It's a Whimsical Christmas: Thing 1 & Thing 2, etc.

This is the Christmas card pic I have been sending out this week.  

We went to a local production of Whimsical that we have attended every year for the past few years and I took this quick photo of all my little "things".  Be sure to count them, if you have not noticed anything unusual about the picture.  And if you still don't notice anything unusual look a little closer at Mr. Grinch.

Yes, this is the card that is going out to even family... and this is how they are finding out.  I am writing this in advance and I can hardly wait to hear the reactions.  {Insert sarcasm}  Honestly, I could not bear to tell family in person because of the shocking things I know they will say... even if it is without thinking.  I want them to have time to think before they speak.  And much of that is to have some control over what my children hear come spewing from our relatives' mouths.  

At the point that I am writing this I am 15 weeks, so by the time everyone gets the cards I will be 16 weeks.  I have managed to keep this secret from close family even through the Thanksgiving holidays while some of them stayed here for four days.  That was super hard, but I knew I had to keep quiet because I wanted to be the one to tell my children.  With my last pregnancy my mother bumped into me and felt my hard belly and realized I was pregnant while we were visiting them.  I asked her not to tell because the kids did not know, yet.  She ran straight into her living room and told my daddy in front of my kids.  I was really way more upset about that than I let them know.  My daddy immediately got on the phone and called my brother and his wife and told them without my consent.  Yes, that is how it all went down... and I was not at all one bit pleased with the situation.  So, I admit I even lied to them a couple of times when they were all here for Thanksgiving.  I would not normally lie and I have a real hard time lying, but in this case my driving force was protecting my kids from the conversations that would take place.  And I think I should get to tell them this big news.

My kids will be so excited and I do not want anyone ruining that for them or me and Cody.  Correction... my kids ARE so excited.  We told them halfway through me writing this post.  They were surprised and I caught it all on video.  The way we told them was to ask them what they thought of this Christmas card pic.  It took them a while to catch on, but when they did it was pretty funny.  

I am so glad that my kids are always happy to add another sibling to our little family.    

Learning to Do the Sashay

And no, I am not talking about dancing.  That is what the name of this yarn and these scarves reminds me of, though.  I have seen so many of these scarves and was thinking about buying my girls some, but I wanted to save money.  I decided to learn "to do the sashay".  I am going to use some pics that are not mine, because it is easier than taking my own pics for this post.  For using my borrowed images if you click on the pic it will take you to a person's etsy shop that is selling them.  I don't know the person I just chose pics that I liked, but if you want to buy one check out the seller and let her know you heard about it here.  

 

Etsy link (not me) for this scarf.

I think she uses the crochet method which is why I chose this pic.  It makes a looser lighter scarf and I think this is great for children, teens,... and anyone that lives in Texas.  ;)  Seriously, I love the look of the fuller ones, but they are a little bulky around the neck to be wearing in a warm, humid climate.  The crochet ones are by far the easiest to make and you can learn pretty easy watching a youtube video or going on the Red Heart yarn website.  The ones we are making we pick up 10 loops with the crochet hook and pull the 11th loop through those 10 loops.  We do this until we have a scarf the length we like.  I think you can get 3 or 4 scarves using that method.  Keep in mind I make some pretty short to fit pre-teens.

There are also some that look much fuller and they are very pretty.  They are made using a knitting method and are very pretty, but use a whole skein of yarn or possibly more.  I played around with those a bit and found that for the fullness I wanted that I only needed to pick up 4 loops on my knitting needle and and knit in (totally wrong terminology, but I am not an experienced knitter).  You can watch a video online, but I could not understand it that way personally.  Thankfully, my cousin came over and showed me.  And she blessed me with some supplies, too.  

Anyway, if you are intimidated by how fancy these scarves look, don't be.  All the work is mostly done for you because it is all about the yarn.  This is a simple project and makes a great gift.  You can turn one out in less than an hour, also.  So, I think it might be a good time to "learn to do the sashay".  Cha-cha-cha!!!

'Tis the Season to.... Reevaluate Your Plans

'Tis the season to run craZy... fa la la la la...la la la la!  

'Tis also the season to reevaluate whatever plan one thought might be doable this season.

I had planned on having my kids all do their schooling this week, but I made a decision last night to stop that part of the madness so we can get a little "Christmas spirit" going on around here.  I have to admit all the Christmas festivities that used to get me in the spirit now seem to zap the spirit right out of me.  There is just so much to juggle ...and so much to forget.  I seriously forgot a baby shower Sunday afternoon that was very important to me.  I fully intended to attend it.  I even picked up a portion of the gift on Thursday while we were out attending a Christmas musical production and I picked up the second portion of the gift during a late night run to pick up photos on Friday night.  By Saturday it was all still on my mind.  By Sunday it had totally left my brain.  I was tired and still had a full day ahead and after church I came in, layed down on my couch, and totally forgot I had somewhere to be.  Totally.  

