Thirteen

I was so ready for 2011 to be over and done with. It was a terrible year. Horrible. No good and very bad.

I welcomed 2012 with open arms and it didn't disappoint. I kind of made it my bitch.  I'm a little hesitant to let it go. 

2012 was a brand new kindergartener, New Orleans during the coldest weekend of the year, four years of marriage, Virginia and Maryland and Washington DC and North Carolina.  It was Sunday afternoons at the spray park, popsicles in the backyard, family road trips, Disneyland, and the Grand Canyon.  A second birthday, a fourth birthday, a sixth birthday.  It was Gigi's house in Shreveport, a sorry season of college football, cruising to the Caribbean, a weekend in Vegas, and more bottles of wine that I could ever begin to count (let alone remember!)

Favorite Moments of 2012, by the month

Oh, 2012.  You were fabulous.

Now here we are on the cusp of 2013. Twenty-Thirteen. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel, no?

My youngest will be three this year, no longer a baby (always my baby) but more of a little girl. My middle will start kindergarten in August.  Life has progressed from the stage of Big Moments, babies and marriages, to lots of Little Milestones, first days of school and loose teeth.  Time. It marches on.  I just wish it would quit marching across my face and leaving those little lines . . .

It Happened This Week

I took the week off.  And by "week" I mean last Friday through maybe - okay, probably - this coming Tuesday.  We've all been sleeping in.  I haven't been working out.  I've been eating whatever I wanted to eat whenever I wanted to eat it.  I've watched two SVU marathons and roughly 32942092 episodes of Roseanne.  I've done the bare minimum when it comes to keeping the house sortakinda clean. I have drunk more wine than Coke Zero and pretty much no water.  And it's.been.awesome.  Great week.  I wish we could have "the holidays," like once a month.  'Course, I'd probably weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of six HUNDRED pounds.  But, damn, I'd be happy.

Before I get on with the pic-cha's, let me share a few things I've learned this week off:

1) It does no good to fall back on your party girl roots and yell, "puke and rally, puke and rally!" when you have a kid pulling a Linda Blair. For starters, six year olds don't know what it means. And also? "Rally" to the kindergarten crowd means spending copious amounts of energy driving you effing nuts. Like to the point of you beginning to wonder if you'd rather just clean up puke than deal with their rallying ass.

2) Buying your 2.5 year old daughter her own bracelets and lip gloss so she'll leave yours alone? Worst idea ever. She eats the lip gloss, we're still stepping on beads in the living room, and my make up brushes are more precious to her than any of the toys she received from Santa.

3) Wreck-it Ralph is a seriously cute movie. Also? Even though it's been out for awhile does not mean that would should assume the theater will be practically empty on a Friday afternoon showing. One would be wrong. Very wrong.

4) Drinking + Instagram can lead to some pretty interesting pictures. And by interesting I mean 293042 pictures of the EXACT SAME board game.  Winning!

5) I want a Dream Lite of my very own. 

6) Just because a four-year-old asks for a Spiderman Stunt City toy every single hour of every day for MONTHS and dances and jumps up and down and yells, "THIS IS WHAT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED!" when he opens it does not mean he will play with it past Christmas day.  Four-year-olds are kind of assholes, y'all.

7) Gus's Fried Chicken was the most crowded place in Memphis on Wednesday afternoon.  Even with snow on the ground!  (This is southwest Tennessee, people, no one here likes to get behind the wheel when there's white stuff on the ground).

8) Sometimes my level of lazy can surprise even ME.  Like when I'd rather lay around the house with Netflix, the remote, a Coke Zero, and a turkey sammich than GO SHOPPING.  That's right.  The extent of my after Christmas shopping was . . . three rolls of wrapping paper.  I'm not sure whether to be amazed or disappointed.

Anyway.  Pictures of our week.  Only three more pictures and another year of P366 will be completed -- my THIRD year!  I have a picture for every single last day of 2010, 2011, and 2012.  And I think that's pretty damn cool.

 

 

Out of focus and the girl isn't even bothering to look.  Such is life.  Such are most of our Christmas photos!

