Self Explanatory Christmas Post

We do the usual stuff, people, so I won't bore you with the details. You can add your own commentary if you want. I will interject here & there but otherwise ::doing the zip my lips & throw away the key thing::



My bro's in-laws live about 20 minutes away and they are nice enough to invite us over for Christmas Eve when my bro & his family are in town. We re-created the Nativity. Tbone: shepherd. JBird: Joseph. Minnie (my niece, not her real name, of course): Mary. Beebs: Angel (wearing my SIL's wedding veil). Chubberz (my nephew, real name jaykay): a sheep.

Christmas Eve gift from Grandma Milly--- jammies!!



Traditional Christmas morning on the stairs photo. I agree with Memzy. I really need to post more pics of me at 7am.

Santa is clever & wraps all his stuff in red & white stripe paper.

What's in all those tubes?
Princesses, fer duh.



If Playdough is the Spawn of Satan, then Moonsand is the Debbil himself.


Beebs in her new "dress-ups"


My fave thing we did this year was to make it simple & kid-friendly. I mean, it's THEIR day really so why was I forcing them to eat ham & potatoes & festive salads that they didn't like? This year we did Digiorno's and I sense a tradition brewing. They LOVED it. And so did I. No slaving in the kitchen and no complaining. I think to make it a leeeetle more special, next year I'll probably make the dough & we'll make our own little individual pizzas. We then forced ourselves to shower around 4pm and went and saw Bolt. Hilarious movie.

Some Christmas Music Observations By Tbone:

(while listening to "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"): Is this a true story???

I then realized how warped that song is. I mean either you gotta say, it's not Santa, it's the Dad, really (which is lame) or, as the lyrics say, "if Daddy had only seen"... and "hope Daddy didn't see".... it's creepy, you gize. Between that and "Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer" I think we give Christmas song writers waaaay too much leeway.

(while listening to "Feliz Navidad"): Why isn't the whole song in Spanish?

Great point by the Tbone.

Is this true you gize?

I'm at the grocery store and am sobbing uncontrollably
but I don't want to have to buy/open the magazine.

Testing this badboy out

Just posting this from my iPhone. My iPhone pimp is teaching me some
new "tricks"

Jingle Bellz, Batman Smells...

I'm not sure if you gize knew this but I went on a cruise last week. Yeah, I did. I got way into the Caribbean groove, ifyouknowwhati'msayin. I did not, however, get into the Christmas groove. They played Christmas music over the intercom on the ship occasionally and it felt so wrong. Dirty even.

So now I'm having to kick my joyeux noelle butt into high gear so I don't put my kids into therapy.

Here are some things I've been doing the last two days to get myself into the spirit of Christmas.... and it's working, you gize. Slowly but surely. I'll be a full fledged elf by Christmas Eve evening just in the St. Nick of time.

• Opening & reading the 20s of Christmas cards that were on "vacay hold" at the post office.
  
• Eating abnormal amounts of the Candy Cane Hershey Kisses (dang you Jespy for telling me about those!!)
• Making cookies for Santa with the kids
• Throwing away Halloween candy
• I bought flannel sheets for all my kids and I'm going to put them on their beds Christmas Eve. I'm all kindza giddy about this for some reason.
  
• Wrapping presents.
• Buying last minute stocking stuffers.
• I have my Scentsys chock full of Cranberry Spice going full force 24 hours a day.
• Making lists & checking them twice.
• Bought some cute casual Christmas dishes on sale at Targay for us to eat our Christmas Day Digiorno's pizza on.
• Using bullet points... tis the season.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas! Here's to hoping you get more than just coal in your stocking tonight.

Cruisin' By the Numbahs

Bullet points free of charge:

• 0= the number of McDonald's I saw in those 7 days. It was heavenly to be free of the tyranny of those golden arches.
• 0= the number of times I had actual hunger pangs on the cruise. I had "Hmmm, isn't it dinner time?" pangs. But actual hunger, no way, Jose.
  
