Not My Type???????? Are you kidding me?????

After looking at this picture of this beautiful little girl I ask you one question........ Can you imagine her not being someones "type" ?

Let me back up a bit. My daughter has had her heart set on a cocky little boy in the second grade. He is in a class across the hall from her. We will call him "Nick" (o.k that really is his name but I do not feel the need to protect him right now) I have never seen Emma so over the moon for a boy before. I do not like her being so hung up on a boy but I figured if I did not make a big deal about it ... well it would run its course. She talked about this Nick character for about 3 months. She was convinced that he did not know that she existed. She wore her coat to recess every day without fail so she could hide if he walked by. When I asked her why she needed to hide she said "because I dont want Nick to see my face" "Why" I inquired " because Mommy, when I see him I get nervous my cheeks get all red and my voice gets shaky and I dont think he will like me" I assured her that anybody would be crazy not to like her. She screwed up her courage and finaly decided to "let him see her face" She did not wear her coat over her face. You wanna know what that little troublemaker did?

He walked by my beautiful vulnerable little girl and took a double look at her and told her" I saw your face and you are not my type" Are you kidding me???? She came home from school with her first broken heart. I am mommy and I am supposed to know what to say but I did not. I wanted to have the magic words to say to make her feel all better...but the words escaped me. I just picked her up and hugged her extra tight and told her that he was crazy and obviously his" type" is ugly girls. So he was right she was nowhere near his type because she was the most beautiful 8 year old girl I had ever seen. Then we had a cookie and some lemonade. I have found that cookies can usually fix most things.

Word to the wise.... You had better step lightly when it comes to my childrens feelings...... You think that dealing with Emma's older brothers sounds like a nightmare... that is because you have not messed with me yet....

I feel like I am in for quite a ride with this one........

A magical Christmas

New Christmas jammies.... and the funny stories that Mom tries to tell to get Ben to smile.
Emma cannot resist one more peek to check for Santa sightings before bed.

Such sweet kids to stop the chaos for s few minutes and smile for Mom's picture. Well everybody smiled except for Ben.

The chaos that was my living room on Christmas morning.

Look at the miracle! This is what my living room looked like 3 hours before dinner was served! I know ....right!

Now that Christmas has come and gone and my house is quiet ( at least for a few minutes ) I am able to reflect on the Christmas of 2008. A few weeks before Christmas I expected our holiday to be quiet and slow. I know ........ those of you that really know me are laughing hysterically right now, anyway I thought it would be a quiet Christmas. I was trying to mentally plan out a few activities that would fill the day so my kids... ( O.K so I ) would not think it was boring. However....... I may have learned my lesson. After inviting my grandparents down from Kansas City to spend Christmas with my family I was so excited when they accepted my invitation. "Well", I thought to myself " this may not be a completely boring Christmas". Little did I know.... I was thrilled to hear that my brother, his wife and their three girls were also able to come for Christmas dinner. When I began to think about my menu plans I could almost hear my great- grandmothers voice in my head saying " Oh no, that will never do". I could not agree more.

I re-vamped my menu, re-thought my plans for a quiet day and found myself feeling completely excited at the idea of a crazy day full of family. Christmas morning came with its usual magic. The early morning excitement, the scrambling to the tree to see what beautiful surprise Santa had left for us, peeking out the front door to see the remains of the carots that the reindeer had gobbled up....... it was perfect. As many of you know , Ben has suffered from some major Christmas morning disapointment in the past so I felt a little extra pressure to step it up a bit. Ben is a man of few words so when he walked through the kitchen and said " Mom... I don't even know what to ask for next Christmas" I could breathe a huge sigh of relief.

My Christmas guests started arriving around 12:00 noon and Nano sat in the kitchen and visited with me while I put a few finishing touches on my Christmas feast. Grandpa chilled with the boys and Paul in the living room. Jason and Ashley and the girls arrived at around 2:00. Right around dinner time, I was honored with a visit from my best friend..... O.K she is also my aunt ... :) and my amazing uncle. Josh and Tai, Jordan and Kirsten, and Hope even came over to make my Christmas complete! I still misssed all of my family who were unable to grace us with their presence but I was a little bitter that my sister Jill was unable to attend. At least everyone else who did not make it to my Christmas festivities were still spending time with their beautiful families. Jill was stuck at work all because of the redneck hillbillies who can't make it through a full holiday without cussing out Aunt Gertrude....or beating their cousin Jim Bob with a bag of sweet potatoes. It is because of you that she was stuck behind a desk all day so .......... SHAME ON YOU! There!

Our day was so full of family and food I felt like I might burst. I sat at my dining room table on the same dining room chairs that belonged to my great- grandmother that housed my behind every Christmas of my childhood. I sat around the table on those chairs visiting with my grandma and my aunt thinking about how life had come full circle. After everyone had left and the house was calm and I was tucking my children into bed.... my son asked me " Mom.... is that how Christmas was when you were a kid" " Yes" I said...." Man , you were lucky". A smile spread across my face as I told him that I was indeed very lucky. My Christmas was crazy, busy,loud full of laughter, chatting, food, people in and out, hugs, being crammed into a tiny house with a lot of bodies and it was indeed ............. perfect.