Christmas Miracle

I have been dying to tell you guys about this.  My angel on Earth, also known as CPA Mom, wrote to 5 Minutes for Mom and told them...you know, I'm not sure what she told them but it must have been about how wonderful I am, kidding, kidding.  She told them about what was going on around here the last few months.  5 Minutes for Mom and Sears totally rocked our Christmas!

I cannot even begin to tell you what this did for us.  Not only did my children get wonderful gifts (my husband & I also) but it did something even more.  My husband's diagnosis has really thrown me for a loop.  I may come across as strong and capable but this whole situation has left me weak and doubting.  After getting the email from Erica at 5M4M and finding out CPA Mom set all of this in motion, it was as if God was saying to me, "Don't worry so much.  I will take care of you.  See.  I love you."  Aw nuts, now I'm crying again.  If God could take care of something as simple as Christmas, He will take care of my husband and the rest of my family.  Does that mean He will let my husband live?  Who knows?  Probably not.  But...He will take care of us no matter what happens.

Maybe that seems strange to you, that some Christmas gifts say so much to me...but they did, still do.

I will never be able to tell CPA Mom, the staff at 5 Minutes for Mom or Sears how grateful I am for all of this.  It means more than I can say.  I pray that each of you has a very happy New Year.

Back Again

I didn't intend to disappear for the last two weeks but we have had a sickness rolling through the house.  By rolling through I mean hitting me like a semi and hanging on forever.  Scoop had a cold a couple of weeks ago.  She couldn't lay flat because of the snot so that meant she slept propped on me, which meant I didn't sleep much because when a two year old is propped on you, you are not allowed to move one millimeter or the wrath of said two year old shall be heaped upon your head.  She was fine in a few days.  By then I was starting the sniffly crap.  My sniffly crap dug in to become the mother of all sinus infections.  This is the first day in two weeks that I don't feel like complete ass.  Unfortunately the Big Guy has it too and it is really wearing him down.  He is at his medical oncologist right now, let's hope his white counts are good enough to fight this.

Ebaby and Scoop are counting the days until Christmas.  They are the perfect ages and I think it's going to be really good this year.  Hate to abruptly end this but...

Thankful

I had every intention of writing a Thanksgiving post detailing the things I am thankful for.  Lately it is hard to be thankful as Big Guy's cancer seems to color all of my thoughts.  I try not to let my anxiety show too much but of course I fail.  I didn't realize how badly I failed until the other day. 

On Friday I took Ebaby and Scoop to a Christmas fair at Ebaby's school.  It was a fun night with a craft, cookies, a few vendors and the big highlight- picture with Santa! 

Scoop was thrilled just to get to go to Ebaby's school. 

Ebaby was thrilled because they had a little "shop" where the kids could buy gifts for their family.  She used her own money from her bank and was quite proud of herself.

They each made a snowflake craft and had cookies.  We stood in line to see Santa.

I wasn't sure how Scoop would react to Santa, she's never seen him before.  At first she kept her vise grip on my hand until Santa asked, "Want a candy cane?"  Then she went to him.  So much for teaching her to not take candy from strangers.  They both sat on his lap and we got a couple of good pictures.  Santa asked them what they want for Christmas.  Ebaby never knows what she wants so now surprise when she said, "I don't know."  She really doesn't know and she is always excited and grateful with whatever she gets.  It's fun to buy for her.  I was really interested to hear how Scoop would answer that question because everything she see she wants.  She told Santa she wants, "hern own Barbies and ma pillow pet".  (Of course I had no idea what a pillow pet was and had to Goolge it.  $20 for a pillow???)

We had a really great time.  The next day I was telling my sister about it and she said the thing that made me realize how I had failed at hiding my anxiety.  She said:

"You sound so happy.  You haven't sounded happy in a long time."

And damned if she wasn't right.  I can put on a brave face and make jokes and kid around but the undertone of unhappy is there.  Everything just seems so hard lately.  Hell, getting out of bed some days is a major freakin chore. 

Friday, though, I was happy.  I was happy to see my girl proud to spend her own money on special gifts for her sisters and nana.  I was happy to see the delight on my two year olds face when she got the nerve (and candy cane) to see Santa.  I am happy to know we will at least have this Christmas and that no matter what comes, we are together now.  And that is something to be thankful for.

Could We Push Christmas Back A Few Days? Thanks!

I am not ready for this. Yeah, I have all the presents, 75% are even wrapped.

