Holidays

You Better Watch Out

November 22, 2009 by Kathryn

You better not cry and all that nonsense because Santa’s kicking the cruelty up a notch this year. I opened my mailbox earlier this week and what to my wondering eyes should appear but the Franklin Covey Holiday Gift Guide – 2009 edition.

I was intrigued. The cover stated that Franklin Covey had an array of gifts for both the nice among us AND the naughty. I thought they just sold planners and stuff made out of leather. Well, Boy Howdy was I wrong.

The first few pages do show planner after planner in various sizes and varieties. BUT, when you get to page 7, you find the truth. Can you handle the truth kids?

That’s right. If you don’t behave yourself this year, you may end up with a $50 red pen in your stocking and there won’t be anything you can do about it. It’s Franklin Covey’s answer to coal for Christmas of ’09. Stick that in your smoking device, light it and inhale.

Mother’s Day Is In the Water

May 10, 2009 by Kathryn

Maybe it’s just in the air. It’s definitely all around us and through us and it’s fun and LOUD and festive and at times obnoxious.

My mom always used to say that what she really wanted for Mother’s Day was well-behaved kids who were obedient and didn’t spend the whole day fighting. But what about these delicious red bath oil beads?! Surely they’re enough of a bribe that I can spend the rest of the day making annoying mouth noises and poking my sister in the arm until she begs for mercy.

Ah. I understand her so much better now. The kids were very excited and excitable, cute and AAAHHHHHH!!!!!

Dan is a good Mother’s Day husband. He’s actually quite passable year round but on Mother’s Day he knows how to bring it. All I want from him is a flower, a meal or two, something to unwrap, and the assurance that I don’t have to do anything resembling work for the day. Sure, I’ll read the kids a story or brush their hair, but only the fun parts of motherhood, not the ones that involve cleaning or bodily fluids.

Totally off topic but speaking of bodily fluids, Laylee’s current favorite song at church is called How Firm a Foundation and the last line of the first verse says, “What more can he say than to you he hath said, who unto the Savior for refuge hath fled?” She picks this song every time it’s her turn to pick a song and she sings it with gusto. I recently discovered why. She was sitting next to Magoo at our family night and finished, “…who unto the Savior for refuse hath fled. Hey, pst. Magoo. Refuse means poop and pee and stuff. Giggle.”

Um yeah. Upon further investigation, it seemed that she really did think those were the words to the song and hilarious words they were. She was so disappointed to find out what it actually said. Ah, the bitter realities of gaining greater knowledge.

Anyway. I did nothing today in a very deliberate sort of way. There were beautiful flowers purchased on Saturday and placed in the middle of the kitchen table with strict orders from Magoo not to look at them. He burst into my room this morning with a “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! Now you can look at your flowers!”

Dan got everyone ready for church while I slept in and he made my new breakfast obsession, steel cut oats, cooked to perfection.

The talks at church were upbeat and motivating and made me want to be a better mom… tomorrow… when I’m done laying about the house celebrating the fact that I am one.

Dan coached the kids well on buying me fun and thoughtful gifts and even put them in gift bags. He gave me a card with Michael Scott’s wisdom on parenting. He made dinner, did the hard part of bedtime, and cleaned the kitchen.

I feel refreshed and a bit spoiled and useless. I slept too much, parented too little, received too many presents and didn’t do enough for my own mothers. It was a good day but not a great day. I wish I’d played a game with the kids or spent some time talking with Dan while he slaved in the kitchen. Absolute slovenliness doesn’t really sit comfortably with me. In a way it was a good reminder that all these sick fat pregnant days when I feel useless at the end of the day, like I have nothing to show for myself, I’ve done more than I give myself credit for. In the future, I’ll just tell myself, “At least I got more done today than on Mother’s Day ’09. That was a doozey!”

It’s weird too because I got more praise, love and outpourings of support than on most other days of the year and it was the day I felt least deserving of it. Strange thing, this day of mothers.

Tip Tuesday — Mother’s Day Gift Ideas — And Teleflora Giveaway

May 5, 2009 by Kathryn

And the winner is… commenter number 20, Liz from Our Little Man.

