Christmas Pictures

Before the craziness started:

Brandon got Ashley this horse. He was so excited for her to open it that we have a series of 6 pictures of her unwrapping the box, opening the box, pulling out the bag with the horse it in, and then this one. She wouldn't tell us the problem but finally uttered "I don't like pink". She does, but not like YELLOW and this came after the real colored horse she had already opened.

She got over it. This was taken after she was sent to get dressed. There was much gnarling and gnashing of teeth all along to just panties so she was left to her own devices to get dressed. 10 minutes later I stumbled into this scene. She's in nothing but panties, still. I call it her Lady Godiva stage.

Alex got a Build Your Own Light Saber kit. There's two pictures so you can see him and how cool it lights up.

Finally!

Part of what the kids got from Gramma and Grampa Miff was giftcards to Red Robin. RED ROBIN!!!???!?! Heck yes. Man, but we're too broke to take them.

Never fear, the best grandma/mom/mom-in-law in the world considered the financial plight of the parents whose children got said gift cards. When was the last time your kids' meals were $20 a pop? They weren't. No, Grandma (or Super Grandma as we're calling her today) made sure there was enough for the parental figures to go, too.

We had a failed attempt to get to Spokane on Monday and decided, on the sly, at the last minute so the weather fairy didn't have time to react (ha ha!!) to try again on Tuesday. We made it. (neener neener!)

Lest you think we are so dumb, first, Christmas break is over after this week and the kids would be back in school and Aiden at work (I have another week!) thus inhibiting our "let's just go NOW" process for tricking the weather fairy, and second, we had to exchange some gifts from the other gramma. There's a K-mart closer to us but NO Red Robin. The Whiskey River BBQ Burger was calling loud and clear "Holly.... Aiden.... It will be JULY before the weather gets nice again.... Come EAT ME!!!!". How do we deny the wishes of the burger? We don't/couldn't.

The exchanging gifts was hindered by an aunt and uncle (of Brandon's origin) lying about WHERE they bought the kids' clothes by wrapping them in JC Penney's boxes but purchasing them at Wal-Mart. We figured out most of this and exchanged it the night before but then I got to stand in the long returns line at Penney's only to be told with utter disdain and only her finger nails touching the lowly fabric lest it infect her or her precious fetus somehow "we don't carry THIS here. I don't recognize it". She went on to suggest I should check Target. Or Shop-ko.

I can't express the way she did how great it would be if these articles happened to come from those shops but I can tell you she would have had a coronary or stroked out had she been told something she was TOUCHING came from Wal-Mart. Shhhhh!!!!

We decided to not brave the Spokane Wally World and it's inherent parking lot and figured the kids will grow into the offensive clothing.

A little bit of backing up here: when we were sure we'd get to Spokane this time we called Gramma Laura and told her we were coming. She's been sick with an awful cold but apparently was feeling better. Enough to venture back to Sam and Dom's, her bar of choice. We reached her right after she got there so of course she wasn't ready to come meet us at her house to get the receipts for K-Mart. She told us it would be an hour until she was ready to leave (uh huh). Hence the Penney's part of the day first.

Being done at Penney's we called to see if she was heading home. She had come up with another plan. "Come down to the bar, get the key to the house, I'll tell you where the receipts are and you can bring the key back here". Sure, the roads are nice and pleasant and I WANT to come to the bar. But K-Mart is nasty about returns even with a receipt. I didn't see a way out of this one.

Luckily, there's a K-Mart on the way and Aiden decided we should just try since it wouldn't cost us anything extra to make the stop. We got the only K-Mart employee with a heart and she said they could do it but it would be the lowest price in the last 12 weeks. This was the deterrent as she saw it but little did she know it was the best news all day. We took it.

There was NO WAY we were going to continue being the proud owners of the hot pink pants with BRATZ written down the side. (I tried to find a picture as I was not smart enough to take one while the pants were in my possession. They are so bad there is no published picture of them on the internet that I could find.) These things screamed "I am to be worn by migrant workers in the berry fields". Or maybe that's just my take since the only place I have ever seen red, green, or any fluorescent colored jeans was on migrant workers in middle school.

Laura called in the middle of the exchange process to inform us that rather than sticking to the plan she was heading home and would meet us there. I told her the new plan on our side. She wanted to make sure SHE wasn't losing money on the deal. Uh, no. See, even if the actual monetary difference was a loss on her side, this way we are getting clothes they will actually wear. Isn't that the biggest trade? I mean, talk about losing money: buy clothes the kids won't wear.

