Under Construction

Happy New Year! I hope that the promise of 2009 has you all as fired up as I am! I love New Year's Day. It is like a brand new Trapper Keeper, unopened box of 64 crayons and a brand new medium point Sharpie all rolled into one. The opportunites are limitless!

That said, this blog is now UNDER CONSTRUCTION! I need a minute. I need a week. I may actually need a month. I have a million photos to download; a million toys to sort through and organize and three little lives to get back on track for 2009.

So be paitent. I'll have something to share very soon!!!

Happy 2009 Everyone!!!

My Top 5 Christmas Movies

In my house, the ever present Holiday Film has become almost more important than the lit tree in the living room. Movies are the modern carols and nothing fills me with holiday cheer more than the following movies. Editors note: It's A (an overplayed) Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street are not on my list. They are good...no, they are GREAT! But let's think outside of the box this year!

5. Christmas Vacation - Nothing makes me laugh harder than the comedic genius of Clark and Cousin Eddie! There are enough one liners in the movie to keep your spirits up until the egg nog is gone and the presents are unwrapped and put away! I also love how the kids change in every, single Vacation movie. A classic that always reminds me that no matter how much you try to have the perfect Christmas, your family will be there to keep it real!




4. A Christmas Story - Ok, so here's the deal. This is quite possibly one of my all time favorite movies EVER! But I have to say that it is losing some of its luster because TBS or TNT or whichever station plays it solid for 24 hours on Christmas Day. I love this movie because, although I didn't grow up in the 40's, it perfectly captured the anticipation of Christmas morning to a grade school child and making sure Santa was going to bring you that one special gift that you would just die without! I am especially partial to this one clip. My mother always overdressed me in any situation of weather. I was the kid with a scarf to cover her ears any time the wind picked up over 10 mph.




3. White Christmas - every time I express my love of the movie "White Christmas" my mother corrects me and says "Holiday Inn". "Holiday Inn" was indeed the Bing Crosby movie that launched the song, but I checked and I love "White Christmas". It is in Technicolor and it just makes me happy! It is all things old Hollywood on sound stages and witty one line quips that just make me want to pour a cocktail and act sassy! But I have always been partial to Danny Kaye since "The Court Jester". (My obsession with memorizing ..."the chalice from the palace..." is a story for another day.)



2. Love, Actually - I watch this every year and every year I cry like it is the first time I have seen it. First off, I love movies that have huge ensemble casts. Like 30,000 really famous people all getting over themselves and just making a great movie. Second, I love all things real and romantic and this movie is IT! I am a big fan of expressing your true love to anyone and everyone you care about during the holidays and this movie just makes me want to hug the postman in gratitude!!! (But that's it...just a little side hug for appreciation. I did not just confess some undying affection for our USPS mail carrier. Given that our new neighbor works for the post office I am now regretting my analogy altogether.) This movie makes me want to kiss my husband under the mistletoe!!! That sounds more appropriate!



1. Emmett Otters Jug Band Christmas - This is my all-time favorite Christmas movie ever made. This is actually my all-time favorite Christmas book ever written, as well. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I am obviously a rabid Jim Henson fan. Nothing can spark a nostalgic tear faster than hearing Kermit sweetly sing "Rainbow Connection". Well, actually, Emmett Otter can. I am only 33 years old, but I have my fair share of life's disappointments to look back on and grieve from time to time and Emmett takes me there. Emmett takes me back to the age of six when all things were perfect. And although my life is still pretty close to perfection, Emmett makes me miss someone a little more than I did a moment ago and still somehow puts a smile on my face and a song in my heart. Actually...this song!

Happy Birthday, Ben!

On Saturday Ben officially turned THREE! I can't believe how all of the sudden the "baby" is gone and I am in the presence of a full on pre-school LITTLE BOY! Deviant and often overly "passionate", but a sweet little boy all the same. I was a bit emotional throughout the day. When he turned one, I was too much "in it" to really notice the milestone. And then he was two and that was fun but it was still much of the same. But on Saturday I couldn't help myself but to stroll back and think, "Three years ago now I was heading to the hospital. Three years ago now I was begging to get off of my morphine so that I could sit up and hold him. Three years ago now I had no idea just how tired I would be..." etc. We surrounded him with family and gifts...lord there were gifts. And each gift was his "very favorite!" and he spastically played with all of them and many of them at the same time! Which I thought was really sweet. And really loud! Happy Birthday, Ben. We hope each year is better than the one before; knowing that we'll swear it can't get any better than it is right now!

Sampling the cake

Driving and talking on the phone on his new "dadgum" gator. Dadgum and dadgummit are his new favorite words. Lovely!

Ben's Christmas Program

Tuesday night we got to go to SJES and see Ben's first Christmas Pageant. It was super cute and Ben did great! He had to wear a "Holiday" outfit and...well...you shouldn't be surprised by the outfit he chose! Yes...they are PAJAMAS!


Merry Christmas, everyone!!

