More Vampires...

Since I have a ton of photos to download and post, a bunch of laundry to fold and put away, and continue to unbury ourselves in the Christmas meyhem, I don't have a post ready. But it's been awhile and I promised to be more consistent. So I think I'll do my review of the book I finished a couple nights ago...

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.

This the follow up to Twilight...which I really liked. It surprises me that I even like these books because I'm not into the whole mythical creatures deal. But this author does a good job of putting them in real settings.

I didn't like New Moon as much. It was just okay. I think it was a little predictable and if you're into the chemistry between the vampire family and how they co-exist with humans, you don't really get it here...except a little bit at the end.

I will continue read the series (as soon as I can get the next book--it's sold out everywhere) because I want to see how this whole thing turns out. But I thought New Moon just seemed a little far fetched and the characters were developed as much as in Twilight.

So there...that's my opinion, for what it's worth.

I've moved on to a book that I can really, REALLY relate to...Confessions of a Shopaholic.

My Christmas Wish For You...

Peace

May you find the peace of God in everything you do.

Joy

Take time to stop and soak in the funny, quirky, joyful things in life.

Happiness

May you always have a happy song in your heart.

Faith

Keep your faith strong in the Lord...even in the tough times.

Love

The greatest of these is love...may your heart always be filled with it.

Merry Christmas to my dear family, friends and my blog world friends.

Christmas Stuff

Christmas is drawing near. I officially have 2 presents bought and 2 checks in the mail (my contribution to "group gifts"). That's probably 4 more than I had done at this time last year. Last year I had the excuse of the ice storm and being without power for 10 days. This year it's just nothin' but old fashioned procrastination. I just today ordered Christmas cards, too. Dang it, I'm SO behind.

I posted the Lams boogyin' to some disco tune for you to enjoy. I was going to do the classic version of Elf Yourself, but I liked how the disco version really made WM look groovy. I couldn't resist posting it! :)

I will soon be posting about Katie's first Nutcracker viewing.

I'm off to go do some online shopping. I'm sure my shipping charges will be outrageous since I'm down to the wire on time.

Next year in about June, will someone please post in my comments, 'start Christmas shopping.'

The Lam Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Book Review, again...

This is going to be super, duper quick! It's my book review of Marley & Me by John Grogan. Here's my review:

I laughed out loud.

I cried out loud.

I loved this book.

Anyone who has owned a lab can totally relate to some part of this book. I could relate to a lot of it. Mainly because of this punk...

But this chick isn't off the hook either, she has created a lot of havoc in our lives, too.

Go read it--even if you're not a dog lover.

I can't wait to see the movie, but I might embarrass myself in the theater with my outbursts of laughter and tears.

So, now I've moved onto another book...back to the vampires...New Moon by Stephanie Meyer.

Happy Ho Ho Ho

I have been terribly neglectful of my blog...I'm so sorry, I've been overcome with Facebook and books. Yes, books. I'm determined to get through a couple books before end of the year. So my poor, poor blog has gotten the shaft. But Baloney and my SIL have inspired me to do the Christmas version of Get-to-Know-You. So here ya go...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. Always, always. Unless I have one gift left to wrap and just used the last bit of paper. I'm not going to go run out and get more for one tiny gift. I adore beautiful wrapped gifts--who cares what's inside if it looks pretty on the outside (okay--that's stretching it, but pretty on the outside is very important).

2. Real tree or Artificial? Real, real, real. I will only and ever have real.

3. When do you put up the tree? It varies from year to year. Since we have a real tree I usually put it up a couple weeks before Christmas so it doesn't dry out too much and/or become a fire hazard.

4. When do you take the tree down? Usually the weekend after New Years.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yuck, no. It's like drinking cake batter. Uck.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I remember when I was in about 1st or 2nd grade I had an all Barbie Christmas. Everything was hot-pink and Barbie. Barbie house, Barbie furniture, Barbie car, Barbies. I loved Barbies!

7. Hardest person to buy for? My dad and step-dad are the hardest to buy for because who knows what they want. But my mom is hard to buy for because I always want to get her something really special, but can never find exactly the perfect thing.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Any of the Three Little Lams. They are thrilled with whatever I get them and they flood me with ideas throughout the year.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, we have The Little People navity. It's silly to only have a child's navity, but it's important for them to be able to play with it and for us to explain as part of their play.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail. I love getting Christmas cards. I'm terrible about getting mine out--but I love getting them in the mail!

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? My grandma used to give us some of the most hideous clothing items. I can't recall any one in particular but trust me, they were bad.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I really like Elf with Will Ferrell. It's probably my favorite. But I also like It's a Wonderful Life a lot.

13. When do you start shopping? Let's just put it this way...I haven't bought anything yet. Does that answer the question?

