Merry Christmas! {2014}

This Christmas has been full of anticipation. The kids have been counting down for forever, and in the mean time we've been cooking up a nice little surprise for them.

Off to mass!

Last night after mass, we went to Peter's brother's as usual to open gifts with his side of the family. What the kids didn't know was at the same time, my family was flying into Denver as a little Christmas suprise.

My aunt, ever the gifter extraordinaire, sent matching, personalized Christmas PJs for all of us (we hid my family's until their arrival) and we tucked the kids into Ethan's room for their first "Christmas Campout" all together as a "special treat" for Christmas Eve. It was really a guise to make beds available in the other two rooms for Uncle Q and Aunt Chica; thankfully the kids ate it up and didn't suspect a thing.

Bright and early, my mom snuck up to the reading corner and waited for the kids to open the door and start looking for Baby Jesus (the first gift that we always open after wrapping him and hiding him somewhere upstairs).

The realization and reunion of grandmother and grandaughter was pretty spectacular, especially since Marie has been talking for weeks about wishng she could see Grandma again soon.

And then the rest of the family joined in the party...

Obligatory Christmas Jammies photo!

Even Samson got his own embroidered jammies--size XL.
We somehow managed to stuff him in for a
few brief seconds of entertainment...

It was fun to watch the kids jumping up and down and squealing with delight over the gift opening, but my favorite part of the gift giving were these little gems that my brother slipped into Peter and my stockings. It took about five minutes to stop laughing from the hilarity of it all. They're camoflauge-wrapped Hershey's kisses with little Army men from our wedding seven years ago. We'd scattered them on all the tables at the reception as part of the decorations; how my brother managed to salvage not one, but two--and stash them for seven years--and then remember that he had them, we will never know. (And he's not telling). He's just got a knack for that kind of stuff. Seven-year-old chocolate, anyone?

We hosted Christmas dinner with my family and Peter's parents, and had to bring up another table and use all the chairs to fit everyone...it reminded me of many Christmases growing up and made my heart happy.

Siblings...

...the rest of the family...
and Santa Baby.

It even started snowing around dinnertime so we could have a White Christmas after all.

....................

In case we missed you on our Christmas card list after my whole computer crash debacle, here's our card from this year--be sure to send your address if you'd like one next year!



Also, because I'm a total map geek who's ironically terrible at geography, and because I have way too much time on my hands, I tracked the different places our cards went to this year...it definitely shows where our families live and where the highest concentration of Army installations are across the country. I think we have a little work to do on befriending the midwest, though!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

A Keepin' It Real Christmas Season...

I love the little bits of shimmer and joy of the Christmas season sprinkled into all the great big hunks of reality, don't you?

***First off, a public service announcement***

I need your addresses please, dear friends! Remember when my computer decided to transform itself into a useless brick? Well it went down swinging and took with it my updated Christmas Card list that doubled as my address book. My latest version prior to that is three years old. So if you love us and we love you, pretty please text/email/Facebook message/carrier pigeon your address to me? Please please?! Thanks a million!

Next Up: 

Lots of fun talk about decorations and reality and the kind of productivity that doesn't really count. Short version: look at all these cool pictures of our decorations that I made even though real life keeps happening!

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We've lit the Advent wreath and the oratory candles only once so far and it's already almost the third week of Advent. But my Blessed Is She Advent journal is getting lots of mileage which is helping me personally on the spiritual front!

I also put out the straw "fluff" for Jesus on the Little Oratory but it's just sitting there, not carrying on last year's tradition of letting to kids put a piece of straw in Jesus's manger for each good deed they do. That would require both cluing them in to the presence of the straw and getting the manger out. (Crunch time tactic, maybe?)

But we have shamelessly used the passive-aggressive Elfie to our parenting advantage:

Two nights in a row at that. Guess which parent did which?

Unfortunately Elfie hasn't seemed that much more beneficial than my attempt to curb the kids' materialism. I got so tired of hearing "I want that! I want that TOO!" during every blasted commercial they saw that I told them they could keep a list and choose one thing to ask Santa for. This was Marie's list after less than 24 hours.

