O Tannenbaum

Interesting fact:

 I know the song "O Christmas Tree" in German "O Tannenbaum"

maybe not all the lyrics of the whole song, but enough to impress myself

Anyway.....back to trees. This year we shopped and shopped around for a recession tree. :)

Ok, ok just a tree that wasn't $80.

And we found it. It wasn't a one of those picturesque

cut-down-your-own-tree-and-feel-like-you-are-back-East places.

It was our local hardware store.

Here I asked Luke to pose next to his favorite tree...interesting choice Luke. But what I like best my little man are your hands and feet. Check you out white boy! Get DOWN!

Alexis is my mommy helper, and she comes over every Thursday to play with the kids while I cook and entertain my peeps. She was pretty excited to come along with us as I was informed she has a fake tree this year and misses the real thing.
 Charlotte loves her.

I know it's common practice to delete, burn, hide, etc. incriminating pictures but whatever. I'm not hiding anything. I took a self portrait to remember forever how I almost got high sniffing the air about 1,000 a minute to get as much Christmas smell in my system as possible. Even if we are in a tree lot in a basement parking lot of the local hardware store. I'm just not that picky.

But wait, it's getting pretty Hallmark card(ish) now. Looky here at my girl.

Dang she's cute.

Oh, I'm feeling a Normal Rockwell coming on. Very cute.

Check out Luke's bedhead. What's up?

The end result (before ornaments) is beautiful.

Here's to our recession tree. We love you.

the average conversation

Hola my beloved daughter. Below is the conversation we had while making dinner tonight. By the way this was going on while you were "helping" me do the dishes. This consisted of you smearing cream cheese into the sponge, filling the sink of water and then sighing and trying to leave. :)


Me: Char, remember we are supposed to be practicing not whining anymore. (like when I tell you to complete the task you started)


Charlotte: Mom, whining is a part of life.


Me: Actually, it isn't.


Charlotte: Are mermaids?


Me: I like to think so.


Charlotte: I think mermaids make the ocean waves.


Me: I like that.


I absolutely am addicted to your randomness my sweet. I love it more than carmel.

Oh so yummy

This is the one and only picture I took on Thanksgiving. Yep, pretty thankful for these guys.

Oh wait, just kidding, I took these too..... :)

I love you guys more than carmel...and that's saying a lot.

Reader Boy!!!

It all started on an average and hectic day a few weeks ago. I was rushed (what else is new) and scrambling to get home to unload the groceries to make dinner. Wait.... it was Saturday morning. LOL Wow, just kidding. It was actually a pretty relaxing day (wow that's new) but I am just usually so rushed that I forgot, and I usually have melting groceries and whining children who are hungry, I'm sorry.........

Take 2:

It all started on an average relaxing Saturday. We were just getting in the car from buying a few things at Trader Joes and Luke looks up and reads this.

He said it loud and clear and correctly. I jumped up and down (as we can only do so well in the seat of our cars). I was FLIPPED OUT!!! I knew Luke could read. Words like cat, sat, cake, make, etc. And I knew he could read easy books (another huge and amazing thing). But when you take a skill and apply it to LIFE this really gets me. I almost cried I think.

And then it began....

All over the place we were picking out words like crazy....

Wonderful words like Vons

(thank you Vons for being a short vowel word, 

for having signs that are huge and in simple fonts, 

and for being in RED - nice and easy to see)

And Bob Smith

It was a frenzy!! We were all INTO it!

Charlotte got into it...

Turkey got into it

And then there was...

Good ol' Goodwill.

And then I just needed to do this...

Because I just don't have enough going on while I am driving...

Anyway.....the point is I have a reader. A small person who pipes up in the back

of the car on every trip we make, words he is reading from the street signs, store fronts,

billboards, and anything else.

It's fantastic. And it's a HUGE deal.

And I am SOOO proud of you Luke.