Christopher, Christopher, Christopher...

While I'm burning what feels like 100's of 1000's of CD's of the Primary Program songs for 2008 for Christmas gifts for our primary kids (only 50 but somehow feels like much, much more), I thought I'd give everyone a "bit of Christopher."

He's starting a tap dance class with a couple of friends and is very excited about his "tappy" shoes. His teacher told him boys make the best tap dancers and all the famous tap dancers are boys. So on the way over to class today he says, "I bet if I keep taking tap lessons I'll be the best tap dancer in my school. I bet I'll become famous. And if I'm famous it will be easy to get lots of girlfriends. And I bet they'll be HOT!"

He's 6.

And if all the Hot Girls aren't excited about the tap dancing, they will be about this:

Tonight at bedtime:
"Mom, today at school my friend dared me to pick up my poo and squish it in my hand. I did it... but I washed my hands really, really good!"

Goodbye, Dan Fogelberg

One of my favorite singers, Dan Fogelberg, died today. Jenny and I listened to "Leader of the Band" album endlessly in high school. I'll never forget sitting in the car overlooking Bear Lake, rewinding "Same Old Lang Syne" over and over so we could memorize all the words. (Remember how important it was to have the words of the song memorized in high school!!)

Still love to listen to the album on road trips. Love to sing along at the top of my lungs while the rest of the car has their headphones on watching a movie. But Dan indulges me the walk down memory lane as long as I don't hit "repeat" too many times.

The lights are up!!

At 7:00 this morning the bells jingled on the front door as it opened. Nicholas sat up in bed (my bed) from a dead sleep and blurted, "Is Santa here?!" Not quite, but almost as good... Dan had gotten up early, early and hung the Christmas lights! Yea! He also got the ones across the fence that I'd hung working. So we're officially ready for Christmas and Rachel and Aunt Marge and holiday cheer.

I just asked Christopher if he could turn the chicken off. How often do you get to say that. (The singing chicken from the limbo game -- sooooo annoying... yet so addicting. Anyone else with this toy?)

Christmas Decorating

Life is getting pretty complicated when not only do you have to decorate your home for Christmas, but also your blog. I've spent the better part of the last 7 days and long into the nights trying to figure out all sorts of complicated html and reviewing several websites for do-it-yourself templates and had zero success.

I'm pretty computer savvy -- was actually the website manager for our preschool website many moons ago and in what seems like a previous life taught software classes, wrote guides for the elusive NeXT computer software and solved all problems computer-related at the ad agency in Dallas where I worked. So I know my way around a computer -- at least I did 13 years ago. Times have changed and while I don't know what I'm doing, I'm not afraid of trying to figure it out. But I also know when to throw in the towel. Called Sheree first thing this morning... "How'd you do it?!! How do I get a personal header?!!" Well she walked me through the two-step process that's very obvious on the Customize page and has nothing to do with changing html.

So I'm officially blog decorated for Christmas. (By the way we don't even have lights up on our house!! The last two Saturdays we've had huge snowstorms so Dan couldn't put them up then and he's been traveling during the week. We did hire a guy after Thanksgiving but he never showed up. In addition they were sold out of 18 foot Christmas trees at the lot so we don't have our entry tree either! We are really Grinches this year and we don't even mean to be!!) But at least my blog is decorated.

I also got sucked into downloading old Christmas videos from our camcorder. That too was a software fiasco (even on the Mac) but several late nights later and a software update and I'm hooked up and ready to go. Thus the video of Christmas 2001. And since I'm the mom, once I get started watching the past, I can't stop!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2001

I'm Back!

So I'm home from my awesome trip, caught up on laundry, Primary, Christmas, school and home stuff so that now I get to take time to blog! That and I had an early Christmas present... Today is early day (kids come home from school at 1:15 and I dread it because I really like my quiet time while Nick is napping -- even though I do love my kids tons!!). Marty's friend called early this morning to ask if he could go over after school -- YEA! Yes he can!! And Christopher starts yelling in the background, "Ask if I can come too and play with Will!" And instead of being a good mom and teaching him that it's rude to invite yourself over, I was in the kitchen crossing my fingers and hoping...hoping, "Please let Will's mom say 'Yes.' Please let her say 'Yes.'" YEEEESSSSS!!!!!

