Y'all, I'm drunk.

Can I just say, blog people, that I have just drunk (drank? drunk?) an entire mini bottle of sparkling wine, courtesy of Kate, and am now probably, officially drunk. Please excuse all typos, grammatical errors, and overall content of this here blog post.

The scene in front of me looks as if a toy box barfed all over the floor. I'm not cleaning it up because it looks to me like the perfect alarm system should we get robbed tonight. The burglar would step on approximately 46,000 Legos and uncontrollably release a slew of obscenities, thus giving me time to email Steve about how to load real bullets in the gun. Or look up a Youtube video about loading bullets in a gun. If you recall from here, a gun once injured me, and I intentionally steer clear of firearms in general.

Anywhoodle, Steve just told me the other day that he fell in love with me on New Year's Eve 2008 (that sly dog), so I'm chalking that bottle of champagne up to celebrating our loveiversary. I loved him first, if we're being honest here, but I didn't want to appear desperate, so I waited for him to admit it to me first. Anyways, now I love him a kafrillion times more than I did on this night, four years ago. Seeing your main squeeze love your children makes you love him that much more somehow.

So... yeah. That's enough of the mushy stuff. Let's get on to my 2012 recap! Just kidding! This whole blog is a recap. If you need to know all of the amazingly awesome stuff we did this year, you can go over to that sidebar there on the right and click on "2012". Read through every post and you'll have a pretty decent idea of what we've been up to.

My resolutions for 2013 are as follows:

1. Get some champagne flutes. (Because I just drank champagne straight out of the bottle.)
2. Learn how to load bullets into that gun. (Just in case my Lego setup doesn't work out.)
3. Strive to be a better mother. (More patience, less yelling.)
4. Welcome home my husband because HOLLER! He comes home this year! Clearly this will be my best year yet!
5. I'd like to say something here to round out my numbers like "lose weight" or "go to the gym" but girl, please. I love chocolate so much.

Hope y'all are staying up til midnight for me! And drinking and dancing and wearing something besides yoga pants and slippers. Jenny from the park (the trailer park, that is)- OUT.

Trouble with the law and a quick story about how Molly busted out (of her swaddle)

Hey there friends, hope y'all didn't come here expecting a Christmas recap, because ohmygosh I'm Christmased out and will not be recapping anything. If you want the short version, I ate too much, saw a bunch of family, got spoiled rotten (along with my kids), got to Skype Steve on Christmas day, and managed to get a picture of the kids and me smiling simultaneously. If you want the long version, well you best come on over and bring a bottle of wine and we can go over the details. Overall? I'm calling it a success.

As I mentioned here, I made the trip down south by myself. Well, myself plus the two kids. And the dog. And Wee Steve. And my Depends. But we made it, everyone behaved as if they had been snorting magic and unicorns, and I arrived with my sanity in tact (but not my dignity because hello diaper).

I'd love to rehash Advent Calendar Activities: Week 4 with you, but naptimes didn't align with the stars while we were at my parents' house (aka everything was closed by the time naptime was over), so the last three days of activities didn't happen. But luckily we were busy hanging out with aunts and uncles and grandparents and the kids didn't seem to care. Not to say that they cared a bunch about Weeks 1-3, but you know, it got me through a big holiday during this deployment and I'm just gonna say it: that Advent calendar was for me. ME. I know, I am so selfish. Maybe next year my kid will be more open to eating ice cream and painting ornaments instead of his head. (Oh who am I kidding, I will probably need to be on medication before I can attempt to let a child paint in my general vicinity ever again.)

Molly spent (not a lot of) her nighttime sleeping in her sleeper-rocker. This has been what's she's slept in since birth. I think the person who came up with this creation should be knighted with sainthood. (Proper terminology is my forte, dontcha know.) About halfway through our visit, she decided she was too big for this bed. (Side note: She has been too big for this bed for approximately 8.5 of her 9 months.) Instead of just lying in bed next to me and sleeping peacefully, she decided to wail in everybody's faces. And since private rooms were at a premium (meaning: no one had a private room), most everyone was disturbed in some way or another by the late night/early morning shrieking. I like to call it: The Lord's Most Natural Form Of Birth Control. Amen.

