What to say . ..

I wanted to type something profound about how I felt today hearing about the deaths in Connecticut, but I can't seem to find words. I heard them re air the president's speech on the radio as I drove home from getting my haircut.

And cried all the way home.

I wish we could undo such a tragedy, but that won't happen. 

I just wish that we could respond with kindness and caring. Maybe we could be less interested in figuring out who or what is to blame, and just worry about caring for other people.

Could we be a little less concerned with complaints, criticisms, and celebrity gossip and try to have the top story of the day be about acts of kindness and events that leave us motivated and uplifted?

I wish the news cared less about the negative quotes, statistics, and motivations behind tragic events and more on the facts of what we can band together to do to heal families, homes, and communities impacted by the event.

I wish that we could all listen more to each other and try to understand what others are saying, even if we don't agree with them. We are never going to all shared the same belief, lifestyle choices and physical characteristics, learn to tolerate and celebrate what makes us different.

However, the news isn't going to change unless we stop listening to it, people are always going to try to blame something for every tragedy, and we aren't going to tolerate differences as long as we think there is one right way.

So for now I'll keep wishing those wishes, and hugging my girls a little tighter.

The Holidays

Why can't Thanksgiving be a little more separate from the Christmas holiday season? The only was I can think of how to do this is to get all the women together and start big build-ups to Thanksgiving that keep the focus on Turkey day.

Unfortunately it would have to be a retail re-inforced movement, and who wants to spend more money before Christmas . . . I'll have to ponder it.

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch with Mimi and Papa. They arrived MUCH earlier than planned on account of them driving through the night . . . you crazy peoples, you!

We went out to eat at a great German restaurant, Ye Ol Heidelbergs, and then I took Mimi to an urgent care clinic to get her some more medicine for her caugh that wouldn't go away. We waited several hours, and by the time we were done there it was supper time.

We treated ourselves by going to The Melting Pot. All I can say is YUM! I didn't think you could get full eating fondu, but we were stuffed by the time we left.

 

This year I was Thankful to have Mimi and Papa with me to walk me through prepping my own thanksgiving feast. The turkey came out of the oven that beautiful as-seen-on-tv golden color.

and the table was set with my fine china.

The only little hickup was that we thought we burnt the stuffing, but the Commander and I agreed that having the tips of the bread browned made it even more delicious!

We did the traditional turkey nap, and then took a driving tour of the city. And then home for Smores at the fireplace! I always loved smores growing up with a stove at Mimi and Papa's, but I was nervous about building my own fire to I was thankful to have Papa there to walk me through it.

And what is a trip to the Rocket City without visiting The Air and Space Center?

Mimi and Papa decided afte about 3 hours that they were all "spaced-out" so we headed home. After a quick drive through the Galaxy of Lights display, we headed home again.

It was a wonderful visit with Mimi and Papa, I had the most fun watching Mimi shop with my girls for fancy clothes, chatting with Mimi and Papa in the kitchen about memories of Thanksgivings past, and catching bits of the parade with Papa on TV.

But Thanksgiving is of course short lived in the prep for Christmas.

So on this Friday, the girls and I put up the tree.

And I found our fun holiday specs! They are really fancy firework glasses. If you have kids you have GOT to get these to go see lights around town. We have Snowflakes and Snowmen.

Aren't they cool?! And now back to trying to clean up the mess we made getting the decorations out. . . .

Where I've been . . .

So I've missed Halloween, where the girls and I actually marched around a residential area knocking on doors for candy. . . you'll notice they talked me into a different costume for this run. Not that it takes much talking to get me to dress up in my 'mommy pirate' costume.

Little Bear is shoing off the girls favorite candy treats. Chocolate Eyeballs. I tried to get her posed in a nice version of Gina Davis from Bettlejuice, but this is as close as she could get.

 Then a trip back to Nebraska for a few days to see family and my friend D in a body building competition. And all I can say is. . . .HOLY FREAKING FAKE TANS!

 

 

 We have now walked through the "Galaxy of Lights" display twice since we returned.

 

The Huntsville Botanical Gardens puts up holiday (and not so holiday) light sculptures all around the garden walking paths.

Santa was there, but the girls were too cozy in the wagon to get out.

