Hello Kitty Coma and Star Wars Bliss

Merry Christmas everyone (3 days late)!! What a nice nice week we are having...I am just loving this week off (thank you university closure and holidays!) I have been off work since Friday, and we have been goofing off almost all week.



Monday afternoon the kids opened up their presents from grandma K from Arizona--mostly clothes, but my kids love getting clothes so they were happy. Monday evening was my family's Christmas party where we went to my oldest brother, J's, house and had a Christmas dinner and presents for all the cousins. Simon and Gwen have ten cousins from my side of the family, so he had fun playing with all of them and being silly all night.

This was the first year we actually went out and bought presents for all of my nieces and nephews. My older sister and I always try talking everyone into picking names or adopting a family or something but no one else E.V.E.R. wants to do this, and we usually opted out of the *buy-something-for-every-kid* part of Christmas due to limited funds. However, I guess I was feeling guilty about not buying presents for people who have been buying presents for my
kids every single year and decided to try to find something for each cousin that they would like this year. I think we did ok--except for my nephew, S, who is 13 and some kind of mad scientist. :) The remote control airplane we bought seemed pretty lame after we saw the *lightening machine* he built in the basement. I'll have to think more high tech next year.

Tuesday morning Santa had delivered presents to our house and the kids were happy that Santa got them EXACTLY what they asked for, and not some extra stuff Santa thought they might like but then never use. So, this year Simon wanted an inflatable solar system (which was a lot bigger than I expected, but he loves it!), the latest 3 Star Wars Movies, and the strategy guide for Star Wars Lego: The Complete Saga (which, btw, is actually useless to us since we don't have this game nor do we have the proper system to buy it, however Simon insisted he get this particular strategy guide--ok!). All Gwen wanted was a doll house and a teddy bear, however Santa did bring her a Hello Kitty blanket because we have a thing about blankets around here. The kids also opened up their presents from our attorney ;) and they loved the card game and Beatles lullaby CD. (Thank you also for the cool T-shirt, game and chocolate!! Oh, how I love the chocolate!! It rocks!!!)

After opening up presents from Santa, we loaded up the car and made the long drive to Grand Rapids where grandpa I and Aunt S gave the kids even more nice things, so they were having an extra special spoiled Christmas. Gwen is officially Hello Kitty and Disney Princessed out. I never ever thought in a million years I would have a princess girl. I know I say this over and over, but I have given up and let the pink side take over. The girl has never even SEEN a Disney princess movie, but I tell you whatever evil mastermind at Disney decided to combine the likes of all princesses and market it to little girls better have received some really big bonus (and have a special dark place in he77 reserved for him/her) because I haven't been able to get the girl out of the pink pajamas in 4 days now. Sigh...I give up. Hello Kitty is cool, but princess? I just give up...she loves it...she is 2...I will just keep repeating those things over and over again.

Simon watched all three Star Wars movies already and read most of his strategy guide...and our house is full of planet beach balls...he is a very happy boy.

As if this wasn't enough, Aunt M from Georgia and their other cousins from Georgia sent a bunch more presents for the kids which they opened on Wednesday morning--mostly clothes again which is nice because then I don't have to buy any new clothes this year :) and again the kids really love clothes...this is so weird to ME since I remember being horribly disappointed at Christmas if Santa brought me clothes instead of a toy...ha ha ha....oh, well!!

But presents aside, this has just been a nice nice nice week. The presents are nice (but unnecessary--but GREATLY appreciated) but just having time to wind down and rest and relax and do absolutely nothing except watch bad movies and eat gobs of chocolate (I received a lot of chocolate this year--woo hoo!) is all I care about. Not having to work, write papers, think, etc...I am really thankful and amazed at what a nice week this has been. I am glad we opted to be pretty darn lazy after Christmas because last year was a bit too chaotic for me trying to make sure we saw every friend on the planet. This year it is couch potato week and I am enjoying every bit of it!!

Tomorrow is gaming day for the guys at our house, so the house will be filled with gaming buddies and what not...however, it is also my older sister's anniversary and I had already agreed to babysit before this game day was planned so the kiddos and I will be over her house tomorrow night. But then I still have 3 more days off after that, so I will be enjoying every lazy minute of it!!!!

Yeeee Haa!!!

The semester is finally over. This one was more grueling than the previous two, for some reason. Especially December. Since Thanksgiving, until yesterday, we never had a day to spend together as a family. I had to take every available moment to go to the library to work on papers for one class or another. But, now I can take a break.

Over the last few days I've made the rounds to the local game stores (video, not board) and picked up a few tidbits to keep me occupied until I return to classes in January. I bought Star Ocean, Dark Cloud 2 and Bard's Tale for the PS2. So far, Simon and I are both enjoying Dark Cloud. It has a very cartoony feel to it, but also very deep gameplay on both a story and mechanical level. Along with fighting your way through dungeons and moving through the plot, the main character also has a camera with him which he uses to document "ideas" which are then used to "invent" new items that you use in the game. It's quite well done. I haven't had the chance to try the others yet. It is nice that he and I can play games like this together now. It's a single player game, but we can take turns with the controller. He likes to explore more than he likes combat, but its a blast that we're enjoying the same hobbies.

Also, based on my attorney's recommendation, I sneaked out alone last night to see the new Will Smith movie, I am Legend. I'm a big sucker for last-man-on-earth movies, and also zombie movies so I couldn't resist the combination of the two. I was a bit annoyed by the hokey religious element at the end, but overall I quite liked it. To sum up, I liked that it was introspective and was more about humanity than about zombies. I liked how the struggle to save humanity was mirrored by the protagonists personal struggle to stay sane and I enjoyed implication that the zombies were somewhat sentient. The basic story element to save the zombies was also a nice change from the usual plot to kill them. Good stuff.

