Playing Pretend

We are in Manhattan for a few days. Thanks to the deep-pocket connections of my mother-in-law we have been hooked up with a spacious 3 bedroom penthouse in midtown, with an unbelievable view of the Chrysler building.  Tonight after a long day of toy stores, candy stores, and Christmas lights our family was walking back to our building.  The kids were tired and grouchy and we still had several blocks to go when we passed a drug store. I needed to pick up a few things that I had forgotten.  It was getting late and the sun had gone down hours earlier.  Scott asked if I wanted him to wait while I ran inside.  “Wait!” I thought, “This is like a get out of jail free card. Of course I don’t want you to wait. I would relish in a little alone time.”  He and the kids went ahead and after my shopping was completed I was back on the street, alone.  Well, not exactly alone. The streets were busy and I was soon swallowed up in the throng of business suits and skirts. It was then that my fantasy began.  I pretended I was one of them.  That’s right, you see I didn’t get married my senior year of college or start teaching after my undergraduate degree. I didn’t have my first baby at 26 and two more to follow. No, I came to New York. I went to Columbia Law School, where I finished first in my class and was immediately snatched up by JP Morgan as a young fresh tax attorney.  Granted, I worked long days that all began with an early morning trip to the gym and a bagel at my desk, but I was being compensated nicely. Especially, since I saved the company $386 million last year with my extensive knowledge of tax loopholes.  I would come home to my posh apartment every evening after a dinner with friends and be greeted by my warm-hearted door man named Felix. He would always ask me the same question, “How was your day beautiful?”  To which I would merely respond with a blush, because despite my rock hard Pilates body and my exorbitant salary I was still very humble.  So, humble that I was going to slip Felix a thousand bucks on Christmas Eve as a gesture of gratitude for his phenomenal job at opening my door.  It was in the midst of this extravagant slip from reality that I found myself face to face with the actual doorman of our borrowed apartment.  His warm-hearted greeting sounded a little gruff, when he exclaimed-“Mam, where do you think you’re going?”  My reply was interrupted by the peal of laughter around the corner.  The sounds were unmistakably my children.  I said, “I belong with them.”  And I was right, I did belong with them.  We piled onto the elevator together.  My two year old was crying because she was cold and wanted her blanket. My six year old was convinced that he was “literally dying of thirst.” While, my eight year old was rapid firing questions at me like a professional auctioneer.  About this time I caught a glimpse of myself in the elevator mirror. My reflection didn’t exactly reflect the rock-hard Pilates body in a pencil skirt and stilettos that I had been imagining. In fact, my mascara was smeared under my eyes. I had chocolate on my neck and I was wearing a pair of jeans from Costco. Yet, as our little family began ascending in the elevator, somewhere between the 16^th and 27^th floor, I had an epiphany.  My bonus from Mr. Morgan would come and go, even my Jimmy Choo’s and Fendi bag would wear out, but this was forever.  I had made the right decision 13.5 years ago, not that I ever really doubted that. This was more than happiness. This was joy. This was real. This was eternal. This was my reality and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Glimpses-A Normal Day

Sometimes the most mundane tasks create the best pictures.  Today was cleaning day at our house and to avoid 8 hours of TV watching while I worked, I filled an empty Windex bottle full of water and let Harley Belle "HELP!"  I am not sure about her choice in cleaning clothes. I can assure you that I do not clean in my panties and wonder woman socks.

What I am most excited about during Christmas Vacation...No homework!! Not only is it a screaming battle each night, but it also makes me feel dumb. Atley is 8 and doing more complicated Algebra than I did as  a Freshman in highschool. Oh, to be able to read the mind of an 8 year old boy genius.

While Atley did his homework tonight, my two lefties worked on their art work.  I am so blessed to have these three little maniacs in my home.

By the way, our elf is still a very important part of our life at least for 6 more days. He recently made copies of himself on our printer and sometimes he just moves to a curious spot during the night. One night he helped the tooth fairy retrieve Nash's first lost tooth.

  And sometimes he...

