#tbt Lovie's first 4th of July

about last weekend

I came down with a horrible stomach thing early Saturday that put me in bed the entire day. Oh, but first we went to an egg hunt that I will never attend again. Why? Well it was free and open to everyone, all ages. And when they blew the whistle everyone was allowed to try to get some eggs. Everyone. Including moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc etc etc. Lovie got two eggs. She cried till some mom made her son with a basket full of eggs give some to her. It was really crazy. And my puking and fever didn't help, I'm sure.

 

Nevertheless, the Easter Bunny did come Sunday.

 

 

notice how dark it is in the background?? that's what 6AM Sunday looks like!

We keep things super simple for Easter... even so, she's happy.

 

 

After Lovie indulged in some chocolate bunnies and eggs (and milk and a peanut butter jelly sandwich), and after I collapsed back in bed for a bit (puking stopped, fever was gone, but oh my word my stomach wasn't well), we actually did something none of us have done before: we went to Medieval Times.

They were having a buy one get one free special plus a free Spring egg hunt. It was a really neat experience. Not cheap, but a really neat experience that I would love to do again when I don't have to worry about my gut exploding (and only with another special).



Lovie with a REAL Princess. :)

 

They have tons of stuff set up to buy (of course) or look at or drink (of course) in the concession area before you get into the arena where you eat and watch hot men with long hair straddling horses putting on a medieval show of sorts. One of the things they have is this green screen that they can take your picture in front of and then transpose it onto another image. When we saw a sample of a girl dressed as a princes standing next to a unicorn... well, use your imagination. It makes for a super damn cute and cool keepsake, at least.

 

here she is before getting in front of the green screen

It's been several days now since I puked my guts out... I'm better, but my gut is still so damn explosive feeling. Fortunately, Lovie hasn't gotten sick so yahoo for that.

Christmas recap

We cleaned. We cooked. We watched beautiful snowflakes fall Christmas Eve morning.

 

Grandpa and Cousin Joey visited in the afternoon. We ate. We opened presents. We laughed and played. We ate some more before saying good-bye to our guests. Lovie finally fell asleep around 10PM Christmas Eve and then we helped set the magical scene for Christmas morning.

 

 

Santa came and ate some cookies and drank some milk and left a big present (Barbie RV) for Lovie. Mom and dad did good with other gifts including the Nabi Jr.

The three of us spent Christmas morning together alone. Wrapping paper, boxes, plastic bands covered the floor. Piles of toys here and there. Daddy won $500 from a scratch-off lottery ticket tucked in his stocking. Mommy made easy and yummy sticky buns so that we all could just be together all morning. Just the three of us.

It really is the most magical time of the year.

to You

 

 

 

 

(words could not express how sad I am that the photographer who took these photos & created this card has closed shop)

never enough time: welcome to December

Ah December.

We're three days in already. Pretty soon we'll be wishing everyone a Happy New Year. How does it happen like this? How does time go so fast?

I totally remember being a little kid and wishing the days away. Especially in December. I mean, man did that month take forever before you got to Christmas and got to open some presents! Now it's a whole different scenario. Now there's just never enough time in the day. Never. I hated when adults use to moan about this--that time goes by so fast. I hated it. But I get it now. I really get it.

Dammit.

So Thanksgiving this year was good. You?

We had ten adults and one little--Lovie. My in-laws, my mom, my sister all came over. I took Wednesday off from work to try to clean and prep a bit. Yeah, there's just never enough time in the day.

The food was good as was the company. It was the first Thanksgiving without Oma so there was that. But it was, overall, a really nice day.

And now the real fun begins: Christmas and Lovie's birthday and New Year's.

We got the tree up and most decorations on Friday, and Christopher Pop-in-kins came to visit on Saturday.

I love it. We all do.

Gifts have all been pretty much ordered, just need to wrap. And bake. And bake some more. And package baked goods. Ack, there's just never enough time in the day.

I'm a little stressed about Christmas Eve. It's always been ... ALWAYS ... about my mom's side of the family. Particularly Oma (and Ota). ALWAYS. Then the past two years, we've visited much earlier in the day on Christmas Eve or the weekend before, and have had my dad over Christmas Eve night. And last year my nephew and niece came, too.

