Merry Christmas!!

Well it has been another crazy holiday season. Before I know it we will be starting the new year and looking forward to spring. I love Christmas and the spirit it brings. I love Christmas because of what it represents. I love that it gives you a reason to get together with all your loved ones. Some of them you only see at Christmas time. I love Christmas because I love buying presents for people. I love it because we get to listen to Christmas music. I love Christmas because of all the yummy treats that people bring me. I love Christmas because of all the opportunities there are to give. I love Christmas because I love to shop.(to a certain extent) I love Christmas because my kids love it. And most of all I love it when the madness is over!!

OH Ally!!

So the other day we return from some errands and I started getting Luke out of the car and Ally starts saying that she is stuck in her seatbelt. I kind of brushed it off because she can sometimes make up drama to get attention. In fact, I was encouraging Luke to make fun of her by saying, "DUH ALLY"(which I later felt bad for). So, after I get Luke out I walk around the car to help her out just so I don't have to hear about it anymore. When I get there I realize she is really starting to get upset. As I check out the situation I realize that she is really stuck. The seatbelt is unbuckled and somehow she had gotten it wrapped around her waist. The problem was that the seat belt had locked where I couldn't get it to release. At this point she is having a hard time breathing and she is saying she feels like she is going to throw up. So, as I am having flashes in my head of calling the fire department she is really starting to freak out. I think Luke started to sense something was really wrong and he starts to get upset. The next thing I try and do is to lift her up trying to get her closer to the top of the seatbelt thinking it would release. It didn't instead it cinched the belt tighter around her waste. Fearing she was gonna pass out or have internal injuries I left her hanging there and ran into my house desperately trying to find some scissors which I have a hard time finding because coincidentally Ally has every pair up hidden in her room. So I get a pair of scissors and cut the freaking seatbelt. I must say it was a little bit scary. So, as I look back at it now that she is okay I have to think to myself what was she doing in the first place. This is the story of Ally's life. We are constantly saying Oh Ally!!

In fact tonight we went to a wedding reception and as she takes off across the room to get some more food from the buffet she completely falls on her face. You could tell she had hurt herself but the humiliation overcame the pain and continued on her way as though nothing had happened. This was followed by her older brother dumping his ranch dressing all down the side of her new dress. It is like that movie "Pure Luck" with Martin Short.

She is like our Goofy. I have to share one more Ally story. She is in a tumbling class a couple times a week. The last 5 minutes of each class they get to choose their favorite skill and show everyone in the class. The less quirky children chose a cartwheel, backbend or something of that nature. Well, Ally gets up in front of the class and wraps her whole arm around the back of her head and takes her fingers and puts them over her face and pulls her nose up like a pig. This was her favorite skill that she had learned in tumbling class. MONEY WELL SPENT!!

This just a sample of my Ally stories. The reason they crack me up so much is that whenever I tell my mom about something new that she has done I always get the same response: "You were the same way when you were little." I love that!! A little me. She is such a cute quirky little thing and I wouldn't change a thing about her.

WHY EVEN TRY

So, today was just one of the days when you say to yourself what else can one little person do to make my life just a little bit more chaotic. Luke would be the little person that I speak of. Than on the other hand I have my other little person(I guess she is not soo little anymore) Ally who did everything her little head could think of to help me today. You would think that one would cancel out the other but I can't say that because the way the mind of the two year old works is unmatched.

Since we are leaving town this weekend I have been trying to get caught up on my laundry so we can actually pack clean clothes. So as I was in my closet sorting the 80 loads I need to do Luke decides to open my new box of laundry soap and not only scoop it onto my floor he tries to put some in the machine. He managed to get some of it in the soap drawer both in the soap side and the softener side. He than preceded to pour it all over the baskets of clothes I had sitting there and on top of the machine door. It was everywhere. I think I was only upstairs for like 5 minutes, 10 at the most and last I knew he was in his toy closet. I was almost impressed. So, I continue on with the million things I need to do and when I went back down a little while later to put in another load and at some point the little stink had gone down and pushed the buttons turning off both my washer and dryer. I mean why even try anymore right?? So I lost a whole hour there and even more if you add up the time it took me to clean up all the soap. Anyways, if I made a complete list of everything he did today this would turn into a novel. The highlight came tonight when I went upstairs to get a diaper to change him and when I came back down I could not find him. The silly thing is that I could hear him, it was the weirdest thing. I seriously did not know where he had gone. As if this should have surprised me because of the days events I found him inside my dryer. He had climbed in and shut the door behind him. Back to the amazing way the 2 year old mind works he actually turned on the light inside the dryer before getting inside. And you will want to remember that he got in there while I was getting a diaper so when I opened the door you can imagine what I smelled. I had to leave the door open for a while before I dared put any clean clothes in there.

I would be an ungrateful mom if I did not mention the bright spot in my day.....
Yes there was one!!

The morning started out with Ally trying to take control of the normal morning activities by getting Luke out of bed and putting him in the tub before I had even realized she had done it. She loves to pick out clothes for him and get him dressed. Just like he was a doll. A doll that kicks and screams at you the whole time you are attempting to put the clothes on. She is also bound and determined to figure out the diaper thing. We are not quite there on that. She than preceded to pour him a sippy of juice and get him a bag of cereal. She than tucked him into my bed after wrapping him up in a blanket. Again just like he was a doll. She set his sippy cup and cereal right next to him. Turned on Disney and he was set.

After watching Disney with Luke for about 15 minutes(this is about her limit for holding still) she hopped up and wanted to get her shower over with. So we got her all showered, hair done and clothes on. I than mentioned that her room needed to be cleaned. Ally is my.....how do I say nicely......well lets say that tideness is not that important to her. Jon calls her room a hog hole. Unless you tell her to clean it than she gets right on it and usually the end product is acceptable. She even dragged the vaccuum upstairs and took some wipes and cleaned up some marker on the carpet. WOW this is getting long. I must quickly go over the rest of her chores because I was totally impressed. After her room she had to make a sweep of the house and recover all her belongings and than she did the same with Luke's toys. She was still cleaning when I left for work. She was emptying the dishwasher.

So even though my day seemed really bad now that I have time to sit back and look at all that happened, there was a lot of good too.

The hardest part to starting something is actually getting it started.

Well, after being inspired by all the fun girls(my friends) I play Bunco with here goes. My blog. What to say. I am assuming that you eventually get over the feeling of why am I talking about myself and who could possibly interested in reading what I am writing. I hope so. I think one of the reasons I wanted to start this was to document our life. I am also hoping that having a forum to display pictures might motivate me to be better at taking more pictures. Last but not least I really enjoy reading everyone else's blogs.
Here is a quick intro to our clan. Jon works for the Newspaper Agency Corp and always has some project going on at home. Jake is my oldest. He is 11 going on 21. He is my very responsible and independent first child. Then you have Ally. She is my front toothless 7 yr old who is incapable of holding still. Last but not least we have 2 year old Luke. The one I should have had first when I was younger and had a lot more energy.
Well, with me the hardest part to starting something is actually getting it started. So now that I have made it through my first post it should get easier from here.