25 Days 'Til Christmas

The countdown is beginning, I really need to find the girls' advent calendars and figure out what I am going to put in them this year. We really need to start decorating at some point, we still have the Thanksgiving deco up (what little there is of it). This year should be some fun decorating as I have accumulated alot of new things this time around, and we have alot more space to put it.

Oh, we got new tires on the car last Friday, so now it's a smooth ride.. If only I had time to clean out the inside. Okay I need to finish studying and then I am off to get the girlies. Here's to 25 days of holiday mania!

A full weekend

Julius and I have spent the entire weekend studying. Saturday the girls did well playing together throughout the day while Julius and I studied (I was so surprised at them, and they did it without the computer!). Then today my aunt took the girls up to their Great Grandma's house while Julius and I sat and studied the entire day (minus lunch, and a brief walk around the block). It was great, I believe I spent atleast 20 hours studying for my test tomorrow. I have to get atleast a B- in order to have any chance of passing. I have never studied that much for one test! My book shows alot of wear and tear, in addition to it's multiple colors of highlighter and it's scribbled notes in the margins!

Now it's 11pm and I am just taking a break before going to bed. I am catching some computer time and watching StarWars Ep. IV (the first one). It has been so nice to spend some time at home, I cannot wait for Christmas break, it's just nice to have some time to relax and enjoy the new house.

Christmas Tree Lighting

Well I have successfully back dated several posts! But this one I will keep as today :) Yesterday the girls and dad went towards Mt. Hood and found some snow (despite not having proper clothing). They said they had a good time, but snow is really COLD!

When they got back we all went down to Esther Short Park to see the Christmas tree lighting (although it was already lit when we got there, it was still nice). We took a brief walk around the park and it was nice, cold though. That means that Christmas is upon us, although I did not do any BF shopping.

Here is the photo we took of the tree, soon we will have one of our own to decorate (a smaller one!).
(I would post the photo from the other time we went -I cannot even remember what year it was- but unfortunately due to my very bad photo organization system I cannot find it.. :( I guess I will have to put that on my list of things to do!)

My little muffin top!

Me and the little lady... what a cutie!

Turkey Day

For us Thanksgiving has calmed down in the last 10 years. It used to be a huge celebration with all the Aunt and Uncles and their respective mates and kids - lots of kids, and often their kids too. Everyone would stuff themselves not only on turkey and mashed potatoes but also on pies and desserts. It was a day long procession with people coming and going. It changed alot once my grandma moved to a smaller house, then the home of the annual Turkey day changed to my Uncles who had a somewhat large house (although located a ways from the hub of Vancouver).. from there it went to my other Uncles, who had a gross of sticky, loud, grand kids (not a big attraction). It's somewhat dwindled since then. And admittedly now that I have my own family it's somewhat nice just to have a small dinner with time for a little peace and quiet. In fact we don't even serve turkey.

So this year we had a small celebration at my house with a few extra family members. It was nice, aside from the two days of cleaning (but the house sure did sparkle!) It was a calm day and we even had a few hours to sit and watch TV, while everything roasted, toasted, and boiled! :) We took this time to take a few photos...

Can't get those fingers to work...

You know I used to be really good at this blogging thing.. And I can't help but wonder what has happened to me? Everytime I look around I see so many things that need to be finished, the desk is piled high with work to do, the floors are a constant battle between dirty and clean, the laundry is always haunting me as it reproduces it's piles and piles, not to mention the dishes which climb the counter space in the kitchen.. When I think of it all I just can't find anything nice to blog about, tack on the fact that it's nearly 3pm and I am still in my pj's (and not a comfortable calm pj day, a hectic no time for a shower day!). There are just not enough hours to do everything that keeps piling up. I get one thing done and then something else has fallen by the wayside. I just cannot win.

Atleast the girls are cooperative today, they are happily playing and even picked up their room (perhaps they are begining to see that mommy is on the verge of a meltdown!) I am going to have them help me mop the floors (if I can ever get the counter tops cleaned off), then hopefully they will be productive participants in the window washing category...

I can't help but be reminded of something that Mrs. Dugger said, "Many hands make light work." I do not know how any house can be anything but a disaster from that many kids, even if you don't include the older ones, heck there must be 6 young ones and they cannot possibly be that helpful... or maybe they are, perhaps mine need some better training.

