Serenity Now

Another year come and gone for The Festival of Trees. A yearly tradition for my sister and I. One that we truly love to share. People spend hours and hours working on trees, quilts, centerpieces and wreaths to donate for others to bid on at the festival. All of the proceeds go to Primary Children's Medical Center for charity care. I have a friend whose son was in need of such funds when he was first born and spent the first six months of his life needing surgeries and extensive hospitalization. They had no money to pay for all of the hospital bills and relied on the charitable funds that fundraisers such as the Festival of Trees provide.

Last year I was disappointed that I didn't bid on a certain bikini-clad porcelain frog for my sister. I had missed a golden opportunity. I was NOT going to let that happen again this year. Down the first aisle of centerpieces I found just the thing...


or maybe...


or this one...


perhaps this...


I couldn't get her this one because it was already taken.


No. Definitely the pigs. But how was I going to get away from her long enough to write down a bid so she wouldn't know? Time ticked down and still I couldn't get away.

And then opportunity struck!


While April chatted I gave some excuse about checking a bid on a picture I had seen and slipped away to make a bid.

Sadly, however I lost later to a pig-lover who purchased them for a whopping $121.00!

Unbelievable!

I'm still nursing my wounds today. Next year I will win for sure!

Thankfully I did NOT lose my gingerbread house bid (sigh).


Heat Miser vs. Snow Miser will be coming home with us on Saturday.

Yeah! (if I can only keep the kids away from it until Christmas Eve)

Anyways...we love going to the festival because we see such diversity in the entries that people submit. Everyone has different tastes. For example, we found a tree decorated entirely with frogs...

I really like the show White Collar and was surprised to actually find a "White Collar" tree.


There was an "Up" tree and even an "Up" gingerbread house.



My boys would have loved the Legomaniac tree. It included a lego table and a ton of lego sets as well as 8 passes to Legoland in California. That tree started at $4500.00 - just a little out of my pricerange. (gulp)



One of the trees that scared me from afar (because I saw a human leg sticking out) but then had me laughing out loud when I got up close, was this tree...





Of course the festival would not be complete if it didn't have at least one sock monkey tree right?



The gingerbread houses that were out of my league but beautiful were...

Tangled (the last bid we saw had it at $1000.00 and that was way before the closing bid)


The Weasley's burrow:





A Madagascar Christmas:



I was tempted to buy these... (just kidding)



April was tempted to buy this...


but I talked her out of it and convinced her to get a scarf instead. She left the hat for a kid with a really big head to buy.

Needless to say, we had a fantastic time, our feet hurt, our heads hurt and my stomach hurts from laughing at all the things April said to me during the evening. She can be really naughty sometimes. Does she know about Santa's list?

To help Smiley out with his homework this month we played a game as a family called the Turkey Trot game. I know you are all crossing your legs and grimacing - or laughing at the name of the game. My parents always called it the turkey trots if you had to use the bathroom frequently like after eating at a cheap Mexican diner (which Brett does constantly).

I made up some "turkeys" out of paper bags stuffed with balled up newspaper and drew turkey faces on them. We divided into pairs and each pair had to link arms with our turkey inbetween our arms. We raced across the backyard and the first pair to reach the fence without unlinking arms or dropping our turkey won. We switched up our pairs a few times to see how our pairs compared. Sheriff and Wannabe won the first round when I was paired with Smiley. My competitive bone kicked in. My shoes were lose I told myself and so I wasn't at my best during the first round. I would do better. Next round I paired up with Sheriff. We would win for sure.

And we did.

But whose idea was it to make the finish line the fence when we were running at full-speed?

I lay on the ground holding both knees looking at the fence to make sure there weren't two holes in it to match up with my knees. Nope. Thank goodness for that. I'd hate to have to pay for a fence repair AND knee replacement surgery at the same time. But we had won even though Brett had cheated by picking Smiley up and running with him and the turkey under his arm. Cheater!

But it wasn't over yet.

Smiley wanted another round with mom. I grit my teeth, grabbed that turkey and headed back for the starting line.

