AMP goes Hollywood

In an hour and a half, my darling husband will be featured prominently on the evening news. He will be the unshaven man taking out his trash with the bright lights in his eyes, asked "How do you feel about the fact that the city hasn't plowed your road?" (the storm was a week ago), and answering vehemently, in the way that only prematurely old, cranky homeowners can. "Yes, I pay my taxes!" He will then mention our friend Becky nearly getting stuck on the road two nights ago - since she was utterly insistent that we should complain to the city (I didn't, but I have my suspicions which of my neighbors did). What makes this even funnier, is that when I called my friend Jamie to watch the 10 o'clock news, before I could tell her to set the DVR, she said, "I just saw a trailer for the news and they are talking about the worst roads to drive on since the storm, and they SHOULD have come to your street!"

Blizzard Party

I am a Southern girl at heart. I must admit to a little residual resentment toward AMP for moving me up North, into the land of accents (we don't have those in the South), chowder, and of Nor'easters.
But the North has grown on me, and despite the fact that my daughters pronounce the word mirror as "mira" (AHHHH!), I will say some of the best days of my life happened while we have been snowed in up here with friends and family. Several years ago, our good ole southern friends, Kevin and Angela, came with their son to visit us, and we were planning on showing them around the area. 28 inches of snow put a kibosh on those plans, so instead we made snow ice cream, a pot of beans and cornbread, 3 gallons of sweet tea, and sat in our pjs and played cards for 3 days. It was the best mini-vacation ever!
On Tuesday night, we slept over at some of best friends house and surprised our kids with a sledding party the next morning - but not before we loaded up the table with breakfast. Eggs, chocolate chip pancakes, hashbrowns, cheese danishes and muffins, bacon, sausage and coffee - all prepared during intermittent power outages. So the conclusion I now can draw, is that I am obsessed with food (Resolution #2 is going to be very, very hard), and I can't wait for Blizzard Party #3!

Live, Laugh and Love

These are my New Year's Resolutions - definitely a day, or two, late, but finished before my Christmas Cards, which, let's be honest, may never see the light of day. After two plus weeks of Christmas, of two sets of houseguests (but the really good kind), of cooking and cooking and cooking some more, of being blissfully snowed in, twice, of trudging into work after being snowed in, of 3 kids on roller skates at midnight (insanity?), these are things I want to focus on for '11:

1. To be more patient - as three adorable, and complete monsters race in and around my legs, shouting for my attention "Mommy, Sissy just shoved my head into the wall", "Mommy, he just took my bear", "Momma, it's MINE!".
   
2. To lose a few more pounds - This is after a full day of birthday cookies, cupcakes and icecream. After weeks of my mother-in-law's famous chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate glazed donuts, and Emily's Amazing Banana Bread! After I devoured a pancake, and bacon and eggs and a hashbrown for breakfast this morning and just dumped Belgian Toffee Chocolate creamer in my nightly cup of coffee - do you see a pattern here?
   
3. To live every day to the fullest -On Christmas morning, my Grandmother passed away. I am glad she is with Jesus now, and that she got to see him on his birthday, but still, it reminds me to live it up everyday. And yesterday was a fabulous birthday (thanks AMP, the bag was definitely the fastest way to my little heart), but 31 years have come and gone, and I want to make sure that I enjoy every possible second of the next 31 - particularly with those little monsters described in Resolution #1.
   
4. To blog everyday - It's January 12th. And the last blog was on Dec. 24th....Whoops.

11 years ago, before this phrase became insanely popular, my crazy blonde roommate and I had a favorite song - Clay Walker's Live, Laugh Love. This year on Christmas, we both, unbeknownst to each other, sent gifts to each other inspired by this phrase. And that is my thought for this year, 12 days in. More living and enjoying life with my fabulous friends and family. More laughing at all the joyful moments that fill my life, and always, more giving and sharing of Love.

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;
Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;
Who has left the world better than he found it,
Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;
Whose life was an inspiration;
Whose memory a benediction. (Bessie Anderson Stanley)

Visions of Bolts, Batteries and Plastic Ties

The children are tucked safely in their bed, and the process of making the magic of Christmas begins in 20 minutes. "Santy Claus" or AMP as he is known throughout the rest of the year, has rushed off to the last store remaining open to buy a bottle of Green Magic Maker (Mountain Dew) in preparation for the insanity set to begin. Presents to wrap, presents to assemble (Pollo's new fancy bike), presents to build (The girl's are waking up to new bunk beds in the manana - shhh...don't tell them.) and only t-minus 10 hours to pull it all off. Never mind the small detail that AMP, or insane "Santy Claus", is insistent that we will also finish every last detail of the basement and upstairs bathroom before his parents arrive at noon (or therebouts I would say after checking the weather - yikes!). So all I want for Christmas this year is a strong drink of coffee, and maybe a nap tomorrow afternoon - but when I add this to my existing Christmas wish list of a pair of slippers, and a four-slice toaster, I realize that I am very, very old.
Time for this old bum to stop procrastinating with my Christmas gift (the computer), grab my scissors and dive right on in.

White Christmas in a Box

Yes, there are small flurries drifting outside our house tonight, and there is more in the forecast over the next few days, but that is not the kind of White Christmas I am referring to. Imagine if you will, three small, very rowdy, extremely giddy children and a 4 foot box of Christmas presents. Sounds like fun, unpacking all of Grandma and Grandma's presents and placing them, after orders of severe punishment, under the tree - of course shaken and slightly worse for the wear. But where, you ask, does the White part come into this Christmas story? Did you forget about the peanuts? Thousand of tiny, white protection agents, that are now scattered over every inch of my children, me and of course, my house. I know the box is always better than the gift to a child, but I have never seen Pollo laugh so hard as when Chicken Little tipped the whole box sideways... from her spot inside the box. At one point, all three of the hysterical chics were inside the box together, and smashing peanuts into each others' hair (don't even ask about Chicken Little's hair) and into each others' mouths?? I even saw one go up little Chicken Nugget's nose.

