New Year's Resolutions In Progress

I think I am going to have many in 2010. Hopefully this blog post will serve as my reminder list. I may even periodically come back to it and edit it. Edit by adding more resolutions as well as checking some off as they're accomplished.

So I will get the normal ones out of the way.
1. Lose weight (does anyone ever want to gain weight?)
2. Be a better mom
3. Be closer to God
4. Be a better wife
5. Go to church more regularly


Now for some different ones.
Get Hannah's bedroom fully decorated (dresser refinished, artwork up, and curtain for her window made)
Get Makaela's bedroom fully decorated (artwork up and curtain for her window made)
Get our bedroom fully decorated (new bedspread, walls antiqued, curtains, artwork up, buy a piece of furniture - could be a chaise lounge or a dresser type piece)
Get valance for above kitchen window
Get some sort of drapery piece for back door
Organize all of the junk in our office (paid bills, medical paperwork, receipts, books, etc)
Get scrapbooking layouts into albums
Find a Christmas tree topper
Have Christmas gifts purchased by end of November
Plan a nice 35th birthday for Joel
Create a prayer list so I can reference something every night
Take more video of the girls
Plan out meals for the entire year (not 365 meals at once, but get a workable basic plan in motion and then plan out the meals on a weekly basis)
Train for the Camp Pendleton Mud Run on 6/5/10
Get older pictures printed and ready to be scrapbooked
Get Hannah signed up for some extracaricular activity (soccer, karate, dance, etc.)
Do a Jillian Michaels workout DVD at least once a week
Get the kids exercising more
Teach Hannah how to ride a bike with no training wheels
Exercise the dogs more

December Daily 30

Nothing too much exciting happened here today. Went to work. Came home. Watched a Food Network Challenge episode with Hannah (Shrek the Musical cakes). Made dinner. Ate dinner. Got the girls bathed and in bed. Joel and I did a Jillian Michaels workout DVD. She's the one from The Biggest Loser. Boy of boy did she kick my butt! I don't think I'll be able to move tomorrow.

I downloaded one of my Christmas gifts. These Photoshop actions. I am really looking forward to playing with them.

That's about it. Our plans for the weekend are to take all the Christmas stuff down. It kind of makes me sad. We work so hard to get it up and then rush through the whole season without really enjoying it.

My favorite memories of this past Christmas are:

Hannah being very excited for Christmas this year and really grasping Santa Claus and all his powers

Makaela and Hannah both being obsessed with hearing "This Is Halloween" from Nightmare Before Christmas

Hannah and her Christmas performance with Johnny Rockets afterwards

Hannah's versions of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Silent Night:
"... then one froggy Christmas Eve ... won't you glide my sleigh tonight"
"Silent Midnight, Holy Midnight ..."

Getting the BEST pants ever for Christmas from Joel.

This scent of candles and wall flowers from Bath and Bodyworks.

And of course being with my precious family. I love them so much and truly just having them is the best Christmas present ever.

December Daily 29

Getting back into the normal swing of things.



Being Tuesday, I didn't work today so I stayed at home all day with the girls. Didn't get out of our PJs til about 7PM and that was so we could all go to Chipotle for dinner. A great day.



Hannah and I made brownies with her Perfect Brownie (courtesy of Santa). And believe it or not, the thing actually worked. The three of us girls watched the Nightmare Before Christmas (also courtesy of Santa) and I managed to get some cleaning done. All the downstairs floors are clean! Don't ask me about upstairs though. I did some straightening in my scraproom. There's still a LONG way to go, but I made a dent in it.



Life is good. Calm and peaceful. Can't ask for more. And this day is my special Papa Hal's birthday. He passed away several years ago, but I remember him fondly and miss him dearly. So happy birthday Papa Hal!

December Daily 28

Ahhhh ... back home and Christmas is FINALLY over! No more celebrations. No more gift giving. Time to begin to clean up the evidence of Christmas. It was a great holiday. We are so blessed to have so many people to celebrate with. But it is nice to be home. The girls are asleep in their beds. Tomorrow I will put all their new toys away, hopefully pack up some of them to be introduced at a later date, and hopefully give some of the ones we don't play with anymore away.



