A holiday ode to my kids

Twas about a week after Christmas

and all through the house

the hubby and I awake in bed

laying there as quiet as a mouse

We were silently appreciating

our house full of discord

we knew it would soon be over

and all would be bored

Our teen and adult age children

and all of their friends

filling our home with chaos

we wished would never end

Slamming doors, laughing voices

stomping feet on the stairs

smells of 2am pizzas cooking

carelessly filling the air

Night after night of sleep interrupted

waking to a house in disorder

A grocery bill that makes your wallet cringe

and a laundry pile like no other

But all these things I cherish

there's no need to pretend

I realize my children will be grown soon and gone

my only wish is that these times would never end

how The Hubby and I met

The Hubby and I are celebrating our anniversary today.

We've been married 20 years.

In honor of our anniversary, I thought it might be fun to tell you the story of how we met.

Plus, I'm not a real mushy person (meaning no love poems here).

This seems more my style.

Our story begins the fall of my junior year in high school. That was the year my sister, Alex, left our home in Holland, Michigan and to move in with my dad and step mom in Kalamazoo (about an hour away).

One Friday evening I arrived in Kalamazoo for a regular weekend visit. My step mom was busy making dinner and asked if I could go pick up Alex. She told me Alex was over at Matt's house.

Matt was Alex's new boyfriend who I had never met.

I didn't bother writing down the directions or his address. It seemed pretty simple and figured I could remember.

I pulled into Matt's driveway. The garage door was open so I walked into the garage and knocked on the back door.

I waited a minute or so and then I knocked again, a little harder this time. I could hear music blaring on the other side of the door and I figured they must not be able to hear me. After another minute and still no answer, I knocked again, a little louder this time. Waited some more, no answer, so I banged my fist on the door as loud as I could.

Before I can finish knocking the door flies open and simultaneously the guy opening it yells impatiently "WHAT?!!!"

Oh, this is where I should mention that he is soaking wet with nothing but a hand towel clutched around his waist.

For a very long second I'm standing there, my fist still in the knocking position. The only thing that moved was my jaw dropping open.

I quickly put my arm down (and close my mouth) and try to remember what I'm there for.

I blush, stammer a couple incoherent words and then ask if Matt is home.

Naked Hand Towel Guy is blushing too.

All over I notice.

Naked Hand Towel Hot Guy tells me I have the wrong house. That Matt lives across the street and a couple houses down.

Now I'm feeling really stupid.

Naked Hand Towel Hot Guy With Really Nice Legs must be able to tell how uncomfortable I am.

He starts rambling.

He tells me how he is good friends with Matt.

How he thought the knocking was Matt messing with him.

I start rambling too.

Telling him who I am.

That my sister is dating Matt.

Where I'm from.

My social security number.

Naked Hand Towel Hot Guy With Really Nice Legs And The Most Beautiful Eyes I've Ever Seen makes some more small talk and then points me in the direction of Matt's house.

And I leave.

A little dazed and confused.

We ended up running into each other again later that night.

It turns out Naked Hand Towel Hot Guy With Really Nice Legs And The Most Beautiful Eyes I've Ever Seen Plus Really Great Hair has a girlfriend.

She must have heard the story of our meeting.

I was guessing by the way she glared at me.

But that didn't stop Future Hubby* and I from becoming friends.

*I will call him this now because if I continued to add all the other adjectives for his appealing characteristics as I got to know him better to "Naked Hand Towel Guy"...well, we could be here forever.

And he turned out to be a wonderful friend.

Over the next couple of years we had a lot of fun hanging out. He was always there to make sure I was doing okay.

He showed up at the hospital when Nae was born and I was all alone.

If I heard a motorcycle pull up outside the little apartment Nae and I lived in, I knew it was him stopping by to see how we were doing.

he sold this to pay for my engagement ring. that's when I figured out he must really like me

When my sister, Alex passed away he listened to all the endless talk I did about her and comforted me when I cried.

We started dating not long after that. It only took 3 years after that awkward meeting in his garage.

Hubby says he can still remember what I was wearing that day (he IS the ultimate "detail guy").

And for once, I can say the same.

It was a towel.

A green one.

Or maybe it was blue?

Christmas "firsts" and "lasts"

We are having a wonderful Christmas here and I hope you are too.

Each year I think "this is my favorite stage of my kids lives" but then the next year I am surprised at how much I love the next stage.