In case you talk to her we traded straight across for different sizes.

Okay, now for the good part: Red Robin for dinner. The gift cards covered all three kids, two adults, dessert, and half the tip! Gramma, you rock! is the quote given by Annie.

The waitress was really nice. We hadn't eaten anything since noon and by 5 were very hungry. She brought out two baskets of fries as our appetizer (bottomless fries don't have to wait until your burger, did you know? So much for paying for mozzarella sticks!). Then when the dessert was decided on we explained they would be splitting the hot fudge sundae. I asked if we could have extra cookie straws (otherwise these smiling faces would have had messed up hair and tear streaks over the cookie straw fight. I know these children). She went one better and made each kid their own sundae with cookie straws and cherries for each. I love her.

Aiden and I shared a mile high mud pie. We'd never had that before. Have you seen this thing? I didn't get a picture up front but you get the idea.

Every person decided the best part of their day was dinner except Alex who said the whole day. We had a lot of fun over the whole deal.

The elephant is also G rated

Alex has informed us that some girl is hot. "Hollywood hot" not "Stove hot".

Later that night we were talking about how names change when people get married. We learned that women can take the man's name, men could take the woman's name, they can hyphenate the two, or you can make up whatever you want. Immediately I think "Princess Consuela Banana Hammock". The kids, however, came up with names for each other:

Annie Noelle Hollywood-Hot

Annie Noelle Annie Loves Wyatt

Annie Noelle PINK

Annie was the subject of most of these but I'm not sure why, exactly.

The list was never ending and continued for a long time. Eventually bedtime put an end to it all.

Yesterday we went to see all the grandparents and pick up Christmas presents. A lot of the presents from Brandon's mom were clothes which were put on layaway prior to the kids' growth spurts this fall. And they came from K-mart which means we have to get back to Spokane to exchange them. Our weather was sunny and clear today so we assumed the Spokane weather would be also (should have checked on our stolen internet!). Gramma and Grampa Miff gave the kids some gift cards to Red Robin so we thought we'd do dinner and exchange the clothes.

We got about 30 miles from our goal and came upon roads with fog, blowing snow, and no visible asphalt. Hmmm.

We kept driving (I LOVE that Aiden learned to drive in Alaska!!!) only to stop about 15 cars back from a three car pile-up which looked to involve at least 1 semi from what we could see through the white screen. In fact, we couldn't actually tell what it was that was causing the stop so some guy in a small pick up drove by twirling his finger at everyone in our lane to turn around and go the other way (it was TOTALLY cue the banjo-esque but we refrained because he was kind enough to let us know!).

Thus ended our big trip to Spokane for the day. The weather is forecast to be decent tomorrow both here and there so are we going? NOPE! Unless we wake up feeling like punishing ourselves again. Three kids in the car for a pointless 3 hour ride is plenty exciting but I don't know if I can handle it for another day.

On the way back into our lovely town the kids' movie ended and they were not pleased at the prospect of watching Scooby-Doo for the 900th time. Ashley kept covering her ears and telling us "I DON'T understaaaaand Crunch!" over and over. I decided to start singing to keep them occupied as it had worked the night before on the way home.

The Wiggles have the great "willaby wallaby w___ (*rhymes with something) an elephant sat on ______ (*the something you rhymed with)". Very complex, right? After a couple of versions of that it got morphed into An elephant lived in Pullman. Then it was
Willaby Wallaby woop, an elephant made a poop!

And on from there. Again Alex proved his 8 year old comedic prowess with a story-line containing the poop, a pee, and then Willaby Wallaby Woilet, why didn't the elephant use the toilet?!?

Boys grow so quickly, just a few months ago we were stuck on farts (which the elephant also made) and now we've progressed to other bodily functions. Woo hoo!!!

Snow Removal?

I do not believe the manager of apartment complex hired someone to perform "snow removal". In fact, I am quite certain his contract clearly states that his job is to "push the snow around all over the parking lot, thus making it seem as though you are doing something when in fact you are instructed to simply leave as much snow as possible behind all parked vehicles". Since I am certain this is what his contract states, he is doing a fabulous job.

If I am wrong, however, and his job actually is to clear snow from the parking lot, this guy must have learned to do his job in Florida or Arizona. In the past couple of days I have spent close to 3 hours digging and shoveling in order to move our van from being stuck (twice) and to leave in order to buy groceries. For those of you who don't know, I am a disabled veteran, so this snow removal crap is really annoying and painful.

