It's a Christmas like no other

I can't explain it. I'm actually enjoying Christmas. I'm enjoying the shopping, the wrapping, the creating, the decorating, the baking, the parties, the events, all of it. Seriously, I can't remember when I have enjoyed the Christmas season this much. I don't know exactly why it's different this year and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. Is it because I truly am happy for the small things, is it because I've finally learned to enjoy all the aspects of this time of year, or is it because we have the resources to create this Christmas and make it special, is it because my children are older and I have more time to shop, bake, decorate, create than I ever have before? What is it? I'm just not sure. Am I more grateful than I have been in the past? I am so thankful and grateful and I realize that my cup really does run over. I have so much good stuff in my life and I struggle to take care of it all. I can't take care of it all and it's all so good. I love staying home with my children and caring for my house, I love homeschooling my children and having co-ops, I love volunteering at church, I love being involved in my homeschool support group, I love having all these animals, I really do and it all requires a lot of work if you want to do it well. And I want to do it well. Is it that I keep hearing my beautiful neice Lizzie in my head saying that she loves Christmas? I remember when I heard her say it the first time and I looked at her like she was crazy. I even thought to myself that maybe she was a little bit off but now I realize it was me who was off. I was looking at it all wrong. When those decorations start showing up in the stores around Easter, okay Halloween, it's okay to smile and look forward to this holiday. It's okay to enjoy decorating the Christmas tree and if all the kids don't want to participate, that's okay. If you want to have a theme on your tree and none of the kid's ornaments can go on it, that's okay, especially if none of your special ornaments were on the tree for the past three years. It's okay to tell the beautiful little girl to not put all the ornaments in one place on the tree. It's okay to let your kids eat candy canes in the morning after breakfast. It's okay to look forward to the holiday parties and events. It's okay to tell your kids to smile like your parents just took you to Disneyland for the family photo. It's okay to address your Christmas card envelopes in October. It's okay to have your tree up, the inside and outside of the house decorated and your Christmas card ready to mail before December 1st. None of that was okay with me before but it is now. I'm not sure if there is just extra grace this year or it's me. I keep asking myself why I am enjoying Christmas time this year because I want every year to be this good. My tree is so beautiful and I can't help but smile when I look at it, my family is so beautiful and I can't help but smile when I think about them or see them do something special or hear them say something profound, the Christmas lights on our house are almost magical this year, all the parties have been some of the best ever. All I know is this. I'm loving it.

Playdates

Oh the sound of little girls playing with their dolls and having tea. It's like music to my ears. I can't help but listen in on their conversations about pretend this and pretend that. It's all so magical and special. I remember playing pretend and those were some of my happiest memories as a child. It's that time when you can be anything you want to be and everyone else has to pretend that you really are whatever you said you are and then they say what you have to pretend them to be. I love it. It's so sweet and I realize now it's their way of sorting out life and making sense of it all. Taking in what they hear and trying it out but in a safe way, a pretend way. Oh if only life continued that way. Eventually it's not pretend anymore. It's for real. For real is so good though. When you really are a grown up and you really do walk down the aisle to don, don, da-da...you really are a mommy and you have a real husband and you really do have babies and kids and a real house to take care of. Remember when it was fun to wash your play dishes and make mud pies, real mud pies, it was fun to go get the baby because it was crying and needed to be comforted, when those types of things weren't chores and they weren't drudgery and energy sappers, they were exciting and fun. I was looking at my fingerprinted covered sliding glass door the other day and remembering when I used to clean it on a weekly basis. I couldn't stand the sight of fingerprints. For a moment I was disappointed at myself for not keeping it as clean as I used to but then I realized that I was thankful for fingerprints on the glass. They mean that my house has children in it and not just my own but others too. Little girls, big girls, little boys, and big boys too. The fingerprints start at the bottom and go almost to the top from all the kids who go in and out of my back door. The door I am always telling them to shut. Some are smudged and some are just lightly there and if you look closely you'll see a few cat paw prints too. It's for real and it's so much better than when I was pretending.

Thanksgiving

This was probably the best Thanksgiving I've had. I planned like never before, I worked like never before and I actually got to sit in the living room and visit before the meal..like never before. I have never been able to just sit and talk to the family before dinner because I'm always stressing out and trying to get everything done. It was beautiful, it was lovely and it was yummy. Oh the amount of butter used in this meal is probably a sin but God created butter right? So it can't be wrong. What made this Thanksgiving so special was that Aunt Eileen and Uncle John drove from Vegas to stay with us. They are the best house guests ever. So helpful, so fun, so sweet. I just love them. They brought their doggies with them and although our cats didn't enjoy their visit we did. Those doggies were so cute and man are they spoiled but in a good way. We were missing Lauren (she's in Colorado and I'm very proud of her) and like usual in order for me to deal with anything hard I add humor. We put her on a stick and took all of our normal family photos. It was fun. My adorable and fabulous neices helped me with the dishes and that made the clean up so much easier. I was not stressed once and that's how it should be. So often I rush through the day and then sit down when it's all over and realize that I never stopped to really enjoy the moment. That moment when people arrive and the kids run to greet them, that moment when the newly arrived guests see the fudge, that moment when everyone is talking and there is a constant rumble of laughter and joy in the house, that moment when we all sit down at the table, hold hands, say our prayer of thankfulness and lift our heads to the food that awaits us. I enjoyed the moments this time and it was good.

Disneyland

You know your in Disneyland when:

You pay $30 for two salads that aren't even that good.

Parents are yelling at their pouting kids and telling them this is the Happiest Place on Earth so knock it off.

Almost everyone under the age of 30 has a tatoo.

Even the doors to the toilets are decorated in Disney decor.

