This Post Sponsored by...My Conscience

I'm not blog savvy enough to know whether the average reader can tell, but I happen to have a state-of-the-art, big-brother-ish site meter on my blog sidebar. Sitemeter tells me how many visitors I get, where they come from (Brazil and New Zealand...no kidding!) and even how long they stay. (Amazingly, some of my visitors are speed-readers!) 


 I love site meter.


 I hate site meter.


 I love it because it makes my reading audience a little less invisible (especially since many of them apparently have comment allergies....), but I hate it because when I get my weekly report and it shows I had 182 visitors last week (only 100,000 less than Pioneer Woman does per day...), any joy I might glean from knowing I had visitors is promptly squelched by the guilt of knowing that all those visits surely ended in disappointment as they came upon Nothing New. 


Oddly enough, when I occasionally do write something ...My numbers go up significantly. Probably coincidental.


 I have suggested to my (2) fans, that they go back and be re-entertained by the older posts - Some of them are funnier the 2nd time around (and all of them are funnier with a glass of wine in hand...). 


Guilt is often the vessel it takes to kick my procrastination in it's shiny hiney (why won't spell check let me spell hiney, with or without an e?) So, to my faithful readers (that means you, Grandma Lane :), here's my guilt-inspired offering - and I'm throwing in plenty of pictures as part of my penance. Click on them to enlarge. Especially this first one (see below for reason...)

This is the picture I'm sending with our Old Year's letter this year. The whole top row looks washed out - and my beautiful big girls are hidden behind that rail...Shoot, a couple of the boys aren't even smiling - But man, oh man, I look skinny. This photo was such an obvious choice to send out this year :) I'm thinking of having it made into a wall mural for our living room.

Around here, every other year Thanksgiving has to do holiday-double-duty since someone did some very poor planning in scheduling Thanksgiving and Christmas a mere 6 weeks apart. (And I have it on good authority that it wasn't Jesus, or His mother.  Bible scholars say He was born in the spring...a good 3-4 months after Thanksgiving.) My best guess is that the close holiday proximity has something to do with global warming. I hear that's to blame for quite a few of our problems so we might as well just tack this on.)


EVERYone came to our house for Thanksgiving this year, since it was the married kids year to be with their in-laws for Christmas.


And, for the first time in way too long, my sister and brother and their families also joined us. Throw in the brother's mother-in-law and the sweetest step-father on earth - and you get hospitality for 36.  No problem-o, right? .... because surely all us Mother's of Large Families are used to running their dishwashers 24/7 and restocking toilet paper on the hour.  Caring for the multitudes should be second-hand, right? 


Absolutely Not.  I survived by the skin of my weary bones. I'm usually a realist when it comes to holidays, but I spent a good deal of time battling an attitude of taken-for-grantedness. I had plenty of help, but I still worked my tail off. (I'd show you a picture, but I get enough comment spam as it is.) However (as I told my therapist when it was all over) I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was so worth it to have everyone together in one big (clutter-strewn) house.  

Next year things will be a little different. Paper plates. Store-bought tea. Molly Maids.

                                  Grandma Story Time. 

Sophie is up for best-dressed baby of 2010. The fistfuls of white "fur" do make thumb sucking more difficult, but you really can't teach Fashion Sacrifice too early.

Because we are gluttons for punishment, my husband and I tried again this year for one of those "Our Grandchildren Adore Us" photos.


And again, we were not successful. 

I know all the grandparenting lit says not to have favorites, but if we were allowed, this next photo gives a hint as to who I'd pick. (Look at all that sweetness, still posing in the midst of all this uncooperativeness.)

After (too long) awhile, it was time to call in the Big Guns/aka parents for reinforcement..... which did not help one iota.

Thanks to the crop feature, we did get one acceptable photo.

Our oldest children,  affectionately known as the OK's (because the jury's still out on the younger ones, but we feel pretty good about these first six....Or because OK stands for older kids. Your choice.)

Mary-Faith with baby Sophie.

Winston with baby Sophie

Molly with baby Sophie (a very popular subject...)

Sophie with her family (who must have told her a funny joke right before this was taken...)

And how 'bout I end this post with some pictures of exceptionally cute guys? As part of the penance and all....

(Does he look like he's just glad to have it over with? ...)

Until next time (and I'd like to think it will be soon...),

Debbie

Out with the old, In with the Refurbished

I'm not a big resolution maker. It's not that I'm anti-improvement. Lord knows- along with plenty of earthly witnesses- that I have plenty of areas that need improvement. In fact, that's why I don't make New Year's resolutions. I can't wait until the last day of any said year to work on my many weak areas.

