news

resolution

 

happy new year.

**WARNING**: i'm going to say some really nice things about myself.  it may seem like bragging, but...i'm not:

i'm SUPER good at making goals. actually, more importantly, i'm SUPER good at making AND accomplishing goals. 

thanks young women's medallion, circa 1986.

i have a notebook that has every goal i have made since 1988, and an exact % of goals accomplished each year. my lowest score ever for a 1-year period is 78%. with a 20-year average of 93% of all goals accomplished.  no, i'm not kidding.

disturbing? or incredibly awesome?...depends on your mood i suppose. i'll admit that i teeter-totter myself on it.

i've been musing about 2011 goals for a couple months now.  compiling lists. making notes. trying to be realistic about how much 1 human can accomplish in a calendar year. the hardest part.

and then, a couple of weeks ago i was having dinner with my childhood friend and her husband and their kids. my friend was off cleaning dishes/yelling at the kids, and husband and i were lounging on our respective couches. digesting. i'm an amazing guest. 

and then most wonderful thing happened: out of nowhere he said:
"you know, candice, do you ever think about how we are at that age? that age when a lot of the things you thought you'd accomplish, or be, or do just...aren't going to happen. and...we just have to accept it. do you ever think about that?"
"nope."
"really? no?"
"nope."
"wow..."
"look, i'm not going to name names, but one of my kids is pretty naughty, so introspection is pretty low on my list of survival tasks." (cue one of the 5 kids in background: "piper! no hitting!")
"... ... "
"... ..."
"... ..."
"so....what is it that you're giving up on?"
"well, i always wanted to take ballroom dance classes with my wife. i just thought that would've be really fun..."

1. i think it's pretty cute that there is a 40 year old guy out there who wants to take dance classes with his wife. 2. i thought he was going to say something like, "i always wanted to be an OB/GYN. or live on a kibbutz. or hike manchu pichu." things that probably would be out of his reach at this point.

"you know jake. you...CAN still take ballroom dance classes."
"you think?? ...i don't know...."

right then i had an epiphany. i'm going to go totally out of character.  this year, i'm going to have ONE goal. and it's going to be something fun. something sensless. something that i've always wanted to do. but don't. because it's just totally unimportant. like dance classes.

i'm going to become a good baker.

it's my dream job. how many times have i fantasized about working in costco bakery? probably every time i've gone to costco, plus 182 more times.

just the thought of unwrapping block after block of butter and gently, lovingly, placing them in an industrial-sized blender gives me chills. spending my days perfectly wiping bowls clean with spatulas, kneading, & rolling. frosting & filling. coordinating ovens & their individual timers.  i'd lick beaters during my break, spend my nights purusing baking books for my next masterpiece.

i imagine a big walk-in fridge with shelves of cream, & milk & all sorts of fruit just waiting to be rolled and folded into fluffy sugarness. countertops with buckets of flour, sugar & shortening that never need to be refilled.

nothing sounds like more fun than walking into work in the morning and learning that i had 3 dozen custom cakes to make by noon. except maybe shrink wrapping 100 boxes of neatly lined croissants. or stocking the tables out front with pound cakes, muffins & pies. little brownies. and baguettes.

Well, there it is. i'm doing that THIS YEAR. before i start to think it's chronologically out of my reach. i can't wait for my daughter to be...nice. cause, what if she waits till SHE'S 40 to start being agreeable. and then i'll be 78. which is dangerously close to 80. and have you ever heard of a 80-year-old baker?

me neither.

this year there will not be a dozen+ goals, neatly filed into categories. checked & rechecked. mapped & re-mapped incessantly.  and i'll be honest, it's already a little stressful.  to ....be without a "plan". in case, you know, the whole costco thing doesn't pan out....

but i commit to eschewing all other goal-type notions that creep up.
2011:
1. become a good baker.  ... ... ...
and...
2. say more nice things about myself.

