The Aftermath

Well, Christmas has come and gone.  It is my absolute favorite day of the year.  For as long as I can remember, we have spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with my aunt and uncle, cousins and grandparents.  When we built our house, one thing that was a must was enough room to host our ever-growing family for Christmas.  So that's just we have been doing for the past three years.  This was the first year, however, that EVERYONE was here and I couldn't be happier.  For two days it was the constant chaos of family.  As we were trying to get 20 people out the door for church on Christmas Eve, it felt a bit like that scene from Home Alone when they realize they slept in.  "Who has Ben?"  "Where is Grandpa?"  "Who's riding with me?"  I am proud to report, however, that we left no one home alone!  We did however, have a great two days!!

Here is a picture of my Grandpa (he's 91!) with 5 of his great grandchildren

 And here we all are eating our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of Lasagna

 My kids couldn't have been happier to get just what they asked for from Santa.  An organizing shelf for her art supplies (completely stocked, of course) for Abby

And a football helmet and pads for Ben

 This is apparently as good as it gets....waiting to go downstairs and see what Santa brought

 After breakfast, we open presents, one by one

 And by the time we were done, I barely recognized my living room!!

 What's the best thing I got for Christmas?  Well, one of my favorites was a new shelf for the playroom so I could finally organize the books by color like I have been wanting to.  I know, I have a sickness but it makes me sooooo happy!!

I was so glad to have all of my family here for Christmas and even though it is a whirlwind, I can't wait for next year!!

The Adventures of Kelf

So you may know about our Elf on the Shelf, Kelf.  He came to visit us for the first time last year.  He shows up the day after Thanksgiving and watches our every move to report back to Santa each night.  When he returns each day, he is always in a different spot, which after about four days starts to get tricky.  So I turned to my BFF, Pintrest, to see what others were doing.  What I found were a bunch of mischievous elves.  I was a little worried since he is supposed to be watching their behavior, I kind of felt like he should be a good model, but I decided to test the waters a little by having him eat some of the little bit of Halloween candy that was left over.  The kids woke in the morning to see him sitting on an end table, surrounded by candy wrappers.  This is how it all went down:

THEM:  "Mom!  Look!  Kelf ate our candy!!!!"

ME:  "Oh no!  What a naughty elf!"

ABBY:  "He is NOT naughty!"

ME:  "Well he ate all that candy without asking..."

ABBY:  "Yeah, but that's not naughty because he ate all the choking hazards!"

I looked down and sure enough, he was covered in the remnants of Jolly Ranchers.  Okaaaaaay.  Time for a new plan because my children had made it clear that "Naughty Elf" was not going to fly.  So Kelf turned in to quite the adventurer.

One morning, we found him zip lining across the kitchen...

 Another day, he was sitting in the fridge with his pencil and the kids found notes from him in their lunch boxes...

 Once, he snuggled up under the Christmas tree, wearing Ben's new shoes...

 My favorite was the day that he put on his scarf (thanks to all the leftover felt I had from Abby's Christmas present) and played in the snow...

 At one point he ended up on the ceiling fan, 19 feet in the air...

 And decided to climb the tree sculpture above our front door...

 One of his last stops was Abby's room (you can barely see her the top of her head sticking out from under the blanket) which was all she had been asking him to do all year.  I heard her say, "Oh yeah!" when she woke up and then let him know when she was leaving the room ("I'll be right back, I have to go potty.")  And when she returned ("I'm baaaaaaack!")...

Of course, Kelf had other adventures, like visiting the pantry and Ben's room and once we even found him in my car!!  We were sad to see him go, but we look forward to next November when he returns and I, for one, am thankful to have eleven months to figure out just where he will land!

Becca's Favorite Things

This time of year, I always look forward to watching Oprah's Favorite Things.  You know, where she shows off all of the wonderful things that she loves the most and then showers the audience with their own supply of each of her favorites?  Now that she is not longer on the air, there is a little empty space in my heart.  (Truthfully, the only time I ever watched was the Favorite Things episode).  So in the spirit of Oprah, I give you MY favorite things.  Now, these are really just the things that I am loving today, on this cold December morning, not my all time favorites.  While they are all things that I love, I just don't want to feed into any misconceptions that I actually like fall or winter, these things just make them bearable for me.  Here we go.

