2006

age 4 almost 5 classic lizza

going backwards

Serious if you've read my blog you know I am illiterate when it comes to computers-still. I am aware that I'm going backwards in age and that one picture per post is a little annoying. Sorry. Just check back in a few months maybe I'll have something new on here.Everyone in this picture has grown up. But this is such a fun memory and look how cute they all are!

lizza growing up

Okay so Daren and I are doing a little bit of growing up ourselves-who knew. Well I knew but hopefully you haven't noticed much. Sadly I do not like my hair right now and am looking around for ideas-I like my hair there. Is it leagal to return to a haircut you had 7 1/2 years ago? Probably not-I'll keep looking

Lizza!

I cannot make any promises about what will happen with this blog. But for the sake of scaring my child for life...I will press forward today. My Lizza is growing up!! She is such a joy in our home. If someone is upset she is the 1st on the scene. She loves loves to help take care of everyone. She is my mini mom. (which is very important because I'm not always on the top of my game so it's good to know someone has my back). We watched our annual videos of Lizza growing up and her voice and mannerisms are so fun. She still talks with her hands and is so animated at times you forget to listen to the words because your just watching her. I love it. This year in school her teacher told me that the first week of school she sent around a questionnaire for the kids to fill out. One of the questions was who do you want to be when you grow up? 6 of the girls in her class wrote down they wanted to be Elizabeth. When they were reading these out loud in the class her teacher was afraid this may be embarrassing Lizza and so she asked some of them what about when your an adult who do you want to be? Each said Elizabeth. Her teacher said "I didn't really know her yet at that point, but now I get it. She is a fun girl." Elizabeth we're so happy your ours. love, Mom I am trying to add pictures from picasa-no clue what I'm doing surprise surprise so if you care to continue it may get a little confusing as you follow me down one of my favorite roads-memory lane.

Christmas

Really, is it already December 17th? I'm trying to slow down and enjoy the season. My shopping is done, I think. So here is all the cheerfulness going on in our house. We applied and were accepted to host a Mr. Peeps this year. He moves around your house every night to a different position and to "discuss with Santa". He watches to see how we are all acting and just the general feel of the place. Everyone finds Mr. Peeps every morning before our morning checklist can begin. He's hidden in some pretty crazy places! We did receive a warning letter from him one morning that we were tipping onto the naughty side. Luckily because of the heads up we sort of pulled ourselves together. You also cannot touch Mr. Peeps or he may not return the next day. Unfortunately I forgot to tell our babysitter who took him out of his hiding place and played with him. My kids were FREAKING out. They each individually told me what she had done and how they had made her PUT HIM DOWN! Even Max told her no no we don't touch Mr. Peeps put him down! For our super Saturday we had crafts and classes to attend. One was on family traditions. The person I got to teach this class is phenomenal. She is so crafty and fun. The ideas she comes up with blow me away. But one thing she said was don't wait until next year. Just do something, anything and then you can build or change it next year. So I have thought about that and still didn't do anything for several occasions. Christmas was going to be different I said. Well the only thing I managed to eek out is we are doing a family count down until Christmas. From our thanksgiving crafts I have these cute holiday paper cutouts. I hung them all up. Every night we pick one and do an activity. So far (and I'm kind of making them up as I go) we sing a Christmas song and end up with all the lights out around the Christmas tree. The first night I made muddy buddies and we ate them around the tree while I read a a Christmas Story. Mon. we drank hot cocoa using a candy cane as our stir stick. Tues. we sang jingle bells in rounds around the tree. Wednesday we made snowflakes to hang up because (luckily) all the snow melted here. Tonight we lit a candle and after singing gathered around the tree with all the other lights out and passed the lit candle around. When it was your turn you told of a favorite holiday memory. It was fun to hear their memories and I have so many. I really am lucky to have so many. I told them about how one year my sister got a large (like 25 inches) teddy bear. I saw it and went back to bed crying that I wanted a big teddy bear. I would like to say I was 4 but I had to have been 8 or 9 (maybe older). So the next year my mom sewed me this HUGE bear that was like a big beanbag. I don't know what happened to that thing but to imagine my mom sewing this stupid(or so she probably thought) giant bear while I'm not around and then finding a place to hide it reminds me how unfunny Christmas can be for parents. Mental note never buy a child any stuff animal that I may have to replicate in a larger size the next year. I am an anti stuff animal person anyway-they slowly take over your space! For being anti we sure have a lot of the things lying around though. But still thanks mom it made it on to one of my most memorable Christmas memories list. The other one I told was when I wanted a CD player so badly. I kept asking for one. My older brother Aaron came to me one day and said I know what Dad got you for Christmas. I of course asked "is it a CD player?" Now as a side note... silly question. This is my Dad we're talking about. He personally bought 1 gift a year for 1 or 2 kids. I'm not sure how he got away with that but he did and it didn't ever seem to be a no fair issue. Maybe when you find out what I got you understand why no fair ever came into play. So I was all excited. That morning I was looking all over for the right sized package. I kept asking Aaron where is it? He totally played me like a Foosball game. When I finally get to the obviously wrong sized package I'm still excited. I ripe it open and he had given me a bird feeder with food already loaded in it! I can't say he never did anything for me can I? I love my dad, this is not a demeaning story but another favorite memory of mine. The pressure of trying to make the right memories stick in my kids head for future reference is what I'm feeling this year. I will take and display the correct pictures and review the right stories well into next year. I think we'll be okay. Hope your holidays are merry and bright.

San Fran

Daren had to go for some training and invited me to come to San Francisco. His Parents, who just watched my kids for 5 days in September came back up and stayed with them so we could both go. It was so much fun. Daren was in training until 5:00 everyday and I came prepared to just lounge and read until he got out for the day. But instead I got a ticket on a hop on hop off tour bus. It made 20 stops and came around every 30 minutes. It was so great. I feel like I saw all the highlights of San Francisco. It was chilly enough that I wore a hat but once I was bundled I was fine to walk around and not be cold.

Best of all we went to Wicked. It was fantastic. We had been casually listening to the music for a few years now but to really understand the story you have to see the musical. There were some songs I had interpreted wrong or some I never quite got until I saw the musical. It was a highlight. We also got to go to this Burmese place for dinner with some old friends. It was Delicious and fun to catch up too.

instead of messing up the pictures and words I will explain each picture up here first then view below.

1. I went to Ghirardelli square (the chocolate place) and had a cup of hot cocoa. Delicious. I haven't had very many cups of hot cocoa that I didn't like, however.

2. Daren and I one evening at Macy's square with the ice skating rink on one side and the decorated Macy's store on the other. Magical isn't it? :)

3. Alcatraz. It was fascinating. Lizza was so excited I got to go there and when I got home that was one of the first things Meg asked me about. Who knew.

4. Lombard street- the crookedest street. I got off my bus and asked which way to walk and the drive said... you don't want to walk to that, in fact you can't walk to that. Get on the trolley it's only $10 and it will take you to the top of the hill. Right I'm going to pay $10 to walk up hill. I just paid you $30 to drive me around for 2 days! I'm not going to lie to you there were parts when I could not get enough oxygen to breath comfortably but it was fun to hike up one of the classic streets.

5. Lastly you have to cross the Golden Gate Bridge right!? I tried to be on the top deck of the double decker bus to fully experience it... it was to cold up there. I stayed long enough to get a picture and then went down below where the heat and roof was.

It was such a fun trip and I'm so happy I got to go.