Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Today, I am thankful for my family. For me, that can be interpreted a couple of ways.

I have a wonderful extended family. I love the holidays and the time for getting together. Seeing my grandma, my crazy aunt and uncle, the cousins that I rarely get to see, my parents and brother and sister - I love every minute of it.

Then, there is MY family or OUR family, the one that A. and I have to work at every single day. Some people make having a family look super easy and sparkly-butterfly-fun, then there are those that throw in the towel and go their separate ways to achieve sparkly-butterfly-fun. Well, A. and I fall somewhere in between except there aren't a lot of sparkles and more sparks. But, at the end of the day, we entered a covenant with God that we would make this thing work. And on the days (months) when I forget that, A. gives me my space and I've learned to give him his. I think we both wake up most days and try (it may only be for 5 minutes, but, it's an attempt) and until we get it right, we'll keep trying. And for that, I am thankful.

Side note...I asked the children what they were thankful for this morning.

Mooka: I am thankful for all of the people in the world, even those that I don't know.

ME: And you?

Baby Bear: Candy.

What I'm thankful for, pt 2

I am extremely thankful for my friends.

It's rare for me to go out and do things with other people. I never pick up the phone and call. A large percentage of the time, I have no idea where my phone has landed and even if I do hear it ring, I don't jump up to answer it. Email and social sites, while incredibly convenient, I rarely write a note to anyone.

I should probably rephrase my original comment to say, I'm extremely thankful I have any friends.

Anyway, you each know who you are and whether you are the person I call when I may have been drinking and can't remember the name of a song or the one I call when I want to talk about "what-ifs" or the one I call when I just need to get away from the house or the one I talk to once a year or the one I sit next to every day at work - thank you for being the best friends a person could have!

What I'm thankful for

There are a lot of folks who have updating their blogs daily this month to include messages about what they are thankful for. I knew that I couldn't commit to a full month of posts, so in my head, I was really going to commit to post everyday this week.

I'm not real good with commitment.

So, it's Tuesday and that's close enough.

Plus, my first what-I'm-thankful-for post includes two things, which technically means I'm only one day behind.



These two little gifts are absolutely the most amazing people in my world. They can drive me absolutely crazy, but at the end of every day I am thankful to have such wonderful kids. Sometimes, I read other peoples stories about the struggles they faced with getting pregnant or early childbirth or diseases that impact their babies lives and I am deeply humbled at how different our experience has been from those. It makes me appreciate what we've been given that much more. And there is not a day that goes by when we don't thank God for what He has blessed and entrusted us with.

So for today and every day, I am thankful for my babies.

Update on the non-updates

1) I work a lot.

2) I am lazy.

3) I may be dealing with a pinch of depression.

Bundle it all together, and you get my lame excuse for the lack of posts.

The kids are great and as soon as I can put together a coherent post, I'll update. Right now it is a wicked routine of get up early, drive kids to two separate schools, race to get to work on time, work, race to get home, pick kids up from two separate schools, pretend to make something worthy of being called dinner, put kids to bed, crash. Repeat.

I have decided to branch off and keep a separate blog to talk about the weight loss. There is a bunch going on in my head the contribute to points 2 and 3 above. I'm hoping writing it down will be a coping mechanism for me. The update on the progress in that department is that I have continued to enjoy my 44 ounces of the sweet nectar known as Dr. Pepper daily. You do the math.

We are off for a busy day. I hope to post more this weekend.

Christmas Carol

I was SUPER excited this morning to get our pictures back from The Christmas Carol train thingy that we went to back in August.

Well done Disney, on the coolest marketing campaign I've ever seen.

BB as Tiny Tim


Mooka as Scrooge

Clearly they got their father's taste in music

Tonight, as I was on my miserable drive home from work, I decided to pop in Galore by The Cure and went to my happy place. I was so happy bopping along and then I thought, why have I not let the kids hear this yet. They would LOVE it.

When I got BB in the bus, I was giddy as I pressed play for us to listen to Why Can't I Be You on our drive to get the girl.

We didn't make it a mile down the road and he was sleeping.

Fine, maybe he's just really tired.

So, I get the girl in the bus and she starts chattering about her Christmas program cd that we have already listened to 1,000 times and she can sing it in her sleep and I'm wondering how can neither of these children pick up on the brilliance that is flowing from my mini-van sound system right now?!?!?!?!?!

I'm going to try it again in the morning. They are MUCH more receptive to new things at 6:30 a.m.

This one's for you new mommy in Chicago :)

It's 40 degrees outside and you want to do what?

That was the response I got on Saturday morning when I announced that it was time to get swimsuits on and head out the door for lessons. No one was too excited about it.

I was really surprised at how well Baby Bear took to the water this time around. You may remember from last time, that he was more interested in the teacher than the actual lesson. This time he literally jumped right in the water and was always first to volunteer to try something new.



Mooka was so excited to be back in lessons, especially after the whole cheer leading incident.



Overall, week one was a success minus the chilly morning. Hopefully by the end of this session at least one or both of them will be able to swim without a float belt.

The Halloween Post...a few days late

We made sure we gave the kids plenty of opportunities to get candy this year. The church had a fall festival, then we raced to get to Boo at the Zoo and then on Saturday the traditional trick or treat.

They dressed up as Tinkerbell...


And a pirate...


More picture fun...