Really?!?

Last night we drove two hours to Everett to see The Wiggles.  This is our 3rd year going and the kids had a blast.  Everyone LOVED Lilli’s dress and Murray(He’s the Red Wiggle) even had me hold her up at one point to show it off.  Very proud mommy moment for me!  Lilli kept hugging me all night and telling me that she loved me, then dancing and singing along.  Kaleb even went up towards the stage to dance.

I WOULD show off pictures, but sadly someone tried to take my camera away from me.  The event staff at the Everett Events Centre?  Complete jerks.  Their reasoning for me NOT being able to have my camera?  It has a detachable lens, which may be used as a weapon.  Did every one just laugh?  I did, because really it was funny until I realized they were serious.  You think I am going to detach my $300 lens and throw it at The Wiggles?!?  HOW DARE YOU NOT SING WIGGLY PARTY!  I got a good elbow in as hands were reaching toward my camera.  I asked to speak to supervisors and everyone shook their head and said “They will tell you the same thing” or “They are unavailable” or my favorite “We don’t really have one” mmhmm.  Then it dawned on me as I’m looking around at the crowd of sippy cup totting toddlers.  Exactly how much do these things weigh?  The answer:

A FULL sippy cup:

Hmm.  $300 lens OR a $4 sippy cup?  Tough one.  Clearly if you want to injure someone, one usually reaches for the heavier object.  Just a thought.  Not to mention, the Everett Events Centere WAS allowing them to sell merchandise which included The Big Red Car on a STICK.  Which if used properly could be used to blugeon one of The Wiggly Dancers OR the asshat event security guy who “Doesn’t make the rules” and “I don’t know it’s my first day”  First day of what?  Being on a power trip and being an asshole?  Way to go you successfully ensured the saftey of all The Wiggles from a detachable lens throwing crazed mom.  Good for you, make sure you pat yourself on the back for that one.  You really deserve it.

BY THE WAY, here is your camera policy:

Cameras and Recording Devices

As a general rule, cameras and recording devices of any kind are not permitted inside the Comcast Arena at Everett. This is subject to change on an event by event basis. If by chance, a patron brings a camera or recording device to an event, the patron will be asked to return that item to his or her vehicle. The Comcast Arena at Everett cannot hold any personal property belonging to a guest.

Nowhere is it noted that you are not allowed to have a detachable lens camera.  According to this statement on their website NO cameras are allowed, yet EVERY ONE had one and they all got to take their pictures.  Better take everyone’s cell phone away as well.  Those can take pictures too.  The Wiggles HIGHLY encourage picture taking and say so in the beginning of every show.  I wonder what THEY would think about this…

Happy 4th of July!

Lilli refuses to wear pants or shorts anymore, so I HAD to make her a 4th of July dress!  I got this fabric on super clearance at Walmart, before they closed down their fabric department.  Ugh, that still makes me mad by the way.  Any who!  Here’s what I came up with!  Have I mentioned that I LOVE the snaps for her dresses?  Makes life so much easier.

Careless Whisper

Yesterday I was running from the time I got up, until I crashed at 1 am.  It was not in vain though.  Before I left the house I, made dinner, baked a cake, answered email etc, then took a load of stuff to the Goodwill, sold a big box of books to Half Price Books, bought Kaleb some shorts, picked up a yummy German dinner, picked up my mom and took her home, went to the bank, bought fruit for fruit salad, came back and made a fruit salad, cut up stuff for German potato salad, came HOME made Ryan dinner(he is NOT a fan of German weiswurst and pretzel rolls), went back over to my mom’s, Hugged my Uncle, mixed the potato salad, gave my Oma dinner and medicines and finally plopped in the closet chair and sat down.  There were several other things, but that is the main jist.  I’m just happy everyone is home and where they should be!

OH and while I was running around I heard this song:

I heard the opening cords and was like HEY I know this song.  Fantastic!  Does this make anyone else happy?  It should!

P is for:

P is for: Pixie, Pretend and Play.  Both of the kids are really into dress up.  The poofier and girlier the dress, the more Lilli wants it on.  I caught her in a moment of sweetness.  Shortly after I took this picture she was off and running and keeping up with Kaleb, who was dressed as a Fireman.

S is for:

S is for: Sweet, Sympathy, Siblings and Support.  Lilli was sad and Kaleb reached over and held her hand.

