It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I love this picture, even though the youngest of the kids is missing from the photo, because I think it shows their personalities so well! We had our annual holiday party with our good friends early this year because one family is quite popular and was all booked for the month of December, except for the first weekend. It ended up working out well because the weather was perfect to go to Candy Cane Court to see all the amazing lights they do each year. I won't bore you with photos of the lights-- just that picture above of the kids, at the start of our walk.

This weekend, in contrast, it was cold and rainy. I don't mind it so much for the winter. Yesterday, we mostly stayed indoors. I whipped up some salt dough, and Casey and Marcie used cookie cutters to make some new ornaments for our Christmas tree.

That's not all we did on our "lazy" Saturday. Marcie had swim lessons (it's an indoor pool, thankfully), and after swimming, we stopped by our favorite nail place. The ladies in there are always so good to Marcie, who loves getting her nails done. And they were slow. They only charged $3 for her nails-- and look at their amazing work (it's a little blurry, but that's a snow flake and a snowman on her thumbs). Yes, yes. I tipped ridiculously well.

We'd hoped to make it to our local Winter festival, where they light the big tree, offer train rides for the kids, and have a variety of live music entertainment, but the rain just didn't want to let up in the evening hours. Instead, we drove to Del Mar's Holiday of Lights. It was a conglomeration of lights all over the internal portion of the race track (we drove the outside). The kids oohed and ahed and drank hot chocolate from Starbucks while we drove slowly along the path.

Then this morning the kids got all gussied up for our special event-- How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the Old Globe. Casey was a little anxious about seeing the Grinch. We'd read the story (he actually read it to me) a couple times this weekend, and we watched the cartoon TV special (purchased at Target, if you're looking), too, since that's the true story and the version the play follows. It was really a great show. The actor who played the Grinch was fantastic. And a kind family even agreed to do some "photo swaps" with us, so we managed to get a picture of the whole family together. (See below)

Then this afternoon, we headed out to watch Casey play indoor soccer. For the first time this team season, his team lost a game (to the other undefeated team), which caused Casey to cry. And it was against the team that has the player Casey used to play with every season, before we started him in a recreational league. Poor guy. But he played like a champ-- we were all especially impressed when he took a ball directly to his left eye, which definitely fazed him for a moment. But he was tough and he kept on playing. We iced it and gave him some Tylenol, and I don't think it'll bruise. But we'll know for sure in the morning.

We ended the day by building a fire in our fire place.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

Marcie's Holiday Show

Well, we had a repeat performance of last year. Except she didn't stand there and cry the whole time. Instead, she chewed on her new mitten. And that was with Casey sitting next to her the whole time. Later, she said she would've sung if Casey had sung with her class. Which is, of course, ridiculous.

Here's a sample:

I admit, I didn't photo or video much-- how much can you tape of your child standing around doing nothing while everyone else is performing? . . .

Explaining God

Casey has a long-standing tradition of playing with the family nativity set. Even though he has his own nativity set for kids (made by Fisher Price). He's gotten a little better about it with time, but not much.

This year, he and Marcie helped set up the nativity scene on the front table. Then we took out Casey's nativity scene and he arranged it right next to the grown up one. We talked about why we leave the Baby Jesus up until Christmas morning, when we place him in the manger in the scene to represent His birth. And then the kids went to bed.

The next morning, I heard Casey yell across the house: "Mom, I found God!"
When I got to the nativity scenes, Casey was holding up to statues of Joseph. He had taken the one from the family set and was comparing it to the Joseph from his Fisher Price set. Proudly, he explained to me that we had God in our family set and he had God in his set, too.

"That's not God, Casey," I said. "That's Joseph. That was Mary's husband."

"No," Casey replied. "Jesus is the Son of God. God is Jesus' father. So this has to be God."
"You're right, Casey," I said. "God is Jesus' father. But this is Joseph."
"Then where is God?" Casey asked, exasperated.

Marcie, who'd been standing by and observing our conversation, responded: "God is everywhere, Casey!"

A Glorious, Wondrous, Long Weekend

I haven't taken a lot of days off this year. I started to once in June. But it didn't work out. So having 4 days off in a row this week has been, well, pretty glorious.

We spent Thanksgiving with family. Eating, watching football (well, they watched football), playing mah jong and other games, and generally enjoying each other's company. We let Casey do the toast this year. He began by clearing his throat several times, followed by an "um" or two or five (sure couldn't tell his mom was a speech & debate coach from the slow start). And then, he began: "Um, my birthmom died? In a car . . ."

