Balancing Bliss

the muddy buddy diet........

 

so it's weigh in wednesday. i went in totally expecting a 3lb gain. i haven't been counting points for over 2wks and have not denied myself anything. trust me. i have made 4 batches of muddy buddies which are 9cups each. christmas cookies by the dozens. fudge. i'm fine with it.......january will be a fresh start. however......i lost over a pound?! what can i say.....it's a christmas miracle.

 

things have been in full christmas swing here. i made dinner for 11 people on monday night. we had the missionaries over and invited some more friends and family over to make it a more true christmas dinner. i made a turkey, potatoes, gravy (with help from my neighbor who is more experienced at such things) stuffing, fruit salad, homemade noodles (family recipe), cranberry sauce, and my dad brought the pumpkin pie (costco) to make it complete. it was worth cooking all day and being a nervous wreck. the spirit was here in full, even when my dad used the phrase "Jesus freaks" ummmmm yes he did. i could have died. then i found out that a man up north of here really dresses as Jesus with the thorns and all and stands at an overpass. i guess that qualifies. still there were two missionaries across the table from him. nothing fills your home with the Spirit more than the elders and it was truly a wonderful evening. our home was filled with more than the Spirit...........

i ran the dishwasher 3x the next morning and washed the pots and pans by hand. wow. i appreciate all the family dinners i go to even more now. notice the sparkling cider bottles? we went through 4 of those........you know how we mormons party!

and i would like to leave this wish with you.....

that after we have thrown all the wrapping paper away and played with our new toys......that we can reflect on the most significant gift ever given..........Jesus Christ.

merry christmas from the Sades........we are headed up to portland for a blazer game Christmas night..... a gift from my lil sister jenny.....box seats and best part? she is babysitting our kids. then we are headed up to seattle for a few days at my in-laws after that. i wanted snow......i got snow!

where is our winter wonderland??

all of our snow was melted by the rain and the other half of the state is being shut down with blizzards!

i want some more of;

sledding....

after a day or two the snow had lost it's appeal.

they were totally taking advantage of no school days by making them pj/movie day.

except for gav......there was no stopping him. i would keep him in until 9am and then let him go out. he would sweep the porch, shovel the driveway, scoop snow off cars, go go go. until he found out that you don't push a broom with your body;

oops.that's gotta hurt.

brian was working from home that day but he shut down the ol' laptop for a trip down to the sledding hill. he spun them around and around in the field until they got bucked off. they loved it;

 

not getting gav off as easy as lil sis

had to try out the new sled poppy got them.....as a snowboard....nice

luci giggled all the way down the tiny little hill each time....it must have felt like a mountain to her...

she also liked catchin' snow flakes on her tongue.....

more like drops of dirty melted snow at this point. blah.

then the park was overtaken by a group of teen boys.......like 14yrs old maybe? total punks. rude. swearing more than they should and in front of anyone. so one walks by and says 'i bet i can beat you down that hill' all cocky to me........bring it.......little boy.......

punk.....i have 100lbs on ya.....

they proceeded to throw snowballs at little kids. not in a fun way.

they really shouldn't have. not that gav is all that tough, he's not. he is however moody and clever.

he got a snowball, climbed up the chain on the back of the play structure where they are all 'gathering' at this point and hit the 'ring leader' in the head. the kid started to go after gav but when he looked at me, a momma crazy enough to stand in the middle of it all and take pictures.....he reevaluated the situation and left. punk.

that's gaven thinking he is some kind of bad ass....."what? you like that? want some more?" silly silly boys.

and then there is this silly boy.....

seriously? snowballs at me? ME? do you remember how much you paid for this camera baby?

eli blu doesn't go a day......let me rephrase that......an hour...without crying. it's just who the guy is. he cried that he wanted dad to pull him home because he was 'fun'.

so i put him in a sled and ran his ass right off a curb and caught air.......'who is fun now?? huh?'
man those teenage boys must have really gotten to me. hehehehe.

it's okay......he loved it

who is the tree dictator now????

