Random Snippets

We had a busy but fabulous Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years!  I feel like I've been running around with my head cut off for months.  I assigned myself a huge project that made me a little insane as Christmas grew ever closer.  I have been a huge slacker when it comes to transferring family videos off of whatever medium they were originally recorded on, to a medium that is easily viewable.  So I decided to reform my ways, get up to date, and present my dearest hubby with a stack of freshly minted Family DVD's for Christmas.  I was five and a half years behind.  Fourteen hours of video and 8 DVD's later, I accomplished my mammoth task.  It took a LOT of time.  I even included slideshows of many many pictures - 2,947 to be exact.  And even better?  AFTER Christmas I burned another two hours on the 9th DVD so I am STILL up to date.  Which is awesome.  But it also means I've been slacking on almost every other area in my life, including blogging.  

What did I learn from burning sixteen hours of family fun?  

Our lives can be summed up as:

Jace's Birthday

Easter

Hubby's Birthday

Summer Fun (usually camping or some kind of water something or other)

Dane's Birthday

Diva's Birthday

Halloween

My Birthday (surprisingly recorded twice during the 5 1/2 year span)

Thanksgiving (only if we had company or went somewhere)

Peanut's Birthday

Erik's Birthday

Christmas

... and repeat.

Throw in some occasional random dancing and recently a soccer game or two (or more ...) and you can guess how our lives have been and will be for many years to come.

So, things I missed telling you while I was sorting through family festivities:

1) We survived four kids in soccer!  Hurrah!  Hurray!  But now we're thinking four kids in soccer was easier than one kid in wrestling ... we'll see if we survive this newest adventure!  A few soccer highlights:

 

 
(You do not need to watch all 1:09 minutes.  Just watch from second :21 (Erik is the second "header") to about second :42, after Erik's throw-in and missed kick. Unless you want to enjoy a Father's Commentary on a Soccer Son, using the wrong name of course ;-)  You can also hear Peanut yelling for his brother.

2) My baby is THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Ack!  My cute little Peanut is growing up.  I need to snuggle a baby so I don't decide I need my own.  Maybe it's time for a kitten ...

3) I have a teenager now.  Erik is officially 13.  Yikes.

4) Dane's Christmas List:

hamster
snake
Chinese Water Dragon baby
turtle
crab
chameleon
baby gorilla
two headed lizard
dog
cat
lizard with no legs but not a snake
crocodile biting turtle

basilisk
rabbit
toy horns
grabber
pointer
bubblegum
money

(The first six pets have been a constant plea.  When he realized I was writing them down he started getting a little creative.  I love how he ends his exotic list with bubblegum and money.  Unfortunately, no live animals greeted him on Christmas morning.  But he did get some bubblegum!)

 

5) I FINISHED THE STOCKINGS!!  Many eons ago, when I was pregnant with Jace, I made lovely matching stockings for my family.  They were cute.  I even sewed an extra one for the not-yet-on-the-horizon baby #3.  When Diva arrived I simply decorated her stocking in the same manner as the other stockings.  Then Dane arrived.  Poor, poor stockingless Dane.  I finally managed to sew a matching stocking for him, but it remained blank for many years.  Then Peanut was born.  Poor, poor stockingless Peanut.  He didn't even GET a stocking sewn for him, but used whatever we had on hand.  But finally!  Finally!  This year Dane got his stocking decorated, Peanut got a stocking sewn, and then, miracle of miracles, Peanut got his newly sewn stocking decorated.  Yes, I have had more than three children for 5 1/2 years.  And yes, my stockings finally show it.  In other words, it has taken me over five years to accomplish a fraction of what my much-younger-less-child-encumbered self did in a few weeks.  I would show you a picture, but horror of horrors, you would see our REAL NAMES.  Perhaps I'll facebook it.

6) We made gingerbread ... er ... I mean graham cracker houses.  Well, we can't really call them "houses".  Shall we say "Creations With Graham Crackers and Royal Icing and Lots of Candy"?

7) My husband greeted the world on Christmas Eve with our annual Christmas Blog.  If you haven't read it, you need to.  He doesn't let me read it until he's done writing it and I haven't laughed that hard all year.  If you missed the deluge of emails and facebook statuses alerting our friends that it was available for viewing, let me know and I'll send you the web address.  It's uses our REAL NAMES (shocker!) but he justifies it by making it public only two weeks every year, so you have a few more days to enjoy it ... and READER BEWARE!  He is already planning a music video for next year.  Oh me oh my.

WARNING!! SANTA SPOILERS AHEAD!!

We have a complicated relationship with Santa in our house, starting in the wee hours of our marriage when my husband brought up his Santa issues.  Seriously.  He couldn't rationalize lying to our children about a mythical being coming into our house every Christmas Eve to bring presents.  Okay.  I could understand his moral and ethical position, I really could.  But what to do?  I don't remember any traumatic "There's no SANTA?!!" revelation in my childhood, so I wasn't worried about future repercussions in celebrating Santa. The thought of letting my children have a Santa-less reality was just too harsh.  But he felt really strongly about it.  So one of our first marital compromises was kind of a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.  We wouldn't actively preach "Santa", but would also not actively deny his existence. 


Fast forward to 2006, the husband and the policy had relaxed to a point where Santa was mentioned on a seasonal basis as the bringer of fabulous things on Christmas.  Yay for Santa!!  But I didn't take into consideration the rational pessimism of my too-bright children.  Jace was 6 and was already vocally asserting that he didn't think Santa was real.  On the 23rd of December he decided to put Santa to the test - he wrote a letter to Santa pleading for a fish, and proclaimed to us that if Santa was real he would get a fish for Christmas.  Ok, we're two capable people, we can manage to get a fish for our belief-tottering boy.  The kink in our masterful plan?  The 23rd was a Saturday.  Meaning December 24th was a Sunday.  Since we don't shop on Sunday, this meant we had to get a fish immediately and keep it alive and hidden for two nights and a day.  So my husband ran out into a snowy night to Walmart after kids were in bed while I went searching in our storage for the old aquarium.  Success!!  Unfortunately the tank was cracked.  Lovely.  So it was my turn to drive slushy roads 10 miles back to Walmart to buy a fish bowl.  But Christmas morning arrived and a fish (later christened Herman) graced Jace's dresser.  Success!!  Boyish delight!!!  Santa's helpers have saved the day!!


Until two days later he realized we had probably manufactured the whole thing and was back to his Santa pessimism.  What, you ask, were his siblings doing during this trial of his faith?  8 year old Erik, who grew up when the original Santa policy was full force, has never had a strong belief in Santa.  He just goes with the flow, accepting presents, not really caring who they come from.  My 2 year old was clueless.  My 4 year old Diva must have been soaking it in, because now, three years later, at 7 years old she is a vocal disbeliever.  VOCAL disbeliever.  Enough so that her first grade teacher asked me to please, please ask her to stop telling her classmates there is no Santa.  This beautiful, elfin-like girl was gleefully crushing the beliefs of all around her.  Gleefully. 

So we had a chat, her teacher had a chat, and all is hopefully bottled up for another year.  My husband, in a complete reversal, has been "Santa"ing it up to my 4 and 2 year old boys.  We may have failed with our first three, but by golly our last two children WILL believe in Santa!!!!!!!!!!  Unfortunately, my 4 year old is the most rational of them all.  This is the child who, six months ago, declared he didn't believe in God because he had never seen him before.  We have dealt with that trial of faith, we'll see if he follows in his siblings' footsteps and has a different kind of trial of faith some future Christmas.