Here we go again!

Pretty Princess....

Off to a birthday party!

Here we go again!

It is that time of the year for BIRTHDAY PARTIES!!!!

I am in the planning stage of Delaney's next party. Now one would think that planning a soon to be 6 year olds party is easy. Throw some cake on the table with a glop of ice cream and you are d-o-n-e. But if you think that I would take that easy route, you know me little friend!

It would not be a child's birthday in my house without me stressing over the plates being the wrong color or the cake decorations keeping me up till 3am the morning of! I am a perfectionist and I know it. They say it is the 1st step to recovery admitting it but I am not finding it so!

My intention was to look for someplace outside of the house now that she is older. You know...a place I can just pay and they do all the work and I get to go home and not clean up coolaide spills on my carpet for the rest of the night! But Delaney asked for another home party and so here we are.

Usually I complain about what to do this time of the year. Having a winter baby is NOT easy coming up with party themes. There is only so much one can do when you risk bad weather, a small venue and snow!

This year I decided not to try and go against what simply is. So we are doing a winter themed party. Snowmen and all! We have snowflake table clothes, plates and decor. A snowman centerpiece. Gift bags full of goodies like snowball cookies, snowflake stickers, snow bubbles and snow cotton candy.

We have a pin the hat on the polar bear game and a snowball toss along with make your own sundaes. And if I dare to be risky and can get a good deal , I am thinking about a bouncer. Tell the kids to come dressed for the outside and just go for it....snow or not! What the heck! Might as well just go with the flow! I never thought I would say this but maybe we might be lucky and get some snow right before the party!

I am also on the hunt for the bestest cake around. I found cupcake holers with snowflakes but I am not sure what to do with the actual cupcake. And so began the google for ideas.....

Our 1st selection are these lovely blue creations!

Then this simple but cute snowman face. Which should be my pick as it looks to be the easiest.


Then there are these cute and lovable snowmen which I think I like the best.


I am probably going to try a dry run of them all to see which I like the best cause a cupcake that looks like a mom made it in her kitchen would not work! It must be perfect or it will ensue a night of wakefulness on how I CAN make it work!

I envision myself sitting at the kitchen table with jimmies and icing up to my elbows while I cuss out the cupcakes for making my life miserable and trying to push that chocolate chip over a hair with a tooth pick!

But I will I do this with love.

(Perfection has nothing what so ever to do with it! Nope....not at all!)

I am so getting old!

Yes....another "I am getting old" post! I can't help myself. Perhaps it is a mild midlife crisis. Or simply that I am desperately trying to ignore what is really before and am in shock when I actually SEE it!

This morning I was taking my birth control pill with some soda. (Yeah yeah, I know. I should be using water. But that is an entirely different post and issue) The soda was frozen somewhat from us keeping it outside to keep cold. I pop the pill in and drink and absently watch the news. Then a few seconds later I am crunching something. I pull out a little bit of white and get in a panic that I broke a tooth on the ice. After a few seconds of sweat breaking out I realize .....it was just my pill. Now I am not sure which is worse. The fact that I am taking my pill with soda at 7am in the morning. Or the fact that I forgot in that short amount of time that I took it!!!

Oh a plus note....I still have the need of a birth control pill! There is always a silver lining on this old train!

And this weekend, I finally went to the dr and chiropractor for my back. I have been having issues for about a good 4 months. I tried ignoring it and hoping it would go away. I did the heating pad and Advil thing. Nothing worked and I finally gave in and went. Turns out I might have a slipped disk AND was told I have a degenerated disk. Can life get any better?? The google queen that I am, came home and looked up the prognosis of degenerated disk disease. It sounds really, really bad. But I guess really isn't so much as it is common. On a good outlook, by the time I am 60 and 70, I won't have much pain anymore as older people rarely do from it. Which is probably a good thing since I will most defiantly be thinking my pain meds are my teeth falling out of my head but then!

I am showing a lot of promise!

Knock, knock...anyone home?

Yes, yes. I am here!

