Yummy.

Early this morning, my retarded kitty came flailing onto the bed from the bathroom like the Tasmanian devil which happens to be some what of a common occurrence with him. Brent didn't even flinch and I barely lifted an eyebrow, briefly feeling glad that he didn't land on my face or suffer any scratches, and tried to go back to sleep.

Two seconds later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a heaving cat that was getting ready to barf all over my very fuzzy new blanket. Panicked, I sat straight up in bed and held my hands under his mouth while I screamed at Brent to grab a towel. Brent was in a half-awake stupor and was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on when the cat barfed in my cupped hands.

It was a big juicy load including a massive hair ball like someone had cleaned out their shower drain and dropped the contents of that into my hands. My skin was crawling with gross-induced-anxiety and I was horrified as I felt it seeping between my fingers and dripping onto the bed. Also, I know Tony well enough to assume that there was going to be an encore presentation, so I continued shouting at Brent to help me. He just kinda stood there like a deer caught in headlights while he watched me catch another round of chunky cat bile.

Believe me, it was a foul way to wake up.

The End.

"Ho Ho Ho! Merry Mehmus!"

Christmas was so great and I want to talk about everything but I can hardly contain myself because, IT'S BRITNEY BITCH!

ahem...

What I meant to say was that Brent got me a girls trip to Atlanta including two tickets to see Britney Spears in concert!!!! Oh. My. Freaking. Good. Golly. Holy. Shiza. Minnelli!!!! I mean, the kid hit the nail on the head with that one! He's the best! For realz. I am stupid giddy about it and have been skipping hither and fro ever since he gave it to me. And, by the way, her concert will be equally entertaining whether we get to see a glimpse of the old Britney or whether she's a hot mess on stage.

Also, I'm very aware that we are going to be the leathery hags there that think they're cool because they still love Britney. I'm also fully prepared for the stinky-eyes we will get from all the girls that are younger and cuter and still have the right to be at a concert like that. What goes around comes around and I know I have a lot of that coming to me!

Okay, enough about that... Christmas was awesome! Up until now, I only knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Santa's magic, but this year Brent and I got to see it from a completely different perspective. The kids understood quite a bit about what was happening and of course, I found myself choking back the tears on Christmas morning! Wyatt ran quickly to the first tricycle he saw (which happened to be Callie's) and got on it. Callie was much more timid and was initially more interested in the fact that Santa had eaten all the cookies! She loved the little stuffed dog and got on the remaining tricycle with pooch in hand. I don't think they even noticed the kitchen for about 10 minutes. Once they started playing with that, they didn't even want to stop to eat! They were so wide-eyed and it was magical to watch.

We slowly opened presents with the kids throughout the day. They weren't interested in quantity at all because every present they opened was thoroughly inspected and enjoyed before they would even be willing to open another gift. They were spoiled rotten too and definitely overwhelmed and exhausted by the end of the day.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was so cute. The kids were precious and I think they basically understood what was going on. My aunt and uncle came in town on Tuesday night, so on Christmas Eve we all just hung out and played with the kids. My aunt and I went to a Christmas Mass and it was really nice too. Instead of doing the traditional turkey dinner, we had big ol' steaks and it was moo-rific. We made cookies for Santa and the kids got to open one present before bed. The first set of cookies never made it to the fireplace and even the second set that didn't get gobbled up, all had a bite taken out of them. It was too cute.

Poor Flick

Merry Christmas!

The other night, after we had just let the kids open an early Christmas present, I kept Wyatt up a little bit later than Callie. It's awesome to have one-on-one time with each of the kids because it just seems like their personalities shine so much brighter. Wyatt is the more soft spoken one of the two and so many times, when it's just the two of us, he amazes me with his sharpness and sense of humor.

Anyway, I kept him up late to play with this wooden car toy where you have to properly place the wheels on the track to get it to go down the shoot correctly. He caught on almost immediately and looking in his eyes while he carefully and methodically figured out the right way to do it was like watching an indescribable beauty. There was no way I was going to be able to part with him for bedtime, so we played together for a little while and that was already the best Christmas present I could have ever asked for.

I had to refrain myself from leaning over and trying to eat him.

Yesterday, I was beating on some of their plastic blocks with a toothbrush while singing a song and just acting crazier than a loon. Callie loved it and grabbed the toothbrush away from me to beat on the blocks herself while singing her own little song that went...

"Cahggie...Oooooooh....Wherediditgo....Oooooooh!"

Oh my lord, I have never heard anything cuter come out of that child's mouth! I died laughing because she was so into it and it was her attempt at freestyling a little song for us. That child is so damn cute that it gives me goosebumps!

No need to get momma any Christmas presents. I already have two of them in the form of chubby and sticky little Cheerio eating runts.

