Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Christmas corner at our Tahoe house. We have had 3 Christmases here, and 2 of them, I was pregnant. So, 2 Christmases ago, we didn't have any kids yet.

And now we have 2.

Which makes Christmas so much more delightful.

Hoping your family is having some fun, whatever you are doing, and whoever you are doing it with, wherever you are. May your hearts be light and your troubles out of sight.

Merry Christmas!

A recent beach score...5 whole sand dollars!
We are so excited - we have big plans for them!


We have a little bit of Christmas outside the RV. We will decorate when we get to Tahoe, but this little guy has been getting us into the Christmas spirit despite the rain and the mud lately.

Our Christmas porch.

Charlie and I got a babysitter (or 3) and had date night with adult beverages.
The girls had an awesome time with Mimi.
Madee and Mimi are BFFs.
Mimi is teaching Madee how to be cool.
Madee has a few tricks up her own sleeve.

Date night.
Cocktails.
Squeee!

I really really really love my job.

Puddles

Despite the usual lack of rain around here, we were swimming in it for a day or two.

I just thought everybody should know that Mama Goose did not, in fact lose her foot. Charlie is a drama queen and he was just starting rumors. You wouldn't believe how fast it flew around the internet and the next thing you know Mama Goose's lawyers are having us amend our previous post and let everybody know that it was only speculation and we never intended for so much media attention to be brought on such a nice goose with two whole feet.

Even if one of them is a little gimpy.

I have friends here. I joined up with 2 of my mommy friends and their kids at the library for story time today, had a lunch play date and an afternoon playdate at the park.

And then of course I have the goose.

Seriously. Ask Charlie. We are friends.

Gotta run. Everyone is asleep and I'm totally jealous.

My 15 Minutes of Internet

Hmmm...where do I begin?

First of all, I am writing this on Charlie's computer which is difficult for him to share, seeing as he is always working or watching football on it. Luckily, the Packers are on TV tonight so I sent him away to watch it, put the girls to bed early, and here I am.

I dropped my laptop the other day.
I hadn't backed up in long time.
I lost Eden's baby pictures.
And I should have known better because I lost Madee's a year after she was born in another accident.

So I don't have my own computer until we get back to Tahoe.

The bright side is, maybe one day I can recover the photos when I have lots of money, so I will save it, because they aren't just totally and completely gone, but are certainly inaccessible. Maybe Eden will grow up to understand such technical things and she can retrieve them - I don't know, but I do know this.

I feel sick inside. But not enough to cry.

So the Prozac is working.

I did have one holiday family shoot that hadn't gone to proof and print yet, and I lost that little family's session, and we are scheduling a reshoot for this weekend.

Anyway, I went to Target today and bought rain boots for Madee and I can't wait to show you. They are adorable. We couldn't even wait until Christmas because it has been raining all day and you never know when it might rain next in these parts.

In other news, Momma Goose lost the bottom half of her leg last time I checked, so who knows if that is a good thing or a bad thing...anyway, it makes me quite thankful I still have my legs ever since I lost my laptop and my internet.

And my phone is on the fritz.

Maybe I will create a special line of hard wearing technical gear that doesn't break so easily in the wild. Or in the hands of a toddler.

Not that any of that is her fault.

We are heading back home to Tahoe for Christmas and Madee's birthday. Well at least I think we will be there that long, we will celebrate it with her tiny friends while we are there, at any rate. I haven't done much Christmas shopping, but every time I go to a store I see super cute stuff that I want to buy for every body, but usually I am in and out with 2 screaming babies, so it is a rush to grab the thing I came for and get back out the door.

Right before I dropped my laptop I asked for a computer bag for Christmas.

Now I am thinking perfume...

If you are disappointed that there are no pictures for this post, feel free to view my latest shoots including the lost one here.

Oh the Weather Outside is Weather

I am mush. There are moments in my day when I really do have so many things to say and so many articulate ways of saying it, only I can't get to my computer, or I have no online access, or I can't even find a flippin pen and some paper.

And once the stars align and I actually have a chance, I have no words, no thoughts, nothing that can really successfully get out of me.

