Odd Jobs And The Rules of Decorating

Having tight finances causes you to take on all kinds of odd jobs to make ends meet. Around Christmas time there is always someone who needs help doing something. The week after Thanksgiving I signed(yes, I've signed his cards for him for 3 years now), stuffed, sealed, labeled and packaged up 1,100 Christmas cards to clients for my boss. You can also always count on my mom needing help decorating her trees. I know you must be thinking, "She makes her mom pay her to help decorate for Christmas? What a jerk!". What you gotta understand is the way my mom decorates. It IS a job. The word "simple" is not in her vocabulary. Everything she decorates is far beyond what any normal person would ever do. The entire house is fully decorated to rival that of Disneyland. Everywhere you look there is something interesting and beautiful to look at.On the first day I came to decorate, I pulled up and couldn't stop laughing at my Uncle's truck. I guess there is no limit to what can be decorated for Christmas. For my mom, detail is everything. She has 4 trees, I help decorate the two larger trees. One of them is 12 feet tall. Let's just say, she likes a little tree with her ornaments. I had to navigate a huge ladder around the tree and climb up and down that huge ladder hanging hundreds of ornaments.

Since I was young, I was always the one to help my mom decorate the tree so I have been properly schooled in the art of tree decorating. Here are the rules:

1. No two like ornaments can be next to each other

2. Hanging an ornament on the cording from the tree lights is unacceptable

3. The back of the tree must be decorated just as much as the front of the tree

4. If you can't find an empty branch to hang an ornament on, you're not trying hard enough

5. Just when you think you're finished, mom will find another bin full of ornaments

6. Quit your whining and get to work

Everett came with me and he was a good boy for the most part so I could get some work done. I would strap him in the Baby Bjorn and we'd decorate up and down the ladder. I don't think I'll tell Aaron about that part. Three days later I got the job done. It's such a pain doing the decorating, but once it's done it's nothing short of spectacular. It is indeed a celebration of Christ's birth and my mom goes all out to make it special.

So, Merry Christmas, everyone! It's going to be a wonderful celebration!

TIMBER!!!!

I finally finished decorating the tree last night. I was quite pleased with myself. At 3am this morning Aaron and I woke up to a jingling crash! The tree had fallen over and the ornaments went scattering all over the floor. I had noticed that the tree was leaning a little, but it looked that way from the time I put it up so I thought nothing about it. Well, that leg of the stand broke off and down the tree came! Maybe it was a cursing from my mother because I was lazy and didn't decorate the back of the tree(a decorating sin) and the front of the tree just couldn't carry all of the weight?
So, my poor angel is hanging upside-down with her skirt around her head, a very unangel-like compromising position, and there are shattered ornament bits and scratch marks on the piano. Perhaps not the best way to keep the re-sale value if I need sell it in the future.
Since I am looking at the positives this year I came up with a few...having our tree fall over gave me the opportunity to practice with my rarely-used wide angle camera lens, my piano is now dusted, and at least I have a good sturdy step ladder to help prop up our Christmas tree in the corner. So there.

Broke Christmas

Whoever did that survey that found that poor people are happier than rich people didn't bother to ask my opinion. I guess there is a difference between poor and broke. Poor means you never had anything to begin with, broke means you had it but lost it. I guess that's why I'm sulking a bit...I'm missing what "used to be".

The boat industry took a dump last year and Aaron's been out of work for almost 2 months. He's started a printing company, but like any new business it's going to take a while to get off the ground. He's working long hours and trying his best for our family. I will always love that characteristic about him. There is not one person I know that can out-work him. Until things get going, we just have to hold on as tight as we can. With many tears and feelings of failing my son, I started back to work part-time at my old job. My boss has been kind enough to let me bring Everett. (we'll see how long that lasts...) It's insane to think about how much has changed for us in the last year.

Everything is scaled back to practically zero and it's almost time to kick into survival mode. I'm surveying my home and making a list of what I can sell. I suppose if you go by Gerald Celente's prediction of the state of America by 2012, Aaron and I are just ahead of the pack. Lucky us.

Christmas also has been turned back to the bare bones. In our families we drew names instead of buying for everyone. We're also doing a gift exchange of used DVD's. Aaron and I agreed to not get gifts for each other (although, I won't be able to stand it and I'll have to at least make him something). Lucky for us, Everett has no idea what Christmas is and if things are still not up to par next year at least he'll be at the age to be perfectly happy playing with a cardboard box. (hopefully not the one we'll be living in...)

