That Guy From The North Pole Is Back!

My musical taste is full of variety...Johnny Cash and The Who one moment.... U2 and Pink the next....Kanye on my iPod shuffle...and then a little White Stripes sprinkled with the Zac Brown band with a dash of No Doubt.

Something happens this time of year though, my musical taste changes..

I suddenly feel the urge to fill my iPod with Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Michael Buble, and Andy Williams.....why does this happen? Why does my choice in artists suddenly reflect a 70 year old retiree?

....because....

The Christmas classics are freaking AWESOME! I won't apologize for my snowy wonderland of sappy music...

...and then I am compelled to cover everything in my house with lights, garland, and berries....I want to make sugary treats, and drink lots of hot cocoa with marshmallows melting over the top....

I love this time of year! It is my favorite holiday for a million reasons.

Last year we started the Elf on the Shelf. If you missed last years you can get an idea of the fun we had by reading here, here, and my all time favorite here, and lastly here.

So of course Kenzie has been asking about Chip the elf since Halloween. I have been collecting ideas on Pinterest and preparing. Last year I bought Chip a little further into December so I need to pace myself and space out the good ideas..... I have more days to cover this year.....plus I  have to get through finals, then I can focus on Chips shenanigans.

Are you ready to cover week one? Nothing outrageous this week, but it has kept the 6 year old entertained, and that is what matters. Oh, and by the way, I will of course include an underwear episode, and bring back the evil elf at some point this month....Here we go!

Day 1: My kids don't get boxed cereal often. It is expensive and they can go through a box in two days so I buy the big bags of cereal. So a box of cereal, and especially a Christmas cereal, is a big deal.  The scenario at the grocery store would go something like this....Makenzie asking for this box of cereal at the store, and I would say no because I wasn't spending 4+ dollars on a box of cereal that would last one meal; and then she would whine all through the store, and I would tell her this is why I don't bring her shopping; and she would sulk all the way home, and I would tell her father I am never taking her to the store again...and then next week... we would do the same thing all over again. She even got a new Christmas cereal bowl and a card from Chip.

 

 

Day 2: We have fun with Chip, but we took a moment to acknowledge what Christmas truly means. Chip got baby Jesus from our nativity set and highlighted his birth in the Bible, we took a few minutes and read it together.

 

Day 3: My mom recently sent an advent calendar so Chip took it upon himself to put up that days decoration....Makenzie was unsure of Chip helping himself to her morning duty of changing the advent calendar...she may have given him a dirty look....

Day 4: Well of course if there is Christmas cookies in the house Chip is going to help himself to one!
  * I would like to thank Adrian for volunteering his services this evening in eating the said cookie*

 

 

Day 5: As I laid my head down on my pillow and began to send myself into a blissful NyQuil induced sleep. I somehow remembered I had not moved Chip from his cookie crumbled spot. I laid there for a moment debating on coming up with a lie on why he did not move this night, or get my tired NyQuil induced self out of bed. I then looked around my room thinking about what to do...and then it came to me. I have had a head cold for about a week now and my bedside table was covered in cold medicine and tissues. Chip was going to be sick tonight! When Kenzie saw him the next morning she said he was faking...because he was still smiling.

 



Day 6: The twins wanted to do something with Chip so they gathered some of their Monster
High dolls and they set up the scenario for the night. I think Chip was a little unsure of their monster looks...I don't think they have anything that looks like that in the North Pole.

Day 7: How about a little Hide and seek. Chip wrote on her mirror in her room. "Let's play hide and seek." Makenzie could not find him; in fact, she had to have sisters help find him...can you see him?

Day 8: Curly or straight?

oh wait back to Chip...

Day 8: Makenzie has seemed to take her time taking off in school, she seemed not very interested in kindergarten, and I was worried she was going to be behind the curve with first grade. All of sudden the light when off and she has taken off...she has been doing really well this year. I had Santa acknowledge all her hard work, and had Chip bring a special treat, homemade hot cocoa and powdered doughnuts. Polar express cocoa to be exact. Just reading the recipe makes your butt grow two sizes but it is a good decadent treat.

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2 cups chocolate chips

6 cups milk

1 tsp vanilla

 

Warm over low heat and it keeps great in a crock pot

 

 



Next week is finals week...please pray for my sanity.....

To be continued ......



Just Catching Up

I am done with school for the summer........hmmmm....I am a bit lost because...I have no papers, quizzes, reading, tests.....I have not had a summer off of school since I started...

