Emily made up the words to this song all by herself! It is about her trip to Disneyland (a mere year and a half ago). Enjoy!

It's Christmas Time...Already?

As you can see from my lack of posting, things have been busy around here. Also I have some sort of stigma about needing enough time to blog rather than just doing it. That is why it never gets done. So here's a quick visual review...The first week of Dec. we took the girls to Breakfast with Santa at our credit union. They do it every year and it is the best and easiest way to get photos with Santa. The credit union is very small (they know everyone by name!) and you never have to wait in line, plus you get a delicious pancake breakfast after seeing Santa. Allison didn't cry, and Emily actually smiled. Good job, girls! Aren't their little matching outfits cute?!

Kevin took advantage of Black Friday by purchasing a 40" flat screen HDTV at Best Buy. Luckily they have no-interest financing for two years! We are trying to sell our old one if anyone is in the market...it's a Sony HD and measures 30 inches.

Allison started crawling on all fours about the first week of December, and she (and Emily) had a great time playing in the giant TV box. Allison has also had a great time exploring the whole house with her new-found mobility. When Emily was a baby she never was interested in too much that wasn't hers...Allison is the complete opposite. Just the other day I put her down to play in the family room while I washed dishes in the kitchen right next door. Well five minutes later when I went to check on her, she was nowhere to be found! I didn't think she could crawl that fast, I guess. I finally found her all the way down the hall in the bathroom with the door closed! She also likes to follow us around from room to room and get into anything and everything she possibly can. If any of you ever visit my house in the next (uh, years?), don't expect it to be pristine.

We spent the week of Thanksgiving at my parent's house in Pleasanton. Kevin gets to go up there at least twice a month for work, but the kids and I usually stay home, so it was a nice trip. We scrapped our plans to go to San Francisco for a day and just stayed in and relaxed instead. The kids had fun with their grandparents and aunt Marianne (above) and uncle Devin. Emily was especially impressed that her uncle Devin could launch her up about 12 feet in the air.

We spent a few hours at the park on one of the days. Pleasanton has a park in every neighborhood, and Emily has been to a lot of them thanks to my mom. We had fun swinging, playing hide-and-seek, and bouncing on the teeter-totter.

KEVIN RECEIVED HIS DEGREE!! I put "received" because technically he earned it in August, but it came in the mail mid-November. WAHOOOO! After about 10 years, only, thanks to Fresno State's ridiculous transfer protocols. Anyway, Kevin now officially has his bachelor's degree (Business Administration - Finance Option of you can't read it) and I am so proud of him. So was the TV a graduation gift to himself??? Yeah, let's go with that. Plus he survived a major round of layoffs at AT&T in the past week, so we are also very happy that he still has a job.

Allison actually fell asleep like this. I always put her in bed before she is asleep and leave the room and close the door. So who knows what she is doing in there between me leaving and her falling asleep. This particular day she was apparently exploring the bumpers and trying to peek out of her crib. Maybe the serene view of the changing table on the other side of the room put her to sleep.

Emily's Halloween gingerbread house. Parents - here's a tip: in early November when all the Christmas gingerbread houses go on sale in stores and your kids want to make one but you dread the idea of a messy frosting- and candy-gobbed structure taking up space somewhere in your house for two months...buy the Halloween house kit on clearance for $1.99 and let your child go to town. Then discreetly get rid of it after a week or two. What? Did I do that? No, we bought ours for full price a few weeks before Halloween and ... okay, yes that's what happened. Great idea, though, right? I also got a Christmas kit and we made it last week (so it is now taking up half of my table), but the Halloween one was there at the right time and was just as much fun.

We made Jell-o jigglers for family home evening sometime in October. Notice Emily's name spelled out at the bottom. And the nice Halloween shapes. She did a good job cutting them out and eating almost all of them.

We actually carved pumpkins this year! Emily picked out the witch design and I painstakingly tried to cut out the intricate pattern. It turned out okay but not exactly as it looked on the stencil. We carved the other two after the witch. I was worn out after that. Princess Emily and froggy Allison got to trick-or treat at ZooBoo (see post below) and our ward's trunk-or-treat party. Truthfully, this was the only time Allison actually wore her costume because both event nights were too warm. So I just dressed them back up and took their photo so we could remember their costumes!

We also went to the pumpkin patch with our playgroup in early October. It was a very hot day, and all the kids were running around with red faces. But it was fun. I guess October was unusually warm this year, because it stayed in the 80's most of the month. But I'd much rather have that than cold! It's great to live in the central valley.

ZooBoo

First of all, thanks to everyone who responded to my last post with such positive and encouraging comments. It definitely helps to hear what other moms out there are doing to stay sane! I think the night I wrote it was just a really hard day, but I'm feeling much better about things since. And I think I'm going to try to take a photography class or something...to pursue something I enjoy and have an excuse to "have" to get out of the house at least once a week! Plus I just got a really nice camera for my birthday, so I have to use it. And all of you are so right about just enjoying the time I have with my kids and what not...thanks everyone!

This morning has been filled with laundry and cleaning. Hopefully we'll be able to get out of the house this afternoon and run some errands. I've been wanting to get to the fabric store and find some blackout material to make curtains for our bedroom (and I have a 50% off coupon that expires today). Our bedroom has a huge sliding glass door that faces south, so we get a lot of light and heat/cold through it during the day. When it was really hot Kevin put foam in it and completely blocked out everything. Nice and dark, but not so easy to just let light in when we wanted it. I have a whole list of things like that that I think I might be able to get around to someday. The usual house cleaning and child activities usually take first priority, though.

