Merry Christmas

Well it's that time of year again, when I dust off the old blog and actually post something. 2011 was another fun year for us. Ben is now 6 (close to 7) and Austin is 4 (even closer to 5) Brian and I are also one year older but I will let you guess the exact number. Ben started 1st grade and is loving it. He is a full fledged reader now. It amazes me how quickly they get it. This year Austin has really improved his self taught beatboxing skills. I love it when he beatboxes and break dances (also self taught) at the same time. This year Ben was old enough to play on his first baseball (T-Ball) team. He was a great hitter and enjoyed the status of being the only true lefty on the team.


In January Brian got a new job. He now works for PWC in mergers and acquisitions. Changing firms can be challenging. Getting to know all the new personalities. But Brian now has them all figured out and is enjoying himself. We got to do a lot of fun things this year. This summer we took the plunge and went camping for 4 nights with almost the entire Thomas clan. We stayed on a lake and spent our days jet skiing. We had a great time. We also went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the first time (boy's 1st time). It was pretty cool. But maybe a little over priced.

The school year started with a bang for Ben, actually it was more of a crack, crack. On the 3rd day of school he fell of the monkey bars and broke two bones in his arm on the same day as our 9th anniversary. It is an anniversary I will never forget. The next morning he had to have surgery to have pins put in to set the bone. He had to wear a cast for 7 weeks. Just long enough to not get to play soccer.

Austin got to play on his first soccer team. He absolutely loved it. It did not matter which goal was his team's, he was excited to get the ball in any goal. He was known for his goofing off during the game. At the season end party he won the award for the best cartwheels during a game. Always entertaining as usual. (not sure why this is underlined but since I blog about once a year I am not going to figure out why.)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Lake Tahoe this year. Brian had a great time taking scenic pictures and I enjoyed learning how to make a quilt with a true expert (Brian's Mom).


We hope all is well with you and we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

It is hard to believe 2010 is almost over. It has been an exciting year filled with lots of firsts. Benjamin is now 5 (6 in March) and Austin is 3 (4 in January). They are finally at the age where they play well with each other. They both learned how to swim this summer and have become little fish. I really enjoyed this because for the first time in 8 years I got a tan. A lame accomplishment, I know, but I really did enjoy it. Benjamin also started Kindergarten this fall and absolutely loves it. He is in a combination kindergarten & 1st grade class and is already doing 1st grade math. His only complaint is that the 1st graders get to stay at school longer. Austin also had a big first, he started preschool. So two days a week for 2 ½ hours I am kid free. I love it! I mostly use the time to clean because cleaning without the boys making a mess somewhere else in the house seems like a luxury at this point in my life. But sometimes I just sit on the couch and watch Regis & Kelly or read a book. Austin was so excited to finally get to be the one who go to go to school he did not even look back to say goodbye. We went on our first family camping trip this summer and had a good time. Maybe we will try more than 1 night in 2011. We also went on our first official family vacation. One whole week in southern California. We went to the beach and to Sea World and of course Disneyland. The boys were actually big enough to ride everything, we had a great time. We can tell the economy is picking up because Brian was pretty busy with work this year. He is still working for KPMG and was promoted to Manager. But as of January 4, 2011 he will be changing to Price Waterhouse Cooper working in their mergers and acquisitions group. He is very excited about this new opportunity. We really did have a great year and feel very blessed for all of the things we have. We hope your 2010 was a fun as ours. Merry Christmas!!

Melissa this is for you......

Here is one of the family trees that I made as a gift for Christmas. Clearly the picture is not the best. I had every intention of taking better pictures in the day light.....but I forgot....and now they are wrapped.

But I do love the way they all turned out. It is the gift I am most excited about giving.....I hope my mother-in-law likes it. And as much as I would like to pretend I was the creative person who thought of this I cannot. My friend, Shauna, made these for her family a while ago and I decided to copy it. And it is really easy. I made it in Word using Word art to manipulate the "branches" . Actually Shauna made it in Word and just emailed me the one she made and I changed the info to our family.

It has the full names of everyone (maiden names for girls) along with their birth dates. I printed it on vellum paper and put a decorative paper behind it. Put it in a nice frame ($7.50 at Michael's 50% off) And Viola a neat gift.

I love Christmas. I love Christmas. I love Chritsmas...

I have to keep reminding myself that I DO LOVE Christmas. I was so excited when Thanksgiving was over. We immediately got our Christmas tree (it has to be real-love the smell) and decorated our house. Oh I loved it. And now 9 DAYS away from Christmas I am not sure why. For some reason I decided to make 15 presents by hand this year. What was I thinking....well I was not thinking at all. There are 3 different projects, pajama pants (even though I am not an experienced sewer), Snowman crayons ( I had to peel 168 covers off), and my favorite and by far the most attractive 2 family trees (super cool, I will have to take a picture and post it) and when I decided to make them I did not think "O maybe not a good idea since you are making so much already". NOPE. So here I am again 9 days away from Christmas and I have done nothing for the pajama pants except buy the flannel, and have not attempted to melt any crayons, the family trees I am actually almost done with but they were the easiest. And then the CHRISTMAS CARDS. Every year I HATE them and every year I do them. In a effort to look cute I got us all coordinating outfits. We got all done up and for 1 1/2 hours we took pictures (Brian has turned into the Nazi photographer...but that is for another time). None of which actually turned out well. The picture we are sending has to be in black and white because the color looks funny. So you cannot tell we have coordinating outfits on. And Brian and I are the only ones who look decent. And out of the 4 of us Ben and Austin are by far the cutest part of the family. So below are some of the pictures that will not be on the Christmas card because they would not fit. See the are pretty CUTE! But you won't be able to tell that from our card...o-well. So it is here and now that I have decided to stop stressing. So what if the cards are going out late? So what if I accidentally put the return address label where the stamp goes on all of the envelopes? So what if the family letter does not have anything to say about me because all I did this year was try to survive? Well I did and I am HAPPY it is Christmas time. REALLY.

TIRED....

....of genes that fit in the morning but by noon could fall off. Tired of pulling them up! Tired of cleaning up cutie peals (little oranges) because the boys can peel them themselves and they do anywhere and everywhere. Tired of my wedding ring flopping around on my finger because the cold has shrunk my finger. Tired of looking for my wedding ring because I have taken it off somewhere. Tired of being cold. 72 Degrees in the house should be warm enough right?

Don't get me wrong. Life is good. Just needed to get it out.

Day at the BEACH

We got to the beach in at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
They touched to water

Austin decided to sit it out

Ben loved it

Brian convinced Austin it was fun

SHARK!!!!!
(Not really)

And we ended the day with some strange flavored ice cream

A good day at the beach

Waste of time??

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.-- Phyllis Diller

AMEN

Now that I have been feeling better I have been trying to catch up on all of the house cleaning that I had been ignoring but..... we are not naturally clean people. Not to say that we are gross and smelly (although I did find 3 rotting apples under the couch thanks to my boys). We just don't put things away, we come in and drop everything. So I feel like I am cleaning & cleaning & cleaning the same things over & over again. And it is taking up ALL of my time and energy. But now that I am obsessed I am extremely frustrated.

I know some people have a system that works for them.

• Clean on Mondays
• Do one big chore a day
• etc.

But I do not see how these systems can work. If I only clean on Monday it would be a mess the rest of the week. If I only did one chore a day it would always look as if I had done nothing at all.

So I am asking for HELP . Does anyone have some advice or words of wisdom that would make this process easier? Because I want a clean house but I also want some free time. Is that too much to ask?