This is strange to me. It's almost Christmas and my tree is only half decorated. There is no holiday hustling and bustling. I haven't stepped foot in a store to buy anything. It almost seems like that's where my getting into the "Christmas Spirit" comes from. I know I'm supposed to focus on Christ at Christmas, and I do...but the presents sure are fun!! This year it had to be different. So, instead of moping about like I have been for the last few days, I gave myself a hearty smack across the face and woke myself up out of my pity party. Off to work I went getting myself interested in Christmas.

On went the painfully cheesy Christmas music I love so much, I baked a loaf of yummy bread and made a batch of wassail, the house smelled terrific. I went to work decorating the house.

We can't afford our usual real tree this year, my brother and sis-in-law were nice enough to let us borrow an extra tree they had. At night Moe, Everett and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and counted all the houses with lights and enjoyed the awesome scent of people having fires in their fireplaces. When we got home I turned off all the lights, lit a bunch of candles and Everett and I watched "The Grinch". I definitely felt better.

Last week I took some photos of Everett for Christmas. Thanks to digital, taking photos doesn't cost me a thing. I had a great time with my little angel. He's so dang cute and has such a sweet presence about him. I'm so happy to be his mom.

Being a grump about our financial situation doesn't help and isn't useful. I know we're not the only ones in this sinking financial boat. Everyone gets their turn in the dumps and right now, it's just ours. Things will get better (hopefully soon) and I will just have to put on a smile and look for the positive until then. Prayers are being answered along the way and my testimony is getting stronger. When I come out on the other side of this mess I will know I needed the experience, no life story is interesting without struggle or opposition.

We are going to have a great story.

Rice Cereal: The Lie

Everett has typically been a good sleeper. Recently he has been getting up more during the middle of the night. Everyone keeps telling me how much better and longer he will sleep once he starts eating rice cereal. Last night I thought I'd give it a try. I have a house full of people coming over and I needed to get some work done around the house. In order to do that, I needed a sleeping baby.

I spoon-fed him some rice cereal along with his regular dose of milk. He usually goes to bed between 9-10pm. Last night he didn't go to sleep until 11pm, it seems the cereal gave him a boost of energy. I stayed up getting the house put together, Aaron got home at midnight so we stayed up and chatted and headed to bed at 1:30 am. Just as my head hit the pillow, Everett started stirring and was ready to eat again. D'oh!

I fed him and it was back to bed at 2 am. At 5:30 am he woke up again. I fed him and it was back to bed by 6 am. At 7:30 he was up AGAIN. So, here we are...Everett is wide awake, I am a zombie, Aaron has been fast asleep all night. My house is still a wreck and I've still got to manage to get myself presentable for church and make the food for dinner tonight.

How did he manage to sleep worse with the rice cereal before bed? Just my luck, I guess.
Everett buddy, it's a good thing you're cute. This sucks.

Made it Another Year

Today is our 5th anniversary.

Time is just flying by so fast I can't believe it. We are still madly in love, still having a good time and still looking forward to the future. I love being married to Aaron, he's the perfect one for me! So happy anniversary darlin'! Let's go do something fun!

10 Years Younger

Since I've been home, I've been able to watch many of the lame daytime TV shows while I'm feeding Everett. In one of my channel flipping excursions I ran across a show called "10 Years Younger" where these old bag-looking ladies get some much needed TLC and are promised to look at least 10 years younger by the end of the show. I never would have given that show a second thought if the events from this morning didn't happen.
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I was up more than usual with Everett last night, then we had a rough breastfeeding session at 4am that I'm still trying to recover from, and at 6 am Everett decided to wake me up by screaming at the top of his lungs sending me flying out of bed. After I got him calmed down, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Aaron was getting ready for work. We were chatting about the crazy morning when Aaron said, "...it's almost like you've aged 10 years in the last 3 months."

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Oh hell, I'm one of those bag-looking ladies like on that show.

Aaron by no means meant that as an insult, it was just his way of saying that I looked "worked". That got me thinking about the show I had seen and I decided I need to not look so "worked". I swore to myself that I would never end up looking like those ladies that show up to church with no makeup, a potato sack looking jumper and Birkenstocks. Now that I have a kid, boy is it a slippery slope and I feel like I'm well on my way to the Birkenstock store. I decided today I would do my own makeover show called "My Kid Took a Long Nap, So Look What I Got Accomplished".

Here I am in all my glory. Yep, I need some major work done.

