End of the Year

So, I spent most of this week transferring our home videotapes to DVDs. It was so amazing to go back over the girls' early years, watching their transformations from babies to toddlers and on. About late 2005, Fiona starts taking on the look she had when she got sick. Her hair was really long and her manner was incredibly engaging.
I am not just saying this because I was her mom. I would watch people turn and watch her in the grocery store and smile to themselves. She was very outgoing and articulate. She would get extra cookies from the bakery at the grocery store, without asking. Once when I was getting another key for our car, the owner of the dealership ( I didn't know that he was the owner) took one look at her and went to a display case, took out a teddy bear, and gave it to her. It felt like she had gotten an extra sprinkling of sugar, a double extra sprinkling of spice, and a bunch more of everything nice before she got here. Everyone knew who Fiona was, I would hear things like, " Oh! You're Fiona's mom."
While I watch the videos right before she got sick, it's a bit like watching a train headed for a wreck. You know what's going to happen, but you are powerless to warn anyone, much less stop it. I just keep waiting for the first video to show up after she was diagnosed. If I could've warned us, I am not sure what I would've said. Something horrible that happened to you as a child is going to happen to your sweet little baby? Everything will eventually be okay?
I am not sure how much, if any, video we took while she was ill. Our video camera was dying and I don't think that was something that our much needed funds were going to be 'wasted' on. Now I wish that we would've replaced it and documented her experience more. Most of what she went through is recorded only in the mind of Fiona and myself.
Oh! We do have some video while she is balding and chubby. Maybe if we would've made more video this wouldn't be so shocking. She's so little. Her voice is so high pitched and squeaky. She is singing and dancing and playing with her sister for the camera like nothing is wrong. It's so heart breaking and yet inspiring at the same time. She is still Fiona underneath the steroids and the missing hair. I might have to try and figure out how to upload this little interview she had with her dad around Halloween of 2006.

Not so Silent Night

So, we had a great Christmas Eve spent with friends and tons of food. We got home and managed to get the girls in bed. Thank heavens they had run themselves out at dinner and by the time I checked on them at 9:30pm they were out cold. So was their dad. Seriously. He was snoring by 9:30pm! This left me to get Christmas all together by myself. I turned on It's a Wonderful Life. Did you know the running time on that movie is only 2 hours 9 minutes. Half of the time I don't watch it on TV is that I don't want to commit 3 and a half hours of my life to watching one movie. Maybe I should just break down and buy the movie and that way I won't have to be stuck.

So I kept sneaking out of my room and stacking presents by the tree. Is there really anything more cheerful than a Christmas tree with presents under it? Now that they are all gone I want to take the tree down because it looks a bit sad. Then I did the stockings and managed to turn off the lights before 11pm. Unfortunately, Christmas is apparently some sort of different holiday here in Texas because at 12:06am I awoke to the sound of fire crackers. Like the kind that Kevin lights at the back door in Home Alone. I was so exhausted that I couldn't get out of bed and yell out the window what exactly our neighbor could do with his noisemakers. He lit several strings and I am not sure if he stopped or I just passed out again. What a moron. Maybe I should print out the lyrics to Silent Night, underline a few passages and tape it to his front door.

Fiona told me that she and Buttercup woke up at 1am and didn't go back to sleep. We told them they weren't allowed to get up until 6:30am, our normal wake up time. But I kept hearing stuff through my sleep and finally I got up at 6:15am. I swear I get less sleep Christmas Eve as a mom than I did as a kid and I start out fully prepared, nothing to assemble, nothing to wrap. I slap a few bows on a some presents and that's it.

The girls had a wonderful Christmas. There were so many great deals close to the end of the year I think I am going to start a special fund for those things. Of course, I think it helped that retailers were so desperate this year.
Buttercup made out in the clothes department. What really happened is that I managed to find some good deals, mostly at Old Navy, and used that chance to resupply her wardrobe. Poor girl, she grew several inches in the last couple of months. Old Navy had skinnier and longer clothes. Online they have talls as well, which makes me so happy.

