Merry Christmas!

While driving to my parents' house on Christmas, we were listening to Mickey's Christmas CD. At one point, Pluto came on and sang, "Oh, Christmas Tree." Since Pluto is a dog, he barked the entire song. I've heard this song 8 million times, of course, but during this particular time, Mike and I looked at each other and he asked me, "What have our lives become?" (As I write this, the bear on TV is singing, "It's time to get to know your potty chair. Your tooshie's clean, your tooshie's dry. Flush it down and wave goodbye." This is exactly what my life has become.)

Christmas Eve

This Christmas, we adopted a refugee family from Myanmar. They moved from Myanmar to Dallas two months ago because "President bad." We received the family information on Sunday, visited them on Monday to see what their needs were, and shopped all day Tuesday. They are a family of six in a two bedroom apartment. They had next to nothing and we called on friends and family to donate supplies and funds to give them an amazing Christmas. We took the girls over on Christmas Eve and filled their living room with gifts. The children, two of which were our girls' ages, took to each other immediately even though they couldn't communicate with words.
While the kids were playing, the mother opened all the packages. She was thrilled and she and her husband laughed a lot. She held up baby soap and asked, "What?" I pointed to a child and mimed washing her. Next was lotion, so I rubbed my hands and arms. The shower cleaner, windex and comet included cleaning motions. Then came the toilet cleaner. She laughed at the funny shaped bottle and looked at me. I pointed to my rear-end and pretended to sit on a toilet, then clean it. That's Christmas spirit!
While we were figuring that all out, Mike heard the father calling, "Sir? Sir?" The dad had the new vacuum out and couldn't figure out how to assemble it. Mike set it up and then set up the microwave, showing them how to set and stop the cook time. Later, we heard, "Sir?" again and saw the parents laughing with each other. They couldn't figure out how to open it and were tickled at the situation.
The children had never seen play-doh, so they all had a great time playing. Abby ventured into the girls' room, which had one mattress on the floor for the parents and two girls. Other than that, the room was bare. Later Abby said, "Mom, they don't have anything and we have so much!"
It was an amazing experience and we will never forget these sweet people.

Today We Terrorized Small Animals

Today's story began two weeks ago when I agreed to take care of the kindergarten guinea pigs. Abby loves her teacher, but I think she loves the animals more. Each day she talks about Daisy and Panda and how she loves to hold them and take care of them. What better way to help out the teacher and please my daughter at the same time?
I picked up the pigs on Thursday after school and her teacher, wonderful Mrs. Romo, gave me all the instructions. They are sweet and gentle. They let the kids hold them for hours. I received feeding instructions and tips on how to clean the cage. (They came in a huge, heavy cage that I have toted around the house several times in the last few days.) Before I left, Mrs. Romo said, "If you feel like it, they really need a bath." Okay, no problem I'm sure. She gave me instructions and added, "If you're really feeling up to it, they need haircuts." That one stopped me. "Really??" I asked. She told me how much they enjoyed being bathed and having their hair cut. They enjoy the warm water and they especially love the blow dryer.
It turned out that the guinea pigs are very loving and do let my children hold them for extended periods of time. All was going well until we decided to play beauty shop.
Maybe the difference in the whole shampoo/haircut/blowdry routine is that Mrs. Romo does not have small children. She probably bathes Daisy and Panda with the lights dim and a scented candle nearby. That's how people with grown children live, I think. Our situation was a bit different.
Poor Daisy was first. She hated the water right from the start and began running in vain. Her little feet just slipped on the sink bowl and splashed water in her face. She had two young kids on step-stools, squealing loudly about two inches from her frightened body. I was trying to hold her little soapy body, assuring her that she loved baths! Mrs. Romo said that the best time to cut them is when they are shampooy. So at this point, I picked up the scissors. This is when Daisy started screaming. This freaked me out and brought the girls' volume up considerably. I told Abby to go get her father.
He walked into the chaos and I said, "She's supposed to like this!" I picked up the poor animal and clutched her to my chest to calm her down. Mike picked up the scissors and began to cut. At this point she decided that her claws might work well on my flesh. After I cried out and pinned her tiny little feet together, she was left defenseless. So she resorted to the only thing she could. Poop. She began dropping pellets like nobody's business. Mike was saying, "There's another one!" He bent to tissue it up and she shot another one which bounced off his hand. The girls were beyond control. Mike was still trying to cut Daisy's hair while I screamed, "Hannah, don't touch it!" Hannah was yelling, "Daisy's pooping! No, Daisy!" Abby was saying, "Daisy! That's disgusting! Disgusting!" There must have been 15 pellet bombs.
Once we finally finished with poor Daisy, we turned our attention to Panda. The poor boy had witnessed the whole ordeal and was already shaking when I picked him up for his bath. If you want to know how Panda did, just scroll up and read Daisy's story again.
I'm exhausted. The piggies are all groomed now, except for a long chunk of black hair that we missed with Panda. Maybe he would rather sport the punk look than have another haircut. Only 15 days to go.

Mike, You Animal!

