Happy Holidays

Sorry to leave you with such a depressing post for so long. I meant to post this one on Christmas, but alas, one sugar-hyped toddler & not enough time to cook, pack & get ready to go pick up Wesley before heading to my parents' house interfered. So, my holiday wishes to blogland are late just like the Christmas cards I mailed two days before Christmas. Better late than never, right?

I hope you and yours had a very Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.
Anthony & I saw a little decade in review on the news tonight. They started with the ball dropping at midnight marking the beginning of 2000, & I said to him, "I remember where I was that night." I can figure out what I was likely doing on most new year's eve's in the last fifteen years or so based on what year it was, but I actually remember December 31, 1999, where I was, who was there, what movie we were watching & the games we were playing, who I was there with. I remember how excited I was about 2000. After all, I was a high school senior & would be starting college somewhere that fall. My, how things change in ten year's time. I was so young then, still very naive and innocent, & on my way out of the angst-filled teenage years. The last ten years have flown by. It seems like I just blinked and went from that young girl to being the wife & mother of two.

Sorry, didn't mean to ramble on like that. Here's the picture we sent out in our Christmas cards this year (it's not the best one we've taken, but not the worst either).

Reminiscing

I was working on my list for Christmas cards this weekend, going through my address spreadsheet and deleting the names of former boyfriends or spouses, adding names of new babies and spouses. It struck me how much my family has changed over the last year. I don't mean to sound crude or to talk about personal business, but several couples have split up in our family, and it breaks my heart to see them going through what they are going through. It makes me wish I could take some superglue & glue all the broken pieces back together, then throw some pixie dust on them to make things all better. How naive we were as little kids, thinking the prince always finds his princess, and they live happily ever after. How simple & easy that was, huh? I wish it were that way.

Sorry for such a downer of a post, but am I the only one who longs for those simpler times?

I guess if there's anything positive that comes out of all that brokenness, it's that it makes me hold on to what I've got even tighter. It makes me realize how fragile those threads that bind us together really are.

Kelly Corrigan video

I saw this video linked from Cathy Zielske's blog. If you are a woman (or even if you're not)
you should take 5 minutes to watch this video. It is beyond touching.

Edited to add: (12/27) I read Kelly's book, "The Middle Place" over the last three days. There are not many books that can make me both laugh out loud & cry big crocodile tears & still feel good about at the end. It is most definitely a good book.

Loads of videos to share...

Thanks to my very kind father-in-law, Greg, we have a new Flip video camera. I love it. Although I'm sure we will still use our more hefty Sony handycam, this little baby is so simple & compact & still gives what I think is a great picture (for our use at least, which is basically just watching the videos at home or loading them on here for friends & family to see). Okay, end of commercial, now to the videos.

I know I owe you since it's been more than a month (don't say I didn't warn you that posts would be scarce with me being back in school), so I have several videos to share from the last week or so since I tore into my Christmas present a little prematurely. For the record, Greg, Anthony made me do it.

This is what happens when Daddy supervises snack time. Ella loves pretzels, but she loves pretzels dipped in Nutella even more.



Ella playing around with her clothes basket. She was walking all over the house with it on her head. Of course when I tried to record it she wouldn't put it back on for me.



Ella & I going down the big slide at Santa's Village, an annual event that our city's Parks & Recreation dept. puts on. The admission is either toys or canned food, which they then give out to needy families for Christmas. We don't have any pictures/video of the decorations, but they always have this enormous Christmas tree & an 'enchanted forest' that the kids enjoy, too. Wesley didn't get to go with us this year because he was gone to his dad's all weekend, so that's why he's missing from all the videos.

This video is a little loud so you might want to turn down your speakers a little before you hit play. You can't hear her over the noise, but Ella kept saying, "Wee," as we were coming down the slide. You can see her pull back when we get to the gate because she wanted to go again.



Ella LOVES trains.



Ella doing some crazy dancing.



Wesley is also missing from most of these because he's camera shy. You can see his reaction when he sees the camera in this one. We were trying to get Ella to say all the words she knows. I forgot to ask several of them, like fish ("pish") and more ("moe").



You can see more videos from Santa's Village & around the house if you go to my youtube page (it should link to it at the end of any of the above videos).