12 Days Of(f at) Christmas...

See what I did there? Clever, right?

If my title didn't give it away, I am officially off work until January! Pretty excited to say the least.

Although, my first day off started out with this:

My new favorite drink is the Flat White from Starbucks. And FWIW, I dig the red holiday cups.

It was shortly followed by this:

I've been having some trouble with numbness in my fingers so my doc scheduled an MRI. On my first day of Christmas. {sad face}  I don't know if you have ever had an MRI but holy cow that was loud! But, I think the scrubs add a little something to my overall look...like about 50 pounds.

I then proceeded to a couple stores by the mall. Because I'm cray-cray like that. No pictures as it was every man for himself and I was afraid of suffering the wrath of last minute shoppers.

I did come home to this:

Which is a picture of my people chopping wood for THIS:

And THIS is something I can totally get behind. I hope to see a lot more of this over my remaining days off.

Currently, I'm sitting looking at this:

Which makes my heart happy. 

And I'm currently eating one of these:

Which Mark and the girls made while I was at work yesterday. If you don't recognize them, here is a description the girls printed out to attach to the plates they are taking to the neighbors.

Kolache

A traditional Czech pastry with fruit filling like poppy seed (the most traditional), cherry, lemon and apple. The poppy seed kolache can also be called orechovnik or makovnik, in the modern words. In the past, kolache referred to and Czech pastry that was round and had a filling. The symbolism of giving kolache to neighbors and friends is sharing good will and holiday cheer in preparation for Christmas and Three Kings Day.

I think they can give all the poppy seed ones to the neighbors. ;-)

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Responsibility

This morning, in my usual Saturday fashion, I was unable to sleep past 6 AM. Which totally makes sense since on weekdays, I'm having to drag myself out of bed at 6:45 so I'm not late for work.

As I was sitting there drinking my coffee, I heard Peyton's shower go on. I was thinking she forgot it was Saturday and was going to be super annoyed. About the time I realized what was going on, Mark came out and said "I completely forgot Peyton was taking the ACT today." Oops.

Peyton was not excited about being up early on a Saturday. She was not excited about taking the ACT. She was stressed, nervous, irritated, and completely annoyed with us. Yet, in the back of my mind I could only think "She is becoming responsible!!"

All through her breakfast, she was complaining. As she was getting ready, she was complaining. Before she left, she was complaining. But, still, I was happy. She's becoming responsible!

We tried to talk to her, but that only seemed to make it worse. And then I started to get annoyed with her bad attitude. Which also made it worse. Shocking, I know. But, at the end of the day, I'm elated. She's becoming responsible.

And I couldn't be prouder.

Baby showers, busy-ness, and boring

The blog has been pretty quiet lately. I keep teasing the girls that they need to do something "blog worthy."

I did get to host a baby shower for my friend Jamie. It seemed to go well. There WERE a ton of people in my house though. Enough that we had to open the doors and windows because it was way too warm. And my mail box got mashed. But, that was more funny than anything.

We seem to be just generally busy lately. I got to take a day off to hang out with some girlfriends last week. I miss hanging out with them like we used to. The girls are studying for finals. Peyton has the ACT coming up. They've had a couple choir concerts.

See? BORING!

I even looked on my phone to see what photos I've taken. This is all I could come up with:

Seriously though, I have gorgeous friends, don't I?!? And they are all amazing. I'm pretty lucky they let me hang out with them.

And now? Christmas...

Sales 101

What have you been up to? Oh, not much. A little of this, a little of that.

 

The girls and I spent our weekend at the St. Mark's Christmas bazaar. It was fun getting to hang out with them. It was also fun to watch their sales pitches. I am terrible at marketing my own products so they were in charge of selling. :-) Syd was sure to tell everyone that the wood for the signs was at least 40 years old and from our property. And she would always tell them that everything was handmade...including the flowers. She told anyone, even if they weren't interested. But, it's good practice.

We ended up having some things left over, which is actually a good thing in my mind. I want them to know that things aren't always easy. I get the feeling they thought we would sell out all our merchandise right away. It's a good lesson that things don't always go according to plan.

And now, they are super excited to list things online. Works for me!

A Stroll Down Facebook Memory Lane...

If you're not on Facebook, this post might seem a bit odd to you.

However, if you ARE on FB, you may have seen the Facebook Memory photo pop up on your news feed. Lately, the ones on my page have been complete tear-jerkers! It's just another reminder that the girls are growing up SO fast!

The first one that hit me hard was this:

 They were so little.

And the next day, I got hit with this one:

Seriously Facebook!

Some of the others that have popped up:

Yikes! I'm not sure how much more of this I can handle. I'm not usually the most sentimental when it comes to the girls growing up.