Currently, AMP is shop-vacing the entire house - including me. (I just felt a little suction on my leg as I typed this.) There was some laundry waiting to be folded in the living room where the explosion occurred, and Chicken Little and I have lost already lost a pair of underwear, both to the shopvac beast. I think this White Christmas is here to stay!

Guilty Pleasures

AMP and I have been watching The Sing Off together (I feel like he might have lived this show back in Iowa - deep Acapella roots in that boy), and one of last night's themes was Guilty Pleasures songs. This seemed to inspire this evening's events - though spending an entire hour watching television together, despite also folding laundry at the same time, seemed like an enormous Guilty Pleasure all by itself:

GP#1: The pleasure of a roaring fire in the fireplace. The guilt - it seems kind of like Cannabalistic torture to have such a beautiful fire right in front of the poor tree - "This will be you in a few weeks!"

GP#2: The Pleasure of making homeade chocolate chip cookies (of course using my mother-in-law's famous pudding recipe) with my best friend Becky after the kids went to sleep. Wait, I mean the kids went to bed, and not actually to sleep. The guilt came when Chicken Little kept asking from her bed "Mommy, what are you making?" every time the beaters turned on and as I licked the spatula...and maybe the bowl.

GP#3: The Pleasure of eating chocolate chip cookies with our best friends and just catching up. The guilt - enjoying the conversation so much that I missed the timer on the last round of cookies. Just when I was taking pleasure in my new found fame as a decent cook/baker, I magically transformed myself from the Maker of Amazing Cookies to the Creator of Hockey Pucks.

Oh well, easy come, easy go. I am already snuggled down by the fire with my plate of milk and cookies - just hoping my little wee friends, the mice, don't want to join in on this guilty pleasure.

The Great Cheese Slice in the Sky

Jerry met his maker and went to the Great Cheese Slice in the Sky the very next day after he tried to snuggle with me. However, I had a eerie premonition that he wasn't alone. Everyday since Thanksgiving when The Horror occurred, I have tread very carefully upstairs. Well tonight, I explored my premonition by checking the trap upstairs that was expertly positioned by our paint supplies. I didn't see anything, but apparently, I am blind, because his cohort in crime, Jerrette, had recently joined him in the Great Cheese Slice in the Sky. AMP just descended the stairs with the wee monster, and panic is back in the house.

I am currently debating between my own personal rock and hard place - new house (get ready to be bankrupted selling this one) or getting Chicken Little the cat that she so desperately wants (never mind the small, very insignificant fact that she is insanely allergic to them). Just as a note, I am a badge-carrying cat hater.

Chicken goes AMP

I am looking for an excuse, if any has one, for what just happened. I wandered into the kitchen to start up the Keurig, and then jumped back into the dining room to manage the wee chicks eating their eggs, AMP's best batch in 10 years. There was some polite discussion (pushing and crying) over the seating arrangements, and a little animal game being played (including some cheating and "Dora is not an animal!"). So I guess it is no wonder that I found this in the kitchen - coffee made and dispensed.....must remember the coffee cup next time.

Fa la la la lah!

Last night we went to get our Christmas tree at the local Catholic church, whose men's ministry sells them. For the third year in a row, they are oddly enough closed each time we arrive (Dare we say warning call?). So while the three chicks did have a blast chasing each wildly in and about the trees - it was not as a picturesque as it sounds. 19 freezing cold degrees in the concrete jungle of our neighborhood Home Depot, but I still got some pictures, and we got an amazing tree - carted home on the little red minivan.

Tonight, after 3 hours of pizza, 30 minutes of Grinch on TV, 2 cups of hot cocoa, 1 massive roaring fire, 0 broken ornaments (still surprised about that one), and the 4 strands of new lights that AMP read my mind and surprised me with, the deChicken Family Christmas is proudly and beautifully glowing in the corner window. Christmas is coming-and we deChickens are almost ready!

Little and Nugget Sayings

Just as a note, my charming little Pollo is also saying hilarious things, but it is primarily the way he says things, in his small little spanglish accent, that is what cracks us up the most and doesn't neccessarily translate well into this forum. The other two are just plain crazy:

"I want to get on an airplane - I miss Jesus and want to go see him." announces Chicken Nugget at the dinner table

"Does the Devil brush his teeth?" Chicken Little at bedtime to procrastinate

"How do you spell their number?"Chicken Nugget trying to call Grandpa to wish him a Happy Birthday

"Mommy, you have a gobble-gobble," as Chicken Little grabs the skin under my neck

"I no poo-poo in the potty" Chicken Nugget in rebellion mid-situation as I scoop her up and smack her down on the toilet, barely clearing the saw blade resting on the back of the seat - no judgment people, we are in construction!

"Mommy, Evan is my boyfriend and he LOVES me!", Chicken Little annouces to which I reply, "I thought Evan and Camilla (Chicken Little's best friend) were together and in love?" The response: "Nope. Now Camilla likes Jada." Jada is the third girl in the three best friends, so this surprises me a little. "Why does Camilla like Jada?" I ask nonchantly as I fold my pants.
"Because Jada is pretending to be Justin Beiber, and everyone loves Justin Beiber!" Obviously.