 

 

 

 

The real star of this photograph is neither one of the kids (including the Snaggletooth wearing his LOWE'S Build & Grow apron to COOK) but rather that shiny, beautiful, RED crockpot that was a Christmas present from myr gandma.  I needed a new one and this one is much larger and, basically, just plain awesome.  Thanks, Mawmaw!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a Wonderful Life

Don't you get the sense tonight

That for now the world is right

And as another Christmas ends

My mind drifts and once again

I'm thinking like a six-year-old

Only 364 360days to go

 

It always comes and goes so fast, doesn't it?  I feel like we should still be in the thick of summertime and yet, here we are, another Christmas come and gone.

 

Things were very low-key for us this year.  Christmas Eve was the five of us (my stepdaughter was with her mother and her family) and enough food for twenty.  The kids each opened one present - their Christmas jammies - before bed.  We sprinkled reindeer food on the yard and tracked Santa on NORAD and left cookies and Coke Zero for the big guy.

 

I woke up at 5:30 on Christmas morning, made a Christmas tree out of cinnamon rolls, and waited, waited, waited for the kids to wake up.  I finally got Jaidan up at 7:00 and he quickly woke up every one else in the house.  Presents were opened and Kyan proved why Christmas was practically invented for four-year-olds with his proclamations of "THAT'S JUST WHAT I WANTED!" about every.single.thing he opened. 

 

Karis refused to open any of her presents.  The boys each got a pair of Razorback slippers and Karis seemed to think these were Stompeez.  This caused a few tears on her part and, "I wan' STOMPEEEEZ!," a fit that was finally resolved when her dream pet was opened for her.  Apparently any infomertial crap would suffice.  She was a happy girl, though, when she opened up her new puppy.  Not only has the dog gone everywhere with her but she's also been carting around the box it was packaged in.  That girl.  Good thing she's pretty . . .

 

Christmas at my grandmother's house was cancelled but she dropped by our presents on her way to North Carolina.  She and my Aunt Sue and Uncle Tom stayed for a few minutes while the kids tore into yet a few more presents.  Later in the morning we Skyped with my mom so she could see the kids opening their gifts from her.  We spent the remainder of the day playing with new toys, laying around, eating, and waiting for Storme and Cheyenne to drive in from Arkansas.

 

 

As is usually the case, some gifts were much more appreciated and played with than others.  Kyan had been asking for a Spiderman Stunt City for months - literally, months - and the thing has been played with a total of about twenty minutes since Tuesday morning.  On the other hand, everyone has enjoyed Jaidan's Batman Batcave and Kare Bear's Barbie car.  Santa also gifted us four different board games.  Our favorite?  Fibber.  Seriously.  Go buy this game.  Go buy it now.  You don't even need kids to enjoy it. 

 

We didn't have a white Christmas in Memphis.  We did, however, wake up to this the morning of the 26th:

 



 

My home state of Arkansas was hit with record snowfall.  My Facebook feed was full of pictures of yard sticks a foot deep in the snow.  We just got a small dusting, though, and you know what?  No complaints here!  It was plenty for the kids.  Kyan woke up saying, "now it's REALLY Christmas!" and Karis kept dragging me to the door and saying, "Wook, Mommy, SHNOW!"  Last year the kids got hats and gloves in their stockings and we didn't have any snowfall all winter.  This year I was so unprepared that they wore socks on their hands!  Mommy fail. 

 

All in all, we had a really great Christmas.  There were a few glitches in plans.  But, man, it was great to lay around on Christmas day.  It was wonderful spending a few days with Storme and Cheyenne.  And the best thing was the joy in my kids' eyes.  There's just something about Christmas morning with toys everywhere and wrapping paper all over the place that shows you just what a wonderful life it is.

 

 





The Joy

Every time a toy commercial comes on, regardless of what it's for ("girl" toys aside, natch), one of my boys exclaims, "I WANT THAT!"  Then the other yells, "NO!  *I* WANT THAT!"  Then the other yells, "WELL, *I* WANTED IT FIRST!" and then it snowballs into a good old fashioned Walker family wrasslin' match. Commercialism at it's finest; seen in everyone this time of year and perfected by the Eight and Under crowd.