Now that we're back home, she has slept in her crib for the first time, unswaddled, successfully. Can you even begin to imagine what it's like cramming those thighs (that easily make 2T pants look like sausage casings), all greased up with vasoline, into a swaddle that was clearly made for a BABY?! You can quickly work up a sweat doing so. But she's doing ok in Sam's old pajamas and will hopefully start sleeping like a normal person very soon.

On the drive back home, the kids were good again. Slightly whinier, but still exceeded my expectations. (For the record, I set my expectations staggeringly low.) I was hummin' along, pumping, making nice time when I see a car on the side of the road with their hazard lights on. I scoot over into the other lane and then I look in my rearview to see it: blue lights. I had just been caught in a speed trap. While wearing Depends. And pumping. Awesome. I didn't have much to say to the officer. I realized that the speed limit had just changed and I was too busy singing along to my main man Jason Aldean to notice. Sam thought it was the coolest thing and Molly couldn't stop laughing. Odie was overcome with a pug-tastic snorting attack. Hard to work up a sob story with all of that going on. And the whole lactating-while-driving thing was going to be hard to explain if he asked. I just wanted the traffic stop to END. And quickly. Fortunately, it did. And he didn't ask what I was hiding under that cover or if that bag with the tubes attached was used to make meth. He just wrote me my ticket and sent me on my way. So that, my friends, is the story of my first-ever traffic ticket.

And, there you have it. A sorta-kinda recap of Christmas. Even though I said I wasn't going to. That look gets me every time! Now who's going to bed before 10pm on New Year's Eve like me?

Merry Christmas!

Advent calendar activities: Week Three (AKA the post where I wear a diaper with no shame)

Catch up on Days 1-7 here. And Days 8-14 here.

Day Fifteen:
Live nativity.

Popcorn. Naturally.

Horrifically blurry phone pictures. My apologies.

While this was a legit drive-thru nativity, if you were blind and in the car with us, you might have mistaken it for a safari, as there were lots of animals worthy of note.


Day Sixteen:
Make gifts for teachers.

Sam did not so much make their gifts, but he did manage to decorate these trees for them. I told him I'd take care of the rest.

No, I'm neeeeevvvverrrrrr on Pinterest. Why do you ask?

Day Seventeen:
Exchange gifts with Aiden and Levi.

Aiden is Sam's BFF. Levi is Molly's future husband. They typically wear bowls on their heads (Sam and Aiden) or suck on cars and paper (Molly and Levi), and it's pretty safe to say that they basically did the same during our "gift exchange." Molly ate people's presents, Sam refused to touch the presents, and Aggie and I did our best to chat it up while the little people were somewhat occupied.

You couldn't take as many blurry pictures as me, even if you TRIED.

CUTIE.

Aggie's phantom arm. She. is. fast.

Day Eighteen:
Preschool Christmas Party.

Luckily, I found out about the sign-up sheet for this party first, so I got to bring my famous recipe for juice boxes and every kid was just as happy as Sam is here.

100% juice, man! There's no water in this! I can feel the sugar coursing through my veins as we babble!

One mom got a little Pinterest-crazy and made all sorts of things that toddlers could care less about, but yes, I took note. And yes, I thanked my lucky stars that I only signed up to bring juice boxes. Because really- who's got time for that?

He thinks he's "sneaking" some goldfish. It's ok, Sam. I know there's gluten in there. But it's a special day- have some goldfish! Go crazy!

Day Nineteen:
Pick out a toy to donate.

Sam decided to get a little boy the same helicopter and humvee (ohm-bee) that he enjoys playing with at home.

Molly went with a baby. But only because I told her we couldn't donate milk, no matter how happy that might make a child.

"But why is her head so small?! This is not at all realistic."

"And this is supposed to be a bathtub?? Only one of my thighs will fit in this thing. Ridiculous."

Day Twenty:
Pack for Alabama.

Steve is so dramatic- it was not that overwhelming. Also, yes, he does own clothes now. Although he definitely has the legs to pull off those little undies.

Day Twenty-One:
Leave for Alabama.

