a dabels twisted christmas

Finally........

christmas 2010

For about three days now I have been trying to upload a video to my blog but it just won't do it! And, it's driving me nuts. It was all the photos I took over the last few days and it would have really summed up my Christmas without so many words. Know what I mean?

For whatever reason blogger won't let me link or upload or do anything fun and I'm cranky about it. So now, what you get, is point form. That's kind of fun....right?

-Christmas Eve brunch at my house for 17 people. Delish and I think it should become an annual tradition.

-Christmas Eve annual 'Dabels Christmas Eve movie' (redundant? maybe) was the Narnia movie and since I took a fairly lengthy nap in the middle I simply don't recall whether it was good or not.

-Christmas morning was fun and it involved a LOT of Nerf bullets. I'm still pulling them out of my hair.

-Christmas dinner was with our friends the Mysyks. They came over for Cafe Rio and some games. It was loud.

-Boxing Day dinner with the man's entire side of the family at my house. 23 people to be exact. First time we have all been together in a really long time. It was great. Food was good. Company was better and it was really nice to see everyone. It was especially touching that they all made the trip. All of them live hours away. We had a gift exchange and you'll never believe what I stole from someone and kept all to myself. That's right. A Chapters gift card. Thanks Jennifer, you're the sister-in-law bomb.

-the 27th I laid around in my pj's all day and did absolutely nothing. Actually, I did that the next day too.

-today I worked out for the first time in a week. Scary. I have no idea how much weight I gained over the last week because the scale and I aren't speaking. My clothes are talking to me though and they are less than impressed.

-I made a new year's resolution but I'm not telling yet.

-next week I am going to Chapters and I WILL be spending money.

-we had a very Merry Christmas around here. Except for the 11 year old who has made it his sole purpose in life to spill the beans to the 7 year old about santa. He has been sufficiently threatened and I think he may have come around to my way of thinking. You know, the "keep the secret and I won't hurt you" way of thinking.

-the man is off to work and I am still trying to figure out when the last time I ate a piece of fruit was.

Merry Christmas and Happy New year everyone.

Good riddance to 2010. 2011 can only get better.....right?

catie's randomness pt. 3

Last Thursday was book club. It was the annual Christmas Potluck. I started this little tradition when I joined the book club about 5 years ago and I always held it at my house. This year someone else offered to have it at their house and I took that offer as I was just not sure about anything in my life at the time we set up the schedule.

Anyway, I couldn't go.

It was Amelia's Christmas concert at school. Now normally I would have sent the man to the concert because I don't usually give up book club easily. Girls night out, no children, discussing books, men, children, what have you. It's always fun and I always go but...... Amelia, Christmas songs, gingerbread houses, Amelia, (did I mention that already)? Since I am completely enamored with this child of mine it was a no brainer. The Christmas concert won.

It was 30 minutes long. Seriously?? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for short, to the point concerts, but 15 minutes of gingerbread house decorating and then 15 minutes of singing? That's it? That's all I get? I missed book club for this?

I missed book club for this.



This is the face that gets made when you tell the wee one that there is no more icing for the house.




The man, being a framer, had to put his magic touch on it.




Sing, sweet child, sing.




Holden and Amelia, at home, 30 minutes later, enjoying the fruits of their labour.


I was sort of in a mood after this. I wanted to wallow. So I decided that since I was technically supposed to be at book club that I would take the night off, put my jammies on, grab the leftovers of my fave salad from the fridge, tell the man he was in charge of the children's bedtime routine, and go downstairs and watch my recorded shows.

When I came out of my room from putting on my jammies I went to the fridge to discover that my salad was gone. I went downstairs and there was the man, in front of the only tv in the house with cable, watching a How It's Made marathon (is there a worse show on the planet than How It's Made?) eating my salad with the remote in his hands.

Clearly he missed the memo on what my plans were for the night. I let him know I was really super annoyed with him and then I stormed up the stairs and lovingly put the two youngest children to bed. (That wasn't sarcasm, I wasn't mad at them, I did put them to bed lovingly.... just so you know).

When I whined on facebook about it my brother commented with "suck it up Princess." I found this very interesting. See, I fancy myself a bit of a princess. And my experience with being a princess and with dealing with a few princesses over my time is this: Princesses DONT NEED TO SUCK IT UP. It is the one perk of being the Princess.

Am I wrong?

So the man ruined my night which was already mostly ruined. I ignored him until the next day when I figured he had suffered enough. In true man form though, he decided that my annoyance with his super insensitive behaviour was enough for him to be mad at me back. I calmly informed him that nope, I held the monopoly on annoyance for the incident in question and he had no grounds to be even remotely upset with me. He nodded in feigned agreeance and we went out on a date.

