Month: November 2006

Oh yes, it is. The Christmas excitement is definitely in the air here at the Thurman house!

Connor alternates between space and astronaut scenarios, and games that involve opening presents, which usually consists of taking apart legos creations.

We all know every word to “Jesus Was Born Today”, the Oakridge Boys classic. And we sing it everyday. Well, not Logan..but he dances around with the best of them while it is on!

Last night, Connor stumbled into our room at 5:00 a.m., very distressed that the Christmas tree lights were not on, and he couldn’t get them plugged in. He promptly went back to bed without any fuss as soon as those lights were on. The Christmas tree must be lit 24/7 in this house.

Logan is in ball heaven with all the round Christmas ornaments. Luckily, they are all plastic. Those things can really bounce! All of our ornaments are slowly migrating north on the tree to get them out of Captain Disaster’s reach.

The cinnamon spice candles are burning.
The story of baby Jesus’ birth is told daily.
Christmas crafting is in full swing.
I have an unexplainable urge to bake.
There is supposed to be a cold front tomorrow.
Christmas carols galore.
Christmas shopping. I love finding the perfect gift for each person on my list.
Bubba trucks are decked out with wreaths on the grill.

Oh yes. Christmas is coming. This is my most favorite time of the year.

When I was in early elementary school, I used to misspell numbers all the time. Like if the spelling was was nine, I would spell it 9ine. For real. I vividly remember doing this with the number 4our and 9ine in particular. Such a dork, even at age 7!

Does anyone else remember getting time and money confused? I would forget if there were 60 seconds per minute, or 60 cents per dollar. Or was it 100 minutes per hour or 100 cents per dollar? This concept confused me for a very long time. And appearanly, it still does.

I am 26 years old. I need to go back to 2nd grade and reveiw time and money concepts.
Just call me Billy Madison.

I had to mail a package today, which I almost always do from home, since the post office was most definitely designed by people who do not have small children. But, since we were out of stamps and I only needed $1.35 for the package, I headed to the post office. The line was rediculously long, so I used the oh-so-handy stamp atm machine. I got my stamps, and carefully started calculating how many 39 cent stamps I needed to get to $1.35. Let’s see…I’ll do some rounding…40 cents times 3 equals 120 cents…divided by 60 equals $2.00…3 stamps ought to cover it. Maybe I should do 4 just to make sure? No, 3 is plenty. That is nearly $2.00, and I only need $1.35. I slipped the package into the slot, rounded up the kids, and headed out.

I was 10 minutes down the road before it hit me.

There are 100 cents in each dollar, not 60.

I very thoughtfully applied $1.17 in postage. Nice. And there is no return address on the package since it’s supposed to be a surprise who it’s from. Merry Christmas (please pay postman 18 cents to recieve package of scrappy goodness…)

I feel like such a moron.

One of these days, I will be able to count without using my fingers, remember how many cents make up $1, and be able to tell which L looks correct when holding up my left and right hands.

My sister-in-law called me yesterday to see if I could watch her kids for a few hours today. I am always happy to watch them, so I said yes. Logan and Connor love to play with their cousins! Well, Kathy brought over a baby-sitter along with the kids…a little thing I like to call the Cars movie. They looked so cute sitting together on the couch, so of course I get out my camera. How cute are they?

I have had a lot of lists in my life the past week or so. Grocery lists. Thanksgiving planning lists. Amazon wish lists. Scrapbook page idea lists. Christmas gifts list. Cleaning list. I think it’s the time of year! I am so, so, so excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas. First of all, I am hosting Thanksgiving at mi casa, which I am pretty sure makes me a real, life grown-up. I can’t wait to see my family! And eat and shop and laugh and take pictures. Speaking of pictures, my super talented step-sister has started a photography business. She is awesome, and is going to take some family pictures for us! Check out her website...she’s got great deals going on for the next few months if you want to book an appointment with her. 🙂 Then after Thanksgiving, it’s decorate for Christmas time! I have been listening to Christmas music for the past 2 weeks, but Derek said it was too early to decorate. Connor already knows all the words to the Oakridge Boys Christmas CD, which in my opinion is one of the greatest Christmas cds of all time. Just this afternoon during rest time, he got a flashlight to use as a microphone so he could sing along concert-style. That’s my boy!

Ok, this is totally turning into a train of thought blog when I meant to make a list in honor of my crazy list making of the past few weeks. But now I can’t even remember what I was going to list….I am sure I can think of a few things…

1. I’m excited about Thanksgiving.

2. And Christmas. My most favorite time of the year. We are doing Christmas at our house this year, and I am really excited about this. I can’t wait to see the boys’ faces on Christmas morning. I can’t wait to go to Christmas Eve church service. I can’t wait to bake Jesus a cake. I have so many ideas for traditions that I want to start! I just can’t wait!

3. I ran 16 miles on Saturday. 16 MILES! Seriously…I know lots of people run marathons. And lots of people do them way faster than I am. But I am really proud of myself! Only 8 more weeks til the marathon!

4. Running 16 miles made my legs really sore. I definitely have a little bit of a gimp today.

5. Yesterday, I was vegging out on the couch, Derek was watching tv, and the boys were in the backyard when we heard this little rustle behind us. Derek says, “oh, I think Logan has a plastic bag or something.” So I turn around to see this:

Yes, those are leaves in our living room. He hasn’t earned the nickname Captain Disaster for nothing!