So, without a clothing expert, hair stylist or makeup artist I attempted to fix myself up. The under eye bags and double chin need to go, but that's a whole other show. That's it for today's show. I hope your kids will take long naps for you so you too can look 10 years younger. See you next time!

Shoe Box Party

Saturday, I got to be a little Christmas Angel.

Every year my friend, Amanda has a Shoebox Party. That's where we save our empty shoe boxes throughout the year and buy small, inexpensive toys, candy, school supplies and hygiene items and bring them to Amanda's house.

From there, we wrap the shoe boxes in Christmas paper and pack them full of goodies for the kids. Amanda brings them to her church and they distribute them to the kids that need them. For a lot of the kids, this is the only gift they will receive for Christmas.Last This year was just awesome, because not only is Amanda 4 months pregnant, but we were able to make 103 boxes. It was just amazing and I loved that I was able to be a part of it. Many families bring their kids to help, and the kids have a wonderful time packing the boxes full and learning compassion for others at the same time. I will be looking forward to next years' party.

Blessed Baby Boy

Sunday was Everett's baby blessing at church. Like any important day, things started out crazy but once I calmed down it turned out to be a wonderful day.

To start off, Everett got a giant bug bite on his face Halloween night, just in time for it to be a big red welt by Sunday. I was having an extreme bad hair day because of the humidity which caused me to fuss with it longer which caused me not to have enough time to feed Everett for one last time which caused him to scream and spit up on his new outfit as we headed out the door. Aaron said it reminded him of the days when his mom used to take him to church...not exactly the effect I was hoping to have since the last time Aaron went to church with me was over 7 years ago.

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I was nervous beyond belief because not only was Aaron there, but his entire family and one of his friends came also. That comes to 16 non-members and my 5 inactive brothers and sisters. I was hoping everything would go just right so they would come away from this as a positive experience. I need to learn to calm down and not worry so much. We made it to church early and my mom informed us she saved us a seat...on the front row. She had 7 kids, did she not remember that sitting in the front row with an infant is like committing Sacrament Meeting suicide? Oh well, it was nice of her to save us a seat. I started feeding Everett his bottle and he and I started calming down. There were to be 2 baby blessings that day. Just as they started to call the participants up for the first baby blessing Everett loaded his pants. It was so loud family members sitting 3 people over looked my way to see what happened. Aaron and I ran out the door to try to change him since his blessing was next. We realized we would not have enough time to change him before his blessing, so we came back in just in time to hand Everett over to my brother with a loaded diaper.

I had visions of leaking diapers bouncing through my head on his pristine white blessing outfit (which by the way was freaking expensive! Who sets the prices on those???). Everett started crying. My dad, step-dad and brother who were doing the blessing are not skilled in the art of calming a baby down and I thought, "here comes the cherry to top off this disaster of a day". Luckily, that's when Heaven opened up and sent some love and miracles my way.

Our Bishop who was helping with the blessing has a little one of his own and knew just what to do. He stuck Everett's pacifier back in and got the guys to start bouncing him and he calmed down right away. He didn't make another peep. My brother, Ben did Everett's blessing. It was his first time so he was so nervous, but I couldn't tell, he did a perfect job and gave Everett a wonderful blessing. Everett slept for the rest of Sacrament Meeting. (After we took him out and changed his pants of course...no leaking! Woo hoo!)

I was finally calm and focused on what was really important. Everett's blessing and all of the family and friends that were there to support us. I know our non-member friends and family all have their own opinions and feelings about the LDS church, good or bad. Whether the experience was positive or negative for them, I'll probably never know. What I do know is that they left that meeting knowing that we believe in a loving Heavenly Father, we believe Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he loves us so much, we believe the love within a family is so important and that we believe in the power of prayer. That made me a happy girl.

After Sacrament Meeting we headed back to our house for yummy food and to enjoy the afternoon with our wonderful family and friends. We truly have the most amazing families.

Everett, you will never have to question if your family loves you. (this blanket was made for Everett by his great, great Grandma Bland)

Happy First Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Our internet was down yesterday so I couldn't post photos of our little bumble bee, so here they are today. We had a great day. We visited the grandparents and then headed back to our street for a big neighborhood party. There's about 10-15 families that all get together with lots of food and tons of fun. What a great night.

Wish I could take credit for this way cute idea. It was too cute not to copy. Everett and I made this card for his grandparents for Halloween. They turned out so cute! All in all, a great first Halloween for us! Hope you all had a great day also!

Who's On The Lord's Side, Who?

