What Not to do When Traveling

Do NOT:

• Book travel Christmas week, the week before, the week of or until after Jan 3rd.
• Book travel around Thanksgiving and Easter while you're at it.
• Book your connecting flight though somewhere with a high likelihood of snow/ice/cancelation.
• Book your flight without travel insurance incase something bad happens, particularly if you ignore the above advice
• Fly through Chicago unless you intend to visit Chicago- regardless of the season
• Expect to see your bags
• Plan on getting to your destination when your itinerary says you will
• Joke "we'll probably get snowed in there, but oh well" and get upset when you DO get snowed in there
• Fly on budget airlines who won't try to get you on another flight in the next 4 days, even if it's on another airline.

DO:

• Fly when others are back at work/school. Create your new family traditional holiday to celebrate with big meal, decorations, even presents if you must- just plan it around other already established holidays- say- the "it's not leap year" holiday or "leap year day" holiday.
• Avoid Chicago
• And while you're at it, try avoiding Michigan and Minnesota as well. oh- and LaGuardia.
• Plan on wearing the same clothes and underwear you carried onto the plane with you until you get to go shopping
• Buy travel insurance- if you have it, you probably won't need it and it's worth the $15 gamble
• Know that your grandchildren won't sleep until you arrive, even if it IS 5 days from now.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good week!

We had a nice, quiet Christmas at home. And honestly, while it is always nice to be around extended family for the holidays, this was the first year I wasn't having at least a little pity party feeling like we were missing out.

There is something about not getting caught up in the who-got-who-what and who's comming to which house for Christmas/Christmas eve.. it was simple, relaxing time at home. Larry had the entire day off, which was also refreshing.

The highlight of the day was Joey's present. A rocket launcher. Yep. We have turned into "THOSE" parents again. When the twins were young- we read evey label for danger/choking hazzards, etc.. now.. heck.. label says 'ages 8+'? "ahhh.. that's for others- I got an advanced kid, he can figure it out"

How far we've come..

(you'll note the LACK of winter coats in our backyard yesterday. By New England standards, it was downright balmy. By SO CA standards, I guess it was a little cool- shortly before and after this pictures it was raining- when the sun was out it was nice, when it was in, it was cool and rainy)

2 Days until Christmas

• And I haven't mailed a single Christmas card.
• There is not a single un-eaten Christmas cookie in the house.
• I think I've gained 5 lbs from helping eat the cookies.
• I lost the receipts to the things I need to return.
• I mailed all the gifts to family late, so they won't get there tomorrow.
• It was 60 degrees today.

Failing Gingerbread 101

I was reading these online cutesy things to do with kids for Christmas and one was to make gingerbread graham-cracker houses.
I seemed to not understand the instructions on how to keep them together. I got the icing stiff, balanced the house of cards oh-so perfectly and... we ended up from something that semi-resembled houses (didn't think to take a picture of them, thinking I'd wait til they were decorated-- HA.. little did I know)
to these: (waiting the second time for the icing to dry)

To this- iced graham crackers with candy

And I also failed to read how to get the kids down off the sugar high from eating that much candy/icing in a few short hours.

Scenes from Friday

And...

Yes, there was a car sick kid..

Ah. I understand part 1

Snoppy, uh, I mean Belle sits on top of her kennel when she can climb up on it. (she's still pretty small and it and the floor are pretty slipery. I didn't witness how she got onto it.. but I think it was the running start and crashing when it was against the wall. In the middle of the floor it's running start and crashing on the floor or side of the kennel as it slides..)

I'd post the picture of it once I find where my camera walked off to with JM..

Today we're going to try to drive to the mountains to see/play in the snow. After 2 days of rain here, you can SEE the mountains and they have SNOW on top of them. It rained below 3000 or 4000 feet and the rest of us had 50 degree rain.

HOW cool is that?!

But the secret is out about how cool things are here- leads to my gripe about traffic.. millions have flocked to live here in paradise :-)


PS. did you know it's "required" to have tires on your chains when you drive into the mountains? I assume where we're going the Excursion will be just fine. Much like the news coverage of snow in VA the reporters interviewed the lines of native San Diegans in ditches spun out along the road They drove to check out the sight of snow but don't know how to drive in the white beauty.. then it cuts to the Highway Patrol guy who tells them to stay off the road and that it's required to have chains on their tires. wow. Chains were never required in New England. They'd have been helpful, I'm sure where our family lived in VT in my pre-driving days.. and there were a few times I wish I had more traction the year I lived in NH, but that what the bag of kitty litter in the trunk was for.. but chains? THAT was for the people who lived off the paved road-- WAYY off..
so.. I'll let you know how bad it is or if it's just because people here drive like maniacs. (I'm betting it's the maniac factor...)