Christmas Day then is spent alone at home in the morning and then we make our way to Taye's parents house.

But this year... this year, again, there's a big change. There's no Oma. I can't have my mom spend Christmas Eve alone. I could invite her over but then my dad won't come. So then he spends Christmas Eve alone?

I just don't know what to do to appease these people sometimes.

And.

There's just never enough time in the day to figure it all out.

Christmas recap

It astounds me that we're days shy from a brand new year.

It astounds me that we just celebrated our third Christmas with a child...our child.

Every day truly is a gift. Truly it is.

to You

Santa Claus lane

I haven't been able to scan in this year's photo on Santa's lap (we got one with her actually smiling) so this one below- with her inching her way toward the big guy- will have to do for now (no crying photos from my evil kid):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Santa

My dear sweet baby girl,

When the day comes when you ask if Santa is real, I hope to be able to show you this:

I saw this on Facebook. I am not the author; I'm not sure who is. But that matters not to me because what matters is the message about love and magic and hope and happiness... the message that Santa represents all of that.

Believe.

caption this

I'm totally open to any other bubble thoughts.

inexpensive holiday gifts

The other week I made some Merry Mix-Mess and Chocolate Pretzel Buttons with the purpose of packaging it all up and gifting it out this season. Then, I found these adorable Dixie brand coffee cups with lids (12 each to a package for less than $3.00) at either WalMart, Target, or Meijer. I put the snacks in a ziploc baggie, tucked those inside the coffee cup, and BOOM: instant little cheap, yummy, festive gift! If only I picked up more of the cups because I can't seem to find them anywhere online! :(

TILTW: 12.1-12.7

*
I really love December. It's so busy, but it's so much fun with a kid in tow.
**
I'm excited because this year I'm finally into giving more again. I've always enjoyed giving to others more than receiving (gifts, people/pervs, gifts), but for a while I was just so tired of coming up with stuff to give. I don't have the funds to give real gift-gifts, so I generally just make stuff. But that was hard the past several years. This year, however, I've already made some Christmas Crack, Pretzel Buttons, and Cake Batter Cookies all of which I will be making more of to package and give to Lovie's teachers, friends, some family, coworkers, neighbors. It makes me giddy to be able to give this shiz away.
***
I thought I was done Christmas shopping, but I was wrong. You can read more about that over here at the Bump Blog! : )
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What have you learned this week?

cake batter cookies

soooooooooo easy and yummy. makes three dozen cookies- perfect to package up and give away around the holidays.

Chocolate Pretzel Buttons

I'm not sure if it was NaBloPoMo or what, but I'm fresh out of shiz to write about. I've got a couple more hours to come up with something to link up with the folks at Yeah Write and/or The Speakeasy, but, as of right now, I got nothing.

Nothing but food.

Over the weekend I made some Merry Mix-Mess to give away at Christmas to Lovie's teachers, friends and maybe some of my coworkers. I also made a small batch of Chocolate Pretzel Buttons. And, with the help of Lovie, I made another batch last night.

These are the easiest damn things ever.

Ingredients:
Hershey Kisses and/or Hugs, unwrapped (I've tried using the peppermint and they don't melt as nicely as the kisses and hugs ... I find the Hugs melt the nicest and it's probably best to use only ONE KIND at a time!) (btw, my almost 3 year old loved helping me unwrap all these.)
Plain M&M's (I used some peppermint M&M's and those are just nasty but if you like chocolate mint, I don't see why you can't use them- though they are bigger than plain M&M's)
Square Pretzels

Directions:
Cover a baking sheet (lined with parchment paper) with square pretzels. Put unwrapped Kiss/Hug on each pretzel. Bake at 200 for 5 minutes (do not let the Kisses/Hugs melt- just let them get soft). Top each Kiss/Hug with an M&M and let cool in fridge.

the Merry Mix-mess (aka Christmas Crack)

Found this recipe on Pinterest the other day and thought it sounded yummy and easy. It sounded as if it would make a lot and I thought it might make a good little treat to give out this season to Lovie's teachers. While in Target gathering supplies yesterday, she asked if we could give it to her friends, too. Why not? There really is a TON of it and if I don't give it away my stomach will hate me.