24

we scored a taco-invite!! the brent stewarts graciously invited us up to their beautiful alamo house to mooch in on their christmas eve. and their tacos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i don't think piper has ever had tacos. and, i think she still hasn't.  she simply could not be bothered with eating when there was a dog in the immediate vicinity. poor shiner got hugged and kissed...to infinity.

 

 

levi declined brynley's offer to be Joseph in the christmas nativity.

i think once he realized that the part of Joseph this year was also wielding a weapon, he wished he hadn't been so hasty in his rejection. he pretty much stared Joseph/Bridger's gun down....the entire program. 

on the up side, as you can see from the puppet on his hand, he got the awesome co-star part of the donkey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

super-fun.

21-23

 all christmas fesitivities came to a screeching halt.

i popped 3 ribs out in my back.

i want to say that it was from doing a wild jig with the sexy santa. or something equally worthwhile, liking doing some hard-core garage cleaning.  something i could at least respect.

i really did it by putting a baseball in a pair of pantyhose, putting the pantyhose on my head, and swinging the ball around trying to knock down 8 bottles of water. remember the sophisticated work christmas party? yeah. cause i don't already get enough mocking at work for being so OLD.

at first i didn't know what had happened. my back was hurting and i thought it was just from 48-hours of straight partying.  but by the end of the party, whenever someone hugged me, and there suddenly seemed to be an inordinate amount of hugging going on, it would literally take my breath away it hurt so bad. i literally couldn't talk for 10-15 seconds. later i found out that was because hugging was pushing my loose ribs into my lungs. cool, huh?

by 1am i had taken every possible drug combination i had in my house, and was rotating between a heating pad and a bag of frozen edamame.

by 2am levi was in my bed, i know, what a surprise, and was sitting up watching me attempt, unsuccesfully, to get back on the bed every 3-5minutes. 
"mommy, are you ready to try again?"
"no. AAAHH! no. i can't AAAAAH! do it."
"yes you can. just try. just try mommy."
"AAAAHHH!"

little did i know that those pesky ribs were pushing out onto the main muscle in my back, and were....annoying it.  so it was spasming every 30 seconds or so, just to make sure i remembered its complaint. did you know that when your back muscle spasms it literally stops you in your tracks? that you literaly cannot move. you can, however, yell, AAAAHHH!   true story.

by 3am i cried uncle and called my parents'. my parents love getting calls in the middle of the nite from one of their daughters who can't breathe enough to actually talk. i pretty much just croaked out, "come.over.gotta.go."

i let this go on for about 36 hours. i'm an optimist that way. but eventually went to the dr., who immediately upon feeling the "bulges" in my back that my mom kept talking about,
"will you try to rub my ah!ah!ah! back and make it stop AH! spazing? ah!ah!ah! don't touch me. ok, sorry, try again. ah!"
"candice, there's bulges all over your back...."
"ah! i know. cause my back ah!ah!ah! really hurts. ah! sorry. ok don't touch me anyAH!more"
knew what was wrong.

he popped my ribs back into my spine.  disgusting right? but within 2 hours i returned to some semblance of a normal person. or at least wasn't spontaneously screaming out.

he said i shouldn't swing any more balls around with my neck.  great tip.

i've been trying to decide how humiliated i really want to be. because there's pictures of the scene of the crime. or, as my mom would say: the beginning of my tragic incarceration.

heidi says you don't keep secrets from your journal.

that's true. so here it is:
 

 

20 - work christmas party

in some sort of twisted ignorant over-zealous mood, i agreed to: 1. have our work christmas party at my house, 2. the day after my family christmas party.

originally i was worried that the clean up party #1 and reset to party #2 would be the hard part. but what was actually hard, and never even entered my mind, was the motivation to make party #2, party #2.

i had no idea.

but apparently hosting parties is like giving birth. in that it takes everything out of you. and you have to wait a little bit to let your hostess cells repair.

but then C from work showed up. she was my co-host, and she was brimming - overflowing actually - with pre-party excitement. so she got me back on the wagon.

i want to tell you that our work party was sophisticated. refined. a party you would take your grandma to.

but...

when you work with all women, it really changed the office "culture." especially after you've worked with the same women for 8 years. when 6 women have worked together for 8 years, you can have work parties that no other office would dare have. for instance,

you can have sexy santas come to your party.

totally, right?

and since my dad doesn't read blogs, you didn't start reading blogs, did you, dad? i can show you a little sample.

but if you want more, you'll have to ask me for a private viewing. because last nite MY grandma asked me to help her learn to read blogs.