Well I am off, for Thanksgiving dinner is but hours away and this house has months worth of cleaning.. :) Here's to getting done what people can see, and hiding the rest!

Not Much Happening

I'm behind on the posting already, that is so typical of me. I just don't have anything spectacular to blog about. I am mostly playing catch up with everything and it seems so boring to blog about. Maybe something interesting will come up later today.. :)

A Look at Next Semester

It's really challenging to blog every day, especially when you are doing pretty much the same thing every time.

Last night I registered for my next semester classes, I will go Monday/Wednesday 10:30-2:40 and Tuesday night from 6-8:45, seems like a pretty good schedule. I have a one hour break on Mon/Wed so I should be able to get some homework done in that time, and I will be done in time to pick the girls up from school. So no more paying $12.75 a week for Alexa.. yay! And since I am going to change the girls from gymnastics to ballet it should work out just fine.

Now if I can only get a passing grade on my this quarter classes.. which seems to be the hard part. I am carrying a 'D' in two of my classes, and we have 4 weeks left, so I am in need of some serious miracles.

The vs. Duh

Apparently while learning the alphabet sounds at school someone said that the letter 'd' says 'duh' which I assume some kid has an older sibling who says, "Duh!" which is not a word that Julius or I have ever used. And although the 'd' does say 'duh', Alexa has learned to exaggerate the sound into "Duh!"... which she then started confusing with the word "the"... This is driving me bonkers, because it is such a minimal sound change between the two that I don't think Alexa realizes the difference. She always says, "The letter 'd' says duh mom, that is just like the." Which it is not just like 'the'... Hopefully this will not cause future problems, and she still wonders why some kids say, "The!" As in this conversation she told me about:
Child 1: "Your sitting behind Aaron."
Child 2: "I already know that, the!"

The Invitation..

Well it's happened, and Kindergarten has only just begun. My little Alexa, quiet as she is, has made a handful of friends in K-garten. She tells me about them constantly, everything from conversations they've had, to what they were wearing, to what kind of backpack they have. Thanks to her teachers name chart she is also able to tell me what letter their names start with.

So yesterday while waiting for the teacher to come collect her chirping little chickens I was singled out by a mom for a 'conversation'. Now it's really early for me to get up and drop her off, so I'm not exactly a chattering social butterfly, infact I wish she had an older friend that could walk her to school (save me the trip).

But after a brief conversation assuring this mom that indeed my childs name was, Alexa, she turned to the real reason for the forced early morning banter, her daughter is having a birthday party and wants to invite Alexa (although she did not know her name was Alexa.. just the 'girl with the short brown hair').

So yes my social butterfly is going to her first party! To which poor Adrianne is devistated that I said she cannot come (many tears were shed and I'm sure will continue to be shed until the tables are turned). The party is at JJJump and I don't know how Alexa will do, but hopefully she will atleast attempt to play with the other guests.

Which leads me to my next thought: Should I stay at the party with her? Normally I would, but we've never been in a situation quite like this as our parties are usually people whom I know the mothers. Additionally the mom said that the party girl does not really need a gift and will just be happy if Alexa is able to come, I don't think I can honstly show up without a gift... atleast a gift card or something?! I don't want to be the cheap mom, perhaps she was just trying to be polite. I don't know what to get a 6 year old, I don't know what she already has.. I feel I am shooting in the dark. I don't even know how much I am supposed to spend.. ahh, I am so stressed over something so simple!

Thanksgiving is coming!

What a wild weekend I have had, one of the best since I started this semester of school. I did not crack a book the whole time (although I will need to get on it once I finish this post!) On Friday night I went to the MOMS night out where we played a variety of games and just laughed at any and everything! It was a really nice time, good to get away :) Saturday I took the girls to the Fancy Nancy reading at Borders, they gave out hot chocolate and cookies to the kids, along with coloring pages, FN binoculars, and FN wrapping paper, and ofcourse they read a FN book. Once it was over the kids were dying to buy something, I've decided it is profitable for Borders to have such events as nearly every child walked out with atleast one book. Mine picked sticker books, which I felt were over priced but they wanted them and I am such a push over.

Once I brought them home it was Julius' turn to watch them while I went to the mall with my cousin for some early Christmas browsing (yes early, I am a Christmas Eve shopper!). I bought some Bed Bath and Beyond wallflowers which I LOVE! They smell so good and the scent really spreads unlike the glade/airwick ones. I also bought some new shirts for myself... so not much holiday shopping went on, but sometimes I need to buy myself things too!