I spent the rest of the day trying to not take a nap, talking to my siblings and just enjoying a day of doing nothing. It's surprisingly hard to not clean stuff. I figured if I can't take Christmas off then I have a serious problem.

Then we continued our family tradition, since we moved to Texas, of having Mexican food for dinner. I got a cookbook to our old favorite restaurant, Chevy's, and we had shrimp and steak fajitas, followed by too many baked goods.

Afterwards, Fiona convinced me to sleep with her and I got 9 good hours of sleep, which hasn't happened in months. Poor TD, he just has sleep issues and it was making me think I had problems. It was nice to sleep with a quiet little girl who doesn't kick or make noise.

Say Hello to My Little Friends

You know, the ones that have been keeping me from writing my totally entertaining posts that everyone is on edge of their seat waiting for.

Anyway, a lot of my time has been spent this month hanging out with these dudes
Which I have been enjoying. I have also been enjoying hanging out with muddy buddies which I would show you a picture of, but I hung out with them entirely too much and I am sorry to say, as of yesterday, they are no longer with us. Plus, the window on my season of debauchery is closing and I am not sure I can legitimately squeeze in another recipe. Rats! I have also been chilling with these which used to be my totally favorite cookies, but now my gingerbread recipe has edged past them for taste and also the lesser calorie count! Meaning, I can eat two of them for the guilt price of one of the sugar cookies. The cookie on the left is known as Mom's cookie, or as TD refers to it, sprinkles with a hint of cookie. What can I say, I really love the sprinkles on my cookies, or doughnuts, or even a good cake sometimes.

And finally, these lesser players have been taking up my time as well. Which doesn't give them any less of a special place on my thighs, I mean, in my heart. Especially the toffee...mmm. Anyway, all of the extra cooking has taken up my time and kind of eaten into my thinking time. (haha). So I have expected all of you to keep up with your posts to entertain me in my down time but not reciprocating.
I am sure the next few weeks will be full of presents and children fighting and end of the year wrap ups, hopefully having the girls home won't diminish my wanting to post more often.

Epitome of Irony

My husband's Aunt offered to send a book that belonged to Td's great grandma. She helped raise him and we thought it was eerie that the weekend I moved in next to him, his great grandma passed. It was sort of a passing of the torch. While I never got to meet her, I will be forever grateful for the influence she had on him. Not only that! But she was born to a Mormon family in Idaho. TD has more LDS ancestors than I do and wasn't really introduced to the church until we got married.
So, Robbyn sent us a book that ended up being her Christian Scientist scriptures, which I found fascinating. Even more so, she has written a lot of thoughts in the pages of the book. Td remembers his great-grandma having the book.
Anyway, the irony was that I found her chart card from the Medford Physicians clinic, she must've been using it as her bookmark. So, clearly, she was liberal in her worship. I just found it wild that that would be the thing she was using as her bookmark.

Snowed In

Not literally. But it's starting to feel that way. I had a pretty good handle on the season and then one good flurry and I am buried! Somehow, I managed to sign up to be Buttercup's homeroom mom. I am still not sure how that happened. It doesn't help that her homeroom teacher is a substitute step teacher at the Y. So I already knew her before Buttercup got her as a teacher. But the party is next week and I just found out yesterday.
Then both of our girls belong to church groups, Fiona to the 8-9 year olds, which I do activities for twice a month and then Buttercup to the 10-11 year olds. Buttercup's group has decided to have some extra activities which I have to come up with Buttercup's part. Plus, I still have to do my activity for the month. Thank heavens for great friends back in Portland. I had an idea that I needed help with and once again, Ranell is coming through for me.
Then I started wrapping presents and TD and I have this thing where, just about anything purchased in December goes under the tree. If someone needs a new shirt, it gets wrapped and goes under the tree and everything gets it's own box. That's all well and good until it's time for me to wrap and then hide them. Things that were shoved into small areas to hide, aren't well hidden after they are boxed and wrapped.
Thank heavens TD has finished two sets of classes and shouldn't be buried in his computer constantly for the next couple of weeks. At least he will be around to help herd the girls.
I guess I would take this in exchange for being physically incapacitated. No surgery or wrecked ankles this year, knock on wood.