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

Life with JM

This kid is our most active kid. period. And I have a Sonia to compare him to who is in perpetual motion and highly distractable.

JM is not distractable. HE is a kid on a mission. Unfortunately the mission is never what he's supposed to be doing.

For example- last night- I was playing a game with the bigger kids on the dining room table and he was bored and mad that I wasn't letting him chew on the playing cards so he wandered off. I hear thumping and rumbling in the kitchen. I walk in and find he's helped himself to a yogurt, opened it and gotten himself a spoon.

He climbs and helps himself to the fruit in the fruit basket, has poured an entire pot of coffee onto the counter top (miraculously not burning himself), filled the sink with water and left it running and his current favorite activity- bouncing avocados, preferably into my coffee cup. I bought 12 avocados (we are in CA and they're cheap) and he managed to smash every one of them in about 10 minutes that I was there but not really noticing what he was doing. We now have lots of guacamole. He's also made Orange Juice with the oranges in the fruit basket.

He also has figured out how to put the side rail of his crib down and climb out, open the front door and walk out and climb over the gate I used to use to keep him and the puppy downstairs. He climbs over a baby gate. The very thing meant to contain him. I now have a taller gate he seems to take longer to scale. The normal height one slows him down less than a speed bump. At least it still slows puppy down.

And puppy.. an update on her. She is so very good with the kids. When we researched dogs, we read that all beagles were good with kids. And so far, that is certainly the case. Other breeds read "most labs/etc. are good with kids" but beagles- it said ALL. We probably should have read on because our beagle is not bright. And beagles have a distinct howl. The same one you hear in the background of "the fox and hound" THAT howl. THAT is her means of communication. Oi vey. Sorta wish we lived somewhere where the land around our house was measured in acres instead of feet. Her howl is a 20 acre howl. I think 20 acres away it's less annoying. I think I have 900 neighbors in 20 acres. (ok, I'm probably exaggerating.. maybe 80 neighbors.. but still...)

Snoopy is a beagle. And I suspect Charles Schultz had a beagle. We watched Charlie Brown with new intersest this week and noticed Snoopy howled, licked Lucy alot, carried his empty dish around and seemed, well.. odd for a dog. That's been our experience 2 weeks into this. Thus far she hasn't tried to hunt down the Red Barron, but I can see her doing something similarly odd.

She love to play, particularly with JM. He lights up when he sees her and in a small way, she seems to be speech therapy for him. He has added 'puppy, no, and bite' to his vocabulary- not in sequence, but he's said them a few times-- and he tries to talk to her. (she likes to bite his blanket and he gets upset, so the kids yell 'puppy no bite' I wish he added 'mommy I love you' to his vocab, but I guess I'll have to wait for that.

I know.. I'll probably be waiting a long time for that..

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

From the Military Ministry Breakfast this month at church, there were pictures with Santa and we had someone take a few of all us in front of the tree. Joey hasn't mastered smiling on cute, yet.

And from the FP Dept Christmas party here at NHCP- betcha never thought you'd see a bunch of Naval Officers or DRs singing Karaoke? No.. No.. Larry was not drinking. and yes, that is him up there, on his knees singing. That would be the residency director next to him and the past residency director just behind them. I'm pretty sure they weren't drinking either.

"you've lost that loving feeling... whoa that loving feeling"

a little creepy that 1/2 the group seemed to be serenading the other half.. of men. glad it wasn't "in the Navy" from the Village people.

And there was a theme- Ugly tie. We won second. I wish I took a picture of the tie.. no, wait.. I'm glad I didn't. It WAS UGLY - like you couldn't-buy-it-so-ugly. I made it from leopard print furry fleece- baby blue with black painted on leopard spots. Hideous. And unbelievably, Joanne's was selling this stuff on clearance for $10/a yard. I would have passed on it at $1/yard cept it was perfectly hideous for this project.