The "choklit pooting" (chocolate pudding) is my favorite.
She had it after her dental surgery this summer and loved it
so much she's asking for it for Christmas. Sure thing, kid!

Then there was the wreath making--because I really needed four more Christmas wreaths in addition to the five we already have. Really I did. Hence the beginning of all sorts of productivity--doing things I didn't need to do instead of things I sorta did, like laundry and dishes and all those Spirit of Christmas killers.

No better way to get in the spirit of chore neglect
than Josh Groban and yards upon yards of deco mesh and burlap.

But it's a good thing I got those outside wreaths done because they--along with Jesus and company--are currently the only things alerting the neighbors to the fact that we haven't forgotten that Christmas exists.

See, the lights were mostly up last weekend. But then they came down, because stress is no fun and communication is hard and outlets are inconveniently placed. (We can sing The 12 Pains of Christmas all day long in solidarity...)

BUT the good news is that, in an unprecedented planning victory, I've already bought nearly every gift for every person on our list (and I even got my early Christmas gift of the functional techonlogy on which I'm currently typing!). I even got the Angel Tree gifts back to the church BEFORE the deadline! A true Christmas miracle. Now for Peter to wrap them all because I am incompetent...

I also managed to remember the Feast of St. Nicholas this year! I'd been planning to do something traditional (like putting shoes out for little gifts) in an effort to steer the kids more toward the 'giving to people in need' spirit of St. Nick than the 'tell me what gift you want' spirit of Santa Clause. I quickly forgot about my whole plan until approximately 10:36 the night before, so I snuck into the kids' rooms for shoes and remembered that I'd gotten them all rosaries for stocking stuffers (score!). I whipped a little something together and proudly set it out, only to wake up the next morning to hear Marie crying about not liking anything she got except one thing. Ya win some, ya lose some.

Shiny: did you know that submerging ornaments is not as simple as Pinterest makes it look? Shocker...

Then there's the story of The Three Trees. 

I knew it was probably inevitable when I started getting not-so-subtle hints from Peter around Thanksgiving...texts with pictures of a 12-foot pre-lit tree at Homeboy Depot and casual mentions of a tree that would reach the ceiling of our two-story family room and other such preposterousness.

Me:  "Why are you sending me pictures of fake trees when we already have two?"
Peter:  "It's pre-lit!"
Me:  "..."
Peter:  "And it would look really good in the family room! ...and it's only $400."
Me:  "We already have TWO."
Peter:  "..."
Me:  "Well, maybe this is the year we try a real tree. And then we're not stuck with it if it's too ridiculous."
Peter:  "Done."

Hence the 15-foot Colorado Concolor Tree that now resides in the family room, while the Jesus tree is in its prominent place in the front bay window:

And finally, the has-been family tree has retired upstairs to sulk forlornly with the laundry that I need to fold but will probably just throw on the floor because all our baskets are in use serve as a festive centerpiece to our master bedroom oasis.

Hey, I ran out of steam after the first two. But at least The Tree That Shall Remain Undecorated already has lights on it (and a single forgotten gymnastics ornament from last year that I probably won't bother to take off).

Speaking of decorating the tree, we had to miss the 3rd Annual Friendsgiving for the second year in a row (try that math) because Ethan once again got sick. So instead of parading him around with a 103 fever, we stayed in and decorated the Big Kahuna. The little guy even did his fair share whilst hyped up on sugary fever reducer before he crashed. Total bottom feeder.

How many ornaments can you fit on one branch? If you're Ethan: ALL OF THEM.
Snuggling with his digger ornament and watching big brother do big kid stuff.

Any guesses on how many days/attempts it took to get the angel up? (3 days. At least 15 attempts.) We've agreed that next time (yes, I've already agreed to a next time) the angel goes on before the tree goes up. I'm happy to have a real tree in the house again after seven full years of baby proofing fake trees. I grew up always picking out a real every year. But it will be a long time before I agree to a drive into the Rocky mountains to cut down a 15-foot tree...not the same as cutting down a 9-foot tree from a happy little Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania.

