Small House, Big Family

W are packing up our new van tomorrow and heading to North Carolina! So excited! Ive never been! That and the fact that I get to say "I have a new van!" Wow, how old am I? It's very evident that you are aging when you get excited about a washer that can wash fifteen to twenty pairs of jeans at a time, a stove that can boil water in two minutes and driving a minivan but you know what.., I love my age and I love my stage... of life.

Were going to NC to stay with Justin's brother and his family. Justin's parents who live in our town (about a mile from us) are driving there as well and his sister and her two boys are flying in from Road Island. Were celebrating Christmas with them early. They (his brother & Family) just bought a new house so we thought that we would break it in the right
 way!

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We have made a major decision when it comes to Christmas traditions, this year. Typically we put our Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving night. I also hand out our new Christmas ornaments. This year, however, we haven't done either, yet. I have the ornaments but our decision comes to the Christmas tree, were not going to have one! Huge, if you ask me! The thing is we're (more me than "we") are overwhelmed with the size of our house, the limited space in general let alone for a baby to crawl and cruise, let alone for a tree. Vada is SO mobile now and I am afraid that the tree will be a huge distraction and a huge inconvenience for us and especially me during the day. Plus, she could easily get hurt. Maybe its all an excuse to make my life easier but I can guarantee you that I am no scrooge and I truly love being festival but I also believe that this will be best for our bigger than (our) house sized family-- at least for this year.

With that being said, I do love having a Christmas tree and I love our family Christmas traditions. It warms my heart with the thought of how warm our house seems to get with the tree up but I am so concerned that Vada will love the tree a little bit more that I would prefer and not be able to stay away from it. This decision, while being the right one for our current situation does create a new dilemma-- What can we do to replace the tree for the sake of our family tradition?

With the trip to NC, our time is limited for crafty ideas and when we return for our pre Christmas-Christmas we have to celebrate Jasmines 12th birthday sometime before the official birthday of Jesus-- Christmas Day. Which I might mention we wont be officially celebrating Christmas together-- as a whole, on the actual "day". Nope, this year the girls' dads' have them for all holidays. Therefore, we end up doing the meal, the gifts and the whole "Santa thing" on a whole separate day. To add to this crazy mix, Justin has to work, so actually, Christmas day it'll be just little V and I.  So who knows what we will come up with..., but if you have any ideas I would LOVE to hear them! Oh..., and don't get me started on our Christmas cards!  I just remembered them! Maybe we do the Happy New Year version of Holiday cards...

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Thanksgiving was nice. This year was the first year that I didn't cook-- anything. at. all! I love, love, love holiday cooking and baking but you know what, I also enjoyed not having to do it! We went to Justin's parents and had a fabulous meal and I got to relax. It was so nice.

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Tonight I told Justin to go to a bar, spend tons of money and eat lots of taco's. Curious? Our local GiGi's Playhouse was having a Taco fundraiser night. I couldn't go because I was finishing our house and packing for the trip but I told him to go. He works so much and I was thrilled that he wanted to go. Plus how often do you think he hears me tell him to go to a bar and spend a lot of money He was thrilled too!

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Speaking of our GiGi's Playhouse. All of the babies/toddlers in the group (that were able to make it) had a photo shoot. And the group picture turned out great! If your on Facebook and your a friend of mine or one of the other parents who had a child in the photo then chances are you have probably already seen the group photo. Its already my screen saver on all of our computers and my cell. These babies are the definition of cute! Small Wonders Photography did an amazing job and they also did  a great job with Vada's photo for the window of GiGi's. I've seen the choices of photos and of course I think that its going to be hard to decision, but I am her mom.


Hopefully we will see Vada's smiling face and bright eyes looking at us from GiGi's window soon!

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Oh...speaking of, "speaking of's", another reason the girls and I didn't make it to tonight's Taco Fundraiser for GiGi' is that both of my older girls ended up grounded.  Lovely, right?

What's that word mean in our house? Grounded. It means that Mamma, that would be me, has extra sets of working hands. Also known as my maids. Okay, so maybe that sounds bad but the truth is, when my girls get grounded they clean and then they go to bed early. For my girls, especially Jasmine, grounding (like going to your room, no friends, t.v, phones, electronics...etc.... doesn't do squat! Half of the time taking those things away from them seems to do nothing at all, they don't seem to mind. This way,at the very least,  I get extra help for the day. I make a list, that is age appropriate, of chores that they have to do and that have to be done by their earlier than normal bedtime. Do I know if this particular method works better over some that we have done in the past?  No, I haven't the foggiest. However, what I do know is that when they get themselves grounded, our house becomes a little cleaner!