I've changed the name because I'm thinking The Merry Mix-mess is a little more age appropriate for 3-year-olds than Christmas Crack but this shiz is definitely appropriately named as its original, Christmas Crack.


I went off the original recipe but changed up my dry ingredients a bit and followed someone's suggestion in the comments to make it less sticky. The result? Insanely good. And addictive. Oh so addictive.

Ingredients:
box of Golden Grahams
box of Rice Chex
bag of pretzels, broken up a bit (didn't have nuts but would definitely add some)
holiday M&M's
2 cups corn syrup
2 cups sugar
3 sticks butter

Directions:
Mix cereal, pretzels in a huge bowl (I needed to use two bowls- there's LOTS of it!). Cook corn syrup, sugar, butter in large saucepan for about 10-15 minutes till your thermometer reads 234 degrees. (Suggestion in comments was to drop a bit of the liquid in cold water and if it balls up, it's ready.) Pour hot liquid over dry ingredients and mix, mix, mix. Add some M&Ms for color and different texture. Stir. Spread out on PAM sprayed cookie sheets and let cool, stirring a bit to break it up. You can then bake for an hour on 250 (original recipe doesn't do this) and it will become less sticky because the sugar hardens... but it HARDENS. And it becomes more candy-like, in my opinion, but oh so good. And it's a bit of a bitch to then break up but sooo worth it, really.

I was able to fill up three gallon size freezer zip lock bags and will store in the fridge till I'm ready to divvy out in little packages. (Assuming I don't keep sneaking handfuls of it.)

Day 25 NaBloPoMo: one month from today

not the greatest photo quality since this comes from my cell phone but it's better than nothing:

here's the before SOTC:

Thanksgiving Day

Here we are. It's 10:13 in the morning. I've got cinnamon rolls in my belly, the water is running in the kitchen while Taye does what he has to do to absolutely demolish the kitchen and create a fabulous Thanksgiving meal. I'm so thankful for him and his love of cooking (but I abhor the mess I always have to clean up).

Lovie's in the living room watching Mickey Mouse before Sofia the Princess comes on. She cried for us to cover her with blankets at 5:30 when she'd normally have to wake for the day (during the normal workweek), and proceeded to sleep in till after 8AM. Cray cray, I tell you!

The in-laws are set to come over around 3 (so they should be here by 5).

We still need to move the shitty couches and dining room table and chairs... and vacuum. Lord help us do we need to vacuum.

I'm excited for the day to end so we can get all the Christmas crap up tomorrow! I love me the holiday season with Lovie. So fun.

Gobble, gobble: Happy Thanksgiving.

Oh and go read and vote here and especially here. Do it. DO IT!

the Fourth

Independence Day has never been a big deal in my family growing up. I think divorce will do that to a family. From what I can recall, I generally spent most July 4ths with my dad who is very much a get-outside type of person. He hates staying inside; he's always got to be doing something.

I remember visiting some people who were somehow related to his mother's cousin on a couple different July 4th holidays. Their house was one of about a dozen or two that circled around a little lake. We'd eat BBQ and pasta (of course), play with sparklers and water, ride paddle boats. And at night, we'd watch the fireworks over the lake. Looking back it was pretty damn cool, but as a preteen and teen, I hated it. I was so bored. I knew nobody but my dad. Yippee. I wanted to be out with friends partying. But I didn't have many friends because of how often my mom moved. Besides, my dad was/is great at laying on the guilt trips about seeing him.

When I became an "adult," I still didn't do much on the Fourth; I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen a fireworks display on the actual Fourth- or in honor of it. 

I just hate the crowds of people, the sweat, the smoke, the clusterfuck of ...everything.

