Preschool Christmas Program

December is off to a busy start! Gracie's preschool had their Christmas program on the 1st.  They sure don't waste any time getting right to the holiday!  I told Gracie that it is "Christmas season" now and she said "Already?"

Really, the 4 yr old thinks Christmas came along pretty fast, just imagine what I think.  You probably don't need to imagine, it seems like everyone agrees that Christmas sure happens fast these days.

Anyway, the preschool had their program the other night and it was an experience to remember! We sort of thought it might be since our daughter has more personality than the average bear.  When our older girls were in elementary school, my husband and I loved going to their spring singing concert every year.  The Christmas thing was chaos, but the spring show was great! The kids came out grade by grade and sang.  The best, absolutely the very best part of the show every year was this kid named Chance.

Yeah, we always went to watch someone else's kid.  He was super entertaining!  Our girls were nice singers, walked in line, stood nice and still in their assigned position, did the correct actions to the song... sure, love that.  But that little guy, Chance, he was so exuberant that he was hilarious!  Chance's mother was always the most embarrassed woman in the crowd, but everyone else just loved the boy's antics on stage.  He sang the loudest, waved, danced when everyone else stood still, you know the type.  He was Chance!

Well, as it turns out, our sweet little Gracie is a lot like Chance.  And we were very very afraid.  We said to each other, "I think she's Chance" and "Oh no, the Chance of this school is our kid!".  The Preschool Christmas Program was scheduled for a Wednesday night, the night my husband teaches a college class.  This means I'm going alone.  The lone parent of the new Chance.  I took the video camera and the jealous two year old.

If you have been reading with me for a while, you might remember that Gracie is a ballet school dropout.  She was dancing to her own music, and it was very energetic powerful music that took her out front and the other ballerinas were merely back-up dancers. We didn't even have her go to the recital, practice was bad enough! Although this is a singing concert, whose to say she won't be dancing? One just never knows!

I decided to wear a dress and brush my hair for once. I guess I was thinking that if my kid was going to be the show-hog and everyone was going to stare at me with that "is that your kid?" look, at least I was going to look presentable.  Gracie looked fabulous! She got a really cute haircut, a miniature manicure, and a new red and black holiday dress with bright pink shoes. She was just adorable! Right down to the ankles, below that needed some work.

We left three hours early.  I know, that seems excessive, but you see.... we also had Charlie.  And Lexie.  We dropped Lexie off at work and then drove to Charlie's dad's house and dropped off Charlie for an evening of fun rather than an evening of sitting still and being quiet.  He's a baby. It wasn't gonna happen.

Then we went to Payless to buy some black or red shoes.  Success!  Also ended up getting Libby some shoes.  After shoe shopping, we went to In-n-Out for burgers and fries and lots and lots of napkins.  We took our dinner to the Preschool, and check-in time was only an hour away now.  Then I got the kids out of their carseats and we all sat in the back of the van and had a picnic in our beautiful dresses.  It was fun! My van still smells like french fries, but we had a good time and we were on time for the concert. 

We had time to take Gracie to the potty and I reached in my bag for my travel toothbrush to get all the fast food out of my braces. Ewww.  After a lot of rummaging around in my purse, sifting through diapers, lollipops, nail clippers, spare socks, toys, and coins... I remembered that I tossed my toothbrush in the dishwasher and that's where it is.  Ugh.  I had to pick and swish with water.  Oh well.

It was almost 6pm now and Gracie was supposed to report to her classroom at six.  I took her to her room then Libby and I went to the big room to find our seats.  This place is a contemporary church, so they don't have pews, but chairs.  The chairs are all set in rows, does this matter?  Anyway....

I went straight to the front row. I want a good video for my husband since he has to miss this. There were very few people in the room and one lady was in the front pulling some papers out of her bag and placing them on every chair in the first two and three rows.  I looked and the papers said "Reserved ".  Really?  Before coming tonight to watch your kid, you sat at home and wrote out Reserved chair markers?  Who does that? Who goes and saves 20 - 30 seats?  While she was so rudely placing her signs on the front row chairs, I sat in the third row aisle chair and put Libby next to me.  Took two of her spots! HA!  In hindsight, I should have just taken a front row seat and tossed her reserved signs in the back. Wonder what Chance's mom would have done?  I should call her.

