Twas 3 days before Christmas...

And all through the house - EVERYONE was scurrying except that lazy mouse.  Seriously, we are so busy trying to "enjoy" our Christmas break, it is hard to tell if we are.

We piled into the car after Jim got home from work on Friday and drove to Florence, SC to spend the night in a lovely hotel off of I95.  After a refreshing 3.5 hours of sleep we drove a few more hours to arrive in Swansboro before noon on Saturday.  The kids have been having a good time playing with Nanny, Poppa, Gigi, Will, Ward and Rick not to mention the pets.  I don't know if the pets can say the same thing.  I am quite sure if they were polled it would be a different opinion! 
Saturday night Jim and I got to have an "adult" dinner at Katherine's over in Emerald Isle with Joe and Chandra Williams and Mike and Alana Huber. The food was wonderful but the company was even better!!  When we left the house, none of the kids were asleep and in fact one was crying. We had promised the babysitter that they would be all sleeping.  Oops!!  Sorry Justin!  I told him as I ran out the door to basically ignore any and all noises coming from upstairs.  We also got to see Stephanie and Fa while they were here.  We were in Tampa with them last year so that was fun to catch up.  While visiting with Stephanie and Fa, we got to see her parents, sister, sister-in-law and neice and nephews.  And when I say visit I mean destroy Mrs. Sylvester house.  Ha ha ha ha.  Sorry Jane, I promise next time we won't stay as long.

Today is our last day in Swansboro.  Tomorrow we head up to Wintergreen, VA to hook up with everyone in Jim's family.  When we planned this trip early in the year we had hoped to make it a ski trip and now thanks to the most recent winter storm that wish is coming true.  The kids have never seen snow, so that should be an interesting experience for us and them.  When it is all said and done we will have 25 people in the same house for 4 days!  Hopefully all that togetherness won't kill us.

I considered sending out my Christmas cards the day after Thanksgiving so then everyone would  have our new address.  Well that was the plan for about 5 minutes before I decided that was the wine talking!  Jim and I thought it would be great to wait until we got to Wintergreen to do our Christmas picture in the snow!  Don't you think that is a great idea?  I even thought (fleetingly) that I would go ahead and label the cards, stamp them and bring them with us to VA in order to print the pictures there and send them from VA.  Yeah, again after the wine wore off I decided the cards can wait until we get home.  Soooo, for those of you who get cards from us - they will be New Year cards.  We have a couple back up pictures that we have already taken in case we don't get the "snow" picture we are hoping for.  Here are a few that didn't make the cut.

  There are MANY many more of these.  In fact the ones that are potential  back ups aren't much better than what you see here.  So keep your fingers crossed that the snow picture works out for not only me but for those people who will eventually get a card from us! 

I would like to say I will have an update while we are in the mountains, but I don't want to put it out there and fail to come through.  So if one does appear, you will be pleasantly surprised!

Dec 10 - are you sure?

How How How can it already be December 10th? I am not ready for it to be the 10th of December.  Because after the 10th comes the 11th and then suddenly it is the 15th and before you turn around it is the 20th and we all know what comes after that... Christmas Eve.  I know I am missing a couple of dates, but you get the picture.  Christmas is fast approaching and I for one am not ready!

Niceville/Destin has a surprising number of Holiday Activities going on.  We have seen Santa a few times.

Hit a Christmas Parade which was COLD COLD COLD and who knew the kids would collect more candy at that one parade then they did trick or treating!?!  I mean I just got rid of the Halloween candy and now I am back at square one.

This coming weekend there is a boat parade around the corner from our house.  I don't know if it will be as festive as the one in the Boro, but hey I am open to new things right?

After the weekend festivites, Jim took off for Texas.  For the week.  The Week.  Of course this week is also the week that I had scheduled to get a huge disgusting bulging vein in my left leg fixed.  So... I juggled some times, got a sitter, bribed a friend and made it to my appointment.  Jim has called every day to "check in" on me and the kids, mostly the kids I think.  I am doing great.  Leg is super sore, but I finally cut off the mummy wraps today and even made it to the gym for a slow slow slow session on the eliptical today.  One more week of wearing the compession hose and I will be golden.  I would post pictures, but no one wants to see the holes, trust me. 

