December Daily 13

I woke up and began tackling the cleaning of the house. We are now 6 days away from the big annual 4 Meats of Christmas party. I love hosting this party, but I hate cleaning for it. I literally spent 2.5 hours today scouring only two of our guest bathrooms. And please don't think it was because they were ridden with scum and filth. Not at all. It's just that I am so so so anal when it comes to cleaning that I really am scouring ... slowly. I scrub every square ince of the toilet, tub, shower walls, sinks and countertops, mirrors, and floor. Unfortunately, my cleaning job is only realized by myself, but at least no one will be able to see missed spots when they're doing their business a week from now.

I also finally decorated the wreaths for the front door. For about two weeks now, the wreaths hung on the front doors and were nothing but fake greenery. Now here they are in their sprarkly beauty:




The tonight we went out to the Mission Inn in Riverside. For years now I have heard various people rave about this place at Christmas time. Finally we got out there. It's in downtown Riverside and was pretty nice. The whole area surrounding the inn was lit up. The inn itself is draped with thousands and thousands of lights and various Christmas characters. The girls loved it. I am not sure if we'll go back there every year. There did look to be several nice restaurants in the area so perhaps it would be nice to go to dinner when the girls get a little bit older.

Then tonight I came back and tried to work on our Christmas card. I am still not sure if I am happy enough with any of the pictures I took yesterday. Then I am not so sure if I want to buy them from Costco. They seem to screw up my colors in the printing process, but are the best deal out there. So I decided I would explore making my own in Photoshop. Uhhh ... probably not the right time of year to be doing this. I am sure that I could work my way through enough tutorials to figure it out, but with 12 days left until Christmas, I need to not worry about that. So I guess Costco it will be and I will hope for the best. Here's what I got in 1.5 hours at the computer. Not good enough for me, but I am spent trying to figure this out.

December Daily 12

So I decided to try and finally capture that Christmas photo of the girls. Heaven help me! I think I took well over 150 pictures and not one of them turned out. Most of the time it was because those two stinkers couldn't focus long enough to both give me a good smile at the same time, but I was also the victim of my ameture photography skills. I know just enough to be extremely dangerous and many of my pictures came out grainy. So frustrating. Here are some examples of what I was dealing with:

Today Hannah is still not running a normal temp. It's at 100.0. Her energy level is normal as is her appetite, but I don't want to risk anyone being exposed to her bug which means I had to fly solo tonight at my office Christmas party while Joel stayed home with the girls. This makes me sad as all of my co-workers (all 7 of them) really like him and I think he has a good time each year. Oh well. Such is life with little kids at this time of year.

So I went to my and had a wonderful time as was expected. It was at my dad's (boss's) house. The food was delicious. Everyone was in good spirits. The annual gift exchange was entertaining. Only 15 people were there so it went rather quick. The max is $10. I brought a really nice Waterford limited edition ornament and it didn't go over well. This was a good gift. Normal MSRP = $30. I am not sure if people really got the quality of it or if it was because it was the 2nd to last present to be picked from the pile. I would have loved to have gone home with it. Instead I went home with a leopard print Snuggie (the "hot" informercial gift of 2009) with a bonus book light inside. I actually stole the Snuggie from Nancy (my stepmom) for reasons I will divulge later.

December Daily 11

I am posting early so this may be updated later.

It's a beautigully gray and rainy day. I love it! We need it so badly!

Tonight we have Joel's Christmas Party with some old coworkers. It's nice that they include us. Hopefully we'll all be able to go though it's questionable because Hannah woke up with a fever. It was 101.4 at least. I didn't have the patience for the thermometer to finish. It's tough to get a 4 year old to keep it under her toungue for that long. It's really a wonder I even caught it. I was putting lotion and some cream for excema on her body and noticed that she felt hot. Had I not been applying lotion, I bet I would have dashed off to work without noticing. It's moments like this when I know God is looking out for my kids. I would have felt so terrible!

So like I said, assuming all works itself out, we'll go to the Christmas dinner. And then my beloved scrapbook store is doing their Christmas potluck/crop tonight that I would like to try and hit up. We'll have to see. Did I mentioned SGT will be closing its doors in just a few short weeks? I am so sad. Darn this bad economy!!! I have made some very dear friends through this store and I don't quite know what I will do without the constant connection it required. There's still some plans in the works to keep us all crafting, but I fear it won't be quite the same. Oh well. When God closes a door, another one is sure to open somewhere right?

