Last minute shopping

We made it safely out of the snowy drifts of Colorado and to my parents' home in the dry, greenish brown part of Kansas. I'm very happy to be here, spending time with my folks and with my sister's children, who are soon to join us as a part of our family. This is a lot of kids. Not that raising five kids sounds easy, but the reality of getting five kids ready for bed and settled down, or getting them all set around the table with full plates, is something that you can't imagine until you're doing it. Parts of it are made easier because two of the kids are older, but parts of it are harder. Those two older kids clean their plates and are ready for seconds before I can get my first two bites swallowed. I think that's the result of 20 minute lunch periods in school, something I've long taken issue with, but that's a subject for another post on another day.

A few hours after our arrival, after we'd unloaded most of the luggage and gotten the kids into bed, I went out to bring in the presents we hadn't had time to wrap, or weren't wrapping, from the car. That's when I realized. Realized that something was missing. Not just any something, but a big shopping bag full of gifts. It tore me up for an hour as I ran through my memories of packing the prior night and when I'd seen that bag and where it could be. I still can't work out how I could have forgotten it, as I distinctly remember standing in the family room at least twice and looking around to make sure I'd gotten everything into the car. But the family room was messy with boxes of Christmas decorations and a couple bags of clothes that need to be donated to charity, so I guess I can see how I might have missed it. But then, after about an hour of checking the car one more time, and looking all around my parents' house to be sure no one else had brought it in without realizing, I had to give up and focus on repairing the situation.

The big problem was that the bag included Ruth's gift from Santa and all the stocking stuffers for all five kids. I thought I'd be nice and so had volunteered to do all the shopping for the little gifts... The result was that my mom and I got to spend yesterday going from Walmart to Target to another Target trying to find replacement gifts. Ruth's was the toughest. Not hard to find - she's getting a Cabbage Patch Kid in the crib my grandfather made for my sister and me when we were little - but hard to find a good one. We bought one at the first Target, but went the second Target to try for something better. Thankfully we found a good one there, but I had to buy one of the "lil sister" versions so now Ruth is getting a regular CPK and a newborn one both, in a boxed set. I'm sure she'll love it thought it was a little more than I meant to spend. We also found new stocking stuffers for everyone. Once I get home, I'll have to sort through the bag and determine which things to return (the extra CPK, for starters) and which are worth saving to use as birthday gifts next year (the LED lantern for Jacob, maybe), or just using (like the bath toys I'd intended for the stockings). Oh, and I'll have to mail out a few little gifts for my parents that were in there as well.

It's not how I intended to spend my first day of the visit, but my mom and I had a nice time catching up and hanging out. And Christmas has been saved by last minute shopping. Hooray. Today I actually get to relax. It's Christmas Eve and I'm surrounded by family. I think I'll go help a small army of kids make and decorate sugar cookies.

White Christmas, indeed.

{sigh} Marianne just turned off the computer seconds before I published my lengthy post about our blizzard conditions, and I'm not sure I have it in me to rewrite it all now. I'll skip the stuff about yesterday (we got off with very little trouble in the whole ordeal, as Nathaniel and I both worked from home), and show you some pictures of our fun in the snow this morning...

We are very much snowed in at the moment. The weathermen say we got a little more than two feet of snow, but given the crazy wind-driven drifts, it is much more in places. The car in the foreground of this photo belongs to a woman who lives at the end of our culdesac. After six hours in the car trying to get home from downtown Denver (approx. 16 miles), she got stuck on this turn and walked the last half a block.

When out of the toboggan and off a pre-shoveled path, Ruth was unable to move at all in the snow. It's light, fluffy stuff, but the combination of tiny short legs and three layers of pants made movement a challenge for her.

Here's Nathaniel in our sideyard. There's a big bush next to the house, so that's not all a giant drift, but as evidenced by the snow up to Nathaniel's thighs (I promise he's standing, not kneeling), there's plenty of snow. You can just make out the mountains in the distance. That's a huge improvement over yesterday, when you could barely see the house across the street.