 
 
 
later we were wondering if these....sexy santas, and others of his ilk, KNOW that women actually think they're funny. that we call them "sexy" in jist.... i mean, are they in on the joke too?

19 - family christmas party

 

finally, the day for ham the family party has arrived. grandma came through with her matching christmas jammies. april came through with a great meal. much to my pleasure, she even "designed" the food table. she made everyone put their assignments in actual serving pieces. i saw robyn putting her awesome homemade rolls on the table in their silver baking pan. the next time i walked by, i saw robyn transferring her rolls to a big white glass serving bowl, with her lips slightly pursed. ape knows how to do it up.

 
 

the event du jour was the white elephant game. everyone, even the littlest of the littles had to show up with a white elephant. i brought a picture of myself on the beach. yeah, in a swimsuit. levi brought an abominable snowman t-shirt. and piper brought a justin beiber poster.

the abominable snowman made the white elephant game last....about...3x longer than it would have. because andrew, stewart, logan & garrett kept stealing it. round and round. it finally was settled with a chase through the house. which included some tackling to the ground and a couple de-pantsings. actually, i'm not sure it was ever "finally" settled: a few scuffles & tussles broke out the rest of the nite. i could always tell who had actual current possession of the shirt. because they were jittery. and jumpy. eyes darting around. waiting for the next attack. abominable snowman shirt = golden chalice.

on the flip side, i scored an awesome picture of heidi kissing a pig. she has LOVED pigs since she was born. she collects them. if you ever see something pig-y and think 'i HAVE to get this for someone!' heidi is your girl. levi scored mini, stuffed, versions of the backyardigans. which gracie stole when he wasn't paying attention. and piper scored a 1,000,000 piece puzzle of city workers. which levi stole when she wasn't paying attention.

and then we had the "cousins exchange". the kids draw eachother's names. amazingly, and despite accusations that it was rigged, it wasn't, levi drew gracie's name. and piper drew kenady's name. i love it when i get an 'easy' draw!

 
 
 
 
 

i'm a lucky girl. in all sorts of ways.

 
 
 

18 - 12 christmas dogs

 

grandma gave us the movie "12 christmas dogs" and we watch it everyday. while holding our dogs. cuddled in blankets.

i told my friend at work about how they like to sit on the couch cuddling their stuffed dogs while watching this movie.  she said, "i know you think that's really cute. but that's actually a really sad story.  get your kids a damn dog!"  that's why we're friends, she's so funny!

we have around....15 dogs in our house --30 if you count all the things piper thinks are dogs--and piper thinks they are all hers. somewhere along the way, levi & i started going along with this notion.  even the 2 dogs that people brought levi in the hospital when he was born, have become pickles-property. i'm not sure how that happened.

ok....yeah. i am. we are both afraid of her. ok? i said it. we both let her have all the dogs because we don't want to deal with her wrath if we were caught holding/touching/or moving one of the dogs in our house.

for the most part levi deals pretty good with it. but after one too many times of finding him shedding some silent tears because he didn't have a dog to hold, i put my foot down.

i didn't put it down in the "you-have-to-share-the-dogs-with-your-brother!" way. i put it down in the, "i'm-going-to-target-and-buying-another-dog" sort of way. my excellence in parenting is astounding.

when i brought the new black dog in the house, (now known as "boone") an eerie silence came over the whole house. all eyes were on boone. i made a BIG deal about how this was LEVI'S dog. i pointed to the other 10-12 dogs that pickles had in her pockets, under her arms and in her shopping cart. i told her those were her dogs. and this ONE dog was levi's.