Reserved seating started to fill in. Tallest guy in the audience sat right in the front row.  Nice.  The family right in front of me hit the cookie table pretty hard.  Over and over and over again.  In the 15 minutes that they sat there, they inhaled a dozen cookies at least.  There were crumbs everywhere!  Not sure why they couldn't eat them without scattering crumbs all over themselves, the chairs and the carpet, but they sure made a mess.  And the cookies are for AFTER the show.  Great, now Libby wants a cookie too. 

The show started at 6:30 and by this time, Libby was fidgeting and fussing and wanted to run around and play.  But she didn't want to leave me, she's clingy like that. Luckily, the program started and she was happy! Yay!

The kids were escorted from the back of the big room, up the middle aisle and onto the stage.  People came from the back of the room and filled in along the sides of the audience for a better view of the little runts.

First the two-year olds sang. They were adorable!  They didn't really sing, but they went on the stage and jingled their bells. Only one was crying. 

Some people came up the sides of the room and ducked down and sat on the floor in front.  And by some, I mean lots.  Hmm.  Well, that's different.  Sitting on the floor. 

Next the three-year old class came up.  They were all dressed in green and they stood in the shape of a Christmas tree.  Very cute!  More of them sang then I expected.  None were really trying to be the star of the show.  I was really hoping there would be a few more kids like Chance on the stage.  Just gonna be Gracie. Sigh.

There are two classes of 4 yr olds.  I looked back to watch them come forward and, Whoa! What is this?   A stampede?  What the helk?!!!

Coming up the center aisle is a herd of crawling moms.  All of them dressed nice and wielding cameras.  They were crawling!  CRAWLING!  On hands and knees charging up to the front trying to beat each other in this race to the front for the best spot.  I have never in my life seen an audience behave like this!  I was in such shock that I had two cameras in my hands and didn't take a photo of the stampeding crawling moms.  My jaw dropped to the floor and my eyes took in this incredible sight in shock. They filled up the floor in front of the stage and they all stooped in the aisle clogging it up completely. 

The 4 yr olds couldn't get through.  The teacher escort had to inch her way up to the front saying excuse me a hundred times.  I wanted to will her to kick these crawling freaks out of the way, but she was too polite for that.  That was naughty, I had visions of being mean to the floor huggers while I was sitting in a church! I'm gonna pay for that later.

Finally, a path was cleared and the kids came forward. The crawling paparazzi snapped away and took video of the processional.  Gracie waved.

The other class was first and they did a little nativity play and then sang a song.  Yeah, yeah, cute, lets move on. Libby can't take much more. 

Gracie's class was next.  They lined up on stage for their two songs.  Turns out, my kid wasn't a complete show-hog!  Yay! She stayed in her spot!  Yippeee!  She sang her little heart out and I could hear her above all others, but she sang great and knew all of the words!  She wasn't too overly exuberant with her actions.  A bit, but the stage is for drama isn't it?  She was just GREAT!  I was a wee bit disappointed that she wasn't more of a ham, guess I had myself all psyched up for it.

Libby was totally done now.  Terrible two took over.  She cried during the entire performance of Gracie's class, she kept trying to yank my dress off or up or something.  She was crying for "boo-boo Now!"  Oh, no, not here and certainly not in a dress! I really have to just quit nursing.  She was tired and there's only so much sitting still a two year old can do. After seeing the grown-ups in this crowd act like a bunch of untrained monkeys, I really didn't worry about it and I let her fuss.

I video taped as best I could. I had to hold my arm way up in the air to get a good shot without tall-guy's head in the way.  Gracie sang and sang!  Loved it!  But, it was the Sylvia-Show not the Gracie show.  There was some relief in that.  Sylvia had a microphone in front of her and the rest of the class were her back up singers. Hmmm.  Must be the teacher's kid?  Sylvia sang one song with Gracie and the rest of the kids doing the back up, and then Sylvia lead the rest of the class in song #2.  Gracie did really well and sang as loud as Sylvia did. And Sylvia had a mic! Plus, Gracie stayed in her own spot and didn't dance around the stage like she did in ballet class.  My girl is growing up!

After the grand finale of a rousing chorus of Jingle Bells, the show is over.  YAY!  What an experience!  I sure learned a lot tonight, but I left very proud of my daughter.  She's got a long way to go to be as entertaining as Chance, but she's off to a good start.  In the end, it was the parents who left the biggest impression in my mind.  This audience of crazed moms and dads and whoever else they brought with them was just insane. Scariest thing about them... they are raising the little people who are my daughter's peers. Her social interaction is with children whose parents crawl in public.