This really bothers me because I know I am going way too much and there is too much going on if I can not remember something like this.  This baby will be my lifelong friend's newest nephew.  His father is the baby we took care of played with in our pre-teen years and was our own personal real life doll.  I had every intention of celebrating this long awaited little one.  The parents have been married for several years before deciding they were ready to start this chapter of their lives.  This for me was something I wanted to be a part of.

Alas, exhaustion took my brain away.  ;)   We have actually been "stepping on toes" with many of the activities we have been declining.  I have declined a lot lately to try to save sanity, but there is only so much you can cut back on.  I am not even going to go through my past week... or the week before, but I will say that by Wednesday I was tired enough to stay home from church while everyone else went.  

Thursday morning I had organized a group to attend a Christmas production at noon about an hour away.  Originally, we were told the date was the previous week, so this now conflicted with and appointment I had scheduled which I had to reschedule later in the day.  So, I got up that morning and drug my kids out the door by 9:30 a.m., made the one hour drive to that town, did a little shopping for an hour in an attempt to find my daughter a warm coat (which is proving to be more difficult that one would expect), arrived at the theater, parked, had a little quick lunch picnic on the lawn, organize my attendees, viewed our showing, took a quick pic (coming soon on another blog post), shuttled my four oldest children off with a friend to take back to another friend's house in our town, and loaded me and my little one in the car for another 2 hour drive to some appointments.  Taking the two year old with me was necessary because my friend could not fit all my kids and her two in her car.  I have got to tell you what I delight it is to stop on the side of a freeway for potty breaks for a potty training little one.  And when I thought I would make a quick stop for gas at a drive thru gas station that little one announced she needed to poop which she was unwillingly to do on her potty in my van (probably a good thing... but I was wanting to hurry), so we had to go in the convenience store, have a potty adventure (because kids love restrooms) and piddle around a bit before getting back on that road.  We proceeded on to our two appointments and headed back home sometime after dark, stopped at a yummy little Mexican restaurant for a dinner for TWO (amazingly weird for me) and got back on the road, Sienna fell asleep around 8:00 p.m., I made phone calls (because it is so weird to be in a quiet car alone), and I arrived home at 9:00 p.m. just in time to say goodnight to my other kiddos.  

I was too tired on Friday and could seriously have cared less what my kids were doing as far as school, so we took the day off... from everything... including a family birthday party out of town that night.  It would have had us getting home at 11:00 p.m..  

Saturday came and it was a back-to-back busy day from the start which is why we did not do the party the night before.  We were out the door by 8:30 a.m. for the kids to sing with our homeschool choir in a nearby town at the county Angel Tree event for less fortunate families.  We were there until almost noon and then, headed back to our town for our annual Christmas festival.  We wandered around there for a couple of hours and Cody took the little ones back to the house.  The two older girls and I walked home and stopped in at my neighbor's Open House Christmas party for an hour.  We came home to find everyone feeling quite happy to be home and we all sat around enjoying that... for about 30 minutes before we had to pile back in the car to head to another Open House type Christmas party for our church youth workers.  We hung out there for about an hour and a half and headed home.  Again, we came in the house, got settled in, glued our rear ends to the couches and almost skipped the rest of the evenings events..... BUT we pulled ourselves up off the couches and headed out, AGAIN to attend the lighted Christmas parade.  I confess we did skip driving across town to participate in our own church ministry activity (serving hot choc and cider and handing out Bibles), but we were tired and we stuck to our normal tradition that we have done for as long as I can remember.  We walked the two blocks from our house to the parade and went to the church by our house that ministers in a similar way.  We were partakers and we were blessed.  We were blessed to have lunch and dinner provided for us on this day.  