 But their favorite part was the light forest. I have to admit I felt a little like I was walking into a fairy wonderland and we walked through curtains of lights strung up along the path.

 

And right in the middle was a 'snow' machine. The girls loved playing in the bubbles.

 And to wrap up our early holiday experience, we went to the tree lighting ceremony at the local mall. Again, they had the cool bubble 'snow' machines, so we spent quite a bit of time dancing in the snow again.

And aren't you jealous that it was just chilly enough that I was able to let Little Bear take her coat off for a while? She's so warm blooded that I had to beg her to put it back on. It took some talking to (threats to go home) at the garden to get her to wear her coat, too.

And all of this Christmas fun before Thanksgiving even arrived. . . I don't know if that makes me want to cry or scream for joy. I know the Commander wanted to scream, because I spent 15 minutes trying to find a Christmas music station on our satellite radio to listen too.

I didn't find it last weekend, but I found it today. : )



And now, after our Christmas prep, the madness of trying to get prepped for Thanksgiving is in full swing!

I have now officially touched everything that belongs to the girls and myself at this point, sorting and re-sorting to try to fit a two story house into a three bedroom apartment. There's still a lot to be done to find everything a home, but the massive purging of stuff is over.

And the prep for the feast begins tomorrow! I'm extremely excited to be cooking my first turkey and I'm even more excited than when I made my first batch of homemade chicken soup!

Mimi and Papa are probably on their way here right now which has the girls really excited. Little Bear wakes up everyday and asks, "Are Mimi and Papa here yet?"

I will need a way to distract them tomorrow so that they don't ask where Mimi and Papa are every 5 minutes.

But that's all I have to say for now!

Fairy Magic

Yesterday the new Disney Fairy movie came out, Secret of the Wings. They have been advertising it heavily on the Disney Channel, so the girls have been primed for months to get it. ToysBUs (haha) had a special that if you bought $30 in Fairy stuff, you got a free pair of $15 light up wings.

I got the last pair.

Woo Hoo!

But to hit the $30 mark I bought the new fairy, Periwinkle. And with that purchase, I have officially started Christmas Shopping! I smuggled the Periwinkle doll and the wings up to the front register and got them home without the girls peeking. This is the first time I've successfully X-mas shopped with the girls so Hooray for me!

To distract the girls, I had them browse the aisle and look for things they would like for Christmas. So to give anyone buying presents a headstart as well, here are a few things that you can watch for to go on sale as Christmas toy sales start up after Halloween.

For Little Bear.

She loves Merida, so here are a few 'Hero' gifts. (I'll call them that because the girls will jump up and down with excitement when the open them and you will be their hero for getting them).

Little Bear REALLY wants a bow and arrow set. They have one that has merida's picture on it at most toy stores, but she would probably like a cheap bow and arrow set as well.

And I haven't purchased a Merida Barbie sized doll yet.

And for 

Sassy

 

And for Sassy . . . .she loves everything Disney, Barbie and more.

 

The winner prize for her is the full set of the Little Mermaid and her sisters. The one in ToysBUs says it is exclusive to their store, but I thought I saw them in Target. And Sassy would also love the Tinkerbell music box from the first Tinkerbell movie. I think the package calls it "Wendy's music box" but it comes with a ballerina and a Tinkerbell to go on top.

 



 The Commander is just Requesting that toys be small which to me means, no life size toys and they should fit easily inside a backpack.

And somethings that the Captain (me!) would like for the girls . . ...
1000 piece puzzles for Sassy and I to put together. They can't be artsy photos with a lot of blended colors. Translation, not a lot of big spaces of one color and not a lot of 'watercolor' blending.

Good Puzzle pics

 Bad Puzzle pics












And after playing Barbies with the girls at least 4 times a week, the Captain would also like to see them get some boys. We have 2 Kens, but the girls keep fighting over them. And to make them 'Hero' gifts, you might want to look into buying actual heroes, AKA the Disney Princes.

 We only have Flynn Rider (bottom right) and that poor guy is pretty overworked saving the girls everyday. You can find all these guys at the Disney online store.

And just a side note that the girls do have all of the Disney princesses except Merida and Pocahontas.