  
  
  
• 0= seconds it took for me to adjust to cruise life.
  
  
  
  
  
  

• ?= days it will take for me to adjust BACK to my real life (I'll let you gize know)
• .5= the number of shades tanner I am.
• 1= time I barfed into the ocean due to sea-sickness while snorkling.
  
  
  
  
• 6-10= people who swam through my barf unknowingly.
• 4= times I called home to check on the kiddies
• 4= people I owe BIG TIME for taking said kiddies.
• 0= times we saw one of the live entertainment shows and didn't giggle at the male dancers.
  
• 7,000,045= cacti on Aruba. I was as surprised as you are.
  
  
• 2= souvenirs for the kids that were broken before we got home
• 18= times I said "I LOVE our room!" as I either laid on the couch, went out on the balcony or watched one of the two TVs.
  
  
  
  
• 6= times the kids said "Is that it?" when presented with the remaining souvenirs
• 4= famous virgin banana daiquiris consumed by the Landersons
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 38= times my skirt blew up on that deck onacuzza it was crazy windy.
• 1= times some creepy old guy in the gift shop said "Sure is windy out there, huh?::wink::"
  
• 5.5= pounds Gty & I each gained. That's ELEVEN ellbees between the two of us, people.
  
• 2= washes to get Gty's pants clean after four-wheeling through the rain forest of Dominica.
  
  
  
  
  
• 2= dollars we spent renting those boots. Best $2 ever spent.
  
• 9= times I almost died scootering through Puerto Rico with Hector
• 1= Hector
  
  
  
  
• 40= years of blissful marriage celebrated by Phil & Milly
  
  
  
  
• 85= degrees average in the Caribbean right now
• 7= degrees at the airport upon arrival
• 3100= people our ship could hold
  
  
• 100= iguanas hanging out on the rocks in St. Thomas
  
  
  
  
• 47= Diet Cokes with lime consumed per day (minimum)
• 45=minutes we had to wait before embarking because Milly "didn't dare not" check YES when asked if she had had diarrhea in the last 10 years.
  
• 27= times I looked out of our balcony to see Phil out on their balcony (2 doors down) contemplating life deeply as he stares into the vast ocean (this pic was totally NOT staged, you gize).
  
  
  
  
  
• 9= total days & nights away from the kids
• 1=dollar I had to pay this kids for looking at his creepy albino armadillo.
  
  
  
  
  
• 1= dollar we had to pay this lady for getting our picture with her (and her eyes are closed... what a ripoff).
  

• 522= our room number, Dophin Deck, portside

• 207= self portraits Gty & I took (some examples below)
  

• 2= of my favorite people in the whole world.
  

Even the Best Laid Plans....

... go to crap.

I had it all figured out & calculated so that I would be no where NEAR our mall in the month of December.

Cut to Puerto Rico. I turn on my Mac & check some stuff. I go to bed. I wake up. Gty turns on my Mac.... it beeps three times like some kind of alarm & refuses to turn on.

I fret.

I feel like my BFF has just died.

I lug the corpse around for the remainder of the trip.

I have to go to the freakin' mall (where the Apple store is) today.

Traffic is horrendous & it takes me a solid 15 minutes to find a parking place in the same zip code as the mall.

I have an appointment with the "Genius Bar" gize (reason #1647 to get a Mac).

Colin, who is 12, I swear, fixes my computer in a matter of minutes (bad RAM you gize, it had to be "re-seated").

I am now working on my cruise post. It would have been too much of a pain to post from my iPhone & like I wanna use one of the crappy PCs we have around here. No thankies.

So here we are. I'm knee deep in laundry but I'll do my post. For you gize. I'm sooper selfless this time of year.

Virtual Christmas Card

I was too lazy this year to write up anything in my Christmas card. Instead I just directed everyone here. Then I started thinking I better leave something here worth reading while I'm bon voyaging in the Caribbean. I mean, who wants to look at some generic iPhone when they could be looking at the out-takes from our Christmas card photo shoot? No one, that's who.