Sunday came with the same promise of fullness.  This is the day our Children's Ministry has spent the season preparing for.  This is the day that requires all those Christmas songs they were singing back in September.  ;)  Not only did we have our regular church morning activities and had to be out the door by 9:30 a.m. we were picking up a homeless family to take to church.  Of course, this was a blessing to do.  I confess I do not always think ahead when I am tired.  In church I found myself realizing that I should have planned to provide this family a good lunch after church.  Fortunately, there is an amazing couple at our church that has been wanting to take us out to eat for over a year and they ask us ALL to lunch at a local restaurant.  What a blessing that was to me knowing I should have thought to plan.  My nine year old had to stay at the church the entire day for rehearsals, so she missed out on this and I felt sad for her that she was working away and we were eating out.  Anyway, we all went to eat and then we took the family back to the motel room that is being provided for them temporarily.  Getting a table for 14 in a busy restaurant took quite a while, so we left there about 2:00 p.m..  We headed home, chilled for about an hour, and then, my seven year old son had to be taken to the church for his portion of rehearsals for the play (fortunately my husband ran this errand alone).  We stayed home until about 5:15 p.m. before kicking ourselves back into action.  We loaded up, Cody dropped me at the church to do hair-do duty, he ran to pick up the homeless family so they could attend, and met us back at the church in time for the play at 6:00 p.m..  After the play was over we all went for some fast food and took the little family back to their room for the night and we headed home.  Time to fall into bed!!!  Yipppeeee!!! 

And that brings us to today... no real plan here, but I can say this we need some REST.  Everyone is loafing about aimlessly... yes, aimlessly with little direction.  We had breakfast very late (like brunch time) and at 1:30 p.m. we have yet to have lunch.  That is next on the agenda... really... I promise...  I am lacking in motivation.  So, now it is time to get moving a bit, again.  The new plan is to spread some Christmas cheer around here... do some crafty things, make junky Christmas crafts, make some homemade gifts,do some little kid schooling, and skip the bigger kids schooling stuff and let them help me do the little kids' stuff with them.  

School is out and Plan B is in session because we have another busy week coming up.  Tonight is basketball practice for two of my kids (2 hours), Tuesday is singing with our homeschool choir at two nursing homes and having a Christmas party.  Wednesday my seven year old son has a serious dental appointment where they will be drugging him out pretty hard.  That night we have a Happy Birthday Jesus party at the church for the littler ones and a Youth group party for the older ones.  I think the rest of the week is open, but I am probably just being hopeful. 

The Easiest Cake Your Ever Gonna Make... & it's Festive & Chocolate Packed!

This was my daughter's (Savannah... the big "13") birthday cake that I made for her requested slumber party this past weekend.  I have never thrown a cake together this fast!  Yet, there was not sacrifice on the quality and taste.  




This is NOT whole foods folks, so let's not even get started worrying about all that.  ;)  This cake is all about delight and splurging and that is what birthdays are for, right?!!  


So, here's what you need:

• 2 boxes of Devil's Food Cake Mix (I used Duncan Hines)
• 1 Container of Chocolate Icing (from a container... GASP!!  This was my daughter's request.  I was just happy it said "No High Fructose Corn Syrup" on the label, so I bought it and moved on.  sigh...)
• 2 Large Hershey candy bars
• 1 package of Hershey's Caramel Kisses (These are our weakness in my home.  For that reason they are only purchased about once a year.  Sinful I say!!!... but oh so yummy!)
• 1 package of Mini-M&Ms (You could buy a small individual package, but we put the remaining amount in a candy dish on the table and they were wiped out almost instantly.)

I really don't need to tell you how to make it because it is pretty much a look and see it kind of thing.  Not too much explanation is needed.  But here we go:

• Mix the cake mix according to the instructions.  I added on extra egg because I just like to do that.  I also added a cup of milk in place on one cup of water.  Other than that I followed the directions on the box, oiled my pan, and baked it.  I used a large round Spring Form pan and put a small amount in a small round 8" pan because I had too much mix for my Spring Form pan.  
• After baking I left it alone to cool while I did other things, do do something for a couple hours and come back.  ;)  This is a good time to unwrap all the caramel kissed and place in a bowl... and hide in a safe place until you are ready for them.
• Now that the cake is cool move it from your pan and put it on a glass platter or whatever you wish and simply open your container of store bought chocolate icing.  Spread it all over the top and sides evenly.  It will not matter if it is smooth because you are going to cover it all with excessive amounts of candy.
• Begin with the candy bar and break it along the break lines.  Stick these little bars to the side of the cake as you see in the picture.  I spaced mine about 1/4 inch apart to make sure I would have enough.  I could have put them closer together, but that's okay because I had a little extra to munch on.  ;)
• Next you will evenly space the kisses all over the top of the cake.
• Lastly, get your sprinkle on.... Sprinkle the Mini-M&Ms all over the top as liberally as you please.  This adds color and makes it all so happy and pretty!
• Serve and enjoy with guests.  Like... say 13 pre-teen/teen girls at a slumber party.