Give someone a hug

I found out today that one of my friends husband passed away unexpectedly this morning. Out of nowhere he had a massive heart attack and died. He was my age. It just reminds me how unexpected life can be and that it's a gift to not take for granted. It just makes me want to give everyone a hug. So, if you are reading this....I am mentally hugging you right now. Thank you for being my friend or family member. I am truly blessed. I love you all!

Frankly....

Here is how Christmas is going down this year.......uneventfully. LOL. I seem to have been really busy in the last few weeks although I can not recall anything I've actually done. Mostly hanging christmas lights and putting up christmas decorations. I would still do it all the same even if I lived here alone and no one was coming over. I just like Christmas decorations. Besides, I'm bad at decorating and Christmas makes it very easy.

This coming weekend appears to be the busiest weekend of my life. In one weekend I have the pleasure of juggling a school program, sami's bday, a visit with my out of town (momentarily in town) girlfriend, a company christmas party, and Sanders Christmas. I truly began my Christmas shopping today. I left work at 5, went to the bank, picked up Chris and got to my first store by 6:30. By 10:30 I managed to spend my entire paycheck. I did manage to accomplish alot. I was able to get every present for all my Sanders family except one, and most of my children's gifts. I have a little more time to get Chris's family all shopped for. So I thought I'd get the immediate need done first.

Needless to say...I am not freaking out and scrubbing my baseboards and washing the walls and magic erasering every bit of grout and all the garbage that no one really cares about but me. I'm just banking on the fact we haven't lived here long enough to accumulate enough dirt for it to really matter. As long as I get the children's room (seriously, to prevent injury) clean then you are all obligated to not notice the unmopped floor or dusty fireplace or whatever. I just don't feel that motivated and shopping seems more interesting to me. I am in charge of the "secret" gift this year. I'm having trouble finding just the right thing. I thought I had it then I realized although a nice gift it would be guessed by at least the 3rd person. I'm going to keep thinking on this one. Last year Shirley bought the can opener from the tv commercials. I don't know how I guessed it but I'm glad I did. I love that thing! I have to be careful though because caden likes to go in the kitchen and open cans just because he can operate it himself. LOL.

OK, enough for now....but please come to christmas in your sweat pants, eat too much, open presents, and ignore the purple spot on my dining room wall that I will someday get around to. Just not today!

Christmas lists

I have to share with you my families Christmas lists. I laughed insanely at Chris and Macy. I have to mention that Chris's list was handwritten and he managed to fill 2 pages. He has very small handwriting too! The kids listed off to me what they wanted to put in their letters to Santa. Feel free to laugh at my family. I did. :)

Chris- This list is categorized by item and there is an approx price next to each item. I will give you the general idea because my fingers will fall off if I type the whole thing. They are also rated on a scale of 1-10,000 on his satisfaction with the gift. LOL.
Cash- Cash; Gift Cards- Jegs.com, Tacklewarehouse.com, Bass Pro, Academy, anywhere w/electronics; Sports- Fishing: Quantum PT or PT Tour Edition reels, split grib trigger casting rods (med heavy or heavy); Golf- balls, lob wedge, 56'-62', gift cards to public courses; Softball- Demarini OTC 28 oz slow pitch bat; Hunting- seriously too much stuff to type; Video Games- Call of Duty 5, Resistance 2, Madden--can be PS3 or Xbox 360; Personal- cologne, chi holder (yes my husband asked for a special holder for his flat iron); Collectables- autographed balls (baseball or football), Eagles, Yankees, OU or other legends acceptable; Motorcyles- Helmets: KBC Zombie, Oneal Crisis, AFX skull, Shift Agent Hi Life; Jerseys- I can't even decode this part of the list; Goggles; Movies- Blue Ray anything, Star wars trilogy, xfiles movie, action/scifi/army, superhero/horror, zombie........and that's only the first page

Sara- a bullhorn

Macy- a horse that wags its tail, a princess that sparkle glows, a flower that is pretty, a princess that smells the pretty flower, a picture w/a princess on it for my vanity, a princess w/pretty pink socks, a pink or red cabinet to match my princess's socks, a statue coat that sprinkles around like a princess. LOLOLOLOL!

Caden- Jungle fury power ranger, Indianana Jones toys, Power Rangers (not the toy, the real ranger), Ben 10 toys, superman, batman, spiderman, transformers, spongebob toys, Lego Batman video game for 360 or PS3, Spike the dinosaur, the huge green triceratops w/a leaf, star wars toys, xmen toys, Bakugan toys, cars, motorcyles and men that ride them.

There you have it. I sure hope Santa pulls thru for me because I don't know what half the stuff on Chris or Macy's list is. If you happen to have any of their names there should be some ideas. Happy hunting. LOL.

