Happy Birthday Babers!!

So not too long ago our little 2 year old became a 3 year old!! It may have looked like we didn't pay much attention to the event, but that was not at all true. Okay, I suppose that with the cake and the announcement it was obvious we didn't forget - however, it probably isn't as obvious that he had a whole week of Bday. It got to the point that when he got up in the morning he would say, "Is today my birthday?". We would tell him now - but then eventually he would end up receiving a gift and having someone sing the "song" to him. Follow that up with having friends in for the weekend of his party - and that we went to CEC for his party and you have one confused (but incredibly bday happy) 3 year old. So in all we did have a lot of fun. Babers surely knows that he had a birthday and can never claim we let it slide. I do wonder when he will realize that Christmas is not an extention of his bday gifts - because I think there is a blurred line of confusion there.

Happy Birthday Babers!!

The Big Show

So it seems that the only thing I had time to keep updated in the past two weeks was facebook. That is primarily because there is nothing to that and I had the draw of MyFarm. See - when there is stress related to things generally I will add on by creating more tasks that have no potential side effects if they go Kablooey - creating MyFarm was that this holiday season. No bad results if it failed, yet it gave me another outlet to suck more time away (or you could look at is as a stress release that took only 5 min. each day and gave me a sense of accomplishment when I cleared and planted a field).

However you look at it - now we have some catching up to do after the holidays. We will start with SuperStars Big Show. It was a ton of fun and she did a great job. It was much more serious then I thought when we first became involved - but worth the effort.

She says that she isn't certain she will do it again - that she will decide later. We are pretty certain she will do it again. Spidey is totally on board to do it next year - and that alone will be SuperStar back in the act. I will enjoy it - I will just have to plan for being more organized for the Big Christmas Show too.

Happy Bday Babers!!

Today is the big day - 3!! - yet we have already celebrated his birthday 3 times before today. Lucky boy. Grands were in the weekend to see SuperStars production (pics to come) and we did a little cake action with gifts each day. Today, however, is the big day. We will celebrate by having Chocolate Chip cookies for breakfast - then some play time and lunch with his friend EK at any McDonald's that has a playground (because it is not the food he is seeking). Tonight we have to shift gears a bit and attend a BoyScout holiday party and go caroling to a local retirement center with the GirlScouts - but Saturday is his big party at Chuck E Cheese (something he has been begging for endlessly for weeks!!). It is still amazing to me that he is turning 3 years old!! Has it really been 3 years?



Happy Birthday Stinkerbelle!!

Do You Have a Facebook account?

So do you have a Facebook account? If you do - please look me up - HalfPint. See, I have a counter down on the lower right side of the blog here and it helps me to "check" and see who is coming through - only it just kinda hits on the area in which you readers live - it doesn't give me full names or addresses so I can see who is here and who isn't. For instance - I keep it pretty clean here because I was certain my mother-in-law (whom I truly love - not like so many of my friends who rail on their mother-in-laws - sorry, if you are the MIN of some friend of mine let's just assume I am not talking about you. However, really only JG has yet to complain about her MIN - everyone else has complained a smidge (I fess up to that too - my MIN buys us things all the time - all the time - and we feel awful that she spends so much money buying things - we love her without the money - but we know it is part of her and we have learned to embrace that)). Only, after a recent conversation I learned that she has lost the address and kinda forgot about the blog - so I could have been as raunchy as I wanted and not worried about offending her (I don't worry about the rest of you I guess) - but since St. Louis, MO came up I can't tell if it her, you, my dad, my friends - I just do not know. Plus no one leaves comments but sometimes Household Exec. and Houseful of Boys and News from the Midwest - and some random person correcting me about the real name of the Asian Lady Beetle. So facebook is fun because people actual respond and I get to see what they are doing too.

So anyhoo - let's continue.

Facebook. I was resistant to facebook when my friend BL sent me an invite. Didn't want to have to work the blog and think about updating a bunch of facebook stuff. So I declined joining to see her stuff. Then (sorry BL - I know we have talked about this) we had some difficulty connecting - she isn't a telephone person, she isn't an email person, she just wasn't keeping in touch well - so I joined facebook and then all of a sudden everyone I knew from STL seemed to join and it was kinda fun. Then I sought out our cousins, our nieces and nephews (saw some pictures that are better left unmentioned - although I did have to explain what a hookah was to Spidey - without really explaining why his cousin was dancing in his underwear after having blown smoke rings - we just kinda said "that's the kind of fun you have to look forward to when you go to college" - to which he screwed up his face like we were insane, and we are really....if you think about it). I collected my sister-in-laws. Then BigGuy joined and he showed me how to search High School friends - and now I am collecting them. I have most of my bestest friends from HS and a few that I probably am getting to know better now then I did then. And I find that I am trying to coerce others to join. And they are saying the same thing I did - "I don't want to bother" or "I don't have the time". To which I say - "Please, it's fun and it only takes as much time as you have".

