Christmas 2020

Santa battled a massive wind and rain storm this year as he brought Christmas joy to all the good little boys and girls! Sadly the gutters above our skylight became detached again which caused massive water to leak through. We woke up to a very wet sunroom and had to move our present opening session into the tv room. (Gutters are now fixed....) 

Emma was very excited about her new long board amongst other things. 

Ben opened his globe and said, "Wow! This is cool!" He also got that super freaking awesome mountain bike in the background that he will grown into this Spring. 

Ben made us a "Lake Cake" from scratch. He had an idea in his head and with a bit of help from me and daddy it came to fruition!

Board games are always a winner. This mini connect four is my favorite!

Emma kicked our butts at Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit. Ben had an early lead, but she came back for the win. I only answered ONE QUESTION... hahahahaha  We watched the Goblet of Fire afterwards and kept saying, "I bet that will be a question."

Daddy got the family an amplifier that seems to be the winning gift! It's getting all kinds of use with my old synth, old bass, Daddy's acoustic guitar and Emma's ukelele!

End of the night picture time!!!

Oh, and a pic of Mommy with her gifts... I got to wear my heirloom necklace (cultured mini pearls and sterling silver - LOVE IT! to the office yesterday. Happy Mommy...

December week 3

Time flies when you are having fun! Mondays continue to be a joke with school at home and no meets. Last Monday we grabbed our pal Sammy and hit up the bowling alley! It was a pretty interesting "covid" experience - we were in masks and there was plastic hanging everywhere to limit circulation of air. But we made the best of it and knocked out two games...

Phoebe had a blast in her first snow ever. She was soooooooo happy zooming around the white stuff. We got about 8 inches so it was a great first introduction.

It was a pretty wet and heavy snow and I needed to shovel a path for the delivery men to drop last minutes Christmas packages...

After shoveling I did what all good moms do, I took a sled and made a track in the snow for the kids. The first path was just a scoot scoot scoot as the snow was so wet but once the track was made, it was fast!


The kiddos did help shovel off the basketball court so we had some better parking out back. Well Emma helped...Ben helped for 5 minutes and then took off for sledding with our neighbor.

Ben was excited to do snow angels finally after three years! Not sure why he was doing them face down...hahahahahaha

Ben's Science teacher challenged the kids to build a covid snowman. This was Ben's contribution. We love it!!

Look who showed up in Ben's pancake this morning!!! Hagrid from Harry Potter!! lololol!!

We got to enjoy Gramma Lou visiting for the weekend... We went to the new location of PJ Lobster House. It was ok...but I don't know if I'll be rushing back any time soon. Their lobster bisque is to die for though, so that might be a regular take out idea!! We exchanged presents with Gramma for an early Christmas treat:

Random pics from the week:

(Ben has a habit of putting on his clothes backwards... especially his shirts but sometimes his pants which must feel sooooo weird!) These were his deep thoughts on ketchup...

Emma has indoor lacrosse every Saturday early evening. Gets her out of the house and moving! Yay!

December week 2

December is flying by in the bungalow. We got this cute quarantine ornament from our leadership, Jaime and Shawn. As wacky as this year has been, it is not one I want to forget at all. We've learned a lot about ourselves and the old way of doing "life". I'm excited to put that growth to the test in 2021!

Since I don't get out of the house much these days, running has been my "me" time. I'm grateful the kiddos are old enough that I feel comfortable to leave them home alone for long stretches of time. I go to the office twice a week now and try to run at least 3-4 times a week. I've put in almost 300 miles since August 1st. That never would have happened if I didn't challenge myself with virtual races!

I love turning on the lights every afternoon and watching them develop into this prettiness as the sun sets. The led lights around the windows are my favorite new toy! 

We've been blowing through all the Christmas movies netflex has to offer.... We also watch standard Christmas classics like this movie from our own collection! :)

I'm worried about running with Phoebe for long distances as she pulls so much on the harness so I have taken to just throwing these red balls around the back yard and having her sprint after them. After about 15 minutes of sprinting, she plops down and gives me this look. 

Phoebe is the only one who helps me clean up after dinner. LOL. She tries to lick the plates clean after I rinse them to get any leftovers I may have missed...

Last night her collar got stuck on the basket and she jumped back taking the entire rack full of dishes with her. Scared the crap out of her and the rest of us! It was quite the calamity.

LOVE LOVE LOVE seeing Emma pick up the guitar and teach herself some chords. Youtube is a big help w tutorial videos. She has such a great ear - her perfect pitch is certainly a big part of her speedy learning process...