levi eagerly, hesistantly, reached out for boone. but kept his eyes on piper. waiting for her to pounce.

but she's way to clever for that. she's more of a "when-you-least-expect-it-expect-it" type girl.

so they settled in to watch the movie. after 30 minutes levi realized that he hadn't been creating art for a whole half hour and went back to his desk (read, loveseat & dining floor) leaving boone alone on the couch.

a few minutes later i felt some tapping on my tummy. piper. she had come over to where i was sitting at my desk, and was holding boone. smiling up at me.
"ohhh....piper, that is levi's dog."
quick look over to levi
he said, "it's ok pickles. you can hold him for a minute."
quick look back to me
"wow piper. you are a lucky girl. you have a brother who shares"

 

10 minutes later. more tapping on my tummy.
"mama. my doggie."
OH the struggle. my daughter only knows 5 words, but she just used them to make a 3-word sentence!! way to use your resources, i say. but how could i celebrate and cheer her right now? from a 1-year-old perspective, that would mean she had just won the rights to the new dog....
"that's levi's dog piper. and he's sharing with you right now."
sad eyes.
5mins later, tummy tapping
"mama. my doggie."
"still levi's dog baby. but you can hold him until levi wants him back."
sad eyes.
5 mins later, tummy tapping
"mama. my doggie." and so on and so on.  seriously. for at least 30 minutes.

 after awhile, i realized that i hadn't been tummy-tapped in the past 5 minutes. probably even 10 minutes. immediately i jumped up. that can only mean something bad.

i searched all the usual spots, calling her name. not there, no answer. walking in my bedroom i heard what i thought was a loud ticking. it was actually piper, on the far side of the bed, up in the very corner, kissing boone.

she didn't see me. i watched her hug and kiss that dog incessently. i suppose she could sense that the tides were shifting. that this dog wasn't going to be part of her possee. under her complete control. so she took him away to get all the loving in she could.

i saw it. this really IS sad. my daughter is hiding so she can kiss a stuffed dog. and i felt it. the first inkling of, well, maybe i should let them have a real dog..... but i shook it off. (see part about me being a pioneer woman)

 

aargh. why, WHY do these nuggets have to love dogs too much??  there just really isn't any more room in my guilt-bucket. how will i add, "never getting a dog" into an already bursting bag??.... 

17 - "tricks for jesus"

 
"mommy, can we go to tricks-for-jesus someday?"
"wh-what?"
"can we go to tricks-for-jesus someday?"
"... ..."
"... ..."
"wh-what?"
"please! please? PLEASE!"
"levi, i don't know what that is..."
"but i didn't say today! i just said someday.... can we go someday? please?"
"seriously, i don't know what 'tricks-for-jesus' is"
"yes you do mom! i just want to go there 1 time! not all the days, just 1 time!"
"tricks-for-jesus?"
"yeah."
"ok. tell me about this place. what do we do there?"
"weeee.....just......have fun."
"... ..."
"we just eat some food and play some games."
"i'm sorry little man, but i really don't know what 'tricks-for-jesus' is...."
"here! i'll show you!"
sprints off to room, and comes running back holding a gold coin
"OH! you mean chuck-e-cheese's??!!"
"yeah. tricks-for-jesus!  can we go there someday?"

16 - make a gingerbread house

 
i gotta come clean here: i've never made a gingerbread house before. i mean, never.

which would explain why i bought the gingerbread house "VILLAGE".

yeah right. who makes NINE seperate ginger houses??

so our house turned out....a little....well, i like to call it ultra-modern. we didn't actually WANT a roof that connects.  that's all glass up there at the top:

 

the awesome wreath took awhile. especially to get one with 1 pink berry. that's an upgrade. and just in case you don't recognize us all bundled up in our winter coats, that's us out in front of the house. piper is the one with black eyes, i have the pink eyes, and levi has the green eyes. we're "drinking hot choc-o-late and singing songs. and looking for christmas dogs."

