Join the Mureens

We went on Monday night and it's always a blast...but with a lot less food this year thanks to the economy.

All 3 with Santa...

Anna Kate was more excited about the balloon she got for sitting with Santa than actually seeing him. None of our kids get real jazzed about Santa...maybe it's b/c he's never brought them anything b/c in the past Christmases their mom has tried to save money by not getting them gifts and has hoped they were too young to know the difference...poor kids.

Thanks Mammaw for our super-cute matching Christmas outfits we got to wear!!!

Their favorite thing was the big automatic train-set. J.R. called it "race cars."

Oh I just love our kids SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!

we MUST reign this in somehow...

every once in a while we find a "visitor" in our home with the initials C.R. and it's usually just about dead thanks to our invaluable ABC pest service, but I always swat the heck out of them just to make sure it's fully dead before I dispose of it. J.R. calls this giving it "pats." The kids get all excited when they find one (usually in the garage) and J.R. tells me it needs "pats." Tonight, I let him do the honors. After all, isn't that what sons are for?

My friend Libby gave me a tin of my FAVORITE cookies and I've eaten them all...along with all of the PromiseLand Eggnog, which is the BEST eggnog in the world. My grandpa used to eat these cookies by the tin-fulls and he was healthy until age 93...there must be some "secret" ingredient in them -- haha.

We went to "Night in Bethleham" last night and it is always one of our very favorite Christmas events...the kids talk about the petting zoo there all year long b/c they let you get inside the "zoo" with the animals and there are camels and goats and donkeys and more...this rabbit appreciates that our family only wears feaux-fur and supports PETA :)

J.R. is in heaven hanging out with the animals. Apparently he petted a goat too long b/c some of his sweater was chewed off when we got home!!

Caroline at the "Wheat-grinding-mill." She thinks she is Anna Kate and J.R.'s age and not a baby b/c she always wants to do whatever they are doing.

Our camera just does not capture the AWESOME job Jon did on our lights this year.

The other day J.R. wanted to put on his mouse suit and read one of our family's fave books, "The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear." He is a hoot. He is such a boy...he just gets the "wiggles" out of nowhere where he has a burst of energy. He also loves to "tackle" anything that moves. But we're not really worried about him being over-the-top macho b/c he's afraid of our "blinking [Christmas] lights" and really picky about his outfits and shoes.

She loves this mirror that's waiting to be hung - ahem, Jon :)

We've been doing Advent Calendar activities every day...they are all things we do together as a family like going somewhere, reading and acting out a Christmas story together, a scavenger hunt and we went to a puppet show at the Galleria that turned out to be a circus preview, and lots of other things. The kids love it!!

We have decorated for Christmas and Anna Kate keeps "re-decorating" everything...she's so "Fancy Nancy" b/c she just has to accessorize our decorations.

The pets go NUTS at Christmas time....

just kidding...they could care less.

Decorating...

We did a little work on our house and Moses painted almost the entire downstairs walls and cut out an arch for me so I could get more light into our breakfast area and so it would make it feel bigger. Moses is the nicest person in the world and he goes to the wonderful church at the end of our street and he's a genius...he can do ANYTHING and he barely charges anything...like it was only $150 for my arch that I love. Thanks for telling us about him Sarah!!!

BEFORE (so boring, so dark)

Thanksgiving at the Mureens was tons of fun as usual...Abby is just absolutely the "Queen of Christmas" the way she transforms her home into Christmas before Thanksgiving...and it's definitely affected Jon because he can't wait for our house to get decorated for Christmas.....it makes me feel a little scroogish in comparison b/c all I can think about when decorating is how it provides more materials for the kids to make messes and how much work it is going to be to take it all down. Jon's family is also really into pictures...I always dread the family pictures, but am glad to have them when they are over. I think Jon's family really is the cutest family in the world!!!

We spent Thanksgiving Day with my family...this is my kind of pic...totally spontaneous and I don't even have be in it!! We also had a really fun "black Friday" shopping day together for my sister, Anna's, birthday...I have always called Anna, "money-bags" because she never spends money so she ALWAYS has some...I'm pretty much the opposite, so it's really fun to shop with her to see if I can succeed in getting her to "loan/give" me some money since I ran out of mine a long time ago.