Maybe we should homeschool. Nah, my little Chance can hold her own and I'll just have to teach her that her friends are being raised by packs of wolves with cameras. Not far from the truth.

Merry GREEN Christmas!

Santa gave Gracie a Princess Tiana doll in a GREEN dress. She loves it! Whew!





She also got some other things: Prince Naveen, Louis the saxaphone playing alligator, chocolate and bubble wrap. It was a great GREEN Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you too!

Green or Blue? or, Green?

I am suffering from a bad case of doll dress stress.

Gracie asked Santa for a Tiana doll. Santa said "Ho Ho Ho", which of course means yes to a three year old material girl.

Tiana is the new Disney Princess from the movie Princess and the Frog. We have not yet seen the movie, just the trailers. We did catch the Disneyland Riverboat Show which was fantastic!



In the movie previews, and at Disneyland, Princess Tiana is wearing a green dress. A nice froggy shade of green. Prince Naveen is also wearing green, a darker shade of froggy green, but still green. There is a big poster at the Disney store and Tiana is wearing green. The girl wears green!


I was helping Santa with his quest to find a Princess Tiana doll for Gracie, so I ran to Super-Target and hit the Barbie aisle. There among the other Disney Princess Barbie dolls was the "Just One Kiss Princess Tiana" doll. This is the one that we've seen on the TV commercials. I think. Sure looks like it. On TV, the doll holds a frog and her dress lights up. I didn't notice on the commercials, but the doll in the package has on a blue dress. That can't be right. The girl is always wearing froggy green!
I walked around Target with Tiana in a blue dress trying to decide if I should put her back and keep looking or what to do. Christmas is closing in on us fast and Santa needs me to get a Tiana doll. I can't come up with a doll in the wrong dress. Arg, fine, I put her back. Back on the hunt for the right Tiana doll.

Got home and told my husband the doll dress dilemma. This all went right over his head and his expression just proved that men don't understand how important it is to have a doll dressed in just the right shade of whatever her Princess color is. He decided I am colorblind and cannot tell the difference between green and blue. That was helpful!

Off to the mall. I went to the Disney Store. No way I can go wrong in there! Santa will be proud of me! Sure enough, they had a huge display of Princess and the Frog characters. Oh gosh, there is Tiana in a green dress, a blue dress or a white dress with green ribbons. And another Tiana dressed in green but comes with 4 other dresses. Little plastic figurine Tiana dolls in green and blue. Hmmm, maybe she has more than one dress? I picked up a green dress Tiana doll that does not light up, a Prince Naveen doll and a Louis the alligator stuffed animal.

Still, I'm worried. The Princess Tiana doll that is currently hiding in my garage does not light up. She's not the one from the TV commercial. She is very pretty and matches the movie and merchandise ads. But maybe I should have gotten the blue one from the doll commercial? Or stick with the green one? Should I run out and get the blue one? Or keep the green one? If I get blue, will Gracie say, "Hey, Tiana wears a green dress!" but if I keep the green one will Gracie say, "I wanted the one that lights up!". Oh, why oh why doesn't the green dress light up?!?!!

I can't believe I am this worried over what a Barbie Doll is wearing.

A Magical Day

I took the runts to Disneyland again. It was another magical day in the Happiest Place on Earth!

After my last Pongo Parking lot experience, I decided to leave earlier and have a chance to get into the Mickey and Friends parking structure to start our day off right! We arrived at Disneyland at 10:25am and the parking structure was closed already. Rats! I quickly prayed to park in a better alternate lot than the Pongo lot and did lots of wishing that we could park soon. Last time it took over an hour to get from the closed Mickey and Friends lot to the Pongo lot. Not fun. I followed the signs and was routed to the Anaheim GardenWalk parking structure. It was nice and close and the parking structure was nice too! We were parked within ten minutes of reaching Disneyland, so my quick prayers that I said at the red light worked! Yay! We boarded a red trolly type bus and rode to Disneyland.

Boarding the shuttle trolley was a challenge with two little ones and a double stroller and a diaper bag, picnic bag, jackets and purse. First I have to unload and fold up the stroller so the Disneyland people can watch me load it into the shuttle, amazingly, this guy picked it up and loaded it for me. He must be new. I like him! While I'm doing that, the other people board the bus. Ok, what is it with people? Why do the first people in line sit in the front seats? Then everyone has to squeeze past the filled seats to get to the empty seats in the back! After loading my hummer of a stroller under the bus, I grab my kids and bags and get on only to find (happens every time) that the bus is full and the only empty spot is the last seat way in the back. To all of the nice people who don't have enough sense to take a back seat when they are first to get on, I apologize for boofing you in the head with my bag as I walked by. I got almost everyone!