...honestly...it feels great.....I need this summer off to recharge my mental batteries....I took two naps last week?!..and I didn't even pull out my laptop... I cleaned house and watched T.V.....I am beginning to feel normal again. I am going to begin looking for a part time job for the summer...extra cash and some work experience in the health field.

I got my final grades..my final grades at USU...I ended with a 3.82....dang anatomy and college algebra...they knocked me off my perfect record.....math, I suck at...anatomy I blame on the professor, he sucked at teaching it......However I got an A in pathology this semester...next to anatomy it was one of my toughest courses...I am proud of that A! If you saw my textbook and all those big words in it you would be proud too!

Last weekend my mom and Aunt Jackie came to town. They did some shopping at our new mall downtown...gorgeous mall!

Mom came down to see Makenzie's dance recital. The theme this year was, "Going to the Movies".

Makenzie danced to, "When You Wish Upon A Star" and "All the Single Ladies". Makenzie has lived in her costumes since the recital....if she could, she would live everyday in dress up and costumes especially if it is sparkly or princessy.....

Adrian's 40th Birthday was Wednesday...we celebrated by leaving the kids behind and going to the movies. We saw Avengers...pretty darn good. Tried a new recipe...ended up making it twice this week....it is called earthquake cake and it is yummy..it is simple and yummy.....if you like german chocolate cake you will give it a thumbs up....I am working on losing that 30 pounds by the end of summer so I only had one slice out of those two cakes I baked.....I think I should get two thumbs up for amazing self control.

http://www.sweettreatsmore.com/2012/04/earthquake-cake.html

Saturday morning I got to go do my one of favorite traditions. I walked in the Susan G Komen walk and it was as inspirational as usual. I went in support of mom as always (MOTHER! You will come down for this next year!) but also the same friend I also walked for last year, Jill. Jill is going through her second round of chemo because it spread to her lungs but her prognosis looks good and she is beating that insidious cancer. My aunt is also a breast cancer survivor and she was there but I could not find her amongst the large crowd ( so I borrowed one of my cousins pictures she posted on Facebook...thanks :) )...come to find out she was holding one of the signs in the survivor parade .....she is also one of those strong inspiring ladies.

My Aunt Dixie and her daughters Chrystal and Sabrina ( Sorry.. I had to poach your picture)

 

Jill

On our 5K walk...new route this year....

The survivor ceremony

 My sweet neighbor Lisa

Jill...being Jill.....showing her mighty strength...she cracks me up!

Saturday we had my mother-in-laws famous gumbo...once again trying to watch what I eat...but...I will never pass up a gumbo and hush puppies...and I had just walked a 5k so a few extra yummy calories was not going to kill me.

Makenzie is done with school this week and the twins the following week...on to summer....no grand plans... just a part time job...and....

some much needed mental R and R!

Life with Makenzie

Makenzie.....I talk about Makenzie a lot because lets face it she is no further than 6 feet from me most of the time and she never stops talking,  so she is easy to talk about. Here is some recent highlights of Makenzie, because we love her, she is thoroughly entertaining, and border line annoying  all wrapped up in an adorable 5 year old..........

1). Valentines lists came home early last week. It had all the kids name in the class and a request from the teacher to make sure they fill out the cards ( good handwriting practice).....It took till Sunday night to finish the last of the 21 cards. To get her to focus is like...well......I can imagine a gnat focuses easier than her. Before, during, and after of every single card I had to hear every detail of that person whom she was sending the card too.  I heard about Billy's nose picking expertise...Mary's lack of sock wearing...Stevie's affinity for bad words...Hannah's inexcusable line cutting....and then once she was done doing that her attention would quickly shift to another subject...this equates to 2 cards every six hours!!!!!!

2). Conversation in the car after listening to bickering children in the back seat:

Me: "Do you know what my life was like before children?"

Makenzie: "I bet you and dad sat around playing kissy face all day!"

Me: "Well that would explain where the twins came from!"

Makenzie:" I don't get it?"

Me: "Good, someday you will."

Makenzie: "Oh......it was an old people joke."

3) I am leaving in a couple of weeks for a cruise...Makenzie's parting words for that trip was:

"I hope you get sea sick!"

.........I don't think she is thrilled I will be gone for a week.................

4) There is little doubt that Makenzie is truly a girly, girl...she loves pink, sparkles, shoes, makeup, finger nail polish, Disney princesses, and long flowy hair. She loathes...LOATHES...reptiles or bugs. So upon finding a bug on the window we asked her to get it.. and the following resulted...

