Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
My husband’s awesome,
Bacon.
For Valentine’s Day David made me a bouquet of roses… out of bacon. I’m not a fancy girl, in fact I’m about as (monetarily) as low maintenance as they come… but I appreciate a thoughtful gesture, and I appreciate bacon.
Bacon roses.
What can I say, dude knows the way to my heart.
Just when I thought our poor obese dog Barney couldn’t possibly get any fatter he had a crazy allergic reaction to something this morning (my currently theory is that he finally got that bee he’s been trying to eat for the past week) and swelled up like a balloon. Every inch of his fat rolls… I mean body… was covered in giant bumpy hives and his eyes were swollen damn near shut.
I racked my brain for someone close who would have an EpiPen so I could just stab the guy, but I couldn’t think of anyone so instead I shoved a handful of Benadryl in a piece of cheese and made the dude eat it. I wasn’t sure what kind of dosage was appropriate for a dog since it didn’t say on the label (and yes… I actually checked before I realized how ridiculous that was) but I figured since it’s not possible to O.D. on an antihistamine but it is possible to go into anaphylactic shock this may be a “more the merrier” kind of situation and loaded that rolly polly bastard up.
Then I dragged him along to my inlaws despite their eye rolling because I was still worried his air way was going to close in on itself and basically told them they could deal with our dog or have Christmas sans our entire family.
They reluctantly said ok.
So Merry Christmas everyone, what kind of craziness did y’all experience today?
The Biblically themed Lord of the Flies Christmas Pageant at church was this past Sunday night and Verona had graduated from the sheep that she was last year to a mouse. Except she refused to wear her mouse hat or mask, so really she was just a kid with a tail, but I digress. Verona has also recently graduated from wearing diapers to wearing underwear. (Foreshadowing anyone?)
The pageant went off without a hitch… by which I mean it was complete chaos but they were all adorable and nobody died which is really all you can ask of a bunch of small children in costumes. When they were done the bell choir from the local middle school played a couple songs, then we all migrated over to where the cookies were to mingle.
I grabbed one of the last available chairs in a room packed with everyone we’ve ever known, plus the majority of the middle school and their parents, and was attempting to keep Finn occupied with the least messy cookie I could find when the person sitting next to me points and starts stammering as her eyes grow wide “Hey, hey you… I think your kid is disrobing.”
I turned around and there it was. Verona had peed her pants but didn’t want anyone to see her with pee stained pants because she was embarrassed… so instead she just took them off.
Because people are totally more likely to notice a little wet spot on your clothes than that you’re not wearing any at all. Only about a quarter of the room was staring by now, so I quietly said “It’s ok honey, don’t worry. We’ll go home and get you in some clean, dry, pajamas and it’ll all be fine.” and took her hand hoping to quietly lead her through the seated crowd to the door when she totally freaked out at the suggestion that we leave.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO! I NEED ANOTHER COOKIE!”
I bent down quickly, “Honey, you’re naked in a church and covered in your own pee. We just need to go home right now.” And continued to lead her to the door while she screamed at the top of her tiny lungs the entire way out to the car, ”NOOOOOOOOOOOO! I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME! I WANT ANOTHER COOKIE! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Which of course everyone was watching by this point, because who isn’t going to watch a naked child scream?
Merry Christmas everybody, you’re welcome for the show.
St. Patrick’s Day! As I mentioned before, you can’t be in a family with three people who look obviously Irish without the 17th of March being kind of a big deal.
So, as usual, we had a whole day of St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans planned. I found out a few weeks ago that the Irish pub that serves as hang out spot for us and our friends, Tim Finnegan’s, was opening early in the morning and serving breakfast so meeting up with our friends Rachel, Mico, and Carmen there was the first stop on our day of adventures.
After that we made our way to another local Irish pub, Padre Murphy’s, to meet up with David’s brother Chris.
Padre Murphy’s has a massive St. Patrick’s Day thing ever year. There’s a giant tent outside encompassing most of their parking lot with a stage and dance floor and the whole day is a fabulous string of local Irish bands and tons of performances by step dance troops.
I have a not-so-secret wish that Verona will want to learn step dance when she’s older. Partly because I just think it’s awesome, and partly because being adopted gives you a bizarre fixation on heritage and tradition since you’re completely cut off from your own. I have to stop myself from shoving her into every Irish or Mennonite related activity while screaming “THIS IS YOUR HERITAGE! APPRECIATE IT!”
The point of that completely non sequitor tagent was that I try to get her to step dance preformances when I can in the hope that she’ll grow up thinking it’s awesome and want to do it in a few years. Sorry for all the rambling it took to get there.
The kids had a lot of fun hanging around the bar too. Mostly because they look Irish enough, especially little Finnegan with his ginger-ness and uber Irish name, that everyone who walks by falls in love with them and wants to play or hold them. Sober people do it too, but I’ve definitely noticed a correlation between the “everybody loves a red headed baby on St. Patrick’s Day” phenomenon and people’s level of intoxication.
I’ve been lucky enough to have kids who will sleep where ever they are when they get tired… possibly one of the most convenient traits a child could have… so eventually, since we were there over their usual nap time, Finn passed out in his carseat under a table and Verona asked me to put her in the sling…
… where she promptly passed out as well.
Afterwards we all (with the exception of Verona who went to a rodeo with her grandparents) went back to our place to keep the Irish party rocking going. Which is code for, David made corned beef and cabbage and everyone wanted in on that.
St. Patrick’s Day fact: Irish Car Bombs are only fun in the states, in Ireland an Irish car bomb isn’t a fun a tasty beverage you enjoy with your friends at parties, it’s what killed the bartender’s sister. And that’s just a buzz kill.
