Lately

I feel like I have been in hibernation (if hibernation meant spending every waking moment studying or in class) all fall, so as soon as finals were over I decided to make up for lost time by cramming about 15 parties into two weeks. 

College kids are so easy.

They will eat anything you cook and will entertain your kids for hours. 

Well, they entertain some kids more than others.

Oz came to a close.  

Mia went through withdrawals and depression and was generally unbearable for about a week after it was over.

The best Bode quote of the entire Oz run:  

Mom, why is Mia dressed like a one-eared rabbit?

Andy's grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday.  Henson was thrilled.

Trying to get a decent picture of nine great-grandkids is like me trying to go a day without coffee - it ain't gonna happen. 

For the love of money, someone tell us which way to look:

I have every intention of buying my way into the hearts of my kids' teachers. 

I like to have some credits built up in case my kid ever acts like an idiot. 

And I loved this idea from a person that is certainly not me: A different print for each holiday.  Throw in a couple of gift cards to Starbucks and Sonic and I'd say I've bought my kids at least another week or two on the good list.

You're welcome, kids.

12/12/12 is officially my Christmas!

Raise your hand if you finished your finals and closed on your house today.
*HAND RAISED*

It's kind of hard to type this while simultaneously doing a happy dance.  The grass is browner, the trees are deader, the sky is greyer - it's all just so beautiful!

And, apparently all my daughter wants for Christmas is a book light - score!

And my son thinks he can play baseball for the Yankees with a bat growing out of his torso - what a wonderfully realistic goal for his life, I love it!

As I type this my oldest is teaching forcing my youngest to learn a very complicated Christmas song that he will never be able to get right and in about two minutes he will get frustrated and revolt against her demands and she will scream and cry and beg him to JUST DO IT RIGHT and will fall to the floor in a heap of tears.  

And guess what?  I don't even care.  And I'm not going to get annoyed because it is distracting me from my studying, and I'm not going to remind them that we own another house down the street that I can send them to, alone, if they don't shape up.

The Lord is faithful.  I feel so blessed.

In The Doghouse

This is where the kids spent most of the afternoon Saturday:

After I threw up in my mouth, I tossed them a container of clorox wipes and went back to my business.

When your kids are playing nicely together outside for an extended period of time, things like fleas and ticks start to scare you a lot less.

Life

Mia is always very well represented. 

There's nothing like scraping your "made to stay put at all costs" eye-liner off of your kids nose.  For two hours.

 Bode asked my mom to show him which door she left out of when she went Christmas shopping.  Conveniently, the next morning she found a note on it that said "Buy Bode a camera."

 The kid is nothing if not bold. 

And this kid is nothing if not...interesting.

 I love it when my kids are genuinely proud of each other.  

The King of the castle.

To: Bode's Future Wife

You're welcome.

My Reading List as of Late

Although I haven't been reading material that I would consider "entertainment" I have to admit that I have enjoyed most of my required reading for this semester.  In fact, some of it is so good that I am pretty sure anyone would enjoy reading it.  Well, either that or I  have lost touch with reality, which is a real possibility.  

Mindset, The New Psychology of Success is so, so interesting.  I would especially recommend it to parents.  I actually couldn't put this book down because it described my daughter and my husband so perfectly.  It was like a light-bulb went on in my head and I was all, "So this is what's going on inside their brains.  Thank God!  All this time I thought they were crazy."

This book will make you want to gouge your eyeballs out with a toothpick.

The New Personality Self-Potrait includes a pretty extensive personality test.  Each chapter is divided up into personality types and you can read all about how potentially insane you are.

I loved it.










Don't read this at night in a house that still does not have window coverings, that's all I'm sayin'.

If you're dating someone and something isn't setting well with you read this book and GET THE HECK OUT OF THE RELATIONSHIP!

I will be re-reading this book when my daughter starts dating.

Meh.  Valuable information.  Not really a page turner.

I'm ashamed of myself for not having read this book before.  This is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read.

I cried in a Starbucks while reading this.

I found myself contemplating all sorts of ways to die.  It's awful.

This workbook is awesome for figuring out just how crazy your family actually is.  I didn't really need a workbook to tell me this, but nonetheless it was helpful.














I realize this makes me a big dork but I loved this textbook.  I can curl up and read this baby by a fire any day.

Don't judge me.  Or go ahead, I'm too exhausted to care.

And that's as exciting as it gets around here, folks.

Merry Old Land of Oz

Mia's opening nights have easily turned into some of the highlights of my parenting experience.

Am I secretly living vicariously through my child?  I refuse to answer that question.

Let's move on, shall we?

I can now take "learn to french braid in a circle" off of my bucket list.

 This picture could not be more representative of their relationship.  Mia may have found something she loves more than the theater.

 Stage make-up:  How can something so wrong look so right?

 I'm the one squealing with delight.

To Oz (or rather to the only thing that will keep a bunch of 8-year-olds quiet backstage)!

After the show, in true diva fashion, she refused to leave her dressing room.  She was sobbing because "the audience wasn't engaged."  I wish I was kidding.  Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a kid who was blissfully unaware of things eight-year-olds should not be aware of and was jumping for joy like the rest of the munchkins.  Instead, I have Mia.  

 Finally, after threatening her within an inch of her life, she came out, streaked make-up and all.

 I don't care if this girl is too perceptive for her own good, she's the cutest darn Munchkin a person has ever seen.

I think Bode may be the only honest person left.

In case you haven't been on Facebook in the last month, or you're dead, then you may not have noticed this is the time of year when we reflect on what we're thankful for.

Sunday night our kids made adorable little trees and are supposed to write what they are thankful for each day leading up to Thanksgiving.  

