we survived!

Despite my all day yuck, we made it through Christmas and were able to actually enjoy it. In years past we have gone back and forth between both families in one day which made for a crazy day, but this year we hit Jeff's parents on Christmas Eve and were able to relax and take things easy on Christmas day, it was so nice.
Monday evening we got to Jeff's parents house and opened gifts and talked for a couple of hours and then we realized it was dinnertime and since we didn't plan ahead we needed to go out and find some food. Jeff and his dad headed into town (Jeff's parents live in the country and they went to the little town closest to their house). They missed the grocery stores by 5 minutes and the only place they could find open (not a lot of options) was Subway which turned out great for me because right now a lot of food is not ideal and a sandwich was perfect. We headed home around 8, so we ended up staying out at their house for almost 4 hours (a record for us, we never get out to see them nor stay that long) and got Lance to bed. We had planned to start breakfast/presents at my mom's house later than usual and were looking forward to sleeping in (since Lance's isn't at the age where he wakes up super early in anticipation, or so we thought).
So we went to bed and looked forward to the relaxing late morning ahead. 6:45 a.m., lance is up and ready for the day. Somehow he got the memo that children are suppose to get up early Christmas morning. Lance usually gets up around 7:30 and we can usually convince him to hang out in bed till 8, but this morning, he was ready to go. We decided to open a present each and Lance opened his Little People Airport. He was so slow and methodical opening his present, he would tear some paper off, hand it to me, tear some more, hand it to me, look at the box, tear, repeat. We set the airport up for him and he loved playing with his new toy. I finished wrapping some gifts while Jeff got ready. Once we were all ready we headed over to my mom's house. We usually open presents and then eat breakfast, but with my eating/food issues we ate breakfast first. We then finally began opening presents and 2.5 hours later we were finished. Unwrapping presents is a big deal in our family, we open them one at a time and enjoy them before the next person goes and with Jeff, Lance, my mom, my aunt and uncle, my grandma, my sister and her husband, and myself, it is a long process, but it is how we have always done it and it gives you time to enjoy each gift. We then packed up a few presents and headed home for nap time. After nap we went for a walk and then it was time to head back to my mom's for dinner (my mom only lives 5-10 minutes away so going back and forth isn't a big deal). It was so nice not to have to rush here and there like we normally do and be able to just hang out at home. I gave Jeff the ipod touch for Christmas as well as some other little things. He gave me a DVR, and I am excited to be able to record tv shows and not have to worry about missing anything or fighting with Jeff on what to watch. I also got a new pair of acorn slippers, mine were falling apart and in the winter I live in them. Lance got so many new toys we need a bigger house or at least a toy box! He loved Christmas and wanted to play with every toy before opening another. Christmas was so much fun now that Lance is older and I can't wait until next year because I know it will be even better!
Wednesday morning as a tradition my mom, aunt, and sister and I hit Target and Hallmark for after Christmas sales. I got some more photo cards, wrapping paper, tags, towels, and placemats for next year. I didn't think I would be going this here because I haven't been feeling very good in the morning, but I woke up that morning feeling pretty good and I actually had a pretty good day. After shopping we dropped lance off at my mom's I helped Jeff at the shop. He was pretty busy and we had a good day even with 1000 dollars in redeemed gift certificates. Gift certificates are suppose to be wonderful for retailers because a good percentage never get redeemed, but I don't think those statistics apply to skater kids, they always use them. Also so many of the kids who came in had wads of cash, i asked a couple of them if I could join there family because I would like the Christmas money that they got.
Despite my moments of feeling gross it was a great holiday and a lot of fun.

- - - - -

Merry Christmas!

descriptive word of the week: yuckiness

This whole all day yuck, sucks, and I am so over it. I really shouldn't be complaining too much because I did have a big, yummy lunch and feel pretty decent at the moment, probably why I am able to type, but I have felt so yucky all week. My food aversions are so strong that just thinking about certain foods make me nearly gag, happy thought, happy thought. I did get some Christmas shopping done this morning, but I am not excited about what I have bought for Jeff, nothing is really exciting, he is so hard to shop for. I am very disappointed in myself, I haven't done any baking, finally got some stuff for Jeff, the house is a mess, and I am too tired/overwhelmed to get anything accomplished, I feel like a lost cause. Okay, enough complaining, something positive. . . despite diving off of our bed onto the hardwood floor Lance is okay. Yesterday, we were cleaning out my closet and Lance was on the bed and for some reason he dove off of it. It was one of those slow motion events where you can't move fast enough, I thought for sure that he was going to break his neck, but fortunately he was okay, it was scary, and I am so thankful he is okay. Speaking of thankful
1- for cash to go out to lunch because restaurant food is more appealing to something I would cook
2- that i like ice cream, when I was pregnant with lance I couldn't stand ice cream
3- for a morning to get my hair done- when my hair looks good I feel good
4- Target, where did I shop for detergent and toys before there was Target?\
5- my mom babysitting so I can go shopping without lance underfoot or grabbing at everything