Here's a little secret. Teachers love comparing interesting gifts given to them at Christmas by students. Usually Mike and I wrap our interesting gifts and place them under the tree for my dad. (He started it many years ago.) This year, Mike received our favorite gift ever. A student gave him an Old Spice gift set. We chuckled at this fact alone until I really started to read the box. These are direct quotes from the box given to my husband by a second grade student.

After Hours Gift Set: Designed to make sure you don't come home alone.
Tips from the Old Spice Man of Experience
Old Spice After Hours is a powerful attractant, designed to give you an advantage in After Hours situations. To increase your chances with the ladies even further, try these time-proven tips:
*Flex your intellectual rather than your physical muscles in her presence.
*Approach with confidence and a smile.
*Listen to what she has to say. (I gave him a look and a nod with this one.)
*Make eye contact.
And my personal favorite:
*Put clean sheets on the bed before you go out.

Mike said he's going to wear the cologne to school tomorrow and see what happens. Knock yourselves out, ladies. He's taken.

Blast from the Past

In honor of our anniversary, I thought you might enjoy a picture of us. This was when we were dating, probably taken about 15 years ago.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 14th wedding anniversary. I will see Mike between 4:45 and 5:00 and then again from 9:30 to 10:00. Isn't life romantic when you have kids, jobs and obligations?
We waited almost nine years before having children and Mike assures me that I was much nicer then. (I was). He has learned that I don't pick up my shoes and that I leave the house a huge mess until after the girls are in bed. I frustrate him by having a million things going on at once. I have learned that Mike's brain can only focus on one thing at a time. He can't listen to me if he's "thinking". Now I start important stories with, "Are you listening?" Pause. . . "Sort-of," he mumbles. Then I wait until he says okay to start the story. I have also learned that "husband memory" is very selective about what it remembers and what it forgets almost instantly (pretty much everything I say).
He read my profile which says, "I am married to my sweet husband of 14 years." He thinks it sounds like he's 14 years old. We discussed it and I would like to clarify that Mike is not 14 years old. I am also considering taking out the word "sweet".
So happy anniversary to us. I still love my husband and thank him for the million ways that he helps me with the housework and with the kids. He's a keeper.

Little Stinker

Hannah and I were sitting in the living room when I smelled something gross. I just looked at her and she screamed, "I'm not poopy!" I asked if she was sure and she said, "Yes, no poopy!" She grunted and her face strained and turned red for a moment before she yelled, "No poopy!" again. She then walked away bowl-legged muttering, "Squishy, squishy." She turned to me once more and said defiantly, "Not poopy."

Gone to the Dogs

Our dog, Goliath, is usually an outdoor dog but with temperatures in the 20s and 30s this week, we have let him inside. The girls think this is big fun. While I was in the kitchen, I heard Hannah playing ring-around-the-rosie. Since she was the only one home, I was a bit confused until I heard her say, "Fall down, Goliath. FALL DOWN!"

Quote of the Day

Mommy to Abby while playing Candyland:
"I know you cheat at Gamma and Papa's house, but we're not going to let you cheat here. That's something special you can do at Gamma and Papa's." The game ended shortly after, Abby in tears and Hannah yelling, "Double red! Double red!" I love board games and children, don't you?

Catch Up

This is a catch-up post of all the stories that I haven't shared yet.

Hannah(2)was fishing through the cereal cupboard and pulled out her favorite cereal- Fiber One. She started eating it by the handful and eventually Abby(5)joined in. After a few mouthfuls, Abby explained to her Papa, "This makes you poop hard."

Hannah's best friend is her security blanket. She calls it Mainkie. When she leaves the house she says goodbye to Mainkie and occasionally explains where she's going and when she'll be back. When she comes home, she screams, "Mainkie!" and runs for it before greeting anyone else. One day, she sweet-talked me into letting her take it out of the house. When Hannah got to the grocery store, the cashier asked her what her name was. "I'm Hannah Rae and this is Mainkie." Heaven forbid she should introduce her mother before her Mainkie.

We received a photo Christmas card from some friends. On it was a large picture of Abby's two friends. She looked at it with a smile and said, "Ahhhh. . . . Who's it from?"

To distract Hannah in the car one day, I gave her the cell phone. She chatted away on it, singing songs, laughing, talking. After awhile, I heard a woman's voice say, "Does your Mom know you're on the phone?" She said yes just as I reached in the back seat. Shocked that she had actually called someone, I said, "Hello?" The voice said, "This is Bear Creek Elementary. Did you mean to call us?" She had speed-dialed Mike's work! The secretary had a good sense of humor and I made sure to mention that it was Mike Johnson's daughter that had called her.

We were visiting my brother and his family when Abby and her cousin Jocie (3) started playing with cork pop guns. My sister-in-law Kelli said, "We tell her they're poppers. We haven't said the word g-u-n or told her what they're used for. They're just fun poppers." Not two minutes later, we hear Abby shout, "Come on, Jocie! Let's take our shooters and kill the bad guys! Shoot them! Shoot them!" Always the teacher, my girl.

Testing, testing. . . .

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Goodbye huge mass emails, hello blog. I always found it such a pain to email the world, so perhaps I can update this more frequently.