At the end of the day, it's been quite the nice addition. I can even get a picture of the whole thing while standing in the kitchen. And if I crop the picture just so, it is beautiful and sanitized enough to post to Facebook for an inside look at our perfect life!

What dishes?

Last stop: find that coconut milk eggnog that I know one of my trusty grocers has to have stocked for me by now!

Hope your real is getting filled with a bit of sparkle and shine too--but not at the expense of your sanity. May your Advent be fruitful, and may your children always believe that wine bottle covers are really puppets.

[Psst! Addresses pretty please!]

Never too Early...

Sometimes (like every morning since Halloween), your husband announces the latest snow report while you roll your eyes and either say sarcastically "good for them" or exasperatedly say, "it's NOVEMBER."

But sometimes, after the fiftieth reminder that Keystone got another six inches of fresh powder last night, you relent because it's Thanksgiving after all, and even the three year old has been talking about skiing incessantly. And it's supposed to be a warm day--let's not forget that minor detail.

She wasn't excited or anything.

I'll admit, it was a good little day trip [even though we managed to lock the keys in the car upon our arrival--thank you USAA roadside assistance!].

The wagon train, right before we realized we forgot our backpack. Which was in the locked car.
And had the keys in it.

We (Peter) packed a lunch, and we ate breakfast in the car to get a slightly earlier start which the kids thought was awesome of course.

It was the first time Ethan skied for a span longer than 5 minutes...this time he made it the whole 5 hours! Half a year clearly made a huge difference. 

We used the harness with straps and did a few runs first on the magic carpet (there's a convenient learning area on the top of the hill) before he joined the big kids on the short run and tried out a chair lift for the first time:

He loved it all and was a total glutton for punishment; his legs were barely holding up by the end but he was still saying "I wanna go on that big one again!"

The big kids got their ski legs back very quickly, and only did one run on the bunny hill before they were off rocking and rolling on the nearby greens, skiing through the kids' terrain park and the trees. 

Erik had a few good wipeouts but did better with getting up on his own, only needing help about half the time. Marie was especially motivated and even asked how long it would be till she could ski Black Diamonds with us. (Probably not as soon as you want but sooner than we think, dear!). 

Overall, pretty amazing considering the seven month break they've had from their skis. We agreed that with a few lessons this season, Ethan included, that in no time they will all be holding their own and then some!

I'll refrain from giving you a snow report, of course, but considering the fact that we already made it up to the mountains this early in pre-season (looking at you, polar vortex), you know a fantastic season awaits! So fantastic that we went ahead and got our season passes today. 

Or maybe Elsa is to blame...

FYI, whether you're a local or just visiting, Keystone some offers awesome deals for military families in conjunction with Arapahoe Basin. 

He was missing his ruck sack.

So when you decide to book your ski vacation, remember that a) it's never too early, b) Peter will say yes to joining you, and c) he is a pro at convincing me. Eventually. And getting me to admit it's worth it!

Happy (still technically) November!

Happy Hallow-Drill-iversary!

I'm sorely behind on all my blogging updates with all the ch-ch-ch-changes happening around here and the fact that I still haven't officially replaced my computer-turned-brick. But I finally got a few minutes, so if you've been dying to look at a million pictures and see what we've been up to in the past month  [just in time for Thanksgiving]--you've come to the right place!


Halloween:
Well technically this happened the week before Halloween, but I have to brag about Peter and his total Cake Boss-ness. We were celebrating Ethan's 3rd birthday, and for three months straight he's been praying for a Thomas the Train cake. Like literally, praying every night at bedtime prayers, "...and for my Thomas cake? In October?" So I was on the phone with Whole Foods trying to figure out if they could make a dairy-free Thomas cake for us when all of a sudden I hear Ethan piping up in the background, "I want an Olaf cake!!!"

Seriously? Seriously.