6. I have a feeling tomorrow morning I am really going to regret staying up until after midnight.

How on earth did that hair stylist get my hair so straight when this is what my hair naturally wants to do???

The craziest thing to me is that my hair was straight until I had kids. Kids really mess you up in all sorts of ways! My bladder, my hair, my stomach, pretty much my whole entire body. Crazy stuff I tell ya. But obviously so worth it. Just look at these faces!

On Sunday afternoon I went to the mall to buy one last thing for my sister’s birthday. While I was there, I decided to stop into one of the hair places to talk to someone about the mop that is my hair. I have been growing it out for a year and a half to donate it to Locks of Love. I was disappointed when the stylist told she would have to cut my hair to my ears to get 10 inches…it felt so long! But then, she said she could pull it up from the top, and get 10 inches that way. I quickly made an appointment for later that evening, but my plan was foiled due to some heavy traffic and Derek not being home. So I rescheduled for this morning, which worked out perfecly. So while Connor was having fun at school, and Logan was with a friend, I went from this:

to this:

I am sure I will like it in time…it still feels really weird. and it’s really straight and flat, which just won’t happen again because I won’t spend the time. But I really think I lost about 5 pounds with the amount of hair she cut off-that’s a great diet in my book! So there you have it! I encourage anyone with long hair thinking about cutting it to donate it-Locks of Love is such a great organization!

Onto anothet topic…I have been trying to get my half marathon pics on here, but the website is smarter than me and I can’t copy and paste the pictures. But, if you want to see what it looks like to run 13 miles, you can check out my pictures here.

And one last topic…last night Logan disappeared and got very quiet for a few minutes. This is always cause for concern with the Logan bug. So I walk through the house and can’t find him at first. I finally find him back in my bathroom. He is standing in there, trying to feed the cat, unrolling the toilet paper, and doing his Logan grunt. “uh. uh. uh. uh. ” He was sort of pulling at his diaper so I asked if he wanted to go potty. He nodded yes, so I thought, what the heck, let’s see what happens. So I took his diaper off and put him up on the toilet…and what do you know! He totally pooped! I couldn’t believe it. I honestly thought that maybe someone had left one behind on accident, but I was wrong. I am pretty sure that this means Logan is a genius. Well, we knew that already. 🙂 I am so NOT potty training my 19 month old right now, but it was still pretty cool!

Or maybe a dancer.
Or a drummer.
Or in the science club.
Who knows?

We are in our last week of Connor’s first soccer season, and he has made great progress! He spends much less time crying on the sideline, and way more time acutally in the game. One game he even went on the field without Derek or I! He did hold a coaches hand the whole time, but we’re taking baby steps here.

Sometimes he even runs after the ball like this.

(PS…I was not that mom who makes her kid play in a warm jacket. He did not remove that thing for 48 hours. Literally. He slept in it and everything. When he gets attached to something, he really gets attached.

Connor has even kicked the ball a few times.

You better believe I was cheering like crazy even though he totally kicked it towards the wrong goal.

Here he is again going the towards the wrong goal. And please notice that he has not yet let go of Derek’s hand. One game he did kick the ball while not holding hands. But then the big pack of kids came at him. He regressed back to the hand holding. I personally find it very cute.

Again, notice the hand holding. Derek’s lucky he didn’t knock over that other kid and get kicked off the field. Way to kick it to the correct goal this time, C! Who cares if poor number 4 got mauled by dad in the process?

What would three year old soccer be without the old miss-the-ball-and-trip-over-your-own-feet manuever?

And finally, a moment of pure flitty happiness, reminiscent of the classic Vincent chidlren.

Yes, he may just be a soccer star yet. You’ve come a long way, Connor J.
There was no ball kicking or flitty happiness on the day of the first game, as evidenced by these pictures.

And if he never wants to play soccer again and instead wants to join the ballet, then I suppose that is fine. We’ll always have this season.

Am I the only one who thinks this is really weird?

I cut this out from the newpaper coupons this morning. Seriously, is there someone out there who collects kind of creepy looking life-like newborn dolls? Is this for a kid? Or to display in some fancy armoire like Precious Moments figurines? I just don’t get it.

Newborns are not cute.

Well, Connor and Logan were, but I am pretty sure only to their grandparents, Derek, and I. Newborns are sweet, and soft, and cuddly, and absolutely amazing. But they are not particurlarly cute for the most part.

And Baby William here is definitely not a cute baby. Are you supposed to cuddle him? He is “fully as large as a newborn and artfully jointed to sleep blissfully or snuggle in your arms.”

I don’t get it.
William scares me.

I really meant to write this good blog post today about all the fun we had trick or treating, the mook of the packed up pumpkin patch, the rise and fall of my new pink cell phone, and about Connor being a little speical needs on the soccer field…but it’s 10:30 and I am tired! However, I will leave you with these few pictures of pumpkin carving, pumpkin painting (well, that’s how it started), and trick or treating. And I will also say that my son wore a purple scarf and a firemans hat to his soccer game tonight…classic. So classic.