I am pretty sure I have finished my shopping for the girls.  Ben- different story. Poor Ben, he gets the shaft quite a bit.  We need to go through the toys and donate almost all of them so I can buy some new boy ones.  Hopefully he will get some type of push toy.  Jim cringes when he sees him pushing around one of the pink baby doll strollers (ha ha ha).

Now I am trying to decide what to do about the Christmas cards.  Since we are going skiing for Christmas, ideally we would like to take a snow picture.  That will involve me either taking the empty cards with us to Virginia and hopefully find a Walgreens or CVS nearby so I can print the card worthy shot. If the stars are in perfect alignment I MIGHT be able to get them mailed before Christmas Eve. Otherwise it will have to wait until we return to Florida.  So if you are waiting by the mailbox for the card from the Wellons - it is coming, just don't know when. 

Happy Thanksgiving La La La

We made it to December!  Can you believe it?  Doesn't seem possible that it is already December 1st!!  Where has 2009 gone?  It doesn't seem that long ago that it took a whole year to get to Christmas, now it seems like 5-6 months tops!  Could have something to do with the wine making all the weeks (ok months) blurry.  Might have to address that in the New Year - HA HA HA

Don't want to get ahead of myself - Thanksgiving!!  I love Thanksgiving!!  It is getting harder and harder to enjoy it with Christmas breathing down our necks before Halloween even, but still it is a top 3 holiday for me.  This year mom came down to celebrate with us.  The kids were very excited, any excuse to go to the airport.  Originally we had planned on doing the Casper Standard for Thanksgiving (going out to eat at some crazy fantastic buffet), but about 4 days out Jim decided that we were going to cook.  The "we" meaning mostly him.  Then somehow it mushroomed into having 24 people over for dinner!  Yes that wasn't a typo - 24 people.  I see you shaking your head and clucking your tongue.  Do not fear - it was a pot luck affair.  I may be generous but not entirely crazy!! 

We had to split everyone up to seat us all.  Of course there was a "child's table" and right beside it was the momma table.  Next time I will have to come up with a different plan because the momma table was outside and it was chilly by the time we finally sat down to eat at five!

Of course the inside table was filled with the men.

 

How does that happen that they were furtherest from the children and warm to boot.  Bad bad bad planning on my part, that is how.  Won't happen again let me tell you.  Of course if you leave the men outside with the children to eat, who is in charge?  And you know they won't be doing any of the cleaning up, so maybe we have the children and mommas inside and leave the men outside.  That idea has potential.

Seriously it was a blast!  The guys fried a turkey while the women were inside setting up the food. 

The best thing about pot luck is most of the left overs left with the people.  Although I will admit, I did tire of all the turkey leftovers.  By the time we had turkey nachos on Sunday it was time to clean out the fridge.   No more turkey!!

December 1st.  That means our elf on the shelf "Kringle" is back to cause all sorts of trouble.  I had forgotten how many questions he raised last year when he showed up.  It is all coming back to me now.  I hope he leaves my behavior out of the report to Santa or I am only getting coal.  Oh well, at least I will be warm.

Whew... LOOONNNGGG Week

This post may be pretty long, so if you want to go change clothes and get comfy, go ahead, I'll wait.  No seriously, get ready to dig in.

Tropical Storm Ida really did a number on me this week.  My plan for Tuesday was to upload a post with all the exploits from the Pensacola Marine Corps Ball that Jim and I attended, but Ida snuck up on us and suddenly I had not just Ben home with me during the day on Tuesday, but also Lilly, Lucy AND Jim.  All forward motion and progress came to a screeching halt.  Wednesday was a holiday so I was prepared for the whole gang to be under my feet all day, but losing Tuesday really, really, really set me back.  I have forgotten pretty much everything of note at the Pensacola Ball, but I will upload a picture of Jim and me.  It was fun, but the hour drive there and back - not so much!