I never thought I'd love the teen years. But I can honestly say that I really do.

The way they interact with each other (most of the time) is really fun to watch. We spend so much time laughing.

I'm not sure if having our oldest off at college has made us all appreciate "family time" even more or if it has something to do with the move to a different state, but the kids are close and seem to support each other and enjoy spending time together. Don't get me wrong, they still have their moments but the good ones outweigh the bad ones and those are the times I choose to focus on.

This Christmas as I sat back and watched my kids, I realized that this year there were a lot of "firsts" and "lasts" in our home. I thought I would see if I could write some of them out.

a first: having my children's "significant others" (ie. boy/girl friends) at our home during the holidays.

a last: having our kids all to ourselves....Nae spent part of Christmas day with her boyfriends family (which is also a "first" too) I guess I have to share right?

a first: my kids are finally enjoying family game time (in the past I always had to force them to play, now they actually ask to play).

a last: I think this may be the last Christmas that Tony runs around the house jumping up and down continually on Christmas Eve saying "Tomorrow is Christmas! Tomorrow is Christmas!" all of the other kids seem to have outgrown the "childish excitement" for Christmas....which is sad.

searching for the Christmas Pickle....it helps to tell them ahead of time that the prize is a gift card this year....

a first: Not having "what I want for Christmas" lists ten miles long from each kid. This year Mac's list was "a curling iron" and Buds list was "a DVD". Not fun to work with, especially when there are grandparents wanting ideas too.

I should mention that Tony only had one item on his list this year too....

a first: We will be meeting the parents of Nae's boyfriend today. Makes me feel old, but she is a senior in college so I guess these things have to happen soon or later.

a first: Having my girls help me in the kitchen (and not having to beg) and enjoying cooking together.

my girls....

Have a wonderful rest of the holiday season everyone!

birthdays and ovarian gymnastics

Yesterday my oldest son turned 19.

I like to blog a little something for my kids birthday.

They like it too....

um...yeah.

I'm a little late (I babysat the twins yesterday).

Having those babies around does something to me.

It's hard to explain

it must have something to do with the ovaries or something.

I get this yearning,
the ovaries start limbering up,

stretching out the hamstrings, a couple of jumping jacks,

you know get the blood flowin'

(I think my male readers just logged off).

So I got out all the old photo albums and looked at pictures of Bud when he was a baby.
I could feel my ovaries heave a big sigh.

Really.

I was all sentimental and sappy and stuff.

The Hubs came home and saw the big pile of photo albums out

"why are all those out?" he asked....with a little bit of an attitude

...if you ask me

I wanted to say "duhhhh! It's our baby's 19th birthday

I'm having a maternal moment here!

Just back off!"

You know, if he can't figure out by now what it does to me when our babies get all "grown up"and stuff.... that it makes me want to pull out all the old photos and droll over those big fat baby cheeks and big blue eyes....

well ,it would be useless to explain it to his "maleness"

can I have an "amen" ladies?

ahem. maybe it's just me.

So anyhoo, yesterday I did a lot of page flipping and sighing and "awww"ing.

Me, the photo albums and my ovaries.

and I realized I do have some regrets (don't we all)

but my biggest is not appreciating it all more...

that, and not kissing those baby cheeks till they chapped.

my ovaries know what I'm talking about.

Getting my Christmas spirit on

I FOUND IT!

I decided that for me to get into the Christmas mood I needed to find my nativity scene even though I won't be putting it up (I will put it out Christmas day and just keep a close eye on it).

Well, then I had to take it out and look at it because it is my favorite Christmas decoration.

Then I thought maybe it would help get in the Christmas mood even more if I blogged about it.

Yeah, kinda lame, but did I mention this is my favorite Christmas decoration?

Like I mentioned before, it was made by a woman at my church back in Kalamazoo.

She is a weaver. She weaved all the clothes and dyed all the different wool that she uses.

This is Mary and Baby Jesus. Mary has some beautiful black curls (you can't see very well) and Jesus has some crazy hair going on.

This is Joseph. I love his curly beard.

Each Magi has a coordinating camel.

This guy has an awesome braid

Here's one of the sheep. They are very cute.



Here's a Shepherd holding a sheep.



I like him because of his very cool coat.


This is my favorite Magi. He's got some major bling going on.
Silk shirt and a little mink on his coat and hat.
Another cool thing about the lady that makes these is that she will incorporate any thing you want into your set. If you got some old jewelry from great grandma she can use it.
(last I heard she not making these anymore)



The detail is very cool. Each camel has a little pouch that rattles with something in it and a pack on their back with blankets. See the little tassels?