More than anything I want my children to understand the true meaning of Christmas.  I want them to comprehend that we celebrate the birth of a Saviour not the GIVE ME GIVE ME GIVE ME culture society promotes.  I'm not always the best example of the values I want them to espouse, especially considering that I finished shopping for them the weekend after Thanksgiving and had to practically hide my debit card to keep from buying more, more, more.  But, still, we talked - and talked a lot - about the real meaning of Christmas.  We stressed that GIVING is so much more important than GETTING.  We spent the past week sprinkling random acts of kindness around our community.  But I wondered if my boys, at ages four and six, were really, truly getting it.

Then.  Saturday afternoon.  Jaidan grabbed copy paper and his colored pencils.  He sat at the kitchen table and worked on drawing picture after picture.  Later, I found him with wrapping paper scraps and a roll of duct tape (we redneck 'em up young 'round these parts, y'all) "wrapping" the little presents he had made.  He careful wrote "to MomMom" (that's supposed to be MawMaw) on one and then added a hand full of change to another and addressed it to "Chien" (Cheyenne, a cousin).  The gifts cost nothing (well, except for the approximately 37 cents in the package for Cheyenne) but they are just so precious sitting under our tree.  They are gifts that came from his heart, gifts he poured himself into.  They prove that he understands the joy you can find in giving.  And, man, that's such a gift for me as his mother. 

Thing is, he doesn't even "get" that this makes me all weepy and emotional (yeah, I KNOW.  This time of year just does that to me) as his mom.  He only knows that he loves his Mawmaw and he thinks Cheyenne is pretty cool and he wanted to give them something.  He knows that receiving gifts feels good and he wanted to make them smile.  It doesn't get much more "Christmas" than that.

Today there will be food (so much food!) and wine (so much wine!) and one present opened before bed and tracking Santa on NORAD and sprinkling reindeer food on the lawn and leaving out cookies and milk Coke Zero for the Big Guy and thinking we've spotted Rudolph's nose.  Tomorrow will be "SANTA'S BEEN HERE!" and wrapping paper strewn all over the living room.  It'll be cinnamon rolls and trying to get the casserole in the oven.  It'll be over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go.  And, when it's all said and done, it's likely that I'll be exhausted (so much exhaustion!) but it'll all be worth it.  To see their smiles.  To witness their joy.  To experience Christmas through their eyes.  And, this year, seeing that my six-year-old truly gasps what a wonderful gift it is to give.  Does it really get any better?

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

It Happened This Week

Up until 2006, (almost) every Christmas Eve of my life was spent at my Granny's house.  And that meant that, pretty much without fail, Uncle James would meet you at the door and wish you a "Merry Christmas Eve!"  We no longer head to Granny's house for Christmas Eve and Uncle James has been gone many years.  But it never fails that someone in the family will say something along the lines of, "As Uncle James always said, Merry Christmas Eve!" 

So.  In that spirit, Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

I have a four-year-old this year so we have been in OMGIT'SALMOSTCHRISTMAS!!!111!! overdrive.  I really think four is the magical year where these children go crazy with joy.  Every day is a rush to change the mouse on our advent calendar (or to wake brother up if it's his day to change the mouse), to find the Grinch and his daily activity, to somehow soak up just as much Christmas as humanly possible.  Jaidan is six so, obviously, he's all about some Christmas as well -- Kyan is just a smidge more excited.  Karis, on the other hand, at two pretty much only cares about seeing how many sweets she can shovel into her mouth.  She's not the only one . . . it'll be a Christmas miracle if I can actually fit into my jeans on the 25th.  (Seriously).

We've spent most of the week in a Christmas-getting-ready frenzy.  Jaidan has been on winter break.  Eddie came home Tuesday after being on the west coast for nearly two weeks.  I finished up my Christmas shopping, took a trip to the post office (nearly an hour in line!), and actually got everything wrapped.  We are ready as we're going to be!

Our week:

 

 

The date on this one is supposed to be 12/18.

And, SERIOUSLY, this kid loves her Daddy.  The first thing she said Friday morning was, "Where my daddy?"

 

 

 

 



 



It's hard to believe only NINE more pictures until I'm done with Project 366 for 2012!

I Hope My Neighbors, Family, and Friends are Ready for Some Diabetes!