2008 can suck my elbow!

Goodbye 2008 and good riddance!  I think I am happier than most to see it go.  Presumptuous?  Maybe, but right now RIGHT at this very second, I believe it.  This year has been the worst in all my 26 years.  While I have grown from everything, which is always good, I could use a pass please.  Just a small one?  So here is a rundown of my year.  Ready?

This year:

I had my heart broken four times and I cried my face off.  I don’t cry.  I walked around in a daze for an entire month.  I went to Hawaii and buried my toes in the sand.  I bought my camera to make me feel better.  I will never forget the feeling of taking that first picture.  What started out as something to make me feel better is turning out to be a passion. Kaleb turned 4 and went up the Space Needle for the first time.  The look on his face was priceless.  I confess that I did not make his cake.  My mom did it.  Two keys on my laptop broke off and weren’t able to be fixed.  The monitor is also about to fall off.  No bueno.  I thought about getting a Mac. I’m still thinking about it.  Lilli turned two.  I made her entire birthday outfit.  She fell in love with Hello Kitty.  I made her cake and it was awesome!  I said I’m sorry.  I got back together with Katie.  We are learning to use our words.  We’re Still Here.  I saw the Mima Mounds.  I learned who my true friends were.  I built  the pinkest cake in the entire world.  My hands were pink for days.  I met a new friend.  I was accused of cheating.  They were WRONG.  I got my nails done.  I tried to dye my hair purple.  It didn’t work.  I did, however, dye the tub, shower curtain and Katie’s hands.  I dislocated my left toe.  It turned purple.  Then green.  Then yellow.  I bought new shoes!  I turned 26 and watched my mom make the cake wrong.  She’s been making that same cake for over 30 years.  There is no excuse.  I got Fiestaware!  I didn’t drink coffee for 8 days!  It was a challenge, but I did it.  I had a panic attack that impressed a nurse.  My blood pressure was 140 it’s normally 97.  They gave me Valium.  It did nothing.  I smoked a cigarette instead.  It helped.  I leaned and was leaned on.  I made midnight runs to Shari’s.  Ryan and I had our 6th wedding anniversary.  We went to Seattle.  I made the skirt I wore.  It was so comfy.  I wished on a star.  It didn’t come true.  I lost 10 pounds.  I played Karaoke Revolution.    I told someone a secret.  I was shocked.  It felt right.  It still does.  Then I got scared.  It comes and goes.  I raced a BMW on I-5, I won.  They got stuck behind another car.  HA!  I let the music move me.  I realized that I missed the person I was.  I’m finally starting to feel like me again.  If you have a problem with it, oh, I DON’T CARE.  I decided to be happy.  Smile.  I found an old friend.  I missed you.  You were right, we were great together.  I got a new phone.  I text messaged non stop.  I got some that made me smile.  I miss those.  I stopped talking to someone just because YOU asked.  You lied to me.  I wore hot pink eye liner.  I dressed up as a fairy for Halloween.  Kind of.  I forgot to take a picture.  I made a Smurf Cake.  Happy Smurfday Joe!  SPRINKLES!  I read the Twilight books in 4 days.  I saw the movie twice.  I snuggled with puppyface.  Spider monkey….  I made plans for a secret trip to Kentucky.  Except EVERYONE knew and Katie was coming with me.   I’m going to Louisiana instead.  By myself.  It’s going to be a blast!  I car danced.  I spent the night at Katie’s and went to sleep when the sun came up.  We ate pancakes and bacon a few hours later.  I wore my sunglasses at night.

Ok maybe it wasn’t all bad.  I learned.  Loved.  Lived.  I was honest.  In the end?  In the end, I got Coach.

Wii gots fun, kid!

Two days of family and good food.  I need a rest 🙂  Christmas Eve and Christmas day are equally high paced in my family.  Once upon a time my mom and aunt would fight over who would host Christmas Eve.  I don’t know when, but my mom won.  It was probably around the time when my aunt moved out by us.  As us kids grew older we started wanting to host something.  My cousin Tricia moved next to her mom and started hosting Christmas morning brunch.  My family is notoriously late for life, and brunch was the best way to tide us over when inevitably dinner was is late.  The tradition still holds up.  When I moved back everyone wondered what I was going host.  It seems like New Years has fallen upon me.  I gladly accepted it!  I am not one to go out and I love having my family gathered around safe and sound bringing in the New Year.  Traditions are such a comfort.

