So about those Christmas Gifts.....

Remember this summer when I was canning and I was trying to be all secretive due to people who would receive said canned items reading my blog.

Yeah.

That totally rocked.

I am a gift giving GENIUS. Tell your friends.

So for Christmas to close friends and family we gave what we referred to as our Canned Family. It was a basket of 6 items that represented each of us.

Mine was White Chocolate Raspberry Sauce


Micah's was Caramel Apple Butter. I don't have a picture of that lid because I bought the image online and so we don't have it anywhere I can display it. Sorry.

Ky's was Cinnamon Apple Sauce


Notice the ingredient "teen angst". So appropriate.

Lizzie's was Vanilla Strawberry Jam



Will's was Peach Butter


And Tasha and Molly had Peach Salsa


Really the only family member left out was Jason so hopefully next year I'll be creative enough to come up with something for him as well.

The baskets with the Canned Family were a big hit and it felt really good to give something local that I also knew would be used. To date I've received a couple of jars back and feel like this might be something I'd like to do next year.

I don't have it in me today to write a blog post so instead I thought I would post the lyrics to one of my favorite Christmas songs. Someday I'm going to recite it as a blessing for a family dinner.

In the immortal words of Kermit the frog I present:

Bless Us All from A Muppet's Christmas Carol

Life is full of sweet surprises
Everyday's a gift
The sun comes up and i can feel it lift my spirit
Fills me up with laughter, fills me up with song
I look into the eyes of love and know that i belong

Bless us all, who gather here
The loving family I hold dear
No place on earth, compares with home
And every path will bring me back from where I roam
Bless us all, that as we live
We always comfort and forgive
We have so much, that we can share
With those in need we see around us everywhere

Let us always love each other
Lead us to the light
Let us hear the voice of reason, singing in the night
Let us run from anger and catch us when we fall
Teach us in our dreams and please, yes please
Bless us one and all

Bless us all with playful years
With noisy games and joyful tears
We reach for you and we stand tall
And in our prayers and dreams
We ask you bless us all

We reach for you and we stand tall
And in our prayers and dreams we ask you
Bless us all

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/the_muppets/#share

Cookiepalooza 2010

I have fond memories of my mother breaking out her cookie cutters every Christmas and rolling out sugar cookie dough for me to press those shapes into. We would bake them and then decorate them with cream cheese frosting, some of which she tinted with food coloring. We would sprinkle and frost and eat ridiculously sweet cookies for Christmas.



I've tried to do that most years with my girls although I have failed once or twice, especially with the divorce and having to split time. You'd be surprised how fast December flies when I only have the kids for half of the time.

This year for December craft day we decided to do cookies. I brought my mothers cookie cutters and a rolling pin, my sister-in-law brought decorations and my mother-in-law provided the house, the oven, the cookie dough, more cookie cutters, baking sheets, rolling pin and the frosting.

Oh also hats and aprons. At least for the little girls.



Myles, my nephew, and Kylie chose to sit this one out. Myles was working on a school project and Kylie, is, well, 15.

Something about 6 year old girls and the magic of Christmas though....it makes my patience go extra long and extra wide.




My mother-in-law happened to have an adjustable table that was the perfect size for little girls with more flour than sense as my Grandma Mary used to say and cookie cutters. As you can see from the pictures it was very serious work.

I occasionally took breaks to play with my little boy who learned how to turn around and climb down the stairs at Grandma's house.


All of my children have been my play "pillows" at one time or another. This is Will being my pillow while I pretended to snore. He was actually really placid about it considering he doesn't really know what a pillow is.

Overall Cookiepalooza 2010 was a raging success and we went home with far more cookies than I can possibly consume this holiday season (although I'm willing to give it my best shot).

The girls had a pretty awesome time that night too although that is another post for another day.

Someone asked me why the cookies. Because between you and me it isn't always my favorite activity, bending over and scooping flour and dough and sprinkles everywhere for several hours. So why?

I hope that in 20 years both Lizzie and Paloma look back and tell their husbands, their friends, their families about the holiday memories of making cookies with their cousin at Grandma's house. I hope that it will be a tradition for them, the cookies, just like it was for me. I hope that my mothers cookie cutters get passed down to my daughters and to their children and that Julie's legacy of making holiday cookies extends to her great grandchildren and beyond.