Progress! Shortly before the girls announced themselves too cold to stay out any longer, Nathaniel managed to get away from pulling the neighborhood kids on a sled just long enough to shovel out a portion of the sidewalk so the girls could run up and down it. Marianne really only cared about eating snow, which she could do from anywhere, but Ruth enjoyed the freedom of movement.

Now we're all inside and warm. Well, the girls and I are. Nathaniel's still outside shoveling and drinking beer with the neighbors. It was the last big snow storm in March of 2003 that led to our really bonding with our neighbors for the first time. They all wanted beer, and only one of them had a car that could possibly make it out of the neighborhood, so all the men worked together to dig out his car. It was a touching moment (even though we did not place a beer order, and if I remember correctly the liquor store was closed when he got there anyway) and we've had a lot of fun with these families ever since.

On a less cheerful note, we're hoping to hit the road for Kansas tomorrow. Snow is still gently falling, but I'm hopeful the plows will be able to clear things well enough to re-open I-70 and we'll be able to make our trip as planned. We're playing it by ear, though. In true Colorado fashion, tomorrow is expected to be sunny and in the 40s, so if we can't leave tomorrow, Saturday for sure. That'll mean leaving the white behind and likely having a green Christmas instead, but I'm okay with that.

A very merry Christmas to all of you! I hope you travel safely and enjoy your long weekends!

Our little prodigy

Marianne can do math! Okay, so it's simple math, and only with numbers in the one through ten range. Still, I'm amazed by this kid. It started a week or so ago on our drive to church. Nathaniel had been working on his ladder on the house Saturday, and Marianne announced Sunday morning in the car that we needed more ladders. "We need to each have our own ladder!" she said. Then holding up four fingers, she said, "we need three more ladders." Nathaniel and I exchanged looks of incredulity. "Three more?" I said. "Uh-huh. Daddy already has a ladder, so we need ladders for you, me and Ruth. Three more ladders." Math!

Now we like to challenge her whenever the opportunity arises. I'll put a handful of grapes on her plate. She'll count them and announce that she has six grapes. (She just does that part without prompting usually, so maybe it's a math nerd that we have, rather than a prodigy). I'll then say something like, "Once you eat two of them, how many will you have left?" She'll look at her plate and move two away, or just count all but two, and announce that she'll have four. It's so cool. To watch her little mind work through the problem and come to the right answer... So cool. Maybe this is completely normal for three year olds, but she's the first one I've ever had, so I'm in awe.

Marianne can also now spell her name, sort of. We made up a song to the tune of "Twinkle, twinkle" that spells it out for her: "M - A - R - I - A - NN - E. Ma - ri - a - anne. That's me!" She loves singing it. She used to slur all the letters together, but now she sings it fairly clearly, and can sometimes spell her name without breaking into song. She can only write the M and the A so far, but we're slowly but surely working on more letters. I poll the parents of her friends who are the same age and in preschool classes to see what I should be trying to teach her. First kids are hard, since you have no idea what they should learn and at what age.

It seems to me that Marianne has made a major transition lately from learning physical things, like how to dress herself and how many stairs she can safely jump down at one time, to learning more abstract things like spelling and math. She's still learning the physical stuff - just a couple days ago I started working with her on washing herself in the bathtub while I soaped up Ruth (are other kids already doing that at this age? Again, I have no clue), and she was happy to take on one more "big girl" challenge. But it's very exciting to see this knew form of knowledge really start soaking in, to the point where she's learning things through reasoning rather than our having to teach her each new step.

Which reminds of me of a conversation we had today that impressed me. (This may sound lame to non-parents, or parents of grown kids, if you've forgotten this stage, but some of you will get me.) Marianne had pinched Ruth for driving their stroller over her puzzle pieces, which were scattered on the floor and yelled at Ruth for having broken them. After timeout was through, I asked the typical, "Why did you have to go to timeout", and here's what followed:

Marianne: Because I pinched Ruth.

Me: Why did you pinch her?

Marianne: Because she broke my puzzle pieces!

Me: How did she break them?

Marianne: She pushed the stroller over them on the floor.

Me: Who put the puzzle pieces on the floor?

Marianne: I did.