So, if you're here from the Christmas card, welcome! Bookmark this site NOW! You totally won't be sorry. Just kidding. This site is way lame. Ask anyone. But here is a little update on us since my card was so information deficient.


So here are my kids in their coordinating outfits. They will all be one year older in January. JBird will be 9. TBone will be 7 and BeeBee will be 3. What the? How did that happen? Totally annoying.

Here is Miss BeeBee. She is my first kid who I do not want to get any older. JBird was the first so I was always looking forward to the next stage. TBone was a little squirtmunch so I couldn't wait for him to outgrow the 2s and 3s. But BeeBee is my widdle punkinpunkin pies. I love her stage right now. I would love for her to stay this way forever but then she'd be considered developmentally challenged eventually and the doctors would probably get involved. It'd be like The Curious Case of BeeBee Landerson... only different. Sorry...what am I talking about? Anyway, she is my lover of all things princess and pink. I'm baffled by this as I got a Tonka truck for my 2nd birthday. It's fun though. We share lip glosses.

Tbone is our martial artist. He is now an orange belt in Tae Kwon Do and only uses his powers for good. He has recently become a fan of school (before that, not so much). This last year he went from Pokemon obsessed to Digimon obsessed to Bakugon obsessed. The Japanese are geniuses. I bet he'll go to Japan on his mission. The greatest thing that has happened to Tbone in the last year is he is finally developing a bit of a conscience. This has been beneficial to everyone, believe me.

JBird! My man. My helper. My rule-enforcer. He is the ultimate big brother. Bossy in all the right ways yet empathetic to his siblings' plight. He has started babysitting for us now & then and has done a tremendous job. He is still the athlete of the family playing sports year round. He started flag football this year & dominated on defense. No flag was safe with the Jbird out on the field.



Then there is my little entrepreneur, GtyCent. He continued to work his butt off to provide for my expensive taste in jeans. Just kidding, you gize. Wait, is Gap considered expensive? I mean, look at him.... he's so important that he HAD to take a phone call in the middle of our photo shoot. If that doesn't tell you something then I don't know what will. Anyway, he is still flying back & forth to Utah every other week and it has, surprisingly, not killed us yet. We each have our "Gty is out of town" routines and "Gty is home" routines. Both have their pluses so we're fine with it (i.e. one plus is that when Gty is out of town we just have cereal for dinner--- score!). He is also kickin' his own butt & has lost 40 lbs. He's like the Incredibly Shrinking Man or something.

Then there is me. Gty took this pic. I look so glamorous with the wind blowing my hair like that don't I? I'm not up to anything particularly fancy or note-worthy. I did take a fun trip to Forks, WA in October. If you want to read about it click here. It was some serious good times. And don't ask who those people are I went with. You don't know them. But yeah, still loving Colorado. Still loving our ward here (it's true, ward people!). My new mission is to teach everyone the running man & blog my little heart out. I'm just srsly so blessed, you gize. ::winkwink::

I'll be back on Sunday, December 21st slightly tanner. I'll be thinking of you & you & maybe you while I sit on a beach of perfect white sand reading gossip magazines or by the pool of the ship sipping my virgin pina colada or snorkling in the perfectly clear waters of the Caribbean.

Miss me!

I'm Busy, you gize....

... figuring out my new iPhone!



Merry Christmas to me! Oh, and I got one for Gty too. It is a glorious day.

I feel like I'm out of the dark ages. I watched my SeattleSix YouTube video on it just because I could (it's been viewed 76 times, btw).

Technology is such a time saver/waster.

Good news: Unlimited texting (fer duh), internet access, email, GPS, now I can listen to the Twilight soundtrack on my phone, etc.

Bad news: No longer on Verizon (this only affects a few of you).

We can still be friends though, right?