So the only way to really waste a bunch of time on facebook is to take all the tests, play a bunch of games or run a farm (which I do, but unless you are a freak about it that should be quick enough too) - that said, if you join facebook look me up and maybe we can be friends (I am not going to promise we will - but we can think about it).

He Might Believe, but does He Trust?

We were wandering around the local Walmart the other Sunday. Spidey had to spend the $75 gift card he received from his popcorn sales. While we were there someone approached us and imformed us that Santa would be arriving soon and we should have our photos taken with him - for FREE. FREE is something I am always interested in and even though we all looked like something the cat drug in (although ours are indoor cats so it doesn't really relate) we thought "hey, FREE" and off we went. Santa's set up is not as elaborate at Walmart as in the Mall - no winding toy land to look at, no big ticket pictures to choose from - just all of a sudden in the middle of the isle there he is - on an obvious plank covered with black fabric and a cardboard backing. Very....uh....Walmart. Again though FREE!!

The Olders know that this is not the REAL Santa - just a guy who is there to scope the kids out and figure out what they want for Christmas and report back to headquarters. This is why the Santa's we see vary in shape, size, age, color and so forth. Babers isn't quite to that realization yet though so he was a bit put off about going up to see him. Last year he had nothing to do with it - and the first year it only happened because on my 3rd try he was asleep. Anyhoo - SuperStar was up in a flash - reported in - smiled and then grabbed a candy cane. Spidey was up next - reported in, although slowly because he had to really describe what it was he meant (there was no line and this Santa had literally just started so he didn't mind the long hesitation in description) - grabbed a candy cane and left.


Now, as you can see - Babers wasn't sure about the whole thing. He didn't want to go over - in fact after Spidey he still didn't want to go and we let two other little girls go first. Then we decided not to wait to have him decide, I picked him up, plopped him down and stood RIGHT NEXT to him while touching him on the head for reassurance until the picture was about to be taken. I am just to his right and he is leaning in to get ready to hop off toward me - which he did as soon as the picture was taken. He at least understood what happens in the picture deal - with all the photo shoots we seem to do lately. He didn't even tell Santa what he wanted. He did hesitate long enough to take a candy cane - two of them - looked back at Santa, held up the candy cane and said, "This from Santa. Open pease."

He doesn't trust that guy. Maybe he can tell he isn't really Santa, but doesn't get the "report in to the Big Guy" status he holds. Maybe next year. Still - good picture.

Make New Friends

Well, we are working on making new friends. Spidey and SuperStar are doing pretty well. Honestly I think I am doing pretty well - and BigGuy has his work friends (he could use some "doing things buddies" though) - but Babers kinda plays with all the people we play with. Except for a few he because there is CC (only he is 5) and NO (only he lives in Peoria) and hopefully school will bring about a few more - however, he has scored a neighbor friend - which is better then any other type of friend because they can come over and play - whenever - and their mom will drop them off to go do errands - and their mom will let Babers be dropped off so his mom (me of course) can do errands - thus creating a new friend for me too (she is super sweet and nice). So Yea!! for new friends - and as the GirlScout song goes.....
Make New Friends, (EK and CK are the new)
but Keep the Old (the rest of you are the old)
one is Silver
and the others Gold (I don't know who is one and who is the other)

Nutcracker - literally

This post has to start out with a disclaimer - We did enjoy the ballet The Nutcracker - okay, we kinda enjoyed it - okay, if we hadn't had a bag of Jelly Bellies with us there is a likelihood that we would not have made it past the first act, but we did like it. I mean, it was very cute and the kids who were in it were very talented - anyone going on pointe is amazing - I used to be able to stand on my toes in gymnastics, but I can only imagine balancing on that little piece of wood - amazing!! Still, I was ready to leave after the first act. Partly because there were no words - hey, the Barbie Nutcracker version had words and dancing - I just thought it would be the same - partly I was ready to leave because the older woman (who didn't bath on a daily basis) liked totally douse herself in that high intense powdery flower smelling perfume that was pretty much suffocating me - and partly because the lead male danseur (what you call a male ballerina - I googled it CK) had a very distracting package.