We didn't have to buy any tickets today since I got Gracie her annual pass on our last trip, so we were able to just go through security and then go through the front gate. We were in by 11am! Wow! We were off to a great start!

My mission for the day was trifold: 1. Visit Santa 2. Catch the Princess Tiana Riverboat Show and 3. Ride through the Christmas Small World. Today was such a beautiful sunny day and the last day for SoCal Select Annual Passholders to visit until January, so I knew it would be crowded - very very crowded. The crowd actually wasn't too bad, seems like the crowd was mostly adults and teenagers, not so many little ones. That's fine though because they prefer the rides and attractions that we don't go to. For example: the haunted mansion had a line a mile long!

Over the course of the day we managed to accomplish all of our visit goals and then some.

Visiting Santa was great! The little girls first saw Mrs. Claus. They both really liked her! She was great! Then we waited in line to see Mr. Santa Claus. He was great too! Libby didn't have the same opinion, so Gracie got to visit him without any competition for attention. Then we saw Pluto who was wearing Reindeer antlers. So cute! Libby woofed at him and he blew Gracie some puppy kisses. We also got to see all of Santa's reindeer. They were loitering in the hay, just taking it easy while Mr. and Mrs. Claus were at Disneyland.



We walked over to the Riverfront to see Princess Tiana. Not sure how this riverboat show will go, I wanted to get a great viewing spot so that the short ones could see. I took a spot on the edge of the crowd right next to the water. Turns out, it was a poor spot because the boat moved in front of us and then stopped, we could only see the back of the boat and cough in the fumes. I quickly ran the kids to a better spot even though we weren't right up against the fence, we could see just fine. The girls were mesmerized! At the end of the show, they shot confetti into the crowd; Libby caught quite a bit of it! For the remainder of the day, I picked confetti out of the stroller wheels.



Not even 2 o'clock and I've almost got my mission completed for the day. We have plenty of time to do lots of extras! We went to the Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, rode the Winnie the Pooh ride, caught the last half of the Tiana show again, watched the Christmas parade, and... oh let me stop here and tell you about the prelude to the parade.

Libby is 14 mths old, not exactly the age of patience. She walks fast and in any direction except where I want her to go. That's why I put her on a leash, so that when she does get out of the stroller to walk a bit, she won't get lost. This wasn't her idea of fun at all.

We arrived to the parade viewing area ten minutes before start time and there was a spot open right along the curb! How that happened, I do not know! Magic! So, I parked the stroller and we went to sit and wait for the parade. Most people claim their spots and sit for an hour at least for the parade. Libby decided one minute was long enough, two was too many and she wasn't going to sit still for TEN! She pitched a sreaming crying kicking fit that made all the people around me groan in agony. Two different people offered me food for her. I gave her a cracker but she just used it as a weapon. The screaming was loud and I thought she was going to clear the whole area of people. We might get to watch the parade all by ourselves! That didn't happen, but I imagine some people, or hundreds of people, were wishing I'd take little Miss Screamer and leave. As soon as the parade started, she flipped a switch and instantly sat up and waved saying 'Hi" in her sweet little voice. She was so happy! Waving her little hand off and dancing to the music, smiling and being cute! The parade was great! And Libby was too! Gracie was very well behaved and she waved her little hand like mad too. So cute!



We managed to see quite a few characters this trip. In addition to Santa and Tiana, we saw Woody and Sally from Toy Story, Pooh and Tigger, and... well, it seemed like more. They were all in the parade, maybe that's why it seems like we saw them all. We didn't go see the princesses this trip. First time!

Another first, Gracie rode a horse on the carousel! She was brave enough to get on it while it was stopped, but as soon as the ride started, she changed her mind. You can't get off in mid-ride though so she had to tough it out. When the horse was on its way down, she was all smiles and having fun, but when the horse started to climb up, she wanted off. My little bench rider is growing up!



The days are so short now, I knew it would be dark soon so we headed on over to the Small World. Wow, that was crowded! We might only ride it one time. First I had to find parking for the stroller. Found a sea of strollers and right in the middle them were two signs that said "Please No Stroller Parking". I found a lot of humor in the irony of the sight, so I snapped a quick photo of one of the signs, couldn't even see the other one as it was on the other side of the stroller sea. I kept moving and parked where strollers are supposed to park, you know, a long long long way from the Small World attraction.