I would like you to pay full attention to about the 10 second mark and notice the quintessential girl arch in the back...boys don't do that arch when running away from something..that is truly a girl thing and she has it down to an precise art.

( please note the bug was eventually placed outside and not actually put on the child, once she went downstairs she rolled on the floor and yelled at us for mocking her for at least a half hour...but it was worth it..it really was....)

I Blame My Upbringing

I was raised in a house where teasing was mandatory..it was not optional...I was teased until I cried. My father and my uncles took it upon themselves to teach me to always be on alert for any potential bodily harm or verbal ribbing's. As a result, my upbringing has warped me into a relentless tease with a sarcastic undertone. I do not tease my children as badly as I was teased.....BUT....if I find a weakness...something that works them all up...I circle like a lion waiting for the sickly gazelle to fall...I wait till they are least expecting and I pounce....the result....me laughing and them either pissed,embarrassed, or crying.

Some parents may not understand this.... these are the parents that have the kids that cry if any other kid does anything to upset their little world and thus the parent is over there explaining to the child that the person did not mean it and they were teasing and blah, blah, blah.....ughhhh....those parents drive me nuts! I want to scream from the top of my lungs that I was sat on by my uncles for not a minute or two at a time but for periods of time that border lined on child abuse...and when you would finally wiggle your way to freedom they grabbed you and sat on you again for another round, and while they sat on you they gave you wet willies (wet willies are the process of licking ones finger and putting into another's ear!). This is 1/16 of the things I endured but I came out alive and never once did my parents have to explain to me when another child was teasing because I could easily dish it back.

Anyways, I am getting off track here...back to where I am going with this....Makenzie....Makenzie is a sickly gazelle...she is easy to tease! She has a flair for the dramatic and reacts with zeal when she is being teased. The twins are more laid back and tend to blow off teasing with their nonchalant attitude....but Makenzie....there is nothing nonchalant about her!

So Makenzie's weakness is her underwear, and nakedness...she gets very embarrassed if we discuss anything on such topics. She wants privacy when getting dressed, flips out if you walk in on her if she is naked. She is sensitive to any of her undergarments being exposed to the world and will ensure we don't see her underwear at all costs. Though I hope she continues this quirk as she hits her late teens and early adulthood...right now it is funny to tease her about her Dora panties

....soooo...we have been doing this elf on a shelf thing ......of course I am going to do something that involves her underwear and the elf......

I know...I know what her reaction is going to be...I know it will upset her and she will be horrified and she will carry on about the elf touching her underwear and her underwear being exposed for the world to see...I know her reaction before I even do it...

yet...I do it...

I blame my upbringing...my upbringing has turned me into this..it just makes me do these type of things!

Ferocious Fours

August 22nd four years ago we gained a new member of the family. At 2:45 pm she was born. She weighed 7lbs 11oz and was 20 inches long. The epidural did not work and she decided to come out sideways so after some painful yells from me and a patient OB she came into the world. It was a surreal experience! The twins birth was so dramatically different that this experience was like having a baby for the first time. I got to soak her in and enjoy the joy of her being here and most of all I got to hold her right away for as long as I wanted to. I was all alone for the twins birth but his time I had Adrian, my mother-in-law Sharon and Father-in-law Bob (though I will say the father-in-law was quick to leave the room once he heard the doctor say lets start pushing, can't blame him for that ). She had every bit of my love from the minute they put her in my arms.

This was the day I brought her home. She was a GREAT baby! She was a good eater and she slept well and rarely cried. See her bottom lip in this picture, how it is puckered out, she still does that when she sleeps.

The day she was blessed ...Makenzie Hope Brand...notice that puckered bottom lip again.

She was born with a plugged tear duct. This is not uncommon, you just have to keep it washed and clean and eventually it opens up. Whenever she woke up from a nap or in the morning her eye would be caked shut. She of course got the nickname Popeye for at least six months.

This was a wig we found at the in-laws and of course because the baby was defenseless we had to put it on her. Really isn't a parents job to humiliate their children...next picture is proof ...

HUMILIATION!

One thing my girls do have is BEAUTIFUL eye's, they got their daddy's eye's.

One years old in this picture. She was just starting to walk and the evidence in that is the bruised up nose. She fell into a stone fireplace just a few days previous to taking this picture.

She knows where that unconditional love is. She loves all the grandparents and attracts to them like bears to honey. She knows where she will get all that attention and love that she demands..and oh boy does she love this grandpa, she has him wrapped around her finger.


