eat like crap most of the time. I want/need to change that. Any who, I'll post details on all of our goals soon. Oh ya, and maybe a Christmas post too, but in case you were wondering the magic won out over the crazy. It was a great Christmas!

Christmas season is such a tug of war for me. I'm being pulled in half by my desire to make everything magical and wonderful and my desire to run screaming into the street and throw myself in front of a large truck. I'm not even exaggerating for dramatic effect. This is for real here people.
Today day started with playing in the snow with the kids, followed by hot cocoa and the baking of cookies but somehow by 1:00 the day was full of screaming and maybe swearing, maybe even the really bad words and also the hanging up on my husband. Let me tell you how that conversation went.
Back ground- Sam took my car today to get some things fixed on it.
Me: Did you leave me keys to your car?
Sam: Yea, I left them on the stairs in the garage.
Me: (a little confused because, come on, that's a stupid place to leave keys) On the stairs in the garage?
Sam: (heavy with attitude) Uh, yea. on. the. stairs. in. the. garage.
Me: CLICK

Seriously, not even a whole pouch of Pirouettes can save me from my bad mood right now.
It all started with the stupid snow putting me in the Christmas spirit and making me decide that maybe I would send out Christmas cards this year. After nearly 2 hours of trying to make the perfect Christmas card, I realized that wasn't going to happen today and I just settled on one and placed my order. Then I looked at it again and some how the picture on the card was now blurry. I swear it wasn't before. Then Sam called and I had him look at the cards to see what he thought, and he thought that they were not only blurry but that the word Christmas was misspelled. Then the trash man came and I with no coat on had to drag the trash cans through two feet of snow. Then I called the card company to at least get my typo fix because, you know, it's a Christmas card, so maybe the word Christmas should be spelled correctly. Then I called Sam back and he pointed out that Breckenridge was also spelled incorrectly and I said something like "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! I don't even give a $#!*". And then we had the conversation about the keys. I should probably call him back, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure I'm doing him a favor by not calling him back.
Tonight we will probably listen to Christmas music while we eat our elf houses and drink more hot cocoa. That will probably be followed by more screaming over something that doesn't really matter and everyone being sent to bed early. I can't wait.

things i'm bad at

okay, let's just focus on one thing that I'm bad at for now... birthdays. I decided a long time ago that with a whole herd of children I would not be throwing big blow out birthday parties for every kid, every year. I decided on a few birthdays that we would do something extra special, like 4 and 8 and 12 and 16, and the rest of the birthdays we would just do something small as a family to mark the occasion. I felt good about this plan. It seemed doable. All of the kids got a party when they turned 4, except McKay, which was fine, I decided to do it when he was 5 which now seems to make more sense to me anyway. He turned 5 on November 16th and I have not yet begun to plan his party. Oh, and did I mention that I forgot him at preschool on his birthday. Yap, I picked up Bryce and Abby and Gracie from their school and then just came home. Nate got a party when he turned 8 but not 12, he might get one for 13, probably not. I flaked on Bryce's 8th birthday but made up for it on his 9th. I seriously have no memory of whether or not I gave Abby an 8th or 9th birthday party. Gracie will be 8 in 4 months, we'll see what happens. It's not just the parties that I suck at though. I also usually don't get around to buying gifts until the day of their birthday and then I don't have time to wrap them so we hide them behind our backs then hand them to the birthday boy or girl. I've only made 2 or 3 birthday cakes in my life. Usually I buy them and more often than not I for get to get candles. Or if there are candles I can't find a lighter so we just pretend to blow them out. I have very few pictures of the kid's birthdays too. Which is probably for the best now that I think about it. I read about and see other people's family birthday traditions; home made cakes, letting a helium balloon go with a special birthday wish, decorating the house with signs and streamers, having fun parties and you know that crazy tradition of blowing out candles and the one where the gifts are actually wrapped and I feel... well...stressed. I want to do those things. I want to have fun, special birthday traditions but just the thought of it stresses me to like, the billionth degree. The good part is that my kids don't seem to mind. The sad part is that my kids don't seem to mind. Any who, next week on "Things I'm Bad At" we'll be discussing laundry and cleaning house in general.