Yay! I get to go to work!

Literally, that was my thought this morning.

After 5 christmases and two days with no nap for Alaina, I'm ready for some nice solid structured days.

Of course, tomorrow its back to the airport to drop off my sister plus the day off for New Years . . .but at least we will remain at home for the duration of the week.

Christmas was a wonderful time with family all around and several lessons learned. . .

1) bring an extra laundry basket to tote gifts home in, you WILL bring home more than you brought.

2) I really am not fond of big dogs.

3) Missing nap time on day one of break sets the tone for the rest of vacation for the little one and me.

4) Never forget that when your siblings have spouses, your time schedules will never mesh nicely ever again.

5) Having all four of your grandmother's around at out age is a rare thing that one must enjoy . . . but remember that each one very desperately wants to see you for the holidays, so get used to the idea of dissapointing 90-year-old ladies.

6) Even if you only put clothes on your list, you will never get them, at least not the ones you want.

7) My in-laws will never get any gifts off of the list that I send them . . .unless we have already received said gifts from members of my immediate family. (3 duplicate gifts!)

8) I have no place in my mother-in-laws kitchen. She has ruled the house by herself for so long, I can do pretty much nothing to help or help myself. So next year, I'm packing my own stash of snacks to sneak into the house.

Christmas Letters

So we received a few Christmas cards and letter from friends, but nothing big this year. I'm always excited to see everyone's pictures of their families and how they've grown.

I was reading a blog the other day about someone's pet peeve's for Christmas cards. To sum up it basically said if you aren't going to include a picture or family update/letter . . why do you bother? Apparently a signature with "Happy Holidays" isn't cutting the mustard anymore. You can send the cards with just the signature to me, I won't complain, but I have one pet peeve about Christmas Letters . . .

The resume style letter.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Its the letter that just as well be written in a bulleted list with all the family stats at the top because its almost as impersonal as a resume.

Child 1 participated in list A-F this year in school and received awards G-I for their efforts,
Child 2 participated in list J-M this year and received awards . . . . .

You get the idea.
I'm not complaining about what they put in the letter, but about how they present it. At least tell me which club they enjoy the most or the fact that they were benched for most of the volleyball season, but made the winning dig to help get them to finals!Give me something to smile about! I made Jeff laugh as I read one letter in a snootie voice just to illustrate how "structured" I felt it was.

But to complete my holiday, I am simply waiting for the Christmas letter from the best writter of all.

Papa!

Be prepared for the Dangler X-Mas letter! In fact, I may even blog it with the permission of the author! (The co-author/wife will do as well!) These are the kinds of years that make me a little antsy about what went into the letter because Papa didn't call for "ideas" about what we've done . . . which means my siblings and I provided him with enough unforgettable fodder throughout the year so he didn't need to strech his imagination for the 'good stuff.'

What will make the x-mas letter cut?
Papa Elvis and Mommy Marilyn?
Potty Training?
Trips to Colorado?
Trips to Florida?
The ever rotating car cycle of life for our family?
New jobs?

There is just too much to choose from! I have no idea how Papa narrows it down!

But I do know a few things that should make the cut next year . . . and may appear in my own "not-as-awesome-as-Papa's" letter.
- The 10 year high school reunion for me which is also Papa's 40 year reunion!
- Baby number 2
- Potty training and anything that Alaina does silly (everything)

Anyway, I had better not start counting chicks before they hatch.

Big Blog for a Big Weekend . .

I had a pretty good weekend. . .

It started off wonderful beyond belief when I got a call at work from a friend saying she was in town from California and wondered if I would meet her and another friend for lunch. First I cried because I was so happy to hear from her. Second, I giggled because there nothing I love more than getting together with good friends over lunch and third, well, I cried some more because hormones took over my body this weekend.

For the rest of the weekend I finished getting all of our Christmas presents and wrapping all of them, I have a few left that I got boxed, but they are Alaina's Santa, presents, so I wanted to surprise her with the Disney Princess wrapping paper I bought to wrap them in. (They are actually in decorative boxes, but what's the fun of opening presents if you don't get to rip the wrapping paper at her age?
And I should note that our presents from Santa this year are from a real live "Santa." One of Jeff's coworkers offered to drop off some of her daughter's old toys and dress up clothes which I never get my hopes up about because did we grow up with dad's leisure suit as a dress up item sis? Anyway, I was almost in tears when I saw six store purchased Barbie dresses, most with matching slippers and one of which is either a wedding dress or snow princess gown. I was stunned . . . so I cried some more. She'll get some for x-mas this year and some for her birthday, just to share the wealth.

But the biggest success and "oops" was potty training. On Sunday I asked Alaina if she wanted to wear training pants or a pull up and she chose the training pants. I then persuaded her with little more than a small promise of a treat to use the toilet . . .with success! I was so excited, the treat became a small cone from Runza at the Mall. We had a small accident at the mall because mommy lost track of time, but hey, two steps forward, one step back is fine with me!

