It's TODAY!

da da da DA Grinch party

The Grinch party has become a tradition at our house.  Probably a necessity now that he resides outside our front door.  It started as our friends' idea, but those friends moved away as all friends inevitably due in this crazy nomadic world, well everyone but us who are more static than dynamic it turns out.  Who knew.  I guess we could add in other people, but we're also a tad bit lazy about our last minute parties  

Now that we're partying all by ourselves, here is what we do. . . wow that sounds so sad, we will invite people over next year.  It's a resolution.  The kind I never make, but there it is.  In writing.  Any takers?  Well wait, for the list of amazing activities before you raise your hand. . .

I was going to make green eggs and ham.  Ya know, Seuss-ish.  But Jovey wanted pancakes so instead we had green pancakes and sausage.  Practically the exact same thing.  Add some sprinkles and boom, it is totally Seusstastic.

Time for dessert and Grinch-kabobs.  Grape, banana, strawberry, marshmallow.  These are really delicious.  Even my kid who no longer finds grapes appealing, aka Miley, ate all that I could manufacture.  Side note, 7 year olds are kinda picky which is new for us, and I'm hoping that wears off by the time she's 8.

A little Grinch soda (no pics, not even from my handy dandy phone), which is lime sherbert and Sprite with a rim of red sugar (except this year I forgot the red sugar). . . and our greenish meal was complete.

The main event. . . watch THE GRINCH in our PJs cuddled in blankets on the couch.

Go to bed.  The end.  Our parties are wild like that.  ;)

Survivors and cheeseballs

It always surprises me when we don't kill each other taking family photos.  My smile looks plenty strained in the pics as evidence of that fact.  I can only hold a natural smile for so long waiting for my kids to smile, or look the right direction, or stop talking. . . and yet we got some keepers.  Who knew.  Miley was going through a severe show all your teeth jaws clenched cheese face stage.  I guess we should have practiced beforehand.  With much coaching it was overcome.  Traumatized, well probably.  ;)

Here is a sampling of our afternoon spent with a camera tracking our every awkward move. . . (I didn't use these in the Christmas card, let's call them extras)

Thank you Britt for dealing with our. . . photogenic issues.  ;)

Randomly December

I was pretty sure it was too soon to be listening to Christmas music this week.  I don't know why, but I can't remember that we are in December.  I have a Christmas tree up.  Yep, but Miley has to make me change the station to Christmas music.  Plus side, I probably wont' get tired of hearing it this year.

I'm not the only one forgetting December.  Dave, who loves Christmas movies, doesn't think it's time to watch Christmas movies.  I had to encourage him to put one on.  So weird.  I don't know.

Doing our advent calendar again this year.  Miley finally asked me if I'm the one to put the slips of paper (holiday activities) in the slots.  Yep, magic ruined.  Though, I don't know why she didn't think about that until now.  It may have taken some of the sparkle off of it, but only a little.  Both of the girls were so PSYCHED to make snow globes, until it took a dozen steps and then they weren't psyched again until I had to finish them and they got to play with the finished product.  Jo couldn't sleep yesterday because she had to hold her snow globe and try to nap simultaneously.

At school Miley had to write a letter to Santa.  What the crap are they teaching my kid?  Stupid Common Core.  ;)

This year's Christmas is brought to you by Amazon prime.  I tried to bring Jovey to the store to pick out something for her sister, but she mainly shopped for herself.  I'd show her something and she'd say, 'yeah, that's good'.  uhhhhhh.  So I cut out the annoying time in the store and showed them a pic on the computer.  No browsing, only buying.  Done and done.  I've ruined Christmas.  ;)

I thought maybe I'd buy that Pie in the Face game, that is being hocked nonstop in the ads.  I saw it in the store forever ago and thought about purchasing it, but then today decided I finally would.  It's sold out everywhere.  What the?  Well done marketers.  Thank you procrastination.  Oh well, I guess I'll be ok not having whipped cream smashed in my face, or anyone else I may have been eyeing it for.  You're welcome.  ;)

My spotlight on my Max is cool white, my lights on my Grinch are warm white.  I'm only slightly obsessively bothered by this.  Thankfully I don't have to see it, unless I look at this picture.  Maybe I should wrap some Christmas lights on Max as well and move the spotlight back some more.  Hmmmm.