As we were watching the ballet I was not clear on the fact that apparently it is not uncommon for danseurs to have their twig and berries very obviously present. Add in that the king of the Sugarplum land also had a completely white outfit - well, you get the picture. It was somewhat like this gentleman, except you can't see this guys very well and the guy in our ballet seemed to be facing the audience ALL DURING HIS TIME ON STAGE. I am sure that the prima ballerina who was the Sugarplum Queen did a lovely job at dancing - only I didn't notice because I was doing my best to avoid looking at her consorts stuff - and he was lifting her up all the time.
I mean this guys stuff was so in our face (we had good seats too - 9th row - lucky us!) that he might as well have been dancing like the danseur in this photo! After the performance the kids said something about the costumes and I didn't say anything and BigGuy still knew what I was thinking - because he was too. I asked him how they could be so noticeable and not bounce around much - because they didn't move really - they were just THERE - constantly - THERE - not moving, but all three bumps were THERE. He said he figured they must have bound them somehow. Now - tell me - especially any of you who are former ballet persons - should the audience leave the ballet talking about how wonderful the dancers were - or how distracting the twig and berry cover up that wasn't was? As nice as it is to expose the kiddo's to the arts - I think this was more exposure then necessary. We are going to stick to musicals withour ballet in them, plays and sport events. Campy musicals - that is our thing.

Happy Brithday Gramma Renee!!

Happy 40th Birthday Granma Renee!!!

Piano Concert - ala SuperStar

Do You Believe?

We Believe. Santa is real. Although I think that SuperStar has her concerns about it all because others in her class to not believe. She still does. Spidey does. I do. BigGuy does. Babers does, but he isn't really clear on what he believes in. Santa we tell him - although we explain that you never really see Santa. We see his helpers - the people that he hires to "get us excited" about the season - or the helpers that the mall hires to get us "excited about spending money" SuperStar pointed out. Is Santa white? Some think so. Is Santa black? Some think so. Do we know? Nope. What we do know is Santa is watching out for us - he is thinking about us - he is hoping that we do our best in life (he kinda sounds like God, eh?). We also know that our family believes - even if we have yet to decorate our house!! We have done other things - baked breads for gifts - made Christmas cards - had a family picture taken - started to gather treasures to give to those we love - and mailed our letters to Santa.


In the past years we have always mailed our letters off from home. This year we stumbled across a mail box that our post office said Santa leaves each year. They say that in the morning the letters placed in this special mail box disappear. Could be elves picking them up when no one is watching - could simply be Christmas magic.


We aren't sure. We are sure that we placed our letters inside and that a simple trip where I wanted to take one simple picture of my three adorable children to place on the blog seemed to turn into a photo shoot (run on sentence - deal with it). And we also seemed to cause another mom a little stress. See the family in the background there. See the dad all excited about the mail box, pointing it out to his kids. He was also saying, "Oh, we will have to write our letters and mail them from here too." To which the mom responded with, "Well, we do it (and she said how)" to which the kid said, "But I want to mail mine here." to which the mom gave the dad a look that was kinda like, "Don't mess with my Christmas plan - this does not fit in."


Not that I was listening too closely. I was trying to get Spidey to smile. He was insisting on a picture by himself - only he kept looking like this. Finally I asked, "Why don't you smile?" and he said, "Because I want it to look natural." Dude it took us 5 times to look natural - give it up and smile already!! In the end though - we mailed our letters - now we wait....



Some of us more peacefully then others - he was too tired to mail his letter - slept in the car with BigGuy while we had the photo shoot....think there are visions of Sugar Plums dancing in his head?

Where Does it Come From?

Where does it all come from? I know for a fact that we cleaned out our house when we moved - lots of junk - my motto was "if we don't need it donate it" - "if it needs fixin' toss it". When I ran out of stuff to clean I headed over to SS's house to organize there - she invited me, however she totally blocked my brutal methods of really clearing things out. Once we moved and unpacked stuff we donated at least a half a truck load a month. Each week it seemed I was stopping by the GoodWill to drop off a donation of clothes, toys, stuff the people before us left - always something. Then we finished the basement and cleaned out stuff 6 months after moving in and donated another few truck loads. We have only had 1 Christmas and 1 round of birthdays since moving here. We no longer live close enough that the Grands who love to gift can drop by giant bags of clothes or toys for the kids "just becaue they love them". We no longer live near the Grand who loves to hit the great yard sales and find some really remarkable prices on stuff we don't really need, but love to have - and yet still - WE HAVE A TRUCK LOAD OF STUFF TO DONATE!!!!



Ack!! Where does it all come from?? How do we keep it from happening?