What I do not have is a clean house, not that I worry too much about that, but my mother-in-law is coming this afternoon for a week or forever. That is another story, one on which I will not think at this time.

I also do not have a single cookie or candy made. By now I usually have in the neighborhood of 800 cookies and dozens of candies. I'll be lucky if Santa gets an Oreo snack pack from 7-11.

I also do not have the Christmas tree up yet. Ebaby wanted to wait for Mom-mom to get here. She will get here late this afternoon/ early this evening. Hope fully it will get up tonight as I have too damn much to do tomorrow! The upside of this is I haven't had to chase Scoop away from the tree eighty-seven times a minute.

I am also light on the Christmas Spirit and I don't mean gin. Although I don't have any of that either and boy could I go for a Tom Collins right about now! Yes I know it's not even 9am but trust me on this. Anyway. With everything that has been going on I am just not into it this year. I am trying to give myself an attitude adjustment (hence the need for gin). As bad as things were these last few months some really great things happened this year too. The biggest, greatest thing being Scoop. She is the happiest, sweetest little creature I have ever met. This Christmas is going to be a blast with her and Ebaby. Even Sis will have a nice surprise from Santa. Did you know Santa is a bargain shopper? She is.

That's enough pissing and moaning (for now), I'd better get my butt in gear.

Five Minutes For Mom Christmas Giveaways

The ladies over at Five Minutes for Mom are having a huge Christmas Giveaway! Click the button on my sidebar to get the details and enter for some very cool things!

Christmas Aftermath

Whew! It's finally over. I need a nap.

Yes, that is a potty chair in my living room. No it wasn't a Christmas present.

It was a really fun day. Before opening each gift the 3 year old would say, "I hope it's girl stuff!"

After she opened it she said, "It's exactly what I wanted!" No matter what it was.

Santa got the little one the Fisher Price camera for kids. Here are a few of her pictures:

She kept holding the camera backwards so we have 20 pictures of her lips!

This is me. And my stove hood.

This is the Big Guy and a bag of garbage.

Well, there is more cleaning and laundry to be done so I'd better be off. The next few days at my job are going to be nuts since I have to close the year out. Not sure if I'll be posting until after the new year. Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Merry

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone.

Christmas Meme

My real world friend sent me this. I am going to respond to it here. Then I will come out of the closet to my friends D and S. (The blogging closet, what closet did you think I meant?) I'm not going to tag anyone for this since I know you are all going nuts with Christmas, but if you do it let me know so I can come over & check it out.


1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg Nog- I can have hot chocolate any time.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? A little bit of both- Santa is lazy!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? colored

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No, it is cold and flu season after all!

5. When do you put your decorations up? The Sunday before Christmas, since Christmas Eve is the Sunday before this year, we put them up yesterday.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? My sister-in-law makes sauerbraten that is to die for. When I was pregnant I craved it so much, she made two!

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Stockings! My mom had such neat things in them.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't really remember, probably someone at school.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No, never, Santa doesn't come until after you go to bed!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Lots of lights and different ornaments.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Hate it!

12. Can you ice skate? No, I'm lucky I can walk without breaking something!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? A stereo when I was a kid (ya know, one that played records). As an adult, when we were dating my husband gave me this beautiful painting of Jesus walking on water. I love it.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? That we are all together celebrating Jesus' birth.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Cookies!!!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I love to watch the kids when they first see the tree and presents on Christmas morning.

17. What tops your tree? An angel from Costco.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? I like to give but let's be honest- I like to receive, too!

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? This weekend it was "Rockin around the Christmas Tree." I like the traditional ones too like "Oh Holy Night".

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? By themselves- yuck. Crushed and mixed with chocolate and made into a bark-YUM!!

21. Christmas tree. Real or fake? Fake, I'm allergic to real. I burn a candle so my husband can have the scent.


S and D, if you stopped by, let me know what you think!

Secret Santa Blog Style

I saw this on Never That Easy and I thought it was great. Of course I signed up & am passing it along to all of you (ya know all five of you) . This originally came from Writing Aspirations and that's where you go to sign up. Here are the rules:

If you would like to participate as a Secret Santa Blogger, here is what you should do.

1. Tell me via email or comment that you'd like your name on the participant list (or not if you don't want me to list you).

