Twas The Night Before Christmas….

And the mom screwed up the Christmas presents….. 

Santa can't sneak by ME!

I thought I’d be smart this year, since the kids claimed to have discovered their presents before Christmas last year, and I had everything sent to work, then we loaded them into Mrs. P’s van, went to church, sent Jeremy and Tim out in the snow to take the presents out of her van and put them in the back of the white truck (Gabe’s dad’s). I even hurriedly pointed to it, since it was freezing and snowing and I was trying to keep from busting my arse in my boots…no, not the warm winter ones, the 3 inch high heeled ones….

A bit later, Gabe’s dad came back in and said “There is nothing in the back of my truck, are you sure you put them in the RIGHT truck?”. Panic! Ran out to look for the truck I’d pointed out, it was gone. Luckily, I know what pretty much everyone drives and was pretty sure we’d put them in Jim’s truck, rather than some total stranger who’d shown up for the Christmas Eve service. I tried calling Jim from church but they weren’t home yet, Jeremy said we should just go home and go get them after the kids went to sleep. So, we loaded up, went home, called Jim, he’d found them, but there seemed to be one missing. I called Mrs P to see if we’d left one in her van, and we had. 

So, completely exhausted, Jeremy and I dragged our butts off the couch at 1 am, after the kids had fallen asleep in the living room floor (trying to catch Santa in action) and headed out. It had snowed 18 additional inches during that time though and was still coming down hard, the roads hadn’t been plowed. What to do? The kids can’t not have Christmas just because Mom is a blonde! 

So we putted along, in 4wd the whole way, unsure if we could even make it up the hill to Jim’s house, let alone up the hill to Mrs P’s house also. We did though, it went off without a hitch and we pulled back up my driveway at about 2 am. Unfortunately, at that point, we couldn’t make it back up and had to carry everything up. 

By the time we got up here, got settled in, got everything wrapped and under the tree (with the kids still sleeping in the floor), it was after 4 am.  At about 5:15, Gabe came screaming up to say that Santa had come and could we open presents? I pulled him into bed with me and managed to milk an extra hour or so before we had to go face the music. The absolute ecstatic excitement of the kids was well worth the trip though. Next year I’ll have to come up with a better plan!

 

Santa can't get by ME either, and if he does, my guard dog (puppy) will surely wake up!

 

What?? How'd THAT happen?

 

The stockings were hung from the....wall....with care....

Rockband for the wii! Drums included!

 

2 Nintendo DS's!

 

Is it? Is it? It is! It is ALMOST a full smile! He's been wanting a PSP for YEARS!

Santa brought Jeremy a new watch!

 

That didn't take long...

 

Clean up the mess? What mess? I have a DS and that is all that I care about!

Kid Funnies, Part III

Clayton seems to be my biggest source of amusement lately, last night I asked him to get me the 9×13 pan out, for the blackberry cobbler I was making and he replied with “but….I don’t have anything to measure with!”.  

Even that isn’t as good as the one he just pulled. You see, I had sent Clayton and Elizabeth both to bed because they were acting up and I just figured they needed a nap on a Sunday Afternoon. Shortly after, I’d gone downstairs for a snack and came back upstairs with one of the soy yogurt containers that I bought at the co-op yesterday, to try. I realized when I got up here and got settled in that I failed to grab a spoon too. 

Feeling particularly lazy, I shrugged it off and figured I’d send whichever kid popped his head in first to go get one. About a half hour later, that was Clayton, asking if he could get up.  I said “go get me a spoon, and then i’ll decide”. He said “what for?”, to which I sharply replied “just get me a spoon!” A few minutes later, he reappeared with a large plastic spoon in hand, incidentally, the one I grab on the rare occasion that I need to reinforce my words with a bit of corporal punishment.   I immediately busted out laughing at the expression on his face…and clarified that I wanted a spoon for my YOGURT. With a bit of a goofy grin on his very relieved face, he complied.

Here’s my eldest child in his space ‘foot pajamas’ trying on the snowboarding helmet that is part of Gabe’s upcoming birthday present. Isn’t he ’special’? (and yes, I intend to save this picture for his girlfriends

Another Kid Funny….