this is piper finding out that there's a "NO TOUCH" moratorium on the candy of the gingerbread houses:

 

15 - magical forrest

 
 

for christmas-light-lovers like us, the magical forrest is like our mecca.  this was our 4th year going. and i was very excited.

and also prepared.

i caved. i bought one of those "baby-leashes" that everyone is offended by.  well...everyone who hasn't ever had a runaway baby.

i hope i'm not a consciously-negligent mother, but i've had a few, er, episodes lately wherein pickles went off for some.....'alone time.' the worst being when she actually left my friend's house in the 7pm moonlite and followed a dog a few blocks west and a few blocks north before we frantically found her. well, technically, the dog's-owner found her first. we found her second.

 

 

i tried to find the friendliest looking leash i could: a monkey: that looks like it's hugging her.... i actually was pretty psyched for our nite with our new acquisition. i was sure it was going to make our outings with pickles more....bearable enjoyable.

it was heaven. she could walk, explore, touch, & checkout whatever she fancied. and i, i could turn my head to sneeze if i needed to and my head turned back, there she was! i was so happy i had spent $10 on a hugging monkey. i started dreaming of all the places pickles could go now.

for about 7 minutes.

that's how long it took her to figure out the reason she couldn't escape was directly related to my wrist. and then my wrist took a beating. note to self: time to clip pickles nails. nobody can beat a wrist and scream at the top of her lungs like my pickles i. stewart. and just to remind me of her advanced humiliation skills, she also started turning circles and wrapping the leash around her neck. then letting her body go limp so she sort of just hung there. or on the ground. the only thing more embarrassing than having your baby on a leash, is having your baby with a leash wrapped around her neck hanging from it.

heidi, the omni-patient mom, took over. as usual.

the kids went through a hay-bail maze, twice, rode the train, went miniature golfing and rode the carousel, and hiked through the magical forrest. one of my major-hook-ups in life is that 2 of my sisters reproduced wayyyyy before me. which means they have older kids to do stuff with my little kids. tonite was stewart's turn. he was super-psyched. so he got to run pickles through the hay maze, AND take her on the train. he's an awesome cousin. levi scored a dragon on the carousel. i thought his heart would burst.

 
waiting in line for the train. pickles doing her impression of a baby james brown. pretty good, eh?

 
thanks to my crappy lens and the "stay-behind-the-line" rule, this is the best we could get of THE CUTEST PICTURE EVER! a 6foot, 14 year old with a 2foot, 2 year old. what a sweet boy. stewart can't WAIT till next year....
 
 
 
 
 

we had a solid 2 hours of christmas merriment before piper completely won the "3-moms-versus-1-baby" competition. even aunt heidi, the "piper-whisperer" was all plum pooped out. note to self: google 'battered moms shelter'...

13 & 14 - bake. bake. bake.

i busted out some major baking.

my plan was to be patient and let my littles "help".

as it turned out, very little patience was required. (thanks universe) piper had zero interest in baking. and levi was content to sit on the bar wearing his apron and his chef hat his aunt robyn made him, watching. every now and again i'd let him dump in a couple teaspoons of salt or vanilla. but it was mostly about a, "what are we going to do now?", "what are we putting in next?", "why are we doing this"? "are these going to be super-yummy" rotation.

i pretended i was on a cooking show. and therefore had to talk alot.

in my mind i took a picture of my garage refridgerator stuffed to the brim with delectables.  some cooked, some waiting till the last minute. but my memory card insists that i didn't.

whatever memory card.

in the end "we" made 20 dozen sugar cookies, 16 dozen gingersnaps, 4 pounds of white chocolate w/almond fudge, 4 pounds milk chocolate with toffe fudge, 12 dozen cranberry with buttercream cookies, 6 dozen peppermint cookies, 3 dozen pisatchio cherry bars, 2 quarts of whipped cream and 1 gallon of buttercream frosting.

i was going to try making my own caramels, but...i was...tired of washing and rewashing pans.

plus, levi's little chef hat was seriously drooping off to the side.

next year.