JustJessie

Tagged again!

Okay, I've just been tagged by Laurie for the longest meme ever invented.  It's self explanatory, so I'll just dive right in.  Oh, and if you don't make it all the way to the end, I tag Julia, Genesis, and DeeDee.  'K here goes.

1. What kind of soap is in your bathtub right now?  Dove for Sensitive Skin, cause I'm itchy.

2. Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator?  Uh, no.

3. What would you change about your living room? Probably the cheapo berber carpet. Or at least the twenty pulls I've hot glued down on it.

4. Are the dishes in your dishwasher clean or dirty?  Clean (and have been all day.  They just refuse to put themselves away!)

5. What is in your fridge?  What isn't?

6. White or wheat bread?

  Wheat, all the way.  Did you know the white stuff turns to glue in your tummy?  That's what my mom used to tell me.

7. What is on top of your refrigerator? An Arthur Court tray with bunnies on it (what? easter's over? dern.) and a big purty bowl still half full of Halloween candy.  Think the kids would notice if I stuck it in their Christmas stockings?

8. What color or design is on your shower curtain?

  We've got those wavy glass sliding doors.

9. How many plants are in your home?  Five plants and a tree.  Not one of them real.  I am the grim reaper of vegetation.

10. Is your bed made right now? I hope not, Jeff's sleeping in it!

11. Comet or Soft Scrub? Comet I guess?

12. Is your closet organized?  Sure.  The clothes on the hangers are my hang-up clothes; the pile in the top is stuff we don't need much; the pile on the left of the floor is stuff I've been meaning to take to Goodwill; the pile on the right is for shoes that belong on the rack of the door, which is currently still full of sandals, purses, and belts.  The things that keep it from closing are mostly toys, books, and puzzles that belong in the playroom.  I have my own organizational system.

13. Can you describe your flashlight?  It looks like a scarecrow and when the mouth opens up, the light comes on and it cackles.

14. Do you drink out of glass or plastic more at home?  Glass.

15. Do you have iced tea made in a pitcher right now?  Nope.  I try to keep it to water and coffee.

16. If you have garage, is it cluttered?  Somewhat, but I've been working on it, so it's better than it was!

17. Curtains or blinds?  Blinds.  The two inch white wood ones (me likey).

18. How many pillows do you sleep with?  One.  That's all there's room for after Jeff and his many pillow friends come to bed.

19. Do you sleep with any lights on at night?  The light in the bathroom hallway for Grayson.  He's TERRIFIED of the dark. :(

20. How often do you vacuum?  Define "vacuum."  I run my sweeper everyday.

21. Standard toothbrush or electric?  Standard. 

22. What color is your toothbrush?  Pink.  Not a big fan of pink actually, but it was on sale and I thought Jeff would rather have the blue.

23. Do you have welcome mat on your front porch?  Yep!  Not worth describing.

24. What is in your oven right now?  An entire community of happy black crumbs live on the bottom.  Other than that?  Nothing.

25. Is there anything under your bed? Um, yeah.  Socks, toys, dust bunnies... I could go on, but I'm feeling a little embarrassed!

26. Chore you hate the most?  Mopping.  It's pointless in this house!

27. What retro items are in your home?  A couple of pictures and a velvet couch (thanks Meg!)

28. Do you have a separate room you use an an office? Nah.

29. How many mirrors are in your home?  Four.  One of them makes you egg shaped from a distance.  It's my favorite.

30. Do you have any hidden emergency money around your home?  Does Grayson's piggy bank count?

31. What color are your walls?  Warm nutmeg, pumpkin spice, cinnabar, a very beigy beige, Georgia Bulldog Red (just one wall in the playroom), Blue with dinosaurs painted on it in the kids' bathroom, and jillion year old white in my room.

32. What does your home smell like right now?  Eau de Dog.

33. Favorite candle scent?  Pumpkin Pie Spice from Yankee Candle Co.  Mmmmm.

34. What kind of pickles are in your refrigerator right now?  Dill chips, dill relish, baby dills, pickled okre, and sweet gherkins.  I kinda like pickles.

35. Ever been on your roof?  Don't plan to.

36. Do you own a stereo? My dvd player does double duty (we have surround sound speakers, so it's cool), and then there's Grayson's karaoke machine.

37. How many TVs do you have?

  Two.  One in the den, and one in my room.

38. How many phones?  Uh...Three.  Plus our cells.

39. Do you have a housekeeper?  Ha!  Yeah, her name's Jessie.  Lately I've been thinking of letting her go...

40. What style do you decorate in?  I have decorator ADD.  I just buy what I like, and can't seem to stick to one theme.

41. Do you like solid colors in furniture or prints?  Solid all the way.

42. Is there a smoke detector in your home?  One in every room!  We're safe like that.

Let the Gifting Begin

These are the beginnings of the first homemade gifts of the season.  I have plans of making a puppet entourage for the boys, and my brother Andy will be making them a puppet theatre.  I foresee many a drama played out for Jeff and me involving this wizard and ninja, along with all their friends who are still in my head.  Wish me luck, as so far there has been a lot of thinking and figuring and very little sewing!

Beach bums part 2

You know it's hard to post about a long weekend without it sounding like a "What I Did Over Thanksgiving Holiday" essay for school.  That's what my first post about the beach sorta sounded like.  So, I thought I'd try again, only this time I'll just share some of the moments that made the weekend special.

Three naked hineys and lots of laughter in the bu-bu-bubbly tub.

Grayson hunting for seashells with Nana surreptitiously planting store-bought shells for him to find.