My babies.

Trying to rise above it!

We've had a rough few weeks. It's hard because I'm usually so hyper around this time of year because I love Christmas so much, but it just feels like we have been getting sucker punched left and right. I'm just trying to focus on the kids right now. They can make anyone smile even in the crappiest and saddest of situations!

They are so excited about everything going on right now with seeing Santa Claus everywhere, all the Christmas music, and the Christmas lights. We've taken them out almost every night to drive around different neighborhoods to see all the good "Eats" that Bluffton has to offer. The kids like to talk about Santa coming down the chimney, eating cookies, and then leaving. Heaven forbid that I forget to mention the leaving part where he goes back up the chimney and bye bye. It's the most important part because they can't handle the idea that the dude would hang around the house for awhile. He's scary, old, and hairy. Plus, he bellows, "HO HO HO!" and that is for sure creepy (and possibly pervy).

I haven't really talked about potty training too much lately because they have decided to crap in their diapers forever. I don't know what I did wrong but all of a sudden, after days of making incessant trips to the potty, Callie got terrified of the dumb thing. It was like a switch and if you even mention it, her little bottom lip starts to quiver while she tries to choke out the word, "no". I don't push it because I'm afraid I'll make it worse, but I'm at a total loss.

Wyatt quickly caught onto Callie's fright and is scared of the potty too. That kid will straight up, bend his knees and grunt like and old man while he's doing the deed and then will immediately go over to the changing towel and lie down to have his diaper changed. It's ridiculous. They are both ready to ditch the diapers but just won't. I have dragged him to the potty twice because it's hard to watch him squat-n'-grunt and not do anything about it. He cries until he turns blue when you force him to sit on the frigging thing. There is no use. I've even tried bribing them with candy. We'll have to switch to depends soon if they stay on this track. Their hineys are going to outgrow their size 5s sooner or later!

Here are some pictures from the week. We are letting them open some presents from family as they trickle in so that they won't be so overwhelmed on Christmas like they were last year. It's been fun to watch and those runts have no problem ripping into them and oohing and ahhing all by themselves. They scream "MORE! MORE!" after each one. They're already pros!

Random Pics

Please pray for my little Kasha tonight. She's 16 years old and we don't think she's going to make it through tomorrow. Pets are family members and it cuts so damn deep that it makes me wonder if it's even worth having pets because of the enormous hurt it causes when they pass away. I don't want to talk about it anymore...

EATS

So, about the little tree we got for the kids...

When I was little, I loved the Christmas trees with the colored lights in them. Our tree had white lights and I was horribly jealous of my friends who had ones with flashing and blinking colored lights because they were soooo cool.

But, during Christmas, as people would decorate their yards with plastic baby Jesuses (is that even a word?!), big plastic Santas, and the big-bulbed colored lights, my dad would start in on his hilarious ranting about the overwhelming tackiness of it all. We got the greatest kicks out of driving by the houses that showed their Christmas spirit by draping their roofs in the big golf ball sized colored lights. Every time, my dad would mutter, "Eats" under his breath in reference to how much those yards reminded him of the old school "Eat Here" type signs from back in his day. Ever since, when we drove by a house that was real good and tacky, everyone would cheer, "EATS!" and laugh about our ol' Pops.

Anyway, "Eats" was never allowed at our house.

Now, as an adult, I completely understand where my pops was coming from although even he can't deny how entertaining it is to drive by some seriously good "EATS".

However, Brent comes from the school of "Eats" and adopts a 'go big or go home' attitude when it comes to yard decorations. I've always put my foot down about not wanting to bring down our property value with those hideous colored bulbs - not only for me, but for everything my dad stood for when it came to yard decor.

But then I went and had kids.

Meet our little "EATS". I know I'm a sucker (and I'm sorry dad), but he's precious! And, when I look at it, the little kid in me gets giddy about the rainbowy glow it casts on our walls.

Also, I figure it's my way of testing the waters before I let Brent go balls to the wall and junk-up/beautify the yard with various kinds of obnoxious inflatables. Brent would love to be that house that people purposely drive by because it's so stinkin' tacky. Plus, I remember loving those colored lights so much when I was little that if the kids want to resurface the outside of our house in tacky little circus looking lights...

...then so be it! :)

A fourth thing...

We had so much fun this weekend running around and being four farts in the wind. We got all our Christmas shopping and wrapping done too! We visited Santa but never made it on his lap, they only got close enough to rip a pair of treats out of his hands and then they hauled ass back over the fence where we they commenced whimpering about him. It's actually way more than I expected. We also got a little tree for the kids that I'll have to tell you about tomorrow. It's cute.

Anyway, there are like three material things in this world that really epitomize happiness for me...

