Thankful for:

~Cousins!!!!!!
~A new cousin on the way!!
~Matching Christmas Jammies
~Digital cameras that let us take 500 pictures and only get 10 useable ones

Disciplinary action

Parker's 1st quarter Bengals commentary:

"Another timeout! WOW! The Bengals must be really bad to get all those time-outs!"

~They are really bad and the sort of time-out you are talking about is probably what they need to get their act together.

Little Lils'

Pantry offerings

Parker on why he was lugging my laundry basket full of gummi fruits, animal crackers, box drinks and granola bars up the stairs...

"I'm bringing food to my altar like Elijah for a sacrifice. I couldn't find like lambs or sheep or anything in the closet though."

Late night confessions...

Okay, so my dilemma is, do I make a humble blog admission to the world or let you believe I am a cool, hip, and festive mom???

I am really not all that cool. There I said it. I was not gung-ho for the Christmas tree idea except that the kids seemed sooo pumped about the tree and decorating it themselves and well... here it is.. my embarrassing admission... The Christmas boxes were already just sitting out in the hallway taking up room and beckoning to be moved so why not let them start unpacking them???? RIGHT?

You all would have done the same thing.

As for decorating early... another confession I am afraid... we have never decorated before Thanksgiving but we have all of Trev's family coming in this week and well, without furniture our house looks bare and lonely so I thought the aid of Christmas decorations might help it have a little more homey feeling.

So there it is... I am not who you thought I was afterall... sorry to disappoint.

Oh, and a close up shot will get posted soon...Parker was sure to take several of the tarantulas attacking the innocent angel!

PIMP MY TREE!

So, this year the kids wanted their OWN Christmas tree to decorate (yup, you can only imagine the conglomeration they created). Since we have the space and an extra tree we decided to let them go for it (what we were thinking I'm not sure). We put it at the top of the stairs (so everyone who walks in our front door has clear access to it) and let them go through all our Christmas bins and pick whatever they wanted (even our 1976 First Christmas ornaments were up for grabs). The finished project? Let's see...toy snakes (attacking Santa in his sleigh), toilet paper wads (that are supposed to be snowballs) 400 blinking colored lights (that are quite psychedelic and mind mending), spiders, buzz light year, princess dolls, etc... you get the idea. It's amazing the tree is standing straight. The only traditional thing about it is the star at the top and the 5 colored balls they threw on there for good measure...

Here are the kids standing with their proud "creation"...

roughin' it~

So, right now we are completely furniture-less in the house (except for beds)... we had to buy all new furniture so in the meantime we are camping out on floors until things get delivered. Here is a typical morning at our house these days...

Surf's up!

Parker was insulted I didn't have a pic of his room up... We still need to get the chair rail up and there is now a surf board in his room (courtesy of Daphne and fam)but you can get the idea...it's a cool place to hang out dudes

Finders Keepers

"I saw a little head and two little arms and heard a little voice and knew it just had to be Lillie under there!"

~Parker's explanation on trying not to step on Lillie in the dark.

House transformation

I think all the paint fumes might be getting to some of us:

Ready for flu season

En casa Estación

While on the self check-out line at Home Depot (one of about 2 dozen visits in the last 2 weeks) I was given the option for English or Espanol. In my haste I accidentally hit the Espanol button and the computer began giving me my paying instructions in a very quick Spanish."Escoja su método del pago... (select your payment method)... Lillie, who was with me was very intrigued and stared intently at the screen as it spoke to me. As I went to grab the reciept, it said "Gracias.Tiene un día bueno."(thank you have a good day) Lillie looked at me and then got real close to the screen and said, "Dora?? Hi Dora!"

Guess she knows what language Dora speaks...

Moving fog

So, right now I am in a moving fog. It was a whirlwind of a weekend with non stop activity and so little sleep. I feel like we will be digging thru boxes until Spring and the most random of objects are missing (like the the fish food... if I don't find it soon, the poor guy is going to die).

We are alive and survivin for those of you who have been calling me and leaving me voice mails and emails and text messages. I have some cute (and not so cute) stories from the past week that I will have to blog soon...I promise I will be in touch... just not sure when. Soon. I promise.

Now it's time for some sleep...