2008
Another year has ended. We are currently letting the boys stay up until midnight. We're exhausted. Forty-five more minutes.
Happy New Year.
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Birthday Gift…
I'm pretty sure, that Jared will take me to Walt Disney World for my birthday. He's just that cool.
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More wonderful times
We spend the day with my side of the family today. Kaylee is growing up so quickly, she's at a wonderfully fun age. Alex brought his encyclopedia of immaturity with him, which is right up my mom's alley.
The weather was quite icky on the drive home. But, I personally (not the driver, mind you) think it was well worth the slow drive home, to spend a fun day with the family.
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Wonderful life
We had a wonderful, family filled Christmas, with more family filled fun to come tomorrow. The kids were happy with their new loot. I'm officially ready to get our shedding Christmas tree out of the house. Rock Band has taken over the living room. We have more candy that we know what to do with. Caleb won't stop texting me. Jonas named his new Nintendog Bob, and he keeps shouting BOB! at his DS. Alex can now 'rip'. Yesterday he was almost in tears, because a ripstick was harder to ride than it looked. Today, he's flying through the game room. The weather is gorgeous today.
I hope everyone else, had a great, happy, happy holiday.
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Traditions
Growing up, when we got together at my grandparents' house, my grandma would make a huge batch of sugar cookie dough, pull out tons of decorations, and let all of us kids stand around the table, and go crazy making sugar cookies. One of the favorites that we made was a "surprise cookie" where we just rolled out a cookie, filled it with toppings and closed it up again. You never knew what was inside of them. They were more fun to make than to eat. We would take home plate fulls of these *wonderful* cookies. Every cousin in the family loved making the cookies with Grandma, followed by a jeep ride with Grandpa.
When Caleb was around two or three, that was one of our activities to do together, make sugar cookies. It took way more patience on the adult's part, than I ever realized. As more and more kids came along, we did it less and less.
But, today, Christmas Eve, I whipped up a batch of dough, and stood back, letting the kids go crazy. I no longer have Christmas cookie cutters, as they were destroyed when our basement flooded a couple years ago. So, we have hearts, flowers and trains. Caleb assured me, that trains were very Christmas-y.
The kids had fun. It was much easier being patient, now that they are older. It really was quite painless on my part, and the kids had a blast.
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Bokeh
Jared use to talk to me about bokeh.. and I scoffed at him. Now, I can get bokeh, and I LOVE it. Today, I played with the camera, and turned our Christmas lights into little bokeh stars! You can go see the portion that sort of worked here. You can learn how to do here.
Merry Christmas Eve Eve everyone!
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Curve Ball
So, I'm done Christmas shopping. The final gift was just delivered via UPS this morning. Done. I think Jared still has some shopping to do. For me. But, that doesn't count at all, since I, personally, am FINISHED!
However, life has thrown us a curve ball. Part of getting ready to sell the house, has involved cleaning. Every week, I take our trash can down to the basement, and fill it up with junk. Stuff that we liked, but when the basement leaked a couple years ago, everything was ruined. I can only haul it out one trash can load at a time. The ice storm last year, plopped a huge branch in front of the basement. I only recently bought Jared a chain saw, and he chopped it up. So, I got behind a year, on my emptying the basement. But, I've been back on track. Trash day=basement day. Progress is being made.
In the meantime. I've been boxing up stuff in rubbermaid containers, and putting them down in the basement. Waterproof/mold proof. Just in case. So, as I empty, I am filling. But, I figure, when we move, we can just back the moving truck up to the basement door, and load it up. It should be easy, right?
Ok. Long winded. The point of my story is coming. The basement. It fills a lot of thoughts. So. Last night, our pipes froze in the master bath. Again. It happens. This morning. They were running. Trickling. Not normal. So, I had a drizzle going, so they wouldn't freeze again, in the meantime, I'm doing laundry. I go into the game room, to reset the router, because the internet is acting up. (Long winded eh?) And, Alex points out, that he can hear the water running. We are right over the basement, when in the game room and master bedroom. Sure enough. A lot of water is running. So, I go turn off my trickle. Go back to the game room. I still hear it. A LOT of water. I lift up the trap door to the basement. Oh my. The water was RUSHING down. So, thanks to our plumber a couple years ago, I knew exactly how to shut off water to that half the house. So, the laundry is sitting in water, half done. One bathroom is out of commission, and the local plumber has been called.
Not exactly what I had in mind for today.
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Done.. sort of
I finished Christmas shopping today! Well, two of the boys need to get a gift for Jared still. But, still. As for ME, I'm done. It was not as bad out there today as I thought it would be. People were a bit crazy in their cars, but, not so bad with their shopping carts.
I also took the time to get the ingredients for our Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas breakfast, and pizza and beer for Santa (he just gets to much milk and cookies, we like to give him some variety).
I even wrapped up everything that wasn't from Santa. I'm on a roll!
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snow
Not a snow day. Bummer. But, a beautiful layer of snow on the ground. The kids could hardly wait to get home, to play in it. Caleb did determine, that it was not quality snow, as no snowman could be produced. Alex deemed it quite edible, as he usually does. All three boys declared that we do not have a single good hill to sled down. They did enjoy hot chocolate after freezing. Maybe it won't stop, and we'll get a snow day tomorrow. I can always dream.
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