Ready to Play

I am ready to debut my Christmas toys, but I'm struggling to find time to play with them. I've spent every day and night since Christmas trying to clean our way out of this wrapping paper engulfed house. The other fun filled chore of a parent at Christmas is the never ending battery changing, plastic snapping, screwdriver using construction of every toy the kids received. I have spent so much time building and playing with the kids' toys that my own toys haven't gotten the attention they deserve. Oh the sacrifice. I'm hoping tonight is my big night. Matt will be at work and maybe I'll push bedtime a half hour early. My highly intelligent offspring are still uneducated enough to not be able to tell time, I'm sure I can fool them. I hope to play tonight.

Noah's Ark Lesson Needed

We went to a neighborhood Christmas light display tonight. While we were driving around we went past a home that had an inflatable Noah's Ark in the front yard. Tucker says, "Mommy! Look! It's the God ship!!" That let's me know which story we need to read in his toddler Bible.

Preschool Christmas Party!

Tucker made this Santa hat and he was very proud of himself! Daddy made it in time from work to be able to do all the crafts during the party. My Mom, Matt's Mom, Addie and I came after the party and participated in the sing-a-long and visited St. Nicholas. I wanted Matt to get some special time with Tucker at school because he won't be able to participate as often because of his work schedule.

We are all waiting for our turn to meet St. Nicholas.

Oh, this picture got out of order... This is my Mom (Tucker's Nana) singing Christmas songs!

Tucker and St. Nicholas. Tucker wasn't sure he wanted to talk to this guy, but he did have chocolate coins...so he decided to give it a go. When we walked in to the sanctuary where St. Nicholas was sitting, I looked down the aisle and said, "Oh, it's the Pope" and Tucker yelled out, "IT'S A WEDDING!"

St. Nicholas with Tucker and his teacher Mrs. Scott.

Tucker and his teacher Mrs. Broome. Both of these women are INCREDIBLE. I try to treat them with Starbucks a few mornings a month.

We are quickly gearing up for a big FOURTH birthday on Christmas Eve....how did that happen. I always recall how choked up I get at Tucker's birthday and I don't this year will be any exception. I see him growing up so fast, looking like such a big boy and leaving the baby days behind. I do NOT feel sad that he is not a baby, because frankly, he was a very difficult baby. But I know I will miss these days. It will all fly by and this picture will be replaced by a high school graduation picture, which will hopefully be replaced with a college graduation picture, only to be replaced with a wedding photo...and I can only imagine how it will feel like I only blinked twice.

Blog-a-rific Life, Yet No Blogs?

Let me start this by saying, my lack of blogging is not due to a lack of material. It is more due to the fact that it takes time to download, edit, then upload photos. Then, I refuse to post my thoughts, feelings and insights into life without some clever, witty and moderately entertaining fashion, which also takes time. And now that I'm writing it all down, maybe it's not even a lack of time. Well then, you might be asking yourself, what the hell is the problem? My only response can be, especially after reading what I just wrote is, I have no clue. What is my problem?

In the last week, Tucker has had a Christmas program at school, he also got his finger stuck in the hole on the side of a Kitchen Aide bowl (don't worry, I got pictures before rescuing his finger), and Addie ate a piece of chocolate and kept saying "ann-eee" for candy and I took a video of her chocolate smeared face. So listen, it's no lack of material. It's just a lack. So look for my attempt at slapping the "lack" right out of myself and getting some great posts up and going.

By the way, I've been told by an anonymous source that I'm a decent writer. ...and anonymous doesn't mean I'm trying to talk about myself being awesome, this is a real, living, breathing separate human being than myself. Anyway, my "source" said I'm a decent writer. Does anyone have a clue how one would go about making some money by writing? My degree isn't journalism or even communication, although I'm not so bad at communicating even without the Edward R. Murrow seal of approval. Anyway, any ideas? I'm kinda looking for a way to make some greenbacks fall my direction and maybe this would be something I could do without ditching my kids in a daycare 5 days a week. Thanks for any ideas or leads.

Happy 5th Birthday, BO!

This is the dog I was never supposed to love. When we moved to Georgia in 2005, we had a small, fenced yard and were surrounded by neighbors and friends with dogs. I had never had a dog growing up and didn't really think I wanted one either. I grew up with cats. I don't think I really love cats now either. I'd rather go on a poo-poo scavenger hunt in the back yard than dig through dusty, smelly, nasty cat litter. Which reminds me of my friend Gene who says things like "That's about as good as being face-down in kitty litter". I love Gene and his funny sayings!

Anyway, in Georgia, Matt started doing research into breeders in the area looking for a lab puppy. I was about 4 months pregnant with Tucker and I told Matt that if he wanted to get a dog, he better do it before we had the baby. I knew I'd be too overwhelmed to commit to a dog after the birth.