You're willing to lay down on the pavement because the fireworks are going off soon, you need to save a spot and your exhausted 6 year old can longer keep her eyes open.

You get excited when you see a huge, fake snow cover mountain cause it's your favorite ride ever.

You walk as fast as you can only to find out that the wait for the ride is more than 40 minutes so you walk as fast as you can to the next line to find out how long that wait is.

You're willing to sit on a fake boat and watch mechanical dolls sing songs over and over again but you're thankful they're Christmas songs and not "that" song.

You kind of under describe to your 6 year old that the drop isn't that big cause you really want to go on the ride but if she knew how big the drop really was she wouldn't go.

You lay in your bed exhausted with aching feet but you know that you made some magical memories with the people you love the most and it was all worth it.

Best Relatives Ever

Everyone has them, well, everyone should have them. Those relatives that you love to be around, the ones who make you smile and laugh and just enjoy life. These are those people. Aunt Eileen and Uncle John. You can't say one name without saying the other. They love each other intensely and go together like peanut butter and jelly, the other one bringing out the best in the other. Good alone, but so much better together. Aunt Eileen has always been such a great aunt since the tender age of nine when Ron was born. They all have fun Aunt Eileen stories. My favorite is the time they went to the drive-in movies and Ron was the back seat that the kids sat on since her VW bug didn't have a backseat. It was 70's and people did what they could to save money, even put blankets on their nephews and make them be a backseat. Uncle John can build you anything out of wood and will help wherever and whenever needed. He has a servant's heart and it is always evident. We were priveledged to have them stay at our house a few weeks ago and they were by far the best house guests ever. We loved having them here, spending time with them, talking with them, watching TV with them, o.k., anything with them. In preparation for them staying with us I rearranged Breanna's room so they could have their own room. She has a trundle bed so I set it up as a queen sized bed by pushing the two beds together. Well, in the middle of the night, Aunt Eileen had an issue with her insulin and Uncle John went to get her some coke. Unfortunately, the bed split apart and he came crashing to the ground. Being in a strange house, he couldn't find the light switch and stumbled in the dark. I felt horrible but at the same time had to stifle a giggle at the thought of him falling on the ground. Poor guy. It had to happen to them of all people. The ones who were just grateful for a place to stay while we celebrated the wedding of Lindsey and Adam. Not to worry, the next night they slept on the hide-a-bed in the living room and he stayed safely in his bed all night, I think. We love them and miss them and can't wait for them to come back. I may have to book them a hotel next time though.

Baking with my girl.

My boys used to like to help me in the kitchen but I know it was so they could have first dibs on the beater and then they discovered cookie dough. I don't like having little hands reaching into my perfect mixture of butter, sugar, flour, vanilla so I started spooning the dough into little cups and telling them that was all they were getting. It worked and since then they haven't wanted to help me bake. Except the girl . She keeps wanting to help. She wants us to have matching aprons. She wants to put in all the ingredients, roll the cookie dough, cut the dough and now she can transfer the cookie dough from the counter to the cookie sheet. That my friends is an accomplishment. I've been making sugar cookies since I was ten and the moment of truth is always in the transfer. You can mix the ingredients just right, you can flower the surface just right, you can roll the dough just right, you can cut the cookie dough out just right but if you don't transfer the dough just right it's an automatic do over and sad, very sad when you mess up your creation of perfectly formed dough. She did an excellent job and I revelled in my daughter's ability to do something that took me years to master. I love that her childhood will be filled with these memories of baking with her mom. She won't be able to remember not baking cookies with her mom. Baking is what I do and love and it comes easy and I love that I get to share that with her but most of all I love that I get to spend time with her and she wants to be with me.

She gets me.

Sometimes a girl just needs to go away and have some time away from the grind of life. This was one of those weekends. Alyssa and I packed up our overnight bags, loaded up the van, make sure we had the GPS and headed to Half Moon Bay. I don't even really remember the drive since we were talking the whole time, oh, wait, when were we not talking? We caught up, we analyzed, we complained, we laughed, we even teared up a couple of times but it was pure unadulterated girl time and of course we had to keep our bodies busy so we dutifully did what any girl would do and shopped, shopped, shopped. Luckily we scored at a great thrift shop and took our time going through all the treasures. To make it even better everything in the store was half off and no one was sitting in the car waiting with the engine running, no one was hiding in the clothes rack, no one was following closely behind us asking us how much longer, it was just us, two girls who love thrift shops. We had a delicious lunch at a hotel with a view of the ocean dotted with those crazy surfers who surf in October. The weather is probably the same at the coast any other month but it just seems wrong to be in the water on a cold, foggy day in October. I found out that Half Moon Bay is the pumpkin capital of the world and it makes sense. Pumpkins as far as the eye can see and the stores, oh, the stores. So many stores with their adorable Fall decorations. I don't really like fall decorations but now I feel completely inspired to decorate for fall. Pumpkins, black cats, leaves, birds, black and white...every store we went into was so asthetically pleasing and most of it could easily be recreated with some creativity and a little cash. So we did what any housewife who is a little strapped for cash would do and stopped at Joann's on the way home so we could create the same feel in our home for a third of the price. Before I even unpacked my clothes I set up all the decorations in the house. I never realized how happy the little things can make me. Everytime I walk by my little table in the living room I smile. Mostly I smile because it reminds me of a wonderful weekend getaway with a wonderful person who understands that life is crazy sometimes, well, most of the time nowadays and she gets it. She knows that life is wonderful and there are so many wonderful things to do and see and be a part of. She gets that saying no may mean we'll miss out on something or we'll miss an opportunity to make a memory or help someone who is going through a tough time. She gets it and she gets me.