But it came in second to the tie a guy made from cutting up a piece of kitchen carpet. The contest was over in the above picture, so the tie was ditched. We won a basket of chocolate. Yippee. Even better than the bottle of liquor for first place :-)

Mi Vida Loca

Want to know HOW crazy I am?? you probably don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

So.. a day in the life..

6-something: toddler and puppy are up and both need to be changed/let out/fed

7-8ish: they're entertaining themselves and I'm finishing up packing the last few orders from the business. Kayla and Joey's up and I'm running referee between them and JM, feeding/cooking breakfast, in between a few emails and posting on the blog here

9-ish get a phone call from our customs broker that he can meet me at 11 to get our latest shipment.

9-10 awaken/re-awaken/drag Sonia out of bed get kids dressed, snacks and school work packed rush out the door move carseats to the truck.

Yes. I took the kids with me to get our shipment of pins. And the customs broker was a little taken aback, he rolled with it. The ladies at the freight holding company were less amused. OK. They weren't amused at all.

I even had JM on my back so he wasn't screaming the entire time we were there and breaking everything and throwing himself down in a fit. They don't know how good they had it. They did have a dish of candy at eye level which wasn't broken or even touched and a christmas tree with presents which were left unwrapped. I'd say it was a sucess. Those ladies had NO idea and I had no idea we were going to be let into the nice office half of the building. Usually the freight delivery/release window is inside the warehouse, so I wasn't worried that my kids would be able to break anything... run over by a forklift.. yes.. possibly..but unwrap christmas presents or re-decorate a tree weren't on my radar when I pulled into the driveway.. of a warehouse!

10-11:30 driving to Mexico (ok, Otay Mesa but from which if you turn right instead of left, you're crossing the boarder. "Look Kids- see those 2 flags right there- that's Mexico")

11:30-12:30 paperwork done, filed, pallet of pins (yes, that was pallet) loaded into the truck between the kids

12:30-1:30 stop at the truck stop there for potty break and the kids are hungry to a 20 minute wait for chicken nuggets at the fast food restaurant (they were awful, even by fast food standards)

1:30-3:00 on the road again, promised the kids we'd do something fun if they were good at customs and since they didn't distroy the place, only were antsy and touched the glass door... oh, yeah.. and Sonia decorated their sign in clip board. :-/ it will be the only warehouse office clipboard sign in sheet with flowers and doodles on it, I bet.

3:00 -5:00 LEGOLAND with truck full of diaper pins

5:00-6:15 drive home (have I mentioned traffic here?!)

6:30 throwing together dinner

7:00 ish the kids find Rudolph on TV, cleaning up dishes, realized the dishwasher got the dishes less clean than the puppy licking them, leave the dishes in the sink and re-run the dishwasher with the dishes that were in there. Handwash a few when the kids ask for drinks.

9:00-ish past their bedtime, finally. TV is off, but Rudolph was still on (and I sure don't remember the Rudolph that was on then)

10-12 empty/fill dishwasher, do a website update with the pins, curse the 'inventory control' feature that oversells everything, but sends you an email that you are out of something it just sold.. return email, pack orders

12:30 to bed

4:45 Toddler thinks it's 6AM, puppy agrees... convince them otherwise

6-ish and it starts again. Today, instead of driving to pick up 1000 lbs of pins, I'll be unpacking 1000 lbs of pins, taking JM to a hearing test and having company for dinner and having someone come this afternoon to help get the biz accounting in order since I am math and accounting challenged... And sometime in there.. MAYBE cleaning the house... preferably before anyone walks in, but especially before dinner.

Oh Christmas Tree

We put up our "tree" yesterday. We spent last Christmas month away and the year before the kids' didn't remember having a tree at our house.. so.. it was a brand new experience for them. And they thought it was great


It took me the better part of the AM to find the tree/lights/ornaments which were located in the nether-parts of closets and top shelves in the garage.. but nonetheless.. we still have our pre-kid assortment of fragile and breakable ornaments, nativity sets and decorations. Which went back in the box, but not until after 3 glass ornament balls were "bounced" on the tile floor.


But now, our pathetic 3 foot fake tree is up, precariously sitting on a table it has nearly taken a tumble off of several times and JM had undecorated the bottom branches at every chance he gets.