So you've no doubt seen one of the 68964 "How to Beat the Holiday Bulge!" articles, right? They say things like, "take carrot sticks to that holiday party and munch on those while you pass by the tray of chocolate truffles" and "eat a healthy meal before you go so that you're too full to stuff yourself with reindeer shaped cookes." Yeah. Then there's me who's all, "here, have a cookie" and "the world is supposed to end today. Let's go out fat and happy!"

Yes. Baking-palooza 2012 officially kicked off yesterday. The unofficial kickoff was Wednesday when I mixed up five different types of cookie dough in order to save time and my dishwasher's motor. Yesterday, though, we dove elbow deep into flour and frosting and got our "cookie" on. Today we'll tackle the candy side of things. Yum, yum.

If I had to choose one Christmas tradition to pass along to my children it would easily be our baking days.  There is something that just seems right about rolling out and frosting and melting and dipping  while Alabama sings Christmas in Dixie.

Every year I say I'm not going to do as much, not going to go all out.
Every year I lie.

This year I had planned on a batch of fudge and some peppermint bark and, of course, a round of sugar cookies for the kids.  In the end it was . . . well, it was Baking-palooza.  This is what we are making, have made, or will make:

Sugar cookies
Gingerbread men
Chocolate chip cookies stuffed with Rolos (better in theory than in taste, FYI)
Chocolate chip M&M cookies
Tuxedo cookies
Peanut butter blossoms
Hello Dollies
Chocolate covered Christmas crackers (named by Jaidan last year -- these are Ritz crackers with peanut butter, dipped in chocolate and they are my most FAVORITE THING EVER ABOUT CHRISTMAS.  Presents?  The joy on my kids' faces?  Meh. Give me my Christmas crackers!)
Oreo peppermint bark
Chocolate covered Oreos
Chocolate dipped pretzel rods
Cake balls
Fudge
Ranch oyster crackers

Overboard? Me?  Nah.

My main helper in Baking-palooza is six-years-old (the four-year-old could pretty much care less and the two-year-old is a FABULOUS taste tester) so most of our stuff looks rather, shall we say interesting.  But it's the memories we're making that matter.  It's the fact that maybe, one of these days, these kids will be in the kitchens of homes they own with children they made rolling out and frosting while Alabama sings Christmas in Dixie.  Oh, and it's also a great big mess but we don't have to talk about that.

** Part of our goodies were handed out yesterday to our mail lady.  We'll be giving some today to the sanitation workers and also plan to take a meat and cheese tray to our local fire department (I figure they're probably sick of sweets!) Please consider doing something - anything - as a random act of kindness in honor of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting.  You can read more about the #26acts campaign right here.

Thursday Things

1) Columbine happened a month before my 19th birthday.  I was a freshman in college.  The news horrified me.  I can still remember, 13 and a half years later, that I was at work - at the Waco Postal Credit Union - when I heard the news.  I'll be honest, though, Columbine didn't bother me as much as this Connecticut shooting.  I'm assuming it's because of the different stage of life I'm in, the difference in being nearly-19 and 30-something, the difference in being barely out of high school myself and being married with kids of my own.  I'd never, ever say that people with children are somehow more affected by the events.  But I feel like it affected me, personally, so much more.  Both because I have children and because of the ages of my kids.  Avielle Richman was born ONE WEEK after my Jaidan.  Their birthdays are exactly a week apart.  I see the names of kids like Jack Pinto and Jesse Lewis and I wonder if they were into Batman and Power Rangers and all the things my little boys are into.  Did one of those kids have a Spiderman Stunt City wrapped under the tree waiting for him to open Christmas morning?  Almost everything I've read about those sweet babies, I've seen a habit or quality or characteristic that my own 6-year-old possesses.  It's heart wrenching..

2) I had originally planned to go off on a little schpill about how I feel about guns and gun control but I saw the #26acts campaign yesterday and, well, that's so much more important, right now, than on how one little Mom in southwest Tennessee feels about assault weapons.

Here's the deal: 26 random acts of kindness in honor of the 26 victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  My kids and I kicked things off yesterday by leaving candy on three card windshields and a gift card on a fourth.  We included  note with each one explaining what it was for and wishing the
 recepient a happy and blessed holiday.  Today we're leaving goodies in the mailbox for our mailman and delivering some to the neighborhood fire department.  This weekend, we'll hand out neighbor gifts.  And we'll have to see just what other little acts of kindness we can sprinkle across our city.