My mom sent me this picture in an email. Cute, but a bit sobering at the same time.

I've read all about what has happened in Massachusetts since same-sex marriage was legalized and it doesn't look good. I don't want my son to be "party A" when he gets married, I don't think it is appropriate to teach a 5 year old about homosexuality, I don't want him having homosexuality shoved down his throat at school and taught it is morally correct and wonderful - it is not. I don't think it's cute or appropriate to have "gay day" at school. I refuse to have my rights as a parent taken away from me, I refuse to hand my child over to the government to teach him what they think is politically correct and moral.

Opponents to Prop. 8 say it won't effect schools or churches - oh really? Why did the teacher's union spend 1.25 million to oppose it? Why are they saying it is their duty to teach same-sex tolerance? Just you wait for the lawsuits to start flying, opposing same-sex marriage is going to get you into deep trouble. In Massachusetts a Catholic adoption agency has already shut down rather than adopt to same-sex couples, and I believe it is only the beginning.

As far as Satan is concerned, once the family unit has been destroyed, the rest is easy. Ask any kid who grew up in a divorced or single parent home how easy it was to keep their head on straight. My vote is for Yes on Prop. 8, it will have a bigger impact than most realize.

Moooooo!

In review of the latest round of photos of me from the wedding, it is impossible to ignore the fact that I look like a fat cow.

"But I just had a baby!" is no excuse because you don't carry baby weight on your arms, back and second chin. My baby is 2 months old and I'm still wearing maternity clothes because nothing else fits. I've got boxes and boxes of the cutest clothes I can't wear and don't have the heart to get rid of because I am holding out for the hope that someday I'll quit being lazy and fix my weight problem.

Starting NOW, I am going to make better food choices and will do some sort of physical activity everyday. I've got to lose 60 pounds to look great, 70 pounds to look awesome, 80 pounds to look like a goddess - and yes, I am that overweight.

I will track my progress (or lack thereof) with the hope that if I think someone is watching me, I'll stick with getting healthy. Time to get serious.

Busy, Busy, Busy

So it's been a crazy week and a half. Everett's hair was getting too wild so I gave him a trim. Actually, I probably did a hack job, but when all of his hair sticks up anyway, you can't tell. I thought about saving his locks for his baby book I'll probably start when he turns 18 but with how knee deep things are around here lately, I couldn't stand for one more thing to be laying around. I opted to just take pictures instead. I am happy with my decision.

It's finally been cold enough to bust out the fire pit so we had some neighbors over and lit it up! I made popcorn for everyone and we had a good time hanging out. We had Everett all bundled up and he was out like a light.

We got Everett a new swing. He already has one I got used that runs on batteries. We quickly realized the cost of batteries was going to put us in the poor house. We found out Aaron's sister has a swing that plugs into the wall. Seriously, with the way that technology has advanced - it's about freaking time! I honestly feel the baby gear makers have an unholy alliance with the battery makers. Everett loves his new swing and so do we.
Thursday, Everett had a check up and his first round of immunizations - ouch! He was a tough boy and only cried for about 15 seconds while he was getting his 3 shots. After I picked him up he was cool as a cucumber. He gained another pound and a half and is up to 11 lbs. 2 oz. Way to go!
Thursday night we had (Aaron's brother) Andrew & Katie's dress rehearsal at the Fullerton Arboretum. I never knew it was there, it's pretty cool. I had Everett strapped to me while I took some photos. All the groomsmen dressed up in goofy outfits (which didn't make the bride too happy) but it was funny anyway. For the rehearsal dinner they had a pizza party complete with a team banner, sports jerseys and trophies. It was fun.Friday was the wedding. Aaron was the best man and had to get all dressed up ( I LOVE him in a suit!) All the guys wore brown Converse. Everett even had his own tennis shoes but they were too big so I just took some photos of him and had them off the rest of the night.I didn't get to take very many photos at the wedding or reception since I'm a mom now and have a little one to look after. I didn't even get a good photo of the bride and groom all dressed up. Katie was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. She looked like a Hollywood actress right out of the 40's - very glamorous. At the reception I pretty much was confined to the table. The music was way too loud on the other side of the room so we just stayed put. I just took photos of what was around me...

By the end of the night Aaron had had it with playing dress up. Off came the jacket and dress shirt and on came a comfy t-shirt. At the reception they had a photo booth - it was so fun! It gives you a double print of the photos so you put one in the guest sign in book and you keep the other one. We did two. It was a fun day, congrats Andrew & Katie!