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not as a serious gift, but I've regifted White Elephant/Dirty Santa gifts.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Hmmm, that's a hard one. As far as sweets go...fudge, I only make it at Christmas and it's oh so good. But I also love my MIL's beef tenderloin with mushroom sauce, so good. And my mom makes a rockin' egg casserole that is a must for Christmas morning.

16. Color lights on tree? This is an area of disagreement for WM and I. I want white lights on the tree. Lots and lots of beautiful white lights. He likes the big colored ones. So we're switching back and forth from year to year. This year is his year--so right now we have large colored lights. Next year it'll be beautiful, peaceful, sophisticated, sparkly white lights.

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Home, last year we decided to stay home because it's just too hard to travel with three kids and all the gifts, etc. Plus, the kids want Santa to come to their house. I must say, last Christmas was one of my best ever because it was so low stress and at our pace.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? I absolutely can, I'm not going to type them all out, but trust me, I can name them all.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning. Santa doesn't come on Christmas Eve.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The unnecessary stress.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I've given up on the pretty/themed tree. It's all about the kids and how they want to decorate. My favorite ornaments are the three baby rattle/baby cups ornaments that marked each Little Lam's first Christmas.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? See above...MIL's beef tenderloin. Or I have to admit I do a pretty mean honey baked ham. Yummy.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Ha! I have quite a list this year, here are a few of the items on my list...Ugg boots, Tag Heuer watch, MacBook, black boots with spiky heel...the list goes on and on...I want to update my post-baby wardrobe that has been neglected for the past 6 years. And world peace.

Okay, I guess that's it. Have a happy ho, ho, ho. I promise my gift to you will be a more currently updated blog!

Let's Mix this Party Up

Each Christmas season my mom sends the Three Little Lams some Christmas themed toys for them to enjoy leading up to the big day. Last year (or it could've been the year before, I can't remember) she sent the The Little People Nativity. Which I really appreciated being that I think too many people are forgetting to put CHRIST in Christmas...but that's another topic for another post. This year mom sent The Little People North Pole set. Since having kids, I have seen--through their eyes--how Christmas can be kind of confusing...how does the whole Santa/reindeer/North Pole thing relate to the whole Baby Jesus/Nativity/Son of God thing? It is confusing for little ones, but apparently in my kiddos have melded the two together and this is what they've come up with.

(I promise, I didn't pose any of these photos...I took them as they were playing with them).

Who knew...we all thought Mary arrived in Bethlehem on a donkey, did you know that really Santa took her in his sleigh?

And then he took Baby Jesus for a ride back home to Nazareth. Poor Mary...she gave up her seat and had to ride between Prancer and Vixen. Apparently she was still a little tired from the childbirth and decided to lay down on the reindeer.

I had forgotten that there was a lighted Christmas tree in the stable. Oh--and where's Baby Jesus?

There He is--at the North Pole--with Donner (or is that Dasher, I always had a hard time telling those two apart).

"Anyone know where my sleigh is??? Mrs....Elf Boy...where's my sleigh?"

Oh, there it is! Those two rascally shepards...they got sauced with Blitzen and took Santa's sleigh out for a joy ride.

"Hey! Stop right there, Pumpkin Boy...your holiday was last month...don't be comin' in here tryin' to steal our thunder! Run along...I've got a box full of Frankincense and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Awwww...the whole gang is together and celebrating the birth of our Savior.

WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!

Who's that blonde punk crashin' the party?

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Ice, Ice Baby

As I promised yesterday, I would do a post on what it was like for us, The Lam Family, to live through the 2007 Ice Storm. For all the Tulsans out there, this is probably a bore for you as you were enduring the same thing. So as I sit here gazing out at the gray, dark, drizzly day WITHOUT any snow, it's easy to picture what was happening 1 year ago. Here's the abbreviated version. Oh...and my photo selection was very limited. We couldn't find any of the photos of the tree on our house...I think we wanted to completely forget about that...and got rid of the photos.

It went a little like this...

Night 1--WM was smart enough to move the cars out of the drive away "just in case". Power went off and two hours later our huge 50 year old tree came crashing down onto our house. By the grace of God--and I truly mean that God's hands guided that tree--it didn't smash the window that Patrick was sleeping by. If WM hadn't moved the cars--they would've been smashed, too.

This is one small portion of the tree that came down on our house--this the part that landed in the street.

Day 1--No power...headed to my sister's house to camp out for the day. Spent the day on the phone with the insurance company.

Day 2--Still no power--stayed at my sister's--who still hadn't lost power and never did during the whole ordeal because she lives in Tulsa and has little bitty trees that don't fall down on power lines. It's one of the disadvantages of living in an old neighborhood--big trees that cause damage when they fall. I don't go to work because of the mess going on at the hospital and the daycare situation (too long to explain, just believe me when I say 'the fewer kids at the day care the better').