I am so disorganized and even when I pull it together, I still look so disheveled wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday and these dogs barking incessantly at anything that moves just makes me look even more disheveled.

I miss Bela.

I miss anyone who could possibly successfully and happily take these kids from me for a few hours on a regular basis.

I miss having a big house filled with toys and areas for independent playtime and I can't believe I used to get so mad at the phone calls that would knock me off line when now I have too much on my plate to even be online if I had regular access at all.


For those of you who don't know, my doctor was nice enough to prescribe some Prozac for me, because, well, I needed it.

I don't like to say things like that out loud because I feel like it is an admission of defeat, and I hate feeling defeated.

Which is just another reason I agreed to the Prozac.

So I am actually feeling SO MUCH better than I would if I didn't have it. Thanks Dr. K.

Loss is huge. It is just hard to keep your self charging forward when you have lost something, be it someone close to you, or a job. Or a house. Or even just loss of sleep.

And although it used to be easy to crawl up in a ball and sleep it off or withdraw to some quiet place to sort things through, there is no place like that now. There is no quiet, there is no sleep, there is no moment alone to figure anything out.

I feel so behind in dishes or laundry or cleaning or writing or photos or, god I can't even get everyone out of the door and into the car in the morning fast enough.

I can't get diapers changed fast enough, food readied in time, I have all these beings literally SCREAMING at me to do all these things for them and, well, it isn't easy.


Madee's new favorite movie is "Annie".
And we sing "Hard Knock Life" and "Tomorrow" all the time.
Even if tomorrow is only a day away, it seems to be closing in on me too soon. When I sing the song at the top of my lungs it is uplifting. When I lay down to go to sleep at night, and sometimes I really wonder why I bother, since we won't be sleeping much anyway, well the truth is I know that tomorrow will be filled with my inability to meet everybody's needs, and the resultant tantrums/disappointment/misery.

Only, always , a day away.

And Christmas is what, 20 days away?

Way too few tomorrows for me to prepare for that.


Although Carol Burnett is hysterical, and her drunken, little girl hating Ms. Hannigan makes me laugh every time. And she makes me feel better about how I actually do relate to Madee and Ida.

Plus now I can tell the kids to stop crying or they get to go live with Ms. Hannigan.

Madee would go for it, too, she loves the scenes in the orphanage with all the singing and dancing little girls.

All that said, I actually don't act all surly and crappy all the time - I can't! I have little kids! And when they aren't screaming at me, we are trying our damnedest to enjoy ourselves and play so hard that they are worn out enough to sleep.

Well it is almost 7 AM so I have to stop the "feeling and talking" now and start trying to keep up with everybody's daily schedule and be a good mom.

It's my job, and although quite thankless and underpaid, it is the best job I have ever had and I want to make good with my bosses.

Even if they are so hard to please.

I hope you enjoyed the many shells and treasures I found at low tide the other day. And then when I cleaned the RV the other day I found this, a little something from home that somehow makes me feel better.

Meanwhile, I will be picking up my chin, and grinning, and saying, "tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, oh, look, you are already here."

*************************************************************************************

** IMPORTANTE!**

If you have my phone number, please DO NOT call me to talk about this. If I wanted to talk about it with you, I would have called you, this right here is my way of talking about it, and that needs to be it. Respect me enough to know it was hard enough for me to admit how I feel in the first place and just let me go live with the guilt of those feelings.

What Are Ya Hauling?

Of course we have a soft spot for Tahoe Blue.

This rig from the Oceanside Harbor was not only wearing a pretty little "Keep Tahoe Blue" sticker, she was shades of blue herself!


Hey look Dad! FMC!

Is that your old logo? I knew FMC built fire trucks and other large vehicles, but this little emblem on a rig took me by surprise!

A hot full body shot. I love love love these old timers, but without the pop-out slide, I couldn't see us in one - it is just too tight.

I have a feeling some pretty cool people own this sucker.


And a pretty little Ono dog we ran into on the beach.

Scenes from the Oceanside pier. The guitar player is such a ham!