"Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful"

I know I am behind on my birthday celebration posts...I'll get to them eventually.
For now, I gots myself some things I need to say about the current weather conditions that have recently turned bitter and cold on me!

It is snowing outside.

My first adult experience with Snow involved my college roommate, Jen, and I excitedly stomping around in the parking lot behind our apartment, giggling like little girls and totally beside ourselves over the fact that we could make footprints on the sidewalk. (Don't judge me, I'm from California, and the only snow I ever saw was made by a machine and dumped on a mountain for me to snowboard on. Twice. Ever.) My roommates (who had experience with Snow) stood inside our ghetto apartment house and mocked our over-excitement through the window, teasing us about wanting a 10 minute head start before we got on the road, and warning us of the dangerous conditions that come with snow. I didn't listen.

My second adult experience with snow occurred later that evening, when my Honda Civic (less than a year old at the time) slid across a patch of black ice on I 15 and slammed me into the metal rail thing...leaving a beautiful dent in my new car, and proving everyone that told me I would never survive the Snow, to be totally right. Luckily Aaron knew an amigo in Springdale that hooked us up and fixed the Civic for half the cost of all the bids I got.
Needless to say, me and snow...not a healthy combination.

In Boise, I cursed out my window every morning that I woke up to snow, and cursed again as I shoveled the snow off my car, and cursed at the snow as I hurried into class, (late because of the snow) and then I cursed a whole lot when I slipped and slid and fell (more than once) in icy mud puddles (because I was rushed, because I was angry, because I was late, because of the Snow)
The simple EXISTENCE of snow ruined my day. I could not, WOULD not enjoy myself in it's presence. Take THAT snow!

THEN, a wild twist and turn of events landed us in the frozen tundra of Green Bay in January, with a brand new baby (with pneumonia and RSV), no grandparents, family, or friends, coworkers, students, or really anyone or anything around but snow.
SNOW. SNOW. SNOW....and a LOT MORE SNOW. Everywhere.

I had made a promise to myself that year that I would bloom wherever I was planted, choose to be happy in spite of my circumstances, and embrace the snow...as much as possible anyway.
I discovered that while I totally hated snow, we could have still a working relationship and each of us could get by just fine. No need to be nasty to one another. I finally learned how to work around the snow, because unfortunately, Snow wasn't going anywhere. After a given amount of time and effort, I could even begin to appreciate it's beauty, as I once had, the first time I watched it fall and giggled in awe.

I once despised the Snow for the horrible things it did to me, and the way I thought it made me feel. I now realize that I am in control of how I feel, and today I forgive and forget. The dent in the Civic is long gone, the hurt ankle I twisted on the icy steps at BSU has healed. I now have a garage to park my car in and I will hopefully not have to rescue myself out of that kind of mess again ...or at least not for a very long time. I am moving on...because holding grudges against the Snow is childish and immature.

And now I can just enjoy.

Snow is pretty.

And the best part is that when I look out my living room window, that faces my neighbors' yard (the naked neighbor- for those who read my blog often enough to follow stories about my neighbors and want to be able to separate the 80 yr old square dancing neighbors, from the naked neighbors, the WT neighbors-moved, and the don't park on my lawn/I have a cat in a vase on my mantle neighbors) I no longer see the 20+ pieces of tacky yard ornamentation/bird feeders/crap.

Instead, I see a blanket of white snow.

Goodbye sparkly mosaic stained glass bird bath with a pink ceramic naked fairy on it.
Goodbye 5 foot tall green and yellow PVC humming bird feeders.
Goodbye silk flowers that have been "planted" in the cedar chips.
Goodbye two large plastic Canadian Goose stepping stools.
Goodbye wind sock.
Goodbye 11 pairs of white old man underwear that hung on the clothesline yesterday.


Thank you, Snow.
I am actually glad you're here, and I think it's possible that we can get along with one another just fine.

"...And I Feel You, Crawling Underneath My Skin..."

Tonight as I tucked Reese into bed:
Reese: Mommy, my underwears are stuck up in my bum.
Me: Oh, you should get it out of there then I guess.
Reese: Ok, but it will just get up there again and again and again.
Me: That means your underwear is getting too small and we need to buy you some more. Hey, maybe you will get some pretty new underwear in your stocking from Santa!
Reese: Ooooh Yippee!
Me: What kind of underwear would you like Santa to bring you? Dora, Disney Princess, or Tinkerbell?
Reese: (thinks for a moment) Hmmmm....Well if it's Christmas, maybe Santa can bring me underwear with Baby Jesus on them! Yippee!

Call me a Scrooge, but I don't think the Elves have "Baby Jesus underwear" on their inventory at the North Pole.