:)

I really appreciate my husband. He has really stepped up and taken care of his family in their time of need. I've had a difficult time dealing with my MIL's death. I feel a lot of regret for the relationship I didn't have with her. When I was younger I was irritated by a lot of things with her. I was too foolish and impatient to look past them. Then when we found out she was sick it explained a lot of her weird quirks. By the time I understood her well enough to really value her she was too sick to for me to do the things with her I'd always wanted to. I never got to take her shopping or go out for coffee or get to know her on a personal level. I feel very ashamed that I didn't appreciate her and take the time to build a relationship with her when I had the chance to. She had always wanted to have a daughter and I would have loved to been a "daughter" to her. There are a few times that I did get to spend one on one time with her and I will always cherish that. But it wasn't near enough. I have learned quite a lesson. I don't think that I will ever feel less ashamed for taking her for granted. Everyone I've ever known always thinks their in-laws are weird in some way or another, but I feel like I didn't really give her a chance. That wasn't fair. She was a very kind lady. Even when her alzheimers was very advanced she was never mean or hateful. She always had a gentleness about her. It's been hard to watch my husband lose his mother and my children lose their grandmother. I hope that as my kids get older I can help them remember what a lovely lady she was. It's always hard to lose someone when we know we didn't appreciate them enough or take the time to let them in. I should have been more patient with her. I said alot of things when she got sick about how she should be taken care of and how they should deal with her disease. In the end, her family did the right thing and gave her the care and love she deserved. I regret thinking that I knew what was best for her when I clearly did not.

I can't say enough how much I appreciate my husband. He has never tried to keep me from being close with my family or with his. I've had friends whose spouses get in the way with their relationship with their parents/siblings or inlaws. Chris has never told me how to interpret my experiences growing up with my parents and he has never done anything but encourage me to have a relationship with his parents and grandparents. A husband has such a huge influence over his wife. I'm glad that he has never taken advantage of that influence. It's easy for a husband to manipulate his wife's emotions towards other people. I've met plenty of women that don't like someone just because their husband doesn't like them. I think it's also easy to cause tension between someone and their parents because their spouse won't give them a chance. I'm glad that Chris has embraced my parents. I think it would be hard to maintain such a close relationship with my mom and dad if my husband wasn't willing to let them be a part of his life too. I'm very blessed. I can't explain how lucky and undeserving I feel to have such an amazing family, both the family I was born into and the family I married into. I married a really wonderful man who encourages me to appreciate my family and spend time with them. (Even when he gets a little jealous of my time with them sometimes.) :)

I have a lovely family

Last night Sami and Tim came over and helped us put up our Christmas lights. It was so much fun to spend some time with Sami and her boyfriend. The kids just adore them. They are always kind to the kids and spend time playing with them. Caden and Macy haven't stopped talking about it! I really enjoyed getting to spend some time with Sami, just one on one, away from the rest of the family. She is a really beautiful girl and it seems like she has a good head on her shoulders. My goal has been to try to start spending more time with my cousins outside of family events and get to know them as people. I have had the pleasure of spending time with Brandee and now Sami. I'm exactly 12 years younger than Brandee and 12 older than Sami. It doesn't seem to matter though. I am really glad that the Sanders have started spending more time together other than just limiting our gatherings to holidays. I really enjoy seeing everyone for our dinners every now and then and getting together for birthdays. I love that all the aunts uncles and cousins come to the kids bday parties. It wouldn't be the same without all of you. I did not have the luxury of having any brothers or sisters. I always wanted them though. I understand why I don't have siblings and I'm okay with that. But I really can't imagine having a brother or sister and not keeping a close relationship with them. It's a horrible gift to waste. But it's been so nice to fill that void with spending time with some cousins. I'm so proud that our family has gotten so close. I'm sad for the cousins that aren't around anymore. If you are a MIA cousin my message to you is that you are really missing out. :)

On the topic of my christmas tree

I have always been a weirdo about symmetry. Pictures on the wall, furniture, decorations, knick knacks........all sorts of things have to be evenly spaced or it drives me crazy. It just irritates me until it's fixed. It's a stupid thing to be so concerned about, but, it's one of my many quirks and I just have to deal with it. My christmas tree especially falls under my symmetry weirdness. My tree is decorated with silver, gold, and deep red. I spend hours getting the garland spaced right and all the glass ball decorations strategically placed by color and space. This year was a little different. I was really concerned about my tree. While we were shopping for just the right house to buy a few months ago I specifically looked around to see if the house had just the right place to put my tree. LOL. Chris was concerned about house value and upgrades that could be made and the technical aspect of things. My concerns were having a great laundry room, evenly sized bedrooms for the kids, and a great place for my tree. Last year we didn't get to put our Christmas tree up due to space restrictions. So anyway, putting my tree up this year was really important to me. Last week was a weird week. Since the week was filled with Chris's mom passing away, squeezing in Thanksgiving and making funeral arrangements and things we really wanted to include our family. So Saturday Chris invited his grandparents and dad and brother over to help trim the tree. The kids really wanted to put the ornaments on. So I backed off (as much as I could) and let them hang the ornaments. My tree looks so silly! The kids are only 3 feet tall so most of the decorations are on the bottom 3 feet of the 7 foot tree. Ornaments are all clumped together and nowhere near evenly spaced. It is driving me ABSOLUTELY CRAZY! There are big clumps of several sliver ornaments in one spot and clumps of red and gold elsewhere. I tried to move around an ornament or two and they got on to me. I thought that maybe over a few days I could spread out some decorations but they have noticed every change and been extremely displeased with my behavior. So now I have an uneven tree. Chris told me to stop being psycho and that it's more important to have fun trimming the tree than to have a beautiful department store looking tree. I immensely disagree! ha ha. The one year I'm having my whole family over for Christmas my tree is all crazy looking. I'm doing my best to restrain myself. Why do I have to be such a weirdo? Oh well, it wouldn't be me if I wasn't a complete dork. LOL. So family, FYI my tree looks awfully crazy this year!