So here is my Christmas recap:

I spent most of the morning finishing up my goodie baskets.  Which were a huge hit!  Due to all the snow I had to run and get a picture printed for my Oma’s present ON Christmas Eve.  It’s still a shock to me to see so many people outdoing last minute shopping.  I also had to drop off the dog’s stocking at mom 2 house.  While there I got two meatballs, because really?  Yeah I forgot to eat.  Those meatballs are bliss, just so you know.  Then back to my mom’s to decorate her tree.  When I was little we would have a plain tree up for about two weeks and then, as if by magic it would be decorated on Christmas morning.  As I got a little older we decorated it on Christmas Eve.  She failed to tell me this year my uncle had gotten her a 16 foot tree.  Right.  Thank goodness Ryan was able to get the lights on top.  Although the ladder got put away before we had put decorations on top, so only the bottom half has decorations.  Heehee.  I also need to mention that because it was so tall they had to put it in the unfinished room and I had to break out one of the smaller decoration trees so we could stick some of the gifts under it.  After a traditional German dinner (bratwurst, potato salad, and pretzel rolls) the kids of the family got to open their gifts.  My aunt still thinks I fall under this category 🙂  Although her excuse was that I was so easy to shop for.  I got another Fiestaware setting!  Hopefully I will be able to get rid of my old set soon.  Lilli got a BEAUTIFUL doll and Kaleb got an awesome laptop.  My sister, even though she had got me my new phone gave me a usb car charger and docking station.  We headed home to set up for Christmas morning at our house.  I attempted to do Santa this year and to be honest, Kaleb is just not buying it.

Me: Come on Kaleb, we have to go to bed.  Santa is coming tonight.

K: Hmm

Me: What’s up?

K: Mommy…I don’t want that guy in my house.

Me: You don’t want him to leave you presents?

K: NO! I DON’T WANT HIM TO COME IN MY HOUSE!!!!

He then THREW himself face down on my mom’s couch, with a huge, exasperated huff.

So I tried with Lilli.

Me: Lilli!  Santa is coming tonight!!!! (I find that the more animatedly you talk to her the more excited she becomes)

L: *claps* YAY!  Santa! *giggle*

Me: Yay!  So we need to go home and go to bed so he will the presents.

L: Come on Kaleb!

K: NO! I DON’T WANT HIM IN MY HOUSE!

L: Ok.

Sigh.  You can’t say I didn’t try.  If you really stop to think about it, you spend their entire life telling them not to talk to strangers and yet you want them to believe in some dude that comes into your house while you are sleeping.  Talk about mixed messages.  My mom of course HAD to remind me that I had the whole dang thing figured out at 4 as well.  Kaleb reminds me of Susan from Miracle of 34th St.

Christmas day, WE SLEPT IN!  It seems that if your kids aren’t waiting for that “Ho Ho” as Anna calls him, to come, they sleep longer!  Then they BOTH got up and got dressed.  Kaleb decided that he needed to wear the same thing he wore the night before when he opened presents.  Something about being festive or something(except they weren’t) and I was too busy trying to talk Lilli out of wearing her bathing suit…  She finally settled on a pair of Kaleb’s sweat pants and a shirt.  Kaleb’s favorite present was his drum(an insane parent move, but I was sick and tired of my knitting needles and furniture being beat up on) and Lilli’s loves her skates.  We picked up the paper and headed over the Tricia’s for brunch.  The Ho Ho brought Alex a Wii.  Which meant that we spent the entire morning playing it.  Kaleb loved it and was surprisingly coordinated with bowling.  Lilli, in a surprise turn for me, couldn’t bowl unless the controller was in her left hand.  Hmm.  Honestly I saw that controller being thrown at the tv.

As for me?  My arm is SO sore!  I’ll take you on any day though.  I’ll admit it, that thing is fun.  Here is a super unfocused, somewhat unflattering picture of me 🙂

Heehee.  After we worked of brunch playing Wii and having an impromptu snowball fight (I was wearing a skirt) we packed everyone into cars and headed over to my mom’s for dinner.  The roads are still slicker than snot in some places and for once I was thankful for my Trailblazer.  While we waited for the turkey to finishing sitting we all just hung around talking.  Well except for the boys who headed out to have another snowball fight.  Doug came in with a huge welt on the side of his head, Alex was soaking wet and Ryan, well, Ryan was bleeding.  There was some mumbling about throwing ice chunks.  Idiots.  After we were as stuffed as the turkey we all headed home to our beds.