As I said, we've been busy...time has been FLYING by since Thanksgiving. Also, this week we had a REALLY fun ornament exchange with the ladies from our church at our house. And today Jon has been working on an emergency project at the firm since 8am and it's now 12:45am. Lately, I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed by having 3 kids...I have no research to support this "feeling," but I feel like birth control hormones are artificial and unhealthy for my body and so you couldn't pay me $1million to take them, so I ordered a NFP book and I hope we can have a little "break" before more kids...like not having more until after Anna Kate starts kindergarten in a year and a half. If I do get pregnant any time soon, I am absolutely going to need a nanny (or several nannies -- ha!). Ok, so now I've sufficiently procrastinated doing my Christmas cards and I need to get back to them....

I'm late every where...really late. And the thing I hate the most about this is that I am late to things I REALLY look forward to and love. I can get to the Y or Walmart easily enough b/c it doesn't matter what we are wearing or what we look like at those places, but getting 4 folks ready takes 2-3 hours at the very least and that doesn't include breakfast or packing lunches or gathering all the things we need to remember to bring for where we are going, which is usually a lot. I'm constantly trying to get organized and as soon as I get organized in one area, the other areas are in complete shambles. I've decided it's because I'm juggling too many areas...or "full-time and part-time jobS." So how many full-time and part-time jobs do I currently have? 150+ hours worth with a "spotty" amount of sleep.



Full-time job = 80+hours per week:

1. Training 3 people to have life-skills and be kind and mannerly and helpful and spending quality time with them - DEFINITELY a full-time job...DEFINITELY the easiest job to "let slide," and I do, but it's the most important - 40+ hours per week


2. Meals - from the babyfood meals for Caroline to the meals for every one else 3x per day, to the grocery shopping, to the planning to the dishes...and I have people over for food probably at least once a week and bring a meal someone who had a baby at least once a month and if we're having a birthday party or holiday meal - this is ABSOLUTELY a full-time job + over-time hours - 40 + hours per week

Part-time = 70+ hours per week:

1. keeping the car cleaned out - 1 hour per week


2. getting the house clean - 3 hours per day at least if maintained and that doesn't include the fact that I have a house-keeper every 2 weeks for mopping, bathrooms, etc... - 20 hours per week


3. bills and organizing finances - 1-2 hours per week


4. our calendar and scheduling things like haircuts and pest control and babysitter for a date-night (if I'm lucky) and a million other things I have to schedule - 3-4 hours per week


5. the emails - 8 hours per week


6. the pets - this is probably my easiest job...unless one of the pets pukes or makes a mess which isn't unlikely - 1 hour per week


7. getting out the door - at least 20 hours per week and I usually WAY underestimate the time it takes in this category and routinely run 1-2 hours late


8. the laundry - 8 hours per week...10 if I iron


9. working out - 6 hours per week (another really easy job to "let slide")


10. errands...all the random things you have to do that are always "popping" up out of nowhere and this does NOT include the weekly grocery shopping...it includeds things like renewing your driver's license, getting a haircut, getting your oil changed, doing a "milk" run or a "diaper" run, going to the post office, getting dog food and the dog-health-food store, getting something to fix things that have broken, getting a gift and a million other little errands

then throw in all things Christmas...the decorating, the events, the Christmas cards, thinking of and getting gifts for every one and it just makes my head swim.

And I've got a stack of magazines and books I want to read, and a long list of friends I want to have over and fun parties I want to have and so many creative projects I want to attempt. There's just no time for t.v. I might let the blog slide, but I do it b/c I know these years will be a total blur when I look back on them and I want to have something to show for them and I want to remember and not be like all the people my parent's age who have totally forgotten what it's like to be in this life-stage or they would be much more compassionate towards me and instead they are just annoyed that I have more than 2 kids. I would love to volunteer as well, but it's just completely out of the question.

And we're in Dallas so there's a certain minimum standard of fashion we must adhere to which requires shopping...which is kind of annoying b/c I could save time in this category if we lived in Austin where no one cares.