Saturday we set up Christmas. The children were starting to show high levels of stress that there was no tree yet and it came to my attention that the little ones thought maybe Santa wouldn't come if there wasn't a tree. We set it up. Holden (7) said things like "decorating the tree brings me joy" and "setting up Christmas brings the Christmas spirit and that brings me joy" the whole time we decorated. It was, um..... interesting.



The man and Amelia working out the logistics of the the star which is technically not a tree topper.




Hallelujah. The tree. Does it feel like Christmas yet? Anyone?? Anyone??

calorie overload and forgotten children

On Wednesday I went to a cookie exchange with some ladies from church. By Friday morning all the goodies were gone. I didn't eat them all myself but I did eat enough to vow NEVER to do another cookie exchange for as long as I live. How many calories are in 5 dozen Christmas treats? Strike that. I don't want to know.

I have been running ever since. My knees hurt. And I'm very tired.

I have to speak in church today. My topic is the Saviour. My, oh my. Easiest talk I ever wrote. I was so engrossed in the writing of it Thursday morning that I forgot to get Amelia from school. I was in my jammies, my hair was everywhere, my makeup was still rubbed all under my eyes, no bra. The phone rang at 12:20. Amelia gets out of school at 11:50. I looked at the call display and saw it was the school, still nothing clicked.

me: Hello?

them: Hi Catherine, it's Shirley from the school. (Yes, her name is Shirley and yes, it's perfect for an elementary school secretary)

me: Oh HI! How are you? (see, Shirley and I actually have a history that goes back a few years but it's a long story and I won't bore you.)

them: I'm well, thank you. But I was wondering who was going to come and get Amelia today.

me: AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Click.

Bad mommy! Unbelievable. I forgot my child. When I got there she was playing with Floam, completely unaware.

Anyway, when I asked Amelia if she forgives me for forgetting her at school she said "Mommy, I always forgive you when you do bad things."

Awesome.

christmas lists

For Christmas I asked my acupuncturist to lift my spirits. She obliged. That with some vitamin D and I seem to have found my happy place.

Oh joy.

For Christmas the man asked for a root canal. I obliged. It's so practical and fits perfectly into the Christmas budget. He has a knack for timing, bad timing, and this root canal three weeks before Christmas really showcases his "timing" skills. Usually it's new tires or a massive truck repair so I was pleased that this year I was able to give him something totally different.

Cicely has asked for........ nothing. She'd better come up with something or I may oblige.

Jack has asked for the biggest, baddest, roughest, toughest, Nerf gun ever known to man. We'll see.

Holden wants an iPod Nano. That's it? Okay.

Amelia wants everything at ToysR'Us. Can you narrow it down, kid? Please?

I'm still waiting for the energy/desire/motivation to decorate the house for Christmas. No one really seems to care around here except for Amelia who said this to me last week, "EVERYONE is getting ready for Christmas except YOU mommy."

What?? This isn't Christmas-y enough for you little child?



This is the extent to which I have decorated thus far. It just isn't cutting it for the four year old. I have no idea why.........

reformatted

When the man returned home from Fort McMurray he discovered that I, in my attempt to fix the computer, had made the mouse right click as opposed to left click and could not get it to go back. It was a nuisance but we were surviving. He surmised that in order to return the world to it's natural state the whole computer needed to be reformatted. So that's what he did.

In doing so he completely messed up the universe as we understood it. iTunes was different and all our playlists were gone, amongst other things. Instead of just spending the time to redo them I asked the man if he would be so kind as to try and replace them with the ones on my iPhone.

The next day he attempted just that. However, the moment he chose to do it was the moment he returned home from getting a root canal.

He played with my phone and then went and did this for three hours.



It was during this time that I discovered he had deleted every single thing from my phone. Not the end of the world. I know this. But if you keep your life in your phone and then you lose it? Well, it's a problem. Even all the information I had backed up into the computer was gone. Actually, it's probably not gone. I just have no clue how to find it.

I went to tell him this little bit of info and thank him profusely for his generous service. He growled at me and rolled over.

Since then, I have found my millions of apps but we don't know how to get them back onto my iPhone or even retrieve them in any sort of helpful way. Now if I could just find the 20 notes I had stored in there.

A heartfelt thank you goes out to the man. You're the bomb, babe.
*************************

On a separate note. Another belt test last night. Green stripes. Way to go boys.






Now, you're the bomb.