A-W-E! (clap! clap!)S-O-M-E! (clap! clap)

Category: People Who Are Awesome.

Question: Why is Missie so Awesome?
Answer: Because she is Awesome.
Question: What else is Awesome?
Answer: This doll house is Awesome.
Question: Why did Reese have the Most Awesome Birthday Ever?
Answer: Because she got this Awesome doll house from Awesome Missie.

"Gimme Gimme Gimme A Man After Midnight..."

Or how about "a haircut after midnight", which seems to be when I do my best work. Aaron was looking pretty scruffy and we'd ignored the clippers for far too long. The last 3 times I have cut A's hair, I swore I'd never cut his hair that late at night again....at least not until he starts leaving me a better tip.

But again, a few nights ago, we put the kids in bed at 7, and started to watch Elf, but were both asleep by 7:30. I woke up at 12:30 and had somewhat an out of body experience. I was so confused. Where was I? What time is it? How long ago did the movie end? Wait, what movie were we even watching? Man, I feel like I've been drugged. I'm so tired, and so so so comfortable. My bedroom down the hall seems like it's miles away...I could just sleep here on the sofa a little longer. Ok, five more minutes here and then I'll get up and go to bed. Maybe ten more minutes. Really...I'll go...eventually...

And then I realized that THIS must be what it feels like to be Aaron! He falls asleep EVERY night on the sofa by 8, and then when I am ready go to bed I spend 10 minutes trying to wake him up enough to turn off the lights and wander down the hall with me. Half the time, he is so "out" that he says silly things to me, and it takes a 3rd or 4th attempt before he actually is conscious enough to realize where he is and why the wifey is barking at him.

So I realized finally where I was, and that it was past midnight. I woke Aaron up and was given the response, "Hey, do you think you could give me a haircut?"

Seriously? A haircut? now? It's 12:30. No way, man. Pull an Edward and put a whole can of mousse in that hair and make it work for you for one more day. You can even put some baby powder on your face, eat a red popcicle and maybe the ladies at the office will swoon.

He didn't think that was as funny as I did, as he has to stare at the Twilight movie poster all day, as there is one hung up on the wall in his assistant's cube right across from his.

Usually when I get the post-midnight haircut request, it is rejected unless Aaron has some important meeting, or is flying out of town the next day and the haircut can not be postponed longer than the duration of his trip. This time I had 5 hours of sleep and, now that I was awake, I felt like I'd had a full night of rest. So again, I gave a haircut in the middle of the night. They always seem to turn out better than those that I do in the afternoon, or right after the kids have gone to bed.

The 3:30am "Hey, I need a haircut and then a ride to the airport. By the way I'm going to be in Dallas for about 5 days"-haircut still takes the cake for my best work ever. Aaron got an ear full of my wrath while every possible mean thing I could think to say came out like "word vomit" as I snipped away at his too-long locks. He happily took a cab to the airport at 4:30.

Which brings us back to the present. And so, out of love for my husband, dislike of his too-long hair, and since I was already wide awake I went ahead and gave a haircut...yet again in the middle of the night.

Why not just go to the barber? He did about 6 weeks ago. At that point, most of my evenings were spent with me in bed ridiculously early, or with my head in the toilet throwing up. Knowing every last ounce of energy was being spent on caring for our children and attempting to keep up with laundry, he went to a salon and payed $20 for a terrible haircut. He knew I was far too exhausted to do anything but try and keep food down, and therefore didn't even ask. He also brought me home fried food that night. That's better than flowers, baby.

But now that I am feeling a lot better, and almost totally functioning, I return to my haircutting duties as resident beautician. My reasons:
1) I am cheap. My hair cuts are mostly free. All I require is a thank you and a kiss, and sometimes one of us will treat ourself to a movie or lunch with friends later with part of the $20 we saved.
2) Aside from the time I yelled at him the whole haircut (did I mention that I had JUST gotten our baby to sleep through the night, and would have to wake her up to take him to the airport? or that we lived in WI and a blizzard had just blown through, dumping another 10 inches of snow on the ground?) yeah, aside from that time, giving Aaron a haircut is some of our best conversation time. I always wait to cut hair until kids are in bed, because my little darlings can't help but run through the pile of hair on the floor and track it through the house, leaving a gross mess. And Q likes to eat the hair, and that's double gross. We don't answer the phone if it rings, because my hands are full, and Aaron is, well getting a haircut. And we're in the kitchen, where there is no TV, radio or other noise to drown out conversation.
No distractions.
No interruptions.
Just us. Finally alone, and having a date with a pair of scissors in the kitchen.