Round three. On your marks, get set, GO! I raced for my life... knocking down kids, tripping Brett and Marcus, crashing through the bushes... just kidding. I ran straight ahead as quick as I could concentrating on holding the turkey and Smiley and keeping those darn loose shoes on my feet. Oh no.... second place.... or are we???? Sheriff and Wannabe dropped their turkey. Disqualified!!!! We win again! The crowds roar! (actually it was just the wind blowing through the trees but I'll take it.)

Take that Brett!

I mean... nice try honey. Better luck next year.

I'm not always thankful for the things my boys do.

Like when my younger boys come down the stairs every morning already arguing, "stop looking at me," "well you stop looking at me!" And then continue at the breakfast counter, "you're chewing too loud and it's annoying," "no it's not," "yes, it is!"

I wish I could say this was an infrequent occurrence. But it is not.

I hear it every day.

Then there is the basement covered in Legos, dirty socks, light sabers, video games not put away and Pokemon cards scattered around the room.

I could also mention the boys poking each other in the car.

But I won't.

Or the rock throwing in the back yard.

But I won't bring that up either.

No, I'm not always thankful for the naughty things my boys do but without the arguing, scattered toys, stinky socks, poking and rock throwing - what would I have?

A house without boys.

And that would be unbearable.

I have never actually watched the movie "Up" all the way through. But after my experience this morning with one of my boys I now know who the creators of Up based their dog character on - my son.

As we walked to the bus stop this morning and I spoke (lectured) to him about how to be safe and respectful he suddenly pointed and shouted, "squirrel!".

If I hadn't seen it in "Up" I probably would have been irritated but having seen the absurdity of it in the movie I actually had to turn my head to hide my smile and bite my lip to stop from laughing.

And where were we? Oh right... back to the lecture.

We are back into the swing of things this week but last week was full of California dreams as we spent the week in a beach house on Capistrano Beach.




I'd like to say that the temperatures were super hot so that I can make you super jealous but I pride myself on being an honest person. I was in a hoodie and jeans the whole time trying to stay warm. Keep in mind however that my core temperature runs a little differently than the rest of the human race and while I walked around bundled up with a blanket around my shoulders in the beach house for the first couple of days, my kids were swimming in the freezing cold ocean for hours with nary a complaint.


They used the hot tub periodically to warm themselves up.



I donned my bathing suit once the whole week to get into the hot tub. Once.

So I guess it is safe to say that low 60's to mid 70's is cold weather for me. Yep, I'm a wimp.

My feet are also a witness to that fact. Three days of walking (sometimes running) back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventures proves it.



And the fact that I am able to endure fewer and fewer rides each time I go. The last time we went it was the ferris wheel that almost did me in. My boys were almost wearing my lunch. I barely held it in. This time the swings, one of my favorite rides, had my stomach flipping and flopping. It was small consolation to watch Brett struggle on the tea cup ride and Dumbo. He, after all, is still in his 30's whereas I am in my 40's.


We had a great breakfast with Minnie and friends. But for me the breakfast was big enough to last through lunch and dinner. So much food!

Smiley had the added pleasure of meeting Rapunzel and taking a long walk with the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella.





Of course we HAD to have churros every day.

And other treats...




And a trip to California Adventures would not be complete without a ride on the Tower of Terror.



Or eating a giant corndog..


The boys loved being arrested by the storm troopers. (I WANTED to be arrested by the storm troopers.)



Cody cried because he wasn't chosen for the Jedi Training Academy but Darth Maul came by to scare the crying out of him.


No problem... when he found out he would get wet on Splash Mountain he cried again.... for 1/2 the ride.

Brett cried when I told him he had to go on the Nemo ride. Just kidding. He downright refused to go on that ride because the last time we went to Disneyland Sunshine cried the whole time on that ride. The only way to get Brett on it would be to drug him and carry him on. I thought about it but I have a little more weight training to do before I can lift him.

One of the favorite things the boys did was go to dinner at Medieval Knights thanks to Grandma and Grandpa. They treated us all to dinner one night there. The boys loved being able to eat with their hands as no cutlery was provided. They loved the swordfighting and jousting that the knights did and at the end of the night convinced me to buy them wooden swords. No ER visit...yet. Knock on wood.




I hope we will be able to return again soon so we can make some more wonderful memories.


As much as the kids groaned about homework it was a fantastic trip with lots of fun new memories. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for making it possible!