Our treasure hunt

We (Joe & I) went to see National Treasure this afternoon. A great movie. I always love treasure hunting movies--Indiana Jones, The Mummy, etc. I leave the theater feeling exhilerated, ready to look for adventure and treasure. Normally, reality sets in after a day or two; today it smacked us in the face in the parking lot--we couldn't remember where we parked the van. Then we remembered our trip to Target before we watched the movie. We were looking for couch covers and could not find them. After about 10 minutes of looking, we finally found them only to realize that we had been right next to them earlier when we got distracted by some red pillows; all we needed to do was turn around. We would probably get sooo beat if we ever ran in the Amazing Race.

Random Thoughts

Nathan thinks that the new lawn mower we got him for Christmas is a vacuum.

Our DVD player caught fire on Christmas eve. Seriously, there was smoke and everything.

You may wonder, how does she ever was Nathan's blanket if he is that close with it. I just tell him it's time to take a bath--it's the only thing he likes better.

I was vaccum sealing leftovers from Christmas and accidently put the ham in the eggroll bag and the eggrolls in the ham bag. That could be interesting in a few months.

Christmas is over at our house. Everything is boxed away and I finally choose organization over frugality. It has become a tradition at our house--every year after Christmas we visit the store and they have all the Christmas decoration organization stuff on sale. And Joe always says, "I think we should get some of that stuff (ornament boxes, wreath box, etc.). Then I always say "Our boxes and trash bag (for the wreath) works fine. Those are expensive we don't need it." Well, this year we were at Target, and I finally said, what the hey, go for it and get what we need. I think we threw out 2 huge boxes, lots of smaller ones, an abundance of waaaaay over used tissue paper for ornament protection and now I have lots more room for other storage. Yeah Joe!!!! As always, I'm not really sure why I don't listen to him more often.

I froze 3 bags of left over pecan pie muffins to take to my parents. I got two of the bags out this morning and I just got the third bag out because the kids and I are probably going to finish off one of them before we leave. Very yummy....

I am going to be an aunt 3 times over next year. Actually, one of them may arrive yet this year. She's due on the 31st. The next one is due in April and then my sister is due in June. Believe it or not, her three will be closer together than my oldest three. Is that possible????

My computer is near death I fear. We actually looked at new ones the other day, but they all have Vista and, from everything I've heard, I am more paranoid about Vista than I am excited about possibly getting a new computer. Now that is really paranoid!

Me and the girls

I don't have very many pictures of me with the kids because I'm usually the one taking the pictures. The girls got new outfits from Aunt Kim, so I decided to take the opportunity to have my picture taken with them while I had the camera out. We're even somewhat coordinated.

December pics

Okay, before I even begin on this post, I need to say that I think I misspelled niece in my last post. Is it "i" before "e" except after "c" or "i" before "e" except before "c"? I'm pretty sure it is the former which means I misspelled it in my title. I could go change it, but it's Christmas eve and I'm being lazy, so I will just let you know that I know I messed it up.

I finally got some pictures off my camera. This isn't all of them, but it will give you a flavor.

The gang with their favorite food--pizza!
I can't remember what they were doing--checking out the first snow? looking for birds or squirrels? waiting for Daddy to come home? saying goodbye to Daddy? This is a fairly favorite pose for them all.

My spiderboys

The boys sporting their new Christmas robes from Grandpa & Grandma Snow

My neice and nephew

As you may remember, I visited my sister and her kids a few weeks ago. Her husband, who is a pilot in the Air Force, was deployed at the time. Praise the Lord he got home yesterday evening--just in time for Christmas! I finally got the pictures off my camera and, in order to spare you some time, I only included two of the bazillion pictures that this proud aunt took.

Hannah
Luke

The annual Christmas Open House

Our annual Christmas open house was last night. Here's how it went:

What was different:
Normally we have it for our neighborhood. This year we were going to have it for our neighborhood on one night and our church family on another night. Due to various circumstances, we only had it for our church family. So next year we'll try to have it for both.