3) I made up five things of cookie dough yesterday in preparation for today.  Because today?  We kick off Baking-palooza 2012.  Which is, of course, the predecessor to Gluttony Fest 2012.

4) I love Gluttony Fest.

5) We were treated to this while grocery shopping at the commissary the other day:

Cheaper food costs.  No tax.  AND being serenaded by men in uniform?  Yes please and THANK YOU.

6) Guess how many of the kids' Santa gifts are wrapped.  Just guess!  Did you guess ZERO?  Congratulations.  You are right.  Now who wants to come and wrap all this stuff for me?  I pay in wine and Christmas movies.  And good company, natch.

7) Continuing my crush on Goodwill, I picked up this guy - the tall one - the other day for $2:



I also found a whole bunch of brand new - still with tags - Christmas themed bowls and platters.  I really need to quit buying stuff like that seeing as I have approxomately 80 of them . . .

8) My daughter has been going 90 to nothing for the past week now and she is wearing.me.out.  She is pretty much constantly into something.  She is once again refusing to nap.  She's waking up around 6:30 in the morning.  GAH.  She also through a collossal fit as we were leaving Target the other day.  I was completely embarrassed but God bless the older woman who put her hand on my arm, winked, and told me that every single mom had been there at some point before.

9) On that note, I just want to say how refreshing it is to experience just how friendly people tend to be this kind of year.  I was in Kroger yesterday and an older lady wished me a "Merry Christmas."  I spotted her several other times in the store and noticed she was saying the same thing to everyone she saw.  I just love stuff like that. 

10) I usually post something funny here but today I'll leave you with this:

{Source}

Silent Night

It Happened This Week

I still cannot wrap my head around this shooting, this tragedy, in Connecticut.  I'm assuming it's because I have a six-year-old myself that this feels so personal.  I can't help but think about the room in my house that's full of presents that were expressly picked for one little particular little boy.  They were picked with love because I could imagine, I could see, the joy on his face when he ripped into them on Christmas morning.  And then I can't help but think that in attics and basements and closets and storage rooms in Newtown, Connecticut, there are presents picked with the same love.  Presents that will never be opened because those sweet babies will be spending Christmas in Heaven this year. 

It just kills me - it physically hurts - to think about what the parents of these precious babies are going through.  Instead of planning Christmas with last minute visits to Santa Claus, drinking hot chocolate while watching Polar Express, reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas . . . these parents are planning the funerals for their babies. The world is cruel and unfair.

When my stepdaughter came home from school Friday afternoon, she proclaimed it to be the "saddest day ever."  Memphis, just like the rest of the country, was reeling from the Connecticut shootings, but also from the death of a police officer who was killed in the line of duty.  Hitting even closer to home, she was the mother of four.  Two of her daughters attend school with Z, one is in her grade and she described her as a friend.  It was a heartbreaking day for their school.  Not only that, but this -- this school shooting -- it was her Columbine.  She will always remember that she was in the seventh grade when it happened.  She'll always remember that it was the day her friend's mom was killed while serving a seach warrant.  Friday was a somber day in our house.

A little look at our week:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close to the Heart

I promised Kyan a picnic lunch at the park today.  I let him and Karis pick out lunchables and then went to Subway to pick up my own lunch.  As I was getting the kids out of the truck a man pulled into the parking lot and seemed to race to get into the place, as if he were trying his hardest to beat me into the store.  We reached the door at the same time and he hurried in, not bothering to show the least bit of courtesy to a woman with her hands full of kids.  I was already annoyed but when he got in line before me and ordered five sandwiches, my mood shifted from annoyed to plain out and out foul.  Who does that?  How about some Christmas spirit, asshole?

We eventually made it to the park.  The kids ran off to play, the lunchables they begged for all but forgotten.  I unwrapped my sandwich and pulled up the Facebook app on my phone.  The very first thing I read, the very thing I saw, was about the shooting in Connecticut.  Tears instantly filled my eyes and perspective smacked me in the face.  While I was getting annoyed over some inconsiderate jerkwad at a sandwich shop, some other mom was losing her baby.  I just can't . . . there are no words.