The next morning the girls had to sing at church so we were up and moving much earlier than we really wanted to be.  I am super excited that the girls enjoy singing in the 3-4 year old choir and they seem to really like it too.  However I was not all that excited about spending the entire day at church.  The choir was scheduled to perform not once, not twice but three times on Sunday!!  3 TIMES!!  Doesn't that seem a tad aggressive, ambitious, crazy?  I mean how likely are you going to get 3 and 4 year olds to do something just once much less three times?  Well one of the performances wasn't that great but the other two were really good.  As you can see Lilly and Lucy were really getting into it.

Then ... out of the blue came Ida.  I mean really, what in the world?  I know technically we have until the END of November until Hurricane season is over, but seriously how many storms are you really dealing with in Novemenber?  I'll tell you cause I looked it up.  Only 6 major storms since they began keeping track in 1900.  If that factoid isn't enough for you only 4 named storms have threatened the US (all in Florida I might add) since 1900!!  So you can imagine my surprise to be waking up on Monday morning to that news. GREAT!  By the time Thursday rolled around I was totally confused as to what day of the week it was.  Kept thinking it was Sunday.  But it wasn't.  I had to get started on Lilly's birthday cake not to mention all the other stuff for the party on Sunday afternoon.  Where had my week gone?

Sooo on to the birthday party preparations. The main job was going to be the cake!  We decided last month to go with a bug theme so in keeping with that I found a picture of a caterpillar cake on the internet.  It looked pretty straightforward so I dove in.  A week later (2 weeks after the bug invitations went out) Lilly decided to change her mind and she wanted a heart theme.  Sorry kid, maybe next year.  Whose birthday does she think this is anyway?  I mean geesh.  Where was I - oh yeah, cake.  I found a couple of different pictures of cakes baked in pyrex bowls so I figured I could manage that.  I quickly realized that one cake mix would make two bowls and I needed five for the caterpillar AND I only had one bowl of the correct size.  On top of that each cake takes forty minutes to cook.  That was one LONG evening of making the same cake over and over and over and over and over again!  At the end of Thursday night I had five bowls and not much else.

Saturday morning I started mixing up the icing.  I went through 3 two pound bags, several sticks of butter and cream cheese.  I am nausated just thinking about it.   I had to take a break, though, to go to another Marine Corps Ball ... thankfully this one was in Destin (just over the bridge).  Here's how Jim and I (and Ben) dressed up for that one.

Ben really wanted to go with us.  He was fascinated with Jim's uniform and my shoes.  Crazy Ben!!

The Destin Ball was a good time.  A little slow in the beginning and there were a few rough patches, but all in all it was a good time.

Sunday morning, back to decorating the cake... I was beginning to feel that this was taking over my weekend.  Is eleven am on a Sunday too early for a glass of wine?  Even Jim was having doubts about my ability to pull this one off.  "Are you sure this is going to look like a caterpillar?"  Yes I am - now get out of the kitchen and take those kids with you!! After the second time we had that conversation - he decided to keep the kids outside prepping for the party.  Thats right, get away from the crazy lady in the rooom with all the knives!!!  Meanwhile and I was busy busy busy inside icing, printing, stuffing a pinata, preparing goody bags and cleaning!  Finally the cake was finished.  Lilly put the last of the M&M's on and we were ready for the guests to arrive.

The kids did some crafts, bounced in the bouncy house, drove the cars, played on the playground and in the house for about an hour, your basic controlled chaos.  Things got a bit more interesting when Jim broke out the pinata.  He was highly disappointed that the pinata wasn't one you hit with a stick; rather you pulled strings and one of the strings was the "magic string" causing the pinata to rip open along with a waterfall of candy.  Well when was the last time HE has gone shopping for a pinata I ask you?  And besides is it really a good idea to give a small child a bat while in close company with other small children - probably not.  By teh way this pinata was a butterfuly and as I found out most "girly" pinatas are pull strings.  You would have to buy a skull or SpongeBob Square Pants to get one you actually get to whack.  Even the Darth Vadar pinatas are pull strings.  Darth Vadar!!  I suppose you don't want to be the one whacking Darth Vadar with a stick.  But I digress.  Once the pinata was empty we moved on to singing and cake cutting. 

