Holiday Shopping

When one works full time and has a husband whose job takes him away for 24 hours at a time, one takes any time one can get to sneak in some holiday shopping. I am the one I speak of. Nearly every day this week I have trudged out of the office over lunch to shop (Target and the Ridgedale Mall to name two destinations) as I have desperately tried to check off those last few gifts on my list.

On Wednesday I found myself at Ridgedale. I only had an hour so I was a woman on a mission (when aren't I??) with a list in my head of my stops and a well-planned map of how I would get to them most efficiently, grab some food and make it back to work. I was in Macy's in the cosmetic department, had made my purchase and was briskly walking toward the door leading back into the mall. I was stopped in my tracks by a man at a makeup counter wearing more makeup than me who declared, "Let's touch up your eyebrows." Instinctively I reached my hand up to see if by some strange fate they had disappeared while in the mall. Nope, still there where they have been for nearly 40 years now. I then responded, "Touch up my eyebrows???" To which he replied, "Yes, don't you want me to touch up your eyebrows." At this point I wasn't sure whether I should laugh, stomp away or take him up on it. I chuckled and then as politely as I could muster responded, "No I don't think I want you to touch up my eyebrows." Of course now I have been asking anyone who will listen to me what is wrong with my eyebrows. I even emailed my friend in Florida who assured me that my eyebrows are just fine. My friend Carol however, was kind enough to remind me that my Florida friend hasn't seen me in quite a few months. Geesh -- leave it to a pretty man to give me a complex about my eyebrows!

Last night I took Ryan shopping to purchase a gift for his teacher. This is the first year he has expressed great interest in doing this and he (rightly so) is very fond of his teacher this year. I thought this will be easy. Boy was I wrong!

First I took him to a neat store in Maple Grove called "Good Things." It houses lots of unique gifts you can't find elsewhere. Surely he would find something in no time. His choice, a small plastic chandelier that lights up. I think it was actually some sort of gag gift but Ryan declared it very pretty and I had a heck of time convincing him to put it down. He decided there "was nothing good" at Good Things so off we headed to Bath and Body. It didn't take long and we were now 0 and 2. O.K. Carol maybe this won't be as easy as you thought.... I preceded to ask Ryan what exactly he wanted to buy. I suggested we go to Pier One. 0 and 3. I realized this was going nowhere fast and obviously Ryan had something in his mind but wasn't sharing it with me. I suggested Kohls and he enthusiastically said yes.

Once inside he was a man on a mission heading straight to the jewelry. It seems his heart was set on giving his teacher a necklace but he had been too afraid to tell me this. After much searching we settled on a pretty silver necklace with a neat phrase written on it. I thought it appropriate for a teacher. We boxed it up along with an ornament he got earlier in a cute Santa box and he plans to give it to her tomorrow.

And how has your shopping been?

Anna's Holiday Celebrations

This week has been Anna's week to perform. Last night (Monday) was her Christmas program at her dance school. The girls all dress up and preform several ballet and tap dances to Christmas Music. It was very cute to say the least. Bill and I both commented that you can tell this is her second year of dance because she knew the dances much better this year having performed them last year as well. Here are a few photos of her.

Anna waiting to perform

Anna in first position


Skipping in one of her dances


Spinning like a ballerina

Rocking around the Christmas Tree in her tap shoes

Tonight was her Christmas Program at her preschool. The kids march in shaking jingle bells and perform several songs. This too was fun to watch. However I think quite possibly when I put Anna's tights on her that I accidentally dropped in some jumping beans as she quite literally jumped up and down nearly the entire time she was up on stage. That was coupled with smiling and waving to me every minute or so. For the past few weeks she has been singing the songs to me while she takes her bath at night but it appeared tonight she wasn't so sure about her singing for she didn't really sing until about the third song. Here are just a couple photos from tonight and they aren't great because I was too far away -- I really need to take a photography lesson!!

Anna 3rd from right getting ready to shake her instrument

Anna with her maraca

Anna with Grandma Lambert after her program

Surprise! I Haven't Dropped Off the Face of the Earth!

O.K. o.k. already -- enough harassing from some of you. I know I suppose I deserve it for being so delinquent in posting but seriously -- you have been just as busy as me and likely with the same things. :-)

I am happy to report I am 90-95% done with my shopping. Each year the shopping becomes a bit more challenging as my 9 nieces and nephews get older -- most are teenagers now -- but I still like to try to find something I think they will like. After all -- isn't that the whole idea for gift giving -- to think of a person and try to imagine what they would like? Unfortunately despite my plans I haven't wrapped a single package yet. Soon, soon....