Finding out this shooting took the lives of kindergarteners was just too much for me.  When the school shooting happened in Jonesboro, Arkansas, back in 1998 that was close to home.  I was still in school then -- and in school in Arkansas, at that.  This shooting, though, miles away and nowhere near close to home, hit close to heart.  These babies, precious babies, who senselessly lost their lives were born in 2006 and 2007.  They are the same age as my Jaybird, the little boy I dropped off at school this morning with a kiss and a smile and the reassurance that I would see him again in a few hours. 

There are presents under trees in Connecticut that will never be opened by the children they were intended for.  .  There are parents whose hearts have been broken, whose lives have been torn apart.  There are precious babies who are still living and breathing, whose parents will hug them tight tonight, but who will never be the same because of the horrific events they witnessed earlier today.  It's so unfair and unreal. 

When I picked up Jaidan from school this afternoon, I stood in a line with the other kindergarten moms and dads.  We're hundreds of miles away from the shooting but the atmosphere still had a somber feel.  It was as though everyone in that line realized it could have just as easily been Memphis, Tennessee, as Newtown, Connecticut.  One by one, we picked up our children and there were more hugs than usual.  I noticed one mom carrying her little boy to the car, as if she wanted him to be as close to her as possible.  I understood.  I felt the same.  I draped my arm over Jaidan and pulled him close to me and said a prayer of thanks that he was with me and safe and also that he was still young enough to not immediately shrug my arm off (maybe the fact that I brought him a Sonic strawberry limeade had a little something to do with that, though!)

I have never been the type of parent who wants to bubble wrap my children before sending them out in the world.  I want them to fall down and skin their kneeds.  I understand that they are going to get their feelings bruised from time to time.  The world can be a crazy place and they have to acclimate and learn to live in it.  But it hurts my heart to know that there are people out there who would kill kindergarteners.  It hurts my heart to know that I brought my children into a world where you can't even be 100% positive they are safe and free from danger when doing the date and weather during circle time with their teacher.  Every once in a wihle there are events that just smack us in the face with the reailty of the cruel world we live in.

This tragedy has hit so close to my heart.  My own kindergartener is sitting right beside me, watching Youtube videos on his tablet.  He's excited about the approaching holidays, a little worried that the reindeer are sick thanks to a story he read at school.  He's been writing "Mere Crismis" notes to people and came home today and proudly dispayed an ornament he made on our tree.  I can't wrap my mind around . . . I can't fathom . . . dropping him off at school one morning and then never seeing him again.  I've been giving all my babies a few more hugs than normal, and the 6-year-oldis getting even more than the others, and all the while feeling such an overwhelming sadness and grief for those Mama's and Daddy's in Connecticut.  who weren't able to pick their children up from school this afteroon.  God bless them.

InstaLately

Want to know the worst thing about suffering through the Terrible Two's with your third child?  Since you already have two other children, you already KNOW the three's are OMGSOMUCHWORSE than the two's ever thought about being.  Karis is a few months away from turning three and, man, she's already gearing up.  The past two days she's been running 100 mph, non-stop, into everything constantly, not napping, waking up at 6:30 in the morning *yawn,* and just, I don't know, making me wish I could mix a vodkavalium cocktail.  I have a feeling wine:30 is gonna come around early today! 

In the meantime, a look at our life lately according to Instagram.  You can follow me there, if ya want, @Brandi1010. 

See above about the 2010 asshole.  Yesterday's casualties.

Jaidan had his picture made with Santa at school.  He brought this home yesterday.

This kid is so photogentic.  It kills me.

My kid.  He thinks he has to take this picture every time we go to McDonald's.  His birthday, by the way, is in May . . .

There's a house in our neighborhood that Christmas threw up on!

 

Jaidan's card for his teacher.  The spelling KILLS me.  I love it! 

 

How we roll at Kroger

 

Grinch Feet!

I love.adore. this picture.

(We were making 'mistletoes')

 

Boys got their first library cards

 

Lowe's Build and Grow clinic

 

Wine and a glue gun.  Watch out now!

 

She didn't want to let go of my new wine glass (isn't it awesome?!?)

Also.  Why is she SO BIG?