Girls Night Out

Now like many others this title is a bit misleading. This is about a Girls Night Out - there were girls - there were drinks - there was makeup - there was tasty food - I hosted - there were probably about 30 of us - the girls did get a bit loud - unfortunately most of the girls were under 10 years old. What does this tell me?

This tells me that my life is beginning to revolve around Girl Scouts. Not that this is a negative thing. Love the GS's, especially my troop of girls. Just thinking maybe it is time to have a Girls Night Out with someone who is of drinkin' age - or better yet - maybe an Adults Night Out with BigGuy - or even better - maybe an Adults Weekend (here - somewhere - anywhere).

Back to this though - SuperStar had a lot of fun and asked if I would post some pics from the GNO with the GS's. We earned a badge in a night - I shoudl know what it is called as I put it together, but it was something about Healthy Me or something. Originally this event was to be at our school - because there were a lot of little girls and their parents planning to attend - too many for a house really. Lucky for me though, the school secretary forgot to schedule us in a gym at the school - even though I sent her our dates many many moons ago (no, I swear to goodness I am not bitter about this) - and thus the event happened at my house during my mini nervous breakdown event this week (it was a silent breakdown - no one really noticed it if they didn't live in our house - just too much all at once - hoidays coming - travling close together - and yes, I would have enjoyed an adult beverage that night). Anyhoo - we did have fun - we earned a badge - the girls truly enjoyed themselves and they were incredibly sweet and excited about all of it. My Negative Nelly attitude going into it was transformed by the end of the evening.

However, I Swear As God Is My Witness (channeling Scarlet O'Hara here) - that my next Girls Night Out will include woman over 21 - and there will be adult beverages!!

What I like about Winter

Seems that not everyone likes winter. I don't get it - yeah, I hear what they say - "It is dangerous to drive in the snow or ice", "It is too cold", "They hate to bundle up in restrictive clothing", "There is little sunlight", "Can't go outside" - blah blah blah. I like winter. I like summer, fall and kinda spring too (spring is a little too squishy for my real liking - constant floor cleaning it bothersome). Winter gets a bad wrap though.


My good friend, MC, pictured above blowing out her bday Pumpkin Bread cake candles, started complaining about winter as soon as the temp dipped cold enough for her to need a jacket when she did her morning walk. She and I differ on all counts (pun intended for those in the know) about winter. I love it - she hates it. The only thing we agree on is the "gray" skies can get overwhelmingly depressing. If only snowy winter days could be like they are in the movies - snowy, beautiful blue skies and super cold with a fire and a big old mug of something warming - which brings me to something I like about snowy days...........


a nice cup of something warming. Irish Coffee.....mmmmmm....Okay, I will fess up - generally I don't put any Irish Cream in my coffee on snowy days, but this time I did and I took a picture of it to make it look like I am sophisticated enough to do it all the time. Really........well I was rooting through the cabinet looking for the things to make the kids some from scratch cocoa because we didn't have any instant and I ran across this from last winter - I already had some coffee made so I thought I would give it a go. Heard that whiskey can help a cough out and I have been coughing for 5 days now. Didn't help my cough, but it certainly warmed me up a bit and it was tasty.


So back to what I like about snowy days - well..........they are beautiful. It is just gorgeous the way the snow seems to erase the no longer blooming landscape and replace it all with a gorgeous landscape. It makes you want to stay home, play games and snuggle. It really is transforming.



Another thing I like - well, for some reason the kids think that BigGuy is the only one capable of building things in the snow - so they beg HIM to go out with them. No one appears to think that I might be of any use in building things in the snow - so I am left alone. It becomes my task to bundle them up and lay out some dry warm clothes for when they come in. Prep some type of body warming treat and then sit - inside - alone - to do whatever I want - for at least 30 minutes - while my absolutely gorgeous husband frolicks outside with the children. How great is that?


However, I have still not gotten over the absolute joy of having a garage. While all that stuff is dumping outside I am sitting inside thinking about how just a little over a year ago I would have to scrap my car off while standing in the freezing weather. I LOVE THE GARAGE - and the fact that if I need to go somewhere I just walk out into the "Heated" garage, jump into the car, open up the door with a button and drive away...................gotta love that!

Snow Much Fun

Mother Nature couldn't have found a more accurate way to say "Time for the Winter Holidays" then to start dumping some festive looking snow our way! We had fun with it too. Well, the kids and BigGuy went out in it - I chose to remain indoors mixing up some "from scratch" hot cocoa for them to sip on when they came in. Not that I don't like the white stuff - I am just trying to keep warm this weekend. What a nice way to start the season!