The holidays kept me busy. We finally took our tree down. It was a sad, sad event. It was completely dead by the time we got to it. Once we removed the decorations and lights, it looked worse than Charlie Browns!! After Todd dragged out the sticks of what was the tree, we were left with the leftovers of sweet holiday memories.

And so, officially, ended our holidays!

Then it was back to school and our keep you busy activities that our bodies had gotten used to not doing over the lazy two weeks off. It took a while to get back in the groove. The snow storms didn't help matters. Throw in a couple of snow shovel days and time off of school and we have been rather busy.

Oh the joys of child labor........

And then, just as life was beginning to become dull, I went online to run some school work off the Internet and opened a virus which set my computer into a dance of survival! Bless my neighbor who got yet another call for help to come and save what he calls my dinosaur computer. Dinosaur or not it keeps me online and I shall not complain about the old girl! So off it went to ICU at the neighbors house and I was offline for a while. It is running now and life is good! The old girl is still kickin!

What else has been happening???

Well my dishwasher got repaired as the front of the door started to come off and the connections were breaking and making the thing not work altogether!! This issue is probably thanks to my kids who open the door and let it fall down with a BANG! At some point it would make sense that the door would say enough and just come completely off with their encouraging hands!!!!

Then we noticed the house water pressure was not strong. Heaven forbid someone would flush a toilet or take a shower at the same time you were in there! You would have to step into the trickle of water for the next 2 min and then got a blast in the face once the pressure kicked back in! So we called a plumber friend in and had a switch fixed and it would seem we still have to call in someone for the water treatment system! Currently we are bypassing that which is a no no living in the country. (Does it ever end??)

Delaney is doing well homeschooling. We have been a little slow getting back to work but the snow days and older kids home here and there doesn't help matters much! She is officially doing 1st grade work. The kindergarten work was simply....to simple. The thought of picking up more kindergarten curriculum for her to redo what she already knows was silly. So after hunting and searching we went with Total Math and Total Reading and for 1st grade along with a science program too. That, mixed in with her computer and hands on work will complete the rest of the school year. Reading is still not her most fav thing. BUT we are reading and that is wonderful!

The older kids are doing well and finishing off their marking period soon!

We are on winter schedule with them and things are quiet right now.

And that brings us to today. Another holiday off! The older kids are home and promises to be a quiet day!!!

Oh the joys of the holidays!

Well the holidays are officially over.
I am mixed between happiness and being sad. There is some joy in being over the holidays stress and moving back into some normality. On the other hand, life is pretty bland without mistletoe and White Christmas singing in the background!

The best part of the holidays was Christmas morning when Delaney woke and came out to see the gifts. She stood there with her mouth open and saying over and over "Mommy I was good! I was good Mommy! Santa told me to clean up and I did and I was GOOD!" The moment will forever be in my heart!

I also won't forget after holiday shopping!
#1 NOTHING beats a sale! I mean NOTHING! Ok....maybe the chocolate burritos we made for New Years Eve. But nothing else beats a good sale! I went to Boscovs and kicked out teachers, choirs, friends, a few family, etc etc etc. I won't even tell you what I got or how GREAT I did for fear you happen to be one of those listed. But, OMG, it was GREAT!

#2 The memory of the gentleman next to me while I sweater shopped will probably stick in my mind for a while too!
I was trying on some sweaters and had on a tee and a hoodie. I didn't feel like going to the dressing room so I just pulled off the hoodie, tried on the sweater, decided I hated it, removed it and put the hoodie back on. This went on for about 20 min when I tired on the last one I found. Took it off and put the hoodie back on..........backwards. The hood over my face. I actually stood there for a minute trying to figure out why I had something over my face before I laughed and realized what I had done. I removed the hoodie and looked in the mirror as my hair stood on end from the static. I laughed some more and turned my head only to find a gentleman looking at me and quickly look away while pretending to not notice me there! Ok...so the dude went home thinking I was some nutso woman.

And had he been next to me while I rung out my sale items (all the while giggling with joy) he probably was confirmed on that.

All in all it was a lovely holiday! And now back to the grind of work, dr appointments and afterschool activities.