This Tip Tuesday is kind of fun because I’m asking for your tips in exchange for the chance to win a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Teleflora for your mother or yourself. Come on. I know not every one of you gets remembered the way you’d like on Mother’s Day so no one will judge if decide to send them to someone VERY close to you.

I love flowers because they’re a classic elegant gift that you can give every year without coming across as lame. Teleflora has a great selection of flowers you can order and have delivered just about anywhere quickly because they contract with local florists all over the place. What you’re entering to win is this Mom’s Butterfly Bouquet.

I’m not being compensated by Teleflora in any way for this little plug. One of you will be. You can compensate me by giving me other great ideas for Mother’s Day gifts. Leave a comment with a gift idea and I’ll enter you to win the bouquet to be shipped anywhere in the continental US in time for Mother’s Day. I’ll choose a winner Wednesday night at 10pm PST.

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Easter

April 12, 2009 by Kathryn

We had a great Easter today. Magoo woke up bright and early and came into my room ticked that there was a baby gate at the top of the stairs. Yes, young padawan, you really think I trust you not to run down there at the crack of dawn (as though dawn exists in Seattle before June) and eat yourself into a diabetic coma? Not so much with the trusting. Very much with the child restraints. He calmed a bit when I told him to snuggle in bed with me while Dan finished his shower. Calmed and then fell almost immediately back to sleep. It’s like he’d been awakened by his chocolate radar and once he realized that the chocolate was surrounded by a parentally-induced force-field, he lost the will to remain sentient.

I mean come on, after all the trouble we parents go through to help put out the baskets and make our home a welcoming environment for the bunny-man, we deserve to see the looks on their faces when they run down and dig through that grass for treats and prizes. This year Dad was in charge of “setting the mood for the bunny’s arrival — edible division” and the sugar flowed FREE-LY. Holy Dina Cow! There were a lot of chocolate and marshmallow things brought into this house, many of which will be finding their way to Megacorp in the morning.

Some things that did stay were the two giant chocolate bunnies. Each a foot tall, containing almost a pound of chocolate. They may not ever make a return trip to this house but the video of the kids gnawing on them is priceless.

I “helped the bunny feel welcome — toy division” and the kids ended up with flashlights, a big Frisbee and a rubber snake.

Church was a good opportunity to get the kids grounded back in the real meaning of the holiday, although their thoughts were never far from their treasures at home.

At one point this afternoon, Magoo ran up to me. “Oh Mom! My snake is so cute!” He then stared up at the ceiling and yelled as if to the heavens, “YANK YOU EASTER BUNNY!”

I’m not sure he lives “up there” so much. But I’m sure he heard the thanks and was grateful for it.

I cut way back on dinner this year — ham, potatoes, corn, green beans and Pillsbury crescent rolls. It was nice, not overwhelming and I think it may be a foreshadowing of Easters to come. I usually go a little crazy overboard with the side dishes and homemade everything. But this year it was simple and Laylee called me “The Best Mom Chef Ever.” Dan agreed that it was the perfect Easter dinner, not too much, just enough. Lazy pregnant Kathryn is teaching regular Kathryn many tricks and shortcuts that regular Kathryn will remember and revel in for years to come.

We then scooped up the kids, took the new gospel art book our church has just come out with and narrated through many of the major events of Christ’s life with the chronological paintings. Then we did the Easter egg lesson about the days leading up to Easter. The whole thing lasted a little over half an hour and it was fun and the kids stayed with us most of the time and participated, making me feel less guilty about the party atmosphere that accompanies the serious stuff.

I think the best part of the day was at dinner when I told Laylee and Magoo that some of our friends have asked the Easter Bunny not to visit their homes because they want to focus more on the Savior and what He did for us and less on the candy and treats. They looked horrified and then an analogy came to me.

Can you imagine if it was your birthday and some friends threw a huge party and celebrated and had treats and gave each other presents and food and played games but never looked at you or talked to you or wrote your name on the cake? Technically it was your birthday party but everyone there ignored you. This was shocking. I told them that for a lot of people that’s how they celebrate Easter and Christmas, not giving any thought to what the celebration was really about.

