Tuesday Tidbits

Are you getting used to me doing weekend recaps on Tuesday?  It's kind of like a tradition now.  Monday just always seems to be such a busy day, and I never seem to find the time to blog.  But I'm ready now, so here we go.

Our Thanksgiving weekend was good.  Besides Jason running to the Shopette a couple of times we didn't leave the house the entire time.  Not that we wanted to since it was COLD and snowing most of the time.



Friday Jason hauled out all the Christmas stuff out of the storage closet.  He We also decided that the big Christmas tree was going up this year, so he hauled that out of the garage.  (If that does make any sense, let me explain.  We have two Christmas trees, a really big fat one, and a really skinny one.  Which one goes up depends on what house and what living room we have each year.  Part of being a military family and moving alot, I guess.)  It took some effort to get the big tree to fit.  We had to move the loveseat to the other side of the room, squish up the dining room table and chairs, and move the desk into the laundry room.  When it came time to assembly the tree, I left some of the branches out of the bottom so it would fit closer to the wall.  Shhh, don't tell anyone.  It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.



I am glad that this tree is really sturdy, and that I put all of the breakable ornaments at the top.  Every time Brennan is in the room, he has to grab and say hello to all the Santas, snowmen, and birds.  He also has to take a swing at all the bells to hear them "ring, ring ring," as he says.  With those noisemakers plus all of my cookie tins he has adopted as drums, we have a Christmas orchestra preformance in the living room every night.

We got most of the rest of the decorations up as well, and I finished the advent tree, but I think I will wait until later in the week to unveil those.  I know you can't wait! : )

Have a great week!

From Our House to Yours

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, The Bal Family

The Little Things

This little guy is the reason I am so excited about the holidays this year.  Everything is such a wonderment to him right now.  Everyday occurrences like waiting for cinnamon rolls to come out of the oven, condensation on the front door, birds sitting on the fence, passing a school bus on the road... they are all noteworthy events.

It's been nice to slow down and enjoy the little things.

You might be a child of the 80's if...

Two things got me thinking of the 80's in the last couple of days.  The first one was when I was getting dressed Monday morning and rejected a pair of jeans because they were too faded. *giggle*  It made me think of back in the day when Mom would buy me new jeans and I would immediately sink them into a bathtub of bleach water because they were too dark.  Today on facebook somebody posted something about your favorite 80's cartoon character.  Sadly, I had to Google 80's cartoon characters to remember them.  While I was doing that, I came across this list.  It's kind of long, and most of you have probably already seen it, but it gave me a few laughs so I had to share.

(If you skip the list, make sure you scroll all the way to the end.  It's worth it.)

_____________________________
You Might Be a Child of the 80's if...


You wanted to be on Star Search. (Didn't we all?)

You can remember what Michael Jackson looked like before his nose fell off. Or even when he had those freaky eyes in "Thriller" at the end of the video.

You wore a banana clip or one of those slap on wrist bands at some point during your youth.

You wore French rolls on the bottom of your splatter painted jeans.

You had slouch socks, and puff painted your own shirt at least once.

You owned a doll with 'Xavier Roberts' signed on it's butt.

You knew what Willis was "talkin' 'bout."

You know the profound meaning of "Wax on, Wax off."

You can name at least half of the members of the elite "Brat Pack."

You can remember watching Full House and Saved by the Bell for endless hours.

You have seen at least 10 episodes of Fraggle Rock.

You know that another name for a keyboard is a "Synthesizer."

You'll always hold a special place in your heart for "Back to the Future."

You know where to go if you "wanna go where everybody knows your name."

You thought Molly Ringwald was REALLY cool. (Was there an 80's movie she WASN'T in?)

You know what "psych" means.

You fell victim to 80's fashion: big hair, crimped, combed over to the side, and you wore spandex pants.

You wanted to be a Goonie ("Goonies never say die.")

You knew "The Artist" when he was humbly called "Prince."

You ever wore fluorescent—neon if you will—clothing...

You could breakdance, or wished you could.

You know who Max Headroom is.

You know, by heart, the words to any "Weird" Al Yankovic song.

You remember when ATARI was a state-of-the-art video gaming system.

You own any cassettes or albums.

You were led to believe that in the year 2000 we'd all be living on the moon.

You remember and/or own any of the Care Bear glass collection from Pizza Hut.

"Poltergeist" totally freaked you out.

