Merry Christmas Eve

You know it's the day before Christmas when your 5-year-old says to you, "Mom, I'm sorry for being bad this last year."

You know it's the day before Christmas when your 4-year-old spends the day hugging your arm, leg, or whatever part of your body she can access and says, "I love you."

You know it's the night before Christmas when your 5-year-old willingly and quickly gets ready for bed because Santa can't come if one is not in bed.

You know it's the night before Christmas when your 4-year-old throws the tantrum of tantrums and you threaten that Santa will leave her a pile of coal if she doesn't behave. Then you realize that this threat will no longer work in 24 hours. And you also realize that coal is worth a lot of money these days and it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

You know it's the night before Christmas when your two kids are higher than kites, watching the clock and literally updating each other when the minute has changed. As of right now, they are in bed and have about 635 minutes of updates since I told them they can't come out of their room until 7AM. It will make for an interesting night.

You know it's Christmas when you hear the giggles of excited children and see permanent smiles etched on their faces. There's peace on earth, if only for a little while. Your heart is light and your troubles are out of sight, if only for a day. You're surrounded by family and friends... in your heart and mind, at the least.

Hope you have yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

My Little Gingerbread Men

We'd decorated our tree and our house for the Yuletide season, and thus it came time to decorate the gingerbread house. So I went to the store on an empty stomach and bought all candy that A) was colorful and B) sounded good to me. Goodness, I spent a lot of money on candy. Some of that candy is on the gingerbread house, more of it is in our stomachs, and a tiny bit is left in the pantry and is calling my name right now as I blog. And who am I to turn down candy that has learned to call my name?

I gave the kids full creative license this year to decorate the house as they saw fit. Okay, so my Type A personality may have caused me to move a shrub or two from the roof to near the doorway. But alas, at some point "shrubs" made it to the roof anyway.

Below is the process and the result:

Getting a good look at all the goods.

And then wasting little time getting to work on it.

All business.

Caught in the act (over and over and over again).

And why they loved the "cement" frosting so much I'll never know.

The finished product... a la the shrubs on the front wall and roof.

Jingle All the Way

Camron came home from school last week excited that he'd learned a new song. I was excited, too! He's never one to so openly and eagerly share information... especially to sing a song (even for the camera!). So he sang it. And so it begins...

But you know what else is interesting, I went to load the video to this blog when I came upon another video on my camera:

I don't know where I was or what I was doing, but whether Meaghan knows it or not, she got her picture.

Episode of Episodes

Meaghan had her 4-year-old well-check yesterday at the doctor. Besides pretending she's shy - not answering the doctor's basic questions, coyly smiling while not telling the nurse the shapes on the eye chart, exhibiting that same coy smile while not raising her hand when hearing the beeps on the ear test - she is the perfect picture of health. Just what every mother longs to hear.

What every four-year-old dreads hearing: Vaccinations. Shots. You'll need to hold her down.

Actually, I didn't like hearing those things, either, because while the shots pained Meaghan, they pained me, too. When my kids were babies I had always thought that's when shots were the worst... that I'd be less of a basket case as my kids got older. But it's harder. Now they know what's coming and they dread it. I see the fear in their eyes and can do nothing about it. And they see that I do nothing about it. So they cry and they fight it. And if they're Meaghan they kick and scream and make it impossible for the nurse to give the shots, prolonging the entire process (even though I was holding down her upper body). Based on the amount of blood and bruising, and the needle pokes, it wasn't pretty. Even the nurse was amazed - and exasperated - with how it all went down. Between Meaghan's screams, even after the shots were over, I heard the nurse say something about 'kicking' and 'super strong' and 'wow'.

You'd think once those shots were over Meaghan would have bolted out of the room. But no, she refused to leave; refused to even pull up her pants; refused a snack! It took some major explaining how other children needed the room and some major bribing from the doctor before we got her to leave - 15 minutes after the fact.

Of course Meaghan has milked it for all it's worth. She was carried everywhere yesterday. She got out of swimming class. She got to watch a show while "resting" on the couch. And this morning she was still trying to milk it. I don't doubt that her legs are pretty sore, though. It was quite the episode.

Hanukkah 2010

2nd Night of Hanukkah

Oh, Hanukkah! Your eight nights of festivities have left me weak, tired, and with a messy wax-covered menorah. (Hopefully I'll get to cleaning it this year before the New Year.) And I somehow have to find the strength to recuperate because here comes Christmas!

I know in years past I've been very good to document each of the eight nights, but not this year. With Hanukkah being so early this year, right after getting back from Kansas City, I was thrown off kilter a bit with trying to get everything together... including locating those misplaced gifts. Hopefully I'll find them in time for either A) Christmas or B) birthdays. I must come up with a better plan next year... getting an early start on my shopping did me no good when I lost track of everything.

Anyway, here is some of what our Hanukkah consisted of:

   - A visit with grandparents the first night and spoiled with lots of gifts.

   - Mom, the Mormon, leading the Hebrew prayers for lighting the candles on the nights Dad couldn't make it home. Hopefully I didn't slaughter them too badly.

   -  Dad putting together toys without following directions. But alas, it still works, and now I shall let it go.

   - The asking of "What else?" or "Are there more presents?" while wallowing in their spoils. As it was I had a hard time getting enough gifts to cover the eights nights and upcoming Christmas! I feel like we already have everything... what else is there? (I'm sure my kids will tell me.)

  - A first: Camron and Meaghan got to light the candles all by themselves (under our careful supervision, of course). They couldn't have been more pleased.

   - And the toys... the toys! Time to clean house!

Hoping your Hanukkah, or holidays, has/have been as wonderful as ours. While we got lots, we're most grateful to have each other and to spend this time of year together and with family and friends.

He's playing Bas-ket-ball!

Camron had his first basketball game this past Saturday. I know this is coming out of left field since there's been no mention of it, but yes, we put Camron in YMCA basketball this winter. How's it going, you ask? Remember how well that first year of soccer went? About like that. Well, maybe not that smoothly.

Camron is an academic. He's smart. The kid loves to read, play games, figure things out. And he does like playing sports. Here's something he doesn't like: losing. Now I know what you're thinking: No one likes to lose. But we've got a severe case of "loserlessness"over here.

Camron struggled during a couple of the practices, so we were actually very pleased when he hustled onto the court to join his team on Saturday. But lo and behold! Within 10 minutes after the other team scored their second basket, Camron turned around, put his hands on his hips, gave us *that* looks, and stormed off the court. For him, at that point, the other team was going to win. Game over; he was done.

Because it was a good teaching moment (even though I was more than ready to go home), we made him stay and support his team. Of course he was just getting the itch to go back out and play when the game ended.

Maybe we'll have better luck at tomorrow's game. Maybe if we just don't make eye contact with him when the other team scores, everything will work out better. Here's to hoping, because that was game #1, we've got six more to go.

Pictures of the short time he played (and have patience with me, it's gonna take me some time to figure out which setting I need on my camera for indoor sports):