Of course then there was the incident when we got home. I had daddy take Alaina in to try to use the potty, and soon heard some crying and daddy calling "Mommy! Come here!" Alaina had 'fallen in' for the first time.
Poor thing.
She was mostly scared, but we changed into comfy footed pjs with a pull up and gave lots of hugs and kisses to help. This little incident did nothing to help Alaina's desire to use the big toilet, because now there was the threat of falling in.

Enter the Chocolate Pomander!

Last weekend with the Christmas baking extravaganza, Mom and I made chocolate pomanders, which were mostly consumed by my coworkers on company food day, but I had about 7 left. Alaina came into the living room carrying the small container of Pomanders after her nap on Sunday asking if she could have one. I told her we were saving them for when she went to the bathroom on the toilet to which I got this reply.

"But I did go to the bathroom!"

"I know you did, Alaina," I replied, "and you got ice cream for that time. These are for the next time you go to the bathroom on the toilet."

"Oh . . . Mommy I want to go potty!"

And she did.

Wow. So much excitement for a standard bodily function has never been witnessed in our house before. Alaina and I were dancing in the living room, and of course Alaina's mouth was full of her celebration Pomander.

It was a great end to a successful weekend.

My latest crushes.

Last night Jeff informed me that he doesn't like when I talk about things saying that I am "Madly in Love with _______"


I guess that I never dreamed that he would be offended by that phrase. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a phrase that girls seem to grow up spouting as soon as we discover obsessions? Whether true or not, I have always used that phrase to describe my latest obsessions, be it boys, bands or broadcasters.




Broadcasters?



Oh yes. Broadcasters. This is who I informed Jeff that I was "Madly in Love" with last night.

David Gergen.

He is usually on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN every evening and I love listening to him. He has this wonderful soft spoken way that he talks about politics. He never really condemns anyone on the show, just talks about what could have been a rough choice that someone made.

So far I've agreed with everything I've ever heard him say, or at least, he speaks in such an intelligent manner, that its hard to want to scream at his image "No, you idiot!" like I seem to want to do with some of the other contacts on air who seem to always condemn everything or 'pussy foot' around the issues.

And lets not forget the main show host himself. Anderson Cooper. I have a friend who professed her love for Anderson to me earlier this year, but I hadn't jumped on the bandwagon yet.

But as you can see from the caption on the photo below, We are not alone.

Seriously, I fell head first into my TiVomance with these two during the election. That and the awesome interactive map they had that you just touch and "magic happens." But the map has dissappeared after the election, so I'm only left with my two "Newsies."

(Now that makes me think of the old Disney Musical "Newsies" in which I first discovered Christian Bale and my Movie Romance with him, but that's a different story all together.)

Oh Sis, you can laugh and make fun of me, but these two men have contributed to me becoming a news junkie. Which all in all is a pretty good addiction and I'm kind of enjoying being on top of all the political issues right now.

Carnivour Holiday Meal!

Today is food day at work. And I love food days at work because I get to have a plate of food about every hour that looks like this-

Do you see any cookies or sweets? NOPE! Nothing but Meat!!! Yay!!

Except for the crackers, but they are for the dried beef dip!

Typically in the a.m., the table is full of cookies and more beef jerky and sausages that you can shake a stick at. And I love me some meats! I usually never even get to the cookies.

Its like the first few days after Dad had brought home the venison from the butcher. You could gleefully snitch as much jerky as you wanted because there was so much, you could barely tell any was gone!

That was truly the best part about dad going deer hunting . . .all the meat that came after.

Yum. How on earth do vegetarians give up all the yumminess of beef, turkey, venison, and chicken? I'll hopefully never have to find out.

so I'll sit here, enjoying all of my jerky and such, and drinking my cider courtesy of the one associate that brings the cider mix packets every year.

God bless us everyone!

Company Gift

One month countdown to baby check . . .

I had an appointment yesterday with my midwife . . .

and the high point was getting scolded for not having my tree up yet. Of course she confessed that she didn't have hers up either but was truly horrified when I said maybe we wouldn't put it up this year . . .

So I've slotted tomorrow for the decorating day. Now all I have to do is tell the spouse to carry all the boxes down tonight while I'm at the part-time job.

Does everyone else have theirs up already?

Today was the company gift day at work . . . and I've liked the company gifts for the last two years, I received a two pack of soft sided coolers and Jeff has adopted the smaller one because it fits a six pack of beer for him and one bottle for me inside, and last year I received a hiking style duffle which means it has more pockets and handles that any human being would ever need unless you hiked across the outback.

But this year might just be my favorite. What is it you ask . . .well, I'd tell you, but I'll wait until I get home to downloand the pics to post for an official wordless wednesday posting.