The guy who does the plowing came through today. He made one pass around the parking lot leaving (barely) one lane to drive on. He never clears empty parking areas (and there are a lot since everyone is out of town). And he likes to leave giant piles of snow behind parked cars. Last year one of these piles tore off the undercarriage guard on our van.

Snow removal at its best.

Christmas

It's over. The kids are in bed, twitching from their sugar highs, the leftovers are put away, the washer and dryer are working hard to get the snow gear ready for the next outting, and Brandon is gone.

That's right, after all the convincing I had to do so the kids could have him for Christmas, he made it and we had a very pleasant 25 hour stint. In fact, there was a lot of great moments. Like when he let me drive his car over to the storage unit across town. It was like sitting in a go cart and with the plows leaving 18 inch mounds of snow on the side of the road, I felt very much like one of the Dukes of Hazzard trying to get into the parking lot there. We had to back up 50 feet to get a running start, crashed into the snow (luckily he's got studded tires), lost contact on all four tires and had our momentum carry us over into the parking lot. All this for a snow shovel.

After we got home he shoveled himself a space so he wouldn't get stuck and then dug out half of the van which got stuck the night before. Our neighbor came out and finished the snow removal part of the job. Brandon also dug out a path in the sidewalk for us which was a great present! You can't get that at Wal-Mart!!

We took the kids sledding with some friends this afternoon/evening, fed them apple pie (which I made and was AWESOME, thanks for the help, Val!) and hot cocoa with marshmallows in case they had worn off some of their stocking sugar whilst sledding.

I have tons of pictures, I will have to post some at a later time. Right now, I'm going to relax and enjoy the last 3 and a half hours of Christmas glow there is.

Craaaap

Just to fill you in, Brandon's here, things are going... fine.

And now for the big announcement: The disposal is making strange noises. A hand down the hole recovered a spring. Probably not good.

I'm scared to call Krista.

WIPE that look off your face

For Christmas this year we were getting a visit from a certain ex-husband of mine. Note the "were". I got a voicemail from him last night saying "I need to talk to you about this Christmas thing". Maybe you don't know what that means, but I do. It means he's not coming.

Riiiiight, your wiper blades won't work.
What? Oh, you and your girlfriend got back together? We call that motive.
And you didn't start looking for the part you think you need until 7:30 at night?!? You're leaving in the morning, right? Or you "were".
You don't even know what part it is that's not working?

He managed to rule out the fuse (because it's so easy a MONKEY could do it) which to him left the only obvious choice: the relay switch.

Okay, it's rare that the motor goes out, from my understanding. But when it happened to me the part was there and we got it fixed. *(Thanks MOM!) The relay switch is so much more rare that Schucks, NAPA, and even the dealerships don't stock the part. In fact, only the dealer had the part in their catalog. Clearly this is the most obvious thing to believe to be wrong.

He's unwilling to borrow Morgan-the-girl-who-had-gotten-smart-and-apparently-got-dumb-again's car for a miriad of reasons. Mostly the list starts with "But I spent $250 to replace two snow tires on MY car" and follows around to "it wouldn't make it because she doesn't take good care of her car". (what kind of boyfriend are you that SHE doesn't take care of her car?!?) (that's sarcasm by the way).

Of course the answer is the same kind of boyfriend as kind of father you are. The kind who is not moving heaven and earth to find a way to get to his kids on Christmas.

And who is making me explain it to them.

Thanks.

It happened

Remember the flame broiling oven? How about the frozen fridge? Remember how I said the only thing left to go out was the water heater? It did.

It died on Saturday but I was too scared to call Krista, our landlord, until this morning. I didn't want to be kicked out for bad appliance ju-ju 2 days before Christmas. But I got tired of 2 minute showers. She laughed and said she'd tell the plumber.

He showed up this afternoon, changed the bottom element (changed the top last fall) and 40 minutes later we had hot water! We celebrated by using it for showers that were long enough to get clean AND shave my legs in.

I'm not going to jinx us by saying nothing else can break now but... what's left?

Pumpkin Pancakes

I told Mom I got punkin pancakes for breakfast the other day. Since I talked them all up and made them sound so delicious (which they totally are!) I promised to post the recipe Aiden stole. It's from allrecipes.com and you should totally try it!

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vinegar

DIRECTIONS
In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, ginger and salt, stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine.
Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Young Scientists

Aiden took the kids to play in the snow (I was taking a nap) and they were playing research scientist (see how smart my kids are?!?!) by taking large chunks of compact snow on the sled back to their labratory to break open and study. For real.

That's all, just bragging about the nerdy games my kids play all on their own with no coaching or anything.