reflections after thanksgiving

i'm hoping that everyone had a great thanksgiving! we sure did, the food was so yummy! and it was nice to have a day with nothing to focus on except for my family. i'm a bit spoiled and don't actually cook on thanksgiving, i have, but it's not usual. it's one of the ways that i can try to hold on to thanksgivings as a child with none of those grown up worries. thank you mammie for making us a wonderful dinner!

when i wrote about the holidays i had as a child, i mentioned that it was usually just my parents and me. sometime during my early adulthood, my grandma and grandpa roger moved to our town as did my grandpa ted (poppy, as the girls called him) who i met for the first time when he moved to be near us. of course mr. h, kelley and bethany joined the family. as did bill and vi, my parent's neighbors who quickly became family to us. the years that followed, our holidays were celebrated with a full house and i loved that so much!

this thanksgiving though, i reflected with sadness. we have lost three of our family members over the past years. poppy and bill passed away five years ago within just a couple months of each other. the holidays were sad that year. my grandpa roger died this past spring, he was the grandpa i knew my whole life. we have had a few get-togethers since then like birthdays and the 4th of july. but thanksgiving was the first of the holidays with "tradition". grandpa roger was missed a lot this thanksgiving. and it was sad to notice how our family get-togethers that were once big to me are getting smaller.

so please remember this holiday season and really every season that life is short. our time can pass so quickly. enjoy the time you get to spend with all of your loved family and friends. sadly, it can be gone in an instant. i can only hope that one day we will be reunited, all together again. until then i have lots of memories...

we love and miss you so much grandpa roger!

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holiday faves

i asked for requests for things to blog about during my nablopomo challenge and a bloggy friend jennifer (you can check out her blog by clicking on her name!) suggested favorite childhood memories. i have a lot of them, and i think i'll share my holiday faves from being a child to now being a mom.



growing up, most of the holidays were spent with just me and my parents. sometimes we'd have relatives over or go to visit, but usually it was just us. i have great memories of our holidays.

thanksgiving always started off with watching the macy's parade. then we'd have our thanksgiving dinner, complete with homemade noodles. yep noodles. outside of family, i've met just a few people who have noodles as well. but for us, it's a must! the day usually ended with our bellies full and watching the original miracle on 34th street. that was it, and it was perfect!

thanksgiving these days is spent with family, and of course the girls. i have never been able to get them interested in watching the parade, but i still give it a little peek every year. our menu has changed a little, but not much. mammie does the cooking, and other than mashed and sweet potatoes, there are no veggies, none. one year i did make the ever famous green bean casserole. but have since gone back to a veggie free thanksgiving.

my very favorite day of the year is christmas eve. i love the anticipation of santa claus and remembering the birth of Jesus. both are just absolutely magical. our routine hasn't changed much over the years. lots of christmas carols. dinner is an awesome mixture of appetizers and treats made by mammie and papa. papa's specialty is loaded nachos. we exchange gifts with extended family. and mammie always makes sure we have a new pair of christmas jammies. the girls hang their stockings and papa reads "twas the night before christmas" to the girls. we do all of this at mammie and papa's house because they have a chimney! they leave santa milk and cookies of course, and usually carrots or oats for the reindeer.



christmas morning is all about the presents. as a child i remember always waking up to a lit christmas tree stuffed with presents underneath. and santa always, always took great care of me! one year he almost broke my heart. what i really wanted that year was a speak n spell. i was so excited to get it, i just knew it had to be there. all the packages were opened and there wasn't a speak n spell. i was thrilled with all of my gifts but still sad. turns out santa had dropped a present behind some furniture...and it was my beloved speak n spell! i am an absolute spelling bee and i'm sure it's because santa didn't let me down!

our christmas mornings are pretty similar now, waking up to that magical site of a lit tree and presents everywhere! sometimes we sleep at mammie and papa's on christmas eve, sometimes we sleep at home. fortunately we are barely a mile away. papa has an "in" with santa and he never gets confused as to where he's supposed to show up. we unwrap presents from santa and from each other. listening to carols. we usually have a light breakfast of cinnamon rolls. saving our appetite for the big christmas dinner. my grandma has been making that for the past couple years.



as for new year's eve and day, we really don't have any traditions. it's never late to start them though! last year the girls had their first sleepover and rang in the new year with sparkling grape juice. the adults had champagne. new year's day we do watch college football. but again, no real traditions.

i'd love to hear about your new year's day traditions...we definitely need to start some!

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Super Snapshot Saturday

it's time for super snapshot saturday hosted by angel! check out her blog to see great snapshots and to learn how to participate by clicking on the button below. easy peasy!

this week's theme is our choice, so i thought i'd go through photobucket and find some oldies but goodies to share. as i go through photobucket, i can already tell you it's going to be so hard to choose!

silly bunny girls...look at how little they are! (notice bethany's haircut? i can only say that it didn't happen on my watch, ahem)




kelley and me celebrating our birthdays 6th and 31st i think.



bethany the birthday princess.



kelley holding a baby gator.



bethany showing off her new earrings.



one of a very few "family" shots.



beautiful flower shot created by my friend cindy.



sweet sisters, the BFF's i want them to be.



mr. h looking dangerous.



my "first" haircut after cancer.



mammie, kelley and bethany riding the teacups at disney world.



bethany doing what she does best-making us laugh.



what a sweet walk down memory lane!

