Christmas 09

Dear Connor and Tristan,
Tristan, one night before Christmas Daddy came into the living room and spotted you in front of the Christmas tree with your hands clasped and head bowed, praying to Santa for a Go, Diego Go Field Journal. Your prayer consisted of you saying the words Field Journal over and over. I came in on the tail end of the prayer but just in the few seconds I saw what the magic of believing was all about. And believe me when I say I would have gotten on an airplane to find one for you if that's what it took. Luckily, Santa has internet access so it wasn't so difficult. I guess between the story of Jesus from preschool, the pump up about Santa from Mommy and Daddy and the large lighted evergreen in the living room it could be confusing if you were three.

Connor, you remained obsessive about the Christmas candy phonomena for the entire month of December. You were quite adament when you saw Santa that you should receive chocolate coins in your stocking and that candy canes should be hung on the tree. You also requested a real working camera. You did get your coins and the canes on the tree and shortly lost interest after you found them. I mean, when you have a camera where you can take pictures of the cat's butt and Mommy half asleep first thing in the morning who needs a bunch of chocolate coins?

We made a gingerbread house and put reindeer bait on the lawn so Santa's sleigh could find our house. We put out cookies for Santa, but somehow I felt like you still weren't convinced. When ever we talked about Santa you gave me a skeptical sort of look, but by Christmas morning, you were Santa's biggest fan. You might let some body talk smack about your Mommy, but I'd be willing to bet that if someone said a cross word about Santa you'd be all over it. I mean, how cool is a man that puts a reindeer that poops jellybeans in your stocking? It's like he's known you all of your life!

I can not say the fighting over toys was minimal but I can say that after we got back from Nana and PaPaw's that the Christmas spirit had washed over you and your brother and you wanted to have a sleep over in your new sleeping bags together. We ended up having to split you both up and when you both cried over it, it made my heart swell with love. "Look, Honey! They LOVE each other! It's a Christmas Miracle!"

Merry Christmas Babies,
Mama

Happy Birthday to ME!

I used to take my birthday off of work every year. It didn't take me long to figure out that it's not your birthday that you take off... it's the day after it. I usually ended up, sleeping half the day and bumming around the house until everyone got off work and started calling and then everyone else came over and we started drinking. Then I'd roll into work the next day hung over and miserable. Those days are behind me now and I didn't even miss the late night partying this year. This year, Tristan toddled into my room and when I said, "Do you know what today is?" He responded, "Happy Birfday Mommy". I tried to use my birthday as an extra special reason for the boys to behave. I don't remember how many times I tried, "Don't make me yell at you on my birthday!", but it didn't work after the first time.

It was a busy day for me, dropping the kids off at school, a shopping trip to Ikea with Mommy playgroup, then a rush to pick up the kids from school and straight to gymnastics, home to clean up the house, dinner and then off to a cookie exchage. Sounds domestic doesn't it? It was domestic... at 180 miles per hour.
Here's to being another year wiser.

The Lazy Cook

I've always wanted to learn how to can. The problem is, I just didn't feel like that was something that I might be able to learn from a book, like everything else I've ever learned. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the whole botulism thing that makes me a little bit nervous.
In September, Lena taught me a thing or two about canning and together we put up 80-something jars of strawberry jam for her wedding. Since then I've been experimenting. I've made Apple Butter, Apple Jelly, Low Sugar Apple Jelly (this is a little bit cloudy due to my impatience with juice making and squeezing the ba-jesus out of the jelly bag to make the juice strain faster), Strawberry Jam, Apple Pie Jam (this is Jorma's favorite) and today I finished up my canning for the season with pepper jelly. I was going to give out the Pepper Jelly as presents but it didn't make that much and it kicks ass so I'm hoarding it for pot lucks and parties. If you come to the house during the Christmas season or invite us to something that requires us to bring a dish, prepare for pepper jelly.
I did something different with my pepper jelly batch. Something that crazy! Something scandalous! Instead of boiling them with the heat seal method I used the invertion method. That's where instead of boiling them in a canner for 15 minutes you ladle the hot jelly into hot jars and flip them upside down. And they seal. I was prepared to keep them all in the fridge. I was sure it wasn't going to work... but it did. Those sonofabitches sealed right up. Now I know this isn't the recommended method for canning, but I figured, if I'm going to use this method with anything, pepper jelly is my best bet. I mean it's fresh jalapeno peppers, vinegar and sugar. Can bacteria even live in that? I think it's safe. I love canning the lazy way.

Love Child - Windows 7

So far I've been using Windows 7 for less than 24 hours. It's as though iGoogle and OS X had a child. I haven't even had time to really go through of all of the tweaking and I'm finding it more difficult than I thought I would to get it set up the way I want it. I think when you boot it for the first time, it should have a big button that says, "Old School" and you click it so that it reverts to the previous OS at least long enough for you to get it set up the way you want it. Everytime I go to tweak something it takes me more than 10 seconds to find it and that's just unacceptable.
There are some features that really rock though, like the view desktop mouse over on the lower right and the minmizing IE icon that shows the pages that you went to last. We had a hell of a time getting it online with the wireless for some reason that Jorma explained to me while I smiled and nodded and pretended to understand what in the hell he was talking about. I know it had the words Mac Address and router it in and other than that I just sort of looked interested while I tried to figure out if I should put the pepper jelly I'm making tomorrow in half pint or 4 ounce jars.
So far though I haven't installed anything on it. I have to get it set up with some software, (arr matey) that might get tricky so I'm waiting on that outcome before I start loving it.