I'll work on more Christmas items for the girls as we go along, but I wanted to give everyone a head start especially since they start sales right after Halloween.

Boo-tanical Gardens Halloween preview

Have you seen the new Disney movie BRAVE yet? For Halloween this year, Little Bear is Merida. Ever since we saw the moving, she knew she wanted to be Merida, but if you ask her who she is dressed up as, she simply says, "Brave." Sassy had a little more trouble deciding, but settled on Ariel.

We had our first taste of Halloween this weekend at the Botanical Gardens Halloween event. Temporary tatoos, face painting, hula hoop contests, a small animal 'petting' zoo, and of course, candy.

If you couldn't tell, I cheated this year and purchased the girls costumes. My sewing machine and notions are still pretty much buried, although I had to pull it out quickly to modify the mermaid, since some idiot designed it with cruddy elastic straps that barely held it up.

I have plans to modify Sassy's little mermaid tail to actually look like a tail, but I didn't have time before this Saturday.

And of course, I dressed up as well. I asked the girls if Mommy should go as Captain Mommy AKA Captain Jack Sparrow, or the Mad Hatter and they picked . . . .

The Commander wasn't really into the petting zoo, him not being a fan of reptiles and all, but the girls and I had a lot of fun petting the reptiles. They got pretty excited to have their photo taken with this excellent boa.

 Little Bear wasn't afraid of the snake, but she wasn't thrilled that the snake was trying to cuddle with her, so she was trying to back up into me.

 

I'm pretty proud of the fact that they are both fearless about touching reptiles as long as The Commander or I touch them first. I'd like to think that I'm raising some pretty fearless girls, except they aren't fond of spiders, I'm not doing a very good job of pretending that I'm not terrified of them I guess.

 After a little pumpkin decorating, and a short walk around, we took our picture with the dragon and headed to Burritt on the Mountain for their international festival.

Which was not a Halloween event, but I asked the girls if they wanted to change and they said no. They had an excellent buffet with authentic Greek, Indian, and German food, but the rest of it was pretty much a bust. I was dissappointed, but when we first visited Burritt, they talked about this event like it was a must see for the entire city.

The only thing the girls found particularly entertaining was . . .

A horse. Oh, well.

 

I'll have to keep an eye on their websites, we had several pictures taken of us at both events. At least on this holiday, my girls think that Mommy is the coolest person ever!



Where your rump rests . . .

Why yes I have been watching Lion King with Little Bear . . . how did you know?

They came! Little Bear and I were able to sit down and eat lunch at our new table! (Now do you get why I used Pumba's quote for the title?)

 

Isn't it sexy?

 

 

 Especially with all the junk still surrounding it. I comfort myself with the thought that everything in and under those white trash bags is donations. Oh! And there is a leaf insert for it that is stored UNDER the table. A leaf with built in self storage! AWESOME!

And Look!

A complimentary coat rack! (less awesome)

The cat bed that doubles as our door stop was already in my possession.

Now the big question . . .who still uses a coat rack? Any multi-purpose uses that anyone can give me?

For you, cousin

Inspired by Melanie's comment on the previous entry.

With the whole moving thing, I have been going through things and trying to purge as much as possible. I try not to hold onto anything that I haven't used or don't plan to use or will be easily replaced, etc.

One of the boxes that I kept opening over and over again, was the box with my few remaining barbie dolls, I decided that even if my daughters broke them that very evening, at least they got to see the light of day and get played with one more time. That plus that fact that I had to super glue the heads onto two of them helped me decided to take them out of my memory box and bring them back into circulation.

And for Melanie's viewing pleasure . . .

 

 

 Based on your comment you will recognize the hunk in the middle. What you might also notice is that he got himself a haircut courtesy of yours truly. Apparently I was offended my his long locks when the 90s rolled around and decided to play barber. Plus my sister had a 'real hair' Ken and he didn't look like a bad 80s guitarist so I was a little jealous. : )

And did you remember Mel, that there were two sets of Barbie and the Rockers? I didn't until I googled them to get the red head's name. Apparently, I have Barbie from the 1985 edition, and Ken and Diva from the 1986 edition. Boo me for not remembering that my sister had the 85 Diva and the 86 Barbie. (That makes them sound like car,s hee hee)

Oh, and I still have Ken's rockin' long silver jacket, but the silver jumpsuit practically dissolved. Luckily they were issued with their own 'concert t-shirts so I still have a Rockers thing to put on him.