Me: So who's fault is it if the puzzle pieces got broken?

Marianne (looking forlorn): It's my fault.

Reasoning! Real reasoning! That's exciting, my friends. If she can really start to see past the immediate cause and affect to the longer term, that's going to make discussions much easier. Hopefully it'll help her to stop beating on her sister, and help her to start cleaning up her stuff. Probably my expectations are a tad on the high side, but a girl has to dream...

The perfect margarita...

...requires training,

practice,

hard work,

and an eye for detail.

She can also pop the top off a bottle of beer with a churchkey. It's never too early to train your bartender.

Casualties of blog

That's what I'm calling all my friends with whom I seldom, if ever, communicate since beginning my blog. You know, the ones that read my blog (at least I think they do), but don't comment much, if ever. And because they know all the details of my life from the site, they don't have to email me to ask how things are going with me, so don't see much reason to email me just to talk about themselves... I, being a horrible, self-centered sort of person, don't often think to a drop a line asking them how they are. Instead, I spend all my time telling the world about myself. The result is that I never hear from them. It's several of my very closest girlfriends that this has affected and it makes me sad. You know who you are, so I won't name names. But if I don't hear from you soon, I might start naming names to guilt you into communicating. Or maybe I'll just shoot you an email to ask how you're doing, rather than focusing always on my life and my dramas.

I'm thinking of this today in particular because I just returned from a work trip to LA. I've been so internally focused lately that I avoided thinking about the trip, or about the fact that I have a couple very dear friends in LA with whom I could easily have arranged to meet, until it was way too late. I kept thinking the trip was further off, and when it struck me it was this week, I just wanted to get it over with so I could get home and on with my laundry list of chores here. In my head, the whole trip became just one more task to finish, and I managed to miss out on a lot of the fun that it could have been if I'd opened my eyes and looked around a little more. I know, if I wanted you to, almost any of you would comfort me with kind words about how I have a lot on my plate and it's no wonder I'm being more self-centered than usual, etc. And I appreciate that. But I still feel bad for the friends I missed visiting. I don't know how much longer I'll work for this company or if I'll be around for our next quarterly meeting, so it may actually have been a last chance scenario. That stinks. Sorry, LA friends!

*****

On an unrelated note, blogger just let me "upgrade" to some new version that allows for labeling of posts and other fun new tools. Don't be surprised if you start seeing some little changes. If I ever have time to try out the new features, that is.

Yes, she really said it

"You're a really nice Mommy. You're my favorite Mommy."

Disappointing

Our friend/realtor came by today so we could fill out paperwork and so that he could walk through the house and give us some tips on things to fix or clean or remove prior to putting the house on the market. Along with some of the obvious things ("Are you going to replace those pieces of wood?" "The trim that we've removed, leaving exposed insulation? Yes.") he gave us several tips, and set our minds to ease about a few issues we were afraid might be big deals.

All told, though, I'm really disappointed in this meeting. It's not that I don't love our realtor. I do! I think he's fantastic and honest and not pushy or high pressure. Once we sell the house and I don't have to worry about not making it too easy for stalkers to find our home address, I'll give him a big shout out and recommendation here. My disappointment was due to three main things:

1. He did point out several things that needed fixing up or cleaning, but he didn't even LOOK in the linen closet and he barely glanced in the girls' closet, and I'd done some great work organizing and tidying both of those places along with the rest of the house. I had somewhat unrealistic expectations that he'd give me some fab interior design tips to make the house STUNNING! If you knew the guy, you'd know that that really is pretty unlikely, but still I hoped. I need someone to come over and show me how to make each of my rooms look prettier by just rearranging the furniture that's already in them. Is that too much to ask?!