The line for The Small World was super long. It wound around and around and across the path around over that'a way and back, we must have walked five miles before loading in the boat. I was glad that the line was always walking though, that's so much better than standing still. As expected, the ride through the Christmas Small World was amazing! Well worth the wait and the long walk! We only rode once, the line was way too long to do it twice. But I ran the video camera all the way through the ride. Hopefully I have some video worthy of watching. Knowing Gracie, we'll watch it a million times.

After the ride, the attraction wasn't lit up yet. It was getting dark and we did everything we set out to do, and I was wiped out. So, I headed for the front gate. Now that it was 5pm, the crowd was thick as pea soup! This is when all the annual pass-holders fill the park! Right after work! It was way too crowded, I could barely push the stroller through the crowd. Ugh! And now I could see that behind me, they lit up the Small World. I had a little argument with myself about turning around and going back to see it lit or continuing on toward the gate. The Good mommy won and I twirled around and went back so Gracie could see it all lit up.

I am so glad that I did. We walked toward it and she was so happy and excited! Next thing I know, I' m up against a rope and the crowd it so dense that I couldn't go anywhere at all. Stuck. Turns out the rope was set up because there was a light show and "Snow" on the Small World frontage. Cool! We had a front row spot for viewing! That was Disneyland Magic! The light show and foam soap bubbles snow were awesome! I'm very happy that I went back! What a wonderful way to end the day!

But, I was stuck in that crowd. It was nearly impossible to pass through and it took me 45 minutes to get from the Small World to the front gate. People were everywhere! Shoulder to shoulder! And on Main Street, they were lined up for the 6:30 pm parade. Fireworks were scheduled for 9:30 and I wasn't sticking around that long, crowd or no crowd. By the time I got to the end of Main Street both kids were asleep in the stroller, so I knew it was really time to end our fun and head out. I wasn't the only tired girl.

We boarded the bus to the Gardenwalk Parking structure, this time we had a seasoned bus driver - he watched me juggle two sleepy kids, bags and load the stroller myself, then he asked if he could help. Ay, ay, ay... I can only shake my head and wonder what ever happened to the morning gentleman driver. Wonder why they don't hire more like him.

We got to the van and loaded up, Gracie finally decided she would go potty in her van potty chair. Ugh. Why won't she go potty till we get to the van? I can't figure out how to force her to go potty during the day. I sit her on the toilet and she doesn't go, we get to the van and she finally goes for the first time since we left the house. I'm baffled. I couldn't just dump it on the ground because we were in a nicely lit parking structure with security guards driving golf carts around, so I stuck one of Libby's diapers in the potty chair and put the whole thing in a plastic sack for the ride home.

We left the parking structure at 7pm, Crazy, we left the Small World at 6:00pm. Got home shortly after 9pm. The 91 freeway was a jam packed slow going river of cars. Luckily, I went East on the 91 rather than West like I did last time. I had a hard time finding the East exit off the 5 North. All kinds of signs pointing you West, no wonder I took the wrong exit last time! The East 91 exit had one little sign and it was behind something. I nearly missed it!

Another magical day at Disneyland is done. The kids are making wonderful memories and once again, the hassle, the lines, juggling two little kids in the crowds, diapering and nursing in public, its all worth the hard work and the hours on my feet.... the smiles and amazed looks in their eyes, it's magical!

Pumpkin Bread for everyone!

My house smells SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo Good! Today I baked 23 mini-loaves of pumpkin bread, and 3 muffins. Some of the little loaves got chocolate chips, I didn't think of adding those till I was half-way through the baking process.

I'm not really a domestic goddess, which is why I feel like I need to celebrate the days when I have a kitchen Goddess moment. And who knows, these pumpkin bread loaves might not be all that great. I'm hoping they are all done in the middle and didn't catch any floating dog hair in the mix.

What is it about dog hair? It just floats around in the air. No matter how much I clean, the dog leaves her hair all over the place. I"ll never get used to it.

As long as we are off on a tangent, I may as well take this time to inform you that I flunked out of my 9th grade home-ec class. The teacher had no hope that I would ever manage to stir things together and bake them successfully. Eh, what did she know?

The reason I was baking so darn many loaves of pumpkin bread is because my husband wants to give Christmas gifts to a few of his co-workers. They never cease to think of him. He counted on his hand the people he would like to give something to, then he counted on his other hand, then he continued to count off wonderful people. He looked at me and said, "Can you help me put 12 gift bags together?" Knowing how that goes, I figured he will think of at least two more before he's done. It might be nice to give a small gift bag to our neighbors, add two more.