You carried your lunch to school in a Gremlins or an ET lunchbox.

You have ever pondered why Smurfette was the ONLY female smurf.

You wanted to communicate with Synergy, or you wanted green hair like that lead singer of the Misfits. See Jem.

You inserted the word "like" into, like, every sentence.

You know what a Doozer is. See Fraggle Rock.

You wore biker shorts underneath a short skirt and felt stylish.

You ever had a Swatch Watch.

You actually spent countless hours trying to perfect the care-bear stare.

You had a crush on one of the Coreys (Haim or Feldman).

You remember when Saturday Night Live was funny.

You had Wonder Woman or Superman Underoos.

You have worn a Banana Clip, or knew someone who did.

You actually thought "Dirty Dancing" was a REALLY good movie.

You have heard of "Garbage Pail Kids" (and perhaps still have a collection of them).

Extra point You have seen the Garbage Pail Kids TV show. (Only one episode was aired.)

You had a crush on Bo Derek.

Punks actually "shocked" people.

You wanted to be The Hulk or Rainbow Brite for Halloween.

You believed that "By the power of Greyskull, you HAD the power!"

You thought that Transformers were more than meets the eye.

You know what a "Whammy" is. ("No Whammy, no whammy, stop!")

Partying "like it's 1999" seemed SO far away.

Songs by Debbie Gibson still haunt you to this day.

3 words: "Atari" "IntelliVision" and "Coleco". Sound familiar?

You remember the days that hooking your computer into your TV wasn't an expensive option that required gadgets - it was the ONLY WAY to use your computer!

You remember "Friday Night Videos" before the days of MTV.

You ever owned a pair of "Pop-Wheels"—that handy little combination of shoe and roller skate that lasted about a year on the open market.

You're PO'd that you couldn't really participate in the 60's, pissed that you were a part of the 70's, think you wasted too much time doing stupid, meaningless things in the 80's, and still have no clue what the 90's are all about.

While in high school, you and all your friends discussed elaborate plans to get together again at the end of the century and play "1999" by Prince over and over again.

You remember when music that was labeled "alternative" really was.

You were shocked and horrified at the Challenger explosion (which you were probably watching in school at the time).

You watched HR Puffenstuff as a child, but now that you're older, you really understand that it would have been much better had you known about drugs at the time.

You've recently horrified yourself by using any one of the following phrases:

"When I was younger"

"When I was your age"

"You know, back when..."

"Because I SAID so, that's why"

"What the HECK is this noise on the radio?"

"Just can't (fill in the blank) like I used to"

You can't remember a time when "going out for coffee" DIDN'T involve 49,000 selections to choose from.

Schoolhouse Rock played a HUGE part in how you actually learned the English language.

You ever dressed to emulate a person you saw in either a Duran Duran, Madonna, or Cyndi Lauper video.

At one point during your teenage years, you walked with a noticeable tilt to one side due to the number of plastic rings on that arm.

"Celebration" by Kool & the Gang was one of the hot new songs when you first heard it at a school dance.

The first time you ever kissed someone at a dance fell during "Crazy for You" by Madonna.

There were at least three people in your school that voluntarily went by the names of "Skip" "Buffy" "Muffy" or "Dexter."

You ever owned one of those embarrassing crimping irons.

You used to hold in your head the thought that all those gold chains on Mr. T actually looked kinda cool and the thought that Mr. T made millions seemed rational to you at the time.

You remember with pain the sad day when the Green Machine hit the streets and made your old big wheel quite obsolete.

You've gotten this far on the list and aren't totally confused.

The phrase "Where's the beef?" still doubles you over with laughter.

You read the "Hot Video Games Player's Secrets" guide for Mortal Kombat just so you could find the hidden screen, and play Pong again for old time's sake

You're starting to believe that maybe 30 isn't so old after all, and it's those people over 40 you have to look out for.

Your hair, at some point in time in the 80's, became something which can only be described by the phrase "I was experimenting."

You've ever shopped at a Banana Republic or Benetton, but not in the last five years, okay?

You ever wanted to be gagged with a spoon.

When someone mentions two consecutive days of the week, the Happy Days theme is stuck in your head for hours on end.

You remember "Hey, let's be careful out there."

You're parents wanted you to attend medical school, but you decided it was pointless since Quincy got all the babes, anyway.

You had a crush on Jon Bon Jovi, or knew someone who did.

You thought eating Reese's Pieces would attract your own Alien.

