Happy Family Stuff 'n Junk: December 2008

This has been a very busy month for Keith. If you totaled the minutes in a week that I got to see him (awake) it may have added up to an hour. So you can imagine that we are pretty excited about his 5 days off for Christmas. We had originally planned on visiting my young aunt & uncle in Missouri but with my degree of pregnantness we eventually decided the trip would be too arduous this year. So instead my brother & his beautiful new wife thought they'd come to visit us! We were excited by this and I tried to get and idea of what they would like to do while here. My brother said he didn't care at all and that I should just consider myself the Queen of Christmas this year. I could plan anything that worked for us and they would come along for the ride. Ho ho ho
So, Keith & I figured the best way to make our little vacation time go smoothly and maximize festiveness would be to design a detailed "Holiday Itinerary". From Friday to Friday. I have scheduled in everything from essential nap times to food shopping & cooking and daily festive activities ranging from visits to Santa, trips to the museum, presents, food & special mommy/daddy alone time ;) We knew of course that we should not be rigged if it were to be successful, so we did this with the understanding that if needed, we could completely cancel a day's activity and just relax at home. (even though relaxing time was officially scheduled too).
Well, Today is day 3 of our N.H.I. (neaman holiday itinerary).
So far: disaster! In fact, we had to have an emergency family council today to completely re-work the entire week!
It all started Friday evening with the Church Party being canceled. I am on the activities committee and so Keith was required to attend. There is a lot of prep that goes into these things (usually) so I was all geared up for it. Then came the snow and it was all called off. No big deal I thought. One less thing to worry about and then we could relax the night before our big Saturday. Instead of a ward Xmas party we decided to have a cookie linger longer on Sunday and I spent some of my day contacting people about the change.
Saturday morning: first mistake - we got a late start. we were scheduled to leave by 10am but didn't get out the door until after 11. We were headed to a mall on the other side of town that we had not been to since last year.
Second mistake: I assumed to know the way. We got lost for an hour and a half. (little upsets my lover more). Then we found it. Our 3-part mission: A. See Santa and get our (to-be-yearly-traditional) photo taken with him. B: Ride on the carousel C: Play at the big tree play yard area. Then get home in time for nap.
Third mistake: We arrived with a screaming toddler to battle the holiday heard shoppers at nap time and tried to carry on anyway. We went in reverse order. First the play yard. Dakota was happy at first then got pushed by a pack of rowdy kids. Much crying and consoling. Then we attempted to get him into it by carrying him up the tree slide and pushing him down. One moment of smiles followed by a face plant on the bottom resulting in a bleeding fat lip. Quick retreat from play area.
Next, carousel. tears gone by now so we asked him if he wanted to go and he responded Yes. Waited in line, paid for token and waited to start. They took 10 seconds longer than a this toddler could handle and a teary second retreat began.
At this point I am feeling a great deal of pressure in my uterus and Keith is fed up with people in his way and all the screaming. We decide to skip Santa and maneuver our way home.
Get home. Dakota takes a late/short nap.
Time for Phase two of our super Saturday holiday fun. Buy a Tree.
I would have liked to get one much earlier but like I said, Keith has been far too busy this month for us to do anything together. This was the perfect time. Or so we thought.
In the dark, on the ice, two sold-out places later we decided to go home empty handed and just start baking cookies for tomorrow's linger longer. Four batches. Day 2- a bust.
Sunday:
Since we have not been able to get together as a family much lately, we also have not been able to get a Xmas photo taken. (I always like to take something festive for our cards, hence they have not been made yet.) Well, we had arranged for a friend to take it at church in the snow today.

I have a funny sort of chronically-late-to-church syndrome so we made a drastically huge effort to get everything ready in advance and a clear division of morning duties made. As I was getting ready this morning I looked out the window and realized that the photo would not be happening today. Oh well, we had a photo plan "B" for my brother to take it at meijer gardens.
So all dressed up in my Xmas best (even managed to squeeze into my maternity support hose!), we grabbed our pre-stocked kid activity bag, a month's worth of tithing, and my 4 dozen cookies and we flipped on our 4W drive and made it to church ON TIME!
Only to find nobody there and that it had been canceled.
This time of course we just laughed. After all it's only church; not like a photo with Santa or anything :)
Back at home we called around for a place to buy a tree. First three we tried said they were done for the season. Then we found one with only 5 left! So we left immediately to gleam what we could. This resulted in another missed-nap-time-breakdown and wonkily fabulous tree
Then the bomb hit.
My Brother & sister-i-L decided not to make the trip out because of the weather.
BUT MY ITINERARY!!!!!! All our activities! Their Gifts! The Lentil Nut Loaf!!!
I'm the Queen! (stomp stomp)
and my kingdom is collapsing......

This is where I decided to screw the itinerary and let my son go ahead and drive the car.

The darn cat woke me up today at 2am and I could not get to sleep after that. So by the time the mailman came I was pretty excited to get out. The only thing was, it had been blizzardy all morning and just getting to the mailbox was about to prove quite the project. I had to get all dressed up anyway so I figured I'd make a pathway; just in case a package were to arrive today ;)

We have a service (thanks to my dad) that is supposed to clear the driveway (though not the walkway) but the roads are so bad today that they never made it. Humpf. Seems like this is when we need it the most (and the mailman made it come to think of it).