Up first, Costco wrapping paper.  I love this stuff.  It is thick, two sided, and has about 600 square feet per roll.  Seriously.  This stuff lasts forever.  I am willing to admit that I probably have a problem.  I buy at least one new roll each Christmas.  And as I previously mentioned, one roll can wrap a ton of presents which means that I have enough wrapping paper to wallpaper Costco.  But I love it.  And it is so pretty.  And quality.  And versatile.  And long lasting.  And really reasonably priced.  Ten bucks a roll!  I know.  This is why I buy so much.  At last count, I had 12 rolls.  Oh, and one roll at school to wrap presents there.  So this is where it gets a little out of control...my Christmas wrapping paper collection is worth $130.  That's overboard, right?  Oh well.  Small price to pay for one of my favorite things.

 My next favorite thing is my Crock Pot.  I could cook in this baby 7 days a week.  (There are people who do that you know).  As you may know, cooking isn't my favorite thing to do, but this makes it so easy.  Dump a bunch of stuff in, turn it on and wa-la!  Come home to a pipping hot dinner.  3 minutes to make and 3 minutes to clean up.  Can't beat that!!

 Please don't judge me on this next one.  As you know, I love me some sweats.  My favorites?  These ones that I have had (and worn) for five years.  I bought them toward the end of the hell that was my pregnancy because I just didn't have any sweats that fit.  They are big.  Really big.  But boy, are they comfy!  They have seen better days, but I couldn't love them more!

 Really, the only thing that gets me through any day where the temperature doesn't reach 70 is the wood stove.  We use ours to heat the whole house and it does a bang up job!   A good fire can get the house to about 77 degrees, which I know is hot for the common human but just about perfect for me!

So there you have it.  My favorite things.  This is the time when Oprah would tell you that you all were getting each of the above mentioned items PLUS a 17,000 square foot house and her little elves would come out with perfectly packaged presents and a gold plated key to your new home.  Bad news.  I give you nothing.  Sorry friends, but I'm no Oprah.  Best case scenario?  You might get a present wrapped in some of my amazing paper!!

From Ben's Point of View

As you know, last weekend we went to our own personal Christmas tree farm, aka my parents' house, and picked up this beauty:

 After some help from our family and an evening of risk taking adventures in decorating, here she is in all her glory:

 Pretty right?  It is a little on the ridiculous side and there are some branches that will have to go before the big crowd arrives for Christmas but for now, it is just about perfect!

Were you wondering about how we got such a gigantic tree cut down and tied to our car?  Well you are in luck because I had a photo journalist with me to document the whole thing.  Friends, I give you Ben's photos.

First up, a photo of his favorite thing...me!

 These next two photos are of some of the things in my dad's shop...

And my dad's car (you might want to take note of that license plate and steer clear)...

 The extension cord we used to for the electric chain saw to cut down the tree...

 Some cinder blocks...

 This is my favorite.  It's me and my dad.  I am thinking about having it framed for him for Christmas...

 My best guess is that this is the lens cap...

 Here I am, hard at work, trying to help tie the tree on top...

 And in case you have forgotten what my dad looks like, one last picture of him...

So there you have it.  Ben's point of view.  (It should be noted that this is just a random sampling of the 40 or so pictures he took during the 10 minutes that no one was paying attention to him!)  Good work Buddy!

It's Alive!!

You will never believe what happened today on the way to my mom and dad's house to get our Christmas tree.  There was a spider in the car!  It was about the size of a pin head and, from what I could tell, not moving, but it caused a whole lot of trouble.  Lucky for you, I had the camera!  Now before you watch this video, there are a couple things you should know.  Number one, this had been going on for quite a few miles.  Number two, the other voice you hear is Ben mocking her.  Number Three, we were playing "I spy with my little eye" to try and distract her.  Got all that?  Okay, GO!