My life is a continual resolution.

Each day I wake up, I resolve a bunch of things.

Some are lofty, and optimistic, and barely achievable in this lifetime. And some are trivial and insignificant - but checking them off my list feels really good. Plus they're much easier than trying to be nice all day, or quitting sugar (neither of which made the Top 10 this year.)

So, here are a few of the projects I checked off my list in the first few days of 2010. The proof is in the pictures.

I bought this couch, including the incredible vintage-look, soft yellow slipcover (!), for $75.00 a few years ago. (It's deals like this that keep middle-aged women traipsing into unfamiliar neighborhoods at the break of dawn.) Unfortunately, as slipcovers are want to do, it slips. So every time someone gets up from that gorgeous couch, I have to scurry over and re-slip the cushion.

I haven't really minded. Much.

.....OK, I DO mind. It's bugged the patooty out of me the entire time I've owned the doggone sofa.

But No More.

At a time when lesser women were making long lists of resolutions about trivial things like getting healthier, learning new skills, and improving their character, I was sewing Velcro onto fabric - thus ending my years of hoping people would choose to sit in the chairs.

And it took me about an hour.

Why, oh why do we put off these life-enhancing chores?

And while I'm bragging, here's the other side of the room. I finally have it just the way I want it. Four chairs circling a round, white coffee table (acquired in a savvy coffee table swap, where I traded my oversized white IKEA ottoman for a damaged brown round table begging for glossy white paint.) This is the perfect place for conversation. It was worth all that lugging of furniture...back and forth...back and forth. Right, sons?

Here it is from another view. I wanted you to see the fabric on these chairs. The chairs were "free" with the house. So I splurged a little on the fabric (thus making the chairs not quite so "free"), but I haven't regretted it one iota. Run your hands over the material. It's 3-D. Those beautiful flowers are like crewel work. Free decorating advice: Don't scrimp on fabric for smaller jobs. Get what you love. It makes a big impact - and you'll smile every time you walk into the room.

Another project-in-waiting completed. My cafe kitchen curtains have been unhemmed for almost a year. I can't remember why I ever put them up pinned vs. sewn - but once they were up it seemed like a big hassle to take them down. Turns out it was an imaginary hassle. finished this job in about 20 minutes. Pitiful.

I'm a Nester Wannabe (along with thousands of other women, from the looks of her comment section), so when I noticed that I owned some of the same fabric she owned (except mine was in a Rubbermaid container in the basement), I decided to make this cute tablecloth for my family room table. This was Not So Easy. But it looks great and I feel very Nesterish.

I also tried my hand at a few crafts while my older daughters were home for Christmas and could tutor me. I made these cards by myself. Id you so any stamping yourself then you won't be impressed, but hopefully some of you have no idea how easy it is and you'll be thinking very highly of me about now.

If you'd like me to send you one of these just do something incredibly kind for me. That's why I made them. To reward those who are kind (to me.)

This next project is the one that should bring me some Bloggy Kudos. (along with some ads from plastic surgeons offering to remove a few of my necks....) This is a poor quality photo of a high quality felt flower, completely hand-sewn by ME. I love these. I have one in every color - and Molly made some to wear as hair pins. I'll try to take some better pics. We have big ones and small ones and ones with buttons in the center. Do you think you can have too many felt flowers? I hope not.

Consider the next few pictures "visual resolutions". They are here to remind me of things I want to accomplish.

I want to learn how to use my camera settings. I want to be able to make the backgrounds fade out, but the front object be in focus. I also want to learn the art of tablescaping. I dabble in it, but I want to Master It.

This picture is of a quilt that I bought for $5 at a garage sale, but made the mistake of washing.
It now has a gazillion small holes in it, and a few billion big ones. I am in the process of sewing them all up, which means in man-hours I will have paid Big Bucks for my quilt.

Happy New Year to my faithful readers - and even the unfaithful ones. It is my hope that blogging will be a higher priority for me this year. I appreciate those of you who have encouraged me to keep writing.

Christmas Past

Hi!

Welcome Back.

Oh wait! That's what you're supposed to say to me. Cuz I'm the one that took Yet Another Blog Vacation. But it was Christmas, after all. I mean it's not like I just disappeared without warning, ....into thin air, for no apparent reason (....like the last couple of times.)