Lilly had a blast at her party and she was OVERLOADED with gifts!!  Lilly will be writing thank you notes from now to Christmas - poor girl.  Lucy did a pretty good job at not being the birthday girl although before the party got started it was touch and go.  Ben, as always, was just happy to be there!

I think this picture sums up the weekend for Lilly

5 BIG ONES!!!

Is it bad that I already know I have 92 days until I have to do this all over again for Ben's 2nd Birthday?! 

Halloween 2009

Who had the idea to have Daylight savings time end on Halloween?  I know, technically it was November the 1st, but still.  One of the few (and I do mean FEW) things I miss about living in AZ is the fact that the state doesn't "do" daylight savings at all.  Of course some of the year that means you are on Mountain time and the other half of the year you are on Pacific time.  But at least the clocks didn't need to be changed, and there's something to be said for that. 
Most days I feel pretty good about myself and my ability to "handle" whatever the kids throw at me.  Ok, I'll be honest ... maybe not MOST days, but more like two days out of seven.  Yesterday was definitely not one of the good days!  I switched my watch Sunday night and forgot to change the time. So.... the girls were an hour early for school.  Yikes.  I offered to bring them back, but the teacher was kind enough to let me leave them.  I am choosing to look at this as a good thing, that just means that my two good days for the week are yet to come!  Yeah, right -- who am I trying to kid?

Now, on to Halloween!
As soon as the girls opened their eyes on Saturday it was a constant barage of "when are we going to get our costumes on" or "is it time to trick or treat yet?" It was a looonnngg day.  Finally we decided to carve the pumpkins.  Now generally I prefer a funny jack o'latern to a scary one so lucky for me Lucy shares my thoughts.  This is what she wanted carved.

Lilly on the other hand is more dramatic.  Not just any face will do for her pumpkin.  After much thought, she decided on a cat.  Good job daddy!

Up last is Ben's pumpkin.  There is a bit of a back story, so bear with me.  Since Jim and I started dating way way way back he has carved his pumpkins this way.  I do not understand it nor do I particularily like it, but it endures.  Personally I think it looks pretty pathetic. But I don't want to color your judgement further.  I leave it to you to decide.

The basic principal is to cut gaping holes for the eyes and mouth then toothpick the pupils and teeth back in.  Toothpicks - seriously -  I kid you not!

Up next was the mad dash to get everyone dressed.  I had the girls' costumes hidden away for almost a month.  I just knew if they saw them early they would be in tatters.  So instead of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White we would have two Cinderellas before the Bibbity Bobbity Boo by the fairy Godmother!  On a lark I broke out some wigs of Halloweens past just to take a few pictures before leaving the house.  Surprise surprise, they wanted to wear them!!  Ben was highly ticked off there wasn't one for him.  Sorry Ben! 

I TRIED to get one of the girls to go as Dorothy or the Wicked Witch so Ben could be a flying monkey - no sale.  Just as well, Jim didn't want to dress up as anything much less the Tinman, Scarecrow or the Wizard.  So I scraped the Oz theme.  Heavy sigh, maybe next year.  We did a lap around our neighborhood and that was about all Lucy and Ben could take.  Lilly would still be out there ringing doorbells.  She was loving it!!  I sold most of the candy back to a dentist office that is going to send the candy to the troops overseas and they in turn are going to give it out to the locals.  I don't know how THAT is going to work out, but it is a feel good story so just go with it.

Super long post this week.  I'll leave you with a teaser for next week - the Marine Corps Ball!! Oh joy.

ahh, Disney!

Well we made it back from Disney.  In the words of my husband "And so ends the short but dense Wellons' family Disney experience". Yeah right!  We will be back, the kids are the prime Disney age!!  Seriously, we had a ball.  Short and sweet - 2.5 days - which truthfully is about all I can take.  How do these families do it for an entire week? 
Saturday was spent at Animal Kingdom and the kids had a ball!  Especially Ben, this was his first visit where he actually might have "gotten" something out of it.  All the other times it has been a spectator role for him.  We powered through the naps and stuck it out for the 3:00 parade.  It was worth it!!

Ben is mesmerized by the parade, he is totally on fumes here.

