Truly Thankful

With the holidays officially kicked off in the secular world, I finally have a moment to relax, albeit at 11:35pm. for those who don't know, that's rather late for me since my kids start waking me around 6am ever since the latest Daylight Savings switch. Truth be told, I've been listening to my Christian Christmas music this whole week. Love it yet sick of the five same Christmas songs played over and over again in 40 variations on the radio. There's SO many other Christmas songs, in popular format even, that could be played! Ah well, that's the media for ya.

So we ended up having three Thanksgivings this year. My brother and sister-in-law came up from Texas last weekend to save money on travel (and take us to a Bruins game, yay!) so we Turkeyed it out this past Saturday with the fam. My BFF's family is holding festivities this Saturday (we have medical people, so sans days off). Then my ma's extended had us over today. I danced my Wii off and loved it. Sooo need to hit the gym again!

Bekah's found a  new love for her cousins, who she's been seeing more of lately. She's also found a new love  in Hayao Miyazaki. {Dig that!} We watched My Neighbor Totoro yesterday while VJ napped, then again today per her demand. Now everything kitty has become "To-to-ro Mama!" I Love it! Thinking Howl's (my fave) is too old for her but Kiki's might be good next, possibly Spirited too but I haven't acquired that flick yet.

Have I mentioned I L-O-V-E my Shack! >"This is Mah house!"< hehe... Still need to organize the pantry, get rid of boxes laying around, clean-up the books and art supplies, plus we have things at my parents which haven't yet migrated. Oh there's a laundry list of things to be done which won't go away... ever. I realize that. Yet in realizing that I also acknowledge which things need to be done sooner rather than later, especially certain things before the Christmas shin-dig, both the Open House and the Day itself. I'll settle for the bare minimum as the BFF has little to no time to help on these things and (yuck!) he's feeling under the weather. So here's to hoping I can hang some shelves, throw up some decor, tuck away some boxes, and figure out an affordable menu before 12/11 of this year.

Ah well, the youngest is fussing and there's been a light thud. I might have to poke my head in. *sigh* Please, Lord, a peaceful, restful, sleepful night for all involved... and please make Jesse all better. And Thanks for the beautiful home, amazing family, and supportive friends! Amen!

Love Shack in Action

A short hiatus from the laptop kept me from posting about many things regarding the move, the kids, and various other aspects of recent life. I have, however, retained enough to post about our new life in the Love Shack.

I was about to begin by saying how wonderful it is to both watch the kids and type at the same time, but then I had to step away to prevent.... er, well, VJ got hold of a cheese knife somehow... Anyway, they LOVE their new home! They can run around, play in their new room (without worry of waking Daddy), and we have our own kitchen to spread our stuff!! Don't get me wrong; I love and appreciate all that my parents have provided for us, but it's like borrowing someone's house for a couple years.

Now, we still haven't brought all the kids things/toys, our desktop computers, one desk, hanging clothes, and various/random other things to the Shack. We hope to get most of that done this week, but it's a game of juggling the kids and sleep schedules. Plus, YAY! my brother and his wife are coming up from Austin tomorrow for the weekend. So with an early Thanksgiving at mom's Saturday night, hopefully followed  by a night of Harry Potter if we get a sitter, this weekend's going to rock!

Speaking of having a sitter... This is somewhat new to us as it's kind of strange to say, "Hey, can you babysit our kids... at my parents' house?" Now we have our own humble abode at which one might babysit... if only our children didn't f-r-e-a-k when we left them.

Well, much more to tell but we're having a juice craving with pending tantrums. Must tend to the children's needs. Holiday Party invites out! Hope to see some of you there! Oh, here comes the tantrum...

Day in the Life of the Godin Kids

EE-Gads two blogs in a row! Actually today I almost posted midday, which would've really been strange for me, but alas the lit'uns did not allow it. <shock face!> And really this blog's for them alone, since I didn't even have time to remove the super glue from my fingers yet... Ahem, let's begin from this morning...

Restless night. Downward belly bug for VJ and me. Nuff said.

Jesse came home to sleep some and get off to The Love Shack to finish the floors (Yay!) then go out for drinks with his brother (belated B-day thing). It's my mother's birthday today and I needed to get a card still. Gifts all set but kept forgetting the card, common thing for me. Planned on taking the kids to the mall at some point, then  to the Shack to visit the BFF for a few and head home (the almost no-longer-our home). Plans are great... aren't they?