I went to the dollar store and bought gift bags, boxes of candy, photo frames, and some adorable snowman figurines. But the bags are still more empty space than anything else. We decided baking pumpkin bread mini-loaves would finish off the gift bags nicely. And a couple of hot chocolate packets and a mint or two.

Today was the big baking day to complete these gift bags. In my tiny chaotic kitchen with too many little helping hands, I managed to accomplish what sounded impossible. I baked! I didn't wear a dress and pearls; I'm not June Cleaver. It was a comfy jammie day in the kitchen.

Something I just learned.... When it says to whisk the wet ingredients together (eggs, water, oil) that does not mean to use your cool electric whisk that you've never had a chance to try out before. No.... because that is much too whisky fast! And eggs will go flying all over you, the counter, cupboards, and anything in the way. And, when you call your neighbors to borrow more eggs because your very last eggs went flying in all directions, they will come over and laugh at you. None of that is on the box! All I'm saying is... I highly recommend using a hand whisk.


I'm out of eggs now. I had a package of 18, and two were breakfast. At least 3 or 4 coated my kitchen after the electric whisk incident, and two had huge cracks in them when I opened the carton so they went straight to the trash.

Despite the challenges, I managed to bake up a bunch of yummy pumpkin bread! Some of the loaves have chocolate chips in the middle. I thought of adding them about half-way through the baking day. It's anyone's guess as to which loaves have chocolate chip goodness inside. I've since mixed them up and forgot.


I wrapped them all in plastic wrap after they cooled and they are now ready for the gift bags! The plastic wrap was another trying experience because Libby was loudly insisting on being held, so I wrapped them one handed. A couple of them have a little baby finger poke. Gives them character! My gigantic roll of saran wrap doesn't have a cutting edge. The package says it is hassle-free with this new plastic zipper thing. That thing fell off and never worked from the start. I use a knife to slice off the plastic along the edge of the cardboard box, avoiding little helping hands that try to get in my way.

What a day! I do not envy anyone who bakes for a living! Especially if they have a couple of little overzealous helpers!

The Many Santas We've Seen!

Here Comes Grandma!

Happy December!

I promised in November I would blog more, and I did. Whew! Now you don't have to come looking for me and force me to sit down and type out a blog post! I was afraid that would happen.

My sister did the novel writing thing and she "won". Meaning she wrote the required number of words and submitted them to the novel writing challenge site, she earned a little graphic saying she's a winner. Hopefully, her book will really be something and she can get it published. Now that would be very cool! She wrote a travel book about a place she visited in Mexico, so she really might have something there.

We're in full on Christmas prep around here. I brought the Christmas tree and decor tubs into the house out from the garage. Gracie wants everything she sees on TV and then some. She was so upset when I told her that Christmas is for everyone, not just her. Oh, the tears! She thought it was all for her. She's getting used to the idea now. Good that she's moving on. I ordered photo cards and got the tree half-way put together. I found the stockings too! I was thinking I need to make the family new stockings since the family has changed so much these past few years, but I've realized I only need to change the names on the stockings from Katie and Lexie to Gracie and Libby. We went from 2 kids to 4 to 5 and back down to 2. Ta-Da!

We got an advent calendar to help count down the days. I look at it and think, "OMG it's coming so soon!" She looks at it and says, "there are too many numbers on the calendar, can we turn more than one today?"

We are doing something very nontraditional this year. My mother is coming to visit! Yay! Grandma is coming! Normally, we don't travel in the winter. We're a midwestern family who understands that snow, bitter cold, and wind are not good travel companions. My mom is flying through Denver, we're all hoping that her stop there goes well. We're going to a wedding and will surround that event with shopping, having our Thanksgiving, decorating the tree, and listening to Gracie say "I want that!" to every tv commercial. It'll be fun! I'm hoping to sneak in a trip to Disneyland with Grandma, but we'll see what Grandma thinks about that.

Speaking of Grandma coming... she arrives this afternoon and my house is a total disaster. I should get busy cleaning. I dumped out my purses, diaper bag, every toy box, the kitchen cupboards, the magazine rack, and a few other junk containers looking for my lost cell phone. The battery was dead so calling it wasn't helping. After a full week of it being lost, my husband found it in the back yard last night. Wet. It rained a couple of times. Yikes! So now my house is a disaster (except behind and under all the furniture where I cleaned since I was doing the big search). It charged up and it works! Anyway, I should refill the toy boxes and repack my diaper bag, get some decluttering done before Grandma shows up and wonders if I've gone bonkers.