The donkey is my favorite (not sure why)

He even has the cross on his back (you know the legend that he didn't get that until after he carried Mary pregnant with Christ).

Yes, I'm feeling a little better about Christmas now.

And btw thanks for reading!

The Christmas Pickle and our other silly traditions

When Nae was in the fourth grade I was visiting her classroom just before Christmas break.
The teacher asked the kids to share what their favorite family Christmas tradition were.
I'll never forget the look on Nae's face when she looked to me for an answer.

The truth was we had none.
Zero. Zilch.

I wasn't raised with any traditions.
I'd had Nae young, got married, had another baby, went through nursing school, worked full time had two more kids. Life was a blur at that time.
I was 26 years old. I had trouble planning my meals for the week.

But after listening to those cute little kids proudly describe the special things they did around the holidays I knew we needed to find some traditions.
And fast!

So I started talking about it with the kids.

Now I will warn you these are pretty silly traditions.
There are no deep meanings in these.
It's just what we do as a family.

Christmas ornaments:
I don't know if you'd count this as a tradition but I do. Each kid has their own Christmas ornament box. Every year I buy a new ornament or two for each kid that has something to do with what they are interested in that year. Because I only have one ornament from when I was a kid, I wanted for my kids to someday leave home and have a box full of ornament and memories.
When we decorate the tree it makes it easy for the kids to hang their own ornaments and reminisce.

Christmas Eve PJ's and Secret Santa:
One year I thought it would be nice to have new PJ's for Christmas morning. I wrapped them and told the kids they got to open one gift Christmas Eve. I know, it was kinda mean. They were not thrilled with their PJ's but then to my surprise the next year they asked if we could do that again. So now every year we do the same thing. The kids joke about how they don't know what the gift is. They act all excited and silly. The only twist now is when we have others with us on Christmas Eve, guess what they get. Yep, new PJ's. Now that the kids are older they have also added Secret Santa on Christmas Eve. The kids draw names just between themselves at Thanksgiving and open that gift the night before Christmas.

Monkey Bread and A Christmas Story:
We all get into our new PJ's and make monkey bread, drink egg nog and watch the best Christmas movie ever.
Yes, A Christmas Story. I think everyone in my family can recite that movie by heart. And if you haven't seen it...then you're lame! I can't imagine there is anyone living in the USA who hasn't seen it but if you haven't just go to TBS on Christmas Eve, they play it nonstop, back to back all day and night long (yes, it's that good!).

Santa comes:
Yes, Santa still comes at our house. When my kids got to the age where they notified me that they didn't believe that Santa was real we had a little heart-to-heart (or shall I say a veiled threat). This is kinda how my end of the conversation went: "Honey, you can believe whatever you want-- but Santa still comes to our house and brings all the presents. If you decide to tell your brothers or sister what you believe-- then you will get nothing from Santa--oh, and did I mention that Santa brings ALL the presents?"

It worked for me.


The Christmas Pickle:
I'm a little worried that this might be a little anticlimactic....so many have asked. Back during that first year of trying to find some traditions, someone told me about the Christmas Pickle. I had to search forever to find one. Now a days they are everywhere and come with a little card describing some "pickle legend" or something.
I don't know anything about all that.
All I know is that I hide the pickle on the tree Christmas Eve and the kid who finds it first Christmas morning gets a little extra present. In the past I've given candy or an special ornament. This year I will be kicking it up a little with a gift card (gotta keep the teens engaged).

Christmas Strata:
Every year I make a strata for breakfast Christmas morning. It is the same recipe of strata that was served at my bridal shower. It's nice because I can make it the night before, set the table and not have to do anything in the morning except enjoy the family.
I will admit for years the kids hated strata and complained constantly. A few years ago I told them that I would make something different. "You can't do that!!! It's our tradition!!" Now they all claim to like it.

So there you have it. Every year I am threatened with bodily harm if I forget any of our traditions (really).

It just goes to show you that your traditions don't have to be fancy or elaborate. Just as long as they are special to your family.

I would love to hear about your Christmas traditions (I would love to keep adding more)

some of my favorite ornaments

Yesterday, McGillicutty over over at Inner Rambling of a Mid Life Mama did a blog about her ornaments and invited us to join in....