Matt came to me one day and said, "Let's just go 'look' at the humane society and see what kind of dogs they have there."

Now, if you've ever been to the humane society, you know how hard it is to just "look". I'm not sure how you go there and not come home with 5 dogs, 3 cats, a bird and really feeling guilty about all the other animals you left behind. It's a sad place, really.

So we go "look" at the Muscogee County Humane Society just outside Columbus, GA. We saw several dogs, but there was only one dog that we really wanted. There was also a mom and her son looking at our dog at the same time. We decided to move fast, get a helper and get him out of the cage and with us before they could. The thing that we loved about our dog from the beginning was that he was the ONLY dog that wasn't barking at us.

We decided to take him home on the "foster program" where you can take the dog for 3 days, no charge, to see if the animal fits into your family. We took him home and introduced him to all the kids we knew and pulled his tail while he ate to see what kind of tolerance he had for kids. He was PERFECT. Well, there was one little thing....the humane society had named him Alfalfa. What? What a horrible name. Matt wanted to rename him Bo and I had a small problem with that. My dear friend Angela had a yellow lab named Bo and he was a total disaster. Once he cornered me and well, "touched me inappropriately"...is that how you say it nicely? So I was hesitant to name him after knowing what kind of consequences that might carry. But...we did it anyway. We named him Bo Muscogee, named after the county we adopted him from.

Our next duty station was Fort Polk, Louisiana where we conveniently moved to Beauregard Parish. I immediately thought Bo needed a legal name change. After moving to LA he became formally known as Beauregard Muscogee. At that point, we were hoping to move to Fort Lewis, Washington and I joked that the more duty stations we did, the more names our dog would accumulate. Thankfully, we have made our final destination Portland, however Bo has not adopted any further names based on our physical location...although Beauregard Muscogee Washington Glem sounds pretty regal! (We live in Washington County)

Like I said before, I was never supposed to love this dog. But I knew I'd fallen for the mutt when he ran away in Louisiana (one of many times) and I was standing out in the middle of our street around midnight, in my pajamas, crying because I couldn't find our dog. Who's the sucker now? Me.

I was never sure I'd love that dog. We did the "foster" program for a weekend and when we had spent a few days with him, had decided that this was the dog for our family. I went to the humane society and paid our adoption fees and he was all ours. Later that night, we went to an Army function that lasted less than two hours. When we got back, Bo had chewed up about $600.00 dollars worth of electronics and my sunglasses. We lost my cell phone, which I used for a few weeks while I tried to get a new one...dog bite imprints and all. The cords to our portable DVD player were shredded. The DVD player itself didn't survive. I literally had to sweep up my sunglasses and phone off the floor. It was NOT a good day for Bo. Had we made the wrong decision?

After taking him to the vet for a routine check and vaccines, they asked me how old our dog was. I told the vet what the humane society had told us, one and a half years old. The vet looked at me, smiled and said, "I don't think he's quite that old." She said his teeth indicated that he was approximately NINE MONTHS old! No wonder he's chewing stuff up, he's a 70 pound PUPPY!! The only thing I could do was smile and hope he wasn't going to get significantly bigger. The vet said he was probably born sometime in December or early January and that we could just pick a day to be his birthday. So we decided to go straight down the middle and call it December 15th. Little did we know that Bo's little brother, Tucker, would be born so soon after that!

Beauregard Muscogee has been an awesome addition to our family for the last 4 years. I have learned to love dogs, well at least ours, much more than I ever thought possible. Happy Birthday Bo! We love you BoBoLicious!

Double Duty Kitchen

I found out this week that our play kitchen doubles as a jungle gym! Both Tucker and Addie have learned out to climb inside the "refrigerator". Oddly enough, Addie climbs into the top shelf, while Tucker prefers the bottom shelf.

I'm not being a very good Mommy because I always tell them to get out of the kitchen, but I also snap a picture before they get out. It's called "mixed messages" Tami, what do you want them to do? Be cute or get the hell out of the kitchen? In a perfect world, both!

Wii Character

The other day Tucker was playing Wii and when I walked in to the living room and he is playing a Mii that I've never seen before. He told me, "Mommy, I made this character. It's called Tucker." I'm not sure how he figured out how to create a character, but it made me laugh. My favorite part is his name.

Diaper Disco

Three Year Anniversary...UGGHH

It's December 7th. Pearl Harbor Day. My THIRD anniversary in braces. UGGH. Will the torture ever end? The Doc is saying something about spring time. I am SO over believing I will ever lose the brace-face look. Maybe it's just a good look for me and I'm meant to look this way? No, I have to keep the faith. One day, I won't be making ortho appointments anymore. I won't be wearing holes in my mouth for the sake of straight teeth. It's hard to be optimistic when I've been wearing braces for 3 years, I've had 3 oral surgeries, and I still have one more surgery to go! BLAH! That's how I really feel.