So here's to wishing my special baby girl loses that fever. (note: Hannah's fever did not break and we stayed home instead. I did end up going over to SGT for a short time. So great to see everyone together for the last time. Yet sad too.)

December Daily 10

Hannah had school this morning. Unfortunately, because I had her out so late the night before, we totally forgot about the Christmas tree she had to decorate and bring the school with her. So it was up early to get her to do that. I feel bad because I wanted her to lead the creativity for this but because I had about a 1/2 hour to get her to do this, I needed to take charge. So I printed out names of all of our family members. Then I had her trace over them with green and red markers. I pulled green and red buttons out of my stash and had her slap those one. It was cute but it was not really a Hannah original. More of a mommy inspired one. And I am so mad I forgot to take a picture of it! Hopefully I will get it back before they break for school, but I doubt it.

After I picked her up, we zipped over to Disneyland and met up with some good friends (Roxanne, Reagan and Riley). The park is decorated so cute! We got pictures with Christmas Mickey, Christmas Minnie, and Christmas Goofy. We only tackled 4 rides since we wanted to get home before rush hour traffic got bad (didn't work).

Then for the most part it was a normal evening. Dinner, baths, and bedtime. I was drained! I really wanted to work on some more Christmas stuff but couldn't muster up enough energy.

December Daily 9

OK ... I got behind.

Wednesday, the 9th, was a typical day. I went to work, came home, did the dinner routine (if you can call it that). Then I stole Hannah away for a Michaels run. We got some supplies to help decorate that garland I was telling you about. And then suddenly I realized ... Hannah has school tomorrow! What I am doing out with her at 9:30 PM. Yikes! So instead of taking advantage of JC Penney's late hours to find Christmas dresses for the girls, I rushed her home and we did the bedtime routine (if you can call it that).

I really have to get them dresses soon. I have not even thought about Christmas cards and I figure I need to have them done and out by mid next week for them to arrive in time.

December Daily 8

Got the two rooms in the house repainted. I can definitely say losing the dark accent wall in the office is a plus. Much lighter in there. I changed the color in our master bedroom and am not sure if I like a whole lot better than before. I love the new color a lot more, but I think the fact that we have a white chair rail in our room makes it look juvenile. Oh well. I will have to work around that cuz Joel aint payin' for me to take the down and repaint.

Hannah had school today.

Then we ran some errands ... not as many as I would have hoped (including shopping for the girls Christmas outfits).

Cleaned house.

But a prelit garland up on my mantel and am looking forward to embellishing it with all sorts of fun things. I see a Michael's trip in my future (yippee!).

My mom came over and we decorated Christmas cookies with the girls. It was fun. Hannah enjoyed it a lot. She actually did a good job too for a 4 year old. At one point she carefully selected a cookie for my mom and one for me. She then said, "I am giving you both these cookies because I love you so much. And all the rest are for Santa." Such a sweetie! I had to explain that these cookies would not last 17 more days and that we'll make more for Santa as the big day draws near. She was OK with that. I will have to tell Santa that she's a very good big sister because she even went out of her way to help Makaela decorate her own cookie. Hannah applied the frosting and then she took it over to Makaela and let her put the sprinkles on it. Melts my heart just thinking about it. Then Hannah let her eat the cookie. Makaela was happy needless to say.

Hannah is gonna be like me I think. She has a desire to express herself creatively. Constantly drawing pictures, coloring in her coloring books, writing "letters" (which currently contain scribble lines and lots of "Hannah"s). Her dedication to this cookie project was evidence of this. We'll be good partners in crime as she gets older. :) Not that I am in any rush for her to get older.

In my perfect world I really was hoping that my December Daily posts were going to be laden with Christmas stuff. Unfortunately they're not and real life must continue on.

December Daily 7

Nothing exciting to report today.

Lots of much needed rain.

Work.