Christmas Trains at the National Botanical Gardens

Visiting the train exhibit is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  The National Botanical Gardens are right below the U.S. Capitol and their Christmas Exhibit is always exquisite.  This year was a fairy theme, which Harley loved and the boys pretended not to love.

This is one of my favorite pictures of late. It pretty much sums up my life-Atley is never quite paying attention, Nash is generally plotting something very mischievous, and Harley is picking her nose or doing something just as unladylike while I am smiling/faking my way through it all.

Nash's LEGO Birthday

Nash turned 6 years old on Saturday!  We had a LEGO themed birthday party at our house and it was lots of fun, even for me believe it or not.

  I made the party bags into giant LEGOS and I covered the juice boxes with paper to make them look like LEGOS too. I also used a sharpie and construction paper to make all of the plates look like LEGO men.

 When the boys arrived they each had to guess how many LEGOs were in the jar. Then they colored some Ninjago pictures with crayons that I made using melted crayons and some LEGO ice cube molds.

 The first game we played was a race to see who could suck up the most LEGOs and put them on a seperate plate in one minute.

 We are lucky to have a LEGO store near us.  At this store you can find almost any LEGO that you can imagine.  You are able to fill up a cup for about $15 with any LEGO pieces that you want.  I went and bought a couple of cup fulls with all the parts we would need to make about 15 Christmas Wreaths.  The boys had a great time building and decorating their wreaths. 

 Next, Scott drew LEGO man faces on a bunch of yellow balloons. We filled the basement with them and gave all of the boys inflatable swords. They were transformed into Ninjas and fought valiantly to defeat the balloons and each other. As you can imagine this was definitely a highlight of the party and yes, that is my daughter in the middle of it all. She refused to wear clothes because she was somehow convinced that it was a pajama party.  She was pretty angry at her brothers for not wearing their pajamas too.

 We ate pizza and of course birthday cake!

Finally, Nash opened his presents which mostly consisted of LEGOS, Angry Birds, and Star Wars every 6 year old boy's dream.  

We love you Nashy!!! Happy Birthday!!!

Popsicle Stick Christmas Trees

After recovering from food poisoning, I decided to eat my weight in cookies at the cookie exchange. Then we had a fun night with some good friends making Popsicle Stick Christmas Trees.

The big boys handled the hot gluing. 

At some point during the wild night, Nash must have grabbed my camera and taken a whole bunch of self-portraits like the gorgeous one above. 

Finally, we watched the autobiographical movie that our elf left for us.

Will Bake to Party

Tis' the cookie exchange season and I have two cookie parties in the next few days.  So, I spent most of today preparing for the first exchange which required a mere 6 dozen cookies per person.  I made these...

Pretzel Chocolate Chips
(These are the MOST perfect combination of salty and sweet.)

Recipe

(Adapted from this Source)

3 cups flour 

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup slightly broken pretzels

Coarse Salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine dry ingredients and set aside.  Soften butter and combine with sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients mix well. Add chocolate chips and pretzels.  Place on baking sheet and sprinkle with coarse salt/pretzel salt. Makes about 40 cookies.

Not only did I make 6 dozen cookies, okay more like 8 dozen cookies, we ate at least a dozen during the process. I also made frosting and filled up a hundred baggies in preparation for the cupcake decorating portion of our Church Christmas Party.

I made sure to remove all the air from the baggies and wrapped tape around the baggie just above the frosting.  Then at the party we just had to cut the tips off the baggies.  It made for relatively mess free cupcake decorating.

Finally, the elf packed the boys lunch today.

Would you Rather...