So I change gears and ask Whole Foods about an Olaf cake, and they start telling me about all of these licensing issues and how they can only make a snowman cake with similar features. At the same time I here Peter saying, "It's fine, I'll make an Olaf cake for him out of Rice Krispies. It'll be easy!" So I try to stall on the phone with the poor lady in the bakery, while giving Peter the raised eyebrow look that says "I'm past my cake baking days so if you say you want to make a dairy-free cake, you're on your own, champ." But even with The Look, Peter meant business. So I said goodbye to Whole Foods, and on the morning of the party I woke up to this:

Actually I woke up to Peter showing me a picture of the cake, so I asked sleepily, "oh is that what you're going to try from Pinterest?" To which he answered "that's our kitchen, silly!" Ten million kudos to my husband, winner of the 'I-can-create-dairy-free-Rice-Krispie-treat-masterpieces-like-a-boss' award.

Onto real Halloween:

Marie wanted to be Elsa--imagine that!!! (we didn't play the game but we should've)--and Ethan wanted to be Olaf (see above story) and Erik said he supposed he could be Kristoff. So we decided that the rest of us might as well play along because this is probably the only year that we could get anywhere close to pulling off a family theme. Frozen-ween it was. Peter wanted to be the obscure character Oaken (yoo-hoo!) which left me to play Anna. Oh and we subjected Samson to some Sven antlers, because why not?

Blood, sweat, and tears, people.

I made the mistake of deciding to make two of the costumes--mine and Erik's (you think I would've learned from that errant period when thought I would be the mom who makes all their birthday cakes). And I made the hat for Peter's costume as well.
So much.cutting.and.sewing.
So.little.patience.

But it all came together in the end and we had a fun night trick-or-treating, Frozen-style.

AnniDrill-iversary:
The day after Halloween conveniently happened to be an Army Reserves drill weekend for us (and my first official drill). So we packed up the kids immediately and drove them to my in-laws for bedtime (we dropped them off the night before since Peter and I had to be up at 4am the next morning). The weekend also happened to be a 3-day instead of 2-day weekend, which meant the third day fell on our Anniversary. Happy 7 years of bliss to us! But I was more than thankful that we were together, and even got a sit-down lunch together; I'd say that 4 out of 7 anniversaries together is pretty darn good considering all the couples we know who have had to be geographically separated for a lot more than that!

You know how they say couples start to look
alike after so many years together?

Anniversary roses from my love

Charleston:
Of course we couldn't just leave our 7th anniversary at that. I mean, seven is my favorite number and all and I'm all about making a big deal out of seven years, so we jet-settled off to Charleston, SC the next weekend for a getaway after depositing the kids at my generous in-laws' house again (they are racking up some major sainthood points, these grandparents!). It was actually a getaway with a purpose, though--my old college roomie was getting married, and I had the great honor of being a part of her beautiful wedding!

So Peter finished out his last day at the VA on Thursday, and we took off bright (dark) and early Friday.

It was a lot of travel since we flew into Columbia and then rented a car to drive the rest of the way to Charleston. But the weekend was a blast, and we even ended up getting a sweet Camero out of the deal! (It was either get "upgraded" to that or a pickup. Now we know to never, ever, ever get one--you know, just in case we somehow manage to consider a low rider during a future mid-life crisis).

We had fun at the rehearsal dinner and catching up with everyone afterwards over some drinks. Then it was wedding day! The bride was absolutely stunning...and it was so good to hang out after so long (we've only seen each other once in the past seven years)!

The wedding just as lovely, and after the ceremony the wedding party got to ride around downtown Charleston in a sweet vintage bus and take pictures.

Speaking of pictures, my classmate and beautiful mom friend Vanessa (who I also haven't seen in person in seven years!) took these seriously amazing pictures of us. Can you tell that she has a background in photography? She is SO talented!

Another cool aside: my kind mother-in-law let me borrow some of her grandmother's vintage costume jewelry for the wedding. When I went to pick it up, she had pulled out this photo of her grandmother wearing it. It was so neat to have the connection and see it in person! 

But back to the wedding: we took bridal pictures around Charleston until sunset and then drove to the Francis Marion Hotel, which is where we stayed and where the reception was. I might add that Charleston is stunning--I've been in the area before but not the actual city, and for how much I love Colorado, I do miss the colonial influence in the architecture and the character that older cities have. It just doesn't exist in the same way out west, so Peter and I both appreciated the deep history of the area and were blown away by the beauty and character of the city. Not enough to ever leave here, but enough to definitely plan for a future trip!