denial ain't just a river in Egypt

The past week I have been in major denial about what is going on.
Denial point 1- got indigestion from lunch at a friend's house and now every time I think about a certain aspect of our meal I get queasy (Tuesday)
Denial point 2- haven't been able to eat as much food lately
Denial point 3- i got teared up while watching Kid Nation Wednesday night
Denial point 4- felt sick right after eating breakfast on Thursday
Denial point 5- Extremely bloated and felt horrible Thursday night
Denial point 6- Could not eat anything all morning Friday and felt quite icky and was only able to drink ginger ale and eat 1.5 pretzel rods
and the biggest denial point: i was late, really late, like week and half late
Finally after feeling so horrible all morning I took a test and it was BLAZING positive, so positive the vertical line indicating positive on the test showed up minutes before the other part and the test window
Yeah, I was in major denial
In fact, because the positive came up so fast I thought there might be an error and didn't know if I should believe the accuracy of the test, yeah, major denial
What is funny is that I have wanted to have another one, but by Friday I had convinced myself I was okay with waiting until Lance was a bit older and that I didn't want to be pregnant now, in fact while waiting for the result I was chanting "negative, negative, negative," but my wishful thinking was ineffective
I think the biggest reason I didn't want to be pregnant is the all day sickness especially with Christmas a week away, I felt so horrible Friday and it brought all those memories back and I realized I wasn't ready for feeling yucky all over again
I was also sad for Lance, I didn't want him to think that I didn't love him and I didn't know if it would be best for him and I am obsessed on making the best decisions for him
Also, our house, oh how I love our house, it just doesn't have room for 4, we are tight with 3, and with no basement and storage and no money to upgrade it is kind of upsetting, but then again, it won't really matter until the baby gets old enough to sleep in its own room, not up so much at night so we have plenty of time
And then there is the whole money thing, we are struggling now with 3, but I have to believe that it will get better
I know that all of my issues will work themselves out, i am just not an automatic glass full kind of girl
Well it has been 48 hours and the shock is over and I am feeling good at least at the moment, I wish i hadn't been so stubborn and took a test awhile ago so I could have realized I was pregnant and let that shock set in before the all day sickness hit, but too late now
So 6 weeks down, at least 34 more to go! and I am enjoying my good feeling self now, it is just hard to eat when you feel gross, but it is hard to program my head that eating will make me feel better, i will get it down probably by the time the all day sickness passes

Thankful Thursday

1- for gloomy days that have followed warm, sunny ones so when I don't feel like doing much Lance is content with playing inside

2- hand-me-down toys because without them our toy collection would be non-existent and we won't be able to play inside contently

3- for the extra diaper I hide in the car and forget about until we need it because I didn't plan well and think I would be gone long enough to need a diaper

4- modern Christmas songs- the classics just updated to give more variety to Christmas music

5- free shipping at L.L.Bean- because I hate paying 5 dollars more for something to be shipped!

it is sad, but true

Last night I fell asleep at 8:30! I got like ten hours of sleep, I can't remember the last time I got that much sleep. Now it wasn't 10 hours of continuous sleep, I was up a few times in the night, but still, in the bed, for 10 hours, unheard of. I don't think I have gone to bed that early since I was in elementary school. Jeff woke me up at 10:30 so I could brush my teeth and get ready for bed. The few times that I have fallen asleep early I haven't been able to go back to sleep, but last night I had no problem. I didn't think I was that exhausted, but I guess I was. The sad thing is, since Jeff gets home from work at 7:30, so I really didn't get a chance to hang out with him or talk to him since he had barely been home and the time he had been home his focus was on lance, not me.
It is still unseasonably warm out and we are enjoying every minute. We had a play date yesterday which was a lot of fun, at lance's age play dates can be good or really bad, and the boys played fairly well together, only a few times lance got a little mean. Lance is back into biting again which is frustrating, I thought we were past it, but he started again on Sunday. We haven't said any new words, but he will now say "baa" when you ask him what sound a sheep says. Life isn't too exciting here, which is probably a good thing. Lance is so picky about food, it is driving me crazy. Some things he will eat one day like crazy and then he won't even touch them the next day, it makes is kind of hard to find something for him to eat without being wasteful.
Oh, how could I forget- Lance has figured out how to climb up on the chairs in the dining room. Yesterday I was wrapping presents and he did his little pull up to get onto the chair opposite me. Something happened and the next thing I see across the table is too little feet flying up and over (it looked like feet during a cartwheel). He hit the ground with a thud and then a scream. I have no clue what happened, but I think when pulling himself onto the chair he slid over too far and went off the opposite end sending his feet overtop, basically somersaulted around the seat of the chair. As a result of his dining room chair acrobats he has a bump above his eyebrow- fortunately it isn't a horn, and a few minutes later he was attempting to climb up again so it didn't scar him for life.