I decided to make the drive down by myself. Friends, I won't even get into the amount of anxiety I had over this. And although my mom offered to come up and ride back with us, ultimately, I knew she had a lot to do at home and it would be a waste of time for her to listen to all three of us whine about how long the trip was. So I put on my big girl panties (which, I kid you not, were a (very discreet) pair of ladies Depends), hooked myself up to my pump, loaded as many Sam-friendly snacks as I could cram into the front seat, remembered the dog, and headed down to south Alabama. I am VERY HAPPY to report that:
1) I did not need to utilize the Depends. I held it for 8 hours that day and yes, I am damn proud of that. (Also, yes, if you ever have the need to wear an adult diaper, I will totally recommend Depends and I even have a coupon I found inside the box in case any of you are interested.)
2) Sam and Molly were perfectly behaved. Seriously. The shock from that has still not worn off yet.
3) We made UH-MAZING time and I did not get pulled over by a cop. Jesus quite literally took the wheel.

So in a nutshell, we made it, we all survived, I didn't pee my pants. I'll count that as a win.

Christmas is coming! Are y'all ready?

So far...

... this deployment hasn't been as bad as I'd expected. I'm not saying it's been a cake-walk either (because OMG IT SURE HASN'T), but my expectations going into it were: cry all day long and then drink wine all night long and have screaming children all day long, lather, rinse, repeat. I'm happy to report that only one of those things is a constant and I can honestly tell you that it's not the wine part (sadly). Or the crying part. My kids are definitely needy little creatures though.

Since doing the Advent calendar thing, I'm sure might appear that I've got my ahem, "stuff" together and I'm rockin' and rollin' all night long over here. (But I don't because haaaaaaaa who has time to stay up late for anything when you could be sleeping?!) We most certainly have good days when we do playdates and get laundry done and I cook dinner and we all shower. But other days we have not-so-good days.

Days where we eat hot dogs for dinner (just hot dogs, and sometimes, just ketchup if your name ends in Sam).
Nights where people summon me to their rooms only to present me with handfuls of poop.
Days where I lose track of how many times I drop the f bomb.
Nights when I look at my bed and wonder whyyyyyy my husband isn't in it.
Days where I wish I had caffeine test strips for my breast milk because I'd suddenly started a coffee diet.
Nights where tiny people wake up screaming and I can't figure out what's wrong with them.
Days without showers. Multiple days straight without showers. (As in, sometimes many more than two, my apologies to everyone in the greater Ft Campbell area.)
Nights spent wondering what that noise was.
Days watching my kids do new cute things and not grabbing my phone or camera fast enough to capture it for their daddy.

Despite all of that, I feel comfortable saying that I think we're past the point of just surviving and are thriving. I'd be lying if I said this was easy or that I sometimes look at the calendar and days have passed before I've realized it. No. This phenomenon people keep telling me about where days turn into weeks that turn into months that fly by before your eyes- that is not happening here. (Quit it with the lies, people.) But we have finally hit a deployment milestone. Although I can't share which one it is (OPSEC), I'm sure you're still excited nonetheless and will eat a piece of chocolate (or hell, the whole box) on my behalf.

Advent calendar activities: Week Two

Week Two! Met with the Preschool Plague and a visit from my mother-in-law. She tolerated the sickies and participated in our "activities" and didn't even appear upset when I burned dinner one night.

Catch up with Days 1-7 here.

Day Eight:
Make a gingerbread house. We did not so much "make" it as we did "decorate" it, since I found a pre-fabricated gingerbread home (or would the gingers classify this as a trailer, thus making it completely appropriate for my family of formerly-trailer-living gingers to decorate?) at Target for almost no money. And when I say "we" decorated it, I obviously mean that I stuck my poor mother-in-law with Sam and told them they could have at it while Molly and I went to a cookie exchange. (No need to nominate me for the Daughter-In-Law Of The Year Award, I'm fairly certain that giving her such cute grandchildren already makes me a shoo-in.)

Oh, what's that in the background? The mess from the horrible ornament painting experience that I can't bring myself to clean up? I'm very seriously considering chucking every last bit of it in the trash. But I guess I'm letting that idea marinate on my brain for a bit, which is just another way of saying that I'm not cleaning that up right now.

Day Nine:
Christmas lights on the Cumberland River.

It was freakishly foggy and warm that night, although if you looked at the cuddly couples walking through the lights in their ski jackets, you wouldn't guess it was 60+ degrees out with a humidity percentage of 3,000.

Here we have quite the assortment of seasonally appropriate clothes- Molly: no pants, Me: yoga pants, Sam: sweatpants (with sandals- uber-classy) thanks to an accident earlier in the day. 

Sam met a friendly dog and was so bold as to pet it! And a gratuitous blurry phone picture of the semi-lit Screaming Eagle.