And the only other Barbie that survived my childhood (other than Hammer)

Hmmmmm . . ..anybody recognize this little lady from the Toy Story movie? I've always called her great shape Barbie, but I didn't google to confirm. The one on the left is the original, while the one on the right is a Christmas present from my sister when they re-issued her for Toy Story 3. I was really escited when I saw her in the movie because they even got the leg warmers right!

 Of course new Barbie's leg warmers are sewn to the suit so they don't come off, but I'm trying not to count that against her.

Now if only I could decide what to do with my (and my husband's) original baby blankets.

Because I need to amuse myself too . . .

Little Bear has discovered this week that mommy can be a lot of fun while playing Barbies. So we've played Barbies everyday this week.

I'm already bored with it. Really, really bored. I could sit and dress and undress and style hair for hours if needed, but since the girls don't have nimble fingers yet, we are still in the inventive plots and elaborate play stage.

So I started to have a little fun with it.

To keep myself amused, I've started to name the dolls accordingly. Do you see the doll in the hot pink dress?

Her name is Lindsey. Because she looks like a blond train wreck and everytime she sits down we get a crotch shot. I debated Britney or Paris as well, but the girls liked Lindsey so it stuck.

Maybe I should conspire to name all of them after pop stars. All the ones that aren't princesses of course. And does anybody remember this guy?

Hell-oooooooooooooooooooooo M.C. Hammer! Yep, I totally had an M.C. Hammer doll. Go ahead and tell me how cool I was, I mean AM! : )

And then there is this classy gal . . .

 

 

Anyone else remember Barbie and the Rockers?I can still remember the float they had in the Thanksgiving parade in the 80s AND the song choruses from their AWESOME cassette tape. hmmmmmmm do you suppose that iTunes has those songs?

Anyway, I'm thinking she should be named Mimi after the character on the Drew Carey show with the terrible eye makeup, or T.J. because she looks like a Hooker. Get it? T.J. Hooker?

Nevermind.

Apartments

Sooooooo the new apartment was a bit of a downgrade from the previous furnished one . . . but the price is much easier on the wallet and it isn't on a curvy mountain road. For your viewing pleasure, I took pictures of the furnished apartment we staying is when we were moving out. The only missing is that they had the table set with wine glasses and the like when we moved in and the beds were made.

Entry view.



View from the hall looking at the master bedroom

Master bedroom, why yes that is a TV on the dresser.

Master Bath . .Huge tub!

Master walk in closet. Huge again!

Girls room with sucky beds too tall for little bear to climb on without a stool.



Guest room/computer room.

It was pretty awesome, except for the price and the drive. Unfortunately these are 2 pretty important things to me. So we moved here. And yes the cat was following me around while I took these . . .Consider the spooky eyes shots an early Halloween present.

Upper level right side!

Another view of our lake . . .

View from the front door . . . on the right from near to far, Living room, closet, Guest room, Girls room. One the Left, Dining room, Kitchen, Main bath, laundry closet. End of hall is master bedroom.

Living room. Can you see the awesome TV on the right and the fireplace?

Dining room/Kitchen view.

Tiny Kitchen view.

Master Bath.

 

Guest/Computer room.

Master Bath/vanity area.

Master closet. Major downsizing here. . .

Master Bedroom.

Linen closet.

Comparison time!

The bedrooms are bigger in the new place, but the closets are MUCH smaller.

I don't think all of my kitchen stuff would have fit in the last place.

The bathrooms are teeny tiny here.

The layout here is much better for being able to watch TV and chat without waking the girls up.

And I really needed a linen closet so hooray for that!

 

And yes it is a pit, but I hate moving, so as I unpack I

 

Hopefully they can get the furniture we bought into the master bedroom tomorrow. where that big pile of stuff is . . .and now that I've stayed up posting until after midnight, I suppose I ought to get around to moving that stuff out of the way so I can go to sleep.

 

Aren't I a great procrastinator?