Christmas Preparations

I am just going to give myself a Good Mommy Award, because I'VE decided I deserve it! This is nothing like the Mommy Of The Year Award that I often nominate myself for, where I do something so awful, mean or stupid that I deserve some recognition for being a jerk. This is honest-to-goodness good Mommy crap. Now, I might be insane, stupid or naive for thinking these things are good ideas, but hey that's what vacuums and lots of Sham-Wows are for!! I'm going to omit the part where I was covered from fingertip to elbow in white frosting and how I had to vacuum the tiny ball candy when Tucker dumped a large bowl off the counter. And I won't mention about how the tiny ball candies were spread from the kitchen to under the couches in the family room. Remember, I already said this wasn't a smart idea...it was just a good memory making event with Tucker! I must be letting him out in public too much because somehow he found out about making ginger bread houses! I was really trying to hold him off on this kind of knowledge until he was capable of making these things without my assistance! Well, unlike my efforts to keep him in the dark about Chuck E. Cheese (which he still hasn't been to) my evil plans to keep him from making a ginger bread house came to a screeching halt this last week. We made a trip to Costco where they had the easiest and most complete ginger bread house. If you are feeling brave (aka STUPID) like me, then get your ginger bread house at Costco. It comes with more candy than you can even put on the house, which by the way is hard as a rock and probably older than Tucker. It also comes with this tray that has grooves in it so that the sides of the house stay together better. Anyway, I'm not getting paid by Costco to say any of this, so I'm going to stop acting like a promotions coordinator for Costco's ginger bread houses. So this is me...Good Mommy Award.

The first picture is the ginger bread girl "Addie" as decorated by Tucker. Notice the mouth that is really big, he said she was sad and crying. Which is pretty accurate with her cutting her 1 year molars right now.
This is the front of the house and the ginger bread boy that is "Tucker". I decorated this one with Tucker's help. The little ball candies lining the roof are the ones I will be finding in the kitchen and family room for many months to come.
Tucker was VERY proud of his work!
This is me, after vacuuming and mopping up the house! See my smile! Do you think he bought the idea that I was having a blast?? ha ha ha!

I have been earning my GMAs for the last few weeks as we prepare for Christmas. I let my kids bake! We made a recipe that calls for a dry yellow cake mix as a topping for a pumpkin pie dessert...I should really post the recipe for this! I will, at the end of the post. YUMMY and EASY. Honestly, my kids made it. Other than cracking the eggs, they did it all.
This is Addie's small cake mix spill that turned into a great opportunity to see what dry cake mix tastes like! She LOVED it...if you can't tell by the smile on her face!
We decorated our tree...well Tucker and Addie decorated first then I "helped" after they went to bed that night.
Addie rode the wrapping paper. I have GOT to remember this year to not buy my kids ANY actual Christmas presents because all they really want is a few, large boxes.
Well, not exactly the final product...but close enough. I will of course have to post again about our tree because I'm actually really happy with it! It was just supposed to be thrown together with cheap bows so I didn't stress myself out with trying to keep the kids off of it, but I think I might really like it! Since this picture we got a gold star for the top and I have plans to wrap those pictures on the wall like presents so we can be more festive! I need to get on that! More pictures of my Walmart Bow Christmas Tree to come!

Until then, I challenge you with two things....

1. I know finances suck. Matt and I had 10 months of unemployment this year and we live with his Mom...I know CRAPPY finances. But remember the things you do have. Be blessed in giving, even if it's small. Try this week to bless someone less fortunate. You know that guy on the street that is asking for help? You don't have to give him money. Pack an extra sandwich in the morning when you make your lunch for work. If the man is TRULY needy, he will need that sandwich as much as he needs a few bucks. Give, be as generous as you can, be blessed with the gratitude that is given in return. Your generosity will make you richer in your heart than that dollar makes you in your wallet.

2. I challenge you to make this dessert and share it with someone special. Remember...MY KIDS MADE THIS...you can do it too!!!

Pumpkin Pie Crunch

1- 15 oz can of pure pumpkin

1- 12 oz can evaporated milk

3 eggs

1-1/2 C sugar

4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp salt

1 box yellow cake mix

1 C chopped pecans

1 C melted butter

Serve with cool whip

Preheat oven to 350

grease 9 x 13 pan

Combine pumpkin, milk, eggs sugar, spice and salt in large bowl. Pour mixture into 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle dry cake mix over mixture. Top with pecans. Drizzle with melted butter. Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with cool whip.

Then, let me know what you think! Enjoy!