But.. Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Still working on that Christmas picture. Here is our diamond in the rough version- the girls' hair hadn't seen a hairbrush in 7 hours and they were wearing their play clothes. but.. well.. this is how we really look when we aren't putting on Christmas picture airs..
(and blurry!! I have to find the camera manual and see if I did something to the auto focus feature..it focused on the tree just fine, but that was supposed to be the background, unfocused so you can't see that it's as pathetic and artificial as it can be. At least it's not an artificial cactus or palm tree, I guess):

75 and sunny yesterday

I TRIED taking a picture of the kids so send to family and it was a disaster.. so I will try again later. Maybe later today.. The few that looked ok-enough as far as kids not moving, pushing, frowning, etc.. were blurry. BLURRY. not bad at the 2x3 inch resolution here, but as soon as you try to develop them.. much less a 8x10 size.. *sigh* so much for auto focus.

We even went to Sears to do the "real" pictures but, again.. that was a greater disaster. I had never before not ordered at least a few pictures... and maybe I'll look back and say 'I should have gotten a few' but I doubt it. I actually think DMV could have taken a more flattering picture.

And looking at pictures, I realized my youngest needed a haircut.. badly. He was sporting the Chris Farley look.. so.. I took the clippers and put them to good use. I *thought* I was getting better at giving the males in the house haircuts, but between his new do and the haircut I gave Larry this week, I'm realizing I probably need to do 300 more before I can say I'm good at it. So.. until Larry's hair grow back, you won't see a picture of him.

So.. photographic evidence of the week- Ballet lessons and the JM haircut.

Because every girl wants to be a ballerina

My 5 year old has been persistent in her requests for ballet lessons. VERY persistent so finally I signed her up for 1 month of lessons at the YMCA.

And the "appropriate attire" she is supposed to wear is a solid color leotard, tights and ballet shoes.

So today we unveiled the leotard she is supposed to wear. And it was met with this comment:
"mom, that looks like what you put on a baby over their diaper! That's not a ballerina dress!!"

yup. she's right.

Wish I knew it was only the frilly tu-tu she wanted, not the actual lessons.

Corningware/Glassware:0 Tile Floor/counter: 12

Puppy Day 4

I'm finding it hysterical to watch JM bothered by someone smaller than him and about as much as a pest as he can be.

Example- JM has a "thing" for balls- he loves em and often has one in his hand.
Puppy also has a "thing" for balls so when JM drops his ball and it bounces, puppy chases it around until it's somewhere neither of them can reach.

Same for JM's blanket- the puppy loves to grab it and give a tug and run off with it.
MUCH like the way JM grabs hold of Kayla's blanket and runs off with it.

I'm probably worst mom of the year for finding that amusing, huh?

And last night puppy slept though the night clean and dry. (hurray! wish the kids slept through the night...)

I went shopping for a potty chair for JM last night and didn't find one I thought would withstand the destructive and mess-making abilities of the tribe here.. but I'm thinking of potty training the toddler as soon as the puppy is done. Seriously, tho- the puppy is easier- I can't put JM in a crate when we leave the house.

yeah, yeah.. worst mom of the year for that crossing my mind..

Day 3 with a puppy

And Sonia and Joey have claimed ownership of her and are thrilled with her but bicker all the time over her. I'm threating to give her away if she contines to add strive to family relationships.

She's gone farily ok on the potty training thing- better than the kids on day 3, at least- yesterday there was only 1 accident.

HOWEVER she has brought to my attention a mouse in the house. She just flushed it out from under the couch and it's under the stove.

ARGH!!!!

And she's still whining at the couch, so either
a. she doesn't realize it's gone or
b. there's another one there

I'll be refilling the mouse traps today.

(and aren't you thrilled I chose to share this with ya? I have nothing more exciting to write about)

PS. it was 67 degrees and sunny yesterday and I heard "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" on the radio daily since Thanksgiving. I'm thining they either dream big here or the DJs have a sense of humor.

and one more makes..........

12 little feet running around the house

Introducing baby Belle our new beagle pup

Sorry Folks, no pregnancy test. I was waiting til she had a name other than "cutie" and "sweetie" (or muttered "stupid dog" after peeing inside..) before we officially announced her arrival..

And Mom and Dad.. I KNOW, I KNOW.. yes.. we ARE crazy. That what makes us so much fun and unpredictable. And we were due to add another creature to our life if we kept with the new addition every 21-23 months tradition.. we're right on time. And it seems to be doing a decent job at keeping baby fever away for now.