Laylee thought this was awful. But I explained. Maybe a lot of those people didn’t even know it was your birthday or that birthdays were even important. Maybe they just knew there was a celebration and thought it would be a great time to get together with family and friends to have a good time. But we know when your birthday is and why we’re celebrating so we need to make sure to celebrate for the right reasons. And we know what Easter’s for so we need to be sure to celebrate what really matters.

I think Laylee got it. Magoo was still clutching his snake and shoveling Marie Calendar’s pie into his grinning face. At least he knew that the answer to most of our serious questions today was “Jesus?” We’ll work on him some more next year.

There’s Still Time for Ye Olde Holiday Fun, Me Lads and Lassies

March 17, 2009 by Kathryn

The night before Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day Eve respectively, Laylee went on and on about how awesome the holiday was going to be and how she could not WAIT until tomorrow.

“Uuuuhhhhh….. yeah. It’s gonna be so awesome,” I replied.

My plan for the day was to say, “Happy Valentine’s Day!” and give her a big hug, then go about my business. After putting the kids to bed I got a call from my friend Nancy about something unrelated to Valentine’s Day and mentioned that I was in deep doggy droppings because I didn’t have the energy or creativity to pull off an even remotely awesome Valentine’s for the kids.

She may argue with me on how I quote her here but she said something along the lines of, “Dude! All you have to do to be the best mom ever on Valentine’s Day is make pink pancakes in the shape of hearts. Bam! Best mom ever. Oh, and St. Patrick’s Day is coming up so buy lucky charms for breakfast and dye the milk green. Bam! Best mom ever.”

I took her advice to heart and it worked. The kids thought it was the most special amazing Valentine’s Day ever. Although I must admit I one-upped the Nanster by cutting out red paper hearts, writing shmoopish messages on them and taping them to pieces of candy for the kids.

Today when the green milk emerged from the fridge and SUGAR CEREAL was pulled from the cupboard, my kids’ heads mildly exploded. Laylee was 100% sure that Leprechauns were to blame for the violated milk, which Laylee and Magoo then slurped with a fervor, that can only be induced by alleged magic.

You know, you still have time to follow Nancy’s advice and be the best mom ever today. No one ever said that sugar cereal and milk that looks like it came from a diseased cow don’t make a perfectly acceptable dinner.

Merry Christmas from Our Little Wise Guys

December 29, 2008 by Kathryn

Uphill Both Ways

December 27, 2008 by Kathryn

I have a post up at Parenting today about our experiences being snowed in for Christmas. I submitted the post a couple of days before the 25th so it does not include our experience of waking up Christmas morning to a cold house with no power. Luckily Dan had wired our generator into the house electrical system a couple of weeks previous so he was able to get the heater and fridge running and the tree lit within a matter of minutes and we carried on with Christmas without any real inconvenience. The only way you could tell that anything had happened was by the smug look of satisfaction on Dan’s face at his amazing manly handiwork. Like the Kung Fu Panda, he asserts that “There is no charge for awesomeness.”

There may not be a charge for it but there’s certainly a payoff. I note down all awesomeness in my special Book of Awesomeness and it will all be rewarded most generously.

So, the snow. The snow is deep and bounteous. We live in a suburb of Seattle, a suburb that is apparently a vortex of weather magnification. If Seattle gets 3 inches, we get 10. If Seattle has a lot of rain, we get a flood. I don’t even want to know what happens to us when Seattle eventually gets its earthquake. Perhaps we’ll get the fast elevator down to the core of the earth where Jules Verne and all the cave people live. Perhaps I’ll be made a queen there.

Our city is really hilly and I think the county has 1.5 working snow plows which refuse to come down our street because it’s too steep. USPS, UPS and FedEx all agree as does Waste Management. We’re going on our third week with no trash pickup and it’s been over a week since any mail was delivered. Today I walked the kids to a play date through snow that was well above my knees in places. Yes. They cried. Many of tears. After about 2 hours of work on the second or third day of snow, we were able to get one of our cars to the top of our hill but have been too scared to drive anywhere. Apparently the tire chains we’ve so proudly carried with us on winter mountain journeys for the last several years do not fit either of our cars. At all. We sort of assumed they were one size fits all. They are not.