Pulled a random idea for dinner out of my rear end. It was Popeye Pancakes and Top Ramen Noodles. I have no idea why they are called Popeye Pancakes but basically you cut a hole in the middle of a slice of bread, drop some butter in a hot skillet, put the bread in the skillet and pour some scrambled eggs into the middle. Let it fry for a minute or two, flip and cook some more. I learned this in Girl Scouts. I like them. If you put some maple syrup on it, it's very reminiscent of French toast. The girls were not big fans but they ate it. I seriously need some help in the kitchen. I think one of my New Years resolutions will be to have a meal plan for the entire year.

Joel had a basketball game tonight. It's a rec league and it was the first nght of playoffs. They won and are on to the next round.

Gave the girls a bath. Hannah wasn't listening and because she got her hair soaking wet when I asked her not to, she lost books for the evening. We are definitely having issues with her listening and following instructions. I even went so far as to ask her if I needed to write a letter to Santa and tell him to have his elves stop making any toys for her. She said no and shaped up.

Gave the girls their milk. Got them into bed and then had to clean up our bedroom because the painters are coming early in the morning to finally change this awful boring blue that I picked when we moved in. I tried picking a color Joel liked but I hate it so tomorrow afternoon, my room will be a nice soft hint of turquoise and I will finally be able to start putting things on the walls and get a new bedspread and curtains.

December Daily 6

I didn't leave the house once today. Love those kind of days. We woke up, did the morning routine (breakfast, cartoons, getting dressed), bundled the girls up in their coats and tackled the front yard in the hopes of beating the rain. Joel tackled adding more lights to the front of the house and I tackled the poorly maintained flower bed in the front. The house looks much better, but in both of our opinions ... it needs a lot more. I think deep down we both want our house to be one of those houses that you drive by and ooooh and ahhhh over. But then comes the debate of whether we actually want to store all of that stuff. Me? I say heck yeah! Joel? Not really. He constantly reminds me of how many Christmas boxes we already have.

After a while the girls got cranky from the cool air so I put them inside to watch this ...



and ...

Have you ever heard of Veggie Tales? If you have little ones and are looking for shows that enstill good morals and values and place an emphasis on God, then check them out. You can find out more about them here.

I also worked on decorating the interior a little bit more. I have all sorts of craft ideas in my head that I hope to have time to implement. I want to make a garland for the upstairs banister. I want to cut out some Christmas quotes in vinyl to stick on the walls. I want to frame some Christmas pictures. Knowing me, it's doubtful I will get it done.

It was a low key day. A nice day. We beat the rain and I am so excited that we will actually be getting some weather. This whole week we're due for 2 storms. I love the rain! I hope it stays on course. We need the water.

Oh and I almost forgot, we all shared the most delicious Christmas colored caramel apple from Sinfully Sweet & Apple Company out of La Verne. It was a granny smith, dipped in caramel, dipped in melted chocolate, and drizzled with more chocolate. Yummy! Hopefully the link works. It was down when I tried to get to it just now, but it was working earlier.

December Daily 5

Nothing especially Christmassy to report today. We went to two different birthday parties. The Flowers triplets hosted a super hero training academy and Diego hosted a Jedi training camp. It was a long day, but a fun one. On the way home, we cruised through a neighborhood in Chino that has been decking out their houses with a ton of Christmas decor since I was a little girl -- a lot of the houses look great but there are still some that need to get their decorations up. In about a week or two, there will be few houses without lights. Then we hit our favorite Mexican fast food chain (Alberto's). Joel is so proud because his girls got light sabers and tried Alberto's for the first time. These are major milestones for him. :)

December Daily 4

Right now I am listening to this ...

My favorite song on this CD is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (featuring Sarah McLachlan). LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! It's a toe tapping song and I am so happy right now.

Have you guys heard of Pandora? It's the greatest thing. It's a music playing website that allows you to enter in a type of music or an artist or a song. Then it will create this playlist of various artists for you that match the criteria you entered. It's a great way to learn of new artists as well as be reminded of songs you like but may have forgotten. I learned of the song above by entering "Sarah McLachlan" and "Christmas". I have not heard one Christmas song so far that I don't like. There's also an ap for you iPhone if you have one. Me and my husband use it all the time.

I am hoping to take the girls around to look at Christmas lights tonight while Daddy is at a diaper poker party. I also would like to work on some more Christmas crafts.