Your name is Jennifer or Jason.

You have ever called 867-5309.

You had a poster of Rob Lowe, Kirk Cameron, or Michael J. Fox on your wall.

You held the top score on Pac-Man.

You owned a t-shirt that said, "I shot J.R." or know someone who did.

This rings a bell: "and my name, is Charlie. They work for me."

You HAD to have your MTV

You know what a "burnout" is.

You owned a Jordache anything, or you remember when Jordache jeans were cool.

You remember when Madonna was just hitting the scene.

You remember the original version of Windows: Macintosh.

You thought "Weird Science" was a masterpiece.

You remember any or all of the following: Echo & the Bunnymen, Cutting Crew, Scritti Politti, or Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark.

Chevy Chase was really funny in those vacation movies.

You actually know who Rick Springfield is.

You remember when film critics raved that no movie could ever possibly get better special effects than those in the movie TRON.

You jammed to the Miami Vice theme and thought Jan Hammer was cool.

Guys: You remember when a guy piercing his ear was radical to the max, but did it anyhow.
____________________________

And since I'm talking about the 80's, and in light of my recent hair debacle, I thought I would share this picture.



Technically, this was taken in the early 90's, but I grew up in the Midwest, so it amounts to pretty much the same thing.

I was, like, totally cool, don't you think? :)

Let It Snow

I guess that you already figured out from the title that it has been snowing around here.  Yep, the ground is covered, my feet are cold, and we're expecting a few more inches tonight.  Anyone dreaming of a White Thanksgiving?


The mountains this morning.


And our front yard.

Since the ground is covered in white stuff, I got my snow driving test this morning.  : )  Jason was super worried about me taking Brennan to school today.  He had already been to the gym and back and thought the roads were a little slick. 

OK...  I have driven in the snow before, and in vehicles that had no business driving in snow, no less.  I didn't think it would be an issue (obviously it wasn't since I am here typing this) but I think he was expecting me to say we'd just stay home.  Instead I drove him to work to show my snow driving prowess, all the while getting the snow driving rules rattled off to me.  He reminded me he's certified by the military to drive in ice and snow.  Alrighty then.

Anyway, we stayed at home for most of the weekend.  I spent my time working on the advent calendar project.  If I don't pass out from the glue fumes, I think I might actually be able to get it done before December 1st.  The glue I am using is called Fabri-Tac.  The Joann's lady recommended it for what I was doing.  She didn't mention that it smells like nail polish remover, and one drop of it could make everyone in the room high, but hey, it works great.  (For gluing felt, not for getting high.)  : ) I just alternate between gluing and embroidering, so it's not too bad.

In between being crafty, I also fixed my blue hair.  It has been a long time since I've done my own highlights so I was a little scared.  It was really scary when I mixed up the highlighting stuff and it was blue, the exact color I was trying to get away from.



I think it turned out pretty good.  It took about 30 years off don't you think. haha



 

I Might Be Crazy

Yesterday after I dropped Brennan off at school, I decided to go to Joann's to check out their Christmas sale stuff.  Well, 45 minutes and about the same amount of money later I walk out with tons of fabric and ribbon and ric-rac and glue. 

I decided we need to have an advent calendar this year.  I worked on it most of the day yesterday.  When I got up this morning and looked at the big mess progress I had made so far, I decided I might just be crazy.



I really should have started this project back in July. 

A Little Silhouette of a Little Man

The other day I took this picture:



And with a little Photoshopping, made this:



I love it!  It's now printed, framed and hanging in our foyer.

Blue Hair Starts at 35 and Other Tuesday Tidbits

We've had a few sicky days here at the Bal House.  Thankfully, nothing too awful, but enough for me to have no ambition to blog, or to take any pictures of anything, so don't be disappointed when you don't find any this time around.  So with the overall feeling of blah, there hasn't been anything monumental happening, just a couple of bits here and there.

I guess we better start with the reason for the melancholy days:

The Sicky. 
Brennan woke me up crying Friday morning, he wasn't hot, or clammy or anything, he just said he needed to blow his nose.  We took care of that, we rocked in the chair awhile, and then I put him back to bed.  The next morning, aside from the runny nose, he was his normal self, so we took him to school.  That evening the fun started.  He still had the runny nose, but now he also had the barking seal cough, and a fever.  Saturday morning, he was a little better, but then I started to get that feeling of being in a fog, and a sore throat.  Joy.  Brennan bounced right back to his old self by Sunday evening.  I, on the other hand am still living in Sicky-ville.  Hopefully, I get to come back soon.  I don't like it here at all.  (And poor Jason, he had a 4 day weekend for Veteran's Day.  We sure weren't too much fun for that.)