"Why I Hate The Post Office" by Allison Bredemeyer

132 Holiday Cards mailed on December 13th, 2008.

As of today, TWO cards recieved. One family in VEGAS and one in Dallas.

Ben's First "Friend" Birthday Party!

Up until last week, Ben had not had the "friend" birthday party. As you all know, he is a wee bit shy and it didn't seem worth it for Kevin and I to have a big party just to watch him completely melt down. That AND his birthday is 5 days before Christmas. So this year (after watching him completely warm up the past 6 months) we decided to ease into and have 6 little friends (6 only because 4 are TWINS!) to the Grace Museum for a little birthday cake and play time! It was a huge success. Thankfully it was warm, so we were able to get him out of his jammies and into a Ben and Mommy pre-approved outfit.

Enjoy!!

I don't have a clue what we are all laughing at.

There were so many more photos, but it is a huge pain to upload and format them in Blogspot. But you get the idea!! On Saturday, it will be official. I will be the mother of a precocious, happy, super-smart three year old boy! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN!

Elf on a Shelf

See the creepy little elf perched on top of the book in the photo above. Well in our house that is "Lil' Santa". AKA - The Bain of My Existence, HELL on a Shelf, irritating little troll, and a few other explicatives that shall not be typed for my family to read.

Now I know alot of you have this little devil in your home and just rave and rave about how fabu the little monster is, but I am here to tell the world the "rest of the story". (shout out to Paul Harvey). EOTS is rather involved so if you don't know the process, I'll explain. EOTS comes with a book and a little troll. The story says that this elf is from Santa especially for you and each night he flies to the North Pole and reports to Santa on your behavior for that day. This is how Santa knows if you have been good or bad. I was always told he just knew and to stop my deviant behavior, but this apparently has been done away with like the other great parent disciplines based soley on "because I SAID SO!" But I digress...so the kid gets to name his own elf. Ben named him Lil' Santa. The elf has magic powers so you can't ever touch him. Thus making him UBER CREEPY sitting on the shelf peering down at you like that frightening little clown in Poltergeist. Oh and the really fun part: Since he flies to the NP each night; he NEVER lands in the same place. So Mommy and Daddy get to move him around every night and then the big "game" is to run around the house and try and find where he landed. Yeah...Christmas, Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny all in one for like 3 whole weeks. GRRRR.

My mom bought Ben EOTS last Christmas and after briefly thumbing through it, I deemed it "age inappropriate" (code for "I don't want to mess with this yet!") and stuck it in the top of the closet. And I RAVED about it to all my friends about how cute I thought the IDEA of it was. So with joy I pulled it down one night before bed and grabbed my almost-three-mop-top tot and propped him in my lap for what would surely be the first moment of our most favorite holiday tradition. I could not have been more wrong.

As I got deeper and deeper in the book, Ben's eyes got wider and wider and he kept looking at me. Not like, "Oh is there really a Santa. I hope I can be good. Hurray magical Christmas!" It was more a look like, "You have got to be shitting me that this thing is going to be flying around my house and outside." But the true panic was when he figured out he was going to have to go "hunting" for the little troll the next morning. It went something like this:

Ben: He flies where?
Me: To the North Pole.
Ben: In my house?
Me: Well, it isn't like real flying. It's MAGIC flying!
Ben: But in my house?
Me: Well, not really FLYING. But its magic!!!
Ben: And then I have to find him. Do YOU know where he is?

So I talk him off the ledge and then he becomes obsessed with touching "Lil' Santa". I explain he'll lose all his magic and we can't do that because how would Santa ever know if he was bad or good?

Ben: Santa just knows!

um...my child is smarter than I am. Darn right Santa just knows! We don't need "Lil' Santa" flying all over our house!

But I try to stay with it. I place "Lil' Santa" on his dresser and in the dark noticed his eyes aren't so perky blue and the shadow kind of made his nose look long and pointy. Now I am scared of "Lil Santa". So I tuck Ben in with his Daddy and I am off. A little while later there is a fussing noise and lots of chatting going on in Ben's room. Apparently poor Ben had not stopped with the elf (who can blame him) and now Big Daddy Kevin is up at the dresser saying, "Lil' Santa? This is Ben's Daddy. Now I don't want you flying all over my house, do you understand me? You are going to have to use your magic to tell Santa some other way. But don't you fly around my house tonight!" Hysterics! I love my son for making that a rule and I love my husband for bringing down the hammer on that little stuffed monster.

So I am back in there and now we are crying because not only does the book say that this little thing is going to spy on him all day and that he can't ever ever ever touch him or he loses all his magic and is rendered powerless, but NOW he figures out the part of the story that says the elf will leave when Santa comes into your house on Christmas Eve to bring you your toys. I can't tell if Ben is crying over the elf leaving under the cover of night or if he has just realized that Santa is coming IN THE HOUSE, people!?!?!

Off the ledge we come and Ben sits up and says with utmost certainty: "I know, Mommy. I will touch him. He will have no magic and then that will be it!"

I told you he was smarter than me!