Important Day in History

On this day back in 1993 Bryan asked me to marry him.
I said "Yes"!

Post Christmas Rambling

And I do mean rambling.
Beware, I skip topics so fast you may get whiplash.

Christmas!
What a wonderful whirlwind of excitement.
How fast it is over.

We had such a great Christmas. The season was actually relatively easy going and laid back even though we did travel to each set of parent's houses, went to hear Julia sing at the Christmas Eve pageant at church attended a Tea, attended the school pageant, Bryan's office party and hosted a Cookie Swap. But I would definitely do it all over again!

This is the time of the season when all of the decorations have to come down. As much as I dread getting them all up and in place, I really do dread taking them all down more. And not because I know it will be time consuming, but because I will really miss the splash of Christmas all over the house. It makes things so cozy and warm.

And we have such a great tree this year too. It drank continuously and dropped very few needles. I was so impressed.

I think I said this earlier that I have been naming trees since a year or two before Bryan and I were married and this year we were on the letter "P". Legare dubbed this one "Popcorn". How happy and fitting for this time of year.

My house is still not clean from all of the excitement of Christmas morning. How does so much trash get generated? In the middle of dragging my feet to get it all straightened up around here we started having some fun too. Much Wii playing and lots of Wave Board and Rip Stik riding (street surfing). The children and Bryan have gotten very good at "surfing".

I want to be good. I do. I want one of these things for myself! But because I know what it feels like to break a bone (collar bone snapped in three back in 1997) I am terrified of hurting myself so I am scared to death of actually doing it. And in the process of being scared I am waiting for the fall (or is that willing it?).

And so of course I did fall. Several times. Now I look like a loon in front of my children. I kept saying that I really wasn't a chicken but I don't know that they bought it. One time when I fell I really smarted my hip bone. I can't wait to see what this bruise will look like if it hurts this bad 1 day later.

I guess I won't be getting my own "Stik" anytime soon :-(
I've got to get much better than this. Bryan, however, certainly deserves his own - who woulda thunk it? Bryan looking graceful on a street surfing board and ME looking like a wimp. ???

Last night both children were with others so Bryan and I went to a yummy dinner at Coco's, a great little French restaurant in Mt. Pleasant, and when we got home we helped ourselves to a Wii bowling extravaganza. Bryan won twice, I won once. Sad that my arms are sore today from playing video games. But I guess it's good because we're getting exercise while playing. And how funny that we didn't even need the kids around to play the video games! I look forward to them being gone so we can do it again.

Instead of cleaning Christmas trash, today I found myself at the Optometrist office getting some debris removed from Julia's eye. At her oyster roast last night she got some sand/dirt in her eye from the play deck that she was under. Still this morning she hadn't gotten it out and her eye was terribly swollen and weepy. I was really glad that the Dr's office was open and that he was able to find something rather easily. The swelling started subsiding instantly and the weeping stopped. I hadn't realized that the precious child hadn't smiled all morning until the little piece of whatever it was was removed. I'm so glad that she didn't horribly scratch her eye. Just a few small scratches that didn't even hurt her. Nothing a little antibiotic cream won't make sure doesn't get out of control!

In the meantime, Bryan's throat started hurting and he decided to go to the new Dr's Care down the street. He has strep. Yeay! He's been in bed all day - he hasn't been sick like this in a really long time.

Meanwhile - Legare has been doing more street surfing and mastering Guitar Hero III on the Wii. He's so cute looking like a little rock star.

Maybe I'll actually get some pictures of all of this madness up soon.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Hope everyone's neck is o.k. from all of this quick maneuvering!

Christmas Cookies Everywhere!

Monday night Aileen and I hosted a Cookie Swap.

This is the kind of party where everyone brings in cookies. We all enjoy sampling some. Then when it's time to leave, you leave most of your cookies but take some of everyone else's so that you have a good variety of cookies when you get home. And you've only had to prepare one type!