Now that we have Lovie, however, I'd really like to change some of this. I'd love nothing more than to have some sort of "tradition" for something we do on or around the Fourth. But I don't have any family related to my mother's cousin who live on a lake to visit and neither does my husband. (Actually, Taye probably does since both of his parents are one of eleven children {could you imagine?!} but there are so much family it's confusing.)

July 4, 2010

Lovie was only 6 months old on her first July 4th in 2010 so we treated the day like any other weekend day off with her and just hung around at home.

July 4, 2011

Last year I insisted we do something so we packed some bags and headed out to the park for picnic (with McDonald's) and play. But Lovie was quite off and it got hot fast so we were back home by early afternoon to discover Lovie had a 103 temperature! It was horrible and I felt awful for dragging her out in the hot just to start some sort of tradition.

July 4, 2012- hey, at least it was a red, white, and blue bath!

This year... well, this year the 4th fell smack dab in the middle of the week. As you're well aware. We had no plans going into it but I did look up some parks and pools nearby in the hopes of having some sort of plan. But as the day neared and the damn heat rose, we ended up doing nothing. It was just too damn hot to leave the house.

Instead, we woke early, watched TV, had some breakfast and then just did whatever which consisted of painting with water colors for about an hour, painting with finger paints for about 10 minutes (never again- will leave that for school), took an hour long bath, watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, had a hot dog for lunch,

is there anything more American than a hot dog, Cheetos, and applesauce?

took a two hour nap, made pancakes with playdoh, ate popsicles, watched more MMCH, ate dinner, watched Olivia, and went to bed. Well Lovie went to bed. Then Taye and I chilled out on the couch not touching one another, not moving, trying not to sweat even though the air conditioning hadn't shut off once all day.

It was like any other day in our house when we're all home together.

So actually, it was damn lovely.

Even without any BBQ or water play or watermelon or fireworks.

Easter

Easter's never been a big deal to me. Even when I was a kid and I'd get chocolate eggs and bunnies, it still wasn't a big deal and I'm guessing that might because, as a kid, I absolutely hated wearing dresses and being all girly and on Easter, it was expected: we had to dress in our absolute best, go to church, visit with family, and be on our best behavior.

Bo-ring if you ask me.

Easter today isn't much different except now I dress myself any damn way I please; I don't do church; I inhale so much fugly pastel colored chocolates long before Easter so that when Easter finally does come, I can pretend like I'm not interested in the candy; and now there's Lovie...of course.

Thankfully.

This Easter was her 3rd and the best one so far. She was telling me she wanted a bunny all last week and I kept telling her Easter was coming and that maybe she'd get one then.

"OK," she'd reply. "A pink one!"

"We'll see," I told her, lying, and knowing very well that she was getting a little white one.

Saturday night after we got home from a very busy day of root canals (me- joy), lunch out at California Pizza Kitchen, and a visit with the in laws, I reminded her that when she woke the next day, it would be Easter. And the next morning when I got up to pee at 6:45, with the sun casting bright orange light down the hall toward the kitchen, I could hear a squeal from Lovie's room followed by, "Hi Mama!" (she has french doors)

I smiled because it's impossible not to around this kid, opened her door and told her I'd be right back after I went potty (and told the hubs to get his ass up and into the dining room with the camera), and when I got her out of bed and changed her diaper, I asked her if she wanted to see if the Easter Bunny had come.

"Yeah!" she whispered with a smile.

The hubs was positioned with a camera under the dining room window where the morning sun brightly beamed through on to the dining room table and down the hallway toward us.

Lovie's basket sat alone on the dining room table.

It wasn't a big basket and really, it wasn't a basket but rather a bucket. Inside was a bucket of bubbles, a sheet of bunny stickers, a little bunny that chirps when its belly gets pressed, a package of pink peeps, and about a dozen plastic eggs filled with either pastel m&m's or jelly beans.

When we exited her room, Lovie started going toward our bedroom and I told her that I didn't see anything in there and that we should check in the living room (open with the dining room).

She didn't notice the bucket.

She didn't notice her dad snapping photos.

Finally I had to tell her that I saw something on the table.

And my girl? Upon laying her big browns on the basket, she gasped so dramatically as if a double rainbow appeared before her. She was in heaven and wouldn't stop smiling.