So I snapped a couple pics of my favorite on my tree.

You'll notice they are the fanciest or the prettiest.

They are the ones that bring back sweet memories.

This guy was the first "ornament" I ever bought when I was a single mom and I

had one of those little 3 foot high fake trees that was empty.

He was what I used as an angel for the top.

This ornament I found stuffed in my sister closet in June 1989 after she was killed in a car accident. Nae, her niece was born the September before. She must have had it made for her and then either forgot about it or couldn't find it on her last Christmas with us.

This one represents the ornaments I've made with the kids in the past.

Mac and I made a couple of these one year (and I love snowmen).

This is one of my only ornaments I have from my childhood (teen years actually)

Yes, I was a cheerleader and I think one of my friends' mom made these for all the girls one year (is that right Amy?)

yes, We have a Christmas Pickle. If you don't know what this is, I will blog about it later on a Christmas traditions blog I will be posting later.
This is one of the many ornaments we collected on vacation. Everywhere we go we always buy one. I have a bunch of ornaments from all over the USA.

This one represents the ornaments I have of the kids that have pictures on them. I don't have very many and if I had to do it all over again, I would make an ornament of each kid each year (yeah I'm sure they would love it...)

Well, thanks for stopping by!

Hope you're Holiday preparation is going well!
(Oh! and go visit McGillicutty!)

our one thanksgiving tradition

My kids love holiday traditions.
They actually get really mad if I forget one.

And it's actually gotten worse since they've gotten older.

Or maybe it's that they are teens and they are just

better at communicating what a loser I am if I forget one.

We only have one Thanksgiving tradition

and I wanted to share it with you.

Our Thanksgiving table cloth.

I realize that you will see some of the real names of my kids

but it wouldn't be the same if I photoshoped their names out

or tried to change the pictures

and I don't really have the computer skills to do that...

it's just a white table cloth but each year everyone

has to write something they are thankful for on it.

sometimes the kids traced their hands.

which I loved.

sometimes I giggled at what they are thankful for

at least mom and dad are included with the gameboy.

and there's record of what they loved that year.

or some sweet things...

this one is during my oldest daughters first year of college.

Some record big life changes....

this is from the year we got transferred back to our home town.

and some record things we will never be able to forget...

this was after 9/11.

Whenever anyone is with us for Thanksgiving they have to write on it too.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Stepping out of his comfort zone

My alarm went off at 5:30 this Saturday morning.

The Hubs and I both hustled out of bed, but we didn't mind.

Our oldest son, Bud, was going to his first Forensic meet.

We're not just some of those proud parents (we'll maybe we are).

You see, for Bud to even want to do this is pretty amazing.

Bud had seizures from birth until he was about two years old that affected the speech area of his brain.

He has gone through hundreds of hours of speech therapy over the years.

He still has some letters and sounds that are difficult for him to pronounce.

When Bud announced he was joining the Forensic Team, Hubby and I were shocked. To me, public speaking is a form of slow torture.

I was thinking there must be a cute girl on the team.....

We still don't know his reasons (and don't really care).

The Hubby ironed all his clothes this morning and helped him get his sports coat and tie on straight.

And we both stood at the door and watched him drive off, talking about how much our baby boy has grown up and how proud we are of him for stepping out of his comfort zone and trying something new. I'm thankful to be able to enjoy these moments.

Have a great weekend!

seems like just yesterday....

My oldest child is turning 21 today.

Time has flown by.

Seems like just yesterday....

you would wake me up giggling in your sleep,


and....

you could charm the pants off your family without even trying.

It seems like just yesterday.....

you would spend hours sitting quietly in your high chair playing or coloring
so that your mom could study for nursing school.

But....

sometimes microbiology was just too exciting.

It seems like just yesterday....

I worried about your fashion sense


And....

we thought we would never grow those bangs out.

It seems like just yesterday.....

we cheered when you lost a tooth.

And....

when you graduated from kindergarten.


It seems like just yesterday.....

you and Ben King duked it out over spelling bees and math competitions,

and......

you showed your competitive spirit in every area of your life.

It seems like just yesterday....

we marveled at how you seemed to change into a beautiful woman over night.

And...

amazingly more beautiful on the inside.

Today.....

We continue to look forward to watching you take on the world

and watching you try new and fun things

and we look forward....

to seeing how God will use you and your gifts to serve Him.

We love you Nae! Happy Birthday!