So now it’s a (Christmas) party.
Hope you have a very merry Christmas and/or a happy weekend!
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the grands
My brother and his wife love to hike and bike and do crazily outdoorsy things like sleep in tents and wash their feet in icy mountain streams. They also like to take pictures of each other posing atop terrifyingly high rocky ledges and outcrops. Once they realized how much this raises my mother’s blood pressure, they of course began making an extra effort to record all of their death-defying stunts on film.
So when I showed my kids their last batch of pictures, I mentioned (like a fool) how Uncle Steve and Aunt Amy like to take pictures just to freak Grandma out.
Guess who took that ball and ran with it? (Can you find her in this picture?)
On an entirely different note … I’m giving away a copy of EA Sports Active for Wii at The Full Mommy. Today’s the last day to enter.
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We are back at Grandma’s deeeluxe spread for a quick visit before school starts. My recently engaged sister is here too, so we’re having fun paging through bridal magazines (thanks, Kara!), making fun of the ugly dresses and admiring the pretty ones. It’s way too cold for the pool but we’re swimming anyway. My brother and sister-in-law are also here (hence the title. This is the way he talks to me). They just trounced me at Scrabble.
My sister-in-law illustrated two books for Scholastic. If you’ll be potty-training in January 2010, you won’t find any cuter books than these (I have seen the insides and they are just as adorable).
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* The comfort level at Grammy’s house has improved at least 87% with the addition of a) a new mattress, and b) a shower-nozzle thing attached to the tap in the (no shower, just tub) bathroom.
* Opie: “Allll this Pennsylvania time is making me LATE for my CONCERT.”
* Something is wrong with this country when you can no longer buy bait at the gas station, and when the rustic-looking farmer’s market sells Amy’s organic frozen meals.
On our way home now. Only three flight segments and a layover at O’Hare stand between us and our own beds. *gulp*
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For this weekend’s Mother’s Day blog blast, Parent Bloggers Network asked for posts about what our moms have handed down to us. I have an old post that sums that up perfectly, from back when my blog was very new. Here it is, if you’re so inclined.
(Photo from my mother’s retirement party in 2006 … two years before she unretired and went back to work.)
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Writing wrap-up posts gives me hives, so I’ll just say the following about the past week. These are the moments that I wish I could capture in a snow globe and revisit in the coming months and years:
- Christmas Eve, Jo had to be dragged to church kicking and screaming (almost literally). She spent the first half of the service on my lap or huddled on the floor with the hood of her jacket up. Then, suddenly, she was captivated by “Angels We Have Heard on High.” She wanted to sing along and asked me to help her follow along in the hymnal. This continued for the remainder of the hour.
- Christmas morning, the kids sleep later than they have in weeks. When Opie finally gets up, we go into Jo’s room to wake her up. Her first words are “You could have let me sleep a little longer, Opie!”
- My dad didn’t pack his Christmas pants. My siblings and I scolded him soundly, then turned on our mother for allowing such an oversight. We suggested he turn around and drive nine hours back home to get them. He said “No.” Can you believe it?
- He did, however, bring and wear his 7 jeans. Which looked great on him. Here is how it went down (let me note for the record that my dad is 71 and I haven’t seen him wear jeans in years, but he does work out like two hours a day). He came into the kitchen wearing these stylish, dark, skinnyish jeans. Me: “Wow, nice jeans!” Dad: “Pretty nice huh?” Mom: “They’re ’7 for all’ … nations, or countries or something.” Me: “7 For All Mankind??!?” Dad (shows off label): “Yeah, 7 For All Mankind. I got them at the Saks outlet.”
- My mom could not get enough Wii bowling. She was constantly begging someone to play against her.
- After everyone left, Jeff noted that Opie’s behavior had been very good, except for a few subpar moments, including that last morning. His response: “I was a little naughty because I didn’t want everyone to leave.” Little scam artist!
- The family construction project (Playmobil airline terminal, with approx 1 beeellion pieces):
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Except for my mom, the rest of the grandparents (my dad, mother-in-law, grandmother-in-law, and oh god, mother-in-law’s gentleman friend) are very very very hard to shop for. I mean, I adore Great-Grandma Nonnie but she just turned 90 and pretty much never leaves the house. The same house she’s lived in for about 65 years.
Of course, we turn to the kid-crafted gift whenever we possibly can. Framed photos, paint-your-own-pottery–the classics. A couple of years ago my dad wanted a bathrobe. (Another staple on his wish list is always “seamless socks.” Thrilling!) I found one that met his specifications (he had several) but it was still such a boring present. So I thought the kids could doctor it up with little handprints on the pockets. Can you picture it, like I did, kind of subtle and oh-so-cute? Right! And can you also imagine how ugly the finished product was? So ugly I pitched it into the dress-up bin and started over with a brand-new robe.
It was such an obvious demonstration of how Not Crafty I am. The paint I bought was wrong, or my technique sucked, or something; anyway instead of cute kiddie handprints, we just had big blobs of paint. It looked like a dropcloth instead of a bathrobe. Fail! This is also what happens every time I try to follow a recipe for something that is supposed to be attractive-looking. The end result never looks like what it does in the instructions. NEV-ER.
Bathrobe 2.0 was slightly more successful. I traced the kids’ hands onto felt, cut them out and glued them on to the pockets of the new robe. They probably fell off the first time it went into the laundry but my dad has graciously refrained from telling me that.
This year, he’s getting plain seamless socks.
This crafty confession brought to you by Parent Bloggers Network and Klutz, publishers of very fun craft books and kits for kids. Fun because kids can play with them all by themselves. Seriously, I love them and not just because I used to work for Klutz’s parent company or because they are sponsoring a blog blast with darn good prizes. See for yourself.
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We were busy spending the weekend at The Waterpark Capital of the WORLD so I didn’t have a chance to observe Father’s Day with the traditional tie power tool blog post. (I also forgot to bring the gifts and cards I did buy along with us so they have yet to be bestowed.)
So here’s my overdue salute to the one who rides the rollercoasters, rescues the fish from the garbage disposal, mows the lawn, cooks the gourmet meals, makes up the silly songs … and never poses for pictures.
And to the one who flew the biplane and plays the banjo and just came out of surgery half an hour ago, too. (He’s doing well.)
Card from someecards — a site I highly recommend.
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GRANDPA and OPIE are playing with one of OPIE’s many many toy planes.
GRANDPA: That’s a biplane. I used to fly one of those! And this one is a jet.
MOMMY: [! Are you really that old?!]
OPIE: This is a biplane. It’s taking off. Bye, plane!
The end.
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