RazNoggle

Last night when I was praying with the lads before bed it was Myles turn, and he was praying in his customary fashion with eyes wide open “thanking” for anything he could see. He happened to be facing a bookshelf with photos on it and his prayer went something like this, “Dear God, thank you for this food. Thank you for our breakfast tomorrow. Thank you when I was a baby. Thank you Daddy married Mommy. Amen!!” It was very cute! When he said “amen” Qade chuckled and said, “Mom did you hear he prayed ‘thank you for this food.” Ha! These lads never cease to crack me up! Myles afterwards asked me, “Did you hear me say thank you Daddy married Mommy?” I told him I did and that I was thankful that Daddy married Mommy too. Then Myles got serious and asked if we were getting married tomorrow. I told him that we got married a long time ago and every day we were still married. Then as he bounced up and sprang off of the couch he said, “You never get married again!” He’s right.

Speaking of getting married… kinda…. it was 10 years ago this very month when I first met Stuart. Time flies, ya know? 10 years always seems like a long time when you’re at the front of it, but not so long when your at the end. My first sight of Stuart was him playing ping-pong with someone in the chapel room of the lodge at TWR. Those were good times! I miss that camp and those people, but these are good times too, and I’m happy to be where we are.

On other marriage news Qade has informed me that when he is a man he will find a girl that he will love and chose to marry her.

Myles told me this morning that Daddy told him that when he gets big he can be a daddy too.

Yesterday I overheard Qade telling Myles that when they grew up they would both be boys and they would find some girls and get married.

Lately the ‘thing’ to play in this house is “mommy and daddy.” One of them will declare “I Mommy” or “I Daddy” and then the other one gets to be who’s left. Then they walk around the house calling each other Stuart and Rachel. SO funny!! They also have their “babies” to take care of. These range from the angry bird to their build-a-bears to their bouncy rubber balls depending on the situation. They are also very nurturing to their babies, singing them lullabies and wrapping them in blankets. At other times they hurl them through the air, or take them out to the trampoline and toss them on the roof of the house. Not sure what all this means, but I’m guessing they’ll be fun dads someday. Provided the wives the ‘find’ don’t let them take the baby to the trampoline.

Ha ha!

Photo tutorial by Myles.

First, you find a big strong Daddy. Then you convince him that you are helping by walking behind him as he rolls the big balls of snow.

Pick the very best spot to assemble your camouflage snow man and tell your strong Daddy how to lift and place the snow ball.

Then you have to show Daddy how to pat down the snow and leaves and grass and stuff…

Making sure he does it just the right way!

Finally, you have to decorate your snowman with your brother’s hat, some shovels, Daddy’s Nerf gun, and a bunch of legos that Mommy “got rid of” because she was tired of cleaning them up.

And THAT is how to build the best snowman EVER!

So I somehow stumbled onto this article from Rockin’ Granola, and no, I have no idea how I ever end up where I do on the web…. it just happens. Anyway, I’m reposting some of her article because a lot of it sounds like me (except I crochet not knit)… and the rest of it I want to do too, especially the nap part ha ha! Another step in my deGrinchification process.

Here it is:

How I Do It All … Secrets of a Perfect Holiday Planner!
(I can’t even type that with a straight face)

I Do …
Knit.

I Do NOT …
Have a single handknit stocking in my home. They were all purchased.

I Do …
Make detailed lists of what I would like to accomplish.

I Do NOT …
Ever, ever, ever get every single thing on my list finished. I’m pretty good at planning things and having good intentions, but I sometimes get overwhelmed and end up crossing things off of my To Do list. And that is perfectly okay.

I Do …
Hope that making ahead and freezing some meals will help us to avoid busy night drive-thru runs during the holidays.

I Do NOT …
Plan on beating myself up if I see the pizza guy during the month of December.

I Do …
Get to take a nap on Christmas day. It is becoming a tradition that Mom gets to take a nap during the afternoon. I love this!

I Do NOT …
Get to bed early enough on Christmas Eve. There are always a few last minute things I’m finishing up – wrapping, preparations for breakfast, something always keeps me up past my bedtime every year.

I Do …
Make many of the gifts we give.