I started this party 9 years ago at the insistence of a great friend of mine named Sharon who doesn't live here anymore. I had never heard of a cookie swap until she insisted we throw one together. She would really be proud of this party today.

After she moved away I had many friends who offered to throw it with me so that it would continue. Not wanting to have to pick and choose between the friends that wanted to help, I thought I would ask my sister-in-law, and friend, Aileen to throw it with me.

Aileen is really so easy going to throw this party with. The party really kind of runs itself, but there is no way I would still be doing this if it weren't for Aileen and I joining forces. Our friends blend together so well too.

I will say that I feel like all of the cookies this year were over the top! They were all so good, and big! We need to work on dropping smaller cookies so that they are easier to sample and there are more to spread around. It is really easy to give yourself a stomach ache at this party, especially when the cookies are so big.

Each year there are inevitably some baking horror stories about what went wrong when people were making their cookies. We've had stoves catch on fire, cookies explode, chocolate not melt, forgotten ingredients, and always lots of multiple batches needing to be made for one reason or another.

Through the years we've given superlatives ranging from "best cookie", "biggest disaster story"," most festive", "most original", "best traditional Christmas Cookie", etc.

This year we decided to give just one award. The "2007 Cookie Queen".

This year the "Cookie Queen" award went to Amanda. I don't know what Amanda's cookies were called, but it was what my children are very affectionately calling "Chocolate Junk".

You know the type of cookie...as many different types of chocolate things you can think of all thrown together to make this decadent cookie. Chocolate chips, Oreo pieces, chocolate batter, etc. They were PHENOMENAL. And though they are lovingly called "Chocolate Junk" at my house, which doesn't really sound appealing, they were even pretty good looking.

Of course I forgot to take any pictures, but luckily Caroline took a few for us (and that's only one of 3 full tables of cookies that were available). There were truly more cookies than you could shake a stick at. I think everyone was able to take home plenty, and Aileen and I have never had such a good supply of cookies for ourselves after the party. Usually we don't get many, but not the story this year. I'll definitely have to share some, or better yet, have people over again to share all of this Christmas Cheer.

I can't wait until next year's party. Everyone left swearing that they were the one who would win next year. I'm sure the recipe hunt has already started!

Not Exactly as Planned

My typical list of things to do today looked like this at 6:30 am...

6:30 - rise and shine. Prepare breakfast, oversee family's morning activities
7:15 - walk sweet family out and wave good bye
10:20 - arrive at school to drive for 3rd grade field trip
2:00 - return children to school
2:00 - 4:00 - Prepare for evening meeting, grocery shop
4:00 - 4:30 - retrieve Legare from Karate and Julia from choir and return home to assist with homework, create meal for family
6:30 - attend meeting

That was what it was supposed to look like.
Now see revised list:

6:30 - rise and shine. Morning daily activities
6:35 - realize you think the bladder infection is still not quite gone. You feel it in your back and butt and you're a bit nauseated.
7:15 - walk sweet family out and wave good bye
7:17 - throw up once outside
10:10 - arrive at school to drive for 3rd grade field trip
10:15 - Leave message at Dr's to see about changing medication or something for this bladder infection
11:30 - field return phone call from Dr.'s office during field trip.
2:00 - return children to school
2:25 - arrive at Dr's office because your regular doctor isn't in and no one else knows you. They want to make sure you really have a bladder infection.
3:30 - Make phone call to person regarding the preparation for the meeting this evening - alone in exam room, naked from the waist down and waiting on said Dr.
Let phone call recipient laugh with you regarding your current location.
4:45 - retrieve Legare from Karate at school (yay aftercare!) and Julia from a friend's house (because you couldn't get to 4:30 choir pick up and she had to go home with a friend).
6:45 - attend 6:30 meeting. Leaving poor husband at home with no groceries - trying to figure out what he and children will eat for supper - because going to the grocery store got derailed.

4:51 am - Blog. Because you've woken up, minor discomfort because there wasn't enough time in the day to get medicine. Contemplate going to Walgreens - but who wants to do that at this hour?