The major road that connects us with the shops and services in town has been closed for several days so when I went to town on Tuesday to pick up some groceries and mail some Ebay packages that just happened to sell right in the middle of the biggest snow event we’ve had in the past 6 years, I had to get creative. Stephanie and I loaded our packages in the laundry basket my kids had been using as a sled, hooked up a bungee cord and pulled them the half mile down the hill into town. About halfway down we met up with some teenagers snowboarding who suggested that we take the packages out of the basket and ride down.

Who am I to say no to a bunch of hooligans with blurred-out faces snowboarding down a major automotive throughway?

After the post office, we had lunch at a favorite little Thai restaurant. The owner asked us if we’d been in before and when we said we had, she squinted up her eyes, crossed her arms and said, “Hmph. I never see you before…” Apparently she had her doubts but she made us some yummy food that I did not have to cook within the ever shrinking 4 walls of my snow fortress, so I forgave her for the suspicious interrogation.

At lunch I told Stephanie that there was something kind of fun in all the cold and cabin fever and lack of Christmas packages arriving. I told her about how my sisters and I would pretend we were Laura Ingalls Wilder and her posse and that we were freezing in the wilderness. It wasn’t hard since I grew up in Canada and all winter long we were one tragic misstep away from actually freezing in the wilderness. We called the game Freezing in the Wilderness due to its aforementioned subject matter. Stephanie shook her head and laughed at me just a bit. Apparently she did not engage in that type of play.

We stopped at the grocery store for rations, loaded up our laundry basket sled and headed home. About halfway up the steep hill, we noticed a large burly man walking directly towards us. He was well over 6-feet tall with a bushy mustache and wasn’t veering to the side. Neither were we. It was strange, this chicken-like approach in the snowy deserted street. After a few moments a truck drove by, heading down the hill, having bypassed the Road Closure signs. The large man stopped walking a few feet in front of Stephanie and me with a perturbed look on his face.

“Great!” he exclaimed, “That truck just ruined my Laura Ingalls Wilder moment. Here I was walking through this peaceful snowy landscape and that guy has to drive by.”

I just stared at him as he continued on. So it’s not just little Canadian girls who play that game in their bunk beds on winter nights. Good to know I’m not alone.

The Wish List

December 18, 2008 by Kathryn

Laylee let me know verbally what she wanted for Christmas a couple of months ago. So, being on the ball as I am, I did my shopping early. Then last week when we wrote our letters to Santa, she asked for totally different things. Guess who’s gonna learn the hard lesson that Santa’s elves are always watching and will make the Barbie and the Magical Pegasus DVD when they hear you ask your mom for it and there are no returns in Elf-land?

Then after her letter to Santa, she said she still had more things she wanted, well one more thing, and she wanted me to write it on a wish list for her. I asked her to tell it to me and I’d write it down later. She asked me to sit down and brought a pen and paper. She said, “I know I probably won’t get this but I just thought I’d ask so please write it down just the way I say.” So I did. Here goes:

Laylee’s Wishlist

Item #1 — “A square without a bottom of wood and I want to put it over my bed and I want there to be a door or stairs and I want a light in it so I can wake up by myself and I want it painted brown and if you want you can put a triangle on the top for a roof. I want the roof, if you do a roof, to be painted blonde. And I want there to be a TV and I just want movies on it and no antennas. And I want it to have windows and I want it to be soundproof from Magoo waking me up. And I want it to have a heater in there that’s as easy as it can possibly be for me to turn it on and off. And I want there to be a hole for the cord to go through and that’s the whole message. And I want it to be lockable so Magoo can’t come in and make noise in my ears. And I said I want art stuff in there, right? Because I want it to have art stuff.”