This weekend was non-stop from the time I got to work on Friday morning until about 9:15 this evening when the kids were finally asleep. I had a fun Friday night with my sister Kim (technically sister-in-law but we don't get along like in laws :-) !!) shopping at Rosedale. We are so funny when we get together -- we lose track of time and we laugh a lot. We got hung up in Herberger's trying on boots not realizing that while they were open until 12, the rest of the mall closed at 9. We didn't make it out into the mall until 8:50! We did get some nice boots though!

On Saturday Bill and I had vowed to do a major clean up on the basement in preparation for our first year of hosting his family for Christmas Eve. We have a lot of donations that just needed to be logged and bagged/boxed up so we did that and Courage Center will be here Wednesday. We also bought a really nice coat closet/drawers piece of furniture that Bill assembled and we put inside the door to the basement from the garage. Now all our coats, hats, mittens, boots, etc. are housed nicely and out of sight. I told Bill when we were all done at about 1:30 this morning that my only comment was, "why the heck didn't we buy that a long time ago??!!" Our family room basement area no longer looks like a "dump all" area. The kids even liked it too.

Today was day one of a work segment for Bill -- he works Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and then is off for six days so we will be together for all of Christmas. We will cherish this year as next year reality comes back as Bill has to work Christmas Day. Boy do I get off track quickly.... Anyway so the kids and I holed up at home the whole day -- I only ventured out to grab the paper and let the dog out. I got all the beds stripped, got all the bedding washed and the beds remade, cleaned Ryan's room, cleaned my room, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed and am on load number 8 or 9 -- I've lost track -- of laundry. The only thing I didn't get to today was any baking. Nor did I wrap up the Christmas Cards -- guess we all know what I'll be doing evenings this week.

Well, the dryer just buzzed -- that is my cue that it is time to put in the last load and put this girl to bed. I promise to have some fun posts this week as Anna has her Christmas program at dance class tomorrow night and at preschool on Tuesday night.

Don't let this made dash to the 24th stress you out this week -- grab a cup of tea, cocoa or wine and savor the true meaning for this holiday -- it's NOT about he presents nor Santa but boy is that easy to forget.

It Seems Like Only Yesterday . . .

I have been taking a walk down memory lane the past few days. It seems Ryan's impending birthday today got me thinking. Ryan turned 9 today and I am left wondering where the past nine years have gone. Wasn't he just a baby??

I remember the day Ryan was born like it was yesterday. I woke up a little after two in the morning with pains I knew were beyond Braxton Hicks. I woke Bill and we started timing them. They stayed about 5 minutes apart for quite some time and slowly started to get closer together. My bag was packed for the hospital and had been for quite some time since my due date was November 20 and we were two weeks past that. Bill called the hospital to talk to the OB charge nurse and she told us to come in when the pains got about three minutes apart. That was my cue to take a leisurely shower (yelling to Bill each time a contraction started), do my hair and put on makeup (can you tell this was my first baby -- I had NO idea what was in store for me). Bill was getting very frustrated with me at this point because although he had delivered babies for Paramedic class and was prepared to help deliver this one -- his plan did not include doing this at our house. By the time we left for the hospital the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. It was about 6:30 in the morning and we arrived at the hospital right at shift change so it took awhile to get us settled in to our room.

The rest of the day seemed to stretch on. I had bad back labor which made me quite sick and in a great deal of pain. My stubbornness was not to my advantage that day as I look back now for I was insistent on no pain meds, no epidural, nothing. I went into my own little world and tried to get through it. Finally after more than three hours of pushing Ryan made his grand entrance at 2:16 pm. He was literally bright eyed and bushy haired (so that was why I had so much heartburn!). The doctor and nurse marveled at his alertness and chalked it up to how much past my due date he was.

Ryan was such an easy, happy baby. We moved to a new house only two weeks after he was born and he slept through much of the chaos. We were lucky -- for a first baby we were blessed with a boy who made us think we could have several more (after having Anna however we saw how outnumbered we felt with two and decided two was a nice number).

Today Ryan is still bright eyed AND bushy haired. He is growing up to be such a fine young man and we are so very proud of him. He is empathic to others and loves his sister dearly, he is smart and excelling in school and his twinkling eyes and toothy grin can't help but make you smile. I wanted to share a photo from the day he was born but I don't have one electronically. So instead I decided to share some photos from his birthday party on Saturday and his birthday dinner tonight. Enjoy!

Ryan and his cake

Ryan w/cousins Marah & Matthew @ Famous Dave's for Birthday Dinner

Ryan & Mom @ Famous Dave's

Ryan & Anna @ Famous Dave's with his surprise Birthday Sundae