Day Ten:
Mail Christmas cards.

Most extreme case of bedhead EVER. Also, mom-fail. The envelopes are too wide to stick in this mailbox. Clearly he is peeved and I just got a quick glimpse into the teenage years. Hold me.

Let me see, I can fix it. I gotta do EVERYTHING around here. You just gotta shake it a little and throw some spit on it.

Her rosy cheeks are cute, but she is feverish and sick. Poor thing. Even then, she still pushes right on through, taking care of business and sorting the mail.

To be honest, I didn't have all of my cards ready by this day. Only half of them were addressed and stamped. We made a big special drive-thru trip to the post office mail box later in the week. *fancy*

Day Eleven:
Watch a Christmas movie.

Yes, the sun is approximately eight and half feet from my back door at all times, and also, yes, we watch this exact Christmas movie (Baby Einstein Baby Santa Music Box Christmas circa 2005, in case you're wondering) every single day before naptime. Obviously it was an extra- special day to watch it because Sam is not wearing pants and I am wearing my very festive Hannukah socks.


Day Twelve:
Go to Kids-n-Play. This is an indoor playground/bouncy house place here in town and this was basically our One Big Thing to do on the Advent calendar. Sadly, we didn't go because the Preschool Plague really kicked into full gear that day and my mother-in-law went back home. So we did... nothing. Well, we did laundry and vacuumed the floors. We also hugged on Odie.

"Hugged" (it's a relative term)

We ate some questionable food.

We took a fairly civilized bath.

And we went the eff to bed.

Day Thirteen:
Eat a snowball.

Yes folks, my child is probably the only child in the history of the world who refuses to even TRY ice cream. Even his favorite girlfriend tried spooning it into his mouth and he wouldn't have it. I brought the stupid dessert home and got on the floor trying to show him how delicious it was. He would pretend to be interested and then..... "no." (*pulls hair directly out of head and throws it into the trash, along with uneaten ice cream*)

Luckily, we went to Chick-fil-A on some school spirit night when no employees were working and a kid who appeared to be four years old with a wicked bad case of tantrums and a mother who seemed content to let him screech like a howler monkey while yelling at him to stop was the party atmosphere that we went inside for. DRIVE-THRU ALL THE WAY NEXT TIME. Sarah is such a saint to come with us. A SAINT. I feel like I currently possess tiny little shreds of sanity. But if she didn't come with us on our outings, I would have.... even less? The thought alone makes me shudder.

Day Fourteen:
Visit Santa. AKA: The moment you've all been waiting for. But first, let's revisit last year's trip to see Santa, shall we?

Those were fun times, huh? Let's see how Molly fared with her first sit on Santa's lap.

Looks confused. They continue to snap photos while I attempt to grab Sam.

Molly: Brother looks nervous should I be toooooo??? Santa: Aww, shiiiiiiiit. Not another screamer.

Yeeeah, there's the money shot. It's a shame I've already sent out my Christmas cards.

Stay tuned as we blaze right on into Week Three. It's nonstop fun around here, I tell ya. Nonstop.

Advent calendar activities: Week One

As promised, I'm recapping the first week of our Advent activities calendar. The photos are a mix of phone and camera, whatever I had within reach at the time. I record the kids watching the video every time so that Steve can see their reactions.

(Let's be real- Sam is the only one reacting. Molly just does her incredible lunge towards the lit screen that's juuuuuuust out of her reach. Odie stares at the screen and tries to will Steve home with her most pitiful stare. Seriously. I feel bad for her for approximately three and a half seconds... until I catch a whiff of her fart and then I'm ready to kick her out the back door.)

Day One:
The Clarksville Christmas Parade. Behold.

(top to bottom) 1) Sarah explains the finer points of the parade to Sam (confined to a stroller for obvious reasons). 2) A float with a giant roll of toilet paper attached. Hrm. 3) A rare photo where Sam smiled on-demand, even though there is a random finger is in his mouth. Whatever. I'll take it. 4) Molly being all-around awesome. 5) Obligatory blurry family photo. Molly wedged her arms in there to appear smushed and neglected. Sam apparently needs snacks at all times, lest his blood sugar dip the slightest bit and he becomes a raging lunatic.

Day Two:
Set up the nativity scene.

