Brusha Brusha Brusha, with your new Ipana

Quick Maia story of the day...

I had just gotten Maia ready for school and we were going to head down the hall to leave the house... I thought I would stop off in the bathroom to grab a tissue. Of course, when I walked in the hall bathroom, Maia followed me. (We have to keep the door closed at all times for obvious reasons...) Anyway, I walked in the bathroom with my back to the hallway as she followed me in. I grabbed a tissue and turned around - and in THAT amount of time, she had gotten Matthew's toothpaste off of the counter (which he leaves TOO close to the edge AND without a lid!) and she had the toothpaste in her mouth and had sucked SO much out of the tube that it was oozing out of her mouth!

I GRABBED A TISSUE! That's it!

This isn't the Taj Mahal of bathrooms... it isn't even a large bathroom - a regular, standard hall bathroom built in the early 80's. I walked in, grabbed a tissue and turned around!

That's my Maia!

Luckily, she was wearing blue and the blue toothpaste was quite a nice accessory with her outfit today. No pictures, use your imaginations!

The Perfect Storm

well, this title is representative of my perfect christmas tree this year.... the perfect tree - which has led to a perfect storm... i don't always have the best luck with my christmas trees... i've had strands of lights go out in the middle of the tree after it is decorated and impossible to take off a strand of lights (because i wrap the lights around the branches so that the middle of the tree lights up as well) of course, i've had trees die and just look plain terrible before christmas day. i've even had a few trees that have had a stroke, where literally ONE SIDE of the tree dies and the other side looks beautfiful. i've had trees where strands of lights have every OTHER light that works, AFTER i've decorated the rest of the tree. i've had trees that scratch the ceiling when we put it up and left a mark on the ceiling. you get the idea... i've had my issues with my trees!!

but THIS year it's different. THIS year, we picked the perfect tree. so far, it is still gorgeous. the lights look GREAT, the ornaments were perfectly placed, it continues to take up lots of water each day. i sat here wednesday morning in awe of my perfect tree while i ate my mini-wheats. just look at this beauty (before we even had any ornaments on it!)

then i went to get ready for work... and it happened.... my perfect tree, the gorgeous lights and perfectly placed ornaments, the straightest in the stand tree i've ever had... came crashing to the ground in my living room. no... maia was isn't the room! she was still in bed, my parents were still downstairs and matthew was in the kitchen getting his cereal ready.

i didn't really know what i had heard - but it was LOUD and lots of breaking glass... i actually thought it was dishes from the dishwasher that someone was unloading and they fell down. anyway... of course, it wasn't anything but my big beautiful christmas tree. glass was EVERYWHERE! if it had happened in the middle of the night... i would have called 911 as i would have thought someone broke a window to get in the house. anyway - what a shock and what a mess! matthew and i tried to put the tree upright, but couldn't! it is just too big. at this point, mom came running upstairs to help - but she said we needed grandpa. what a rude awakening for him! anyway, it took us like 45 minutes to clean it up, put it up, and then, you ready for this... TIE IT UP? yup, you read it right, it won't stand up on it's own any more. we have no idea why. the stem is perfectly straight. i've used this tree stand for years... it is as tight as possible in the stand - and yet it is now top heavy some how - so we got out the fishing wire so that it would be invisible... well - that wasn't strong enough, so we got out good old fashioned white rope to tie it to my bannister. wow- that really makes it look festive! NOT!! something right out of the beverly hillbillies! my poor, gorgeous, perfect tree, tied up by ugly white rope!

aren't you ENVIOUS?? :-D

i only lost about 15 ornaments though, we think... but we actually keep finding more we've lost, like this one, today!

isn't is beautiful?

to go back in time, here are pictures of us picking out our first tree with maia!

we loved this one... but my house isn't QUITE big enough...

maia didn't quite understand what we were doing, so she enjoyed playing with the rocks...

The only other decoration i have a picture of is my village (or part of it.) i put it up HIGH this year so it wasn't an extra temptation for maia... it's on top of my hutch but i actually love it. it looks great from the living room where the tree is.

my sister regan sent maia's christmas present and said we should open it early, so we did. she enjoyed opening it - it's her first nativity scene! and she can say "JESUS" very clearly!! it's awesome! the one thing we don't understand is the horse that came with the set... check it out at the end of this section of pictures!

can you see it's mowhawk?? what's up with that??

maia sliding.

mom and dad went to a christmas party tonight and looked great! this is the only picture where one of them isn't blinking - 9 out of 10 pictures, dad blinks. the ONE he didn't... mom DID! i almost dies laughing - we have the hardest time in this family getting pictures with EYES OPEN.

lastly, here is the big hole dug near my foundation last saturday to fix the leak around the water main connection (which I had to replace 3 years ago when i moved in...) the people who put it in apparently did a terrible job and i got a new company to come fix it right. they had to re-concrete and re-tar, but we got some torrential rain this week and NO LEAKING... so i suppose it is worth the money. besides, i really didn't have a choice! i'm sick of paying plumbers though - i'd like to keep some of my money for something OTHER than plumbing.

so, that catches you up a bit on the past few weeks around here. pictures will NOT load over a wireless connection for me on blogger, so i took the computer in the basement tonight and hooked it up directly to the internet connection. so, finally i've been able to put some pictures on here. now that i know that works, i'll try to do it more often!

i hope everyone is enjoying this lovely season. enjoying time with family and friends. enjoying time for reflection and quietness amongst all the craziness of the season!