My Current TV Addiction.
I'm sure some of you watched the series Heroes when it was on TV.  I never did; it never looked like my kind of show, plus I'm sure it was on at the same time as something I actually did like to watch.  Well, I was going though Netflix the other day, and Heroes came up as available for Instant Viewing.  I remembered it had the guy who played Jess on Gilmore Girls, the "whipped cream bikini" cheerleader from Varsity Blues, and one of the Neutrogena girls, so I thought I would check it out.  (Nice reasoning to watch a show, huh?)  I've been watching it every chance I get since then.  It's still not something I would normally watch, but I just have to know how it all turns out.  I did Google it, and found out the show was cancelled after four seasons due to high production costs.  That means it will probably end stupidly, and I will be disappointed in the whole thing.  I'll let you know.

The Blue Hair.
I know you've been dying to know about that one. : )  Well, since not being able to breath laying down prevented me from getting much sleep, I got up early Sunday morning and colored my hair.  A pretty normal occurrence, yes, I do that every 4 to 6 weeks.  However, this time was a little different.  The last couple of times I colored my hair I have been trying to go lighter.  Those of you who know me, know that my hair has been through varying shades over the past 20 years, from blonde to very dark brown.  In the last year or so I have stuck with dark brown, and I was ready for a change.  The problem is, my hair wasn't having it.  The first time, I got one shade lighter, and my hair stayed the same color.  The next time, I went two shades lighter, and my roots turned lighter, but the rest stayed the same.  Uh, oh, not a good look.  So this time, I got two boxes of Darkest Ash Blonde, thinking that would surely do it.  The problem is, I wasn't paying attention when I was at the store, and the boxes I picked up were of the True Brunette variety, instead of the normal hair color.  But it was 5:30 in the morning, I was in my hair coloring shirt, and there was no way I was going back to Target to exchange them.  My bad.  The main part of my hair is a tad lighter, but now my roots are a mess.  They really are blue. There was a warning on the box not to use the hair coloring on predominantly gray hair.  I scoffed, that didn't apply to me.  Ha ha...yeah.  Now I am an official member of the Blue Hair Club.  They lowered their membership age just for me.

Things I'm Pondering Lately.
As you know, I've been super excited about Christmas this year.  I really, really wanted to watch a Christmas movie this weekend, but Jason vetoed me.  He said that if I wanted to watch Christmas movies with him, I had to wait until after Thanksgiving.  (I think it was more about the football schedule of the day.)  OK then, I thought, then we'll watch a Thanksgiving movie.  Problem was, besides the Charlie Brown cartoon, I couldn't think of one Thanksgiving movie.  Hmmmm...are there any?  I Googled my predicament, and the lists of Recommended Thanksgiving Movies was ridiculous.  The Ice Storm, Pieces of April...no thank you.  I wanted a snuggley, family friendly movie.  I ended up ordering Pocahontas off of eBay.  Not exactly what I had in mind, but it will do.

Well, I'm off to find some cold medicine, drink a Pumpkin Spice Latte...and probably not much else. 

Have a great day!

Parent's Day aka Early Turkey Day

This week has been a little hectic.  We've started a new routine and we're not quite in the groove yet.  We got a call the end of last week from Brennan's school telling us that there was an opening for three-day-a-week preschool.  Before that he was only going on Friday.  Jason and I talked about it, and decided that we should go ahead.  Brennan seems to loves school.  He's asks to go every day.  When he gets up in the morning, his line of questions are always the same:  1. "Daddy at?" 2. "School today?"

Wednesday was Parent's Day at school.  During the last 30 minutes of the class the parents were invited to come and see what the kids do during class.

Brennan was a real turkey for most of the time.  And not in a good way.




Notice that Brennan is the only boy in his class?  Five girls and one boy.  Poor kid.



Brennan wasn't much of a participator during all the songs and skits.  He would go and get his instrument, or hat, or leaf and then make a beeline to come and stand by me and Jason.  Maybe he's intimidated by all those girls. : ) 

No, Jason talked to Brennan's teacher afterward and she said it was because we were there, normally he does join in.  Also, since Brennan didn't actually start school until October in the one day program, and the girls have been there since the beginning of September in the three day program, he just hasn't had enough time to get up to speed, so to speak.