So it's 3:00, I've done all that I need to do and now I'm checking in to say hello and report on our most awesome Thanksgiving vacation on the Disney cruise!!! (And also noting some new blogspot post features that I need to check out. Hmmm.)

Sooooo... The Friday before Thanksgiving our family flew to Orlando to finally go on our cruise that we'd been planning with friends for about a year! We stayed at a wonderful hotel across from downtown Disney and started out by immediately watching several episodes of Hannah Montana. Because we don't have cable at home. And mom and dad had a door that could be shut in between rooms.

After everyone was well assured that 24 hours of Disney channel would be available after we got back from dinner we jaywalked across 10 lanes of road (although not much traffic) and hit Downtown Disney for dinner. We'd been to Rainforest cafe so didn't have to wait in the 20 minute line to get your name on the 1 hour wait list for dinner. Whew. No wait at the Seafood restaurant but the moment I ushered all the kids in I could tell by their panicked, bulging eyes that they could smell the same strange fish stench I could and we rushed out for fresh air. Instead went to a very overpriced Italian restaurant. Lots of crayons and butcher paper so everyone was happy. Topped off the evening with dessert at Ghiradelli's and paid the 50 cents so Nick and Chris could ride a little train after and came back and watched more Disney channel. Again, lots and lots of happiness.

The next morning we were off to Port Canaveral. The most exciting part of the one hour drive was spotting alligators along the side of the road! We also received much political advice from our van driver who wasn't a big fan of Rudy Giuliani.


I think even the seasoned Disneyland-goers have to agree that Disneyland is a magical place and upon arriving at the port and seeing the great mouse ears festooned on the nautical-red ship stack towering high above everything else in sight, we were in awe knowing we got to "live in Disneyland" for a week!

Part 2

Wow! Just used the staple gun for the first time hanging Christmas lights along our fence. It was very fun -- usually a tool that I don't really want to be bothered with -- too much potential to fire a staple into my face when my brain doesn't register that I shouldn't pull the trigger when staring at the staples. But I used it safely and successfully hung a row of lights. Too bad I didn't check first to see if we actually had power in the electrical boxes. We don't.

I'm in the mood to get back to blogging about the cruise. Courtney and friends are cooking in the kitchen. My computer is in the kitchen. Quiet time is over and for the first time am seeing the benefits to having a laptop so I could remove myself to somewhere else.


As we cleared Disney security, we met up with two other families who we've been friends with forever. We've been talking about taking a family vacation forever but have new babies between us for so long that it's been difficult. Finally, however, we did it!


When you check in you receive a boarding number. While you wait you take pictures with Mickey, register children for kids clubs and buy lanyards so said children can wear their room key cards (which also have charging privileges so they can purchase smoothies, arcade games, candy, souvenirs, etc. Wise to limit charging privileges or give kids big lecture so they don't go crazy. (Actually I have to say ours did pretty good about asking permission after said lecture.)



Our numbers were called and we got to enter the ship and take our arrival photo! As us moms rushed off to make adults-only dinner reservations and spa appointments the dads and kids went to get lunch up on deck.

Funny spa story... we tried to get massages for all three of us girls at the same time. They didn't have three separate appointments but could fit us in with one individual appointment and another "couples" massage. So my first couples massage was with Tiffany. I loved checking in at my appointment and having the receptionist say she couldn't find my reservation. "Oh...check under Tiffany." She tried to look unaffected as she found the appointment and looked up at me..."Here it is... a couple's massage?"

We changed to robes and then I noticed that the toilets were out of order. The masseurs had to stand guard while we used the men's bathroom. I guess given that we signed up for a couples massage and used the mens rooms and Disney is a family ship, they believed we were unpredictable so they left the lights on during the massage and covered our eyes with dry tissue paper. After all was said and done they asked us to get dressed then sit on the edges of the bed and wait for them to return. Tiffany and I looked at each other -- never having been interviewed after a massage. They returned and essentially got after Tiffany for having so many knots in her back. I didn't get a lecture. Next time I'll skip the massage.