While we were at the airport on Sunday, Clayton and Elizabeth were running around, creating chaos as usual. Clayton has “heelies”, which for those of you who aren’t already aware, are tennis shoes with a wheel built in the bottom. This means he can move faster, plow more people over and just be more annoying in general and the airport makes a great “heely park”. After they got tired of running around, they went to check out the arcade and were looking for quarters that might have been left behind. Jeremy and I are sitting upstairs from the arcade (the Boise airport is small and not a very busy place) and Elizabeth comes running back up to say that we need to come help them with something. After some questioning, she spills the story. They found a quarter underneath one of the games. They tried to use their CELL PHONE to reach under and knock it out. They got the cell phone stuck. I was pretty puzzled at the sheer stupidity of it….nearly losing a cell phone to get a quarter?  Luckily, the machine wasn’t that big so we were able to tip it back long enough for one of the kids to grab the phone. The quarter stayed were it was, out of principle.

Toes…..

Elizabeth and I had a different kind of Girls Night Out (GNO) today. We chopped some firewood this morning, got a decent start on our winter’s worth of firewood (that wasn’t just girls though), and then came back and showered and dropped Clayton off to spend the night with Joe, and we headed into town. We had to run some errands first, one more puppy (Jag-the black one) has found her home with a foster family, we are sure she is going to be pretty heavily loved on! 

Then we went and got haircuts. Elizabeth tries SO hard to not be excited about ‘girl things’, she even tried to refuse the haircut. But Patti is great, she’s the sister of the gay guy that I used to go to, the one he took to Utah to ‘get her boobies done’. I admit it, I had to look . Patti is one of those girls that will forever be a teenager, so she was able to cut and style it just like Elizabeth had wanted.

After that, we were off for Pedicures. It was Elizabeth’s first and she didn’t quite know what to think of the massage chair, she actually turned it off after a while. It was a little agressive, haha, I think it was about to massage her right out of her chair!

Then, we went to Elizabeth’s favorite sushi place, IOU Sushi (www.iousushi.com). It is pronounced E-Yo Sushi, and is sushi with a micronesian twist.  You’ll often find things on their menu that you wouldn’t usually see in a typical Japanese sushi bar, and all of their rolls are named after local things. Ironically, my favorite is named “Bogus”, for Bogus Basin Ski Resort. Elizabeth likes the “Bronco” roll, named after the BSU Broncos of course (tonight is their season opener!) and it has some shrimp, cream cheese and crab and is coated in tempura batter and fried, then covered in a sweet sauce. It is almost like a dessert!

Anyway, after we pushed ourselves out of there, we filled a small propane bottle and sang along to the radio all the way back up the mountain!

Now, the water heater is lit again and here in about a half hour, you’ll find me soaking in a very warm bubble bath!

A Gabe Funny….

I can’t believe I forgot to write about this, I’m going to have to remember to write about ‘kid funnies’ because my kids say some of the funniest things I’ve ever heard in my life.

The radio station that I listen to does a lot of trivia type stuff, which I love because I’m generally pretty good at trivia. They have a “brainbuster” thing that comes on shortly after 6, which is when I leave for work. Generally, even if I know the answer, I get screwed out of answering because there is no cell signal and by the time I get to town, the question is usually answered, but last week, Gabe and I were on our way in and the question of the morning was something like:  ”X% (don’t remember the amount) of men do this, that women find extremely annoying”. That isn’t the exact phrase, but something like that. I’m thinking “holy crap, you want that list alphabetized?” and Gabe shouts out “I know the answer mom!” As it happened, we had a signal before it was answered so I handed him my cell phone and he of course already knew the number (we listen to this station all the time).

I’m not really thinking too much of it, my mind is already on work and traffic and getting the day started and I heard him redialing (busy signal) over and over again and then suddenly I hear that little voice from the back seat asking “Is it trimming their nose hairs and leaving it in the sink?”. I about drove off the road.

As it turns out, that was not the right answer, but he got on the radio. I guess he remembers mom getting upset with dad for doing that!

That is the one part I’ll miss the most about him being in school with the big kids, no more interesting trips to town in the morning!

1st Day of School!

At last….

I’ve been pretty proud of us, we’ve managed to get clothes laid out, shoes lined up, backpacks ready and all they have to do is get up, brush hair and teeth, put clothes on and out the door! I leave for work before they leave so it is their responsibility this year to get themselves ready and out the door and we’re adding Gabe into that mix this year.  If we can keep up our routine, it will be pretty easy!