*I interrupt this story to say that I'm thankful for my friend, Andrea, for organizing this project for our kids while I stuffed my face with food that she cooked.  Have I mentioned she has four children, two of whom were born in the past two years?  {I realize this makes me look like lazy jerk.  But, at least I'm thankful for her.  A thankful, lazy jerk is better than just a regular lazy jerk, right?  Right?}

Anyway, my point is that yesterday Bode went to his little handmade tree and asked how to spell "cards with money in them." 

And it's still the only thing on his tree.

This kid is thankful for cold, hard cash.  And that's it.

And this is why I love him:  He goes ahead and puts in writing what the rest of us are too polite to say.

We Wish To Welcome You To Munchkin Land

 This is how the little munchkins start to act after 10 hours of rehearsal on Saturday:

And this is what grad-school Mommas look like:

The other moms are sewing costumes, painting sets, and baking little Oz themed treats.  I'm just going to be lucky to make it to Opening Night (I actually cried, okay bawled, to my professor and begged him to let me leave class early that night).

And then after my cryfest the show sold out before I even got tickets.  Oooops.  So we'll be the ones passing out programs and taking tickets.

Poor Andy's not exactly thrilled.  I'm not sure if it's that he has to be an usher or if it's the realization that he's stuck with me for life.

Either way I'm sure he'll get over it.

The things that matter...

 My precious grandmother, Ahmo, made the costumes.  And then she searched high and low until she found red boots for Bode.  She's a keeper, I tell ya.

Best Friends 

 Mia's teacher is awesome!

 This game always goes exactly like all games in our house:  Mia tells Bode what to do and he does it.  He's going to make the best husband someday.

That last post was a little whiney.  

Okay, a lot whiney.

Perspective is my new friend.  We parted ways for a while but we're back together.  

It feels good.

You really don't want to read this - trust me.

Unless you are my children and I am presenting this entire blog to you on the eve of your high school graduation, or your wedding day, or the day your own child is born, or whatever day I decide to present you with your my memories, in which case you will read this.  You'll read it and you'll like it.

Life has just been a big ole' fat mess lately and the thought of blogging about it feels like having to walk to school uphill, in the snow, with no shoes.  And no coffee.

But alas, I press on.

The mess is this stuff:
1.  Owning more homes than we need.
2.  Graduate school
3.  The adorable house on Meadow Lane that lots of people want to buy but none of those people actually do.
4.  Mia's play
5.  That darned second mortgage
6.  A child who hasn't slept the night in 34 days.
7.  Realizing that Santa ain't coming to town if we still own the adorable house on Meadow Lane
8.  Making myself sick on dry roasted peanuts and candy corn.  I am angry at the entire Universe for not forcing me to try this most glorious of combinations sooner.  I'm equally angry at the Universe for the sheer fact that this combination exists thus forcing me to wear only elastic waisted pants.
9.  And last but certainly not least is this guilt thing.
Feeling so incredibly guilty about the new house, and the old house, and grad school, and not cooking as much, and forgetting to pack my kid a healthy snack on "healthy snack day," and all the other things I have bombed lately.

And I'm being for real when I say that guilt usually isn't my thing.  I'm always telling my friends things like "give yourself a break" and "your kids are just fine" and "don't buy into the domestic Mommy bliss dream, that whole dream was invented by a man who hated women."
These are my mantras.

Yet, the guilt.  Oh the heavy, burdensome guilt is killing me.

Some seasons are just like this.  I'm not particularly surprised or alarmed by it.  I am confident that I will see it through to the other side.

And I'll look at Andy one day and say, "Remember that time our house wouldn't sell and we were so freaked out and Mia woke up every night because her "room was too creaky", and I decided to go back to school, and Mia was in OZ, and I ate my weight in candy corn and peanuts?"

And he'll crane his head around mine so he can see the TV and he'll casually say, "Yah.  Are we done here, Babe, this is a close game."

And that's when I'll know things are back to normal.

But until then...

bottoms up.

View from my kitchen window

Lucky number 13? Let's certainly hope so.

Yesterday, while signing and dating a "your contract fell through again, you suckers" form I realized it was our 13th anniversary.  And then I sent Andy a text to remind him.  

It doesn't get much more romantic than that.  

Or so I thought.

And then, late last night as I was leaving my statistics class (AKA the death of me) I got the most wonderful surprise - my sweet family sitting in the lobby of the Applied Behavioral Studies Hall with all these goodies:

 According to my kids it's not a celebration without some "tiny little baby organs."  

And then I realized it doesn't get much better than this: My sweet husband taking care of our children so I can pursue a dream.  He makes lunches, and signs homework folders, and feeds and bathes and tucks-in our babies without a single complaint.  And he finds Starburst Jelly Beans when its not even Easter season and loads up the kids at 9:00 at night and tracks down my building and waits outside my classroom door and lets my children give me a home-made anniversary card.

Now that's romantic.

And then there were two...

...contracts that fell through on the day of closing.  This time we actually got to go to closing and sign the papers first.  There is nothing like a little salt in the wound.

So the adorable house on Meadow Lane is for sale for a third time.  {insert pithy or sarcastic comment here, I don't have the mental energy}

I tried a new strategy on the husband this time and it totally worked.  The second we got the bad news I immediately called dibs on the meltdown.  I put my hand up and was all, "Don't even think about it.  I get to have the complete breakdown this time and you get to be the glass-half-full cheerleader.  The meltdown is mine, all mine!!!"  And then I immediately burst into tears, ran to the bedroom, curled up in my bed and took a nap.

And that's how it's done ladies.

Now I don't think that he is going to allow me to act like this again, so for the sake of my marriage, someone {with good credit and enough money} puh-lease buy this house.