That hope, that sincere wish for future generations, makes flour and dough and sprinkles just not seem so bad.

Plus, there is no downside to cookies.

Christmas in California

We lived in Nevada for 9 months and then moved to California. We thought the job situation, at least for Brian, would be better and I was hopeful to finish school. Brian had family in California that we moderately liked and they really talked up the place so in July we moved from Nevada to Modesto, California. Which is farm country, not beach country, in case you wondered.

We had a small Ford Ranger truck and a GMC Safari mini-van so we left a LOT of stuff in Nevada and either sold it or asked my father to store it. Particularly the Christmas items. He promised he would ship them to me when the time came.

He lied.

As December approached I asked him to ship them to me. He instead sent me $20. Neither Brian nor I wanted to buy yet ANOTHER fake tree when we had a small but good one in Nevada. I was also disturbed that many of my Christmas ornaments were at his house.

California had not quite turned into the money pile we had hoped for. Brian was working as a courier for a pet laboratory using his own truck. We couldn't afford child care so Kylie, at age 3-4 rode around with him all day on his runs. I worked part time as a puppeteer (3 ft tall puppets) and also part time at Jo-Ann Fabrics. On the weekends I was also the mascot Splasher the Frog for the water company. I sold Mary Kay on the side as well.

We had more money than in Nevada but we had less to work with over all. We were using a card table and 3 plastic lawn chairs for both dining and watching TV. We finally got a couch from goodwill for $25 that was brown on brown flowers from the 70's. We didn't have a washer and/or dryer. When we finally did get them the dryer almost immediately had issues and I ended up hanging wet clothes around the house in November.

Because we didn't want to buy another tree and frankly didn't have the money to do so I bought a string of red Christmas lights and taped them to the wall in the shape of a tree. I think Brian later came in and put push pins in to better hang the light tree up. We taped some very light wooden and plastic ornaments up inside of it and them placed the gifts at the bottom.

It was stark. It was sad.

It's not a favorite Christmas memory for me because I am reminded that I tried to separate from Brian during this time. I had had enough. I hated California. I was sick with hypothyroidism but didn't know it yet because we didn't have medical insurance. Kylie had no friends. Brian and I eventually worked it out that time but it was a rough season for sure.

After we patched things up that month Brian went and enlisted in the Active Duty portion of the Air Force. January 4th we were moved to Tucson. Life got a LOT better then.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Not too long ago Micah and I were having a discussion except it was more like me just telling him what Christmas' were like when we didn't have any money. I know for a fact he too has experienced Christmas where money was tight and his mom had to be creative with decorations and gifts but he has no memory of it.

I, however, have several memories of less than 12 years ago that are far more recent than his. So as we were discussing he commented about being poor at Christmas and was glad we didn't have to go through that and he's right, it's nice to be solidly middle class and have the option of CHOOSING to cut back for Christmas instead of HAVING to.

That said though, those Christmas' shaped who I am as a person and I think really taught me about doing with less. I thought I would share them with you for the next couple of days because they are not sad memories for me but rather happy ones. I think they explain a little about who I am as an adult as well.

The first Christmas after Brian and I were married we were living in a crappy ghetto apartment in Las Vegas. Our neighbors next to us and below us both did crack and the ones next to us routinely locked their children as young as 3 out of the apartment to wander around the property so they could get high. There was a shooting of another apartment dweller just a month after we had moved in because he had robbed the bank up the road and run back to his home while the police pursued him. Our carpet was officially the color "Burnt Orange" and we had leaks in the ceiling so bad that after one bad rainstorm the only thing holding the massive water from bursting forth in our bedroom were the layers 15 years worth of paint on the ceiling.

I worked at Citibank, the evening shift and Brian worked at Home Base which is/was a Home Depot wanna be. He also worked at night stocking. We both worked full time and bought in less than I alone make now. We couldn't afford daycare and we both worked a night shift but in an odd way so that Kylie was only without a parent around for about an hour and a half at night. One of our neighbors came over and sat on the couch and watched TV during this overlap time and we paid her $30 a week I think.


Our grocery budget, for 3 people was $75 bi-weekly. That means our monthly grocery budget was $150 and when we went grocery shopping it was with lists and a calculator. It was hard.

We lived in the same city as my father and stepmother and they offered us a string of lights and some old decorations for Christmas.