Last weekend we took the kids to ZooBoo, the halloween event at the Zoo. I had to work, but got to hang out with Kevin and the kids for a little bit while they were there. Here are some photos:

This is me and my boss, Patty Peters. All the gals from marketing, education and admin dressed up as "beauty queens" with titles such as Miss Information, Miss Behave, Miss Taken, Miss Fortune, etc. Easy costume to wear with our uniforms and lots of fun!

Feeling Lost

Earlier today after I got home from picking Em up from preschool and making a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for a dinner to take to a family who just had their 10th child, I was being quite irritable and Kevin asked me what was wrong. Well, of course I told him a bunch of random things that probably contribute to what's wrong but aren't the real problem, like how I feel stressed with everything I need to do and that our house is always messy and dirty and etc. etc. Kevin is always really good about calling me on my bad days...it usually makes me more aware that I'm not being so nice and I consciously try to be better. Unfortunately it doesn't necessarily make me feel better. Anyway, through the course of the day I thought of a few things, like the conversation I had with my father-in-law last week about what I do for fun...answer: nothing, I live to serve my family (a little sarcastic, but mostly the truth). It was a short conversation, not much else was said, we left off on kind of a joke about it. I brought that up to Kevin and he asked me what I would like to do for fun if I did have time. I didn't have an answer. Then I was watching Desperate Housewives and there was an exchange between Lynette and her husband that sounded just like a conversation Kevin and I might have about how he works hard and deserves time to go play with the band (or go surfing, or biking) and in my "spare" time I get to go grocery shopping or whatever. I should go back and watch it again, but I was sitting on the floor with Allison and Kevin was behind us at his desk and I remember giving him the knowing look. [and before you think, well look, he's working and you're watching TV, just know that I was helping him with his work all morning rather than doing my own, and I just turned on the TV when I was feeding Allison, so there.] Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter about it; it's just interesting how the whole man/woman, husband/wife, dad/mom roles get played out not just in our lives but apparently in TV lives too. And if it's on TV, it must happen to a lot of people, right?

Just now for the past while (has it really been an hour and a half?) I've been reading a bunch of blogs. People in all walks of life with different joys and pains and activities. Well it just hit me what is bothering me - I am feeling lost. Lost in my own aspirations to do everything yet do nothing. Does that make sense? I run around all day feeling stressed about this and that and what needs to be done or planned and at the end of the day I feel like I've accomplished nothing. I haven't spent much quality time with my children, I haven't cleaned or organized, I haven't done anything "fun" and I haven't even gotten much (paid) work done, despite feeling like I've been doing it all day. Or I feel like I am bound because I need to do something but it can't be done until something else gets done first and that first item is not on the list... So reading all these blogs, perhaps it's the illusion that everyone writes just about the good times, but it makes me enjoy their moments yet feel sad that I am not doing much in my life. Now, I'm sure you might be thinking "look at all the things you do..." but how much of it is worthwhile or making a difference for my family? Am I just being pessimistic about this?

Then the whole question of "what would you do for fun if you did have time?" I still don't know! I like to take photographs - is that a good activity? Then what to do with them? I used to love dancing. Unfortunately the kind I like involves a partner, and my husband is not so willing. Or he's just gone, or busy catching up on work. I also used to love watercolor painting. If I could come up with some space for it that might be a good one to pick up again. I thought it might be fun to get together with some friends and go out. The sad truth is, though, I don't really have many friends who I feel like I could just call and ask to go hang out. What about the ones who just drop by and bring donuts and cider on a Saturday morning (I saw that on my distant friend's blog and thought that was so cool). Is it because I have been working outside my home for the past few years that I don't have playdates for the kids? I don't know. I guess I'm just feeling a little sad and out of place in the world right now. I probably should go read my scriptures and pray (two more things that don't happen as often as they should...). Knowing Kevin will be leaving me for the next two days just adds to it. What to do? Sorry to vent on you, blog world, but maybe someone out there will have a few kind words of advice? How do you people do it all and still seem to be having such a good time?

My Latest Discovery

Okay, I can't really claim it as my own discovery, since some friends told me about it. Kraftfoods.com. It ROCKS! Not only can you sign up for a free magazine full of easy and family-friendly recipes, you can find same recipes (all past issues included) on the website and put them into your own recipe box. Why is this so great, you ask? Because it substantially helps my recent (uh, past few years?) food rut.

I'll be honest - I'm not the greatest eater in the world. Not that I eat junk food all the time, but I don't think I eat enough good foods, and often not enough food, period. Mostly because I hate going through the recipes, making the list, going to the store, putting everything away, then trying to have enough energy to actually make the food... and I get sick of frozen burritos and corn dogs after a few days. Menu planning is so time-consuming and energy draining for me.

Enter kraftfoods.com. I can search through their lovely photos of recipes, pick the ones that look good, and click a button to place them into my recipe box. Then when I am going to go to the grocery store, I pick out a few of those recipes that look good, click "add to shopping list", and Voila, instant grocery list including all necessary items to cook my chosen recipes. You can even add in your own recipes to your box and add extra items to your shopping list. I love it! So yes, I still have to decide what I want and make the list, but it takes about 1/10 of the time and all the pictures make it so much easier to pick a meal. AND all the recipes are really easy to make.

That's it. I just wanted to share.