Re-Gifting
I needed to go shopping last night, for a mom's Christmas party. Our kids used to go to school together. That is, until the principal went nut-so. He literally had a nervous breakdown I think. We had to shut the school down because there just wasn't enough money to keep it open. Oh yeah, and did I mention that the principal went nut-so?
Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to pay for the gift. I said to Bob, 'Should I return your gift?' He said, 'Let me get this straight, you're going to return my gift, so you can go and buy another gift?' I said, 'Oh, I guess that wouldn't make any sense.' It's supposed to be a white elephant gift exchange. I don't have anything in my house that I would want to give to someone else in a gift exchange. That's how it was supposed to be. I can't do that. I can't re-gift. You wanna know why? Because my life is like that game that you play, 'Name an actor and I will trace them back to a movie that had Kevin Beacon in it.' A friend of a friend will know me and see that re-gifted gift, and it will be something she gave me like ten years ago. It always happens. So, I forgot that I had some cash in my wallet from the grocery store. The cashier forgot to ask me for my Ralph's card. I called her on it. She recalculated, and I got like $14.00 back in cash. Even though I paid by check. Score! So, I go to Target. It wasn't too crowded. I got a candleholder, some tea lights, and some Chai apple cider tea. All of the mom's love that Chai tea; I don't get the fascination, but oh well. It might be because I'm the youngest mom there, and I'm not old enough to drink tea? I don't know. Hopefully the gift will satisfy their hunger for tea.

Joshua's F.A.Q.
While he's eating pizza and chocolate milk for breakfast.

J: Mom, how come it says Wild Cherry?
Me: Because, maybe they found it in the wild.
J: How come it always says that it's wild? Why can't it just say cherry?
Me: They think that we'll buy more if it says wild.
J: What would be more exciting, staying at Spain forever, or staying at Spain for one day?
Me: Forever!
J: Because we can listen to Mariachi's and watch bull fighting forever, huh?
Me: Absolutely!
J: Why does Mr. Crab's like money so much?
Me: Because he's greedy.
J: Is he a robber?!
Me: No.
J: Remember when Mr. Crab's just liked to mess with Sponge Bob and Patrick? How mean is it to mess with someone?
Me: It's kinda' mean.
J: Why are you laughing? (He starts laughing too)
Me: Because you ask so many questions, and I think it's cute!
J: (Immediately stops laughing and points his finger at me) I am not cute!
Me: Oh yeah, sorry, I mean Handsome.
J: Yeah, handsome, NOT CUTE!

Scared of Santa
check out these pictures of kids on Santa's lap. It's awesome!

You have the Rossetti girl look. You are the kind
of girl pre-Raphaelite painters admired; tall,
slender, and fair as a lily flower. The
pre-Raphaelite girl had dramatic beauty; long
neck, large soulful eyes, full shapely mouth
and masses of wavy hair. The pre-Raphaelites
painted girls like this, they showed them in
dramatic situations dressed as famous
characters in legends, plays and poetry. The
favourite colours of the artists were russet,
green and gold. The following artists would
have loved to paint you; Holman Hunt, John
Everett Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, William
Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.


'Pretty As A Picture' - Which Artist Would Paint You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks Kandy!

It's 9:30am.
My sons are still asleep.
They're still asleep!
I should put them to bed at 11:30 every night.

A Christmas Card from Jessica
This is an e-mail I got from Jessica's mom, Lisa:

Hello friends

I hadn't given any Christmas cards out this year, but I had a small
gift for a friend and wanted to write her a note. I remembered that I had
a few cards left over from last year. When I found the cards and opened
them I realized that they were the cards that I let the girls color on
while I was writing cards out last Christmas. The first three cards had
Christina scribbles all over them. I smiled and remembered sitting down
and watching the girls do Christmas cards and Christina pretend to copy
Jessica and I. Then I saw a card that Jessica had colored ALL over. It
was like finding treasure. Then I found with it the envelope that was
also decorated and said "Mommy" on it! It was so sweet. I hurried to read
the card to see what it said. It had pre printed in the corner her
favorite scriptrure John 3:16! The rest of the card read (pre printed):

At Christmas and Always
In all of the universe,
In all of eternity,
There is no greater love than the love of Christ.

