Wrapping up the Leftovers

Warning: Complete randomness ahead...

Christmas time is in full swing. The laundry is running, the boys are napping, the dishwasher is loaded, Mike is at his grandma's cleaning and I am sitting down for the first time in two days! I thought I was done wrapping things two weeks ago then, I remembered all the little "crafty" gifts that I needed to finish up and wrap. I can't mention them here because it might ruin surprises for some readers. Let's just say it has involved finger painting, photo corners, CD burning, cutting, pasting, etc. I actually used up most of my wrapping paper this year. Although, I did do some wrapping for other people too. I'll have to hit up the after Christmas wrapping paper sales.

Sam loves to paint but I think I am done with it for a while. Even the crayola color wonder finger paints make a mess. They are cool because the color only shows up on the special paper but the consistency of the "paint" is like Vaseline and it gets everywhere! Maybe when warmer weather hits (and it doesn't take 20 minutes to put coats on when we go out) I can strip Sam down and let him paint as much as he wants and then just throw him in his baby pool with some soap to wash it off. I have this fantasy of painting murals on our rickety fence. The fence came with the house and it is falling down in a lot of places. Last summer, I let Sam and our niece, Lexi, sidewalk chalk all over the fence. Some of it is still there. (I didn't know Lexi would chalk entire planks of the fence a solid color rather than drawing something...). I like the little remnants of summer that I find around the house. Yesterday, I found a pair of size 12 months swim trunks and some Elmo little swim diapers. I put them in Ray's drawer - maybe they will fit him when warm weather comes. (Can you tell it's cold here and I'm ready for warmer temperatures! It's not even Christmas yet....)

Yesterday, my cousin, Emily had her second daughter, Olive Marie. She was born at 8:41 pm weighed in at 5lbs 6ozs and was 17 1/4 inches long. I am excited to meet her this weekend. I love my two boys but I am so thankful to have little girls around too. When I'm out shopping and find something too ridiculously cute I can still buy it and spoil my niece, Zetta, or my 2nd cousins, Omri and Olive who I just call my nieces too. Emily and I decided when Sam and Omri were born that it's much easier that way and a much more appropriate title than 2nd cousin.

I am having fun blogging. I am much to impatient to write in a journal because I can type so much faster. I love handwritten things though so, maybe someday I'll write in a journal so that the boys can read it some day long after I'm gone. Blogging has opened up a few lines of communication though. My friend and former roommate Colleen wrote me to say she has been reading my blog (Hi Colleen) and we hope to meet up in the new year (it's been far too long!). I'm excited about this because she is a riot and I miss her friendship. My Mom and Michael will probably want to come down to see her because they love her so much. They always wanted someone in the family to marry Colleen or my other roommate Kristen.

Unrelated to my blog, we got a call today from a close friend of ours that we haven't talked to in about a year. Honestly, I was shocked to get the call but we are looking forward to meeting up with them after the holidays too. Probably more thoughts on this later (I have a nervous/excited anticipation about this. It reminds me of how Mary must have felt waiting for Jesus to be born.) I haven't really processed it yet...

Today and tomorrow our goal is to eat up all of our leftover food before we head out of town. We have lasagna, Chinese food, homemade chicken nuggets, alphabet soup, hummus, veggies, eggs, bread... I told Mikes brother, Joe, that he has to come for lunch and dinner (he lives around the corner). He didn't show for lunch; we'll see what happens for dinner. Oh, and I'm going to make some banana bread later. Let me know if you want to come eat!

So, that's "wrapping" up my "leftover" thoughts...