My Christmas decorations may be a little too much like my Halloween decorations.  I'm trying to decide if that should concern me.

So I was reading an old post and it mentioned a pic that I had on instagram in the side bar, which of course was no longer there because it was OLD.  Doh.  I found it repetitive to have the same pics on instagram and the blog, but now I think it may be necessary.  How annoying is it to type the word repetitive?  Totally captures the meaning I think.

I really want to clean up leaves in my yard, but my trees are taking their sweet time dropping them.  Only halfway there.  Do I just go ahead and do it?  It's going to rain before they are done, I'm sure, and make cleaning up even more fun.  The weather loves to hate me sometimes.  ;)

Target got me to buy these cute little trees.  The pinkness screamed buy me for your girlies.  Oh crap.  I actually buy pink stuff now.  Life has changed so much.

I am starting to regret those trees, for I keep finding them undecorated and ornaments all over their rooms.  They have to redo them constantly.  It's a girls prerogative I guess.

See, I do have a Christmas tree up, plus the two little ones.  You'd think that would help me remember it's Christmas time.  Ehhh.

So we three girls have had a little cold/cough thing going on for some time now.  Dave had been spared until Sunday and then the world ended.  Same virus, I swear, but he thought he died.  So we pretended we didn't see his smelly corpse curled up in a blanket for three days on the couch.  ;)  Meanwhile his work exploded without him.  I'm actually thinking it's a blessing he got sick and missed all their drama.  Kicked him off the couch today and back to work to clean up the messes.  He looks forward to one day no longer being the boss.  I agree, it's annoying, but I don't get to quit.  ;)

Miley had friend drama at school of late.  And by friend, I mean stupid mean girl mad at her for not bringing her toys to buy her friendship. . . which escalates into telling other girls not to play with her.  I don't know.  I hate kids.  I told Miley to play with the boys instead cause girls are CRAZY.  I didn't realize they were INSANE this early on, but now I know.  So now Christopher is teaching her how to play basketball.  Maybe I should send her to school with her 'basketball hat'.  That would probably help.  ;)  Oh and don't worry, I punched that girl in the face.  In my mind.  It helped.  All better now.  

And because I fear pictures vanishing and memories lost, I must put this up to remember our thankfulness from this year.  That's what I get for throwing away the actual poster after we finish.  

Stay tuned, Christmas cards will be in hand today, and if I find them acceptable, in mail tomorrow.  If not, well I'll let you know.  ;)  If you're expecting a gift from me, those have left the building as well.  So happy mail all around. . . soonish.

3 days, 3 holidays

So Jovey's birthday was the day before Thanksgiving, and then there was Thanksgiving, and then we decorated for Christmas, went to the nativity, and saw Temple lights.  That is a lot of celebrating in three days.

Our Thanksgiving table, and no food pics, but trust me it tasted delish!

 Dave smoked his first turkey and it turned out great!  Miley made these turkeys for our place settings and they also turned out great.  She took the pictures before lunch so you can see by the background what they were doing at the time.

. . . napping. . .

. . .watching the parade. . .  

Jovey was convinced that her turkey looked sad.

. . . cooking. . .

. . . taking lots of selfies. . .

 Thanksgiving a success, now on to Christmas.

Tuacahn nativity.  This pic is why Dave isn't allowed to take them.  He thought he got a good one in the first shot and so we have no others.  Whatever.  ;)

Sitting up close.  We froze our butts off, but that isn't hard for us to do.  Afterward we hit up Kneaders for some soup and sweets.  That helped us thaw out a little.

We've been to Tuacahn quite a bit, but Jovey has never come with us.  You have to be at least 3 to go to the Broadway shows, and we didn't do the nativity last year due to weather.  Anyway, when I told her we were ALL going to Tuacahn, it was the only thing she could talk about all day.  She was SOOOOOO excited!  And it didn't disappoint, but she was slightly confused when we sat down outside for the show.

More Christmas found on the Temple grounds. . .

Miley couldn't be in our family selfie, and it's a peach, because she was too busy running around with her fake phone taking serious fake pics of every bush and light.  Weirdy.  ;)

And finally, decorated my insides and outside, but didn't get a pic of the latter.

I ordered pics from Social Print Studio, I heart them, to use as ornaments for our tree this year.  2015 never looked so good.