Time Flies when You’re having FUN!

I just figured out that I’m getting old.  Last week, I figured it out.  All by myself.  Yep.  Old.

The KID that wore the pharmacist badge in the drug store couldn’t have been more than 13 years old.  He didn’t even shave yet.  Isn’t pharmacy school the long version of college?  I’m not getting old.  He was probably homeschooled.  Graduated highschool at 9 years old.  Yep.

The nine-inch zipper on the front of my jeans… is quite lovely.  I can’t imagine a two-inch zipper!?!  What’s the point?  And the back!  Gaaawww.  Say “NO!” to crack!  “Moms will love the nine-inch zipper” is TRUE even if it was on SNL.  We love it for everyone.

Where did these four boxes of Christmas ornaments come from?  We just got married… just a while ago…  seems like last year…. could it really be 23 Christmases ago?  We’ve celebrated baby Jesus’ birthday 23 times as married folk?  That means I was 13 when we got married, if I remember right.  I must still be in my 30’s.  Right?…. Anyone?….

Forty-something-year-olds are almost 50.  That’s half a century.  Old.  That’s the middle ages.  Ouch.

And when did they start letting pre-teens work at the post office?  I thought for government jobs you had to be 18?  I think the postal worker was wearing root beer glossy lip gloss and a training bra.  Goodness.

The phone rang last week.  Caller ID read “Telemarketer.”  Total no-brainer.  Don’t answer.  Well, I knew I needed to clean the whole kitchen and I thought the mental distraction would be proactive on my part.  Plus, with caller ID, who do these poor telemarketers talk to anymore?  The decision was made in a nanosecond. I would take a survey.  I would be the nice person.  I would make Mr. Telemarketer’s entire evening by being cheerful and peppy with my answers.  Come to find out, it was about jams, jellies and preserves!  I love jams, jellies, and preserves!  This would be more fun than I originally thought!  Well, question #3 was “What age group do you fit into?”  I’m always in the third group, I thought patiently, waiting for the age groups.  His monotone voice began, “Group 1: ages 18 – 21, Group 2: ages 22 – 25, Group 3: ages 26 – 29, Group 4: ages 30 – 34, Group 5: ages 35 – 39, Group 6: ages 40 – 44, Group 7: ages 45 – 49, Group 8…..”  I hung up.

The stupid jam guy said I was old.  Group SIX!  Nearing Group SEVEN!  That’s how I figured it out.

It’s the Holiday Season

After all the pictures of my messy house in pre-home visit haphazardness, I decided to let you see a glimpse of our Christmas house decor now that things are put straight and purty.

Jesus and his posse are on the piano this year.  There is far more room in the stable now, because there was no room in the inn.

My favorite part of getting ready for Jesus’ birthday is getting out all of our ornaments and reminiscing of those who gave them to us, or where we purchased them.  When we go on vacations, we try to remember to buy and ornament for the tree.  This is our first year where we’ll have two trees, but the real one that will inevitably drop pine needles in my shag carpet is not being purchased until Dec. 19th, the day after Rick and I get home.  So the fake Jenny Craig blue and silver tree is up and shining, but the remainder of the not blue and silver ornaments are still in their boxes.

My second favorite part of getting ready is finding the on-sale decorations that I bought last year.  I never remember them!  It’s like opening surprise Christmas presents to myself.  This year was no exception.  I found these silver balls and pinecones in their packages… all ready for the silver snowman basket.  So cute… and there’s mirrored disco balls too.  Perfect for the Crosby Christmas Dance-Off.

Because the Nativity scene took over the piano top, the Christmas village moved to the entry table… and of course, any pilot’s Christmas village has a hangar and an airplane or two.  Duh!

Here’s the love birds that are sitting behind the lit archway… it’s so cute.  He’s playing his accordion and singing to her…. probably “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

All we need is a roaring fireplace, some hot cocoa with marshmallows and some snow outside.  Well, one out of three ain’t bad.