So yeah. I’ll talk to Dan about that one, or Santa, or Glenda the Good Witch or somebody because I’ve personally decided not to build my 5-year-old her own functional soundproof, fully-loaded, bed-topper mini-mansion bunker for Christmas. (Dan calls it a “life pod”.) Maybe one of those other people will have more mercy. I’m doubting that person will be Dan.

However, I will cherish that wish list for as long as we both shall live.

Advent Activities

December 16, 2008 by Kathryn

I’ve had several questions about our advent calendar so here’s a little rundown. You already know I’m all about pockets. The obsession continues with the advent calendar my mom helped me make this year. It’s a replica of the one we always used growing up and I greatly love it.

Each day of December has a pocket and each pocket has a little card with an activity on it. Some are pretty elaborate and some are simple, thus allowing me to retain what sanity I have left. Here’s a list of some ideas if you plan to make one yourself:

Write a letter to Santa
Church Christmas party
Read Christmas stories
City tree-lighting ceremony
Shop for a giving-tree stranger
Choose a Christmas tree
Decorate the Christmas tree
Random acts of kindness day
Get picture taken with Santa

Celebrate mom’s birthday
Farmer’s market craft fair
Make a wreath
Go roller skating
Bake cookies
Make treats for friends
Sleep around the tree

Wrap presents
Visit Snowflake Lane
Mail packages
Deliver treats to friends
Drive around and look at lights
Make kits for the homeless
School holiday begins
School holiday sing-along
Go sledding
Church devotional
Visit a live nativity
Go ice skating
Turn on all the Christmas lights and candles
Sing Christmas songs
Watch a Christmas movie
Read THE Christmas story (always on Christmas Eve)

I set everything up at the beginning of the month but reserve the right to move things around as I see fit. The kids pull out the cards each day to see what we’ll be doing and they really look forward to it. It doesn’t take much to make every day of December feel Christmassy.

From the Top of Queen Anne

December 15, 2008 by Kathryn

When weather gets bad in Seattle, it is almost always reported from the top of Queen Anne Hill. We’re not totally sure why. I guess it gives a good view of the city. It’s sort of tradition. Maybe each new weather guy wondered why it had to be from the top of Queen Anne but was too embarrassed to ask the last guy WHY it had to be done from that magical mystical place of weather.

So now whenever there’s crazy weather, Dan and I always talk about it in terms of “something happening on the top of Queen Anne.”

This is a long preamble to IT SNOWED!!! A blanket of icy Christmas goodness has descended upon a whole region completely unprepared for the 2 storms we get each year and so we’re all kind of homebound.

There was only partial church yesterday for those with 4-wheel-drive. The rest of us stayed home, played “reverently” in the snow, sang some songs, and had a little devotional about the true meaning of Christmas, where Magoo shared his beliefs, “I know Jesus loves me… and one more… I know Santa loves me too.” I told him I was only actually sure about the first part.

The snow play was great. On Saturday I ventured out to return some not-so-great kids’ snow boots and purchase some slightly better ones. Dan commented on the futility of buying snow boots in a place where the kids only where them once or twice a year. I commented that when they need them those two days, they REALLY need them, for the fun and for the frolicking. I also added that I buy them 3 sizes too big so they last a few years AND that I was planning to buy them on sale AND use a mega coupon – and he was suddenly on board.

So the day after I got the boots we had our first snow day of the year and their little toesies stayed warm.

Now one thing we haven’t invested in is a proper sled. We used the laundry hamper lid and reusable IKEA bags last year but this year Dan had an idea. It involved dumping out lots of freshly folded laundry followed by some sweet slick fun.

The baskets were fun, but not super easy to dismount. For the sake of Dan’s dignity, I’ll only show you his “before” picture. And he does look dignified, doesn’t he? At least he’s not the one who broke the basket when he rode down. I’m not naming names but I think it was because she’s a massive athlete so it wasn’t really her fault.

What kind of mother waits to comfort her son after he face plants in the snow until after she’s taken a picture of his Hitler snow-stache? The kind whose husband is close by and who needs the shot for ~~her blog~~ his baby album. (I also think Chris is that kind of mom. Not pointing fingers. Just sayin’.)

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