Day 3--Nope, no power. Starting to feel guilty about overtaking my sister's home.

Day 4--Went home and sat in the FREEZING COLD house while waiting for the insurance adjusters--who didn't show up. Decided to go to work and take kids to school so they could have a little of their regular routine.

Day 5--No power yet, the news reports it should be on tomorrow! YAY! The kids are ready to go home--the fun of the "sleep over" at Aunt Amy's has worn off and they want their toys and beds. WM reports he got a generator from work but doesn't feel like it's safe for the kids and I to stay at home.

Day 6--Still no power--but the PSO recording says it will be tonight or tomorrow. A ray of hope!
Day 7--SHUSH IT YOU STUPID PSO RECORDING AND TV NEWS STATIONS--my power still isn't on--don't tell me it will be tomorrow unless you can guarantee it.

Day 8--The guilt of staying at my sister's has overcome me--my kids want to be home--and I'm losing it. I must go home, power or not. Fire up the generator WM, the kids and I are heading home! (the PSO recording promised it will be tonight, we can handle a few hours with a generator heated home).

Day 9--Nope, not yet. I think I finally cried--the TV stations said they weren't going to report when power would be restored because 98% of the power was on. We were that 2%--which I could understand if we lived out in rural Oklahoma, but for Heaven's sake, I live in the heart of Brookside! My neighbors across the street had their power for 3 days--"your side of the street is on a different grid." (shut up, you stupid PSO person).

Day 10--Just when all hope was lost at 4:00 p.m. our power came on. I cried when I got the call from WM telling us to come home! 10 days later-yes, we found out later that we were truly one of the last to have power restored.

It was a trying time. It was tough dealing with it with a 4 year old, 2 year old and 4 month old (who was being exclusively breastfed at the time--causing everything to come to a hault every 2/3 hours). We were basically living day-to-day. If I'd known I'd be without power for 10 days, I would've packed up 10 days worth of stuff. But instead we ran home for "one more day's" worth. Christmas was a week and a half away, so besides putting our house back together, we were shopping, wrapping, etc. Crazy, crazy. But considering 29 people died--we are thankful. I am so blessed to have a sister that warmly and encouragingly opened her home to us and told us everyday to stay and not feel guilty.

So, I guess I shouldn't be so grumpy today when looking out my window at the dreary, misty cold day. I should be thankful that I have a warm home tonight.

'Til tomorrow! Stay warm!

Sending Out an SOS

Since typing that Heading I have that Police song stuck in my head. I'm not really complaining...I LOVE the Police like I love Starbucks (I like to listen to the Police while drinking my Starbucks). Is anyone else amused that I can get off track so easily. I mean, do The Police have anything to do with this post? No.

Here's what this post is about (it's two-fold):
1. My poor neglected blog and fellow blog readers
2. My normal Monday Mumblings

Here we go:

1. My Poor Neglected Blog: Here's what I have to say about that...I'm alive and I've discovered Facebook. Should be explanation enough. But I promise I'll be better about posting.

And here are my Monday Mumbles:

SNOW.....UM.....NO
First off...it's going to be cold tomorrow and I'm mad about it. As I've said many times before, I don't like cold. I really don't like wet cold. And I really, really don't like when 'they' say it's going to snow--and it doesn't. I've lived in Oklahoma long enough to know that snow is not that common, but we get lots of "it's going to snow" from our weather-dudes. Now, if we were in Kansas and they were telling me it's going to snow, I'd say, "Ok, it's going to snow" and I'd wake up to 45' snow drifts. I'm tellin' ya...I've seen it...I grew up in rural Kansas. It happens. If you're in rural Kansas and they say it's going to snow...it is. It may even snow without being forewarned.

Postscript: I like snow...it's how I tolerate cold weather. If God would work out a way for it to snow in July I would really appreciate it.

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DANG THIS WIND
We didn't have power for most of the day (hence my absence from Facebook and blogging until now). If there's one thing that ranks right up there in my dislikes, it's wind. I never have liked it. When I was in high school and it was cool to drive around with your windows down, I wouldn't do it. It was the wind factor. I don't like it. And I really don't like it when it blows over a tree into the transformer out back of our house and leaves us powerless for a day. I was having flash backs from a year ago...but that's a post for tomorrow.

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PACI-BABY
When all three of the Little Lams were babies I really wanted them to be pacifier babies. It would be easier to "pacify" an un-pacifiable baby if they had a pacifier, a.k.a. "paci". But, no, none of my kiddos would take one, so I spent HOURS pacing and bouncing them. But, this weekend Baby Lam found and old paci. I don't know where, but Saturday morning she came walking into the living room with one in her mouth...and really hasn't taken it out since. Now she's to the age that I don't want her to have one...so what gives with my backwards child?