Frantic Frenzy

As I was eating bon bons on the couch watching my soaps this afternoon I got THE phone call. (OK, if you only knew how that is SO NOT me! It simply sounds inviting to me on days like today.) More like: I was STILL homechooling my boys at 4:15 p.m. today at the kitchen table, when I got THE phone call. The news was kind of expected, but the timing was POOR, to say the least.  Our homestudy needs to be updated and the only date our case worker had comfortably available was in two weeks.  Well, in two weeks, Rick and I will be on a cruise ship eating at the midnight chocolate buffet.  The dear is from out-of-town so she looked at her already full calendar and suggested Thursday at 1:00.  THIS Thursday.  I had no choice… I said “ok”.. and then I looked around and wanted to cry.  I have about 39 hours.

Before I show you the highly top-secret photos of the messy state of the Crosby union, I have to let you know what was ALREADY on my schedule between now and Thursday at 1:00.  1. drop off son for car pool 2. visit my mother 3. Bible Study Wed. 1:30 – 4:30 4. speaking preparations 5. pack my book sale stuff  6. fill up the gas in the van 7. speak at MOPS Thursday morning an hour away 8. homeschool   9. pedicure 10. date night with Rick.  As you can see, I had to cross a few things off.  And added to the list: 11. throw all Christmas boxes in the garage  12. scrape piles of stuff under the couch, in the oven and into the laundry room.  We also need to do something about the broken trampoline poles… they don’t look adoption safe at the moment.  Too much WWF from my boys.  They use the poles to swing up on the roof over our patio…. the perfect jumping off place.  (We call it the “fire escape” for the upstairs bedrooms…. out Keeve’s window on the patio roof and safely onto the trampoline.)

OK, just to vindicate myself, these cluttered pictures do not mean our house is DIRTY… just messy… from Christmas decorating that didn’t actually happen yet.  I sadly share tonight’s photo essay:

The kitchen table:

The computer desk:

The living room:

The dining room: (the lamp does not belong there!)

The family room:

The pantry:

Yes, the kitchen is not included in this messy montage… it is unordinarily clean at the moment with freshly baked peanut butter cookies cooling on the racks.  Seriously!

OK, I do realize that instead of taking pictures and writing a blog I could’ve been working on the mess… but that’s no fun ALONE!  Tomorrow I have three willing and able elves to help with Christmas decorating for baby Jesus’ birthday and homestudy cleaning.  :o)  Say a little prayer for the Crosbys, please.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

So, I’ve been coughing for four days.  On day #3 my wonderful husband located and purchased the famously horrible Canadian cough syrup, Buckley’s.  It’s been at least 6 years since I’ve tasted that putrid concoction.  Man, is that creamy white liquid potent.  It’s a cross between drinking Pinesol and Vick’s vapor rub.  It certainly cleans you out.  But sadly, I’m still coughing.  Enough about me.

Then new ICBF waitlist for adopted children just came out!  It is the Colombian government’s official list of the ages of those kids who went to their forever homes.  It does my heart good to see movement and know those 10+ kids will be home for Christmas.  However, it is truly sad how long these families have waited.  The shortest was 4 months.  That’s just a plain fluke.  Most were between 40 and 52 months.  And that is from the time of their accepted referral.  So add on all of their paperwork, homestudy and fingerprint time!  Wow!  We are at 23 months currently. For the last 5 and 6 year olds that went home, the families waited 12 and 30 months.  So we should be sooner, rather than later.  Whatever that means.  I’m hopeful.

Last night we did the family thing and put up the Christmas tree together while Christmas music serenaded us LOUDLY.  I had not been out of the house for three days and was donning my pink fuzzy jammies and wild bed-head, so I made many threats to those who insisted on videotaping the occasion.  I know they got me when I wasn’t looking… and they’ll pay for it.  Not that I’m into retaliation, but a moms gotta do what a moms gotta do.  We put up the slender Jenny Craig tree in the living room with all the blue and silver ornaments, ribbon, lights and beads.  It’s quick and easy, doesn’t take up much room and looks festive through the front window. 