Brian scoured the newspaper ads on his lunch break at work and found us a 4ft tall Christmas tree at a drug store. It was around $30. Our parents from Alaska sent some decorations and stockings and I believe we bought another sting of lights as well.

We strung a set of lights on the tree (which was only slightly taller than Kylie at the time) and another set around the apartment. We hung stockings and Christmas cards on the wall. It certainly wasn't fancy. But once we had a few gifts under the tree it certainly felt like Christmas.

Because it was our first Christmas as a married couple AND we had a small child I think our families went a little overboard. It also could have been the size of the tree. In either case on Christmas morning only the top 4 inches plus the star (made of tinfoil) were visible above the stacks of gifts, most of them for Kylie as they should have been.

That year I remember I bought Brian a tool kit at a large department store and he bought me a sweater and skirt. Kylie got a pressed wood bookshelf from us. I think our total budget for gifts was $100 that year.

We had celebrated Christmas at my fathers house that year which was not a fun experience. At the time it felt like Kylie was the "bad" child while my niece, who was 7, was the golden child. Just prior to the gift giving one of my fathers former step children pulled me aside and informed me that he hadn't purchased any gifts for Kylie as he hadn't realized she was "so old". Then he turned around and gave another infant at the party a fancy package with toys in it. So it wasn't that he hadn't bought gifts for any babies, he just hadn't purchased anything for her.

Kylie was oblivious to any of my emotions that day and just reveled in the excitement and business of Christmas. Brian and I came together, united in our poverty and against my father's family which at the time felt horrific. I have never spent another holiday with them since.

Despite the lack of money that year we didn't FEEL poor though. We described it at the time as newly married. Newlyweds don't generally have a lot of money and we just chalked it up to that.

It's a happy Christmas memory, despite the total cost of it being less than $200.

It's not the cost of the holiday that makes it merry, it's how you view it and live it at the time.

Halloween

What? I'm behind? Yeah I know. Life is busy, it's fall and birthdays and Halloween and thanksgiving and well, you know. Work is busy too.

For weeks Lizzie had been saying she wanted to be a lady bug for Halloween. Lo and behold when we got to the costume store where there was a Lady bug costume she instead chose to be.....



A southern belle.

*sigh*

Still cute. Just more expensive.

William was a blue monster. I thought he was adorable. He cursed at me in only the way he can. Scream, crying and trying to claw my eyes out.


Kylie was Alice from Resident Evil. I hear it's a video game. And a movie or two. I don't play those games or watch those movies so for all I know it was a reason to wear a short red dress.


Lizzie, Will, Leslie (my long suffering but patient mother in law) and I went to Jenny's nursing home on Sunday for trick or treating.

Imagine, if you will, the fun of a lot of patients and older folks, some not as sharp as they used to be, gathered in a circle and handed bags of candy. Now the bags were for them to give out to the kids who came through but the way it was packaged certainly led to some confusion. They were Halloween treat bags and were tied closed, like you would give to friends and coworkers with treats for them to eat.

Yeah, some of them got into the candy before the kids got there.

We were early (on time) and so not everything was set up completely. I used Will has a distraction while we waited for the trick or treating to start.




I think there needs to be a study on how long a single baby can entertain a room full of adults. I bet it can last up to 5 hours or longer.




Trick or treating at night was a success. Well. A success in that Will fussed ALMOST the entire time, Lizzie only screamed and cried once and we trick or treated without coats.

Next year Micah takes them.

Mothers Day

Mother's Day is, naturally, a bittersweet day to me. On the one hand I am blessed with 3 wonderful children. I know beyond measure how truly blessed I am and how each of them is unique and wonderful and the fact that I get to be their mother is somethings overwhelming. Who thought THAT would be a good idea?

But on the other hand, I am minus a mother. This is the 4th Mother's Day my mom has been gone and it tears me up inside still.

The last Mother's Day she was still here was awful. I knew it was her last. We had been told in February that she might have a year with successful chemo treatment and sheer luck. So while I was expecting one more Christmas with her I knew that May 2005 was her last Mother's Day. And I was heartbroken.

I sent her a poetry book about Mothers and an Iris bookmark and cried repeatedly all day that day. Sometimes the words "I love you" just aren't enough and it felt like no matter how many times I told her I loved her, she would never really know the depth of how I felt about her. How much I needed her. There are no real words to tell someone that honestly.