Cranky children attack! Clinging, fighting, whining, crying for nothing... Yes a true toddler attack. Somehow we managed through most of the morning. Tried to put VJ down but he wanted nothing of it. Since Jess was still trying to sleep, I gave up and took  him back upstairs until noon. (Meanwhile Bekah had freaked out whenever I ran downstairs for something! Not like her.) Finally VJ goes down and Jesse starts getting up. Then I uh... the worst... see above...

Mama-daughter time rocks, especially when said daughter behaves better going solo and can be trusted (somewhat) alone while I take care of things. Wrapped a couple presents downstairs. She wanted to use lots of sticky tape... Lots! So with random bits of dog-hairy tape in long strips along the package, we finished. Then we needed to make a card. She'd been saying, 'Mammy, we got you a bear!' which she wasn't supposed to say but thankfully wasn't really understood by Mammy. We made a bear card. I cut out the bear and some circles to glue over the paws/tummy/ears/belly. Uh-oh... run Caroline!

The bear got glued together in  the bathroom... Yeah maybe you didn't need to know that, but too late. After, she actually successfully drew eyes, nose, and a mouth in the right places. It's the little things :) It was a first for her. Managed to not burn lunch and she actually wanted to eat it, my little nuthin' to her cutie. Then the moose woke up. Bekah freaked again as I went to get him. Weird for her. He gobbled lunch at first, then fussed and wanted no more. Then came his explosion, which my father took care of thankfully so I didn't burn the last sandwich (Papa's).

A little later all seems well as I'm laying on the couch drained from viral (yes it was not anything I ate) yuck. This is about when I wanted to blog. Really it had been a typical day, nothing too substantial, except the added whining and screaming. She sits down to read a book. He sits *right* beside her to do the same. His book cover flops onto her lap. She looks at it, perplexed, then flicks it back over. He looks at it, thinking, "Odd, I just opened that." Then he flips it opened again. This starts going back and forth a few times and neither whined or got mad or looked at the other child sitting right there. They seemed, for a moment, curious as to how the book kept coming back at them. I burst out in laughter, unable to even suggest that someone move over. They looked up, smiling, laughing, giggling, and continued with ear-to-ear grins now. It was one of moments that should've been on video but never could be. A had-to-be-there laugh-out-loud hysteria moment.

They day returned to screaming/whining/clinging-to-mama in a short while. I managed to run downstairs to move laundry along with Bekah's help to the tune of a screaming VJ upstairs with the 'rents. They freaked again when my parents went out to eat for my mother's birthday. I grabbed a Dora episode for them while I cooked frozen Mozzarella Sticks and Chicken Nuggets and reheated some veggies for supper. Bekah went gourmet and mixed her dips of  ketchup, honey, and ranch. Dinner seemed to be going well until suddenly it wasn't interesting and VJ pulled off his bib and demanded Blue. (Blueberry the monkey is supposed to be a sleep buddy only...) That's it! Clean up and showers.

Yes, showers. They wash each other and it's SO Fracking Cute! Once we got past Bekah multiple 'I haz go poopy!' moments and his peeing on the floor (*sigh*) the shower went well, mostly. He screamed and cried whenever she touched him and I still don't know what's up with that. Bedtime was actually precious. We read three stories, I sang my bedtime blessing song to them, we prayed, and then Bekah went potty one more time. She was out about five minutes after crawling into bed. He took the folding of a load of laundry plus laying out tomorrow's clothes and turning on the laptop.

And here we are. Rinse. Repeat.

Step 2: Get your shat in order

Okay, so I've gotten myself to put together a timeline, well, more than one really. It's entirely necessary to have more than one timeline when there's more than one level of time happening. Oh boy... I'm confusing myself now. Doesn't take much these days...

Okay, so I've realized I need to make sense to both myself and my audience (who consists of about two people minus all the fictitious personalities, etc.). I've got a basic timeline set for the whole saga plus I've been re-reading and re-writing previous 'chapters' so as to convert them into both sensible reading formats and timeline appropriate data. (Basically I'm trying to rid myself of continuity errors.)

On a more RL note (or so I'm told): packing isn't going so well. We'll be moving into the Shack next weekend. I swear this time it's real! It's been a long and frustrating road but before my BFF and I kill each other I need to realize the light's there and it's not a freight train! He's getting a final sanding and coat on the floors tomorrow and it'll cure over a few days and then... THEN! we can move furniture in. It's a couch and a fridge that'll suck the most. the dressers and beds should be fairly easy. Meanwhile, I hope to get some closet organizers up and finish stocking the cabinets.

All in good time. Things need to be put in order for a reason... so we can continue with our stories of course!