What I listened to on my iPod while I was preparing:
In my opinion, preparation music is really important to how efficiently and effective the preparation is so here was what I listened to: Carrie Underwood, Third Day Christmas Offerings, Metro Austin Unplugged. Yes, I realize Carrie Underwood isn't very Christmasy, but Joe gave me an early Christmas present of her newest CD and I could resist to listen. At one point I had a serious attitude problem, and so I needed a little praise/worship music to help adjust it---thus Metro Austin

What was on the menu:
chicken eggrolls, chips and salsa, cream puffs, chocolate eclairs, and pecan pie muffins

Minor glitches:
We were going to have BBQ meatballs, but I could only find Italian, so I switched at the last minute to eggrolls.

I temporarily lost one of my favorite oven mitts. Now I realize most people do not have favorite oven mitts, but I have an unusual fear of burning myself when I reach in the oven and I feel very protected with my favorite mitts. Thankfully, after about 15 minutes I found them again so it was only a minor glitch.

I turned the oven off while the last batch of pecan pie muffins were in it. As my husband says, I got a little too efficient.

Unusual occurances:
I ironed the tablecloth by my own initiative. To fully appreciate this, you have to understand that I am not the iron master in our home--Joe is. I really do not like to iron and never do it unless it is to iron Joe's clothes or he has strongly suggested that I iron the clothes that I have on. (This usually takes place before church.) But, he must be rubbing off on me, because yesterday I decided the tablecloth needed to be ironed before the party. About halfway through I was really questioning my judgment, but at that point I was fairly committed to the project--a half ironed tablecloth would have looked worse than one I hadn't ironed at all.

I cleaned the kitchen first. I usually always clean the kitchen last, but for some reason yesterday I shook it up a little, really reached out of my comfort zone and cleaned the kitchen first and the living room last. I am not sure that I will do that again--I started getting confused as to what still needed to be cleaned.

What was showing in the movie room (AKA kids' room):
The Santa Clause
Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas

What didn't get done before the party:
I didn't get a Christmas party playlist put together on my iPod, but as it turned out you couldn't hear the music over the crowd anyway. So I guess it wasn't that much of a big deal.

The Final Result
I think everyone had a great time and we didn't have any really major child meltdowns, so I call it a success.

Nathan's blanket

We all are really creatures of habit. Our Nathan has a blue blanket that is his best friend. Honestly, the other day he fell and I was standing very near him. I said in my best mother voice "Oh, Nathan, come here so I can kiss it." Instead of running to his dear mother--the person who loves him and nutures him and feeds him and is full of compassion--he ran the other direction crying "Blanket, blanket, blanket!!!!". He normally sleeps with it. Actually, normally isn't the right word. Always would be a much more appropriate word. He sucks two fingers on his right hand and holds his blanket right next to his face. (Yes, I know, we are raising Linus--seriously, his blanket is blue) Yesterday afternoon I had to wake him up from his nap to get the girls from school. I gently shook him and called his name. His eyes popped open and, out of his habit, his two fingers immediately popped into his mouth. Then he shut his eyes again and lifted his other hand and began to feel around for his blanket. I decided I would hover and observe what was going to happen next since his blanket was all the way on the other side of the bed. He blindly moved his hand around grabbing onto everything it came into contact with...his shirt, his bear, his bed blankets and finally my shirt (I was leaning over him.) Evidently my shirt felt like his blanket because he grabbed on and pulled it towards his face. Of course, once it reached his face, his eyes popped open and he looked at me obviously very confused. Then confusion turned to disappointment and frustration. He let go and dove for his blanket. And even though it was only a brief moment of being able to help my child--I'll take what I can get.

Is there really a Santa Clause??

We told our children that there is no Santa Clause. Horrible parents--I know. I'll give you the back story. Several years ago, when Sara was around 3, we tried to live the fantasy. Joe grew up thinking there was a Santa Clause. And even though it was understood in my house that there was not a Santa Clause, in my childhood mind I always wondered if maybe he really was true. So we tried, but then when one lie ("yes, Santa is real!") turned into a web of lies, (how exactly do you answer--"how does he get in our house since we don't have a fireplace") we decided we needed to be honest. So either last year or the year before we broke the truth to them. The problem is that they have short term memories--especially John. So each year we go through parent guilt of telling them again that he is not real. This year the girls remembered. We did tell them not to tell anyone in their classrooms that he is not real. How horrible would that be--a kindergarten and 1st grade classroom either full of tears or fist fights because my girls decide to announce that he is not real. So, they've been really good about that; however, they are very, very concerned because everyone else--including the kindergarten teacher--believe that there really is a Santa Clause. Now John did not remember this year what we had told him last year--and even after we broke the news to him again--I'm not sure he believes us. He's been playing his odds. I think he figures "What do I have to lose if I play along and act like there is a Santa Clause? Now if I don't play along and he really does exist there is a ton I could miss out on!" So he was very insistent that we visit Santa at some point before Christmas eve. We do this every year. So on Monday night we went to see Santa and let me just say that John turned on the personality and was out to impress Santa. He waved from clear across the room and made sure that he was the first one on his lap. And then he chatted him up for quite some time. In the car later, we asked him what he and Santa chatted about. He relayed this:

Santa "What do you want for Christmas this year?"
John "A yellow car"

At this point, we questioned the yellow car--this was a new Christmas item to us. He said that Santa had a basket of toys next to him and there was a yellow car in it. John: "I know he has the yellow car because I saw it. So that is what I asked for."

John continued to relay the conversation that took place:

Santa "Were you a good boy this year?"
John "Well, ummm, ummmm, well, ummmm, ummmm, well, yes!"

I guess there he played the odds that Santa doesn't really exist and wouldn't know if he lied or not.

My recent observations

I am spending the weekend at my sister's and hanging out with my niece and nephew. Things have been great except for the fact that I think I have somehow managed to come down with a bout of pink eye. Not sure exactly if that is what it is or not--however, they are bright red and light kills them. So I am typing most of this with my eyes closed. Pretty talented, huh! Anyway, I flew out early Friday morning (the flight left at 6am). Here were some of my observations on my journey:

• I probably shouldn't be allowed to drive at 4am. I was listening to the radio and there was an ad for an oil change place. They kept advertising their 1995 oil. I kept wondering what about the year 1995 made the oil so great. It seriously took me about 5 minutes before I realized they meant $19.95 instead of 1995.
• I am also prone to singing along with Willie Nelson to Jingle Bell Rock at 4am.
• People talk on their phones at 5:15am in the airport. My question: "Who in the world are you talking to???" Even if the person on the other end is EST it is still only 6:15. Maybe they know people in Europe than I do.
• There were 14 rows on the plane that I was on. And, yes, I was in row 14. Row 14 was only on one side of the plane, because, guess what?!--yep, the bathroom was on the other side. Now my flight time was approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes. I think at least 15 people had to visited the bathroom in that time frame. Now, I try to avoid airplane bathrooms at all costs. However, all the traffic back my direction made me curious--is this a special airplane bathroom. I hadn't flown in around 2 1/2 years, maybe they changed the bathrooms on airplanes to be more hospitable. They had to be for that many people to decide to use it. So, I finally gave into the temptation and decided I would check it out, and, uh, no they have not changed just in case you are curious.
  

So what was that exactly?

I decided to branch out in my food preparation for supper. Usually we stick with a meat entree, a vegetable and a salad. Occasionally I will include some kind of starch--potatoes, rice, biscuits or some sort of pasta. Tonight I tried couscous. Now before you become too impressed, it was a boxed version. In fact, it only took five minutes to prepare. To be specific, it was Parmesan couscous. I personally thought it was pretty yummy when I taste tested it after it was done. So I dished it out onto the plates and we sat down to eat. Just in case you were wondering, we had sticky honey chicken wings to go with it--very, very yummy. Anyway, after we prayed everyone dug in. The couscous seemed to be a big hit and brought the same question from everyone:

"What is it?" was the resounding chorus
"It's couscous." was my response
"Is it chopped up rice?" asked Sara
"No, it's couscous." I responded
"So what is it?" asked Joe
"Couscous!" I said
"What is couscous?" asked Joe
"Is this goose poop?" asked John
At this point the conversation went decidedly down hill. And ended with me stating very strongly "It is not rice, it is not potatoes, and it is definitely not goose poop. It is couscous!"

So I decided I should look it up on dictionary.com to find out exactly what we did eat this evening for supper.

couscous: a North African dish consisting of steamed semolina, served with vegetables and meat

Now, I'm sure you all know what semolina is, but I will provide you with the definition (just for my benefit, of course!)

semolina: a granular, milled product of durum wheat, consisting almost entirely of endosperm particles, used chiefly in the making of pasta.

Ahhh, I'm so glad we cleared that up. What I can assure you is that we did NOT eat goose poop for supper.