a few posts back i had mentioned a conversation with brian.........you know the one.......that he called me the tree nazi. just to plea my case here...........i bought them their very own tree for their room to decorate with their ornaments a few years back. not only did i not take pics of them decorating... i sent them into their room with their bag of goods and didn't even go in! how is that for democracy??

they did quite well without me......and it stays in their room. all is well.

some of my favorites;

that was eli blu's little hand wrapped around a bulb in kindergarten. it was only last years and i almost cried when i thought of how small his hand was.....and is.

caught gaven eating one of the pretzels that fell off this one.........it's from 3yrs ago.....ewww. but this one makes up for that;

how freakin' cute was he?! 4mo old and the love of my life. man i loved that year.

then this little decorating queen got to do it all over again because the kittens were curious and knocked over their tree. i was there with camera in hand this time....



check out the tacky dog ornament...would you want it hanging in your living room? fine i'm a dictator.. whatever.....

some of my other favs;

love that i have repeats from classes that they were all in.

eli's treasure....glad it's on his tree.......oh come on.......he can't even read the blog....he has no idea....i smiled and held him and told him how lovely it was.......art is art......it's the process, how it feels and not the finished product......right? love that he had the process and that it is on their tree.. that's all.

this wasn't any masterpiece but i still love it. happy to know that they will put it on their tree. wink.

i made that in the 3rd grade. can't believe how much gavie looks like me at that age. luci wrapped me up in christmas barbed wire.......what's up with that?  no freedom in that......i'm going to go point that out to brian right now.

no stopping me now....

first it was the muddy buddies, i could have gotten by with a cup or two of those a couple of weeks, but now..........now it's the continuous box of goodies left on my counter after each friendly knock on our door. the array of treats were no match for me. so i will be weighing in on wednesday, which happens to be christmas eve. expect a 3lb gain...i am.

until then i HAVE been eating this yummy (not lying it is) cabbage and carrot soup or salads;

followed by unheard of amounts of fudge, muddy buddies, cookies, cookies, candy, and anything in the chocolate food group.

'baby it's cold outside....."

what a beautiful couple of days. good to wake up to clear roads today and get out for awhile. now i am ready for another storm. i prefer snow to ice but it's all really mystical. love to be inside all warm looking out at winter's dance.

one of my favorite christmas things to get out during the holidays is a gift from my aunt doni.things from her are always special because she gets me like that, we get eachother.  she gave it to me when i lived in one of my first apartments @ the young and dumb age of 21yrs old. i was showing it to meg the other day and said " look at this, it's my favorite......it's a hot cocoa stirrer" and megan replied " i think that is supposed to be for cocktails kati" ......oooohhhhhhhhh...... i bet it was made for that but i always thought it was for hot cocoa and so that is what i have done with it every year for a decade. so this year it is a cocktail stirrer.

in true kate fashion.......

and what treat might compliment the drink?

brian and i decided not to do christmas for ourselves this year. we wanted to make sure the kids each got something they really wanted from santa and one gift to eachother. when you open your heart to such peace.......blessings just surround you. i have had several christmas blessings in the past couple of days and i am lucky to have been at peace so that i could notice them. one of them came home with a special little someone i know;

inside there is a picture of our family standing by a hill lined with trees. it reads; "my mom and dad are special because they go to the playground with me." it just makes me feel so good to know that all the work and love i put into them is really sticking.....sometimes it just feels like i am yelling, scolding, separating siblings, folding laundry, and taking pictures a long the way. looks like making memories is on the list too. now that is a gift.

and sugar poppy gave another gift to me today..........he does so much for us and is a gift to our little family everyday. but today he made me heart warm......actually my feet.....but i will take it!

it's looking like we might have an icy no school day tomorrow........guess we will have to put together that gingerbread house.

snow day.....

yesterday it was fun to escape from the normal routine and take a snow day. i told the kids i was 'letting' them stay home because you know i am a cool mom like that, i also told them that if they weren't good i would send them to school. hehehehe. even though we walked to their school to sled, they still didn't catch on. duh. maybe they NEED to be in school. sledding was a blast for them. i didn't bring my camera because i wanted to be in the moment and not behind the camera. i also didn't want anything to happen to my canon baby.