Incase you weren’t aware, I tend to get a little excited about holidays. And by a little excited I mean I get a little out of control.
This particular holiday is even worse though. I married a Guinness loving Irish man and have given birth to at least one, possibly two, ginger babies (I still think Verona’s hair will get redder)… and (dad, stop reading, I’m about to make a dirty joke) I’m pretty sure I count as Irish now too since I have a little bit of Irish in me on such a regular basis. Ooooo, mommy’s got a potty mouth! Point being, St. Patrick’s Day is kind of a big deal around these parts.
Anyway, I suddenly realized that tomorrow, St. Patrick’s Day, we’ve got stuff all day long so I wasn’t going to get my green freak on… which means we were officially rocking St. Patrick’s Day Eve! We started the morning by making some lemonade. My friend Rachel and her daughter Carmen come over for Hoop Friday every week so Carmen got to help us.
Which of course we made green.
For post-nap lunch I made Verona and David mac and cheese.
And for dinner, broccoli and cheese twice baked potatoes.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s epic St. Patrick’s Day aventures in pictures.
I love holidays. Love them. Love them so much. Why you may ask? Because I’m nuts, totally off my rocker, batshit crazy, nuts. And holidays give me an excuse to let that crazy fly without anybody thinking anything of it.
And don’t give me any of that “Valentine’s Day sucks, I don’t have anyone to love” bullshit. First of all, while I admit that it’s been a while since I’ve been single, I don’t remembering hating Valentines Day even when I was… I just thought of it as “75% off Chocolate Eve”. And secondly, you all seem to have so much fun hating on it that I’m completely convinced you find more enjoyment in hating it than the rest of us do in having it.
But enough ranting, back to the story.
Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays for the pure and simple reason that it’s so easy to make everything in the world into a Valentines thing. Case and point…
Our breakfast this morning: heart shaped pancakes, heart shaped strawberries, and heart shaped bacon.
Lunch: heart shaped grilled cheese sandwiches.
Snack: heart shaped watermelon kabobs.
And for dinner: pizza. I’m guessing you can guess the rest.
I thought it couldn’t get any better/worse until, after all his “heart shaped things are stupid” yammering, David got himself involved.
And now, I’m off to watch the Valentine’s Day episode of 30Rock (“Happy Valen Times!”) so if you’re have someone in your life get off your freaking laptop and go cuddle with them, and if you don’t quit your bitter bitching and enjoy your 75% off chocolate tomorrow… I know I will.
Huzzah! Christmas! And an unusually relaxing and marvelous Christmas at that! It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas… advent yes, advent I love. With the music and the candles and the generally lack of chaos.
Christmas itself though is usually just a day when we’re running from one place to the next, engaging in small talk with family and other people we’re socially obligated to engage in small talk with, eating food I don’t care for (and far too much of it because I’m usually a big bucket of stress), and opening presents that I don’t want or need from people with minimal knowledge of me and heaps of good intentions… all of which turns me into the worst and most exhausted version of myself.
This year though was different. We had nothing going on. Nothing. Nothing at all. Since we had been out so late the night before at Tim Finnegan’s with everyone the kids didn’t wake up till 10:30 so we all slept in. We got up, leisurely opened presents, and spent the rest of the day playing with said presents.
Verona got these big blocks from my mom and stepdad so her and David spent a large portion of the day building towers…
…and then knocking them down.
My big present was also from my parents and little brother, an espresso/fancy drink making machine to feed my raging caffeine addiction. They may as well have given me a crack pipe.
A crack pipe that makes tall, almond milk, pumpkin spice macchiato crack.
Merry freaking Christmas everybody!
Ok, not technically Christmas visitors… more like Christmas eve eve/Christmas eve visitors… but still.
We have the good fortune of winding up with all sorts of random people staying at our house, usually while they’re traveling, on a pretty frequent basis. We meet some of the coolest people that way. Anyway, some friends of ours have friends whose car broke down not far from here while they were driving back to Michigan for Christmas and needed a place to stay… definitely some of the funnest people we’ve had yet.
We stayed up till the wee hours playing games, drinking, and telling stories.
The next morning while I was making homemade cinnamon rolls Kevin, Zack, and myself got into a fantastic conversation about the American education system. These guys are my kindred spirits for sure.
The night before it had come up that Chelsey wants more piercings and David does piercings so while all that was going on they were in the bathroom shoving metal through flesh. Chelsey, after an almost painful deliberation process, settled on a few new things she wanted, picked out her jewelry and got to it.
She approved of the results.
We have a holiday tradition with the rest of our friends of all going to our favorite Irish pub, Tim Finnegan’s, after the Christmas eve service at church every year. I was secretly hoping our Christmas visitors wouldn’t be able to get their car fixed and could come with us but they got the part they needed and were back on the road.
Merry Christmas y’all!
How to make Christmas cookies with Mollie aka how to have the best holiday tradition ever.
Step 1. Make the dough. Verona loves to help so two things are certain, by the time the dough is chilling in the fridge she will have eaten completely inappropriate amounts of it and there will be flour all over the place.
Step 2. Cut out the cookies. If you’re not cool enough to have Christmas cookie cutters you can just free hand it with knives… although fair warning, your cookies will look like they just got off the short bus.
Step 3: Get your cookie art on!
Cookie making tip: You can never have too many sprinkles.
Step 5: Get squirrley.
Step 6: Get the dog involved.
Step 7. Procrastinate cleaning up as long as you possibly can.
We saw Santa and Mrs. Claus today at Castles and Coasters. Verona was a little freaked out by these strange people in furry red outfits so I went up with her. At the time I thought maybe I was having more fun than she was, but the story about how she met Santa and the declaration “Santa nice guy” have been cropping up all night so I guess I wasn’t.
Merry Christmas!