These last four years have flown by and Makenzie is a force to be reckoned with. As I was writing this blog she managed to get in to trouble several times and as of this minute she is sitting in her room in time out. She has ended her three's by perfecting the "Temper Tantrum". She is screaming at the top of her lungs and kicking the floor in her room. She is yelling at the top of her lungs, "I don't love her, and she needs to get out of her room and she needs her blanket." I think she is going to be an actress, a pain in the ass diva actress! She is the humor and pure entertainment that drives this house. Hang on world because Makenzie is going to be out there someday and she is not coming quietly......

Here we go again!

So I posted sometime back about one of my twins cutting their own hair. She had a mullet by the end of her cutting experience. She was happy with her results and was proud to sport her new look. Last night the three year old decided to take the scissors to her hair. This was different, she was trying to remove a hairband that was tangled in her hair so she thought she could cut it out. After several snips and a hairband that was still tangled we had a new hairdo. She was immediately not happy and was trying to cover her mistake with hair accessories. I suppose because I have been down this route before I found incredible humor in Makenzie's reaction. It was the polar opposite of Cheyenne's reaction.

It is always an adventure with kids. You never know what is around the corner waiting for you. I suppose the older I get the more I let things roll and just take the moment in. We laughed and joked about the haircut. It will grow back and life will move on. Once again I am left with a great memory.

Conversation with a three year old

A conversation that Makenzie and I had after she had been let out of her room for being in time out. She was in time out because she was playing in my makeup.



Makenzie: " You should not put me in my room and make your voice loud at me!"



Me: "Why should I not put you in your room when you do something that is wrong?"



Makenzie: " You should not put me in my room and make your voice loud because you love me
and when you love someone you should not put them in their room!"



Me: " I always love you but sometimes I don't like what you are doing and that is why I raise my voice and put you in your room."



Makenzie: Pause............"Jesus loves me.....he would not put me in my room and raise his voice
at me and guess what, he likes me too!"



Me: Silence..............



She left the room at that moment and I was left realizing I lost the verbal smackdown with my three year old.

Warrior ready for battle...

Makenzie joined our family on August 22nd, 2006. She was a very easy baby. She slept through the night within a few weeks of being home. You could leave her on a blanket with some toys around her and she would be content to play there for hours. Her personality was different from the twins, she was more hesitant to go to strangers and she was more serious in her demeanor. She would stare and study everything around her and take in everything she observed.

Let me fast forward to March 29th, 2010. Makenzie is now three and a half and is only a faint memory of the sweet, quiet baby that she once was. Her main reason for existence at this point is to aggravate, upset and generally raise my blood pressure at any given moment of the day. I think she gets up in the morning and organizes her battle plan for the day and figures out where she is going to attack in Makenzie vs Household. I use the term household because she does not target just me; some days it is her siblings, Adrian, and even the dog. She is truly a warrior that goes into battle with her eye on winning and she will go to any means to win the battle and eventually the war. I would compare her sneakiness to that of a ninja. She lurks in the shadows and slithers along the floor and moves with a cat like prowl when attempting to get something she knows she should not have. When she gets the item she is not supposed to have she will find a hiding spot and eat or play with it and then hide the evidence so she does not leave an incriminating trail that may lead to punishment.

Her skills in ninja like qualities are also balanced out by her ferocious warrior styles that are probably like that of Genghis Khan. She will go toe to toe with her older siblings and not back down until they lay a finger upon her and Makenzie thinks a punishment no less then a beheading is sufficient enough to make up for this horrific crime against her. Makenzie will take on anyone that gets in her way of her mission.

A long with her battle skills she also has the ability to torture. Some may remember when American forces went to Panama to capture Noriega. To drive Noriega out of his domain they blared 80's hair band music 24 hours a day until he eventually surrendered. Well instead of Van Halen, Makenzie talks so much that your ears begin to ring and you begin to feel like Noriega having to listen to, "Hot For Teacher" full blast for hours on end. Her talking will make you fall to your knees and plead for quiet and silence, but she just looks at you and continues on with her verbal assault.

Her worst battle tactic, the one she pulls out everyday and she knows it will make me surrender; when she says, "I love you!" She will come out of nowhere and grab your leg and say, "I love you, a lot!" and my heart will melt every time. When she smiles she crinkles her nose and squints her eyes. When she laughs it comes right from her belly. She is always running and twirling and she exudes the care-free feelings of childhood. She has perfected the art of war and at such a young age she has perfected the art of love.