I hope your holidays were filled with as much fun, love and joy as ours!

Ice…is…slippery…

Duh.  I slipped today and KIND OF did the splits.  My inner thigh hurts a little, but aside from that I’m fine.  I was too busy laughing at myself to notice at first and my first attempt at getting up resulted in my sliding a little more.  I’m sure it was very funny to watch.  In fact I could have sworn that the people in the car that drove past were laughing.  Katie held on to me because really?  I’m NOT an all terrain Laini.

We headed into Tacoma when our power went off.  We were all a little stir crazy and the outing was nice.  You could tell that it had been a while since either of us had been around people since we acted like a my kids after they have red dye 40 (pretty much jazzed out of their brains, it’s crazy)  I would like to mention that the power went off JUST as I decided that I was going to make the caramel popcorn to go in the gift baskets.  Super.  So another day behind on those.  On a totally NON related subject,  I did get a fantastic shot of a very cold palm tree.

Silly.  While we waited, we made sugar cookies to decorate tomorrow at the Christmas party.  The kids talked to Richard.  I dried some diapers, well the dryer dried them, but you know… OH Katie got new tires!  So we were really waiting on both those things.  My power to come back on and her car to be done.  I got my call before she did 🙂  It was funny, when Katie went to pick up her car I noticed Kaleb standing by her computer.  When I asked what he was doing he replied:

K: I don’t want to miss my SHOW!

Me: What show?

K: This one (pointing to the computer)

I finally figured out that he was waiting for Richard to come back on the web cam.  Ok.  Weirdo.  Later when they (Katie and Ryan) got back and turned the web cam back on, Mr. Kaleb was very excited to have his show back on.  They spent some time making faces back and forth to h  while arguing who lived where in the Space Needle.  Kaleb lives on top, Richard lives in the gift shop.  They are NOT roommates.

I am happy to be home WITH power!  Tomorrow will be filled with baking AND finishing up my tree.  It looks so fantastic I could squeal a little.  Lilli is absolutely in love with it.  She spent a good five minutes staring at it when we got home.  When she turned around and looked at me she said “It’s sooo beautiful.  It’s pink.  It’s MY favorite”  She did a little pirouette and ran off.

it is so beautiful, pink, and it’s my favorite too.

Cookie Coma

Yesterday was a whirlwind of stores. I had it in my head that I need to get EVERYTHING that I needed for Christmas bought. I did. I am done shopping!  Now I just need to work on making/finishing everything. This year I am making the majority(about 80%) of my gifts. It was a huge sigh of relief. My family had planned on drawing names, but surprisingly(read, not so much) it fell through. I also consolidated my gift giving list, which I encourage people to do!

I had planned (did you hear the air quotes?) on opening an Etsy shop in November, but you know, life happened. I am still planning on it and hopefully by January I will have something to show. Although, since I am planning a trip to Louisiana in February, it may be more like March… Most of the gifts that I am making will be in my shop! Well not THE actual gifts, but you know…

I want to post pictures of my projects SO bad, but since the recipients read my blog, I can’t! I will leave you with a picture of miss Lilli in a cookie coma instead. I don’t know what is up with her sleep eating lately. I shot this with a borrowed 50mm lens. I like it, but I think I am going to get the 80mm after all 🙂

Oy, with the poodles.

Today I decided that i needed to get the Christmas card pictures taken. I had a super sweet idea in mind, but getting it out of my head and printed are so far from each other. I don’t know why I thought it would be a breeze to get both kids to cooperate. Or that they would, you know, smile… This picture about sums the picture taking experience:

All hope is not lost. I will try again. I will succeed. Although I have half a mind to print out the bloopers with the caption “From my uncooperative children to you and yours”. Don’t get me wrong, my kids are the cutest demons darlings, but man oh man my head spins some times.  I got two cutish shots, but I’m not 100% happy with them.  I’ll play around with them though.

I did, however, make mini strawberry yummyness.  Graham cracker crust, strawberry ice cream and the fantasticness that I retrieve from Shari’s.  Katie is brilliant.  I’m just saying.

Notice the topping to pie ratio…YAY.