At least I didn't used to be. Sigh.

Setting Goals

We recently had a goal-setting session at work. Historically, I'm not much of a goal-setter. I am a planner, but I don't think these are necessarily synonymous. I have definitely not EVER been a "5 year plan" type of person. This fact is super annoying  impressive to my husband. I'm sure you can imagine.

But, I wonder if we're doing the girls a disservice by not teaching them these skills. I thought parenting would get easier as they get older, but well, I was SO wrong!

It seems like time is slipping away so quickly, and there is so much we still need to teach them about being adults. And then, I realize that I'm a sucky adult sometimes. So, what the heck am I doing teaching them anything?

I wonder if I could suggest a class to the colleges "Adulting...all the things your parents should have taught you but didn't." My girls know the basics, how to do laundry, feed themselves, change a tire, etc. But what about things like doing taxes? Mark joked that they would actually have to be motivated enough to make some money before they have to worry about taxes. What about budgeting? Right now, we have a "family account" with each girl having a debit card. However, our great intentions of this teaching them about managing an account flew out the window. Basically, it is now me just putting money in there on an alarmingly frequent basis. So, high five, right?

But in all seriousness, there are a lot of things that we don't even know they don't know! How do you plan for that?

So, maybe I should become a goal-setter type of person. My first goal can be to figure out what the girls should know before they leave for college. My second can be to find someone to teach them these things that they will actually listen to.

Someone adultier than me.

I saw this on the internet and it seemed fitting...

Parents Gone Wild?

The four of us played hooky from work and school on Friday. We drove up to Moscow, Idaho to attend the University of Idaho's Homecoming game.

Here is our obligatory Dutch Bros./beginning of the trip shot...

 
We stopped in Riggins for Mark to visit his favorite "trip to Moscow" restaurant where he was super excited to get to eat a He Devil. I'm pretty sure it lived up to his memory. He and Syd also played a cut-throat game of pool.

 

 And I got to sit under this guy. So, there is that.

 
Then we got back on the road to be met with this:

Yay road construction!


The girls have been to U of I one other time, but I doubt they remember much as it was 5 or 6 years ago. Upon arrival, we headed directly to the bookstore to stock up on gear for the game. Then we drove over to Pullman, Washington since that is where our hotel was. As we turned onto our street, the girls noticed a couple of "interesting" stores.  Seriously, there were two pot stores within 100 yards of our hotel.

After getting settled, we ventured out for dinner. As we were leaving the restaurant, we saw this store...

Which made me think that a lot more folks smoke pot than I realized. ;-) Because, really Washington?!?

Saturday we woke up and headed to the parade. We wandered around campus a bit and then headed over to the Kibbie Dome.

Well, after one brief stop I guess...

 The girls were shocked that I was drinking a beer! So funny. And for the record, that was my only drink of the weekend.

The game was great! The girls really enjoyed the half-time show too.

And the Vandals won!! Which then necessitated this photo..

When we were walking back to our car we encountered our actual "Gone Wild" incident. This car drove by and there was a gal leaning out yelling/slurring "Go Vandals. Any way you can!" About the time we were going to have a talk with the girls about underage drinking, someone in the car said "Mom, seriously, get back in here!" LOL. Parents gone wild, indeed.

After the game, we headed to visit Mark's cousins for a bit. Unfortunately, we were so tired that we didn't visit very long before we headed back to the hotel.

And then today (Sunday) we headed for home. It was a great drive back with some beautiful scenery...most of which the girls missed...

After our visit, I'm fairly confident Peyton would be happy going to school there if that is where she ends up. She thought the campus was really pretty, and a good size for her.

Mission accomplished...

College seems to be looming large...

So, I received another "little" gem in the mail today. Just some light reading, right?

Peyton attended a college fair yesterday. She just took the PSAT, along with the rest of the Juniors and Sophomores in the country. How did this start sneaking up on us so dang quickly? Seriously, didn't she just look like this?

We are headed to the University of Idaho this weekend for Homecoming. The joke is that it is the extent of her "college tour." The reality is that her grades are pretty amazing. If she tests well on the SAT/ACT, a lot of doors will be open for her.

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about that. We have a lot of friends with older kids. Watching them send their babies off into the wild blue yonder is somewhat terrifying! But, really, this is what we have been preparing her for her whole life.

The problem is no one prepared me...

So, this little gem arrived yesterday...

Little might be a misnomer though.

And unfortunately, it arrived the day after Peyton took the PSAT.

I will say, with the size of this book, I feel like I got a bargain. Price per page seems pretty legit.

Now, hopefully, it will translate into an amazing score. I mean, I guess she has to actually crack it open, but fingers crossed and all that.

And also, when did she get grown up enough to be taking SAT's and ACT's?

For real.