Anyway- Let's not spoil our reunion by reliving past failures. I do plenty of that without you.

I had a great Christmas.

You're sweet to ask :)

That said, even though it was not "my year" to have the older children home, we made do with "just" the 10 of us here, and tried hard not to think of the missing son and married daughters and the adorable GrandChildren with their anticipatory holiday faces, their squeals of delight at their gifts, and their little sticky cinnamon bun fingers.

I hardly gave them a thought. (lie:lie)

Oh, and we also sorely missed our wonderful sons-in-law, without which we would have no grandchildren to pine over.

We had a quiet, calm celebration. It was fulfilling - well, at least the last syllable of that word, and not overly materialistic (if you don't count the Wii.)

After opening presents - which does not take long when you only give your children one Wii gift - we had a peaceful morning, followed by a scrumptillyicious mid-afternoon lunch of prime rib, mashed potatoes, green peas and pearl onions and assorted desserts. The celebrating continued with a late-afternoon kick-ball game with two families from our church. Kickball is the perfect game when the participants are from a wide age span (9-60.) We've done this several times in the past and it is always a fun way to assuage the guilt from a 5,000 calorie meal, while making memories at the same time.

And speaking of memories, there were moments during the game when I truly felt 13 again.

Especially when I was the Very Last Person chosen for either team - even though my own (ex)beloved 10year old son was one of the Captains.

Jr. High, I don't miss ya a bit!

I hope to get my son (the one who gets paid the big bucks to photograph weddings) to send me the pictures he took Christmas Day so I can share them with you. I especially want you to see My Huge Assymetrical Christmas Tree, the Perfect Huge Tree that we found for our First Christmas in this ginormous living room. The living room that seems designed with a Christmas Tree in mind.

No kidding. The first time my husband and I saw the house, I walked into the living room and said, "THIS is the ideal place for a large family Christmas celebration." (That wasn't exactly the #1 Must-Have in our home search - it was more like the Bonus Point.) The room is about 20 x 40 with an electrical outlet in the center of the room......for all those twinkling tree lights! (for new readers with lots of spare time, click here to read the saga of last year's tree and non-twinkling lights.)

In fact, if there's any doubt about just how Perfect this Huge Christmas Tree was, here's proof: I left it up all the way until the Saturday after Christmas! Heretofore unheard of in the life of Mrs. Baker's Dozen Debbie.

Oh....What? You figured out that the Saturday after Christmas was only the 27th? Silly me! I almost forgot I have Whiz-Kid Blog readers. I really can't get anything past you, can I?

Well, the 27th is still a full 24 hours later than the 26th (my usual day for taking down every shred of Christmas decorations.)

I wish Christmas was not so near the end of the year, but since it is, I participate whole-heartedly and fully for 25 entire days, then .... Bam! - It's over.

On to New beginnings, Fresh starts, Clean countertops, Stored and Bubble-Wrapped decorations, and Empty cookie jars. On 12/26 all that leftover sugar is either eaten or thrown out. We end the day with Benadryl all around (to counteract the sugar-high), and the 27th is "the first day of the rest of our lives."

And speaking of new beginnings, check this out if you'd like a small assignment for each week day of the new year. With Prizes for completion!




P.S. Pictures of the tree to come. I promise. In the mean time, here's the picture we're using in our Old Year's letter (send me your address if you'd like a snail mail copy of the low-down on all 13 of us), as well as a few that are just too durn cute not to show off :)

Mother's Day WITH PICTURES

I (with the help of several children) figured out how to get my Mother's Day pictures from our main computer to my laptop, but I'm disappointed with the quality. I really must start saving - or nagging...whichever works first - for a new camera. My friend, Jodi, just got a great camera that does incredible close-ups. And my other friend, Lea (YES,I have two friends...)takes amazingly detailed photos with her ultra-deluxe, super-duper, snazzy camera. 'Course she says everything looks better on a Mac, but I don't have THAT kind of Nagging Power. And I am perfectly satisfied with my Dell laptop. Anyway- I don't feel right being discontent with more than one material possession at a time.

This first picture is our dining room table, set for a party of 12 by my dear husband and younger daughters. They know I like things to be all matchy-matchy, so they were attentive to all the little details ....all the way down to the (Christmas) napkins they used :)

I ask for the same meal every birthday and Mother's Day - Shrimp salad. It was so yummy - even if I did have to apologize to our 25yo male guest for the "girly" Sunday meal. To top it off, my husband added his famous homemade whole wheat bread - simply scrumptillyicious....There's just no word to describe it (that's why I had to make one up.)