drive-thru nativity and global warming

Lance is really into Christmas lights this year so we are driving everywhere for his enjoyment. Friday night we drove by a couple of houses in town with lots of lights and we did a drive-thru nativity at a church near our house. I thought Lance would love the animals that they had, but we wasn't too impressed, I guess it wasn't flashy enough for him. Saturday night we drove 30 minutes to a smaller to drive through an old folks home that does tons and tons of lights. Lance was in awe, as the picture below illustrates.
He was in the front seat with me and hanging out the window. He did not make a sound or turn his head away at all. On the way back we went through a really, really expensive neighborhood and I was amazed at all of the decorations they had (around here the wealthy homes usually have low-key decorations). This neighborhood had million dollar houses in it that were less than 5 years old and I was quite surprised to see all of the tacky decorations they had. The houses weren't that attract and it seems as though "keeping up with the Jones" is their theme. I know the houses were really nice and expensive, but I won't want to live there. Someone once said, money doesn't buy taste, and though I don't want to be judgemental, but it rang true for this neighborhood. We also drove by this tiny house that has a ridiculous number of decorations, they start putting them up in October and it never ceases to amaze me how they can cram so much stuff in one little yard. I don't know how, but we managed to miss the house on the way out, but we definitely looked on the way back. Also on the way back we stopped at another drive-thru nativity. We then decided we were going to hit as many as we could this Christmas season. So far the light count is 3 extremely light houses, 2 drive-thru nativities, 1 elks home, and 1 tacky rich neighborhood. Sunday was pretty low key, went to chruch, Lance took a nap, went to the park to play, and dinner. We finished the night with friends watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, always a Christmas classic.
Today Lance and I have been enjoying the benefits of global warming: 70 degree temperatures in December- I could get use to this. We ran some errands this morning, played outside, raked and played in the leaves, read some books, and now he is napping. I have tons to get done, but lack the motivation to do anything, I just want to sit outside and enjoy the warm weather. I love not having to bundle up and wear tons of clothes in order to be warm. I hate being cold and our house since it is older doesn't do the greatest job staying warm, we always have to the have the electric heater going. After nap we are going to hit the park and make use to every minute of this wonderful weather because I know it won't last long. It is hard to believe it was snowing last Wednesday, man how times change.

i love it when the weathermen are wrong

This morning we got some winter weather that nobody was expecting. We had freezing rain and sleet and it caused schools to be closed, tons of accidents, and all kinds of chaos. Now accidents aren't good, nor playdates being cancelled (it happened to us), but having the trash coming later than usual gave me time to get a trash tag and put out the trash since my husband is a slacker (we have to pay for our garbage to be picked up, quite ghetto). So are morning plans were altered, but it was nice having daddy home a bit longer since we had to wait for the roads to warm up before venturing out and since my mom was off from school we went over to her house to play this morning. Even though it was only ice, I still enjoy unexpected winter weather. I wish the feeling of winter would last, it is suppose to be in the sixties by Monday, which will be great for playing outside, but bad for that Christmas feeling.
Last night we had my in-laws over for dinner. It wasn't as bad as I feared. They are very nice people and they mean well I just don't handle being mothered very well. Jeff said he sensed that I was pretty irritated at the beginning of the meal, but I lightened up towards the end. It is hard, we don't see eye to eye, I am very independent person and I don't like anyone telling me what to do, and I still have a bit of a grudge against them. A month ago Jeff's grandparents and aunts were coming into town for the weekend, something happened and they weren't able to come. Well unknown to us they came a different weekend and nobody bothered to let us know that they were town. We aren't able to go and visit them often because of the store and it is a pain with lance to go for 24 hours for thanksgiving, in fact we haven't really seen them in two years, but anyways. We were planning on making an effort to see them, but we weren't given the opportunity and according to jeff's parents this was their last visit, the drive is too long and jeff's grandfather can't handle the stairs anymore, so who knows when we will be able to see everyone again. So I have a bit of a grudge I am trying to let go of, but I am quite good at holding grudges so it is hard.

