Bye-Bye November!

Brrrrr, it's been a chilly last day of November and I'm ready to curl up by the fireplace, watch a nice family-friendly movie (even I admit nice family-friendly movies are wearing me down, but what can you do) maybe a tasty little martini to help with all the friendliness and warm me up as well! Yep, that's the plan.

I have been saving some of the most amusing things my kids have said to me lately, I even write them down word for word as they are told to me just so I can share them with you all. Maybe also so I can look at them later and laugh, we forget so many things as the days pass and this will help me remember the sweetest ones.

Wyatt: "Mama, did you know that lava is a hundred
pounds deep?"

Wyatt: "Everyone was a baby right? Mommy it was so cute when you were a baby, right?"

Wyatt: "This is part of a turkey that died right Sarah?" [as he held up a piece of turkey bologna to her]
Sarah: "Yeah, they have to kill the turkey and then do it!"

Eva: "I wanna watch Rudolph the Snowman!"

This one happens daily and is my favorite. Imagine Eva looking for something, then as she sees it, she exclaims with excitement all over her face "there she are!"

Adios November, it was fun.

Trying to Keep Up!

Whoa, will someone please slow this year down! I cannot believe everyone is already preparing for Christmas! Me? Not yet, but soon. Tony has taken down all of our Christmas paraphernalia (that's a great word paraphernalia, I would have never spelled it correctly if I had tried, lucky for me I plucked it from the thesaurus in Word, I'm a little tricky that way) from storage and I have taken out a few Christmas books for the kids but that's it for me so far. I haven't set foot in a store yet (Costco doesn't count) and I don't plan on doing a lot of shopping, it's better that way, less is most certainly more if you ask me.

It's the warmth and the shared love and coziness that I crave. Remembering why Christmas is so magical, the Christmas music playing, the twinkling lights of the tree, the warm mug of yum, the fireplace aglow with warm faces of the people I love...that's what does it for me, that's all I need. You don't need to bring a gift, you are my present.

Last week was really good, except for the part where Tony was sick with a bad cold which lingers still. Thanksgiving was quiet, we stayed in town and had dinner late in the afternoon with Tony's family. His sister Chonchi graciously opened her home to us and the immediate family, translated for you that's around 35 people and a whole lotta mashed potatoes! The kids tried to behave, I know I behaved, it was lovely although I did miss being with my family on Thanksgiving.

Besides taking care of the kids and keeping up with the house things, I am finally putting together a wall group from our beach photos last August. I have the pictures framed and I am ready to hang, so glad I got that done. I chose black frames with black and white pics and I'll share pictures of the pictures when I get it up.

I love this. In the jukebox of my life I have maybe listened to country music for 20 minutes, but once in a while something country surprises me and makes me love it. I do like country music, it's just never been my first choice. Give me Natalie Merchant or Elvis Costello and everything else falls down. Ooooh wouldn't Natalie and Elvis be great together? So, I caught a few minutes of an award show a few weeks ago and I saw Sugarland, who I had never heard of before, and Beyonce singing it. I'm not so much a Beyonce fan but the country version was curiously fun for me so, I found this and I admit, I'm kind of addicted to this song at the moment.



It's fun to sing it with all the attitude it deserves, go ahead, you know you want to!

Pure Sweetness, She Is.

Fall is fun, and pretty. Especially when you are two and you have a green dress,
a deflated basketball to kick around, and a warm day.




Because I may not post again until after Thursday, I hope YOU have a wonderful holiday. We are all blessed with more than we need, I am humbled and truly thankful.

Because They're Only Little for a Little While.

Just sitting here with hot tea and Eva thinking about Alicia, my sister. She recently reminded me of our kids' evanescent littleness when she mentioned her son Jake, who is now 11 years old. She said to me "we only have him for 7 more years" in the context of our conversation. That really made me think of my kids and how we spend our days. The title of this post is so over-cliched but so so true and as a parent I don't take it to heart enough of the time.