As I was digging through the ornament box looking for white, blue or silver ornaments, I vaguely remember leaving 60% of the ornaments in the box last year… the red ones… brown ones… green ones.  So, I made an official decision, followed by an announcement that we would have two trees this year.  A fake, skinny blue and silver Jenny Craig tree in the living room and a real, fresh, full pine tree grown in Oregon with all the other colored ornaments in the family room.  My relations were elated.  They begged to head off to Home Depot RIGHT NOW!   Alas, it was too late.  And they don’t have vivid memories of dead pine needles in the shag carpet…. I know the value of waiting until Dec. 19th to buy the real tree!  Freshness is where it’s at, baby.  Plus Rick and I are going away for 5 days, and who would water the tree???

There is much more decorating to be done.  The opened boxes are all over the downstairs staring at me.  But I coughed too much and needed a nap.  They can wait until tomorrow.

 

Take Me Back

Last night we opened the box containing Christmas videos… yes, only three days prior to Jesus’ birthday.  At least we found it and got it opened!  Ten years ago, our youngest son was born mid-November.  Being such a youngster he played the part of baby Jesus in the gigantic Christmas Spectacular at Phoenix First Assembly.  My Dad works in the video department, so we were blessed with three different tapes from three nights of baby Keeve being held up the air, half clothed in front of 7,000 people and blinding lights.  He was so darling, if I do say so myself.

From baby Jesus, we moved onto Larisa being a pauper girl when she was 4, dancing and looking adorable and dirty all at the same time…. same show as above… different year.  I love the results from pink spongy rollers!  (Look out, Zaza!)

THEN.. the highlight of our evening was a video our kids made with the help of their favorite babysitter, Ashley.  They were 2, 4 and 7.  We laughed so hard… and then played it again and laughed even harder.  Austin, at 4, was wearing these white Elvis pants that were supposed to go on the front legs of a large dog….  need I say more? Yes!  He was bare chested flaunting a gaudy gold necklace and a black wig.  Yes, he sang Blue Christmas by Elvis.  See a trend here?  His performance included the lip snarl and hip gyrations.  Made his daddy proud.  Larisa followed with a ballerina choreographed performance of the Nut Cracker.  I don’t think we realized how good she was at the time, but for a seven year old, it was amazing.  (She is a choreographer now for a drama troupe.)  And Keeve….. cute Keevey… we completely forgot that he lisped his S’s… and there’s two in Merry Chrithmath.  We re-wound the lisp several times until we couldn’t take it anymore for the pains in our laughing bellies.

Good times.  Takes me back.  We’ll have to make some videos this year that we can crack up over in another eight years.

NOW it feels like Christmas… fa la la la la!

The goal upon eyes opening this morning was to get the Christmas decor set straight and the boxes thrown in the garage.  With three children instructed to complete the task given and report back for the next task, all was done in only two hours.  Marvelous!  Here is a peak at winter in Arizona… holding the prominent location at the entry table, Mary, Jo and the baby Jesus…. along with various animals, angels and others.  Precious Moments nativity pieces are the only thing I really collect… and with the entry table full and some angels still hiding in their boxes, I don’t know if I really need the lighted inn, the palm trees or the wisemen on camels.

The table is set and the snowmen are smiling.  So am I.  The cheesy plastic snowmen placemats are for every day use to protect the table cloth.  All was lovely and bright and in place for approximately 13 minutes before four blobs of Crunchy Taco Hamburger Helper missed the cheesy plastic snowman and hit the bright and clean table cloth. {{{sigh}}}  (Yes, votive candles are on my shopping list for the little snowflakes… and nuts and candy for the empty squares.)

With no snow in sight, we do what we can.

Without warning, I was overcome with emotion when I pulled three Precious Moments Baby’s First Christmas ornaments from the box, knowing that one is missing from the tree.  The minute I discover Zaza’s birth year, I’m on eBay finding her ornament to complete the set.

Yes, my Christmas tree is blue.  I love blue.  It makes me feel cool under our clear blue skies of December.  Merry Christmas!