Tomorrow it is back to the same old routine. One that I have missed and look forward to having back in my life. With a few modifications hopefully. I am trying to think of my New Year's resolutions. I think I may have a few of them. Some that will hopefully make me a better person and my family happier.



I heard of a tradition where some people pick a new word at the beginning of each year to focus on. You are supposed to embrace the word and carry it with you throughout the year. It can be anything. Something you want to add to you life. Something you want to subtract from your life. A word to spark creativity. Anything. I am thinking my word should be patience or acceptance. But I will think on this some more over the next couple of days.

December Daily 25

Christmas Day! Finally! After much stress, the holiday has arrived. How sad is it that I stressed over this wonderous day. I tried so hard to focus on the meaning behind it, but failed miserably when trying to buy for all of our loved ones. I am sad that buying gifts for my loved ones didn't bring me joy. Yes, watching them open the gifts brought me great joy, but the experience of picking something special out for them did not. Something to work on for next year I guess. I think I will begin my Christmas shopping now. :)

I think this Christmas will be the last one we have to wake up our girls. At 8:00AM I went into Hannah's room and awoke her. We had to in order to make it to mass on time. Then I got Makaela up. I think she could have easily slept another 2 hours if I had let her ... poor thing. We went downstairs and Hannah saw the empty plate of cookies and carrots with a special note from Santa. Mommy had to leave the note for him from the girls because they were just too tired when we got home from my dad's last night. They opened their stockings and both found that they had received a special ornament from Santa just like they had asked for in their letters.

Next it was over to the tree for presents. Hannah immediately saw Makaela's new tricycle and needless to say they were distracted with that for a few minutes. I think we could have easily gotten away with just the one tricycle a sa gift and been fine. But they seemed to enjoy opening their other gifts. Hannah had fun watching us open the special gifts she made us in school. A treasured ornament for each of us. Hannah received the Perfect Brownie and slippers like she had asked for along with a plant kit, a bath tub trumpet, a book light, a lap drawing table, and the movie Monsters, Inc. Makaela got the tricycle, a puzzle, a cobbler's bence, the movie A Bug's Life, and a few more items. The girls both got the movie Nightmare Before Christmas (side note: they have been obsessed with the song "This is Halloween" from that movie ever since we all went to Disneyland and went on Haunted Mansion and Joel downloaded the song to his iPod). And for each other, Hannah picked out a special Disney princess set of musical instruments for Makaela and Makaela got Hannah a paid of Snow White high heels. Joel spoiled me with a bunch of stylish cold weather clothes. My favorite of which are these REI pants. Oh my gosh!!!! You won't believe how snuggly and warm these things are! And best of all, they have a nice fit and I can totally wear them out and about without feeling like I am walking around in trashy sweatpants. I also got a few tops which I love. Seriously, at Christmas time, he goes nuts! I can never compare. What did I get him? Underwear. I know boring. But the kind he really likes are $25 a pair. I got him 3 pair. And a bladder cleaning kit for his Camelback. But he outdid me again. Our pattern seems to be he gets me good at Christmas and I get him good at Valentine's Day. So I have some thinking to do.

The girls before the opening commenced. Makaela snagged a leftover piece from Santa's cookie plate.



Hannah next to one of the gifts she made for me and Joel.


Each time we've gone to a store with snowglobes, she's begged to touch them. So she really enjoyed this special gift.

Poor little Makaela's legs are not quite long enough to reach the peddals yet. But she knows this bike is hers. Despite how often Hannah rides it.

Daddy's special ornament.


My special ornament.

Then it was off to church at 11:00. We were pleasantly surprised to see the Fitkowski family there too. We all sat together and it was great. I really felt good and renewed after mass. We have not been good at going every Sunday. As a matter of fact, we're one of those families that only hits in on the major holidays. Something both Joel and I despise. I think I will really push to get us there more frequently. Using the kids ages and energy levels has been too convenient of an excuse for too long now.