With all the teaching and training and homework and getting ready for that and this, the days pass and then you look around and just blow the air out and sigh. How did we get here...not a question, just a statement. How do you do it, we just do. Maybe that's why I take my camera with me now almost every where we go. I don't have the greatest memory, so I think it is because I don't want to forget anything important. This morning the leaves were important. And even though it's a mathematical impossibility, I know I need to find a way to love them more every day.

Sarah is the funniest kid I have, she doesn't even try, she is just cracks me up daily. Yesterday after school, she got out of the car walking funny. I told her "just go to the bathroom already!" Upon that she said this to me:

"Mommy, I tried to go to the bathroom at school but my teacher wouldn't let me so I had to bring my p*e and p*op home with me."

Her teacher isn't mean, so I'm guessing it was right before the bell rang. She says all this with a straight face and walks slowly and contortedly to the bathroom. I love the way her mind works, she left me standing there thinking...

holy sh*t.

Sarah also brought home some schoolwork yesterday and when I looked at her picture of our family sitting on the couch, she told me how disappointed she was that she "didn't have a body." Her sentence says, "Every Friday, my family and I watch movies from Netflix." Makes you wonder how much kids tell their teachers about their family life. Sigh, just another reason to love them more.

Happy Veteran's Day. Especially to my Grandfather, who served in World War II.

Papa, I'm guessing you had an enjoyable workout at the Y today! Don't worry about your lawn...just leave it for tomorrow. I love you.

24 Hours in San Francisco.

Sarah and I spent a good part of the weekend in SF with my two sisters, three nieces, and my sister-in-law Anne. We drove about an hour and then parked our car to take BART, the bay area's version of a subway/train. That leg of the trip also took about an hour. It took us through east bay cities and through the bay tunnel under the bay (little bit scary) and finally into downtown SF. When we got up above ground in the city it was raining (of course I forgot the umbrella) and I was a bit disoriented but our hotel wasn't far and it didn't take long to get to it.

In the lobby, we met Alicia and Anne and my sweet little niece Hannah. I am majorly disappointed that I didn't get a picture of her to share. Because of the rain we didn't really take pictures that first day, just a few hotel room shots of the sisters. When Renee, Allison and Sydney arrived we took a walk down Market street headed toward Union Square in the rain, but as soon as we found a shopping mall we dove in for cover.

It happened to be one of the biggest malls you can imagine, with two or three levels before you even begin to see the Nordstrom that takes 5 or 6 levels more with layers of spiral escalators. It was hard to look down, really, and don't think that I don't imagine "the big one" every time I go to the city because I do. I think most people do, it's constantly on my mind and when I leave and look back at the skyline in the distance, it's an overwhelming feeling of pheeeeeew (hand crossing brow), earthquake crisis averted, we're safe. Relatively.

Anyway, after the mall, we took the BART for only one stop, back to the hotel. Dinner was at the Rainforest Cafe, which the four girls loved...me too, the company was fantastic! We all spent a little time talking in our room later that night and that was the last we saw of Hannah, Alicia and Anne. We faced a beautiful cloudless San Francisco morning and they bailed before breakfast! At least we got to spend one rainy day with them, hence and sadly no photos of sweet Hannah.

Early that morning, I had a mini-adventure all by myself. I left all the girls, including my Sarah sleeping and took a cab to this beautiful church for 7:30 a.m. mass. I actually hailed a cab and rode in it all alone. When he dropped me off at the church, the cab driver asked me in a soft voice to pray for him. I just said "alright" and gave him six bucks. I walked back to the hotel, it wasn't really that far, and it was a beautiful morning.

San Francisco is a beautiful place. It's also oddball and crazy. The streets are ridiculous, funny ridiculous, frustrating ridiculous. Parking is a huge issue so for breakfast, near the fisherman's wharf at a place called the Buena Vista Cafe, we parked about a half-mile away. Not a big deal in some other city, but in SF, and on this occasion, we parked on a fairly flat portion and then walked down one of the steepest grade streets in the entire city. A 30% grade is kind of fun going down, but later when you're tired from walking around for a few hours, it's just a little bit hard to walk back up. Today I am feeling the burn, it feels like I have heavy weights strapped to my legs!