I know a lot of people feel that way. So they come up with other things to say to convey how much they love someone when " I love you just isn't enough". My mom and I had ours since for a long time it was just the two of us.

Me: How much do you love me Mommy?
Her: Up to the sky and back down again.

At 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 that seems like such a huge amount. That someones love could go all the way up and back down again seems enormous.It still is.

I have very few pictures of my mother and I together growing up. It seems as though she was always the one taking the pictures, whether it be me hanging out with a 20lb cabbage or performing at a Christmas show in the mall or running a mile in 8th grade. She was always there, my childhood is well documented. She and I just don't appear together very often.

I will share this though. Just keep in mind, this was taken June, 1979. I don't have much hair and hers, well, let's just say, it was in style for the times.

I miss you Mommy.

Up to the sky and back down again.

St. Patricks Day (a day late)

As my family knows, St. Patricks Day in my house is huge. I don't celebrate any holiday for a whole week like I do St. Patricks Day.

Every year my Aunt Connie sends me a St. Patricks Day Card and a gift of some sort. This year it was window clings and cups. Which was awesome. (She also sent me a St. Patricks Day Table Runner a few years back because I coveted her daughter's table runner for awhile. She's the bestest Auntie. But don't tell the others.)

All week I generally wear green clothes, green beads, hair hair ties and on St. Patricks Day itself I wear a green tattoo (temporary of course).

But not this year. THIS year the headiest head honcho from HR came to visit us. Her Compensation head honcho (think Cheney to the honcho being Bush) SAT WITH ME while I handled employee issues.

So my director asked me to tone it down. No crazy socks (I own 4 pairs of St. Patricks Day socks), no crazy hair bows or bands (uh yeah, a few of those too) and no tattoo. Talk about crushed.

I managed to wear my socks but kept every else to a dull St. Patricks Day roar.

At least at work. At HOME however, everyone managed to wear green. Well, except the baby. He doesn't know his colors yet. (Never mind that I'm the one who dressed him. And he HAD a St. Patrick's onesie from Aunt Connie.)

Nana came to town to watch Kylie's performance this Friday in the Phantom of the Opry and we went to Applebee's for dinner.

Will enjoys his Green Beer. (Not really people!)

Will and I sport our temporary St. Patricks Day tattoos.

Lizzie enjoys her green balloon animal T-Rex hat.

Nana enjoys a dinosaur balloon hat from time to time as well.

Valentines plate

I like making stuff with my kids hand prints. I look at the stuff I made with Kylie's little hands when she was a year old and I'm amazed that now she's talking about college and majors and purple hair dye.

Thanksgiving of 2008 I made this plate with both girls hand prints. I figured I wasn't having anymore kids so it was okay.

I was wrong. Obviously.

(And yes, I made their hand prints look like Turkeys. It's hard to see the beaks and feet unless you look at the picture up close.)

Earlier this week I had this brilliant idea for a Valentines craft plate that would use the kids handprints but I sadly didn't have the kids. And oh, I had jury duty and went back to work this week. So my time was slightly limited.

Lucky for me Brian had to work Saturday and his girlfriend is out of town so the kids were essentially home and doing nothing today. With that in mind I borrowed them for a couple of hours so we could do my awesome craft.

I love going to this particular pottery painting place. I drive almost 45 minutes to get there but the people there are awesome and I consider it worth the drive.

It's Arts on Fire studio in Highlands Ranch and no, I'm getting nothing for mentioning them in my blog. They wouldn't know me from Adam and they certainly wouldn't know about my blog. David the owner is so friendly and nice and his wife remembered us when we walked in, even though it's been over a year since we were there.

Today Kylie painted a fairy, Lizzie painted a small unicorn and small turtle and I made this awesome plate:
It's isn't glazed or fired yet, they will do that this week. So the colors will be a little brighter when I actually get it back but I love it overall. It's a pale pink and it says "Love is the" and then I used hand prints for Kylie and Lizzie and Will's feet since he still keeps his hands clenched in little fists to make hearts and then on the bottom is says "Of this home".

The meaning is of course "Love is the heart of this home".

I meant for it just for a Valentines decoration but I'm kinda thinking about keeping it up all year round. Because it is the heart of our home. And it just looks awesome.

Sometimes I really think I'm the craft queen of the world. Then I remember I'm really lazy and relegate the title to someone with a little more spunk.