After church we came home for a little down time. Then it was over to my Grandma Merrion's for a short visit.

Hannah with her Teta Lou ...


Ahhh ... the green Hefty vests. Funny always to see. My Papa Hal (now deceased) used to be a buyer for Hughes grocery store chain. So he would get ALL sorts of product from various companies. I am guessing he must have gotten 100 of these vests in various sizes. Literally for YEARS and years and years, these vests have been given as gifts. Funny how my grandma does not seem to recollect this and continues to give them out to people who already received them (i.e. Joel).


After a rather bried gift exchange there, we went up the hill to my Grandma Carol's. Her tree was once again AMAZING! I try so hard to get my tree to sparkle like hers and fail each year. Hannah took the only pictures of it this year (see below). When we came home that night Joel looked at our tree and said, "I feel like we're so inadequate." :) Tell me about it. Another something for next year I suppose.

I love this picture of my girls helping my Grandma Carol distribute gifts to the family. I remember doing this as a little girl. My grandma has always lined up all the gifts for her kids and all the grandkids (and now great grandkids) in her hallway. Then at present time, she gets helpers and hands them out one at a time. My grandma was nice and let them open their gifts right then and there.


Look at this tree! It's amazing! What's more amazing is that she has a ton more ornaments that she ran out of time to add to the tree.


A close up of how loaded the tree is ...

We got home late. Put the girls to bed and passed out ourselves ... wWell fed, completely spoiled by many, and happy to have such wonderful family.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas my blog reading friends. I hope you have a safe and happy holiday!

December Daily 24

Ahhh Christmas Eve. How did it get here so quickly? I wish I could say by this day I was 100% ready and relaxed. But that is not exactly how it went down. As a matter of fact, the Grinch made another appearance.

This morning began with a last minute trip to the grocery store to buy supplies for the Kemp Family Jello I was to bring to my dad's tonight. It was crowded but that was expected so no big deal. We got what we needed and headed home. I no sooner began to make the jello than I realized I forgot to buy the JELLO! Hello?! The recipe calls for two large boxes of strawberry jello. My cupboards had Raspberry and Cherry. It was going to have to do because I was not getting the girls back in the car to brave the grocery store again. So I averted that crisis.

I was on a fairly tight timeline and time was fast escaping me. The girls needed baths and I had to get Makaela down for a nap or we were going to have problems when it came time to leave the house at 4:30. Baths were taken while I finished up some wrapping. After that I realized I hadn't even given Makaela lunch but I laid her down anyways. Fortunately for me, she was forgiving of this.

I got the girls laundry going because of course what they were to wear tonight wasn't clean. Then while that was running Hannah and sat down for a bit to watch Elf. She loved it. I loved it. I was smart enough to begin doing her hair while watching the movie.

All of this forethought and we still ran late and out came the Grinch. Makaela wouldn't sit still while I tried to tie a little bow around her head. GRRRRR! I lost it for a few seconds. We were in the car at 5:10. The car needed gas but I decided to go straight to my dad's anyways. Thankfully the light did not come one.

We got to my dad's house and were able to enjoy a wonderful evening. Food, stockings, and presents. But time always gets away from us there and my concern over having left the dogs in the backyard for a long time began to stress me out. My plan was to leave their house by 9:00 and we didn't leave until 10:50. Sigh!

But we got home to relatively quiet dogs so hopefully my concerns were for nothing and there won't be yet another Humane Society Sheriff coming to my door to notify me of neighbor complaints. Yes, we have had two already. The first one resulted in me getting ticketed because their licenses are not up to date.