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Well, my friends, I hope that all of you had an amazing Thanksgiving as well as the soon to be beginning of the Christmas season!

Were doing Advent night at our church tomorrow before heading out and that is always an amazing time as well as a special way for us to begin the Christmas season. I look forward to it every year.

Finally, as I finish this I realized that I kind of got my idea for the title of this post from this blog. For whatever reason, her blog's title must have been on my mind when I chose my title for this post and I had to give credit where credit was due.

Good night all

A Handful of {Santa} Memories

One Christmas that I vividly remember is from when I was around six or seven years old. (I lived with my biological mother at that time.) I remember a big beautiful tree. I think that it was real but i'm not certain. What I know for sure happened either on Christmas Eve after "Santa" came and delivered gifts or over a period of days leading up to Christmas Day. What I remember is secretly opening all of my gifts.

I was one naughty little girl and probably deserved a little coal in my stocking that year!

I remember carefully pealing off the tape from one side of each package and peaking in just to see and then I strategically placed the taped back on the same spot so that it was it seemed as if nothing had been touched.

Needless to say, my mom caught on and my punishment was that I didn't get the gift that I opened (I think that the punishment was that I lost every gift that I opened, but she only knew of the one.., I think there were actually several.  It was over twenty years ago and my memory is a bit fuzzy but i'm sure you get the idea.) Turns out that the gift I lost was a Care Bear plastic mug. The top of it was the ears of the bear with a slot for a straw. Nothing overly extravagant, but something that I had really really liked at the time. Funny thing about this memory is that it always makes me smile-- now.

Christmas' with my biological dad and his mom, my Grandma Evelyn were always special and I have many great memories of them as well. "Santa" left notes with rhyming puzzle for me at Grandma's house. I would have to read the note, figure it out and that note would lead me to another. Eventually, a note would lead me to a gift.

My Grandmother made me amazing gifts. She made me my first Cabbage Patch doll. She even remembered a home made birth certificate and everything. She also made me my stocking. It was one of those kits..., I think...? It was made of felt and sequins. It had a brown haired little girl who held a dog or cat in her hands. I wish that I still had it. I would like to make the girls each one that's similar to that. Who knows, maybe ill make one for Justin and myself too. We'll see on that one.

The greatest gift that my biological dad has ever given to me he gave me just a few years ago.  It's a that holds a special place in my heart. Its not only filled with memories of my Grandmother  gift filled with wonderful memories of my Grandmother, once a year it's filled with milk too.  I remember catching Grandma drinking "Santa's" milk from this special mug as well as eating his cookies too. It was the same mug that my grandma used when my dad and his brother were children and then she used with me. Now, I get to use it every year with my girls.

One of the things I love most about Christmas are the memories. I remember a handful of the gifts that I have received over the years, none from when I was really young however. Yet, I remember situations. The opening of the gifts. The stocking. Grandma and her poems... I cant wait to hear the memories that my girls have (or will have). I hope that some day this silly mug will hold a special place in their hearts because of the memories they are able to associate with it.

{2007}



{2008}



(2009 Christmas we spent at Justin's parent's House)

{2010}

Our Family Tree

Each year one of my favorite things to do around Christmas is making our Christmas cards. I love taking the pictures and designing our cards (even if I am designing it through the Wal-Greens website). I even like addressing the envelopes and putting on the stamps. I know its crazy but everything focused on or pertaining to Christmas lifts my spirits and puts a smile on my face,besides the crazy shoppers.



This year for my birthday I received a gift card for a family session with a local photographer. I planned on using our family picture from that session for this years Christmas cards. However, there is not one single day between now and Christmas that we can all get together to do the session. Plus with Vada's immune system being so vulnerable I am a bit nervous at exposing her to more people. So the family picture will have to wait until after Christmas.




I did consider doing the photography for our card myself. It is what I have done for all of our past cards and announcements, but I decided against it this year.




Justin's mom recently gave a book from my amazon wish list that was filled with idea's for Christmas crafts. In it I found my inspiration for our 2010 Christmas cards!


It required a little green paint. Lots of messy hands and a whole lot of giggles!