We have a tradition of placing any gifts for the occasion (whether Mother's Day, birthdays, graduations...) on a table in the foyer. We try to put them out a few days ahead of time just to "tease" the recipient as they walk by them daily. I was pretty sure I knew what was in the small book-shaped package, and I guessed that the item in the potting soil was tulips, but the larger box had me stumped. It turned out to be an under the counter CD player for the kitchen-- The same one I had bought a few weeks before and returned because I thought it was an extravagant purchase.

(For my birthday,next month, I think I will buy a new camera a few weeks beforehand...A very nice digital camera...Nicer than Jodi's or Lea's....and then I'll take it back, claiming that "I just couldn't keep something so extravagant." Check back with me on 6/30 and I'll let you know if it works.)





Reading cards with Molly. She likes to be near me....especially when she suspects the camera might be pointed my way.



Yep, the girl is not camera-shy.




Daniel poses with me. He is one cute boy!




Hunter asked if he could bring dessert with him. I wrongly assumed that he would actually have it made before he came. Apparently, he doesn't own any kind of small appliances with which to make a cake at his "home". But I think that's wonderful...because it gives him more reasons to come over to his Real Home. He made a tasty carrot cake with a flavorful creamy icing. However, in typical Baker's Dozen fashion - we had to have a second dessert (normally, one doesn't feed us anyway), made of rich, scrumptious chocolate. I had a piece of both...Because I'm not one to hurt people's feelings. I'd rather be a martyr than do that. A fat martyr.



And that's not all Hunter did for me. He also gave me this very sweet home-made note. And when I say home-made...I'm talking...He MADE THE PAPER. Now if home-made paper doesn't say "I love you, MOM", I don't know what does. (Actually, a new camera would also say it - but this was a close second.)




My family knows how to top off a nice Mother's Day. Leaving a clean kitchen :)



Thanks, honey - and Molly, Daniel, Andrew, Alex, Justin, Winston, Mary-Faith, Shepherd, and Hunter. And I appreciated the sweet calls from my Missing Girls, Jacqueline and Brite. I even got to talk to my amazing, incredible, adorable, genius Grandchildren, Adeline and Cooper.

I am one blessed Mama. Thank you, Lord!

And the award for Most Ornaments Per Square Tree Inch goes to.......

....the Baker's Dozen Family!!! We are just so stinkin' proud of ourselves.

Actually, I'm trying to focus on all that's good about our tree this year, because once again (for like, 26 years running....), our lights Do Not Twinkle. I guess that's just too much to ask in this day and age. I mean, we can take photos on our itsy-bitsy phones and send them half-way around the world, but we can't get a set of plug in lights to do a synchronized blink!!!! Last year we almost had twinkling lights. Half of the lights twinkled, ....the lower half only, which was pretty much worse than no twinkles at all. The year before that they didn't twinkle...but they did do this "disco ball", 70's light show thing. Not only did that make me dizzy, but every time I looked at them I heard the lyrics to"Dancing Queen". My husband thought I was being "picky" since "at least they're moving". Oh...and by the way, I'm not talking about the same set of lights that I take out of the attic every year and naively think,"Maybe this will be the year they'll twinkle." Nope. I'm a realistic, yet hopeful kind of girl. We buy new lights pretty much every year. New lights, with lies like this written on the box;

"Twinkle mini lights have a random twinkling/blinking pattern creating a festive atmosphere for your next holiday event."

Bogus. Twinkly-lights scam artists is what they are.

OK, I think I have it out of my system now that I've blogged it for the whole (five of you) world to see, and I can be a big girl and get past this little glitch in my holiday plans (you'd think I'd be used to it after more than Two Decades of dormant, unmoving, motion-LESS lights!)

Here is a picture of our 2007 Very Nice Yet Twinkleless Tree.

I'm actually quite pleased with the tree itself. This was the year my very practical, frugal husband finally decided I could have my way and buy a pre-lit, non-authentic tree (artificial is such a harsh word, don't you think?) But when my debit card and I got down to Target to buy one... they looked a lot less "genuine" than they did in the ads. And they are expensive! So, I figured I could survive one more year with a Charlie Brown tree from the "cut your own" tree lot - so like a good little martyr, I sent my husband off to fork over a couple of bucks to pay to chop something down to drag into our family room. But to my delight, he brought home a really great, symmetrical, non-needle dropping tree. It's perfect really. In fact, this is the first year that I'm almost disappointed that we have so many ornaments that you can't really tell that the tree has any branches at all! And just for the Official Bloggy Record....My husband was right (again).