After all the fun in the classroom, we got to go out into the atrium and make a craft.


It was a Thankful Turkey. 

Brennan had no interest in that, except to put on the eyes, so I ended up putting most of it together myself while Jason wrangled Brennan from getting into everything.  Being out in the atrium was way to much of a distraction.  There are computers and musical instruments, and big comfy chairs out there.  Brennan wanted to check out all that stuff, to heck with a paper turkey.

I was definitely glad when it was time to go.  I think Brennan was, too.  He is normally happy when I pick him up, and excited to tell me what he did, but this time he cried all the way home, and then it took him forever to be happy once we were there. 

Whew, I'm glad we don't have to go through that everyday.  Hopefully the next Parent's Day will be less traumatizing.

...for everyone. : )

The Weekend

I was worried.

Since Jason has been so busy getting ready for an ORI inspection at work, (Which was last week.  He finds out the results today, so keep your fingers crossed!) we hadn't had a chance to take a family picture for our Christmas cards.  Thankfully winter decided to delay just a little longer on Saturday and we were able to head out for a little photo shoot. 

Honestly, I didn't have very high hopes for getting any good pictures.  I was so frazzled before we even left the house from trying to get everyone ready (mostly just myself, seeing that my wardrobe is in crisis mode right now).  Then to add another zing to my frayed nerves, we got almost there and I realized I forgot my tripod.   So...

Since I can't hold the camera and be in the picture at the same time, we had to turn around and go back home to get it.  Grrr.  I was ready to scrap the whole idea at this point and just draw some smiley faces with our names printed under them inside each card, but Jason talked me into trying anyway.  I was glad he did.  We got a couple of really good family pictures, and as of now I have our Christmas card designed and ready to send to the printer.  Yay!

I'm not going to show you the picture we're using or the card because, well, where is the surprise in that?  But I will show you some outtakes.  I have plenty of them!

The place where we took the pictures is called The Duck Pond.  And rightly so.  There hasn't been a time we've been there that there haven't been ducks everywhere.  Shouldn't they be flying south right about now?


Brennan being goofy.  Or as he says, "boo-key." : )


This is how most of the pictures turned out.  He had to keep track of what those ducks were doing.


There was also a picnic table that needed to be climbed.


And sticks that needed to be picked up.

A mommy with a camera is no competition compared to all that cool stuff. : )

The rest of the weekend was good, though yesterday felt like the longest. day. ever.  The time change just kicks my butt every time.  I guess growing up in a place that didn't participate in daylight savings time will do that to you. 

Saturday morning before the photo-outing, we went to Lowe's for awhile with no particular reason.  We ended up coming out with some weather stripping for the back door, and a new curtain rod.  Take me to a home improvement store and I can come up with a honey-do list on the spot!

Brennan also made a list while we were there.  Everything on his list are things that he now thinks he needs, which mostly consists of those blow up Christmas yard ornament things.  It used to be when were at a store and he said he wanted something, my usual answer was "You don't need that."  So now he has one-upped his requests to, "Need that."  Smart kid.

Yesterday we mostly stayed around the house.  I made a pot of chili.  Jason mowed and weed-eated the grass for the last time AGAIN.  The last two weekends were supposed to be the last time for the year, but then a couple of blades of grass poke up and get unruly through the week so he thinks he has to do it all again.  He explained to me that there has to be a nice flat base for the snow.

In my mind I am thinking that in a couple of weeks the yard is just going to look like this for the rest of the winter.

Then nobody will know that we even  have grass under there, let alone whether it is cut at a uniform height, but hey, it makes him happy. : )

Happy Monday, Everyone!

Stuffable Stockings

Disclaimer #1:  I know it's the first week of November, and this will be the second time I've mentioned Christmas in that time.  But since I've spent a lot of time debating the right stocking choice I really thought you should know about it.  Besides, it's my blog and I can write about whatever I want, right?  : )

Disclaimer #2:  This is a really long post.  I completely understand if you decide not to stick around to the end.  I won't hold it against you.  Just be sure to come back tomorrow.

OK, so now that that's clear, I have been debating new stockings for a couple of years now.  Well, I guess since Brennan's first Christmas when it became clear that the stocking we had were not at all acceptable.