Thankful Thursday

1- that lance is a better mood today, we had some problems yesterday and it wasn't a good day, he was at the end of my patience, he was very whiny and yelled a lot, but today he has been so good, not defiant, playing by himself, not as demanding (though he can't talk yet, he can be pretty darn demanding, leading me everywhere)

2- for the five dollar gift certificates I get for having a kroger credit card, my bill went from 26 dollars to 21, yeah!

3- for walks in the snow, yesterday we had cabin fever so I put lance in the stroller and bundled him up and went for a walk, it began to snow on our walk and it was nice to enjoy being outside and the snow (the snow never accumulated, but it was still pretty)

4- for dishwashers, i have been putting off cleaning the kitchen because my hands are so chapped that they hurt, but it could be worse, if we didn't have a dishwasher I would have to wash everything by hand and then I would really have chapped hands, i love my dishwasher and I try and only buy kitchen stuff that can go in the dishwasher

5- Jeff not working his morning job- because he doesn't have to get up, i have been able to have an hour quiet time every morning which really has helped me these last couple of weeks

my favorite Christmas ornaments

I can't choose just one favorite Christmas ornament. I love all the ornaments I have because most of them have been gifts from family and friends over the years and they tell the story of my life. I have a snowman that is dressed in colors of the school I taught at. I have ornaments made by my 95 year old grandmother. I have ornaments representing seasons of life- a pregnant smore ornament. I don't have a themed tree well maybe if you count our history as one. Our tree represents us and every ornament has a story and I love to share those stories with friends and I can't wait to share them with Lance when he gets older. So my favorites are:

Jeff got me this one. I love it because it is so whimsical and happy.


This is one I got when I was in preschool from my aunt and uncle. I loved Strawberry Shortcake. This ornament represents my early childhood and reminds me of when times were simple.

This is my baby bell, my aunt and uncle gave it to me for my 1st Christmas. It is missing a piece and has been glued back together, but it was my very first ornament.

My mom is very organized and she has a list that she made that included description of ornament, who gave it to me, and the year, so I can remember the history of every ornament. I have started this for Lance too and I hope it will be as special to him one day too.

let it snow, let is snow, let it snow

It is snowing! I hate the cold weather unless it is snowing, so today I don't mind the cold. I was hoping the snow would start last night so it actually had an opportunity to stick to everything, but it started at about 8 this morning. Even though I no longer teach school, the idea of waking up and looking out and seeing snow still excites me. I feel bad for all the school teachers who have to deal with the kids who are beyond hyper about the snow falling down, they will probably get nothing done today. It is definitely beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! I just have to not think about the fact it is suppose to be 60 on Monday. I can't wait for a real snowfall, I pray we will actually get some substantial snow this year.
When it rains it pours here in our household. Saturday, i think, our sink leaked. Well it is still having problems and this time the pipe that supplies water to the sink is leaking. This is going to be tricky to fix since if we mess up, we could have water pouring out and it could be a disaster. Jeff didn't get a chance to fix it before he left for work so to be on the safe side he went under the house and turned off the water to the sink (and possibly the washing machine too). So the kitchen sink is out of commission again today. There are so many things that need fixing and doing around here and with it being the Christmas season Jeff just doesn't have the time to work on anything and we don't have the money to hire anyone. I just want to get ahead for once.

bed head and a weight lifted

Lance has some major bed-going on this morning, well actually I haven't done anything about it so he still has it. Anyways, it looks quite funny. This morning we enjoyed some pancakes with Daddy before work.
Jeff told him the pancake were hot so was making sure to not touch, he is so funny about hot things these days. (the picture above is him making sure he isn't touching the hot pancake)

He also likes to try and blow out the "candles" we have in the windows as decorations. He has so many funny quirky things he does and he understands a lot of what we say to him, but he doesn't say anything, with the exception of "daddy." I try not to worry, but it is hard not to.

A weight lifted- I have been worried about a friend of mine for several weeks now and I got good news today that her MRI came back clear. This is such good news, she had been afraid that she had MS or a tumor. I know many of her friends and myself included have been worried about her and now we can celebrate that whatever is going on isn't the worst that we all feared.

weekend

Saturday afternoon Lance attempted to trim the tree. Friday night when we were putting up the tree he wanted to use the garden shears that Jeff used to trim the top of the tree. We wouldn't let him have the shears and we tried to convince him that his toy pliers were the same. He didn't fall for it, but Saturday afternoon he was trimming the tree with his pliers, it was very cute.



