Dec pics...

Jazzing around on the Piano with Daddy

"...Baby's got blue eyes..."

Tub time with sister...she's making sure he smiles for me.

Caden's broken elbow and a fake smile.

Decorating the kid's trees.

Each year the kids pick out an ornament of their liking for their own tree. This year, Caden picked a hockey ornament, while Sofia stuck to her traditional princess choice.

An ADD pose and my fat Buddha baby helping out.

My little hands at work.

Admiring the end product.

We were able to go on our very own local version of the Polar Express. A quick train ride with friends, a story read by an animated-kid friendly-jolly man, an appearance from Santa, a glimpse of the North Pole and all the elves, hot Coco and cookies...so fun!!! Sofie pulled Santa's beard.

The kids are enjoying an early Christmas gift in the pic below. I love Sy's hand on Sofie's back.

Caden, with his vivid imagination, used a helicopter and ruberband as feathers for a headpiece when he was pretending to be an Indian. An Indian with a gun. Note: Pocahontas in the background.

Women ARE from mars or Jersey.

I'm standing in a long line at LL Bean recently and observed a situation. I was last in line and behind me, approaching from two different directions, were 2 women...and this is how it began. One was a lone women with a large tote over her shoulder huffing and puffing her way along. The other was a women and man carrying a few smaller misc items in their arms. The women and man sideways glanced and caught the direction of the other women....she was headed for the line. The couple hustled and quick stepped while the other lady cut a corner, technically cheating, and arrived behind me first. The initial thought that struck my funny bone was that the winded women basically hurried along only to be first at being last in a very long line. A NANO second later the couple ascended on her. They began to assert body language...obviously annoyed that this women broke the "approaching a long line civilized" rule in the shopping code of conduct book. Their hands on their hips, lips pursed, shifting from one foot to the other. Then they huffed and moaned and whispered without using a whispering voice that "She was so rude!" and "Can you believe some people?". A few moments went by and the single women gathered he normal breathing pattern; she stared directly ahead. She looked past my nosey ease dropping and curious overt stares. She was rock solid still, gazing directly ahead at nothing with confidence. She had acquired her position in line. By George, SHE was not last, and SHE had won. The other couple began to shift their criticism's elsewhere, LL Bean was too be blamed. They felt there should be more personal. I envisioned line bouncers wearing all black and head sets. I set for a moment day dreaming and allowed my imagination and the background of their conversation to paint a picture...laughing to myself at their intensity and frustrations. Then without a warning everything changed. The couple somewhere in dialog had mentioned New Jersey in all it's splendor and basically, how the stores there are far superior to ours...pretty much saying Mainers cut lines and we suck. THEN the other women turns, relaxing her rigid "I'm the winner off the LL Bean line race!" stance. She says with a huge smile to the couple,"Are you's from Jersey???" They return the huge warm friendly smile and say with love and enthusiasm, "YES! Are you??". The warm chatter begins and I look desperately for something like an airplane bag to puke in. The women giggle and talk loudly while the man stands quietly staring ahead. I am certain, without a shadow of doubt, he is utterly confused. He says NOTHING. The two women are the best of friends by the time we reach the registers. They have exchanged emails and phone numbers. They know each others shoe size, what they have each bought at Freeport, the names of their children, and the year they all graduated for high school. They also have agreed that we, as Mainers, are screwballs, and that men are the hardest people to shop for and understand. How does this happen? Funny huh? Women....we are something else aren't we????

So here's a few from the past that still make me smile. My babies are growin up way to fast. I think Sofia and Silas look a lot alike. I really didn't notice it till' I saw these. This was Christmas 03' and Rich, Sofia and I were Joesph, Mary, and baby Jesus for two different churches. We had to turn down the offers this year due to Joseph's allergic reaction to the hay in 03'.

Fortunes and Vomit

My mind is slightly numb as it has been a whirlwind of excitement and events. Last week we spent WAY too much time at the Dr.'s and specialist for Caden's arm.
The Dr. settled on treating him with a cast, surprisingly he wasn't really hip on it. The specialist basically said it could be a couple of different things but all were treated with immobility. Whatever...

I thought that a week of stress could be helped by a weekend of fun! We decided to start the weekend with taking the kids to the Polar Express on Friday night. The kids get to wear their PJ's and go on a brief train ride to the "North Pole". SO neat!!! Before the train ride we decided to stop into Applebees for a quick bite with some friends and their children. About half way through the meal Caden begins to PUKE. It was very weird and kinda slow motionish. I looked over and he had that look that parents HATE to see when your miles away from a pot, bucket, bush, or toilet. Not the look that says, "I goota pee.". It's the green "I'm gonna puke!" look. Rich QUICKLY grabbed him and ran down the isle as he barfed...all the way to the bathroom where he continued to puke everywhere but the toilet. So we cleaned up and sorted out a few details, Sof and I went ahead to the Polar Express. Rich braved the next few hours with Caden. We think he had food poisoning. It was NOT the way we wanted to end a crazy week. Our life is really so exciting:>:>. Sat we skipped the other potentially fun activities we had planned. We opted for nothingness. Rich and I just needed a day. I was afraid to leave the house, scared someone may start vomiting everywhere, wherever we went. At that point I wasn't sure if it was food poisoning or the flu. Caden is doing much better now....well enough to be back to nonsense. He asked the other night what was going on with his luck lately. He said he felt like he had a plague. On Sat night we decided to get Chinese. Caden broke into his fortune cookie and it read, " you will find good health..." !!!! I looked for a map or compass in the take out bag, to assist us in the "finding" part, BUT didn't find a thing. Let's cross our fingers that he doesn't break his other arm looking for it. Soooo here's to hoping on his Chinese fortunes.