Here's the best picture I could find of our old stockings.  (Yeah, you see how Elmo is kind of hemorrhaging out the top there.  And the other stuff on the table had no hope of fitting in there at all.)

Were they pretty?  Yes. 
Were they able to hold more than a couple of candy canes and a few pairs of underwear?  No. 

Wondering about the underwear?  St. Nick brings us all new underwear every year.  He found that in order to get said underwear in our old stockings he had to take them out of the package.  Now imagine sitting around unpacking your stocking full of goodies, and having stray pairs of underwear tossed out everywhere.  Makes for interesting holiday photos, don't you think?

It also leads to things like this happening.



Yep, definitely time for new stockings.

So in the time I've had to pick new stockings, I narrowed the criteria down to something that would last forever, something that looked hand-crafted, and I wanted them each personalized.  When we were growing up Mom had the cutest stockings for each of us.  I love the memories I have of those stockings, and I want to create the same memories for Brennan.  With all that in mind, I finally decided that the Pottery Barn Kids line of stockings was perfect.


Photo from Pottery Barn Kids

Adorable, Right?  So now I had to decide which adorable stocking to get for each person.  Something that I thought was going to be easy, turned into a morning long debate with myself.  These are lifetime memories we're making here people! 

I even enlisted Brennan's help, which went something like this.

Me:  "Brennan, look at these pictures.  Which one is your favorite?"

Brennan:  Fav-a-fav-a-reet?  MORE!!  (As in let's look at more pictures.)

Me:  "Do you like the train?"

Brennan:  "Like train.  Choo-choo-whoo-whoo!"

Me:  "Do you like the puppy?

Brennan: "Like puppy.  Woof woof!  Nanny and Poo-paw, a-compuk-a-puter?  Puppy, too?"  (He was asking to Skype with Nana and Papaw and their dog, Dolcha, on the computer.)

Obviously, Brennan was no help picking out his own stocking.

The pondering continued, and I kept coming back to this thought.  What if we have another baby?  I would of course want their stocking to match the rest of ours.  (You had no idea the stocking debate was going to get this deep!)  There was no way I was going to buy extra stockings for a hypothetical kid as I read some of the people that wrote the reviews did, sooo....after folding up some laundry and vacuuming the floor I decided to Google "Pottery Barn Kids Stocking 2009," just to see how different the designs are every year.

And I found that the designs are similiar enough that it would be no big deal.  And as a bonus,  I found that my very favorite thrifty place, eBay, had listings for PBK stockings. Oh yeah!  You know I jumped right onto eBay and did a stocking search! 

I hit the jackpot! 

Though now I was hit with the dilemma of the personalization.  Was it cheaper to buy from PBK and have them do the personalization or was it cheaper to buy on eBay and go have the personalization done in town.  Was trying to find a good place in town worth the hassle?  But then the light bulb went off as I was looking at an ice skater stocking with the name Jenny across the top and thinking who would want a stocking with the name Jenny already on it?  Well duh, a Jenny, of course.  So I added my name to my search, and tada, a reindeer and a ballerina stocking came up.  Yes! 


Photo from Pottery Barn Kids
I chose the reindeer.  Even with shipping I was saving $10, so yeah, that was coming to my house.  Next I tried Jason's name.  A nutcracker, a snowman, and a train!  Yeah baby!  It was like I was playing slots at the casino, except I was winning!! 


Photo from Pottery Barn Kids

I decided on the snowman for Jason.  I saved $5 on that one.  Now on to Brennan.  I didn't think his name would be as easy to find as the 70's kid's, but I kept my fingers crossed.  Nope.  No Brennan.  But that's ok.  I took the $15 I saved and went on over to Pottery Barn Kids and bought him...


Photo from Pottery Barn Kids

...the train!  I'm sure he will love it!  I kind of thought the "choo-choo-whoo-whoo" from earlier might have meant that one was his fav-a-fav-a-reet.

You would think that would be the end of it right?  I'd get the stockings in the mail, and then you would see a pretty picture of them hanging on the mantle come December.  I wish.

So when Jason gets home from work, I told him of my exciting shopping adventure.  He says, "You got me a snowman? I'll have to see it."  In my mind I am screaming, "Oh no, you've got to be kidding me," (or maybe I actually said that out loud.)  After a discussion of iconic Christmas figures, and the non-returnability of my purchase my thrifty shopping skills, it was concluded that Jason would be alright with the snowman, but he'd much rather have the Santa. 