First, is my feather pillow that I've had since I was 15ish and regardless of how many pillows Brent tries to make me replace it with, I always go back to old trusty. (He calls it the dustmite graveyard - I say, they are my friends.)

Second, is my hairbrush. I bought so many different hairbrushes in order to find the perfect one and in the end, I chose one that cost a whopping $1.99. It's soft and squishy but massages my scalp ever so perfectly and it never pulls on my hair even with the worst knots.

Third, is this perfect pair of dark green sweat pants that I got from Abercrombie. I'm not even the biggest fan of Abercrombie and I know I'm way too old to be trying to pull that stuff off, but it doesn't even matter because slipping a pair of these dudes on, feels like someone is warmly and perfectly hugging your legs. I got them for 12 bucks, but I haven't been able to find a pair on sale like that again. You can get them on their website all day long for $50 but FYI, they are just sweatpants and I would get a tinge of buyers remorse for paying that much for some loungers. (Even though I contemplate it regularly because I wear them all the time.)

At this point, I could make an argument for my big ol' van too because I love it so much but that opens up the door to my Tivo (my beloved Tivo) and my laptop, etc. etc. So I'll stop at the three aforementioned items and tell you THIS! I think I added a fourth item to my list of favorites and finding things that could possibly fit on my favorites list feels like I've just hit the lotto!

Anyway, it's this big light brown blanket that is called "microtec" that we got at Sam's Club and it feels like the outside of a really soft teddy bear. We put it on our bed on top of our crispy sheets and under our duvet. And do you know what? I felt like I slept on a cloud last night. Oh. Mother. It's true and even Brent couldn't deny the wonderfulness of it either.

When I was excitedly talking to my friend about the blanket and about getting all the shopping and wrapping done and all the other fun mini-tree and Santa adventures I went on, she told me I sounded like I had popped about 10 Adderol.

It was a fun weekend people. Family-together-Christmassy-funness. Amen.

Lovely.

Brent is out of town today so the laws of nature in this house say that my day should turn out pretty crappy. So far, we are right on course. I had one of those mornings that made me question if I'm even capable of being a mother (at least, one who keeps her kids safe).

Because it's been so cold, the dogs aren't really interested in being outside for all that long. This morning, after 10 minutes of playing together in the wet and frosty grass and wallowing in the mud that it makes, they wanted to come back inside. When I cracked the sliding glass door to see if they were ready to come in, they busted through the door almost knocking me down and the caked on, muddy, nastiness that they left in their path could have made me cry in and of itself. It was obvious I would be cleaning up their mess for at least an hour.

So, I begrudgingly started sweeping, moping, vacuuming, scrubbing, and getting lost in my thoughts about how much the dogs suck, wondering what Brent was up to, and other totally random junk. I had completely dismissed worrying about what the kids could be doing (never mind that you can't really hear anything when the vacuum is running). All of a sudden, I saw Callie running by with two little shiny gold things. They were definitely nothing I recognized out of the toy box and something that was obviously small enough to be a choking hazard. So I hurried over to see what she was up to and... it was not good. Not good at all. My face flushed when I saw how she had been carefully organizing tiny pieces of BROKEN GLASS ORNAMENTS!

Those two little skid marks had gotten into the tree, torn down however many balls and pulverized them. I searched frantically for the remainder of all the glass and I just hope I found it all. It gave me flashbacks of that moment I saw Callie tumbling headfirst down the stairs.

Thanks to them, I probably just sprouted 4 more gray hairs. These kids are making me more butt ugly by the minute.

Turds.

We Done Decked Our Halls!

When I came home from the wedding and walked through the door, both kids came running at me and gave me big hugs. Then, Wyatt called me a princess (only because I was wearing a skirt, but I like to pretend otherwise) and said, "Awwww" when he gave me hugs. I couldn't have asked for a better welcome home!

Callie distanced herself from me because she was apparently pissed that I had left her behind. She was still giving me the stinky eye this morning and refuses to pass out any hugs or kisses to her momma. I pin her down and steal them anyway though!

So yesterday we decked our halls and by that I mean, we only put up the tree since I ain't even trying to clutter this piece up with holiday garb while it's on the market. I also hung the stockings but the kids kept pulling on the dumb things and since I started seeing visions of those heavy stocking hangers falling on their heads, we packed those right back up. I'm not interested in visiting the ER anytime soon.

It was so precious this year because the kids are coherent enough to help carefully unwrap the ornaments and study them in detail. We took turns letting both of them place ornaments on the branches. They loved it so much and kept saying, "More! More!". Although Callie is deathly afraid of that Ol' St. Nick, I am so excited to see their reactions to all the presents on Christmas morning. In fact, it might be the last year we get to sleep in before they start waking up at 3:00am to see what Santa brought them like my brother and I did!