2. This is the really big one (so from a writer's perspective, sticking it in the middle of the list is probably a big no-no). The housing market stinks. At least in our neighborhood. We will most likely, if things go well, sell the house for approximately the same thing we paid four and a half years ago. We probably don't have enough equity to cover all the expenses of selling the house, so there's a possibility (I'd say a little worse than 50/50) that we'll end up owing money at closing. That. Sucks. Big time. Again, we're very lucky in our realtor because, as a friend, he's told us that he'll play around with his commission to try and keep us from having to bring a check to the closing. But at the same time he's VERY realistic about what we can get for the house, especially since we don't have all the time in the world to spend trying for a higher offer. There are houses with similar floor plans to ours that have been selling for $10K less than we paid for our house in 2002. We knew that the house hadn't appreciated much, but we had harbored some small hope that we would walk away with a couple thousand dollars, maybe. Now we're just sort of giving it up to God and praying that something will work out. 2002. Not the best time to have decided that a house was a good investment. At least we got the tax benefit for the past couple years, yada, yada, yada.

3. Nathaniel and I were both so drained from the meeting that, despite the beautiful weather, neither of us felt up to working on the house after that. We did other chores - grocery shopping in my case, and real job-work for Nathaniel - but I still have this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach because we squandered an unseasonably warm, sunny day when we should have been doing the work that depends on the weather.

Tomorrow is a new day, and the weather should continue to be nice. The gutters were installed this week, so the whole exterior project should go more quickly now. We don't have constantly assess whether it makes sense to do that piece now, or if the gutters will affect it. Plus, we may be getting our new minivan this week! I have to double check with our car broker, but I think he said he'd have the opportunity sometime this week to attend a big Kia sale, and should be able to find us a few good options there. That would definitely put me in a happier mood!

Keep us in your prayers! We can use all the help we can get.

Santa failure #2

Our neighbors invited us over last night for a little improptu Christmas party. If you read the free monthly paper that comes out in our suburb, you would already know that our local fire department does an annual event where Santa will come to your house on a firetruck! It's totally free and done on a first-come, first-serve basis. I throw that piece of junk mail away immediately upon receiving it, so had no idea. Thankfully some people have more patience with junk mail than I do. I digress.

There was a good crowd at the party. Probably 10 or 12 little people with their parents in tow. We refrained from telling the kids about Santa's visit, since there was a two hour window in which he'd come and no one wants to deal with the "When's he coming, Mom? When?!" all evening.

My neighbor is amazing with this sort of thing, though. She had several low tables set up with kid-friendly craft projects when we arrived. They could glue together snowflake kits, or string beads to make necklaces. Then, after half an hour, she cleaned those away and brought out supplies to make teddy bear cookies, involving a couple sized balls of cookie dough, sugar, chocolate chips and red hots. At the same time, the house was wide open for the kids to roam and they were able to play with pretty much anything they wanted. I really respect these neighbors for their relaxed attitude. They let kids get out any and every toy in their two children's rooms, and they don't seem phased in the slightest by spills and messes. They have played a huge role in my attitude shift regarding cleaning for company. I still make sure things are tidy, but now that kids are involved, I've realized it doesn't matter if there are some toys scattered around or a few fingerprints on the glass coffee table.

Again, I'm getting totally off topic. Santa came toward the late end of the window. The kids were ecstatic! Okay, the other people's kids were ecstatic. See that huddle of children? Santa's in the middle of that. This is as close as Marianne got to him.

Ruth wouldn't give him the time of day either. I'm not pushing it. They can write Santa a letter to tip him off on the gifts they want, and that's just fine with me. But it was a little funny to see every other kid in the place rush to Santa, practically jump on to his lap, and start rattling off the gifts they hoped for. Only one other girl, a little younger than Ruth, chose not to chat with Santa.

As a side note, Marianne does not actually suck her thumb. I'm not sure what she's doing in that picture. She's taken to sticking her fingers in her mouth as a sort of nervous habit, I think. I hope she doesn't start chewing her nails like her Daddy!

The taste of the holidays

Yum!


A couple tips, now that I made these for the first time in a couple years...

- Don't be afraid to re-warm the chocolate as you go along. It gets very hard to work with as it cools, and the frozen peanut butter balls cool it off fairly quickly. If your kitchen layout worked for it, I'd say work with the chocolate over the stove the whole time.
- Running out of chocolate? Don't forget all the drips you've collected on your waxed paper. You can drop them all back in, remelt them, and have more to work with.
- I used more chocolate than called for, and pretty much used it all up. So you may want to just start with more I used about a third a bar of paraffin and 16 oz. chocolate chips.