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siblings...the best laid plans

do you have siblings? were you close with them while growing up? how about now?

me? i'm an only child. as a kid i hated it. it took me many, many hopeful years to realize that brothers and sisters just weren't going to happen. i still am sad about not having a sibling. it was lonely then and it is still lonely now.

being an only child certainly did come with benefits. there was only one of me, so things stretched a little further and i didn't go without. in fact, i usually ended up with the things i wanted. (there are a few things i didn't get that are now inside family jokes). i did get my dream car for my 16th birthday. fortunately my dream car was an old one and less expensive than other cars. if i had wanted a bmw or something like that, i would have been out of luck. my parents felt strongly about being able to send me to college. they both had to work their way through college on their own. had i chosen a traditional wedding, i'm really sure they would have made it a beautiful occasion. so it seems that when they decided to just have me, their life experiences played a big part in it. they wanted to offer me so much opportunity and they did. (thanks mom and dad i love you both so much!)

but at the other end i was the only one with which things were judged. meaning, my parents at a time, thought i was on "the highway to hell". i think that they now maybe realize i was just a normal kid/teen. they just had nothing to compare me against. and really i ended up turning out ok.

my friends all had siblings. and one of my bestest of friends was the middle of three daughters. ever have one of those friends that seemed perfect, the whole family seemed perfect, and you really wanted to be part of that family? yep, that's how i viewed them. i'm really lucky and happy that even now after all of these years, i'm in touch with all three sisters. i know they've had their bumps along the way. but to me they will always be the "perfect family".

fast forward to my family. i definitely wanted three kids, girls, that were fairly close in age. i admit it, i wanted my family to resemble the family of my friend. kelley and bethany are close in age (18 months apart). my hope for them was that they would be instant BFF's. i'll admit that even after all these years (the girls are almost 9 and 10 1/2) i have baby fever like there's been a rabid outbreak. however, having another is not likely to happen. mr. h is just not on board with that idea.

so back to siblings. kelley and bethany. close in age, both girls, the best of friends. right? no. wrong. at best this only lasted through the preschool age when they called each other "sissy" for sister. sometime after that it became a love/hate relationship which it remains to this day. we have issues that i never even dreamed of. not quite to the point of wearing each others clothes without permission, but we're getting there. right now the biggest quarrel involves friends. "but she was my friend first!". if i had a dollar for every time i've heard that...

i do anticipate (hope) that this will change next year. this will be the first time in four years that they will be attending different schools, different busses (and if they had their way, living in different states). we also are anticipating the possibility for them to have their own rooms in the coming future. yes, maybe this will all help.

remember the stories of our grandparents and great-grandparents "when i was your age, i had to walk ten miles to school, uphill, in snow, with hand me down shoes"? here it sounds more like "when i was your age, i didn't have a sister to play with and be friends with. it was lonely. when i played board games, i had to play the left hand against the right hand"!

*sigh* if only they realized how nice it could be to have each other...

My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com

p.s. remember "little baby girl" is only part of my dream family. no, i'm not trying to tell you all any news. =)

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M is for me

matt, liz and madeline. my favorite blog. i'm sure most of you already read it, but if not i encourage you to check it out. just click on the name.

mommy. i am one and i love it. sometimes i look at kelley and bethany and can not fathom that i helped create them. i'm so proud.

mammie. that is my mom. when the girls came along she became mammie. i am truly blessed to have my mom. i could write pages about her. just know that i love my mom so much and a girl always needs her mom.



macaroni and cheese. one of my favorite comfort foods.

manx. cats that do not have tails or full tails. two of my cats are manx. the breed is considered to be the most "dog like" of all cats. they are precious.

missionary. this is something i have always dreamed of doing. being a nurse, i could surely do something good for people. africa is my dream location.

mini boden. one of my favorite places to shop for kelley and bethany.

music. so important in my life. i love all types of music. and i always have a song in my head, like i have a personal radio station. often i have no clue why whatever song is playing, so i try to think about it and find a possible reason. usually i can.

medications. i take too many. way too many.

mean. i really dislike it when people are mean. and i get very upset with myself when i have been mean.

mustangs. my favorite car. my first car was a 1966 mustang that i named mr. furly. this picture is not mr. furly, but a pretty close twin. i also had a newer mustang until i had kids.



mood swings. i have them. sometimes they are really bad and i feel sorry for my family and friends who have to put up with them. i try hard to control them. it doesn't work too well.

marriage. is hard work. if i were to ever find myself single again, i think i would stay single. (speaking of marriage, about mr. h, you can read about him on my "c" post).

money. they say you can't buy happiness. but i do believe having plenty of money would make life a little less stressful and give it the potential to be more fun.

memes. i really like them. i love to learn about others and share who i am.

oops! forgot one...

michelle. my middle name.

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