I'm so excited! Who knew that a simply company gift could be so rewarding? ; )

Final Countdown . . .

10 days until Christmas!!!

And how is your shopping going?

This was a big weekend for our house to catch up on a lot of things and some big lessons learned:
1) After three hours of unpleasantries betwixt my spouse and I . . . the christmas cards are in the passenger seat of the new van waiting to be dropped off over lunch.

Lesson Learned: Actual pictures are WAY to expensive to get for Christmas cards. Next year I'll pick out 4 -5 shots of kids and family to make color copiers on the copy machine like Mom and Dad do. . . although the letter will be no where near the level of dad.

2) Mom and I did Christmas baking on Saturday and made a good dent in the pre-holiday baking. During the entire session, she kept saying, "Why didn't we start doing this years ago?" Which my mind translated into "This is much better than trying to do this the day before Christmas Eve at 3 in the morning!"

Lesson Learned: Next year, we need to make a weekend out of it and get the shopping done friday night before. The shopping/softening/plan of attack process should get refined by about year three I hope.

Oh, and we won't plan on cooking indoors all day on the nicest day of December either because . . .

3) I completed MOST of the family christmas shopping on Sunday. this is a tough year for us, with just having bought a new vehicle and shelling out a lot of cash for the other one to be up and running, so I tried to stick to a very strict budget this year . . . which led to a few discussions (not quite heated . . .but a bit intense for us) with the spouse about why spending ten extra dollars on one person was a mortal sin. Oh and by the way, I was the winner and the ten dollars was NOT spent.

Lesson Learned: When we sit down to look at finances for next year . . which we most definitely will with a baby on the way, we are budgeting for gifts for birthdays and Christmas next year.

But the weekend was a pretty good time overall. Alaina had a lot of fun singing along with the Chrsitmas station on the radio yesterday, bursting into song with and occasional "SNOW!" "GLOW," or "CHRISTMAS!" sung at the top of her lungs. She usually joined in with any word at the end of the line that was sung for more that four seconds. It was so darn cute I wish I had it on tape, but she clammed up whenever we got near.

However, we did try going with training pants all weekend, with a few painful parts. I probably didn't approach this right, but after the third time she walked up to inform me that she was poopy and I needed to change her diaper, I informed her that she was wearing panties, and you don't change panties because you don't poop in them.

Alaina stared at me as if I had gone mad.

I said underwear isn't for changing. So you have to go to the bathroom in the toilet. She said, "No! Change my diaper!" So I said again that she wasn't wearing a diaper she was wearing underwear and underwear isn't for pooping and peeing in.

She started to pout quite prettily at this point, so I said I was sad that she didn't want to go to the bathroom in the toilet like big girls because I just know that she is a big girl and can do it. Which I got a resounding "Yes I can!" for so we hugged and went to take off her underwear and take a bath.

I told her next weekend is a no diaper weekend again, which she seemed pretty open too, so we'll see what happens.

I suppose I did that kind of backwards, but I know that she does well with the toilet at daycare so I'm a little frustrated that she refuses to try at home. Its just flat out time to encourage the switch to big girl undies.

Does anyone have a tip on a sticker chart or candy reward system?

"If you weren't pregnant . . ."

is the most horrible phrase uttered by a physician.

"If you weren't pregnant, I could give you a strong antibiotic for that, but instead here are some horse pills . . . take 4 of them a day for ten days."

"There would be a one day pill you could take for that if you weren't pregnant. But instead, here's a prescription for two pills a day and a topical cream for that . . . which you should use for 7-10 days."

Maybe the next worse phrase is . . . and you might want to avoid having sex for a while.

Don't they realize I've got at least four weeks of that coming after I have the baby?!?

Shame on them . . .

10:30 p.m. run to the store last night - Papa would be so proud

Home Sick

Yay me . . . .

I was feeling less than perky after working for 4 1/2 hours to close the store on black friday. But I just chalked it up to being in a car for two hours before being on my feet for 5 hours.

However, by mid-day Saturday it was apparent that I was flat out sick.

I don't know what's worse.

Being sick on a holiday weekend or being sick at your in-laws.

Don't get me wrong I like my in-laws. But it is hard to be nice when you feel so icky and all you want is to heat up a bowl of soup or a cup of tea in the microwave . . .

but they don't have a microwave.
I only wish I were kidding.

By yesterday the sinus pressure and icky sicky throat feeling started which in my world only means one thing . .

Sinus infection.

So I sucked it up and went to the doctor because I have no idea what I can and can't so with a sinus infection while pregnant and was subjected to a novice lecture on sinus infections, their causes, and why doctors like to wait until several days have passed before they treat you for one.

All of which I've know since I was 14. But that's okay, I'm breaking in a new doctor. . . he'll learn.