We decorated for Christmas yesterday and today!! We still have some work to do on our AWESOME outside lights...so excited :)





After we decorated I cried because I miss my Sunday School class friends from Virginia...the Miles, the Byrnes, the Taliaferros, the Longs, the Vines and so many other WONDERFUL special folks I love that we got to spend 3 wonderful years with and we were all each other's best friends. Life without a Sunday School class is just generally a lonlier life to live. We just don't have a group we see every week as a couple and pray for and get together with socially and that makes me sad.

was hit by a drunk-driver going over 100mph the day after Thanksgiving on her 42nd birthday. She died instantly. I didn't know her very well at all because she is my step-sister and much older than me, but I always remember her being stunningly beautiful with navy blue eyes and long blonde hair and her face was the most angelic-looking I have ever seen and she was always smiling. She could have had any guy in the whole world with her beauty and charm, but she was always dating guys that ended up in prison. I also remember her telling my mom, she called my mom "Jeanie," what a good cook my mom was whenever she was at our house. But that is all that I remember of her. The guy she was dating at the time of her death was with her in the car and he died too...our sister Christy said he was the nicest guy Debbie had ever dated. Debbie had a really hard life -- her mom left my dad when she was really young, so she didn't have the wonderful family to grow up in that I did. She had 5 children...they were closer to my age than Debbie was, and one passed away as a baby. She almost always lived very far away in Wyoming. She and her boyfriend died in Florida where they had recently moved to. I am sad that I don't have one picture of her and there has never been a picture taken of us together. I am sad that Jon and my kids never met her. I am so sad for her sweet children and I hope that I will get to see them soon.

We decided to stay in our house. We originally put it on the market it because it was time to refinance and we decided we would rather move to another elementary school with more "community-feeling-neighborhoods," but after touring that elementary school (I never toured it until after our house was on the market...oops) and ours...I LOVE our elemtary school...it's perfect. And I love our house. So by-golly I'm just going to make our neighborhood "community-feeling" and who says you can't have it all?!?

So there were a few things about our house that were "bugging me," but I wasn't too worried about since we'd be moving...

1. The lack of space in our breakfast and dining rooms
2. The wall color that was the color of "people who have been dead a few days" (and yes, we just painted it that color at the beginning of this year, but I was trying to match the color that was already in a couple of rooms to save money, but that color was sun-bleached and impossible to match so we ended up with the color of "people who have been dead a few days" and once it started looking wrong to me, I just couldn't get it out of my head and it made me sick every time I'd look at it...which is a lot when it's the color of almost your whole house)
3. The dad-burned slab foundation that is as hard as a rock, literally, when you stand or walk on it all day...which is what I do as a stay-home mom...usually carrying one of my hearty beans (kids)

So....when it hit Jon and I on the same day at the same time that it was ridiculous to move from this FABULOUS perfect house (except for the affor-mentioned deficiencies) I told him I wanted to stay but fix those "minor" imperfections because we saved TONS of money by not having to pay for a move, and he agreed (because he's perfect without any imperfections whatsoever).

So...amidst traveling to both parents for Thanksgiving...I have been "perfecting" my home. Well, gees, talk about an undertaking. Our wonderful far-beyond-handyman-because-he-can-do-ANYTHING, Moses, painted our whole house and the paint color definitely looks better and matches our things better except a few things aren't right with it and the more you change, the more there is to change. So that's where I am at. I'm frustrated. It's not going to be perfect...we need to wait to do more until the graduate school loans are paid off...but I get so obsessed with wanting it to "look right." I should probably just cook my family a home-ade meal which is something they haven't seen since Thanksgiving or do the laundry or decorate for Christmas...but I want to feel satisfied with how it looks before I "move" onto anything else.

Now I am off to take a nap. I feel like I can't nap when workers are here b/c I feel like it makes me look lazy, even though I do usually nap every day. So long story short -- for real this time -- I'm exhausted.

p.s. Thanksgiving was WONDERFUL. I really enjoyed both visits with family. I have so much to be thankful for. Pics coming soon hopefully.