I cut him off at that point and reminded him that we were toasting something he's thankful for. He restarted, and this was his toast: "I'm thankful for food!" Who couldn't raise their glass to that?

And on Thanksgiving, we were risky-- we let the kids stay up until (gasp!) 10pm, knowing that it typically backfires on us and causes an even earlier wake-up than the usual 6:30 a.m. weekend wake-up calls we get. But this year it didn't. And we slept in (again, gloriously) until 7:00 a.m. the next day.

Last year we spent Black Friday at a nearby mall. We didn't get to the mall this year, but we did hit the movies. No crowds. We saw Fantastic Mr. Fox. We brought along two of Casey's best friends, and they played Indiana Jones Wii for a while afterward, while Marcie and I picked out pictures for her birthday card thank you notes.

On Saturday we woke up to rain. Again, glorious. It hadn't rained in something like 160 days days. That's insane. Even for Southern California. We headed out in the rain to a nearby bowling alley (doing recon for Casey's birthday party in January), and we played some ball. Our lane glitched, and it kept clearing the pins after the first bowl. And even with the bumpers, a 9 or 10 pound ball didn't always make it all the way down the alley without some help. But the kids still had fun:

Then today we braved the mall. And we were pleasantly surprised. We hadn't planned to go to the mall, but we had some returns and the kids practically begged. So there we were. We went to the mall last weekend, too. And caught up with Santa early this year. Marcie said hello to him but refused to take any pictures. Casey was a bit braver:

And we put up the Christmas tree early this year, too. I suppose it's not that early. I mean, Christmas is only a month away-- not even a month away.

This year flew right by me. Must faster than any year before. Jason says it's because the older we get, the smaller the percentage of our lives each year is. Maybe that's it. But it does feel, sometimes, like it's going too fast. And I need to remember to stop and enjoy it-- to tell people how grateful I am to know them, to make sure I take pictures (at least mentally), to enjoy and experience what the world has to offer. And remembering all this on Thanksgiving weekend is perfect.

A Few Things I Am Thankful For . . .

• The freedom to choose when it comes to just about everything;
• A warm roof over my head;
• Plenty of food to fill my belly;
• A soft pillow and plenty of sheets and blankets to snuggle into at night;
• The love of a good man;
• The sound of laughter and bickering filling my car and home;
• Good-night routines;
• The company of a good book;
• The option of watching television on TV or online;
• Cuddles and hugs and small arms wrapped around me even when I don't ask the kids;
• Fresh water to quench my thirst;
• The health of family and loved ones;
• Medical and dental insurance to help keep us healthy;
• An engaging job and interesting people with whom to work.

I am truly, truly blessed.

Marcie's Birthday Cakes

As you might well imagine when it comes to me, there is a saga behind each of Marcie's birthday cakes. She has two because she asked me for a Dora face, and I knew it wouldn't be enough to feed a full party of kids. So then I bought a Costco sheet cake and threw some decorations on it.

No time to write about the sagas, but here are my "masterpieces" for you to enjoy:

Ten Bullet Bio

Johnny over at So It's Come Down To This has sort of challenged me to complete a meme. It's pretty easy because it's not too long, and it's all about me. (Two great things!). To help readers new to this blog (and there sure can't be many given how terrible I've been about posting), I'm summarizing my "life story" in ten bullets.

Here goes:

• Met (my husband) Jason when we were freshmen in high school. We were friends, but we didn't date in high school or while we were in college.
• Taught English and Spanish at my high school alma mater right out of grad school.
• Reconnected with Jason when I planned to set him up with a friend in 1997.
• Engaged a year later. Married a year after that, in 1999.
• Did the fertility treadmill and a couple months later started the domestic adoption process in 2002.
• Son Casey was born in January 2003 during a snowstorm in Ohio. Three days after I ran a marathon in Florida. We fell in love with him (and his birth family) pretty much immediately.
• Started law school in August 2003. Because I'm crazy. Finalized Casey's adoption the next month.
• Gave up on fertility drugs for good in 2005 and headed for China. Adopted Marcie my last year of law school, in 2006.
• Began paperwork for #3 even before Marcie's adoption was finalized in our home state (in July 2007).
• Got lucky and started a job as a big fancy lawyer.

That's my life in a nutshell. (But boy could I embellish if the bullets didn't limit me-- I suppose that's the point.)