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!

holiday fun

hi everyone. i am playing with the backround for a change of pace... it's hard to reset all the colors though, so hopefully you can read it all without too much problem.

i just added a few holiday polls. answer just for fun. i wish there were write in spots. if there is a way and i'm missing it, let me know!

our tree is finally up, with lights and ornaments. it took a week to get it all done, but it is done and it looks gorgeous! the village is up too. things are starting to look festive around here. i hope it is all done soon so i can sit back and relax - at least regarding the commercial parts of Christmas. i am done shopping, at least 90%, and am 50% wrapped.

got our first dusting of snow today and it is slick on the driveway since it is so cold. i went to the store for milk with no problem, but i did slip in the driveway (with my feet, not the car.) at least i didn't fall down! i've certainly been known to do that before.... how embarrassing!

my parents came today for a week or so here with us. the plumber was here a long time today to fix a leak in the water main line as it comes through the foundation. poor man had to dig a hole in the freezing earth and hang out in the mud all day. he made good money doing it, but i still feel sorry for him, especially today being so cold! now, i feel sorry for me too having to pay so blasted much but i wasn't about to do it myself! he had to re-cement part of the foundation around the water main. the pipe itself was not leaking. now to dry out my carpet in the basement walk-in closet. what a mess! at least it is done, we hope and pray!

maia has surprised me with her LACK of touching the Christmas tree. I really thought by now she'd have scaled the thing, so I'm pleased that she is listening to the "NO touching the ornaments, Maia" commands. Of cousre, I still did my best to put the non-breakable ornaments at her level... so we'll hope this trend continues.

maia has a few new words... Christmas tree is shaw-shaw-shee. and Santa is Aw-Shaw. I know these aren't real words, but she says them consistently, so they are her words for these things. it is adorable.

matthew was at his dad's house last night. they ordered chinese food for dinner. matthew brought home his leftovers. i was famished at lunch today and asked if i could have some of it. it was Peking Duck. It was absolutely delicious. Now, what makes me laugh about this is that matthew told me this was a $24 dinner!! good grief! i must be cheap, i would NEVER spend that on dinner, especially take out. don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but wow. now, it made me laugh because in essence I was eating a dinner matthew's dad and step-mom bought for him, at quite a price, and i was eating the left-overs! there are still some left for matthew, i really just wanted to try them, but i did find this amusing. i'm sure their plan, as nice as they are, was not to buy me a $24 dish for my lunch. LOL. it was good............ i just hope i can go back now and eat my kun pao chicken when i'm the one paying for it! :)

tomorrow is the battle of the beltway... redskins vs. the ravens. it is a night game. tomorrow is going to be a high in the 30's with wind-chills in the teens... and that's mid-day. i can not IMAGINE how cold it will be at the game tomorrow night. wow. i hope they don't freeze, i hope the ravens win. no, i hope the ravens kill the redskins! i hope matthew can get out of bed on monday morning for school.... i'm allowing him to go because he has pulled up three grades in the last two weeks and i think he deserves a reward for his work. there is another game next sunday and he's going to have to continue his good trend to be able to go to that one!

December already??

wow, i simply can NOT believe that it is already december! this year has flown by. i recenrly looked back at pictures of maia from when i met her... which doesn't seem THAT long ago, and she was this tiny little 'baby'. now she is a true toddler - no longer a baby at all. i can't believe the end of the year is upon us and i get to celebrate Christmas with her!!

we put up our tree on friday. my brother was here for thanksgiving and i needed help getting it in the house and up in the stand since i can't do that alone... so we decided to do it that day rather than wait until this weekend when my parents would be here. it takes so long for me to get the tree up, and put the gazillion lights on that i put on, and then the ornaments that i needed this extra week just to get it all done. as it is, i've only gotten the tree up with the lights... the ornaments will be tomorrow since we've had busy evenings this week so far. matthew didn't want me to do it at a time he isn't here. maia has been good so far with the tree, so we'll see how it goes with shiny ornaments on it!

i took 120 pictures (digital) on sunday just so i could get a good enough picture to put on our Christmas card. there were about 8 decent ones i could choose from - but not the stunner i was hoping for. they are great pictures though and certainly capture their personalities - so i'm happy about that. i've never done a picture card before, so this is all new to me. :)

the mortgage business isn't done being awful yet... two more co-workers from my old company got laid off today. one of them had worked directly with me when i was there. i know from experience that they are better off to be out of there, BUT that doesn't make it any easier to lose your job, when jobs are tough to come by right now, AND during the holidays. it really stinks. i'm not exactly sure what gets in to companies heads regarding this... the mortgage business has stunk for two years now. really bad for over a year... and they can't wait 3 more weeks (until after Christmas) to lay people off? i just don't understand the timing sometimes - but that's what makes me all the happier to be out of that business altogether. life is so much calmer and less dramatic now. work used to be a soap opera. now, i go in, i work and i go home. i have good friends, i love what i do, and there is no constant drama or stress. it is just wonderful and a blessing to be in this new environment. i hope my two friends realize that soon and are able to find new jobs, soon!! good luck guys.

time to try a few pictures - let's hope these upload tonight! :) happy december everyone!! ok, it didn't work, crashed my server again, so i'll upload some on shutterfly that you can check out there... enjoy! www.ourjourneycalledlife.shutterfly.com and see my pictures!