The thing about a Large Family Christmas Tree is that over the years it does tend to get "congested" (like traffic - or...the upstairs bathroom). And each year I really do make a concerted effort to purge a few ornaments. But gone are the days when our tree was decorated with Currier and Ives matching glass balls and beautiful bows. Those were replaced years ago when we started collecting children :). Each ornament has some special meaning now and becomes a non-purgable keepsake. Here are a few samples of what I mean - (and be duly warned ...in all honestly, that for some of you ~as in those who are not pictured on one of the ornaments below~ these pictures will be about as entertaining as watching someone else's vacation slide show.)

This is my guitar-playing, almost college graduate, Hunter- circa 1990, on red felt :)You wouldn't know it by the quality of his mother's ornament photographs, but Hunter is a gifted, in-demand (and not just by me!) photographer.

....and my little shepherdess, Betsy (now 23, calling herself Jacqueline and recently married to a brave soldier.) I miss a lot of things about having Betsy/Jacqueline around the house, but her piano playing at Christmas time is in the Top Ten. I also miss the way she speed-cleaned, and cooked gourmet meals, and babysat, and painted walls, and grocery shopped, and chauffered the kids, and..... (sorry, I can't continue with my eyes all teary like this....)

Brite, pictured above in an acrylic snowflake (very tasteful back in the 80's), is now a married homemaker extraordinaire and mother of two incredibly adorable, very advanced children (who happen to call me GRANDMama - and who will be bringing their cute, happy faces here in 11 days!!).

Shepherd, who claims I made him wear overalls way into puberty, is now 25, gainfully employed as a writer, and no longer wears a bowl cut hairstyle. He's my Blog Editor, by default - and is getting his Master's in Political Science. He also takes his younger siblings on "excursions", which makes him deserve a prominent place on the tree.

Mary-Faith, pictured above during my favorite childhood years (somewhere between 8 and 11....no longer in need of intensive training, but still young enough to think their moms are as cool as Carrie Underwood.) She is my most photogenic child (in her humble opinion....and mine!)

I'm not as into glue and rick rack as I used to be - so for the past few years, I have purchased a new ornament that represents something that happened during that year. The ballet slippers are to remind us of Molly's first ballet recital, and the musical notes represent our first year with the homeschool band. This year's "memorable event" hasn't actually happened yet, but I bought the ornament last week (if you persevere through this post, you can see it way....below.)

The next two ornaments may give you a clue as to just why we beat out everyone else for the Tacky Tree...er Most Ornaments Per Square Inch award. There's always someone in the family who can't bear the thought of having our tree go up without these ornaments.

And usually that someone is Me :)

Below are my two favorite brown angels. Can you tell which one is the real one? When I saw this ornament I never even looked at the price tag. It was a must-buy!

Here are my Five Musketeers, and the kids that keep me on my toes - and knees. I have vivid memories of our first, wild Christmas with them 7 years ago. Our family exploded, I mean expanded by 5 the year they joined us. Without them we'd be a boring Baker's "Half-Dozen", I'd be more sane, probably sleep better, have lots more money, a ton less dirt, maybe a few minutes of peace and quiet each day ....and I'd have a big hole in my heart where they were supposed to be.

And here's my cross-stitched memento of where it all began - 26 years ago. Sorry for the blur...I really do need a new camera (hint, hint, honey!)

And last, but not least, gaging by the amount of conversation this event is generating around here (and the constructive home-school work it's preventing)- is my keepsake ornament for the 2007 event that will be taking place 6 days from now (!!!) Can you tell where The World's Best Dad is taking us for four whole fun-filled days?

And in the spirit of WDW, these hanging snow-globe ornaments even light up and turn colors :)

I may or may not post again before I pack for 9 excited people to take off for the Big O(rlando). By the time we get back our married daughters, wonderful sons-in-law, and incredible grandchildren (plus Zulu, our GrandDog) will already be in town and staying in our (hopefully) clean, holiday-ready house. The timing seems weird to be taking a vacation - but I haven't wanted to mention that to my husband since the very fact that we are going to Disney, staying on the property (!), and using pre-paid meal tickets, makes me wonder if he's having a mid-life crisis or something. If he tries to dye his (limited) hair- or rent a convertible while we're down there...I'll be sure to blog about it :)

-Debbie