And we got THUMPERS autograph!!  What a score!! I have never even seen him!!  Now if we could get Tinkerbelle and the other fairies to cooperate...  Tinkerbelle is in high demand these days with her movie coming out and all.  The last couple of times we have been to Disney it has been an hour plus to see them.  Well that isn't going to happen.  Apparently the princesses aren't "it" anymore because we could have walked right up to see them.  I am sure that will change once the new princess movie comes out (god help us).

Sunday we went to Disney World and again, Ben was amazed!!  Lilly and Lucy were calling the shots on what we did, but he totally rolled with it.  Surprisingly we got Lucy to ride the Haunted Mansion - she is not a fan of anything scary or fast moving or dark but apparently loves the Teacups!

And no trip to Disney is complete without a character meal.  This time we checked out Goofy's Beach Club Breakfast (or whatever they call it).  We were "celebrating" Lilly's birthday so Donald Duck came over and presented her with a cupcake and everyone sang Happy Birthday.  Here in the Wellons' family we have a tendancy to celebrate birthdays at least 3-4 times!

After breakfast it was a "quick" 6.5 hour drive back to Niceville without Jim. He "conveniently" had to stay in Orlando for "work" but we wouldn't have gone to Disney if that weren't the case - so thank you Marine Corps, I think.  For those of you keeping track of Jim's travels; first week in October he was in Reno, 3rd week was New York City, last week was Orlando.  Novemeber has him slowing down with an overnight in Beaufort, SC and then a week long trip to Fort Worth, Texas.  Oh the fun just never stops!!! 

what is wrong with this picture

Ok, a week has gone by and I am still here!  That is a good thing right?
Over the weekend we took the kids to a pumpkin patch/bouncy house/petting zoo extravganza.  We had to pry them away from the bunnies.  All we heard for the next several hours was how nice and soft they were and that Christmas was coming up and wouldn't that be the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER!?!  I have a feeling there are going to be two very disappointed girls Christmas morning when there isn't a fluffy bunny under the tree.

Jim is in NYC this week at some media convention that the Marine Corps sponsors.  For those not in the know, he was in Reno, NV the first week of October, and is slated to be in Orlando the last week in October.  This is a picture of the hotel where he is staying.  Let me assure you it is much nicer than anything you have ever seen or probably will ever see.  But he says to me, "Don't be mad, I am just doing my job."  That's right, serving our country.  I am so proud.  Meanwhile, I am home in Niceville, with the 3 kids and 2 cats.  I would post a picture of the view outside my bedroom window, but I don't want to depress myself.

Heading to Disney Friday afternoon to use up the last of our days before the end of the year.  Since we are now 6-7 hours away instead of the 1.5 hours this may be the last time Mickey and company will get a chance at our wallets for the forseeable future.

here we go

For a while now, I kept thinking I can do this. Then after about a millisecond I talk myself out of it. I don't know what could be scaring me off. Maybe the time commitment, maybe because I already have PLENTY to fill my days with, or perhaps it is because I am married to a grammar fiend, I honestly don't know. But today I figured what the heck! (Could have something to do with the kids actually taking a nap) I think I may have fooled myself into thinking I can fill this blog with readable interesting content! That being said, here goes... The girls and Ben have been taking swimming lessons at the local YMCA. All have participated in the ISR program which teaches children as young as 6 months drowning prevention skills. The lessons end this Saturday and so far Lilly & Lucy have made great strides in learning actual swimming strokes. Ben, well not so much. He was enrolled in a parent/child class that is really geared toward getting the child familar with being in the water and he already has that down. Basically I am paying for pool time for Ben. But oh well, it is a process right? The girls also started mini-me soccer this week! Oh what a hoot! Ben was sooo unhappy that he too doesn't get to play - sorry bud, next year. They will have several weeks of practice and then a couple of weeks of actual 3 v 3 games. This should be interesting. They said they enjoyed it, although Lucy kept asking if it was time to go home yet. hmmm... And as if that isn't enough, the girls are also singing in the 3 & 4 year old choir at church. They preformed last Sunday and are slated to do so again in a few weeks. It wasn't pretty, but at least they weren't pulling their clothes off like the kid next to them. Needless to say the upcoming Halloween festivities are a big topic of conversation around here. They are super excited!!