I hate cutting hair in the middle of the night, but there is something romantic about grooming the person you love.
And MY groom is well groomed indeed.

I also gave Pieces a haircut the next day. It's pretty cute. Now if only I could get a haircut, and if Quin could grow enough hair to need a haircut, we would be set.

"Looking for the Victim Shivering in Bed. S-Searching Out Fear in the Gathering Gloom, and SUDDENLY a Movement in the Corner of the Room!"

How is it that we can go about our lives, doing what we do and feeling totally normal, and then...

BAM!

We see one of these little guys and we are ruined?

The other night I went to bed, and like I do on many Monday evenings, I remembered that I still had a basket of laundry sitting on my bed, waiting to be folded before I could retire for the night. I loathe folding laundry, especially now that I have four people to do this for. It can become quite the task. I shudder when I think of how much more laundry there will be when we have a baby in the house again.

I turned on my mattress warmer, and went back into the living room, stoked the fire, and nearly caught my arm ablaze during the process. I returned to my room and started folding the laundry, glad that the few extra minutes out of bed would give my bed a chance to warm up a little more before I crawled into it. I could almost feel it's warming sensations, heating my core and tingling from my toes all the way up to my shoulders and down to my fingertips. No wait. the tingling is only on one shoulder, and the "tingling" working its way down my arm is a BIG FAT HAIRY SPIDER!

I squealed and flicked my hand by reflex and Lil' Charlotte when flying onto the bed and into the pile of whites. Somewhere. In there. In my underwear.

I rushed back into the living room and then -the same girl who had just carried in a huge load of firewood that she split last spring and then built herself a beautifully roaring fire in the house she has remodeled herself- woke up her brawny husband and cried like a girl that there was a "yucky spider on the bed and he needed to go take care of it".

We went into the room and after a minute of searching the laundry pile, Lil' Charlotte appeared on a pair of chonies.

I watched Aaron squish it with a shoe.
I watched him squish it again, because he missed the first time.
I watched him squish it a third time, because it was really only a second time and it wasn't dead enough for me yet.
I watched him get a tissue and pick the dead spider up.
I watched him drop the dead spider in the toilet.
I watched him flush the toilet and I watched the dead spider disappear.

I can still feel the spider on me. I feel like they're everywhere.

And everything IS a spider. The fuzzy on my sweater is a spider. The breeze created by someone walking by is a spider on my neck. The tiny clump of hair in the corner of the bathroom floor that's been under that part of the sink that the broom won't reach for a MONTH is now a spider.

Spiders are everywhere.

They've always been everywhere. But now I'm seeing them in my food, on my clothes, on my children, under every blanket and in my sleep.

"and the spiderman is always hungry..."

I am sure it came in on a piece of firewood, but still. Ew. I'm going to buy some sticky traps tomorrow and either have my worst nightmare come true and find out that they really ARE everywhere, or find nothing but a few fuzzies, an apple seed, and some stray hair and finally put my imagination to rest.


"and the spiderman is always hungry..."

"Oh What Do You Do In The Winter Time, When All The World Is FREEZING..."

Well, my life long dream of riding one of Santa's Special Holiday Camels didn't come true. But I did climb up on a mechanical horsey ride at Chuck E Cheese. No need to compliment my facial expressions...I am well aware of how lovely I look in these pictures. Q kept her game face on the whole time and didn't look away from the screen.
"Ok Quincy, here we go on the horsey...are you ready?"

Ok, it was a little more wild than I expected it to be. It didn't help that Quincy would push the "jump" button unexpectedly and jerk us into the air. Check out the zombie faces on the two little boys in the background. I gotta get me one of those rides for our living room.
Going to Chuck E Cheese is probably number 3 on the list of Top Ten Things Parents Endure Because They Love Their Children. Number 1 is obviously pregnancy/ childbirth, and Number 2 is changing poopie diapers and cleaning up vomit.


Reese gives the race horse a go. I am incredibly grateful that she chooses the rides, rather than climbing through the hamster-like maze, shown in the picture above her. You know, the tube shaped playground thing that usually has a sweaty kid pressed up against the plexiglas window wiping snot all over it?

How cute is the tiny carousel? It doesn't even come to a complete stop before Quin starts requesting "Mommy, again horsey again. I want again horsey. Monies mommy...pweeeeease?"

Hey...wait a minute...where is Daddy? And where are all the game tokens for the kids?

Busted!

This game brings back memories of our singles ward in Utah, and playing this game in Bishop Johnson's basement when we were dating.