I should probably re-rent 28 Days Later, and I've never seen its sequel, 28 Weeks Later. I'm also kind of interested in 30 Days of Night, just because I also like vampires and Alaska, but I have a feeling any fun in these films will be primarily on a visceral and not an introspective level.

All in all the holidays are off to a good start. Good games, good movies and more time to spend together as a family. Also, we're planning a big board gaming day at our house on the 29th and it is looking like we may have 10 or 11 players going from noon until we all pass out from gaming-related exhaustion. Woot!

Oh, and lest I forget, Simon has been saving up for 10+ weeks to buy a Lego X-Wing fighter. It was on backorder but it arrived in the mail at the same time that he saved enough of his allowance to buy it. We finished assembling it together yesterday before I went out to shovel. I always wanted an X-Wing when I was a kid. I'm overjoyed that my son is willing to save for months to buy toys that I've been wanting for 30 years.

Like I said, "Yeeee Haa!!!"

Who Ordered All This Snow?

The weatherman was right--we were buried in snow today...makes us wish that we had a working snowblower...poor Hawksbill shoveled it all by hand today while I tried to clean the inside of the house, so we are both exhausted now.

Hawksbill finished his final exam and papers (woo hoo!) and other than having to go in one day for his internship next week, he basically has the next 2-2.5 weeks off!! Woo hoo! Again! One more semester to go!!

We never ended up getting Indian food the other night...just cheap pizza and cheesecake...good enough for me. Maybe when things clear up a bit we can go out. We did all go out Friday night and see, Alvin and the Chipmunks, which was cute, not great, but what do you expect? I was suffering a bit of sticker shock, however, when the ticket bill came to $29 for two adults and two kids!! Geez!! It hardly seems worth it when you know you could buy the DVD in a few months for probably half that price.

Simon and Gwen decided they needed to tell jokes today...they usually start out with some standards and then make up their own. Gwen's favorite is, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" to which she always takes about 10 minutes to get out her answer, "Because he wanted to... because he getted to the other side!!!" This is followed by her repeating this joke 100 more times....Simon's favorite today was the classic, "What time is it when the elephant sits on the fence?" Which we all know the answer to...but then he starts making them up...so we get...
"Why did the chicken lay an egg?" "Because it had CHEESE in it!!"
"What time is it when an ant sits on a lego?" "Time to get the ant off the lego!"
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" "Because he was walking!!"
"Why did the chicken eat cheese?" Because he was a CHEESE chicken!!"

I don't know about their future in stand up, but they were certainly amused today. :)

2 More Hours....

I am taking my countdown very seriously...Hawksbill is taking his last final exam as I type this and should be finished by 5. I cannot wait until he gets home in (hopefully) about 3 hours. Of course, I would feel better in two more hours if I didn't have to go to work next week, but alas, I do...oh, well...

I am trying very hard to enjoy today but it isn't working out very well. I worked all day yesterday but then put in another 2 hours last night before going to bed. I don't think dreaming about work counts as work hours, but that is all I had to dream about last night...only to wake up to emails that made me less than happy from coworkers who work very hard to avoid doing anything...I usually don't write about work and I try VERY hard to avoid the topic, but today happens to be my birthday and I really wanted to take today off and not work at all...so instead of baking a cake or cookies, I am yelling at the babies to stop climbing on top of the kitchen counter and jumping through the window leading to the funroom, cleaning up a full cup of hot cocoa that darling Gwen spilled all over the counter which had the really sweet birthday card from Hawksbill, my mom, plus a few new Christmas cards, trying to keep Gwen from formatting our hard drive (she is going to succeed one of these days, I can feel it!), and trying to get twenty hours of work done in less than eight hours so we might be able to go out to dinner tonight.

So, dear Simon and Gwen, I am sorry mommy is a crab today, but it isn't going exactly as planned...

Sorry for the whiny post. In general life is wonderful and I am thankful for everything, my babies, and Hawksbill...but I would really just like some sugar cookies and Indian food...or maybe Pizzapopolis (sp?) or some other incredibly comforting food :)

One more week

So, Hawksbill is at school today for his last day of Thursday classes. Next Thursday is final paper/final exam day, but this is the last week of classes. I don't remember the last day we all hung out together--maybe Thanksgiving???

Hawksbill gave me an early birthday present of a digital camera!! Yay!! No more running to have pictures developed and then having to scan them all in!! Woo hoo!! Also, no more spending a ton of money of developing a bunch of pictures that didn't turn out quite right...of course, now I am worried that I won't have anything developed but I guess I can keep online photo albums, right?

Simon and Gwen are enjoying this 1/2 inch of snow we got this week. I, for one, am NOT enjoying the cold this week. Maybe it will snow some more and warm up a little.

Just one more week...I can make it, right? I am so over this semester. Then next semester is it for Hawksbill...I still can't believe it. I think I posted before that I told a friend when HE completed Grad School, Simon would be three and I couldn't imagine Simon being three...but I told Hawksbill Simon would be 6 and Gwen would be 3 when he finished Grad School...and it will be happening in about 4.5 months...wow...time flies...I don't know ...I am glad time is passing quickly so Hawksbill will be finished with school, but I miss Simon and Gwen being babies and tiny...they seem so big now...ah, well. Enough babbling for me...I just can't wait until I can see Hawksbill again when he ISN'T working on a paper or studying for an exam :)