So we got home. I got the girls ready for bed and we red "Twas the Night Before Christmas". Once they were fast asleep Joel and I turned into Santa. Presents put under the tree, stockings stuffed. I am currently locked up here in my scraproom while Joel does his thing downstairs. It's kind of neat because there are things that he gets the girls that I have no clue about. And he has been told what I bought the girls but he hasn't seen it. It' not done this way on purpose, but it's how it works out. We never have time to shop together. He's always so thoughtful in his gift giving for me. Usually he outdoes me big time. I hope it's not a repeat. I know I got him some things he'll like, but they're practical things. Snore!

Oh well. So it's now 1:00 AM and technically Christmas. I realize I have not yet posted my previous days but will try to get to that soon.

With that, I say to all of you, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

December Daily 23

Kind of a crazy day.

Work of course.

A quick last minute Christmas shopping trip on the way home.

Got home and rushed to get the girls bundled up for the Chino Hills Boat parade. I thought it started at 6:00PM so it was quite the ordeal to get us all ready and out of the house. Joel was going to go but got home from work as I was literally pulling out of the driveway. So he stayed back to do some shopping of his own. We got prime parking and spots at the parade. I realized the reason for this was that the parade didn't start until 7:00PM. Considering the girls didn't have dinner yet, they did spledidly well. We watched a long line of trucks pulling boats all decked out in Christmas lights, blow up characters, speakers blasting music, and kids tossing candy to all the parade viewers. I am not sure how I feel about the candy tossing thing. We got surrounded by two familes with kids in the 8 and up range and they completely jumped in front of Hannah as she tried to snag a few pieces for herself. I finally pulled her back in and told her not to worry about it. That we had better candy at home. Not very comforting for a little girl who wants to be part of the fun. Fortunately the family to our left opened their hearts and began to share their candy with us.

An example of one of the boats ...

Sitting patiently, waiting for the parade to begin ...


Being cute ...


All of us huddled up waiting for the parade ...

Then we met Joel at Toys R Us (crazy to go here two days before Christmas!) so the girls could each pick out a gift for the other. By this time Makaela was done! She was throwing the biggest fits and trying my patience to the BITTER end. Yes, the Grinch made another appearance. I finally carried her out of the store screaming with Hannah in tow. Joel heard us the whole way as he stood in line to pay. The night didn't get better as I got to the car and couldn't find me keys. I was so frustrated at this point. I had felt in all my pockets twice, had dumped my purse on the parking lot floor, and was moaning, "I'm going to cry! I can't believe this! I'm going to cry!" Hannah just looked at me and matter of factly said, "Well cry then!" :) I finally found my keys, in my pockets, burried beneath piles of candy from the parade. {sigh} We made it home safely, got the girls fed and in bed, and then I wrapped a few presents in front of the ever calming TV.

December Daily 22

Today was the cookie party day for all of Hannah and Makaela's little friends.

How it went? Suprisingly well. Fortunately all were running a bit late so I had some extra time to do last minute cleaning. The kids made some great cookies for Santa. They looked so cute in their Gingerbread Man aprons!!! Unfortunately our attempts at getting one picture of all of them standing in their aprons didn't happen. :( They were on too much of a sugar high and running all over the house. It was great fun though and we ended the event with pizza for dinner.

Some of Hannah's cookies. She's a fan of lots of frosting apparently.


This was the only picture I got of ALL the kids.


And here's a picture of some of them so you can see the aprons.

Then we went to the Christmas light neighborhood in Chino. Not quite as impressive because lots of houses had their lights off. Wonder if we got there too early?

December Daily 21

A brief post because not a lot of exceptinal stuff happened today.

I had to work. Then I came home and began making sugar cookies for the cookie party we're having with all the kids tomorrow at our house. While I did that, Joel took the girls on a little bike ride around the neighborhood so the girls could see the lights. They had a good time doing that. I wish I had snapped a picture.

See, nothing too exciting.

I used this cookie recipe, but I used 2 tsp of vanilla. I recommend readin the tips in the reviews section. They're very helpful. Such as why it's important to use truly softened butter. Various things people added or tried to get a more successful cookie. My husband really has been enjoying them. He says they're the perfect level of sweetness for him (without the frosting). I am a frosting girl. :)