2. Create a post with your "wish list". Tag it "Secret Santa" so it's easier to search.- If you have items that need to be mailed, be sure to leave a way for a secret Santa to send you something. (Either your address or give your address to a friend blogger [yes, you can use me] and then leave a note like: If you want to mail me something - email my friend at "whatever" to request my mailing address - that way it's still a surprise and you aren't sharing your address to the world)

3. Grab a button to use on your site.

4. Put the button in your sidebar and have it link to the post of your wish list.

5. I'll create a post of participants and create a button that will link to a page of those participants.- send me the link to your wish list or secret Santa post so that I can include the link to it on the list of participants.

There you go! This is just for fun. This is completely voluntary and there are NO promises that you'll receive anything. Your wish list can be silly and include things like: "I wish someone would show me the code to align the buttons on my sidebar" or "I wish I had a button of a pretty ornament" to something more serious like "I would like a gift certificate to Borders" or even "I wish someone would get me a car."

What to wish for...hmmm. Let me think.

Things you can't give me but I really, really want:

1. I wish for a happy marriage and family. I know you can't really give me that but you can pray for me.
2. Good Health. Again, I know you can't give it to me, but hey it's a wish.

Things you may be able to give me:

1. I need a good meatloaf recipe. I love a good meatloaf but every meat loaf I make tastes like a giant hamburger, a giant, bad hamburger.
2. I wish for cookie recipes. I have a ton of them but you can never have too many. I love cookies!
3. I wish for recipes for easy, inexpensive, freezable casserole recipes. I am so busy and I would love to make some casseroles ahead of time for easy week day dinners. I haven't had the time to look for the recipes either.
4. I wish for your reading recommendations. I really love to read and I would like to know your favorite books and authors.
5. I wish for blogging topics. I actually have a bunch of things to write about but eventually the well may run dry.
6. Can someone please tell me how to post a button with the hyperlink so I can just click on the button? My NaBloPoMo button never went anywhere because I couldn't figure out how to do it. Help, please.
7. I see some people talking about the weird searches their blogs have come up on- I wish someone would tell me how to find this out, I could use a laugh.

Things you could give me if you really liked me and had enough money left after buying gifts for people you know in real life:

1. Hershey Kissables. These little things kick the M&M's tushies!
2. Amazon.com Gift Certificates. Love that Amazon!
3. E-bay Gift Certificates. My dad is addicted to e-bay, it's really funny I never would have pictured him getting psyched because his bid was the winner.

Fantasy gifts (as in dream on Mama):

1. A million dollars. I just had a vision of Dr. Evil from Austin Powers.
2. Maid service for a year (or two) (or forever).
3. An all expenses paid vacation to Disney World for my family. Two weeks, hotel in the park, swimming, room service and my kids' faces at the Princess Breakfast.

Wow, that's a lot of wishes! Christmas Gimmes, sorry, must have caught it from the kids! I shouldn't say that, they have actually been really good.

So go to Writing Aspirations and sign up. I want to grant some Christmas wishes!

White House Christmas

I just watched HGTV's White House Christmas special. Some random thoughts:

• I need 50 people to come decorate my house.
• How much did all of that cost?
• Wait, did I just pay for all of that?
• No wonder taxes are so high.
• Does the president ever eat a cookie right off the Oval Office Christmas tree?
• It's all very beautiful, but impersonal. I would miss all of the ornaments that have meaning to my family.
• Do the First Dogs ever crap in the foyer?
• Who cleans it up?
• What do you do with a 300 lb. gingerbread White House when the holidays are done?
• If the White House decorates for Christmas, why do some retailers only say holiday?
• Why doesn't the White House have a menorah or other symbols that are not specifically Christmas?
• Maybe they do but since it was a Christmas special they didn't mention them.
• When is the White House Hanukkah special on?
• Or Kwanzaa?
• Or whatever?
• Since it is Christmas they decorate for, where is the manger scene?
• Is this a separation of Church & State issue?
• Do I need to get a life?
• Or just do laundry?
• Am I ready for Christmas?
• No
• Where does the First Lady shop for gifts?
• It sure ain't Target or Walmart.

Jumping on the Christmas Bandwagon

I hate to see Christmas decorations up before Labor Day. The proper time for any Christmas talk, music, decorations or sales starts on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I don't want to see Christmas cards next to Halloween costumes.

But...

Here at the Ice Cream Mama blog we are talking Christmas. (yeah, yeah, I hate me too. But it's that NaBloPoMo- it's sucking out my brain cells.)

So in upcoming posts it's Christmas stuff (there will be other stuff too but when there's nothing else to say, it's ho ho ho). I figured I would give all four of you fair warning.

I'll post some really great cookie recipes if it's any consolation. I'm not really Ice Cream Mama, I really am Cookie Mama. I love cookies.