I Do NOT …
Ever, ever, ever finish making everything on my list. If a project isn’t done by December 1st, I abandon it and start surfing etsy. There is always next year

I Also Do NOT …
Make gifts for anyone who has ever sneered or turned up their nose at one of our handmade gifts. One snarky comment and it is gift card city from now on, and I think we’re both happier for it.

I Do …
In general feel pretty good about the quality and the quantity of the gifts our kids receive.

I Do NOT …
Think a single year has gone by where I haven’t had that moment on Christmas Eve where I look at the presents under our tree and worry if they will be enough.

I Do …
Make a holiday budget every year.

I Do NOT …
Ever have the amount of money to spend that I wish I did.

I Do …
Know what and who the holidays are really all about.

I Do NOT …
Have fully have the ability to resist the all of the temptation and consumerism that runs rampant this time of year. I’m working on it, but I am certainly not there yet.

I Do …
Plan that the weekend before and the weekend after Christmas will be spent with family. We happily travel all over the state during the month of December. I actually enjoy those trips, looking at the lights, listening to music, talking with my husband, seeing family and friends.

I Do NOT …
Travel on Christmas Day. I stay home in my pajamas with my kids and we love it, even though I know it hurts some people’s feelings and they don’t understand why we choose to stay home. Our door is open and friends and family are welcome, but we stay home.

I Do …
Quite a bit of holiday baking with the kids. We have a messy, sugary, good time.

I Do NOT …
Enjoy the clean up afterward.

I Do …
Admit that I may have an unnatural love of sequins when it comes to the holidays

I Do NOT …
Care if my husband is too embarrassed to be seen with me in public when I’m wearing my sequined Santa hat. Oh, yeah, I’m the lady at the grocery in the sequin Santa hat. Let your holiday freak flag fly, baby!

I Do …
Try every year to take a photo of the kids for our holiday card.

I Do NOT …
Think I’ve ever been entirely successful. (But I have a lot of fun trying)

Have you heard that expression before? I know I have! “Don’t get your nose out of joint!” What does that mean? How can your nose be out of joint. It doesn’t have any joints. Kind of strange. SO I took myself on a little internet tour to find out about this interesting idiom. I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of the “origins” but did come across this definition “Fig. to resent that one has been slighted, neglected, or insulted.” It also refers to the expression on someone’s face who has been afflicted with that definition.

You may wonder what prompted me to be at all and in any way interested or curious about this phrase. Well, I’ll tell you. My nose has been out of joint!! Not in the way that the expression means, but for real! Ha ha!!

See what happened was Stu and I were playing with all the monkeys on the floor one evening recently. Ella had me pinned down in typical kid wrestling style. Except I think she was attempting to communicate to me that she was DONE playing and really wanted her sippy cup of milk and bed…. like NOW. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t moving fast enough to her liking, she had me pinned after all, or maybe it was just utter exhaustion, but whatever the reason, her head came down SMASH on my nose! Owwww! Head-butt to the nose is NOT a pleasant experience. I heard my nose “crunch” but it was actually just more startling than painful. Mostly it just felt numb. At first. My nose wasn’t broken, of course, but it has grown very tender over the past couple of days.

The last time my nose hurt like this was when I was a camp counselor and it connected with a camper’s elbow during Big Ball Volley Ball. Ugh! I was jumping to hit the ball as Hulkerina was coming down, elbow first apparently. That was a very painful experience, and I couldn’t even bear the pressure of my sunglasses on my nose for a couple of weeks after that. Ha ha ha!! Funny memories!

Ella’s little noggin’ didn’t compare to the elbow incident really, but it did remind me of it. It actually wasn’t as bad as when she head-butted my eye socket! At least noses are somewhat squishy. Ha ha! But seriously, they never tell you that you should have WWE experience before becoming a parent. Ya know? That would be a good thing to know.

You have to watch out for those itty bitty heads! They pack a wallop and can very easily get your nose out of joint.

I will return with more real life blog stories after this break for hysterics! This poor gals has them badly, and after I watched her, I myself, was hysterically laughing. Enjoy!

Spelling is my strong point!!

What? You didn’t know that! Just look!!!

Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques for my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it to say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
It’s rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
Eye am shore your pleased two no
It’s letter perfect awl the weigh
My checker tolled me sew.
-Margo Roark