They're really simple to make. Just a little high maintenance. I hope you enjoy. Ruth has already given her seal of approval!

By Popular Demand

Peanut Butter Balls
1 stick margarine or butter, softened
2 C. creamy peanut butter (one 18 oz. jar) - I recommend Jiff for the taste I know and love
1 lb. powdered sugar
3 C. rice krispies (use a little more than that, don't be shy!)

Cream together margarine, peanut butter and powdered sugar in a mixer. Stir in rice krispies. You may want to just use your hands, as you'll end up doing so anyway. Form mixture into walnut sized balls. I try to err on the small side, as no one complains about a higher chocolate to peanut butter ratio.

Place balls in the freezer in a single layer on a cookie sheet or tupperware. Let freeze for a couple hours or up to a few days (use a sealed container if you're waiting more than a couple hours).

To dip:

1/4 bar paraffin
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Melt paraffin and chocolate in a double boiler. Set up a couple cooling racks with waxed paper underneath. Dip frozen peanut butter balls into chocolate, roll around to coat well, then place on the cooling racks. If the balls are small, you may need more chocolate mixture to complete this process.

Once the chocolate on the balls is cooled and firm to the touch, place back in the freezer in a single layer. After they freeze hard, you can move them to a tupperware bowl. To serve, remove from freezer and let thaw for about 10 minutes.

They will have the wire rack marks on the bottom, but in my family, that's sort of like a trademark! We usually keep a small bowl of the peanut butter balls in the fridge for urgent snacking needs, then get more out of the freezer as necessary.

It sounded so good that Nathaniel's at the store with Marianne as I type, picking up the ingredients we didn't have on hand. I just couldn't wait for Mom's house.

Christmas Meme

I received this via email, but never got around to responding. Now I've been tagged with it as a meme by Jenni. So, for lack of better writing fodder, and in an effort to lighten the mood around here (in case the Santa pics didn't do it for you), I give you...

The Christmas Meme
Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Egg nog, if it's the really good homemade recipe that is standard in Nathaniel's family. That's some good stuff, spiked or not.

Colored lights or white?
White. Almost always. It's simple elegance and I love that. I love white twinkle lights for anything though. I had them up in my dorm room all school year, or at least for the rest of the year after we decorated for Christmas.

How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Sadly we're not having a tree this year. In general I'd say white lights, colored beads strung in place of garland, assorted ornaments we've collected over the years... This morning Marianne woke up to find that I'd strung white lights around our windowseat. A look of pain came over her as she said, "No! I don't want lights in the window. I want lights on our Christmas tree!!" I explained again that we were not having a tree at our house, but we'd get to see Grammy's tree soon. "Does Grammy need us to bring her our lights?" she asked. So, Mom, if I have a package of white lights with me when we arrive, don't be too surprised. It may be the only way to keep her calm.

What tops your tree?
A silver star, unlit. I'd like a really nice angel, but can't find one that I love.

Do you hang mistletoe?
Not as a rule. I'm not opposed to it, but I don't usually get around to it.

When do you put your decorations up?
Advent stuff, like the wreath and the nativity sets, definitely come out shortly after Thanksgiving. The rest is a slow process in the weeks leading up to Christmas. And we keep them up for the couple weeks after until Epiphany. It is, after all, a liturgical season.

Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
It depends on the gift. I can't remember a specific trend as a kid, except that if it was a big or hard to assemble gift, like the race car track we once got, it would be all set up on the floor and unwrapped. But I think some gifts were wrapped. And I wrap the gifts for the girls, where possible (not sure yet what I'll do with the tricycle for Marianne this year).

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
See #7 above. I don't remember when I truly stopped believing, but having an older sibling doesn't help keep that myth alive.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
I think that was an annual debate, at least in my memory. Some years we'd open one gift. I think there were times we opened all our gifts and then just had gifts from Santa in the morning... I think I'll lean toward Christmas morning opening with my own kids.

Which do you prefer: giving or receiving?
I don't like shopping, but I do like giving gifts. On the other hand, I do really like receiving gifts as well...

