Serenity Now

My boys were already happy with what they received on Christmas day but it just so happened that on Boxing Day they had a visit from one of their grandpas who gave them giftcards to Walmart.

This afternoon I decided to buck up and take all four boys to the store to go up and down the toy aisles.

No easy task - believe me.

Giggles spent 10 minutes alone just picking out and putting back Beyblade toys and then he ended up putting all of them back when he saw a DS game that he liked.

A toy lazer gun with lights and sounds was a quick pick for Wannabe. Thank goodness. And almost all of the boys wanted Pokemon cards. (Don't tell Brett. But really... a couple hundred more cards in the house won't make a difference now will it?)

But I was not surprised when Smiley, my Hulk fan, picked this...

What a great Christmas. It was great because I survived and it was great because the boys enjoyed themselves.

Two days before Christmas we decorated homemade Gingerbread houses. I used my mom's old recipes and forms from the 70's. She made a house every Christmas along with dozens of different kinds of Christmas cookies. I'm not THAT ambitious but for the first time in my life I took on the task of making a gingerbread house. It turned out better than I imagined. Brett and the boys decorated one and I decorated the other.



Although my favorite "gingerbread" house was the one I saw in Smiley's class last week. When the teacher said it was time to clean up, one of the boys began dumping marshmallows and candy onto his plate...


On Christmas Eve at the family dinner I made the mistake of setting my camera down for a moment and walking away. My brother-in-law took advantage of the opportunity to photograph his and his brothers' bald spots...





On Christmas morning Wannabe woke Sheriff up at 4:00 a.m. and they didn't get back to sleep. Thankfully, they did not wake me up at that time.



Smiley LOOKED like he woke up at 4:00 a.m. (and acted like it)



But in reality he only cried twice during the day. Now THAT'S a Christmas miracle. I asked for no arguing on Christmas Day but that was rather unrealistic.

I didn't get that gift of course. But it was so much fun watching them open presents and see their expressions when they got what was on their lists.







I didn't really have a list for Christmas. Perhaps I should have...



To my sister I say... well done.

April definitely belongs on Santa's naughty list for the trick she pulled this year with the sock monkeys. She figured that by giving the sock monkeys to my kids I can't give them back to her. Her stocking is definitely going to be filled with coal next Christmas.


Then there were the gifts from her cruise to Mexico...

Brett played his shell whistle all day. Serenity now!

And the shell purse??? Even with my bad taste in clothes I still don't have anything to go with it.

Next time I think twice about buying her a monkey that sings Jingle Bells - I won't.


As I stood at the sink last night washing the dishes, Wannabe said to me, "mom, you've been busy all day." It was true. Christmas Day is a very busy day making a huge breakfast for the family, heading over to Grandma's house then great-grandma's house and then hurrying back home to begin on the dinner. I clean up the morning disaster before Grandma and Grandpa arrive and finish off the dinner preparations. We have dinner and then the post-dinner clean-up begins. I wonder if my mom was this busy on Christmas day and I never noticed? But I love spending time with family and I love the way we spend Christmas - it is the stuff tradition is made of. I'll recover later. :)

Going out to dinner with my family has never been a relaxing experience. From the first time we went out to dinner with a baby in tow to the food-dropping/temper-tantrum toddler stage and now into the burping/"is that all there is?" older boy stage I simply gave up on relaxing.


Even going out to dinner with Brett I still worry about what the boys are doing to each other and to the house. For good reason sometimes.

Yet for some crazy reason I still persist in taking my family out to dinner despite the moans and groans over going to a sit-down restaurant instead of McDonald's. Or the pouting when I won't give a kid my breadstick and insist on eating it myself. How selfish, right?

But I love my boys and I am confident that one day they will successfully be able to eat in a restaurant with good manners.





Well... I hope so.

Last night we chose to go to a drive through a Christmas light display not too far from home. I thought it would be a great family activity because we could be outside yet in our warm toasty car oohing and aahing at the beautiful lights.

During the 20 minute drive there the boys watched Dr. Who on Brett's computer (I would have chosen a Christmas movie but as the designated driver I had little control over the movie choice). So we listened as The Doctor battle plastic enemies on our way to a pleasant family outing and the boys munched on salty or cinnamon popcorn provided by dad. (I'm afraid to look in the back of the car this morning.)

When we got there we switched over to Christmas tunes, slowed our speed and entered the light display. Brett asked me to turn the car lights off to respect the cars in front of us. I attempted to turn the lights off but unfortunately I could not find a setting which would completely turn them off.

That was when it started. As the kids excitedly talked back and forth noticing the moving t-rex and the tin soldiers' popping guns, Brett and I went back and forth (a.k.a. arguing) over the lights. He insisted that they could turn off all the way while I told him I tried every possible setting and they would not.

The funny part was that when I had planned this activity I thought we would have boys arguing in the car - not parents. When we got home my sister told me she thought she was going to have to send Brett and I out to the garage for a time out. That's what we tell our mom and dad when they start arguing... "do you need to go out to the garage?" Because we don't want to listen to their arguing.

After we got home Brett checked the lights on the car and discovered... I was right.

The lights don't completely turn off. Hmmmmm.

The other day my son went to play some tennis in the back yard and I took a step back when I saw him.

Well...

I took more than a step back.




Creepy right?

When I told him he looked creepy he said, "heeeeyyyyy!!!" As in, you hurt my feelings mom.

So I showed him his picture and he agreed. Creepy. He ran outside like that anyways.

I am so close to being done for this semester and then I will be taking a break. With my new calling and kids needing some extra mom-time, I realized that I don't have as much me-time for school as I thought. In the beginning I did but the last month and a half has been waaaaay too stressful and that isn't why I went back to school.

It was supposed to be fun.

Fun.

Crazy right?

But I only have one more presentation to go. Next week I will present five photos on architecture. It was really hard to narrow it down when I could have gone in so many directions. I finally just had to pick an avenue and just commit to it.

Brett had another trip to Hawaii and while there visited a glass beach.

That's right. A glass beach. Apparently at this particular beach different beer bottles and other glass items have been discarded and tumbled by the waves to create this unique beach.

Would you dare to walk on this beach?

Brett did.