May Jesus Christ. Who is Love and taught us to love,
Be the joy of your heart and the light of your world
Forever.

After that she had stamped little music notes all over the card. I
imagine she is singing to Jesus right now.
Isn't that sweet that the Lord planned a year ago for me to get this
card from her? I would have imagined that it was from her, but the
envelope even said Mommy! What a compassionate God!!! She colored two
cards. I'm giving the other one to Ted.
I thought of all of the people praying for us and wanted to share with
you how we are being blessed. These days seem more difficult with
Christmas and family traditions being so awkward. But the Lords mercies
are new every morning and His faithfulness is Greater than our grief. By
His grace we are still able to praise and trust our Soverign.

Merry Christmas,

Lisa & Ted

I'll tell you the story behind this e-mail. Bob and the guys had a LOTR party at Ted and Lisa's. Lisa recieved a Christmas card from us recently. She went searching for a card to give us. She found one, and some other ones from Jessica from last year. Bob said that when she found them, she went upstairs for a long time. Oh my gosh. I hope I didn't make her feel even more sad by sending her a card. I've been going to the gym with Lisa lately. She's doing well on the outside. Which is an amazing thing. I would be crawled up in a ball somewhere hiding. I just cried my eyes out when I read this e-mail. I realized that I was the friend she was talking about. Lisa is an amazing woman. She told me last week when we were working out, that when people at church ask how she's doing, she thinks about how much pain that they have gone through also, and she prays for them. Because they are missing Jessica just like she is. Now I feel really selfish. Wow.

Here we go a caroling
We went caroling last night with our church around the nice area of Artesia. Actually, we weren't in the nice part of town. But, the people loved us singing for them. The greatest response was when one lady got out her video camara. That was pretty awesome. I forgot to bring water, so my throat got all dry. I was surprised that Caleb didn't beg us to bring the stroller. He did want to hold my hand the whole time though. That was weird. Usually he wants nothing to do with my hand. He would rather just run into the street by himself. Little dare devil. Joshua said some comments that was probably not the best thing for business. But that's ok. We were handing out info about our church, when the people would answer the door. A few people had little tiny dogs. This was not good for Josh. He hates little dogs. I don't know why, maybe because they scare the crap out of him. He yells out, 'I don't like dogs to jump up on me, they get my pants dirty and they scratch my legs!' Josh is not the quietest one in the bunch. In fact he's the loudest, especially when he's all excited, and outside at night. He's my little Werewolf.

Santa had a little accident...

We went to see Santa on Tuesday at the Cerritos Library. We sat, while Santa read a story to the children. Then all hell broke lose when they told the children to line up to sit on Santa's lap. The children are not going to quietly line up. The are going to push and yell and scream to see Santa. The places at the mall are much more organized at these types of events than the library. And we're talkin' the mother of all libraries here. It cost them around, oh Three million dollars to bulid the stinkin' thing. It's a wonderful place, but get your ish together people! Anyhow, back to Santa. We stood in line for a half an hour or so. Then Santa decides he needs a ten minute break from the kiddies. Everyone panicked. Then, the workers got on the microphone, and announced that Santa hadn't left. He was just taking a little break. So we finally get up to Santa. Caleb, my four year old, sat right on his lap. He wasn't scared a bit. He told him that he wanted Sponge Bob. And jumped right off. That was that.(I forgot my camera, and the strangers there couldn't believe how careless it was of me not to record this momentous occasion). Now, Joshua, my almost eight year old son, wanted to sit on his lap. Joshua is 100 bills. I don't think Santa appreciated Joshua sitting on his lap. Oh well. Joshua pulled a 'Ralphie' and forgot what he was going to tell him as soon as he sat on his lap. Everyone is waiting. So, all of a sudden, all of these random strangers started shouting out to him, 'What about a skate board? What about a bike?' Joshua looked at each and every one of those people in their eyes and said 'No, I already have a skate board, and I already have a bike.' I did not say a word. I could tell by the look on his face, that he had forgotten what he wanted to tell Santa. Poor Baby! I saved him from the horror that this day was turning out to be. I walked up to him, while he was looking all depressed sitting there on Santa's lap. I said, 'It's ok buddy, Santa already knows what you want. Remember you sent him that letter?' Then his eyes got all bright and happy. And he finally got off of poor Santa's lap. As we walked off, he remembered what he wanted for Christmas, a Machine Gun. Later that day at home, Caleb remembered something. He came up to me and said,'Mommy, I think when Santa took a break, he went potty on himself. Mommy, Santa smelled like pee!' Poor Baby! No wonder he got the hell out of dodge. He wasn't stickin' around to smell that. I wonder if one of the kids peed on him. That's probably why he had to take a break. To try and get the skunk smell out. Gross! Well, I don't think he's getting the deposit back on that Santa suit.
p.s. I'm a little bit disturbed at how long Joshua sat on Santa's lap without even smelling the pee!