I know.  I'm terrible.  But it was too funny.  Well, you will be happy to know we did finally make it to Grammy's (after Daddy pulled over and let the poor spider out) and we picked out our tree.  Yes, we get our tree from my dad's back yard.  It's free.  Here is this year's pick:

 Yup!  That's after it was all tied down.  This is how we drove home.  Laughing at all of the people we passed with tiny trees tied neatly to the tops of their station wagons.

When we got there, Robbie readied his homemade contraption, I mean Christmas tree stand, and luckily we had some family come help us get it into the house.

 Ta-Da!!  20 foot tree, ready for lights!

You know what this means?  Tomorrow I can do the thing I wait all year for...wrap presents!!!

M.I.A.

Don't worry, I'm here!  I know you probably think that I fell off the face of the earth or something, but good news!  I have just been busy getting my craft on.  Anyone who follows me on Pintrest probably already figured out that I have been hunkered down making felt food because I have pinned about a million different pictures of it.  Abby needs some more food for her inside kitchen (not to be confused with all of the food outside in her play house kitchen, which we all know must stay in the outside kitchen because her mother is anal and ocd and can't stand when things aren't in their right place) and the stuff at the store is either cheap (as in crappy) or expensive or, more often than not, both.  So I started looking at pictures of felt food, bought some (all right, 7 yards) felt and started sewing.  You know me.  Once I start something I don't sleep well until it is finished.  So in between working and taking care of my family I spent the past two weeks on this project.  What all did I make?  I thought you'd never ask.  My friends, feast (get it?!?) your eyes on this!

 Bow Tie Pasta, anyone?

 Or how about some yummy doughnuts?

 Maybe an ice cream cone or a Popsicle, if you eat all of your dinner.

 How about an egg and pancake breakfast?

 Or some goldfish crackers?

 Don't forget your fresh fruits and veggies.

Can I interest you in a corn dog?

 How about a PB & J for lunch?  We have grape, raspberry or strawberry jam!

 At the Miller house, tacos are by far our favorite dinner so I had to make sure she had all the fixin's.

 The other day she mentioned that she needed some pot holders as well, so...

So there you have it.  I am sorry I have been ignoring you.  It's just that for the past 14 days my schedule has looked like this:  Work, dinner, swimming lessons, kids to bed, sew like a crazy person, sleep.  Now that I am done with that, I will try to do better.  But who am I kidding?  My list of things to do in the next 6 weeks (the next  years really) is pretty long and you know how I get crazy, I mean focused, with things on my list.  So don't forget about me.  Check back soon because you know that the holidays are always good for some fun around here and you don't want to miss out!

Boo!

Did I scare you? Well I hope not. Because I hate scary things. Halloween really creeps me out. Don't get me wrong. I love to carve pumpkins and dress the kids up in cute costumes but, for me, the fun stops there. Corn mazes and blood and goblins Creep. Me. Out. And don't even get me started on the scariest place I have ever stepped foot in-the Halloween Store. Or adults in costumes. Seriously, people. You are a GROWN UP! And tomorrow I will get to spend my day with 22 5-year-olds who have had way too much junk food and way too little sleep. Jealous?

All that being said, I had a great day! In fact all weekend we have been having a ton of Halloween fun. It started on Friday when we finally got around to carving our pumpkins.

 Abby's pumpkin is a princess...and it is almost as big as she is!!

Ben's is a football player.  A scary football player.

 

Notice the high heels the princess pumpkin is wearing?  She had a wedding dress too but we just couldn't figure out how to make it work...

 We have a hard time getting to everywhere we want to go in one night so on Saturday we made our first stop at my parents house.

 Tonight, we fueled up for our big night of trick or treating with a very scary dinner.  (Well, not that scary because, as you know, I hate that stuff.)  What did we eat?  Well guts and blood of course.  And eyeballs!

We also ate witches fingers,

 and brains.  (Full disclosure, this actually started out as worms but they melted together so I had to make a last minute adjustment.)

 For dessert we had skeletons!

 Then my little scuba diver and mermaid headed out on a 2 and a half hour trick or treating marathon.

 A lot of work, but well worth it!

Now, bring on November because that means Thanksgiving and the minute Thanksgiving is over I get to start getting ready for Christmas, which I love.  Because it isn't scary.