At the wedding reception we had so much fun connecting or re-connecting with classmates and friends after so many years, and even though some of them were only acquaintances at school or people we didn't really remember. I think that's one of the coolest things about having the unique kind of Alma Mater that we do--we can easily relate to one another and genuinely enjoy our time together, even without knowing each other that well, because the experience we've all shared is has bonded us in a way that few others can relate to.

The festivities ended too soon, but we had fun going out together afterwards with some friends until it was time to turn in our old people cards and head to bed.

Belated Anniversary
The day after the wedding, we planned a full day for our belated anniversary celebration. We went to the Cathedral for church, walked around downtown Charleston, got brunch, did some shopping, and then got ready for a nice dinner at a well-reputed steakhouse.

I was really excited for our dinner from the moment I called to make the reservation the week prior, because the host not only asked if we would be celebrating an occasion, he also asked "are there any food allergies that we can be aware of?" For those of you who deal with this in a regular basis, you know what a big deal that is. For those of you who don't, imagine the restaurant scene from When Harry Met Sally when Sally (who doesn't think she's high maintenance but really is) orders her lunch. Then imagine getting to be just like her every.time.you.eat.out. It's miserable.

At the hotel before dinner

But I digress. While I was excited about the service and that people cared about my food issues, little did I know that I should be more excited about my impending first celebrity encounter. The waiter seated us, and we were the only couple so far on the third floor dining room, but soon there was a flurry of activity setting up the table behind us and the staff all seemed to have this suppressed sense of urgency. Soon a few more people started floating in, including a group that sat down at the table behind us. I was facing away from them, but it took all of two seconds for Peter to excitedly get my attention and whisper "THAT'S BILL MURRAY!" Of course I didn't believe him and thought he was trying to play some silly joke on me, or infer that the older man in that group behind us just looked like Bill Murray or something. But I snuck a peek and, nope, not a look-alike--it was totally him!

I sat there grinning stupidly at Peter for awhile, incapable of carrying on a normal conversation other than an "I can't believe it!" and "he's really right there, crazy!" Peter could see more of what was going on than I could, but there were about five people total in his party (including two teens/preteens) and another gentleman who joined them a bit later. We heard him talking about the game Pass the Pigs and the movies (apparently he's filming again) and telling George Clooney stories. We were too chicken (and thought it would be too rude and annoying) to disturb him when he was out to dinner with who we thought could have been family. All the other parties at the other tables either agreed or they didn't realize it was him. Either way, there was no big commotion, just us secretly googling stuff about him from our phones. Eventually we both recovered enough to act normal and have a nice anniversary dinner between the two of us. But I did get a selfie that he "happened" to photobomb, as well as a picture of dessert. Because you can't sit next to a celebrity for over an hour and not have proof!

Return to the Polar Vortex-pocalypse

We flew back the next day, and obviously someone thought I was whining too much about how cold it was in Charleston (sweater weather and lots of clouds/rain when I wanted it to be sunny), because we returned to perfectly-iced roads and a cool Colorado breeze of -3 degrees.

Yep. At 10am.

I was *thisclose* to taking back what I said about never leaving Colorado. But we finally did get our 50 degrees back, even if it took a whole week. Peter took the week off and we both jumped back into the busyness of real life until it was suddenly his first day of work at his new job:

His caption, not mine:
"Boy, that commute from the kitchen was rough!"

He hasn't actually spent much time in his home office during the first two weeks, though--he's been busy running around to meetings and visiting his clinics. But let me tell you, seeing him occasionally at lunch and being able to eat dinner a whole hour and a half earlier--together--life-changing! 

Oh, and I also got my hair chopped after we got back:

Hair this short is a huge deal for me since I've only ever had it this short once before in like middle school. But I've been wanting a mom-bob/lob for awhile now. It only took me 3 years to work up the courage to go through with it...no regrets! I love it!

No more updates, either...that about covers it for the past month or so! Hopefully I'll be back again in less than a that for the next update. Ha. Haha.

Happy Thanksgiving!