The restaurant is famous for the Irish coffee and a lot of people try to squeeze into it at the same time. It's a smallish place and there is no hostess, no reservations, no list, no line. You just go in and hover over some other people until they leave . Weird really. It becomes scary when you and another group of people want the same table. Especially when the other group have scrappy looks and body piercings. They really didn't like it when we played the "we have little hungry kids" card. Lucky for us we befriended a guy named Marty who assumed the role of quasi-bodyguard and we squeezed into the table without getting physical with the scrappers.

The Irish coffee at the Buena Vista is very good, but trust me, ONE is more than enough. A large group of people were celebrating a birthday at the next table so Marty and I also received the happy birthday song treatment when they discovered that our birthdays were in close proximity with their celebrant. I've never experienced twenty or thirty strangers singing happy birthday to me, they even pronounced my name correctly thanks to Renee. Fun.

After the raging excitement of the breakfast, we found a tour boat and spontaneously climbed aboard (at the bargain price of $10 a head) for a one hour tour to the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz island. I think this will go down as the highlight of the weekend. I have been to SF dozens of times and never have done this boat trip. It was just a small charter fishing vessel and there may have been 50 people aboard. We sat on cushions at the bow and we had salt water spraying us for much of the time, it was quite an adventure. The waves were pretty big too, and, as I write this a day later I am feeling it, kind of in a seasick way, although I did not feel sick at all on the boat or later that day. Sarah did great, such a little trooper. She never complained or whined or asked me for anything she didn't need. The perfect little traveler, my princess Sarah.

So there you go, a memorable 24 hours with my beautiful sisters and nieces.

Just a Few Sweet Things.

I love how Eva lines up her figurines. She chats with them and moves them around in different order and just pleases herself with the combinations. Doesn't it look like Buzz is casually pushing the others back so he can be the one in the front?

I have a confession. I've been cheating...on my coffee. I found this really good tea and I crave it over the SECOND cup of coffee. I've never had such a SPICY tea that tasted SO GOOD. It's so strong that it's easy to reuse the tea bag, actually I like that second cup better, a little more mild than the first. I found it at Costco, sampled it, then purchased it in a case of 15,000. Just kidding, but they do make you buy a lot, it just might get us through the winter! It's called Good Earth Original Sweet & Spicy Herb Tea. I know tea is supposed to be good for you, and I don't buy that talk that coffee isn't good for you, so either way I WIN! Yay me!

The Late Halloween Post.

Sorry the Halloween round-up is so late. Pretty much your average spooky little holiday, dressing up, a little candy begging and a quick trip to my in-laws for the showing of costumes and picture taking. Eva was the fifth child to don the bee. We originally purchased it when Emily was one or two, cousin Mikey wore it the following year, then Sarah, then Wyatt.

Eva took her turn with the bee costume and she loved it, she has asked to put it on almost every day since Halloween. I finally packed up the totes of costumes and decor and put everything upstairs (AKA the pull-down garage storage where all the seasonal items go to rest.)

Emily the IRS Lawyer. Funny, people were giving her extra candy, throwing it right into the briefcase. The whole get up came just from the old fake glasses (that I actually bought in the 80's). Add one of my old suits, a quickie updo, tape the letters to the briefcase and you're done. I love nine year-olds! Later as we were getting ready for bed she asked, "Mommy, can I be IRS next year?"

Spiderman goes out to rescue the candy.

What the witch looks like after the candy, don't mess with her.

I have a pretty miserable cold this week but I must go out to buy diapers and I think I will pick up Ratatouille today, I told myself I wasn't going to buy any more movies when we started Netflix, but you know, I'm a sucker for Pixar.

Thank you for all the happy birthday wishes and phone calls!