The Best Laid Plans and where to shove them!

Ever have one of those days.... I don't even know why I'm asking, I know you did... do... are.....!!  I woke up this morning thinking this was going to be "a GREAT day" !  I didn't know why, I just knew it was.  I had a PLAN, I made a LIST... I was Going To Get Things DONE.  uh HUH.  You're laughing already aren't you.  See?  I knew you'd understand.  As I sit here now, doing something that was NOT on my list mind you, I realize how much I was kidding myself!  When there is a baby in the house, getting DRESSED should be gold medal worthy.  Showered and dressed??!  Fuggedaboutit!!  Showered, dressed, house cleaned, laundry done ( AND put away!!) dinner ready, kids schooled, baby happy and learning new skills...?????   aha ha hah hah ahaaaaa!!!!!    Nope.  Not on your nelly.  Or anyone's nelly for that matter.  Ain't Gonna Happen.  And yet, dreamer that I am, I harken back to a time when Flylady and I were like THAT ( I crossed my fingers to indicate that we were TIGHT!!) .. my house ran like clockwork ( most of the time, it was one of those clocks that had to be wound once in a while! ) if I made a list BAM!!  that list got DONE!!!......   sigh.  Those days are no more.   And I should be glad of it too.  I have a BEAUTIFUL family to spend time on.  A gooing cooing baby girl who we all love to watch grow.  A blossoming teenager who actually LOVES to spend time with me, who physically CRAVES my attentions.  A girl I couldn't be more proud of.  And a boy... my Jack.... this kid can keep himself occupied all day long but at bedtime ... he wants me to sleep beside him every night.  He asks me to hold his hand whilst he falls asleep. He asks me to sing, he begs me to stay.  So today I didn't get my chores done.  I DID cuddle my baby.  I didn't get all the laundry washed I DID play Just Dance 3 with my big girl, I didn't get the Christmas decorations out but I DID spend time reading with Jack and working on his numbers.... oh yeah.... and I held his hand and sang him some songs at bedtime.  Of course I still have things that weigh on me... I didn't call my mother today, I really need to spend some time with my hubby and the kitchen dishes aren't going to wash themselves, but, really, all in all, it was a very, very good day.

25 Random Acts of Kindness.

The family and I were talking earlier about Christmas.  We thought it might be nice this year if we could perform an act of kindness every day from December 1st through the 25th.  We had a few ideas to start with, Jessie liked the idea of handing out free Gingerbread Men at the mall, but I'm not sure people would go for that...  We all liked the idea of paying for somebody's groceries, paying for someone's coffee, surprising someone with flowers, buying a big sack of dog food for a local animal shelter, buy a toy for a child at the orphanage, make cookies for the neighbors ( but we do that every year anyway...  ) ....  we just need to come up with nineteen more ideas!!! ;D   I thought if I wrote about it here, we would be able to keep track of what we do.  Jessie and I are really excited to do this!  We have done stuff like this before and it's always meant more to us than to the recipient!!  We almost feel guilty for enjoying it so much!!  If you have any good ideas, I'd love to hear them!!  Please do share! ;D

Shhhhh..... pretend I never left, ok? :D

So, we won't stop to count how long it's been since I last wrote a blog post...  But the fact that Jessie said today...."Perhaps you could blog about THIS Mom?" might be an indicator?!  Everything is going along nicely at our house.  We had our lovely baby girl, Millie, on August 13th.  She was born 3 weeks early but 6lb10, so bigger than my full term Jessie! :D Millie is getting along great, we all adore her of course, and she gets oooodles of attention.  Her smiles and coos are what are charming us at the moment and it turns out we can lose hours out of every day just talking to her and watching to see what she'll do next!  It's a good job she naps during the day or I wouldn't ever have chance to get dressed!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving....  tons of yummy food, simple, but good.  Each year I look at our plates and think, hmm... could have had more color, could have been more stylish, but each year I look at the pitiful amount of leftovers and figure I got it about right!!  It's time now of course to start thinking about Christmas..... !!  I'm excited this year because Millie will LOVE the lights, we call her Millie the moth because she sure is drawn to light.  I can't imagine how she's going to be dazzled by the trees!!!  I remember when Jess was a baby we'd lay her under the tree and she'd gaze in amazement at all the beautiful lights.... heck, I still do that!!!  We'll probably ( hopefully ) get our tree(s) this coming week.  I'm hosting a Craft / Christmas Project day next weekend and I'd like the decorations up by then... at least some of them anyway! ;D

There has been so much happening around here since I last wrote....  all and nothing if you know what I mean.  Rex doesn't have a job yet but he has some prospects in the pipeline and surely something will shake lose soon!  I'm busy with baby, Jessie is working on writing a novel.... she's doing NaNoWriMo ( National Novel Writing Month ) and Jack is busy kicking his families collective rear in Mario Kart Wii.  He is incredibly good at it... or we are exceptionally poor at it.... either way, he loves to win and the sounds of his playing in the basement carry up through the rest of the house!!

Anyway, I'm happy to have taken the time to write a little tonight.....  everyone else is sleeping and I can hear a Fringe rerun playing in the other room.  I'm thinking it's time I went to bed...  I'll no doubt be up again in a few hours with shortie, but it's getting longer between feeds so not too bad really.

G'night all.  Nice to chat.  Talk again soon.  (I promise!)