Well, OK, if you say it like that. 

Of course, I ordered him the Santa stocking.  There's no way I was going to have him keep the snowman.  Every time I looked at it I would feel like the Grinch.  As soon as it comes in, that baby will be relisted on eBay.  I'm sure there is a Jason out there that really wants a snowman stocking.

So again, you would think that would be the end of it, right? 

Nope, not a chance. 

So morning comes around and I have an email with the title "Your paypal payment has been refunded."  My first thought was, "Yes, they couldn't find that stinkin' snowman!"  But, my hopes were quickly dashed.  The email actually said this:

"Message from merchant: Hi, I am so sorry, but I just can not find the Heather stocking. I just don't know what happened to it! I am giving you a full refund. again sorry."

Really? 
Really? 
How difficult should buying three Christmas stocking be?  So off to the Pottery Barn Kids website I go again.  (I should really get a frequent shopper discount.) 

So you would like after looking at the pictures approximately 7,287 times, plus already having purchased a reindeer from eBay, that my choice would be easy. Just get the reindeer, right? Nope. After the fiasco, I decided that me and that reindeer stocking just weren't meant to be.


Instead, I got a snowman. Yep, me and Frosty, and that's my final answer.

I hope.

Naptime Adventures

Brennan used to be the best napper.  You could lay him down and you wouldn't hear a peep out of him for almost 3 hours.  Now?  Not so much.

In my opinion, he still needs to take a little nap in the afternoon or he becomes Mr. Grumperton before supper.  And sometimes he still does.  But most of the time here lately, his opinion is naptime = party time.

Brennan's not just any kind of partier.  Nope, he's a steathy partier.  I can be downstairs not hearing any sounds from upstairs thinking, "Yay, he's taking a real nap today!"  All the while he's making his room look like a huge bomb went off.  (I think a bomb might be a neater option.)

Tuesday when I went upstairs to check on him after only a half an hour, it already looked like a crime scene.  When I opened the door he was holding a wooden letter A from his name plaques that were hanging on the wall, and he says, "Letter A. A... A... A....  A...B...C...D...E."  At least he's practicing his ABC's while he's being Mr. Destructo.  On this occasion he also decided to discover how the inner workings of the Diaper Genie operate.  Of course I had just put a new refill in and he had the bag stretched out all over the room.

I tried to put it back together....


.Did you ever wonder how they get all that plastic inside the ring?  Me neither until now. 

All I could come up with is it must really take a genie.

I completely understand the name now.

Halloween Recap

I know, it's already Tuesday.  I had priorities though, I used my internet time yesterday to do some more Christmas shopping.  Not to brag or anything, but Christmas shopping that I am almost done with!!! Yay!  I knew you would understand.

Let's see, my birthday was pretty good.  We weren't able to do anything too special this year since Jason's so busy at work.  (After this week it should get better, poor guy.)  So most of my day was spent with Brennan just like any other, except he went around saying "Happy Appy," his version of happy birthday. : ) 

It was rainy and cold most of the weekend, so we really didn't get to do everything we hoped.  There was a Halloween Carnival at the Golf Course Friday night, but we skipped it.  The call to stay inside warm and dry was too great.

Trick-or-Treating in the neighborhood was scheduled for Saturday night.  It was still raining, but we braved the elements.  (The call of the candy was just too great this time.)

Before we left the house I whipped up some spooky goodies.


Some Mummy Dogs.  How cute are they!  The effect was lost on Brennan, as he just peeled all the bandages off to eat the dog.


And some Monster Mac & Cheese.  Yummy!


Here's Brennan in his costume.  He was Plex from Yo Gabba Gabba.


A Halloween Rainbow.


Nothing like trick-or-treating with an umbrella.


The boys collecting some more loot.

We lasted over an hour before Brennan went into meltdown mode.  When we got back to the house, the candy basket we left on the porch was still half full.  Nobody felt like passing out candy, so we just left it out there and closed the door, ha!

Sunday we took down all the Halloween decorations, and threw away the stinky, slimy pumpkins.  Next year we will definitely wait a week or so before carving pumpkins.  By Halloween all three of them looked like shrivelled up old men who forgot to put their dentures in.  Not the look I was going for.  Oh, and a note to self for future reference.  Fake spiderwebs are much harder to remove than real ones, so winding them mutiple times around the trees...not a good thing.

So long October!