SOURCE

Today I asked the boys the questions above. Some of their responses were pretty funny.  This is what I learned about them today. Both would prefer to wear a Santa suit to school everyday for a week, which is great because they would both rather make presents for their family rather than buy them. They both prefer celebrating Christmas over their birthday. Nash would like to have Frosty for a friend while Atley prefers Rudolph.  They both would rather have a giant tree in their doorway to avoid any unwanted kisses from the "girls wandering around in the hall."  Atley wants tinsel for hair and Nash wants fingernails that light up.  They would much rather be home for Christmas and get presents than go to Disneyland.  Atley would rather do math problems, while Nash would rather write a five paragraph essay.  Nash would rather go to Bethlehem, while Atley would rather go to the North Pole because, "it isn't like Jesus is in Bethlehem anymore, but we all know Santa is at the North Pole."  Nash wants socks for Christmas as long as they are not church socks and Atley wants a dictionary, like a Star Wars Dictionary.  They would both rather get one big present instead of a bunch of little ones.  Uh, oh! I might be in trouble.  Nash would like to be an elf because he believes he is "cute like an elf." Atley wants to be a reindeer because they can fly.  They are both budding ballerinas who would rather dance in the Nut Cracker than watch it and while Atley prefers watching Christmas videos all day,  Nash wants to spend the day at the mall.

Here is what our magic seeds grew into...

A Few of My Favorite Things

Today we didn't have time to do anything very spectacular besides school, shopping, homework, dinner, some prepping for Nash's birthday party, a baby shower, and a Christmas story or two.  But, I did manage to walk around my house and look at all of our Christmas decorations.  I come from a long line of women who love Christmas, my mom and my Grandma Edgar in particular. When I got married my mom gave me lots of her old decorations which remind me of my childhood and how wonderful each Christmas season was for me.  My house at Christmas does not look like Pottery Barn, but it looks like the Christmas' I remember full of handmade ornaments, mismatched stockings, lots of color and especially memories.  I snapped some pictures of my favorite Christmasy things today and while I love all of my decorations (all eleven boxes worth) these are the best of the best because of the people and memories associated with them.

We have two Christmas trees. This one is the first artificial tree my parents bought. I remember being so upset about it and constantly spraying the tree scented spray that came in the box. It was our fancy tree growing up and now it is mine. It isn't so fancy anymore. In fact, a lot of ornaments have been broken and it stands only because Scott manage to rig it into a tire jack. Despite all of that, it still reminds me of the view from Main Street into our front room during the Christmas season.

My Grandma Edgar made this ceramic tree and gave it to my parents for Christmas in 1981.  I was just three and don't remember a Christmas without it.  One of my favorite things each year was putting the little plastic bulbs in the holes.  Now my kids love doing the same thing.

This was the first Christmas item I bought as a married woman. I got it at a craft fair in Provo. Scott and I had only been married for about six months. It reminded me of a similar felt advent my grandma always hung in her house.

My mom painted this years ago and at some point I inherited it. It reminds me of a time when we were living in Bolivia and took a painting class together. She was a natural and I totally sucked.  I think she let me quit when she realized how hopeless I was.

Our mismatched stockings!

The kids build a snowman village every year and play with the snowmen almost everyday.  It is by no means cute, but it is one of their favorite things.

My Christmas book basket is overflowing and I am so excited to read the books each year, sometimes a dozen times each.  Their favorite is Frosty the Snowman and The Berenstain Bears Christmas Tree.

These two items are just a couple of gifts I have received from my friend Shae over the years.  We don't see eachother very much and we have too many kids between us to really exchange gifts anymore, but I treasure our friendship and the memories that we have made throughout the years.

I have lots of lovely ornaments on my tree. I have lots made by the precious little fingers of my children, but this one is my favorite.  Atley gave it to me right after Nash was born. Perhaps it was the emotional state of just giving birth, but it made me so happy when I received it and each year when I hang it on the tree it makes me cry.  

The top of our piano is filled with creches some homemade some not.  Harley asks me to show her all of the baby Jesus' on a daily basis.

My little cousin Clay painted this pine cone tree for me when he was in preschool. He is seventeen now!

Okay, so I don't actually have BING in my house but Christmas is not complete without his music. My cousin April used to play this CD non-stop from Thanksgiving until Christmas when we were roommates at BYU. I can't hear Bing without thinking of her and how much I love her.

In other news, the Elf asked us to plant seeds today. Funny, but the seeds look an awful lot like Tic Tacs. I wonder what they will grow into.