Happy December!

Merry Christmas!

On the First Light of Christmas morn
Santa Clause gave to me.... Ahhhh....

12 pound turkey
11 kinds of candy
10 dollars from Grandma
9 new pairs of socks
8 candy canes
7 pounds gained
6 Stockings stuffed to the brim
5 Barbie Dolls
4 Happy Daughters
3 Boxes from Overstock
2 Bass Guitars
and an Ipod Touch

We've discovered Santa Claus

Princess Gracie discovered Santa Claus. She has no memory of him from last year it seems. That's good, since she didn't care for him a year ago.

She's been learning about Santa and about presents. She's catching on pretty fast too. She told me today "Santa bring presents. My presents. Presents for Gwacie" Grin.

I asked my usual question, "What do you want in the presents?"

Gracie said "Chocolate!" Big grin.

Christmas break ends tomorrow!

Back to school! Finally!!! It's mid-January for Pete's sake! Christmas break has been going on far too long! The school had 3 half days and let out on Dec 19th, so the break was just a few days short of a full month. Tomorrow I send one of my girls back to school. Back to a schedule. Back to a routine. Back to getting out of bed before noon. Back to normal!

Ah, but you realize what this means for me? Back to driving the mom-taxi at 7am in my pajammies. Back to arranging my baby's naptime around school pick-up time. Back to nagging about homework. Back to thinking about lunch money and dress code. Back to keeping the days straight so I can answer the daily question "Is it an A-Day or a B-day"?

My oldest daughter and I both start back to school in a week. And my husband went back 2 weeks ago. I'm glad we aren't all starting back at once. I need to adjust. I can only get back in the groove of getting this family out the door one person at a time.

Mornings are chaotic and I'm never at my best before coffee. And with the baby still waking up 3 times a night for nursing.... I am surprised I can get anyone out the door at all! But they all wake up saying "Mooooooom, Where's my....." My husband might be the worst one of the bunch. And then my daughter usually thinks the 15 minute drive to school can be magically done in less than 2. "Moooooom, hurry! I'm gonna be late!" You know, because it's always my fault that she can't get out of bed even though I nearly pull all my hair out trying to get her up for an hour. Pre-coffee. Maybe I was trying to shake her dresser awake. I usually give her the benefit of the doubt and let it slide while she complains and I stop for each and every stop sign all the way to the school. I have to look in the mirror 17 times to make sure I did remember to bring the baby. Seriously, I'm not with-it before the coffee kicks in.

So I have 4 days of driving the early morning mom-taxi before I have to start school myself. Then of course, I'll have to have myself put together and the baby ready for the sitter. Some mental preparation is necessary for a feat this great! I'm not saying I'm gonna brush my hair or anything but starting tomorrow sleeping in is history.

I'm going vertical early in the morning and kissing Christmas break laziness goodbye. Hmmm.... I like my laziness but I'm glad to see the kid get rid of hers! Ah, the dynamics mommy-hood!

A Hollister Holiday Story

My oldest princess has a part time job at the local mall, working at Hollister. She thinks she is so cool! Well, she did . Until she realized that the job isn't all that she thought it would be. Glamor and popularity and excessive coolness aside.... it's just not her dream job after all.

Katie was working one of her 4 hr shifts recently during the Christmas shopping rush.... and this is how her story goes:

She had been working for over 2 hours and she was feeling thirsty but it wasn't her break time yet. The store was packed with people, mostly crabby moms. (Boy, I can relate to that, two seconds in that store and I'm a crab and a half!) Katie was working in Betty's One - that means the first room of girls clothing.

One mom came up to her and was asking her something about a shirt. She needed the same shirt in a different size or something like that. Katie said that the lady just kept talking and talking and talking. Katie couldn't understand her. My poor little princess said that the lady was in her face just talking and nothing made sense to Katie - she was speaking English though. Katie said "I was just staring at her for the longest time and I couldn't understand or say anything - I just stared at her".

Oh my. Can you imagine what this poor frustrated mom was thinking at this point?

Katie's story continues.... The lady was talking and talking about the shirt, waving the shirt around, and then she went blurry. That's all Katie remembers. Then she woke up on the floor with a crowd hovering over her and her manager saying "KATIE KATIE KATIE KATIE!" She had herself a nice little seizure just then.