I'm pretty sure it's in their contract somewhere to never look at the camera simultaneously. And didn't you know that Christmas storage tubs make the best backdrops?

I never thought the day would come where I would seriously shout, "Do NOT put Baby Jesus in your mouth again. I'm not kidding."

Day Three:
Decorate the Christmas tree.

Obviously we did not go with a real tree this year. Please refer back to the pine needles and barf that I had to clean up last year. I'm not doing that again, alone. So a felt tree it is! I remembered this activity the night before and might have cursed up a holy storm while cutting the tree out on my hands and knees about felt's amazing ability to magnetize every last piece of dog hair within a 57 mile radius of itself. I surprisingly bought command strips well in advance and smugly opened the packaging expecting it to just *click* right up on my wall like that stupid lady does in the commercials with all of her pictures and decorations. (Indecisive much, lady?) But apparently I'm an idiot and threw in the towel approximately 14 seconds after opening and just went with what I knew- duck tape. And I'm happy to report that it's still holding strong. ("It'll fix anything, Cletus.")

Day Four:
Make an ornament.

The set-up. Molly helped me make and bake the ornaments while Sam was napping. Sam "helped" me "paint" them while Molly was napping.

I know this looks so cute. So picture-perfect. He even whapped himself upside the head (and inside his mouth wtf) with his paintbrush. Even looking at it now, days later, I think he looks so peaceful and not-whiny. But at the moment I took this picture? I was thisclose to ripping all the hair out of my head. I can recognize and admit that I am not made to do crafts with toddlers. I just don't have it in me.

And who wastes time with a third party (the paintbrush) anymore? Just smush that thing around directly in the paint. It'll get the job done.

Day Five:
Make hot chocolate.

Yeah we made "fake" hot chocolate. So what?

I drank out of this when I was a wee tot. (Little hands just can't have any patience for Mommy to photograph these things for the blog Daddy.)

A little excited. Spilled most of it.

This worked out much better. Except for that whole part where I have to bend over and hold it for him the entire time.

Day Six:
Go to the Division Tree Lighting and open gifts from St. Nick.

Someone woke up fighting mad from his nap, so we lucked out and had Sarah's company (and extra arms) to wrangle his beastly attitude. We also met up with Stephanie and her cute family.

They couldn't tear their eyes off of the tree.

It was a bit different from last year's tree lighting, (um, last year it was actually cold, and SNOWING) but I still enjoyed getting to hang out with friends and doing something Christmas-y. Afterwards, we enjoyed a dinner with the lovely Sarah INSIDE Chick-fil-A. (We don't go inside anywhere. Ever. Everrrrrrrrrr.)

Molly was allowed to sample her first waffle fry (to stop the whining). I'd say she enjoyed it. And then threw it on the floor.

Sam snaps out of his funk more easily when Sarah is around. Obviously.

After dinner (and a SUPER WHINY drive home), I gave the kids their gifts from St. Nick.

Molly wasted no time opening hers. Sam is doing this new thing now where he puts his entire hand inside his mouth just to drive me bonkers. He refused to continue opening his present.

In the past (meaning: last year), I thought it was a cute idea to give new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve. But then I only get to see them in Christmas cuteness for a night (during the Christmas season- we don't discriminate when it comes to wearing pajamas out of season around here). So I switched it up and decided that that will be their gift from St. Nick. And I'm so glad I did.

Look at the cute I get to stare at all month!!!

Day Seven:
Bake sugar cookies.

Not gonna lie. In my head, this was going to be grander. But as I stood in the commissary (the day of this activity oops), I realized that this doesn't need to be hard on me. If I made special egg-free, gluten-free sugar cookies for Sam, he probably wouldn't even touch them. (This is based on the reoccuring trend where I make the god-awful "special" food and he promptly decides he's never going to eat something so vile. Don't blame him, I wouldn't either.) And then I went to all that trouble for nothing. And I hate baking cookies. And I hate cookie cutters. And I hate washing that entire mess. So that is how we arrived at this.

Best. decision. ever.

See? He didn't even care that I didn't make them from scratch. He loves to stack. That would have been one massive cookie. Also, seriously, who bakes with clothes on anymore.

And voila. He didn't get to eat any (eggs.... ugh), but he had some of his own special cookies and didn't seem to care too much about the sugar cookies.

So there you have it. Week One of Advent activities: complete. Until next week, friends...