FB brought up this memory the other day... I love seeing them so scared when they were young and how year after year they got a little more comfortable. 

Daddy was painting our new office on Sunday morning so I took the kids out shopping to get Daddy some presents. They did pretty good (ie didn't complain) so we grabbed a donut after our final store... YUM.

Phoebe was cranky she couldn't have a bite...

Last night's dinner was courtesy of all my electric cooking appliances... Rice in the rice steamer. Sausages on the George Forman Grill and stir fried veggies using the saute feature on the Instant Pot. Absolutely yummy and always a crowd favorite.

We couldn't find anything to watch online last night so we pulled from our library again and watched Home Alone. :) 

Early December fun....

 Ben ran out of library books to read so I handed him "How Money Works. Stop being a Sucker." I expected him to roll his eyes but he read the book cover to cover and I was very proud of our little stud! If you need a quick and fun read that will put yourself on the road to financial literacy, buy this book!! And, then read it...while eating dinner?

I got the best early Christmas present in the mail the other day.... my SYNTHESIZER!!! Haven't laid eyes on this baby in about 13 years. I cannot wait until the power cord arrives (lol) so we can fire her up and start creating our own video game music. #familyband

Winter Indoor Lacrosse practice has begun!! Our fantastic Goalie Girl came home starving... Good thing Ichiban delivered some delicious General Tso's chicken, shrimp lo mein and wonton soup seconds before she walked through the door!!! 

Phoebe is slowly becoming my running buddy. The challenge is... she runs too damn fast!! I'm beyond sore the days she runs with me. hahahahahaha. This pic has super fun meaning - in our beautiful village is a local family who bakes and bakes and bakes the most amazing bread that they sell at the farmer's market. I ran by their home and saw a Wonder Bread truck parked out front!! WONDER BREAD. lol!!! The crappiest bread on planet Earth! They were surely spying on the competition...

We had THE BEST Saturday line up in our business on Saturday - Local training from 9-11, WFG's Unstoppable Women's Event 2-6, then Elite Circle until 9:30pm!!! Made for a fantastic yet long day so I moved my cozy chair into our zoom room in out home office. :) My gas tank was over flowing with goodness!!

Mondays.... what can I say... the kiddos log into school at 7:30 and are done with their entire days work by 8:30... totally bogus, so I try to make the best of it by inviting pals in the same boat over for socialization! This Stranger Things Monopoly game took almost three hours to complete. I had the best time listening to them play... And not a damn phone or ipad in sight! (except the one on the corner of the table playing music... hahahaha) *love* Felt like an 80s afternoon flashback with my buddies.

It's that time of year!!! Jim Carey's Grinch will always be our Number one go to Grinch movie. Ben enjoys the old school animation as do the rest of us, but there is something special about this live action film and we look forward to it every year!

Early Christmas for our Emmsadoodle

We have had a busy couple of days here in the bungalow... Our sweet baby no more teenager wanted a bedroom "re-do" for Christmas so Daddy is painting walls and refurbishing her dresser. We are upgrading her bed as well. We had to move her 100% out of the room to make this happen so she gets to camp out in the sunroom for a few days. Phoebe thinks it is pretty awesome to have total access to Emma's bed all day long... hahahahaha. Our main living space is a huge cluttered mess but, ya know what? I'm actually okay with that... 

Speaking of silly Phoebe... this dog is the biggest joy / pain in the ass... :) We have wild turkey visitors on a regular basis and she wants nothing more than to chase them and hopefully catch one (hasn't happened yet...). She feels the same way about squirrels. My days home alone with Phoebe are spent saying, "No, Peebs, you cannot go outside and chase every single squirrel that tortures you....."

On Tuesday and Thursday while our kiddos are in actual school, I need to burn puppy energy as she is needy and whiny and all "I miss my BFF Emma..." so I take the PB on a run. I started out with one mile here and one mile there... But now that she is bigger, we are able to go a bit longer. I took her 3 miles on Tuesday and we got home and she passed out for hours. :)

Today we did 2.5 miles including crazy Myrtle - and let me tell ya... I'm freaking sore.  She makes me run way faster than I do without her. HA! (I usually like to do 5 total so I have to crate Phoebe afterwards and she chills while I run the 'hood and hit my mileage goal.) 

Every Tuesday & Thursday at 2:18pm my cell phone alarm goes off (ducks quacking) reminding me to pick up the kids from school. Phoebe knows EXACTLY what that sound means and immediately runs to the door and is ready to go for a car ride to claim her BFF.