A date night out with my sweetie, financed by my in-laws (yeah, they're great like that!).

Grant's delight as he stomped, then body-slammed every sand castle Grayson made.

Swimming in the indoor pool with Grayson, and the laughing, squealing dash for the outdoor elevator that followed.  Not to forget the I'm so freezing dance as the elevator made it's way to our floor.

Lots of special little moments that made up a great weekend.  Thanks Nana and Poppy for taking us along!

By the Light of the Christmas Tree

Elfie boys

I couldn't embed this, but you HAVE to go check it out! 

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9617039087

I make somebody smile!

Chris just awarded me the "You Make Me Smile" award.  It's always nice to get a blog award, but this one is especially nice, because I love to make people happy.

I'm supposed to pass this on, but I'm not sure how many people I'm supposed to give it to.  I'll go with three since that's what Chris did.  Okay, this one goes out to Gloria because so matter what she's posting about, she always makes me laugh out loud.  Also to Laurie, because her sarcasm is hilarious.  Lastly, I'll give this award to Genesis, because even though her posts aren't usually meant to make anyone laugh, I love keeping up with her and her Canadian/Guatemalan brood.  The pictures of her older son are always enough to make me smile!

Beach bums

Sorry I've been gone awhile!  We just spent the Thanksgiving weekend at the beach with Jeff's family.  Since our laptop totally quit on us, we were away from the computer the whole time. 

It was nice to be away from home (and puppy) for a few days!  We only got to go out on the beach a couple of times because it was really cold most of the time we were there.  Cold or no, the boys would have stayed out there the whole time if we had let them!

Thankfully there was an indoor pool they got to swim in a good bit.  I got to spend a rare day shopping alone with my sis-in-law, and got most of Grayson's shopping done for Christmas (outlet mall + black friday sales = bargain shopper's dream!).  Now all I have to do is look to make sure none of the toys I bought are toxic (ugh.  is anyone else as tired of this lead paint business as I am?).

It was great spending time with Jeff's family.  It was also nice to be away from the responsibilities that are usually niggling at the back of my brain when I sit down to relax.  I had lots of niggle-free hours, and the result was a wonderfully soft new scarf, knitted by me, for me!

*Sorry if this post is a bit scatter-brained.  It would seem my brain is still on vacation!*

I See You!

Old Fashioned Christmas

We're trying a different approach to Christmas in our house this year.  It is so hard to keep kids from getting self-centered and greedy in a season that is supposed to be all about giving to others.  Every year we vow to keep our focus on Jesus and the gift he gave us, but every year we get caught up in Santa and who is getting what for whom.  Not again, though.  Not this year.

Of course we'll be giving and receiving, and we've already had our Christmas photo shoot with Santa, but the majority of our Christmas this year will be homemade.  We started the season yesterday with making salt dough ornaments.  Grayson got to make the dough by himself, and they cut the ornaments out with a few of our million and ten Christmas cookie cutters. 

While the ornaments baked, I let them decorate some store-bought gingerbread men with decorator icing to pass the time.

According to Grayson, this is what happens to ninja turtle gingerbread men who use bad behavior.  Ouch!

I'll post pictures of the painted ornaments later today!

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails

When I told someone I was thinking of posting this, they said I was wanting sympathy.  Maybe that's a teeny bit true, but mostly I think it's just funny.  Mind you at 9:00 Thursday morning it wasn't funny at all... But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Here's what happened.

On most days everyone in my house is up and moving by five a.m.  I'll admit that a lot of days I'm in a sleepy stupor until I've had a few cups of coffee, but not this Thursday.  I had company coming for dinner Thursday night, so I decided to catch up on laundry, and clean the house top to bottom.  Especially the bottom part, because since Copper came home I feel like my floors are eternally dirty.  So, by 8:30 I had washed three loads of laundry, and I had just finished cleaning all my floors.  I say I finished my floors, but what I really mean is I mopped them repeatedly.  Every time I finished a room, Copper decided to use it for a potty, and I had to redo it.

I took a coffee/blog break, and about the time I sat down I heard this pitiful wail coming from my bathroom.  I ran back to see what was wrong, and Grant was standing in a puddle of nail polish and had it all over his face and hands.  The reason for the wailing was that it was all in his eye.  I called the doctor in a panic (portraits of childhood blindness flashing through my mind), and the girl who answers the phone calmly tells me that my doc's office hours begin at 9:00... Okay, so Grant is screaming at the top of his lungs, and here's me, "ARE YOU NOT THE ANSWERING SERVICE? CAN YOU NOT PAGE HIM?  MY CHILD COULD BE BLIND!  HE HAS WHITE FRENCH MANICURE NAIL POLISH IN HIS EYE AND! HE'S! HURTING!  AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!  PAGE! MY! DOCTOR!!"  Don't anybody mess with my babies!  In the meantime I washed him down and put a wet washcloth over his eye.  By the time the doctor called back, he was fine.  He still has white spots in various places (including his eyelashes) because that polish is like white-out it's so thick, and I couldn't get it off without hurting his sensitive skin.

So, a while later, I sat down with a fresh cup of coffee to resume my blog break, and about the time I clicked on my first daily read, I hear a sing-song voice coming from my bathroom, "Ooooh! What my did!"  Great.  I ran back there, and guess who was covered in pink and standing in a puddle of Calamine lotion?!  Yep.  It was Grant, my one man wrecking crew. 

Considering how it began, the rest of the day was uneventful.  All I can say is, thank God I was born with a sense of humor!  Otherwise I'd be writing this from the loony bin.