Saturday night despite the cold weather we headed downtown to see the Christmas parade. I haven't been to the parade since high school and that it because I was in it. Anyways, it was an adventure, Lance would either love it or hate it. He actually appeared to be some where in the middle. He didn't like it when the trucks would honk their horns, but he seemed quite mesmorized by the floats and the whole experience. The highlight was when the Frito-Lay truck came by and they passed out tons of chips, cookies, and snacks. I got a bag of Sun Chips, my favorite! We also got tons of some kind of fruit chip which was kind of strange but Lance really likes them. Even though I was cold most of the time and it was kind of cheesy I am glad that we went.






After the parade we put the ornaments on the tree. We tried to get Lance to hang up a few, but he usually pulled them off right after hanging them up. He really loves the tree and taking ornaments on and off the tree. I found some shatterproof ornaments and I am impressed how they look like glass balls and not plastic. In fact, my mom was convinced that they were glass and rearranged some of them while she was babysitting last night in fear that Lance would break them.



Sunday we went to church, Lance took a nap, I finished reading a book, and then I headed over to a friend's house to make Christmas cookies. I thought it would take about two hours, but after three hours I headed home and though we had the cookies made, only a few were decorated. The decorating is the fun part and I only got to decorate 5-6 cookies and I feel bad because I left my friend with a mess to clean up.

Today I was able to go to small group which was nice not having to worry about Lance the only problem is, Jeff had Lance this morning and he let him fall asleep for about 20 minutes which has totally ruined our schedule for today. I don't think that I will have naptime to get anything done. With Lance awake it is one step forward and two steps back, I clean one thing up and Lance messes something else up. It is very frustrating. Also, bills are due and guess what, we currently have no money, it is all in inventory at the shop and business has been kind of slow. The situation stresses me out and of course doesn't seem to affect Jeff which then makes me more frustrated.

not a great morning

If this morning is any indication of what today's is going to be like, I should head back to bed. It isn't that bad, but it was interesting. First off, Lance has had two dirty diapers so far, two in one day is surprising, fortunately though I only had to change one because Jeff did the first. This morning I decided to make blueberry muffins. I put them in the oven, set the timer, and then was cleaning up the kitchen since I didn't last night. Timer goes off to let me know the muffins are done; I hit the disposal switch so I can wrap up cleaning to tend to breakfast when water begins gushing out from the cabinet below the sink. I immediately turn off the disposal, but my brain dead self doesn't think to turn off the water. Well it turns out that the pipe connected to the disposal fell off (i guess from the shaking of the disposal being on). So Jeff and I leap into action to contain the water and ground up food, meanwhile the muffins are turning brown! Note: water plus ground up food makes breakfast look not so appetizing. Jeff cleans up the mess and I finish up the bacon. I go upstairs to use the restroom while Jeff starts the eggs. By the time the eggs and bacon are done the muffins are cool and burnt slightly, but I think I can get past that. We sit down and dig in. A bite of muffin and then a bite of egg. Crunch goes the egg. I realize that I am chewing on eggshell and it sounds like a lot of it. I am totally grossed out at the this point. Jeff is watching me make faces with nasty bite and asks if the eggs are bad, I tell him no, but I got a mouth full of shell. Oops, he replies, he confesses that some fell in while he was cracking the eggs but since he was holding Lance he wasn't able to fish it out and I assume he forgot to. He went on to confess that it was a rather large hunk of shell and he was glad that I found it right off so he could enjoy his eggs. He actually said we, but I was over the scrambled eggs by then, so it would only be him enjoying them. Well of course as things go in our household, by the time we (well Jeff) had finished breakfast it was time for him to go and no time to fix the sink. So I do not have a working kitchen sink which makes me a little crazy because I can't clean up after breakfast and I hate a dirty kitchen and since everything from under the sink is out, my dining room is messy too because the breakfast mess won't fit in our small kitchen. So after Jeff left I needed to go shower and since no one was there to watch Lance it was a very quick shower in which Lance went through my bathroom cabinet and threw nearly everything into the shower with me. We both then got dressed and headed over to my mom's house to help her bring the Christmas decorations down from the attic. Lance cried and screamed and fussed the entire time. It was very stressful and not to mention my allergies are driving me crazy- all the dust from attic plus dust from moving around furniture for the Christmas tree. So after breakfast drama and Lance a very unhappy camper it hasn't been the best of days, but I know it could be a lot worse. Fortunately he is now sleeping and since I am too overwhelmed with my messy house I am not doing anything.