Deck the Halls

Oh dear me, it is December!

Our Elf the Shelf, Lightning McQueen, showed up and on the second night I almost forgot to move him. Might be a long month of this, especially now that the Lady and her girlfriends text each other photos of their elves.

Moms--you are killing me! I am doing the bare minimum of remembering to move this thing at night and now I have to scroll through the Lady's texts to make sure that Lightning is up to par with Chippy or Lulu or Buddy! I am literally putting this elf on a shelf. And really do they need clothes? What a freaking racket!

After the stress ball that was last December with packing and moving and trying to get it all together, I was thinking that come December 1, I would unpack my carefully organized Christmas decorations and deck the halls.

This is what my mantle/fireplace looks like right now.

A few things you may notice:

1. Lightning McQueen in a vase
2. A Halloween pumpkin painted like a black cat that hasn't started rotting yet so I haven't tossed it in the woods.
3. Two gingerbread Turkeys
4. Some fall artwork by the Little Lady
5. Two out of our 5 Advent calendars (I have a really cute wooden one in the attic)
6. QT and the Little Lady's school photos (yes, the Little Lady is wearing a leather jacket)
7. Some Uggliest Pet Shop dogs, which are disgusting but very important to QT
8. The shattered hopes and dreams of a mom with three kids who thought that she would be living with a garland draped mantle and cinnamon-scented air

Oh well, I guess I could get it all out tonight.

Have you started decorating for the Holidays?Fa la la la la. . .

Say Cheese! It's Photo Day

It's school photo time at our house.

Today, it is picture day for the Lady and tomorrow the Little Lady will have her time in front of the camera.

I am both excited to have an official photo of them from their schools and at the same time incredibly frightened by what the end result may be.

Both the Ladies are known for hamming it up in front of the camera. The Lady has perfected the over the shoulder pose and the Little Lady is nothing if not creative when it comes to posing with her hand on her hip. I am envisioning at least one head tilt in one of their photos.

We will see how it goes. This morning didn't go so smoothly. Everyone slept entirely too late because they went to bed entirely too late. The outfit that the Lady agreed to wear for pictures was apparently not to her liking this morning and I found myself ironing--yes ironing, something I never, ever do--a blue cotton shirt. On any other day that shirt would have gone on, wrinkles and all.

The Little Lady had some sort of meltdown and even though it was 50 degrees out this morning she went in the stroller to the bus stop wearing the purple dress with the stripes in the photo above (the one she was trying to describe to me by saying things like "like the Wild Woman has, and the Lady has, and I have and its purple" but I didn't know what she was talking about, so I had to find a photo of it on my phone because she mentioned wearing it apple picking) and a pair of Crocs. To be fair, she also had a baby blanket. Let's hope the sitter got her to put on some leggings before they headed to school.

The Lady also insisted on not putting her hair back. Usually her hair looks nice when she wears it down, but only after it is brushed, and only for about five minutes. I threw a small brush in her backpack with the hopes that her teacher will find it and take pity on me.

Do they still hand out those little black combs on picture day? I am a little out of the loop.

At least I was organized enough to have picked out the photo package in advance. At first I thought that there might be a reason for me to have three 8x10 photos of the Lady with a laser background and her name and grade stamped on the front. Cooler heads, however, did prevail and I stuck with the basic package.

I do have to appreciate the way they do photos at the Little Lady's school, where they take the pictures and then just send home the package and ask you to write a check. Like anyone is going to return the already printed photos and say "no thanks, I am not interested in writing a check for $26, for photos of my three-year-old making a cheese face with her hands on her hips." Kudos to them.

We will see how the final products comes out. As much as I do want the "official" photo to be something I might want to display in my home, I am well aware that some photos won't ever make it to the frame on the mantle.

I debated posting my fifth grade school photo here with the caption "Insert female golfer joke here," but I thought better of it.

Even though I have a sheet of those wallet size photos in the top drawer of my dresser and my husband and I like to take them out every once in a while for a good laugh, I am seriously concerned that it has the possibility of turning into some sort of Internet meme and I have enough going on that I don't need to be the next "Bad Luck Brian."

The Little Victories

Last Wednesday was school picture day at the Lady's school. She agreed to wear a lovely little brown dress, but battled and I mean battled her father and I about putting on a sweater even though it was in the low sixties that morning.

When we finally got into the car (sweater on) we got stuck in traffic on the road to school. The ride that takes roughly 6 minutes was doubled. Needless to say we were late to school. The Lady then took this opportunity to have her first drop-off meltdown since the school year began. Some days she tells me she wants me to wait a minute and watch her, but this morning she clung to my leg and started crying. I am not sure what the protocol is in this situation, do you just run out and let the teacher's handle it? Try to calm them and coax them into the room?

So, I have the Lady crying in the doorway, the Little Lady making a beeline towards the sensory table in the classroom that is filled with unpopped popcorn and I am trying to figure out who to grab first and what is the quickest way to get out of the building.

The Lady's teacher came over and told me that I could just leave her and that it would be okay. She asked the Lady if she was nervous about the school photos, which prompted the woman who works in the office in the next room to come out and ask the teacher if she wants to switch the classes photo time so that the Lady isn't waiting around and nervous about it. I was thinking that the reason she was upset was that she was tired, having woken up in the middle of the night to pee and then ending up sleeping on the couch in the living room when she refused to go back into her bed. However, I did appreciate the effort.

So, I grabbed the Little Lady, passed a very upset Lady off to her teacher, hung out in the vestibule on the top of the stairs until I heard her little sobs subside and then took the Little Lady for a bagel, because Lord knows I needed the carbs.

I did get a phone call from the school about a half-hour later letting me know that the Lady had calmed down fairly quickly and was having a good day. I do have to say I was grateful for that.

But what I am even more grateful for was this morning when I dropped off the Lady and her teacher handed me the photos from school picture day and there she was, looking happy and adorable, and most importantly looking at the camera and smiling.

 I took this little victory with me and tried to keep it close to me when the Lady threw a fit in the car after I picked her up this afternoon. The moments may be fleeting but sometimes they are all I have to keep me sane!

Oh, want to know the best part about the photos? They give you a package with a few 4x6's a 5x7 or two and some wallets and then they let you know that if you want to keep the entire package you recieved (and who wouldn't) you have to pay $28. If you want to pay less you have to hand back some of the prints. Really? Who is going to hand back one 4x6 and a wallet so that they can pay just $26? It is a racket I tell you. A racket. But the Lady looks super cute so I think she is totally worth it!