Here she is with her paci. She's also discovered how to unzip her jammies. Throw on a couple gold chains and she'd be one rockin' 70's disco babe!

Secretly--doesn't that picture want to make you rub her soft little belly? Nothing better than a baby's soft belly.
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CUT 'N COLOR, PLEASE
That's self explanatory--I need a cut and color in the worst way. I look in the mirror in the morning and embarrass myself. It's one of those neglected mom things that I put off. But enough is enough--I'm making an appointment this week.

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ONE YEAR AGO TONIGHT
Hey all you Tulsans reading this...remember what happened 1 year ago tonight? I'm going to do tomorrow's post on living through it.

Peace out!

The Fabulously, Fantastic Blog

For some reason my friend Baloney thinks my blog is fabulous. I find that very flattering and fantastic and far out, but that is kind of far-fetched to fathom. Ok, enough with the "F" words--this week's letter at Katie's school is F, so we've been talking a lot about F words. NO--not THAT F word!

Anyway...thanks Baloney for thinking my blog is fabulous. Actually now that I've discovered Facebook, my poor blog has been somewhat neglected. I'm going to try to be better about it--kind of a Christmas gift to you, my faithful friendly followers.

Here's what I'm supposed to do since I got my award....name 5 of my addictions and pass on 5 blogs that I nominate for the award. So here we go...

My addictions....

1. The internet...Facebook and blogging in particular.

2. Starbucks--Decaf grande mocha, please.

3. My family--I just can't get enough of those 3 Little Lams and Mr. WM.

4. Shopping--I love to shop, by myself, on my time.

5. Donuts--I don't know why, but I just can't keep away from them.

Sorry my addictions aren't so exciting...but check out these blogs. Besides Baloney, these are some of my favs...

Susie's Zoo--she's not keeping her current--hint, hint, but when she updates they are pretty darn good!

Mamma Llama--this is my SIL who puts up with my "Baby Prince" brother. I sometimes wonder if he pulls his sob stories on her just to get her to toast him a bagel or fix him something to eat--so he doesn't have to get up to do it. He's such a Baby Prince! :)

Paper Doll Designs--go here to check out her cute, cute stuff!

Manning Memo--this is my friend Kathleen who posts photos of her super cute, precious baby that I want to hold and love on all the time.

Ok, that's only four, but that's because I'm not popular and don't have a bunch of blog friends. But isn't quality more important than quantity? ha ha ha...it's how I make myself feel better for not having very many friends. Poor me!

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Notice that I changed the book over there? Yes, I'm actually reading again. I'm doing things a little backwards. I went saw the movie Twilight first and I'm reading the book second. So I know how it turns out, but I'm more about character development and you just don't get that in a movie. Baloney said I should read the book so I can really get to know the characters and their relationships with each other. Hopefully I'll be able to buzz through it quickly.

There's a Storm A-Brewin'

Do you ever get that feeling that something's up and you can't really put your finger on it, but you just know that trouble is coming your way. I've had that feeling lately and I think it has a lot to do with Christmas coming. But I don't think that's it really.

I think this is it...

That girl....oh, geesh, that girl. She is trouble with a capital T! I don't know what to do with her. She's 15 months old and already knows how to work it. I get those monthly "What Your Kid Should Be Doing Now" emails and the last one I got said "your 15 month old should have 5 or 6 recognizable words." Yes! My girl is right on track! And here are her six words:

1. NO!

2. MINE!

3. DON'T!

4. MORE!

5. DADDY!

and my favorite that she likes to yell at me whenever I am wiping her nose, changing her bottom, cleaning her face or any other activity that causes her to do something other than her desired activity...

6. STOP!!!!

Yes, she talks in exclamation points. Everything is said loud and proud!!

I should've known these would be her words, I think I said several of those same words when I found out I was pregnant with her...

"NO! (I can't be a pregnant again)"
"MORE???" (kids)
"STOP!" (telling me I'm pregnant everytime I come to your office--this I said to my ob/gyn)

Baby Lam wasn't planned, but she's here and I love her more than anything. WM and I just sit back and watch her in action and realize in about 13 years we are going to be in trouble! She's so much fun, but she's a live wire and strong willed. If you're anywhere near her, you'd better watch out, she's bound to take you down.

Here she is taking down her sister...

And this one is her taking out her daddy.

If she's around, you'd better be on your toes because she'll get ya!

I've tried to protect her from all the internet weirdos by not giving out her name, but I think she could hold her own. And I also realize that I've given out the name of my other two kiddos, so why keep it a secret.

Her name...Hurricane Josephine. And goodness gracious do I love that wild child!