And it lasted all day long.

She played with her bunny and carried her bucket around with her all morning while playing and watching TV and helping me clean (she wanted to help). Then she took a bath and a two hour nap and when she woke, my dad had been there for about half an hour and the two of them played together for a bit (he brought her a basket with another bigger bunny) while the hubs and I finished making lunch: Ham, Crash Hot potatoes, Prosciutto wrapped asparagus.

After lunch, we had some Lamb cake (Lovie insisted we sing Happy Birthday because of the cake so we did, and when it came time to say the person's name whose birthday it was, my dad sang "Jesus" and we kind of chuckled because, well, Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead so it's kind of like his birthday again, right?!?) and went outside to enjoy the crazy beautiful day.

Lovie rode her bike and we ended up going all the way to the park and back (after playing for a bit at the park)- a good mile in total. And when we got back, we said goodbye to my dad, heated up a couple meatballs for Lovie (her request), and watched Max and Ruby before retiring for the day.

Easter's never been more beautiful.

make it a happy one

I've never been a Valentine's Day celebrator. My dad would, on occasion, surprise me with some little thing- a stuffed bear, a flower, some chocolates. But he hasn't done that in a while. And that's OK. I admit it was super sweet when he did it but then as I grew older and older, it was weird; I was getting something from my dad but nobody else. No love life for a long time makes you feel like a big fat fucking capital L Loser. And getting a little treat from Daddy just doesn't help with those feelings.

Now though...  as a mom? I get it. I get what he was doing and why. He loves me. I'm his little girl. Even though I'm old and have silver hair, I'm still his little girl.

There is one Valentine's Day I do actually specifically remember from when I was like 19ish... so 20 years ago! I went out with a friend and her group of friends to go see Wayne's World in the theatre. We were all excited to see it cuz the skit on SNL was funny as shit. Plus, some of the scenes were filmed in the area this group of people lived (an area I once lived before moving for the millionth time). And we figured a group of us (I'd say there were about 10 of us) could easily get into Wayne's World on Valentine's Day of all days as it's not like it's a "date movie".

We went, we laughed, we snorted (from laughter!), then we went out for coffee (it's what we did before Starbucks) and fries and shit. And we dubbed ourselves The Lonely Hearts Club because we were all big fat fucking capital L Losers without "lovers" to go out with on Valentine's Day. Silly thing is I never really hung out with many of them again- certainly not as a huge group. And believe me, it's not cuz I found someone else to spend my next Valentine's Days with; life just happens that way.

Today, nearly 20 years later (TWENTY FUCKING YEARS?!?! Wayne's World IS TWENTY FUCKING YEARS OLD THIS YEAR?!?!), I still don't really celebrate Valentine's Day.

I mean I do but I don't.

I have a husband now but, in the 12 years (when does this shit happen?!? how can it be 12 years already? how can we be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary this year?!? SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW THIS IS POSSIBLE!) we've been together, we've never celebrated. It's no big deal either.

first Valentine's Day: 2010

Except now we've got this little girl to contend with, to love on, to nurture, to help grow, to snuggle, to smother with hugs and kisses on a daily basis. And we do... oh how we love this little girl with everything we are.

first vday CARD, 2011

Everyday is like Valentine's Day in our home. I'm not kidding. It's pretty gross, but this little girl is magic, I tell you. Magic.

from actual vday, 2011

Not everything is all hearts and rainbows every day, but the love, the hugs, the kisses... that's prevalent every single day. There's just never a shortage!

vday card 2012

So while I don't really give a shit about today being "Valentine's Day", it still is Valentine's Day. And I dressed my girl in a dress with a shitton of hearts that form flowers because of the day.  And I sent her to school with a shitton of little Valentine cards to give to her classmates- along with a couple bag of chips for her little party. And I picked up a little stuffed monkey, tights, a tutu, and a pair of slippers (all pink because that's her thing despite it making me gag) which we'll give her tonight when the three of us are home together and not rushing out the door.

taken in school this morning

Cuz it's Valentine's Day. May as well make it a happy one, eh?