What do we do for Christmas morning?

Well, being that I'm at home all day long, you'd think that I would have all the details wrinkled out, right?
Wrong. I had all of these great idea's for a new tradition other than
what we usually do:
Wake up, run downstairs, open presents, eat cookies for breakfast, run to the In-laws house, take two looong hours to open presents, (because everyone has to take turns), run to my parents house, take two minutes opening presents, come back home, try to figure out where we're going to put all of these gifts that we just received, then collapse on the couch, while the boys kill each other.
Yeah, I know it doesn't sound like very much fun. But we keep on doing it every year. One year I just want to go rent a cabin in the mountains, get a little tree,
put a few presents for the boys under there, drink hot chocolate, while Bob reads the real Christmas story out loud from the Bible and sing Christmas carols. I know that the rest of the family would never forgive us though. So, that's what we usually do for Christmas morning. Gosh, I didn't know how stressful our Christmas was until I wrote it down. I remember when I was growing up with my four siblings, my mom and dad would make us all breakfast on Christmas morning. I should do that. That sounds nice, huh? A girl can dream can't she?

Every Sunday morning!
This is how every Sunday goes at our house:
* We try to sleep in a bit, but the boys won't let that happen.
* I get up, take a shower, blah, blah, blah, yada-yada-yada.
* Then it's the most fun part of the whole day, getting Joshua dressed.
* We try to put nice church pants on him. The pants don't have zippers, buttons, scratchy material, etc.
* Joshua proceeds to scream at the top of his lungs. The neighbors hate us by the way.
* Joshua is still screaming.
* Joshua is still screaming.
* This goes on until we finally give in and let him wear his soft non-irriating sweat pants, or shorts.
* Or it goes on until we put Mariachi music on for him. That calms him down, but he still would rather go to church in a loin cloth, than wear what we want him to wear.
* By the time we're almost ready to go to church, I have a huge headache, Bob is yelling at the boys to come inside, (because they always seem to manage to slip outside somehow and wake up every neighbor on the block) and get there hair combed, and I still haven't put my make-up on or eaten yet.
This is every single Sunday, since the day Joshua was born. The first time we tried to take Joshua to church, it rained. He was only three weeks old. But by that time, his colic had pretty much taken over our whole existance. We didn't make it to church that Sunday. I actually have a picture of us standing by the front door all ready to go to church that day. Joshua was screaming, and his face was all red. We got in the car, started the engine, and Joshua was still screaming at the top of his lungs. He was not about to stop either. Bob and I just looked at each other and got all of the freshly packed diaper bags and the screaming Joshua and we went back in the house. That was the beginning of the madness. Hopefully one day, Joshua will look forward to Sunday's and going to church and learing about Jesus. Until then we'll just try to survive Sunday's.

Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree
We got our tree yesterday. It's so beautiful, and not too big. Just right. We don't have a lot of ornaments, so I like the trees that are 5 or 6 feet tall. My husband doesn't think that the nobles smell as much as the douglas ones. I like the nobles because you can hang the heavy ornaments better. My husband also called me Clark Griswald. I guess I put too many lights on the tree. Bah! Never enough lights. The boys were so cute. They helped us put the ornaments on the tree. Caleb of course noticed that Joshua had more ornaments with his name on them than he did. I felt bad, that's what happened to me too. Us second born children have to stick together.