my friend in alaska said i should hear her giggling from here after i sent her the pic that got the town shut down.

i was the coolest mom eva for letting them stay home and giving them more marshmallows than cocoa.

before i get started with pics of my very own little snow bunny and mr. blu.......let me tell you that there are no pics of gav because he walked out the door at 9am to the neighbors and came home around 7pm........i did see him in between but i did not have my camera. i guess he is entering that age of being too cool to be around us.......but not to cool to be the prince in the nut cracker.... see bottom of post for that.

luci walked out all decked in pink and i just pictured her being 'that girl' on the slopes...hehehe

  

and here came lil' brother who is just not quite old enough...or cool enough to go hang with the boys

i couldn't believe how white that came out .... it looks like he is walking out into the abyss!

"guess i will have to play with luci"

well until he ran her straight into the bumper of that SUV you see in the background

then all the fun was over.......until they got the bright idea for mom to tow them down to the park where there is a sledding hill. good times.

as fun as it was.....why isn't there any school today??! there might be some ice storm coming in and school is likely to be canceled for days........meaning...they won't be in school again until january !! are you freakin' kidding me?? i had things to do this week. don't they know that? and  i am not one to handle unorganized disarray......christmas stuff + this;

= chaos.  the fun in all of this is disappearing for momma.

now onto the nutcracker appearance right in our living room

gaven came home to a lil' sis in need of a prince to dance with her to her favorite movie 'barbie in the nutcracker' and he was a great sport....even if he is kinda 'musical like that'.

and now lift.......

tadaaaaaaaa.....

they literally did what ever barbie and the prince did....check out the t.v

my lil' ballerina.......

whew......that's exhausting.....

our festive weekend.......

 

the littles camped out under the christmas tree;

we made christmas cookies and delivered them to friends;

and christmas cards were made assembly style.......by the children;

you didn't think i was actually going to ruin the surprise coming in your mail did you?

we woke up to this;

and yes those are jammies.....snow is like magic here.....it's here and it's gone.......

there was a new christmas dress to be worn;

christmas chains to be counted;

and then........

the miracle...........

it started snowing at dinner time! who am i to make them eat? luci was out on the porch in jammies in no time.....bare feet and there she went .......got her back a few minutes later and some warm clothes on the girl and she was gone again.

this is gaven right after nailing our neighbor tryson......see tryson plays hard with gav and we know gav can't handle it so therefore we don't.......but tryson.....HE DOES....gav got hit in the face 20min before this pic was taken and cried for 19min...so when he came back out.....tryson was cool enough to stand as a target and get pummeled. we are so blessed to have good neighbors...

and my baby blu.......and those eye lashes and how they catch snow flakes.........awe........

brian and tryson went on to sled them down the sidewalks for an hour.......until the guys thought they might have heart attacks........i got a lot of that on video.....the giggles....the cold breath from little mouthes...the sound of magic......

i have a little feeling that there might not be school in the morning......doesn't matter....i already told my kids they would be staying home playing in what was left of our 1 inch of snow...it's a rarity here and you gotta make the most of it! i know i know.....my friends in alaska and illinois are laughing at our snow drifts here on the valley floor.....but it is exciting stuff here!

one of the best parts of the entire weekend was the warmth of our home to return to from the cold and it was filled with christmas music still playing.....

nnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooo!

ahead by 3.....seconds left.......the clippers hit a 3 sending us into overtime.....one of our best free throw shooters .....misses......3 or 4 times in OT...........2pt game.......hit 2pts.....double OT... freakin' kidding me............lose by 8 .....120-112.........now a 2hr drive home.....

looks for my boys....

 no secret that i am a blazer fanatic these days..........

so you can imagine the heart ache when i was unable to get a sitter for the game tonight that i had free...yes free.....9th row seats...........

so look for this guy.........whose #1 boy is #7 brandon roy......

i have no idea what the smirk on his face is but you can always count on the ham to jump into the shot too...

as for me?? i will be sitting home cheering my boys on..........

travis outlaw that is..............did i mention that they were 9th row??!

i almost made a sign for gaven that read; "my mom loves me" and then cross out 'me' and write "outlaw #25".........hehehehe