They got her up and moved her to the back room and let her lay on a boxes of sweatshirts, got her some water and asked her if she was ok. Well, she doesn't like to worry people, so she said she was just fine and she just needed to lay there a few minutes. So, that's what she did. Drank the water and rested for a while.

By this time she had an hour left of her shift and she was still feeling kinda goofy. Her manager said she could sit in the chair in the Betty's One room and drink her water for the rest of her shift, so that's what she did. Nice guy, huh? Did he call an ambulance? No. Did he hide her in the back room where she couldn't get any help if she needed it? Yes. Jerk. He better stay far far away from me, cuz I have nothing nice to say to the guy. You'd think he'd want to cover his ass for liability anyway. She said she folded a few pairs of jeans that were next to the chair so that she earned her hour of minimum wage.

Yes, minimum wage. The kid has worked there for a year and they don't give raises.

Then, she drove home. I know! Crazy kid!!! When she got home she was so pale and she looked exhausted. I knew as soon as I saw her that something was really wrong. Gave her some OJ and she told me how the lady was talking to her, she fainted, had a seizure and finished her shift and drove home. I made her promise me to call me for a ride or get a ride home from someone if ever this happens again. Yeah Yeah, she says. So I told her you could hurt someone else - maybe a family with little children. Oh! Well, ok. She promised then. She doesn't want to hurt someone else by accident. I also told her she didn't need to finish that shift, but she said she still needed to sit for a while so it was ok.

Oh my goodness.

Can you just imagine this mom trying to communicate with my Katie, who is staring off into space and non-responsive and then she just drops like a rock to the floor? That poor woman. Sounds like she was already having a difficult shopping day and then Katie faints at her feet.

My little princess has low blood pressure and has a history of occasional fainting followed by a seizure. It hasn't happened in quite a while so I figured she had grown out of it. I guess not. Sugar brings her around again as does fluids. I've taken her to see several docs and nobody could ever come up with anything wrong. They all say "it was probably a one time fluke". This one-time-fluke happens a couple times a year though. She's been having mild seizures since age 6 or 7, fainting since age 10 and that's when the convulsive seizures began too. In her younger years a seizure just looked like she had zoned out. We thought she was a daydreamer. She can feel it coming but was ignoring the signs since she was working and knew she had a break coming up she could get something sugary to drink then. But, she didn't make it till break time.

I think she was reminded of the urgent need to listen to her body when its talking to her. Poor girl. I cannot believe she didn't smack her head when she fell in that cluttered store. Have you ever been in there? I hate that store - I come out with shin bruises from their racks and a massive headache from the music, not to mention the poisonous toxic thick perfume in the air. I don't know how my daughter can stand to go in there and spend 4 hours. Blech!

She's looking for a better job - I wish she'd look harder.

Who is this scary bearded old man?

We went to see Santa today! This is how my conversation with Santa went....

Me: Hi Santa!
Santa: Ho Ho Ho!
Gracie: screaming already
Me: Sit, Sandy, Sit!
(Sandy sits and looks lovingly at Santa)
Gracie: WAHHHHH!!!!
Me: Hang on to her, Santa!
Gracie: NOOOO! NOOOOO!
Santa: Maybe you should come back later
Me: No, thanks, this is fine.
Santa: Really, I'll be here till 3:00
Gracie: WAHHHH!!!!!
Me: Trust me, she won't like you later either.

Here she is running away as fast as she can!
But not without nabbing a candy cane first.

What? Christmas is Coming? So Soon?

We just had Halloween!

I've been so swamped with finals and term papers that Christmas really snuck up on me. I'm not ready. I have all my shopping yet to do, shipping, baking cookies and writing cards. We haven't even taken our family photo yet for our cards - oh boy.... we might have to stretch Christmas into January.

I'm working on a quilt for our ex-foreign exchange student in Germany, Anna. All I have left to do are the edges. It takes a good long time to ship something to Germany, so she won't get her gift until after the holiday. Oh well. I just don't have time till after finals and that's just how it is. I'm disappointed that I can't get things done on time, but I'm resigning to the fact that Christmas is just too soon!

We decided not to decorate for Christmas this year. No lights, no tree, no getting the boxes out of the garage. We have a tornado for a daughter and we'd rather not deal with the chaos of a knocked over tree, ornaments flying through the air, watching her swing from the lights... you get the idea.

I'll dig out our stockings and we can have those on Christmas morning. Otherwise, it's all up to our imaginations this year! Ho Ho Ho!