Christmas 2018

It's been a busy few days.  The holidays always are.  Somehow, despite the best of planning, the most earnest decisions to "not get caught up in the hype" we do. There is never enough time, particularly this year.  I have had extra duties at work this year, my wife's business has been busy. The teen is now working two part time jobs and both he and his sister are busy with extra curricular activities as well. 

Yet somehow, it gets done. Cookies and fudge are made.  Cards are sent out, albeit later than I would have liked. The house is decorated and stories of Christmasses past are re-told. New memories are made.  Laughter and music ring through the house. 

Do we get it all done?  Heck no.  This year we were able to find time to take the family drive looking at decorated houses.  We skipped that last year and the kids mentioned that they really missed it.  Back onto the clipboard of fun it went.  But off went touring the city Festival of Trees.  Because, well there are still only 24 hours in a day folks.  Even though I personally think there should be some sort of magic extender of hours around the holiday time.

The house cleaning was of the "lick and a promise" variety up till Christmas Eve Eve when I was finally off of work. Then I tidied and cleaned around the glitter and garland and promised our home that in a bit over a week I'd be cleaning it up for reals! 

But as long as things are sanitary, that is truly good enough right now.  I need time with the kids, with my wife, time to make coquito and deliver to my friends.  Time to wrap and enjoy it and not race against the clock.

Christmas Day Fiona came home for the day and it was wonderful to have her here. It is always a double celebration day as it is also her birthday.  I made a German chocolate cake and we had a festive Christmas dinner with several of her favorite foods.  She loved her gifts, both the Christmas ones and her birthday ones.

Today we went to Maine to do Christmas with my mom.  This too was fun, though I can see that she is beginning to age.  Well, we are all always aging, but to be less robust, less able to do for herself with ease.  It hurts to see that.  We decorated her cane for her while we were there--another aging sign that was not there the last time we were together just a few months earlier. She loved the time with the kids and they with her.  I am grateful for the constant loving presence that she has always had in their lives.


Tomorrow I have another whole day off from work and then back I go on Friday.  But this has been a lovely break and a truly wonderful Yuletide season. 

Farewell Vacation!

My holiday break is about over and I am sad to see it go.  Life is so fast paced that it takes me a loooong time to really let go of thinking of times and schedules and by the time I do, it is just about time to think of them again! Also my job does not lend itself well to long times away.  Aside from breaks at this time of year, I mostly only take a lot of 3 and 4 day weekends with my vacation time. A couple days ago I started forgetting to put my watch on. That is my sign that I am really in a "vacation" mindset.  My watch is always on me.  Some people use the alarms on their phone. I am pretty old school for time pieces and have a timex that has a glow in the dark light! LOL

I love the picture above, even though I think I have used it all ready on the blog. But in the not too distant past I would have thought that this picture was not attainable.  All of us routinely together on holidays? But the Great School helped Fiona so much. She still has severe issues and probably always will, but pictures like this are myriad now in my photos.

I toured a really great day program for Fiona while I was on vacation.  I am not sure if it will work or not because the program is not allowed to administer medications. She has a psych med she takes three times a day.  I hope that perhaps there are adjustments that could be made that would allow her to participate in this.  The program has a learning component for adults who wish to expand their learning, a job readiness component (and they have a lot of connections in the community with employers who hire their people) an art component with a ceramics studio, a fiber arts center, a wet media room, and more.  There is a fitness room as well as a cafe for just gathering.  It has a school like set up where the participants choose with help their 4 focusses for each semester. I SO hope this works out for her as it would greatly expand her horizons.  The program needs to review her information and her psychiatrist has to look at the medication issue but it is at least a potentiality for 2015 to have a great opportunity for her.

The kids and I have had a lot of fun playing the games our family got for Christmas.  Games are always family games so no one person has ownership.  We have rocked out to Dance Revolution 2015, played Slamwich, Nada and Super Farkle.  Oh and Scrabble Slam which is a lot of fun as well.  In our house, games that you can do in about 15 minutes with a max of about 30 minutes are the best fit for our schedules.  All of these work well within those constraints.

I've marshalled the troops and they have happily spent a lot of time helping to undecorate our house and put up our snowman collection and tidy various messy spots within our home.  A family our size and a home our size seems to make a lot of messy spots.  I wish I kept up with that better but at least twice a year I get a chance to hoe through things really thoroughly, usually in winter and again once in the summer.

My wife was able to take the kids in to the city to see our friend Jane Houghton's art show at the Hanover.  She is an amazing artist and has taught our KC so much and continues to foster his artistic leanings.  The kids loved the show and her amazing mixed media work.

We read our 2014 memories together over supper the other night and enjoyed that too.  All year long when something happens that we want to remember, a family member grabs an index card, jots it down and puts it in an envelope that hangs on our kitchen wall.  They can be big things or little things.  Campouts, seeing ducks crossing the road near our street, sunsets rainbows, and physical achievements--anything can be written down.  It was fun to recount them together and to wonder what new things the year will hold.

I know that January is going to be very hectic at work and that on the 20th Rob will head back to school for the next semester.  Part of me feels very unready to launch back into the crazy.  But I know that once it has been going for a few days, it will be normal again, and I will at least be entering it with a more rested frame of mind than I have had in a long time.

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas at our house, the door is open wide. (well not in the picture or you'd miss the pretty wreath!)

We've pig piles on the sofa and laughter has filled the house.

The cinnamon buns are on their cold rise for tomorrow's breakfast buffet. There will be the aforementioned buns, but also eggs, vegetarian sausage, vegetarian canadian bacon, grits oj and coffee.