What is your favorite holiday dish?
Peanut butter balls! Not buckeyes, though - these are different and (at least in my mind) WAY better. There are lots of rice krispies mixed in the peanut butter so it's not so heavy... my mouth is starting to water. I know my mom already mixed up the first batch and I can't wait to get there and eat them. I could make them myself, but this year I'm trying to simplify.

What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Again, the peanut butter balls. Or waffle cookies. Or "grandma's cookies" (it's an italian cookie that my great-grandmother used to make, and now my father makes them every year). Or, at my mother-in-law's house, the peppernuts are awesome, and so is the leckerli.

Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
I can't think of a really specific memory. I remember the time we went to Grandma's house over Christmas, and when we got back Santa had left stuff at our house. My sister and I were on the verge of not believing, so we were shocked and couldn't work out for ages how our parents' had managed it. I remember Santa coming by my grandparents' house each year when we had our big family celebration. I remember attending midnight mass each year and the glow of candles in the church. I remember all sorts of fun times with family and food and music!

Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Snow is beautiful and definitely a happy addition to Christmas. However, if it could be snow-pretty and 65 degrees, that would make me happier. I don't really love being cold.

Can you ice skate?
"Can" would be a strong word. I've done it. I could probably do it again. But it's been a long time and I've never actually been good at it.

Favorite Holiday movie?
Anything but "The Christmas Story". Or, if you want more specifics, I'd lean toward "It's a Wonderful Life" or maybe the Rudolf one with Frosty the Snowman as a narrator.

What is a favorite holiday tradition?
Playing cards with my family, especially after Grandma has had a couple fuzzy navels. And just having time to visit with family.

What is your favorite Christmas Song?
"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by the Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan. Dave Matthews' "Christmas Song". And of course all the classics we sing at church. I love "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" during advent, and "What Child is This"... I love singing four part harmonies with all Nathaniel's siblings every year when we visit is grandmother at the nursing home.

Candy Canes?
Pretty for decorating, but I'm not a big fan of eating them. I like the cherry kind.

Overwhelming

I'm not sure what's wrong with my head, but I cannot think of things to write lately. The Santa thing was an easy one, but for the most part I'm spending my days in a near-frantic state of cleaning and organizing, and that just doesn't make for interesting blogging.

I could tell you about how I'm overwhelmed by the excess of what we own as I go through my house trying to de-clutter. I did, after all, fill a fourth kitchen garbage bag with baby clothes to donate to charity this weekend. It's enough to make me want to go through every closet and drawer in the house and give away anything we haven't used in the past month because it's hitting me like a truck just how much STUFF we have. The biggest part of me feels extremely blessed that we don't feel need on a daily basis - need for food and clothing, need for books to read and movies to watch, need for money to pay the power bills so we can keep all our lamps lit and radios playing and coffee beans grinding. We don't want, let alone need, for much. And for that I'm thankful. But another part of me feels sick about how much we have when so many people don't have enough clothes to keep their babies warm during these 10 degree nights. I'm on a little emotional roller coaster over here.

I could tell you about how I'm overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends. I am daily reminded of how truly blessed we are in that respect. A few weeks ago a friend looked at me in awe and said, "You have so. many. friends!" (or something close to that - it may not be an exact quote). That's when it hit me. I really do. I don't say that to brag about myself, but more to compliment you guys - all of my friends who have been so good to me, whether it's those of you I've met here in Colorado in the past several years, those of you whom I've known since high school, and all of you in between. It's not that I've ever been UNaware of how lucky I am to have an extensive network of friends both near and far, but lately I've become significantly MORE aware of it. Which is really just another emotional roller coaster over the joy of having all of you and around the sadness of moving away from some of you but then through the joy again of moving closer to others. It's exhausting, really.

I could tell you more about how I'm overwhelmed by this stupid trim-painting project on the house since the presence of snow for the past week means we've been unable to accomplish anything, but we've already been through that.

As you can see, I'm clearly too overwhelmed by everything these days to send a focused message on any one topic. Instead, you get the cliff notes of several you'll just have to make do.