Oh look, he found another one. This one is called Street Hoops and has flashing lights and the basket moves from side to side to distract you.
Just like the courts in da hood.
Here comes "Mack N Cheese"-as my kids call him, straight from the germ infested Rat's Nest Party area and headed straight for our table. Reese climbed down off the horse ride and ran for it, faster than I thought humanly possible.
"That's my girl...you don't let him touch you, Reese. That Chuck E is all hands..."

"Right Down Santa Claus Lane..."

It is time to break out the new camera. Looks like we bought it just in time, as the old camera took it's last breath on Thursday during Quincy's birthday party. Sadly, this means I don't have pictures from the Holiday adventures this weekend, but I took a few with my camera, and Jerushia took a few with her camera, so hopefully I'll get them to my email and add them to our blog soon. (hint hint...Dan, email me photos pretty pretty please)

Friday night was our Christmas party at church. It was packed! It's hard to imagine that our ward only split 18 months ago, because it is huge. We had fun. Next time we will visit less and head straight for the food line. I was so glad to have a tupperware full of Kasey's frog eye salad waiting for me in the frig when I got home. The party was really fun, and Santa was there. I was helping in a card making class and Aaron was busy recruiting people to attend the service project for Saturday, and trying to find firewood for family in need that we didn't get a chance to take the girls around to all the different activities, but they went to a few.

Santa has finally earned the trust of Reese. She had ZERO interest to go sit on his lap on Fri. night, but did shake his hand, thank him for the car he gave her last year and ask for Barbie Diamond Princess, a Care Bear Castle and Little People for Christmas. I told her Santa only brings one present each year, so it will be a surprise to see which toy he chooses. Surprise for her, anyway...there are two Diamond Castle Barbies in Santa/Aaron's trunk. I decided to get the girls matching presents this year, so there won't be any fighting. Quincy just seems to want whatever her big sister has, and do whatever her big sister is doing, so I bought them both a My Little Pony for Christmas, and Santa is bringing them each a Barbie. I hope my plan works.

On Saturday, the Christmas fun continued! While Aaron was at a service project, I took the kids to Breakfast With Santa, where we had pancakes, "onange juithe" and sausage, and had pictures taken with Santa! This time, Reese hopped right onto Santa's lap, but Quin had a different agenda. She clung to my arm and I tried to pry her off and force her into Santa's lap (for our traditional "kid-screaming-on-santa's-lap-picture) but Santa's helpers told me to just pose in the picture too.
What? Who? Me? Pose with Santa? But I didn't take a shower today....and and...I don't WANT to be in the picture. I'd rather have a picture of my kid screaming than a bed-head picture of me that I'll want to burn later.

But, that is just what we got, and because I'm keepin' it real this Christmas, I'll post once I get my copy.

Following Breakfast With Santa, we bundled up in hats and scarves and sipped hot cocoa while we waited for the annual holiday parade. They had pony rides and camel rides, which I tried to bribe Reese to do, but she wasn't interested. Maybe next year...the camel rides looked awesome, and I secretly wished that Aaron had been there to watch the kids so I could take a camel ride myself, or perhaps with Quincy (who doesn't have a choice) on my lap.

The parade was AWESOME. The girls loved all the floats, especially the floats with Frosty or Elves on them. Quincy loved the floats with doggies on them. Reese had her first taste at fighting for candy being thrown from the floats, which was interesting. I was surprised that she wasn't more aggressive. I mean, she will push and shove at home to get what she wants, but she definitely lost the fight in her and didn't compete over the candy like I'd thought she would. She still came home with two pockets full, which I happily helped her eat.

We got the lights up on the house, and continued with weekend #2 of Traumatic Christmas Movie Night. This time it was a weird film I don't remember seeing before about Rudolph. Did you know Rudolf got his glowing nose from the dying Queen of the northern lights as a weapon to combat the Sector of the Ice World...which is basically a claymation version of the magic mirror from Snow White? Rudolf used his glowing powers from the northern lights to save the circus from going bankrupt, so the Holiday Ice Cream Giver guy could marry the pretty tightrope walker. Seriously. Weirdest holiday movie ever. Aaron and I couldn't stop laughing at how complicated the plot was. It got worse when Frosty showed up to see the circus with his snowkids and snow-wife, but started to melt when the holiday magic in his no-melt pendant was weakened by the Anti-Santa bad guy, who called everyone a "brat". So weird. I think next weekend we'll just watch Elf or something.

It was a wacky weekend, full of holiday fun. Aside from the First Presidency Christmas Broadcast on Sunday, I feel a little bit like we are on "commercial Christmas" overload, so today I'm taking the girls to pick out a nativity set for our house (we opened our storage bins to find our old ceramic one had been broken) and for Family Night tonight we will retell the story of our Savior's birth and attempt to teach our children the true reason for Christmas.