After the mall we had a small party for the Pacquiao fight, that was a great time too! Got to hang out with some people that we have not seen in a while and all the kids were good and the fight was entertaining and nail bitting all at the same time, the food was awesome and it was a nice relaxing time. On Sunday the girls went up to Great Grandmas and I got to take a much needed nap :) Then we ordered pizza and had dinner with the Aunts.

I do have some photos from Friday, the girls were looking for something to do so I went online and found this simple Thanksgiving craft made with TP tubes (which I have been trying to save for recycling instead of throwing them in the trash), this is what they made:


(P.S. See below for another post, I did two today and just backdated it.)

NaBloPoMo

So I missed my post yesterday, not for lack of thinking about it though! Just because I would remember to do it and then something would come up and it would slip my mind again. So I am going to back post because I have alot of things that I did not post about in October (basically all of Halloween!)

I have alot of cute photos to share from our October outing to the pumpkin patch, this is the first time that I feel the girls really enjoyed it (despite off and on showers), they were more excited then Julius and I this year.

Adrianne enjoying the pony ride

Alexa hanging on to her "shaky" pony

Adrianne feeding the goats, I think we spent $2 on feed
because she was having such a good time.
(Alexa would not participate.)

Adrianne actually KISSED this donkey,

however there were other people who were watching
saying how cute she was that I didn't get a photo.
She had no problem giving the donkey a big hug
(I was afraid it might nip at her hand!)
Alexa petted the donkey once, and then she was done.

Adrianne spent quite a while petting this rabbit,
she actually had a full on conversation with the lady
who is holding the rabbit.

Where else can you be buried in CORN!

A perfect distraction while there was a
bit of PNW misting going on.

Preparing for the pumpkin launch!

Giving those pumpkins a good washing.

We were fortunate enough to have some friends come over with their girls for the whole trick or treating process, which was perfect! It gave Alexa a bit of distraction from the usual Halloween scary things. The girls got a ton of candy which was then redistributed to the trick or treaters who came to our house. This year the girls both saw costumes at Walmart that they wanted, however when I went to buy them ofcourse they were gone! (And they were pretty cheezy quality) So little miss Adrianne wanted to be a Pink cowgirl, a quick trip to Spankys and the dollar store added with some home ribbon and the glue gun and this is what we ended up with..

And ofcourse cowgirls are known for their siestas.

Alexa was a little harder, she wanted to be a 'red' witch, and I just could not think of anything witchy that we might of had. So a trip to party city was at hand. She got a colorful witch costume that actually lit up (she got alot of comments while trick or treating)...

"I'm going to get YOU!"

And ofcourse you gotta have the
two of them together.

Now dispite that this post is getting long we had quite an adventurous holiday, so just a few more photos of our perfectly carved pumpkins! Every year we take alot of care and time to carve the pumpkins, as this is my favorite part of Halloween..

Mmmm.. Pumpkin innards.

This year we let Alexa do some carving,
she did very well.

The finished products, a bat, a fire face, and
Adrianne's eyeball scary guy.

Before going in for the night we enjoyed some
playtime outside, for my little night owls
and a family picture to end the evening!

My Preschooler

It's been a while since I actually blogged, so I am going to try this blogging everyday for one month. I really like blogging, it's a fast and convenient way to capture a diary of your life. And with blogging you can share it with those around you (or far from you). There comes just one downfall, sometimes you don't want to share with everyone what is going on. Then you have to "edit" your posts to contain only the most bland of topics, or the best parts of your days. (Atleast this is how I feel, I know there are some die hard bloggers out there that write whatever they feel like).

But for this post (1 of 30) I would like to put a photo of this cutie..

Adrianne

She is soon to be 4 years old and I cannot believe it. She is getting into the routine of preschool and finally participating in P.E. She goes happily to gymnastics every week and wants to do everything her sister does. On the other hand, she is at the hardest age. She wants to do things her way, and get frustrated with herself if she cannot do them. It's very irritating. Say she see a picture of a rainbow and she wants to draw it, her immediate words are, "I can't draw that rainbow!!!" And the more she squiggles on the paper, the more frustrated she becomes. I try to explain to her just to draw what she sees, but I suppose when you are three you expect your drawing to be just like the picture - as she does not yet understand the limitations that each person has. With this we struggle daily, and yes it makes child and mommy frustrated.