Tradition

Every time I hear or read the word "Tradition" I think of Fiddler on the Roof. A musical that I watched for the first time with in the last couple of years with Justin and his parents. I never realized that I enjoyed musicals. However, some of my favorite movies are in fact musicals. Fiddler on the Roof wouldn't be one of my favorites, but I did enjoy it.

Each year Justin, the girls and I get a new ornament on Thanksgiving for our Christmas tree. We give them to each other on Thanksgiving night (or the night we may celebrate Thanksgiving). This year we had to wait to hand them out because we were waiting for Vada's and Justin's to come in the mail. Even though Justin didn't mind not getting his at the same time and Vada wouldn't know the difference one way or the other I wanted to hold off and wait until we were all able to get the ornaments at the same time.

By waiting until all the ornaments were here I felt that it made a small statement to the girls that together we are family. With Jasmine and Kiliegh going back and forth between their dad's I feel that "family" becomes confusing. I want them to realize that doing things together as a family is important. So here when we do family oriented things we wait until we are all together. Even if that means that we do it later than we had planned. The girls have separate visitation schedules and with Justin's work schedule sometimes "later" becomes "much later". However, that was not the case this time. Thanksgiving was on Thursday and we received the two ornaments on Friday and then we exchanged them today. Not a long wait at all.

Vada's ornament is "typical". It's her first Christmas, so we got her a porcelain rattle that says "Baby's First Christmas" on it.

Kiliegh's ornament is of a little "hip hop" dancing girl. This year we have finally found an activity that Kiliegh enjoys and that holds her attention. Dancing. I am not a parent that believes a child needs an extra curricular activity but at the same time I don't discourage them. Up until dance, for Kiliegh, she wanted to try out everything but liked nothing. When she came home asking to be in dance I was a bit skeptical. We have signed her up for so many different activities but she has wanted to quit them before barely starting them. Luckily, those activities were always seasonal things like soccer and T-Ball. Dance was a bit different. Dance was consistent. Never the less she has been doing dance all year. Her excitement has not diminished but grown and we have watched her self confidence grow with her experience. I was excited when I found her ornament, it fit her well.

Jasmine's ornament also fit her and her new love for a new activity. Karate. Karate was such a great choice for Jasmine. After Kiliegh began dance Jasmine wanted to go too. That choice was something that we did discouraged. The competition between Jasmine and Kiliegh is an issue and probably more so than typical siblings who live with both parents. Plus, since dance was the first thing that Kiliegh has enjoyed doing we really wanted it to be "her thing". So we suggested a few options to Jasmine. Some of her friends are in gymnastics, which is something that she has also stated that she would like to do again and she has in the past so we knew that it would be something that she would enjoy. We also suggested Taekwando which is something one of her best friends does. Then we brought up Karate. There is a place about two blocks up from us that we said she could ride her bike to and that would be all of her own (something her sister isn't doing and a place that her friends aren't going to). She chose Karate. Were glad that she did. She has been doing it for four months and is already getting promoted to her third belt, the orange belt. Her confidence has also is improved and we've noticed that the values being taught in martial arts are values that we as parents are trying to teach as well. It's a great activity all around!

Originally I really wanted to get a wind mill ornament for Justin. He designed and built his very own throughout the end of last year and the beginning of this year. He was so proud of it and it truly was amazing. It looked like something you would have to special order and spend thousands of dollar on. Plus, it really generated power. So, when I went searching and only found printed picture medallions with wind mills on them, I was very disappointed. I thought for sure as popular as the "going green" and the wind farms are becoming I would have easily found what I was looking for. However, I did finally settle on something else that went well with Justin's 2010 achievements. Justin has been a father for over five years now, but this year he has had his first baby. Justin's ornament is of a father figure holding a "new" and naked baby.It wasn't my first choice but I do think it was a good one.

While I was searching for Justin's ornament online Vada's nurse came over for one of her normal visits. When I explained what I was doing she suggested that I get myself a syringe to signify all of the injections that I gave to Vada. Justin and I both agreed that it was a good idea. However, that too was not something easily found. So what we got was a figurine that looks like a nurse. For the personalization we had "Momologist" printed on. Momologist is a trademark of one of my friends, Amy. I got the idea from her blog Momologist.com (formally Larkin's Place). Amy explained to me once that while she didn't put in years at medical school to become a Neurologist or a surgeon she has put in years of being a mom. Her specialty like mine is Momology. I think its clever and I am proud to be a Momologist.

So there it is. One of our family traditions and the story behind this years Christmas tree ornaments.