                                                                                     Pies have been baked. Fiona's birthday cake hasI

 been made.  Pears have been poached.  We had a lovely festive Christmas eve supper.  Then we piled into the living room to watch "The Santa Clause"

After the movie, we read The Night Before Christmas, and the littles showered.  They have now hung their stockings and are abed.  However, Fi and Rob are still up, watching The Grinch.

This is so great, having everyone here. That in itself makes this the best holiday I can remember.  

Happy and Thankful

The holidays are hectic but I guess at heart, I really LOVE hectic!  Today was the first dance class party.  My kids take multiple classes so there will be another party on Saturday.  It is so much fun to see how excited the kids are, to share in goodies together and just kick back and chat a little with kids and parents alike.

I also had a huge gift from my boss who let me take a shorter lunch and leave work earlier as a result. This meant that the traffic which is always horrible at this time of year did not make us late for picking up KC and Lissa's friend and heading to dance class.

Another joy is that my wife got offered another cleaning contract through word of mouth.  This would be for an office in our city and she is very happy. She thrives on being her own boss and her good work and reputation are all ready getting out there in a short period of time.

I am happy that the weather is allowing my teen and his gf to go to the movies tonight.  Their prior date was postponed due to a heavy snow storm.

I am happy that tomorrow is my last day of work until December 26th.  I could not get a lot of time off this year but I am going to make every second of it count.

I also got a really nice email from the folks at the group home where Fiona is moving. Things have been a little tense with them lately and this email definately represented a change on their part and a real reaching out.  I am thrilled.  I am also lucky in that Amazing Jane wants to keep in touch with us, even when Fi moves out of the Great School.  She and staff are also eager and willing to keep in touch with Fi.  She said that on the one hand it is not what is recommended for therapists, but that she will no longer be Fiona's therapist and she feels that above all, Fiona needs to see that people do not just disappear from her life when she moves. There has been too much of that.

I talked with Rob last night about the fact that I am going to try and help his sister be in contact with their first mom.  I want him to know that he can be part of that or not, as he chooses.  I am not upset or threatened by contact and want him to do what is comfortable for him.  Although he was not talkative about this, his body posture and expression was one of ease--a marked difference from the time a year or so ago that I had to explain to him that his first mother had another child and was raising her. Rob is very much the "still waters run deep" kind of guy.  His body and expressions speak volumes though.

I still have presents to wrap, I may send my cards on Valentines Day, and the house will not be tidy on Christmas Eve. But I am still brimming over with happiness!

Holiday Prep x 2

 It's October baby!  That means it is time to start working on Halloween costumes.  This is Lissa hard at work turning lovely white fur lurid pink with sparkles so that she can be transformed into a glamourous werewolf.  LOL  She worked really hard on this.  I am going to cut the pink fur into strips and she will glue it onto jeans and a furry hoodie with fabric fusion glue.  We will also make anklets and wristlets from it.  Have not figured out the tail thing yet.  Or ears. Gad we need ears too. Pink werewolf ears! ROFL

KC on the other hand, has the tail thing all set for his werewolf costume.  He borrowed Rob's tail.  Rob went through a stage where he liked to walk around with these dangling off his jeans.  I have no idea why.  Clearly my fashion sense is impaired.  Thankfully, like many teen fashions it has gone the way of other fashion faux pas.

This is KC's start on his werewolf costume.  We have a really warm hoodie and he is attaching "patches" of fur so it will look like he was transforming into the wolf while still wearing his human clothes.  It looks cool, but he has decided that he has to take some light browns and white or gray and tip the edges of the fur so it will tie better with the color of the tail.  I guess if you are of artistic bent the fact that you are wearing this in the dark does not matter. It has to flow together and make sense. :-)


It was a fun project for them as KC was stuck inside today on day 2 of a head cold. Thankfully it doesn't seem too bad but he typically needs to get a lot of extra rest when he is ill.  And he had to miss dance class which kills him.  I wonder if Rob will dress up this year?  Even last year he did (Lil Wayne)  but I am not sure about this year.

I also have to get cracking on Chet's costume.  He has a vision of being a giant head of lettuce and somehow the body of the lettuce head is supposed to conceal the candy bowl from which he will dole out treats to the kids who ring our bell.  At one point this all made some kind of sense to me (or else i was delusional) and I happily agreed to help craft it.  Now it seems rather um, challenging so I need to spend some time thinking about that.

Added to that my wife and I are going shopping to put gifts on layaway tomorrow. I am actually excited as this is the first year since Lissa was born that my wife has been able to do this with me. typically up till now, the buying, wrapping hiding et al, has been on me.  With her schedule being even crazier than mine, and the depression that often hits her at the holidays, she had no energies to devote to it. We have tomorrow morning free and I thought that perhaps doing it earlier would also be better for her emotionally. K and I rarely are out together with out the kids. This is going to be a fun date!

American Girl

The flood of catalogs has begun.  I try to get them into the recycling before the kids see most of them. But inevitably, some squeak by me.  The kids pore over them and wishes and dreams are voiced.  Yesterday, the American Girl catalog came.

Lissa could care less.  KC kept trying to show them to her.  She kept on ignoring him. Finally when she was in bed, he sat down and pored over it for himself.  He wants an American Girl doll in the worst way.  He read the stories of each doll aloud to me.

And you know what rots?  I don't care one whit that he wants an American Girl doll. But the only way to get a boy American Girl doll (OK I fully realize how weird that part of the sentence looks) is to buy the Bitty Twins shown above.  I can't have the only kid who wants a boy doll.  Can't we have American Boys?  Sigh. I see Itty Bitty Twins in our future.